Welcome to Bittersweet - Café & Confections. We use only the finest quality meats as
well as local artisan breads and cheeses and produce. The majority of our sauces and
spreads are house-made with fresh, local ingredients, and all of our sandwiches and
salads are generously portioned.
We will always strived to provide you with choices, whether it is vegan, dairy free, soy
free or gluten free items you seek, our menu provides ample options.
We prepare the dishes we do because we love food, not just to make a profit.
Sometimes, this means that the savor of our sandwich or the sweetness of our desserts
or the size of our sandwiches will vary. Whether that’s because our breads are baked
the old-fashioned way or because we found a unique vegetable at the farmer’s market
to throw in the salad, we think that subtle variations make our food taste fresher and
yummier while surprising and delighting you. While supporting local farmers and
producers keeps the world of food from becoming bland and boring, pre-portioned
and pre-packaged. We hope you’ll agree.
Thanks for supporting an independent, local business; You’re making a sustainability
statement and supporting your own community with every meal you eat at
Bittersweet - Café & Confections.
Have a suggestion? Let us know!
Founded:1878
Incorporated:1882
Average Elevation: 5,530 feet
Area of City:
5080 Acres/8 square miles
Population:
19,379
Median Age:
37
Climate:
Mean Temperatures:
January - 29.5 degrees F
July - 72.0 degrees F
October - 52.6 degrees F
Days of Sunshine: 275/year
Inches of Rain: 15.5/year
Growing Season: 148 Days
History
The Miners Memorial statue in front of City Hall is a symbol of the history of the people who built Louisville – the coal miners. In August 1877, the Welch Mine opened in Louisville, the first of many coal mines to come. Louis Nawatny, a local landowner, platted his land and named it for himself. The Town of Louisville was incorporated on June 16, 1882.
Coal miners soon moved to the new town to work in the emerging coal industry. From the beginning, Louisville differed from most coal camp towns as it was not owned and controlled by a single mining company. Miners lived in the town and walked to work in the nearby mines. They were involved in a democratic community life that was not dominated by mine owners or companies.
Louisville is located in an area known as the Northern Coalfield, an extensive coalfield in Boulder and Weld counties. Wages in the early days of coal mining were somewhat higher in the Louisville mines and the mines were relatively safe. The economy, however, was generally depressed. Family gardens and odd jobs were the way of life as mining was seasonal and strikes often interrupted production.
From 1890 to 1928, the Acme Mine operated directly beneath the original town of Louisville. Worked on two levels, the Acme produced nearly two million tons of coal and was one of 171 coal mines in Boulder County. In all, thirty mines were located in and around Louisville. During the peak years of 1907 and 1909, there were twelve mines in operation. The use of coal declined following World War II, and the last mines near Louisville closed in 1952.
Many Europeans migrated to Louisville to work in the mines as jobs were plentiful. Some learned the skills to become miners, while others brought skills they had used in Europe. Later, miners were recruited as strike breakers during the several union disagreements with coal companies. Although miners worked together, they lived with their own relatives and fellow countrymen in ethnically separated neighborhoods.
These ethnic neighborhoods are gone now, as are the remnants of the coal mines. Flowers grow in suburban yards with never a hint of the passageways underground or the history they represent.
Best Places to Live
Money's list of America's best small towns2010 2009 2008 2007 2006
WINNER 2009
Top 100 rank: 1
Population: 18,800
Unemployment: 6.0%*
Compare Louisville to Top 10 Best Places
Some towns nestled along the Rockies are full of pretentious eco-hipsters. Not Louisville. Ice cream shops dot the historic downtown. Families grab burgers at the cozy Waterloo Café. A Friday-night street fair, with a beer garden, live music, and games for the kids, runs all summer. No wonder this down-to-earth town has appeared high on Money's Best Places list before--and on many others.
It's also weathering the economic downturn well. Robust industries in the area, such as high tech, energy, and health care, make county unemployment among the lowest in the state.
But the top reason residents give for moving here? The great outdoors. Louisville is laced with nearly 30 miles of trails, Rocky Mountain National Park is less than an hour away, and eight world-class ski resorts are within two hours. The town's schools are highly rated as well.
Add in dry, clear weather, little crime, good health care, and low taxes, and Louisville is pretty tough to beat.
Become a Facebook fan of Louisville!
Why Louisville, Colo., is No. 1(2:20)11:39am
Money's Best Place to Live has it all: affordable housing, great schools, and easy access to the Rocky Mountains.
Louisville stats
City statsBest places avg.
