Free the Snake Coffee:
Restoring America’s Greatest Salmon River
Save our Wild Salmon and other non-profits are working to remove the lower Snake River canyons of eastern Washington and bring back the hiking, fishing, hunting and other recreation currently buried under the slackwater of the four deadbeat dams. These four dams have outlived their purpose.
It’s time to reconnect wild fish to their watershed on the lower Snake River to restore wild salmon and steelhead, one of the greatest ecosystems in the world, to thousands of miles of pristine rivers in Idaho, Washington and Oregon.
Why? Water, air and food - we need em. Wild salmon is one of the few natural food sources that doesn’t require ‘us’ to cultivate it. Letting the wild salmon disappear would truly be one of our greatest follies. I have a granddaughter who is inheriting a severely compromised environment - compromised due to inaction. I want to be able to look her in the eyes and tell her I helped save the wild salmon.
Oct 3, 2015 hundreds of concerned people met and paddled the Snake to draw attention to the cause. We were there making sure everyone had the caffeine needed to paddle several hours to the dam. I had been working with Sam Mace, Inland Northwest Director Spokane, Washington, for a period of time on the idea of creating a fund raising coffee to help support the cause. We knew it had to be sustainable, ethical and delicious and have a damned wonderful, eye catching label. That’s when I reached out to Melissa Cole, early one morning via Facebook. She didn’t hesitate - she got right back to me with some ideas, we melded them with Sam’s vision and the day before Melissa left to film the migrating Humpbacks in the Tongas, we had the art.
Sue Gunderson, Inland Empire Business Solutions, used her graphic art contacts to create the label, at no cost, and had a local printer do up the first couple hundred labels.
We created this blend, which has a cooked berry aroma, with dried black cherry acidity. Its complex body has notes of bittersweet chocolate and tobacco. Blueberry compote aroma lures you to take a sip. Immediately, notes of bittersweet chocolate and dried black cherries complicate the earthy smokiness produced by the darker roasted elements. As it cools, the sweetness subsides and allows for dense earthy tones to come through, amplifying the complex, mineral-spring body. *While these beans are certified USDA organic - use of the icon on the label is pending approval of WSDA
Of the $18 price for a full pound of this delicious, shade grown coffee - $8 benefits Save Our Wild Salmon
Artist: Melissa Cole - ‘Although I have been a professional artist for more than 15 years, my background is in zoology and marine ecology. My husband is an underwater photographer, and I have been lucky enough to swim with wild salmon in the Adams River in BC Canada for an article on snorkeling with salmon. The images of the sinuous salmon swimming upstream with single-minded determination to spawn are forever etched upon my mind. I created this design in an attempt to help restore their environment, so that they may have the chance to swim upstream once more.’
