A Texas couple is on a door-to-door mission to improve a Dallas suburb’s coffee rep and Morning Coffee legitimizes its long-time unofficial sponsor.

Oak Cliff, Texas, may not have a milk man, but they sure do have a coffee man.

You know, the coffee man. The one who brings fresh-roasted coffee to your doorstep by 7 am, twice a month, for free. Sound too good to be true? Well, some people are just that lucky.

Shannon Neffendorf and his wife Jenni are currently operating a milkman-like service that brings coffee beans roasted just one day before to their customers doorsteps in the hopes of promoting their business, Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters. Customers simply sign up for the service online or through a phone call and put a bag on their doorknob to wait for delivery.

“My goal is to have it at their doors by 7 o’clock,” Neffendorf told The Dallas Morning News.

The bi-weekly drop offs have gained the Neffendorfs about 75 residential customers as well as 10 businesses and five commercial accounts that sell their beans or serve their coffee. A pound sells for $13 and the couple roasts every bean they sell out of a house in this Dallas suburb.

Not known for its coffeehouses, Neffendorf said his goal was to bring the kind of coffee he experienced while traveling in Italy back to the Dallas area. Shortly after marrying Jenni, the Neffendorfs decided to open their own coffee shop, and to build a customer base, Shannon started buying raw coffee beans and roasting them in either a stovetop popcorn popper or on a barbeque grill. As business picked up, the couple invested in the automatic roaster they now use.

Sadly, I live too far from Dallas (or Texas for that matter) for the coffee man to come to my door, but this and other mail-order, fresh-roasted coffee companies give me hope that I might one day have a coffee man in my neighborhood!

The official ‘joe’ of Morning Joe

If you’re a fan of MSNBC’s Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough, you’ve probably noticed that there are about as many Starbucks cups on Scarborough’s desk as there are stories. Well, the brand has just officially entered a “marketing relationship” with the program worth an estimated $10 million.

According to USA Today’s Lifeline Live, the contract deems the show will use the words “brewed by Starbucks” in the show’s logos and teasers.

Scarborough discussed the move on his show Tuesday morning with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

“People have asked us for years, ‘Howard, how much does Starbucks pay you to drink your coffee, the product placement is wonderful,” Scarborough said.

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