Median family income
(per year) $102,688 $97,441
Job growth %
(2000-2008)* -3.13% 19.58%
See jobs near Louisville
Median home price $310,000 $262,148
See Louisville homes for sale
Test scores reading
(% above/below state average) 29.3% 25.6%
Test scores math
(% above/below average) 34.3% 28.2%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000) 1 1
Property crime incidents (per 1,000) 15 19
Restaurants
(within 15 miles) 2,104 1,923
High temp in July ° F* 86.0° 85.5°
Low temp in Jan ° F* 17.5° 21.0°
Median age 36.6 36.6
FinancialCity statsBest places avg.
Median family income
(per year) $102,688 $97,441
Family purchasing power
(annual, cost-of-living adjusted) $97,705 $95,041
State sales tax 2.90% 5.63%
State income tax rate
(highest bracket) 4.63% 6.06%
State income tax rate
(lowest bracket) 4.63% 3.07%
Auto insurance premiums
(Average price quotes, for the state) $1,514 $1,744
Job growth %
(2000-2008)* -3.13% 19.58%
See jobs near Louisville
HousingCity statsBest places avg.
Median home price $310,000 $262,148
Average property taxes
(2007) $2,169 $3,853
See Louisville homes for sale
EducationCity statsBest places avg.
Colleges, universities and
professional schools (within 30 miles) 20 20
Test scores reading
(% above/below state average) 29.3% 25.6%
Test scores math
(% above/below average) 34.3% 28.2%
% students attending public/private
schools (located within town limits) 84.2/15.8 90.1/9.9
Quality of lifeCity statsBest places avg.
Air quality index*
(% of days AQI ranked as good) 74.0% 78.6%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000) 1 1
Property crime incidents (per 1,000) 15 19
Median commute time (in minutes) 19.5 22.5
% population with commute
45 mins. or longer 10.0% 13.8%
% population walk or bike to work 2.6% 2.3%
Leisure and cultureCity statsBest places avg.
Movie theaters
(within 15 miles) 19 24
Restaurants
(within 15 miles) 2,104 1,923
Bars
(within 15 miles) 206 174
Public golf courses
(within 30 miles) 141 148
Libraries
(within 15 miles) 37 53
Museums (accredited by AAM;
within 30 miles) 7 7
Ski resorts (within 100 miles) 13 17
Arts funding (Dollars per person of state funds spent on arts) 0.6 1.2
WeatherCity statsBest places avg.
Annual rainfall
(inches) 17.31 39.77
% clear days in the area 32 27
High temp in July ° F* 86.0° 85.5°
Low temp in Jan ° F* 17.5° 21.0°
Meet the neighborsCity statsBest places avg.
Median age 36.6 36.6
Completed at least some college
(% of residents) 84.5% 71.9%
Married % 58.1% 62.9%
Divorced % 9.8% 7.7%
Racial diversity index
(100 is national average; higher numbers indicate greater diversity) 41.3 58.9
See all
More financial, housing, school, quality of life stats
From the August 2009 issueNotes:
* County data
The history of coffee goes at least as far back as the thirteenth century, though coffee's origin remains unclear.
It has been believed that Ethiopian ancestors of today's Oromo people were the first to discover and recognize the energizing effect of the coffee bean plant. However, no direct evidence has been found indicating where in Africa coffee grew or who among the natives might have used it, or even known about it, earlier than the 17th century. The story of Kaldi, the 9th-century Ethiopian goatherd who discovered coffee, did not appear in writing until 1671 AD and is probably apocryphal. From Ethiopia, coffee was said to have spread to Egypt and Yemen. The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the fifteenth century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen. It was here in Arabia that coffee beans were first roasted and brewed, similar to modern preparation. By the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey, and northern Africa. Coffee then spread to Italy, and to the rest of Europe, to Indonesia, and to the Americas.
Etymology The word "coffee" entered English in 1598 via Dutch koffie. This word was created via Turkish kahve, the Turkish pronunciation Arabic qahwa, a truncation of qahhwat al-bun or wine of the bean. One possible origin of the name is the Kingdom of Kaffa in Ethiopia, where the coffee plant originated; its name there is bunn or bunna.
