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Monthly Archives: June 2023

Earth’s Delights

One HVAC overhaul, two tree trimmings, a new job, and a fully planted and weeded garden later, I’m finally back on the coffee trail. OK, there were a few music events in random fields and hop-soaked beer festivals marking the beginning of summer involved in the delay, too. Yes, it’s been a minute since I’ve been on a proper road trip. Winter is the time for aimless journeys. In summer, there are concrete destinations to be had. Even this leg of the Journey was done in coordination with another event. June 17th marked the annual Appalachian Trail festival in Duncannon, PA.

Trail Fest is an all-day event showcasing the best of this burgeoning trail town. Oh, it’s been a trail town for decades, but it feels like only recently has there been a concerted effort to embrace that status with things like breweries and coffee shops. You might remember Duncannon from a previous review I did on Wilderlove Coffee. I actually hung out with the owner for a few minutes before jetting off to find Earth’s Delights.

I should dial history back a little. Earth’s Delights was truly a chance find. Duncannon is very much the entry point to that Alleghany coffee country we’ve been exploring on this blog of late. Earth’s Delights is located well up into the hills to the north and west of Duncannon, situated between the towns of Loysville and Blain. These are small farming towns best remembered for the massive concerts that take place in the Blain picnic grounds. I decided to double-check and make sure there wasn’t a coffeehouse up there. As is often the case in science, attempting to falsify something often leads to a wonderful discovery.

When I saw the name on the map, I had to call ahead and make sure that this was, in fact, a coffeehouse. Earth’s Delights is primarily a health food market specializing in down-home organic fare. I could tell that the woman on the phone had a bit of an accent, but I couldn’t quite place it. When I finally made the trek over hill and dale to reach the shop, the mystery was solved: It was Pennsylvania Dutch. Earth’s Delights is yet another example of purely Amish ingenuity. Oh, and yes, there was indeed coffee to be had. This was a fortuitous find in that respect and an awesome continuation of our Amish coffee culture theme. Shockingly, Earth’s Delights has been a hidden gem for the past four years.

You might have noticed that I didn’t photograph the cafe’s exterior. That’s because there wasn’t much of a surface, to begin with. The building is quite austere; little more than a repurposed shack or small barn. The beauty is mostly inside (and in the surrounding fields, of course). Row after row of healthy food was in the offing. Not only organic food, but organic cleaning products dotted the shelves along with all manner of natural alternatives to industrial things. This plays into something we’ve touched on in previous entries: the unique intersection of rural and urban worlds that often takes place in these coffee shops. The conservative stereotype carries a disdain for sustainability. The stereotyped liberal cares little for agrarian tradition. Stereotypes are broken to pieces in rural coffeehouses like this.

“Right, right, but what about the coffee?” you’re probably shouting in vain at the screen by now. I tried to choose the closest thing to a house blend. The coffee-making infrastructure was limited; a simple black brewer on a wooden table was the whole of it. Yet, the bonnet-clad barista was an expert. She deftly worked the machinery to produce a rich brew. When I saw the darkness of the liquid as it dripped, I knew something good was coming. I inquired as to the brand of coffee being used and received a very pleasant surprise. It hailed from an all-too-familiar region: Lancaster, PA. Nearby Gordonville, to be precise. The brand is called “PA Dutch Coffee Company.” The roast I had was Colombian. Oddly, there was neither cream nor sugar available, so I had to drink it straight black. That was no impediment because the roast itself had a buttery and savory mouthfeel along with a floral flavor which more than compensated for the lack of traditional additions.

All said, the trip from Duncannon to Blain was exhausting but well worth it. This jaunt also underscored a strange fact of the PA coffee world: how much of it is unknown. Earth’s Delights has been here for years, and it never showed up on Google searches and wasn’t mentioned by any of my friends in the coffee world. Come to think about it, that’s also a happy facet of the Pennsylvania coffee scene. There are still unknowns. There are still genuinely worthy places (like this) that aren’t on the physical, digital, or cognitive maps of coffee culture. As I stood there in the bare-walled, frill-free coffee shop chatting with the Amish woman and a fellow patron over a steaming cup of local craft beans, I understood that as much as I want people to know about places like this, I hope they never become hip.