10:30 a.m. -- who wants some COFFEE?!

Ruby Coffee is a family owned business out of Orlando, Florida. From their website:

It all began with our retirement from the corporate world. We were looking for something to do, something we would enjoy. Following lessons learned from my father, we sat down one day and thought long and hard about what we would do out of sheer love, even if no one paid us for it. We had two options. One required a considerable investment, so we settled for the next one: coffee!

Since my husband is from Venezuela and I am from Puerto Rico, you can pretty much say that we were born drinking coffee because from a very early age we were given coffee to drink (“café con leche” for us – now better known as “latté”). And so we started to taste and research coffee.

We searched high and low for something new and fresh. We didn’t find many places nor products. Big companies sell you coffee from a variety of countries but you really don’t know how long that coffee has been sitting in those bags. Many of them have expiration dates of up to seven months and my husband thought that was a pretty long time for a product to be in a bag. I had to agree!

We particularly love buying coffee from different countries, bringing it home and brewing it for our personal delight. We taste, critique and weigh its marketability and possibilities. When we find something exceptional, our kids (both adults now!) serve as our guinea pigs. Not that they mind, of course. And then we put it out for our customers to try – and most of the time they agree with us!

I love small businesses (and family owned businesses? Even better!) and I love that their coffee is straight from the roaster to your cup and I love how passionate they are about coffee! (I'm pretty passionate about coffee, too. And by "passionate," I mean I'm pretty sure I can no longer function with it.)

Ruby Coffee have also generously offered FOUR OF YOU the chance to win a pound of their delicious coffee! Ethan was particularly excited about "helping" give this coffee away -- maybe he knows his mommy is just way more fun after her morning cup of coffee!

Don't forget to visit Liz over at Ruby Coffee and do some shopping! Who couldn't use some more coffee in their life? Did I mention they sell flavors such as Butter Cream, Tiramisu and Chocolate Mousse in their store? Check it out!

On that note, congratulations to the four winners of our Ruby Coffee raffle:

#122: Jenny Villalobos
#55: Fran Kump
#113: Jaime Aronson
#64: Nea Williams

CONGRATULATIONS!