First uses There are several legendary accounts of the origin of the drink itself. One account involves the Yemenite Sufi mystic Ghothul Akbar Nooruddin Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili. When traveling in Ethiopia, the legend goes, he observed birds of unusual vitality, and, upon trying the berries that the birds had been eating, experienced the same vitality. Another story involves a goat-herd, Kaldi, who, noticing the energizing effects when his flock nibbled on the bright red berries of a certain bush, chewed on the fruit himself. His exhilaration prompted him to bring the berries to a Muslim holy man in a nearby monastery. But the holy man disapproved of their use and threw them into the fire, from which an enticing aroma billowed. The roasted beans were quickly raked from the embers, ground up, and dissolved in hot water, yielding the world's first cup of coffee. The Ethiopian ancestors of today's Oromo tribe, were the first to have recognized the energizing effect of the native coffee plant. Studies of genetic diversity have been performed on Coffea arabica varieties, found to be of low diversity but which retained some residual heterozygosity from ancestral materials, and closely-related diploid species Coffea canephora and C. liberica; however, no direct evidence has ever been found indicating where in Africa coffee grew or who among the natives might have used it as a stimulant, or known about it there earlier than the seventeenth century.
Arab world and spread to Europe The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the fifteenth century, in the Sufi monasteries of the Yemen in southern Arabia. From Mocha, coffee spread to Egypt and North Africa, and by the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia and Turkey. From the Muslim world, coffee drinking spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe, and coffee plants were transported by the Dutch to the East Indies and to the Americas.
The earliest mention of coffee noted by the literary coffee merchant Philippe Sylvestre Dufour is a reference to bunchum in the works of the 10th century CE Persian physician Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, known as Rhazes in the West, but more definite information on the preparation of a beverage from the roasted coffee berries dates from several centuries later.
The most important of the early writers on coffee was Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, who in 1587 compiled a work tracing the history and legal controversies of coffee entitled Umdat al safwa fi hill al-qahwa. He reported that one Sheikh, Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Aden, was the first to adopt the use of coffee (circa 1454). Coffee's usefulness in driving away sleep made it popular among Sufis. A translation traces the spread of coffee from Arabia Felix (the present day Yemen) northward to Mecca and Medina, and then to the larger cities of Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, and Istanbul.
Coffee beans were first exported from Ethiopia to Yemen. Yemeni traders brought coffee back to their homeland and began to cultivate the bean. The first coffeehouse opened in Istanbul in 1554. Coffee was at first not well received. In 1511, it was forbidden for its stimulating effect by conservative, orthodox imams at a theological court in Mecca. However, the popularity of the drink led these bans to be overturned in 1524 by an order of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Selim I, with Grand Mufti Mehmet Ebussuud el-İmadi issuing a celebrated fatwa allowing the consumption of coffee. In Cairo, Egypt, a similar ban was instituted in 1532, and the coffeehouses and warehouses containing coffee beans were sacked.
Similarly, coffee was banned by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church some time before the 12th century. However, in the second half of the 19th century, Ethiopian attitudes softened towards coffee drinking, and its consumption spread rapidly between 1880 and 1886; according to Richard Pankhurst, "this was largely due to [Emperor] Menilek, who himself drank it, and to Abuna Matewos who did much to dispel the belief of the clergy that it was a Muslim drink."
Europe Coffee was noted in Ottoman Aleppo by the German physician botanist Leonhard Rauwolf, the first European to mention it, as chaube, in 1573; Rauwolf was closely followed by descriptions from other European travellers.
Coffee was also imported to Italy from the Ottoman Empire. The vibrant trade between Venice and the Muslims in North Africa, Egypt, and the East brought a large variety of African goods, including coffee, to this leading European port. Venetian merchants introduced coffee-drinking to the wealthy in Venice, charging them heavily for the beverage. In this way, coffee was introduced to Europe. Coffee became more widely accepted after controversy over whether it was acceptable for Catholics to consume was settled in its favor by Pope Clement VIII in 1600, despite appeals to ban the drink. The first European coffee house (apart from those in the Ottoman Empire, mentioned above) was opened in Venice in 1645.
England Largely through the efforts of the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company, coffee became available in England no later than the 16th century according to Leonhard Rauwolf's 1583 account. The first coffeehouse in England was opened in St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill. The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the servant of Daniel Edwards, a trader in Turkish goods. Edwards imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment. Oxford's Queen's Lane Coffee House, established in 1654, is still in existence today. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses throughout England.[20] Popularity of coffeehouses spread rapidly in Europe, and later, America.
