September

September was all about the traveling, with the first one staying in the UK and a train journey up to Glasgow and enjoying a Whisky tour. One of my other passions is whisky. I love single malts and see lots of similarities between the industrys, expect Malt Whisky seems to have done a better job of getting it out there. I guess its partly because it gets you drunk (always helps). The one thing I like is that they have avoided the snobby part of taste that wine falls into, and you find the most passionate consumers are also devoid of the snobbery. Its been said we have a lot to learn from the wine industry, and this is still true, but we have even more to learn from Whisky fraternity.

The second part of my travels this month was to be one of the first companies to compete outside of the nordic countries in Nordic Roasters Cup. This involved my first trip ever to Iceland. In the first place a very beautiful country, but the second, a very very expensive one. For just a couple of days much was spent on entering, getting the coffee right and there on time, and on two hotels (more to follow).

So as always last minute plans to go, tied in with not being able to leave until the last possible minute I had to take what hotel I could find. I arrived at 1am in the morning, to one of the most horrid hotels in the history of man. Dirty smelly and in a shared house. Fearing for my life I left at about 7am and got a taxi driver to take me to the most expensive hotel in town, that way I know I would be able to have a bath to ease my bites from the last place.

Nordic Barista cup I think is the perfect home for me, as it is also as mad as cheese, with people dressing up as Elton John and having raffles for a trophy of a goat and an opportunity to jump through paper cups

Build you a tower from Stephen Leighton on Vimeo.

It was also the month that Has forum started. Something I’ve avoided doing for a while because I reckon its been done well by others well. But I caved into the emails I received. Although steady were 160 odd members in the short time and people are using it. I hope to do more with it in 2010.

October

October was a HUGE month for me. This is where I got to meet Gary Veynerchuk. If you don’t know who he is go look at the blog post here

http://www.hasblog.co.uk/video-interview-with-gary-veynerchuk

Gary is a hero of mine and the opportunity arose to do a video with him and it was amazing.

http://www.hasblog.co.uk/my-wine-libary-moment

That explains it better

November

November was more airplanes, and the huge trip to Brazil. Brazil has been the one place I REALLY wanted to go to but had never gotten the chance. When for the third time this trip looked in danger, I phoned some friends and got it sorted myself. The first time it was not an organised trip and was all down to me. My Spanish is bad, but my Portuguese doesn’t exist so not the best place to start this dangerous strategy, but I survived thanks to some very good friends out there.

To Bahia and the Minas Gerais meant I got to see a lot of the country too. Good times all summed up by the video posts, non better than this one

Final Diary Post from Stephen Leighton on Vimeo.

Getting bitten while I was out in Brazil and an adverse reaction to it meant I had the first two days off sick since I set up Has Bean. Horrible time on IV antibiotics, but the kindness of friends made it a whole lot better

http://www.hasblog.co.uk/the-best-customersfriends-in-the-world

December

Every year I plan nothing but roasting coffee for December, so normally a quite month for news, but Mr Colin Harmon opening his Shop in Dublin was a real highlight and us both receiving an award for the tamper tantrum vid casts we do from the guys at www.sprudge.com

December was very nice icing on the Christmas cake, and a great end to a great year.

Sorry its taken me so long to get these out, and sorry its stopped me blogging normally normal service resumed in the next couple of days 🙂