Have a recipe that calls for coffee?  Submit your own coffee recipe to info@SweetwatersCafe.com. Be sure to include pictures of your creation and yourself.  Your recipe may be posted on our blog, and the best recipe wins a free bag of coffee!

For inspiration, here’s one we’ve tried:

Midnight Blend Cherry Almond Cake

1 cup of sour cream
1 package of french vanilla cake mix (Betty Crocker or your favorite)
3 eggs
1 cup Sweetwaters Midnight Blend brewed coffee (brewed strong)
1 can cherry pie filling
½ cup of almond slices

Powdered Sugar Glaze

1/3 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2-4 tablespoons water

Blue Tractor in Ann Arbor has created a stout using our coffee!  Sweetwaters Java Stout, is brewed with pale, caramel, chocolate, and roasted malts with a wee bit o’ oats and a coffee malt made from our House coffee. Head over to the Blue Tractor or Cafe Habana on Washington St. just past 4th Ave. and try a pint.  Reviews are in and from customers to staff they’re all lovin’ it!

To see a fun taste-testing video, click here.

Join us as Classical Revolution performs on Thursday, April 1st at Sweetwaters downtown.  The Phoenix Quartet, visiting artists at the University of Michigan School of Music, will be performing String Quartet No. 3 by Bright Sheng, UM faculty member.

For more information on Classical Revolution, please click here.

Find Classical Revolution on Facebook.

Don’t forget to fan Sweetwaters on Facebook too!

1. What is your favorite drink at Sweetwaters?

House Coffee…Black

2. What is your favorite Sweetwaters guilty pleasure?

Almond Croissants

3. Tell us about funny story related to Sweetwaters?

I was opening one day last Fall and the fire alarm was set off by another business in the complex. We didn’t know how to shut it off, neither did the building managers, or the security company….or the builders…or the fire department!

4. Who is your favorite Sweetwaters customer?

Ron and Dan, They both know my name.

5. Who is your favorite cartoon character? and why?

Gaston, because I think he’s hysterical.

6. Create a Sweetwaters drink or treat for your cartoon character, what would it be?

I like to think he drinks a black eye. Midnight Blend with 2 extra shots.

7. What do you do outside of  Sweetwaters?

I’m finishing my masters in double bass performance, grade music theory papers, work on stage lighting, rehair instrument bows, play bass with Dearborn Symphony.

8. What is your perfect playlist?

1)Mahler – Symphony No.2

2) Livin’ on a Prayer

3) Journey

4) Ace of Bass

5) Shostakovich Symphony No.5

6) Avenue Q

7) Anything Victor Wooren

8)Dvosak Symphony No. 9

9) Disney Anthologies

10) Big band era music

AnnArbor.com published a great executive profile on one of Sweetwaters’ founders, Lisa Bee. Read about what makes Sweetwaters fun and what’s the best part of being in the coffee biz.

Executive Profile: Lisa Bee, co-owner, Sweetwaters Cafe

People— they’re the best part of the job and the most challenging part of the job for Lisa Bee, co-owner of Sweetwaters

Café in downtown Ann Arbor.

“I get to meet so many different people,” Bee said. “Not just the customers, but also the staff.” Bee said that  former Sweetwaters employees move away after college, but often come back to let her and her husband, Wei, know how they area doing.

Bee said that while customers are loyal and have made many useful suggestions, they’re also the first to let her know when they don’t like something or want something to be changed, from adding new beverage selections to repairs or remodeling work on the shop.

“I’m really thankful for those people, though,” Bee said. “Our customers set a very high bar for us. They make us who we are.”
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Place: Sweetwaters Downtown, corner of Washington and Ashley.

Date: Saturday, March 20, 2010

Time: 9am-1pm

Scott Beal, from the Neutral Zone, is teaching a writing workshop for adults on Saturday, March 20th from 9am to 1pm, right here at the Downtown location of Sweetwaters!