The banning of women from coffeehouses was not universal, but does appear to have been common in Europe. In Germany women frequented them, but in England they were banned.[21] Many believed coffee to have several medicinal properties in this period. For example, a 1661 tract entitled "A character of coffee and coffee-houses", written by one "M.P.", lists some of these perceived
“ 'Tis extolled for drying up the Crudities of the Stomack, and for expelling Fumes out of the Head. Excellent Berry! which can cleanse the English-man's Stomak of Flegm, and expel Giddinesse out of his Head. ”
Not everyone was in favour of this new commodity, however. For example, the anonymous 1674 "Women's Petition Against Coffee" declared:
“ ...the Excessive Use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE [...] has [...] Eunucht our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent, as Age.[3] ”
France Antoine Galland (1646–1715) in his aforementioned translation described the Muslim association with coffee, tea and chocolate: "We are indebted to these great [Arab] physicians for introducing coffee to the modern world through their writings, as well as sugar, tea, and chocolate." Galland reported that he was informed by Mr. de la Croix, the interpreter of King Louis XIV of France, that coffee was brought to Paris by a certain Mr. Thevenot, who had travelled through the East. On his return to that city in 1657, Thevenot gave some of the beans to his friends, one of whom was de la Croix. However, the major spread of the popularity of this beverage in Paris was soon to come. In 1669, Soleiman Agha, Ambassador from Sultan Mehmed IV, arrived in Paris with his entourage bringing with him a large quantity of coffee beans. Not only did they provide their French and European guests with coffee to drink, but they also donated some beans to the royal court. Between July 1669 and May 1670, the Ambassador managed to firmly establish the custom of drinking coffee among Parisians.
Austria The real first coffeehouse in Austria opened in Vienna in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna, by using supplies from the spoils obtained after defeating the Turks. The officer who received the coffee beans, Polish military officer of Ukrainian origin Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, opened the coffee house and helped popularize the custom of adding sugar and milk to the coffee. Until recently, this was celebrated in Viennese coffeehouses by hanging a picture of Kulczycki in the window. Melange is the typical Viennese coffee, which comes mixed with hot foamed milk and a glass of water.
Netherlands The race among Europeans to make off with some live coffee trees or beans was eventually won by the Dutch in the late 17th century, when they allied with the natives of Kerala against the Portuguese and brought some live plants back from Malabar to Holland, where they were grown in greenhouses. The Dutch began growing coffee at their forts in Malabar, India, and in 1699 took some to Batavia in Java, in what is now Indonesia.
Within a few years the Dutch colonies (Java in Asia, Surinam in Americas) had become the main suppliers of coffee to Europe.
India Coorg is the one of the most famous lands for coffee plantations. The Quality of the coorg coffee is very good. It is in a Karnata Satate. The coorg and chikkamagalore coffee of India are the progeny of that Bourbon tree. Circa 1727, the King of Portugal sent Francisco de Mello Palheta to French Guinea to obtain coffee seeds to become a part of the coffee market. Initially he had difficulty obtaining these seeds yet he captivated the French Governor's wife and she in turn, sent him enough seeds and shoots which would commence the coffee industry of India.
Americas
Gabriel de Clieu brought coffee seedlings to Martinique in the Caribbean circa 1720. Those sprouts flourished and 50 years later there were 18,680 coffee trees in Martinique enabling the spread of coffee cultivation to Haiti, Mexico and other islands of the Caribbean. The territory of San Domingo (now Haiti) saw coffee cultivated from 1734, and by 1788 it supplied half the world's coffee. The French colonial plantations relied heavily on African slave laborers. However, the dreadful conditions that the slaves worked in on coffee plantations were a factor in the soon to follow Haitian Revolution. The coffee industry never fully recovered there.
Coffee also found its way to the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean known as the Isle of Bourbon. The plant produced smaller beans and was deemed a different variety of Arabica known as var. Bourbon. The Santos coffee of Brazil and the Oaxaca coffee of Mexico are the progeny of that Bourbon tree. Circa 1727, the King of Portugal sent Francisco de Mello Palheta to French Guinea to obtain coffee seeds to become a part of the coffee market. Francisco initially had difficulty obtaining these seeds yet he captivated the French Governor's wife and she in turn, sent him enough seeds and shoots which would commence the coffee industry of Brazil. In 1893, the coffee from Brazil was introduced into Kenya and Tanzania (Tanganyika), not far from its place of origin in Ethiopia, 600 years prior, ending its transcontinental journey.
Meanwhile, coffee had been introduced to Brazil in 1727, although its cultivation didn't gather momentum until independence in 1822. After this time, massive tracts of rainforest were cleared first from the vicinity of Rio and later São Paulo for coffee plantations.
Cultivation was taken up by many countries in the latter half of the 19th century, and almost all involved the large-scale displacement and exploitation of the indigenous Indian people. Harsh conditions led to many uprisings, coups and bloody suppression of peasants. The notable exception was Costa Rica, where lack of ready labor prevented the formation of large farms. Smaller farms and more egalitarian conditions ameliorated unrest over the 19th and 20th centuries
