Last Sunday I took another great drive up over New Hampshire’s scenic Kancamagus Highway. Joining Kirsten and I were Alan, Dee, Jeffrey, Zach, Sara and the now 1 year old Xander.
While the foliage was surprisingly bland we did stumble upon a field of wildflowers on route 302 near Crawford Notch which was full of hundreds of butterflies! Sadly I forgot my camera, but Dee got several great shots.
Despite uninteresting foliage, New Hampshire is always beautiful.
A couple weeks ago Kirsten and I took a drive across the beautiful Kancamagus Highway which runs 35 miles through the White Mountains from Conway, NH to Lincoln, NH.
The drive is full of beautiful scenic stops, hiking trails and swimming holes. The best part about the Kanc is that much of it can be seen only a short walk from the parking areas. It’s great when you want to get outside without having to worry about wearing the right clothes, what you need to take for gear, etc. Just make sure you have enough gas and head over!
Most folks tend to drive from Lincoln to Conway, but my preference is to go the other way so the Woodstock Inn, Station & Brewery is at the end. It’s a great stop for lunch, dinner, or just a nice cold beer. They have a huge menu and they make great beer!
So if your vacation plans take you to central or northern New Hampshire make sure you check out the Kancamagus Highway. It’s a beautiful drive you could spend as little as an hour, or easily a day or more to do.
White Mountain Gourmet Coffee is a small coffee roaster in New Hampshire and since one of their cafes is local to me in Concord I decided to give them a try.
The cafe is well stocked with White Mountain coffee and has a full espresso bar, some food and a fair amount of seating. I picked out a couple coffees I wanted to try and asked the worker at the cafe to suggest a couple more. Service was good and I was ready to try out their coffee with 4 half-pound bags of single-origin coffee.
The first of White Mountain’s coffees I tried was their El Salvador Peaberry. This is a pleasant, full bodied coffee with a sweet flavor. Though not overly complex this coffee is very pleasant in the cup and has a nice long finish.
The Zimbabwe AA was also rich and flavorful. Somewhat more complex than the El Salvador this coffee has some brighter tones and good depth. Another rich, full-bodied offering, the Sumatra Mandheling had little acidity and a clean finish.
White Mountain’s Papua New Guinea is a nice, slightly earthy coffee. This coffee’s slight acidity is pleasantly balanced by a sweet flavor.
I specifically sought out rich, full bodied coffees to try, but all of my trials were regular roast. I found the regular roast to make a sufficiently rich coffee, but most of their coffees are offered as a dark roast as well. White Mountain has a long list of single-origin, blended and flavored coffees but my preference, as reflected in my sampling choices is to the single-origin.
All the coffees I tried from White Mountain Gourmet Coffee were excellent and I look forward to trying more of their offerings. While I am fortunate enough to be near one of their cafes White Mountain coffee is also available via mail order from their website.