Archive for April, 2005

Posted on April 29, 2005 - by deCadmus

Zoji Fresh Brew On Sale

The recently reviewed Zojirushi Fresh Brew is on Amazon.com’s list of Friday Sale items… at $49.99 it’s a pretty good deal on a very spiffy home drip brewer.

Posted on April 28, 2005 - by deCadmus

How to Find a Great Coffee House, Part II

We’ve been talking about what it takes to find and recognize those shining beacons of coffee culture in an otherwise barren landscape. For while we are assured the rights of life and liberty, the pursuit of happiness by means of a superior coffee experience is not guaranteed. [As to life and liberty... there may be some shades of gray there, too, but that's another story.]

We’ll assume you’ve covered the basics [see Part I]. Your best next step is to observe… It’s much better to first watch someone else’s drink prepared than your own. In our Utopian coffee house, this is what will happen next. Note: the order of these steps may vary slightly; some may occur simultaneously:

• You’re cheerfully greeted by the barista, who may suggest today’s special offerings, and who will confidently address any questions you may have about their coffees [Do you roast your own? When was it roasted?]

• You choose a cappuccino. Your barista will ask if you’d like it for here, or to go. [Always choose here, if you can.]
• The barista will pour cold milk [was that whole? 2%?] into a cold, clean, empty pitcher. After purging the sparkling clean steam wand, the barista will heat, texture and stretch the milk, creating a mass of tiny bubbles with a mirror-like sheen on the surface… judging by hand and smell [or thermometer] when the temperature is right. Steaming finished, the barista will clean, and again purge the steam wand.
• The barista will start the grinder, remove the portafilter from the espresso machine’s group-head, flush the group and clean and dry the filter basket.
• The barista will dose, level and tamp the coffee into the portafilter basket, brush away any stray coffee, lock the portafilter into the group and immediately pull the shot into a clean, preheated 6- to 7-ounce cup [or shot pitcher].
• The extraction time will be 25 to 30 seconds, and should yield a 1 ounce [single] or 2 ounce [double] shot. [Single or double, the time of the extraction will be the same.] The espresso will pour like honey, and will have a dense layer of reddish-brown crema on the surface.
• The barista will pour the textured milk into the cup with the espresso… and, if you’re lucky, treat you to an artfully poured rosette. Lovely!

Is there a tip jar? Use it! You’ve just had a well-prepared drink.

On the other hand. Here are some warning signs that maybe you want to try another coffee house. Most of these are errors made in blind ignorance of how to properly prepare good coffee… some are sheer laziness.

• You ask for an espresso and the barista reaches for a 8 oz. paper cup [or larger!]

• Coffee is dosed from a full hopper that was ground who knows when.
• The steaming pitcher is filled with milk, then left to steam [and scream!] unattended.
• Worse, the milk in the steaming pitcher is topped-off, or simply reheated.
• Coffee is dosed, tamped, locked in the portafilter and left to wait for a few minutes while the barista does other things.
• The shot is extracted in 8 seconds flat.
• The barista pulls another shot off an already spent coffee puck. [Really!]

You have a right to excellent coffee. You have a right to order your coffee the way you want it. If it doesn’t meet your expectations, by all means let the staff know about it… they can only fix what they’re aware of.

Of course, as the customer you have some responsibilities, too. That leads us to…

The care and feeding of a professional barista. It takes education, dedication and some serious skill-building effort to be a really good barista. To be a great barista requires exceptional sensory skills, lots of experience, gobs of personality and really thick skin. Here’s a few tips that your barista will thank you for knowing:

• Don’t get in the line until you have a pretty good idea what you want. It’s just rude to hem and haw and dither while the queue behind you grows.
• Hang up the cell phone for a few minutes will ya? Or if you simply must take that call, step out of the line.
• Unless it’s on the menu, don’t order a ristretto or a lungo… both require the barista to adjust the grinder for your drink, which is not cool in a busy espresso bar. [Sure, the barista could "cheat" a pull to make it... but that's not what a pro wants to do.]
• If the shop is busy, it’s probably not a good time to riddle the barista with a hundred questions about beans, blends and roast styles…
• Don’t ask your barista to “reheat” your drink for you.
• Let your barista know when you’ve had an especially good drink. Sometimes that means more than dropping something in the tip jar. Especially if the barista’s boss in in hearing range.

I’m certain I’ve only scratched the surface of coffee house sins, and customer foibles. Let me know what I’ve missed…

Posted on April 27, 2005 - by deCadmus

How to Find a Great Coffee House

…and avoid the rest.

My recent trip to Seattle offered one sublime coffee experience after another. The place has a finely developed coffee culture that’s grown far beyond Starbucks’ 98 coffee houses. The weather, the food, the sound [both Puget and garage-band] the scene and the people have commingled into a fertile breeding ground for hundreds of independent coffee houses, each intent on producing the best coffee, period.

Just the same, the emerald city doesn’t have a lock on fine coffee and espresso… Matter of fact, most of the baristas who’s efforts I sampled hailed from somewhere else. More than ever, it’s not so much where you are, but who’s behind the counter that determines whether you’ll be shamelessly licking the demitasse for every last drop, or stunned into bitter silence by a beverage perhaps better used as a paint solvent.

The good news: this far-flung coffee culture is rising. The bad news: it remains seemingly random. So how, then, can the hapless coffee-hound sniff out a good coffee house? Well, it doesn’t hurt to follow your nose… Failing that, try the usual sources, or new and interesting sources for leads. And when you’ve got a prospect or two mapped out, here’s a few things to keep in mind…

A good coffee house is a busy place. If you walk in to a shop that’s quiet as a tomb and as densely populated, think twice. So maybe they’re having a brief ebb in the tide of caffeine-crazed humanity that regularly rushes in upon their door. Maybe not. Take a moment and look around…

• If you see a white crust of month-old milk on steam wands… walk away.
• If you see the portafilter anywhere but locked into its group… walk away.
• If you see a tub of pre-ground espresso… walk away.
• If you see oily beans clinging to the sides of a dusty grinder’s hopper… walk away.
• If the barista looks less interested than you in being there… walk away.