The workshop is called “Unleash Your Outlandishness: Poems of Audacity and Weirdness.” Scott has designed it to be full of fun writing exercises to get people thinking and writing in unusual ways, to create surprising and wonderful poems! There may be tarot cards involved, and/or food coloring, and/or finger puppets. And more! No experience necessary. The workshop will be equally fun and productive for people who have never written a poem and for people who write poems regularly.

And though the workshop title says “poems”, really that means you can write in whatever form or style you’d like!

The cost of the workshop is $50 for a 4 hour session, AND it includes the cost of a delectable snack and drink from Sweetwaters, AND all proceeds go to support independent publishing and arts education for kids!

If you’d like to sign up for Scott’s workshop, please register here: http://www.dzancbooks.org/dzancday/

Place: Sweetwaters downtown, corner of W. Washington St. & Ashley

Date: Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Time: 7pm-9pm

Our feature is Keith Taylor, Ann Arbor’s beloved poet, who has won awards for his work here and in Europe. Keith will read from his most recent book, If the World Becomes So Bright, and from his new collection of intriguing eight liners that will be published soon. Keith is the coordinator of undergraduate creative writing at U of M and Director of the Bear River Writers’ Conference.

Open mic follows. Bring 3-1/2 minutes of your best work! 7 p.m.-9 p.m.

For more information contact Chris Lord at 734-369-2798 or go to the Writers Reading website.

Sweetwaters Writers Reading night is held the third Tuesday of every

It’s easy to boast on and on about the great benefits of drinking green tea. So, that’s exactly what we’re going to do! The Chinese have been using green tea for its medicinal benefits for over 4,000 years. Green teas are said to fight cancer and heart diseases. They are also thought to lower cholesterol, burn fats, prevent diabetes and even strokes.

Why is green thought to be so healthy? Green tea has powerful antioxidants that swarm the free radicals in your body looking for problematic things like blood clots and diseases. Because green tea is so minimally processed, its antioxidants are more powerful than most other teas which are fermented.

There are even studies to show that drinking green tea regularly may help prevent tooth decay by killing the bacteria which causes the dental plaque. Research has shown that drinking green tea, is more effective than taking supplements.

Learn more about green tea:

WebMD

Wikipedia

University of Maryland Medical Center

In honor of Barb’s birthday we’d like you to meet one of Sweetwaters’ happiest north side baristas! Happy Birthday Barb!

1. What is your favorite drink at Sweetwaters?

Drink? Anything with that sweet rich liquid gold espresso we call Abianno!

2. What is your favorite Sweetwaters guilty pleasure?

Snickerdoodle cookie – especially dunked into any drink made with Abianno espresso! Also enjoying our customers and staff immensely.

3. Tell us about funny story related to Sweetwaters?

Story? Too many to tell! Other than the framed parchment paper masterpiece, I also have a little problem of getting words mixed up, I started calling the TL’s (Team Leaders) “BLT’s”…obviously hungry and needed a snickerdoodle!!

4. Who is your favorite Sweetwaters customer?

Simply cannot say just one, they all are special in my eyes, truly..but if I have to, there’s Matt, Jim, Ted, Sharon, Mack, Ron, Don, Diane and Gary, Emery….

5. Who is your favorite cartoon character? And why?

Bugs Bunny – none other! Suave, sophisticated…and so wonderfully sarcastic!

6. What Sweetwaters drink or treat would you create and serve to your cartoon character?

A double shot of Abianno espresso with a side of carrot cake – easy!

7. What do you do outside of Sweetwaters?

Garden, write long letters, play with my kitten, Ms. Minnivar Q. Pickl….and repaint my house all sorts of bright and funky colors suitable for a mid-life crisis but not for re-sale!

8. What is your perfect playlist?

Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Diana Krall, Dean Martin, a smattering of Opera-and throw in some Tower of Power and AWB to make me young again! Does anyone other than me remember how to do the “Bump”??