*I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to resist these King Harv enormously fun posts. In fact, as we enter the hopefully final week of getting this house ready to sell, and moving our stuff, I have asked friends to design a little logo that will be on the side bar of this blog in future times… because it’s true I mean, I am still hoping to have Bowl of Red, the fourth Shifter out in October, as well as the reissues of Darkships. Oh, an The Long Purr Goodbye, which is the first of the uplifted cat books (Don’t panic. That will be followed by the second of Deep Pink: Deep Water. Because the “short novel” series will all alternate. Yes, Rhodes #2 probably in December.)

In fact under my own dictum for promoting those who support us, I’m talking to King Harv about possibilities of mutual promotion. A friend has suggested a King Harv Coffee Writing Contest (coffee being the prize, of course) and perhaps in future King Harv Coffee anthologies, in which the stories mention or revolve around or take place in their extensive coffee plantations in every known universe and some unknown ones. Anyway… I’ll get out of the way of the caffeinated tale. And go paint cabinets. Oh, joy! – SAH*

Camel Spider Coffee- a guest post by King Harv’s Imperial Coffees

Camel Spider Coffee

The True Tale of King Harv’s Most Unusual Coffee

Everybody loves Camel Spiders.  At least that’s what I read at the university. So with no consideration at all for my personal safety I flew deep into the unforgiving desert, looking to meet these delightful creatures.

Now we all buy those plush Camel Spider toys for our children. And who doesn’t hang those comforting black velvet paintings in our tea rooms? Outside of the desert however, it is little known that Camel Spiders absolutely adore coffee, which they sadly have to steal from anywhere they can.  Few are the natives who don’t have a story to tell of dark noises in the night, burlap bags being torn open, webs spraying about, and then the pitter patter of 8 legs dragging something heavy out the door.  Editors Note: They usually only use 6 legs for walking, but coffee is heavy…

My job as principal coffee explorer for King Harv’s Imperial Coffees was to get to the bottom of all this.  Were the spiders consuming the coffee?  Drinking it?  Changing it?  To track them down, I first headed to see the village elder, a Mister Jirezinko, and asked for his assistance.  Jerizenko eyed me closely, never blinking, with one bloodshot eye as black as the soul of a used car warranty salesman. The other eye was not an eye at all.  It was the largest single coffee bean I’d ever seen, and from the looks of it it had been roasted recently.  A clue indeed!

Elder Jirezinko led me to the house of a Spanish explorer named Habanero, who had last seen the camel spiders.  Habanero had marked out the trail where the spiders had last traveled with their loot. And for a small fee, he agreed to lead me on a treacherous voyage into the unknown realm of the camel spiders.

5 Days and 5 nights we trudged through the sands.  5 Days and 5 nights without food and water.  Habanero refused to bring both. It was fortunate that I had a few large Charleston Grey watermelons in my backpack, or things might have gotten grim. On the sixth day, amazingly, my cell phone rang.  I picked it up immediately, pressed answer, and started to hear the long drawn out sales pitch that my 20 year old car warranty was about to expire, and I really should take them up on their offer.  I quickly hung up and put it out of my mind.  I would contemplate the warranty on a different day.

The seventh day was when I saw it.  A distant oasis, protected by a wall of cemented predigested coffee beans.  Just the tops of some trees were visible.  And the noise of thousands of camel spiders.

I reached into my backpack, past the melted dark chocolate Kit Kat bars, beyond the stack of automobile warranty books, and there, just to the right of the last watermelon, was my portable espresso maker.  So I began making espresso using some wonderful Malaysian Liberica beans from King Harv’s Imperial Coffees, www.kingharv.com, one of many many great and exotic coffees from King Harv’s with always free shipping. Such a selection!  But I digress…

The aroma of the espresso was incredible, and as I predicted, slowly, cautiously, the leader of the camel spiders crawled out of a hidden break in the wall, and clicked its chelicerae in a welcoming pattern.  I motioned Habanero to proceed, but he refused. No matter.  This was my investigation. A private investigation. I would go alone.

I walked slowly and carefully towards the wall of chewed coffee beans, and saw the slanted entrance that the spider had used to lure me in.  Once inside the walls, I beheld a sight never seen by a non-solifugae, the secret Camel Spider Coffee Plantation!  They had not been stealing coffee to eat or drink after all, but to build these walls to hide and protect their sacred coffee plants. Thousands of eyes stared at me, seeming to bore into my soul.  An annoying clicking sound was heard in the back, but it was quickly subdued by the other spiders.  I turned towards the aging arachnid leader, where I saw she had scratched out some words in the sand, and gestured me to read them.  “Hi Bill”  it said.  Flattered, I corrected her that my name is David, and after the equivalent of an arachnid muttering fit and a look of exasperation, she rewrote the message, this time correctly.

She then quickly wrote a longer, more detailed message.  “All these coffee trees are yours, except for your mocha.  Attempt no harvesting there.”

This sounded more than fair to me, and a deal was made.  In exchange for harvesting rights, King Harv’s Imperial Coffees granted the arachnids perpetual rights to our roaster coffee bean chaff and residue, which they considered a delicacy. Hot dang they were happy.  I was even invited to do the Spider Coffee dance with a few of the females, but remembering Adam West, I politely held off.

And now my tale has been told, and you too know the origin of the incredibly unique Camel Spider coffee from King Harv’s.  High in caffeine, earthy in taste, with notes of tobacco in the finish, you’d definitely walk a mile for a Camel Spider Coffee.

King Harv’s Imperial Coffees

www.kingharv.com