Got any tips you want to share?

Tomorrow… signs to look for when you place your coffee order, and, the proper care and feeding of a professional barista.

Posted on April 24, 2005 - by deCadmus

Tasting: Intelligentsia Coffee’s La Corona

• Rating: Rating:

You’d think it should be easy to make a great blend from outstanding origin coffees… say, if you had your pick of a series of Central American Cup of Excellence winners. It simply isn’t so. Coffees of this caliber are not only outstanding representations of origin, they tend toward the intense side of the coffee experience. Not only is it a challenge to marry such flavors, it’d be something of a travesty [and certainly an expensive mistake] to get it wrong. (more…)

Posted on April 23, 2005 - by deCadmus

SCAA, Redux

A final [really!] round-up of SCAA events, memoirs and exposés from around the webisphere…

One thing is clear: there was simply so much happening in so many places that it’s impossible to catch it all… or even to be aware of what might be happening right under your nose. That’s the only way I can explain that I prolly stood next to Tonx for twenty minutes, each of us engaged in conversation with somebody else and — for my part, anyway — never making the connection of who that guy at my elbow was. See Tonx’s many photos and accounts of the SCCA experience.

Coffee Geek’s coverage ranged far and wide this year, with not only the Coffee Kid himself reporting, but also a posse of camera-totin’ CG Girls. [Coffee Chicks?]

Then there’s Chris [call me hop-a-long] Tacy’s journal entries at Godshot and Jimmy’s at EspressoLabs and Owen seems to have finally completed his photo series at PoutineEspresso. Of course, don’t forget to visit the whirlwind networking diva of fine coffee, Fortune.

This weekend, the silence is nearly deafening. After days of conversation — often with a dozen people at once — and the near-constant whir and bang of espresso grinders and frenetic baristas [the Australian contingent seemingly the most frenetic among them] the quiet is now disquieting. As is the dawning realization that there are fewer coffee houses here in the state of Vermont than there were in a 10 city-block radius of my hotel in downtown Seattle, and that if I want to have an over-the-top cappuccino experience I’ll need to unpack my gear, still in boxes from my Kansas City migration, and make it my own damn self.

Which, in retrospect, is not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all…

Posted on April 21, 2005 - by deCadmus

SCAA Seattle, Day Three

Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco. Me, I left my voice in Seattle.

Too much: walking in the rain, chatting ’til all hours. Not enough: sleep, food. Did I mention sleep? The result: laryngitis. A few days of down-time. Dozing in the La-Z-boy while Spring showers drum on the roof here in Vermont… and trying to collect my thoughts on the latter days of the SCCA show. Forgive me if I lapse into stream-of-consciousness mode for a bit, but — as you’ll see — streams both literal and figurative will play an integral role in the day.

Finally found my way to the exhibition floor. Stopped by the Zojirushi booth and had a very nice conversation with Tatsu Yamisake about their Fresh Brew home coffee maker. Told him a dozen things I liked about it, and my one significant nit… that bothersome path the stream of hot water takes through the reservoir on its way to the brew-head. We discussed alternatives, but it comes down to an air gap of some sort. Hey, these folks have been doing vacuum insulated things for a very long time… they’ll sort it out. [Laryngitis in Japanese: ???]

Significant things afoot on the home-roaster / micro-roaster front, including tiny, scaled-down drum-roasters from Diedrich and Probat. Either would make a lovely gift for the coffee-roaster in your life.

Far too much to report on the espresso front… The tricked-out two-group Synesso in the Barista Guild booth was sweeeet, ’specially loved the insulated steam wands. Enjoyed a conversation with Kees Van der Westen and a hands-on tour of the Mirage Duette. Love the foot-switch operated steam. And the Versalab folks are upping the geek factor with their suite of “reference” gear, and doubly so with their new M3 grinder. I know of two alties who placed orders on the show floor… don’t think I’ve seen that before. I still don’t understand why the guy operating the M3 espresso machine was pulling 3 to 4 ounce doubles… though even at that volume they were creamy shots.

Briefly noted…

• Best booth: Espresso Parts
• Best new product: Espressocraft tamper
• Best brewed coffee: Leopard Forest’s Zimbabwe AA+ was stunning
• Best espresso: Tied between Jay Caragay’s espresso macchiato at Hines’ and Jennifer Prince’s version in the BGA booth [a perfect rosette in a 2 ounce paper cup!!]
  
• Thing I never thought I’d see, Part I: Dr. John of Josuma pulling doubles with a naked portafilter
• Thing I never thought I’d see, Part II: Ben Cohen [of Ben&Jerry's] scoopin’ Fair Trade ice-cream. Naked. Er, shirtless. Well, for a moment or two, anyway.
• Thing(s) I never want to see again: powdered coffee products of all sorts, instant cappuccino machines, and their ilk. Why are they here? Really, I’d prefer Ben naked again.
• Things I didn’t get to see at all: the WBC. Dammit.

The floor tour was pleasantly interrupted with a Zen & Coffee session, once again featuring Rev. Frank Jude Boccio. A timely reminder to be in the present… something that I frequently need reminding of.

And after the show, the C-Member reception [see Fortune toss coffee.] And after that, the Roaster’s Guild reception. And after that, the Transfair Reception. Here things get really interesting.

The reception is held at the Seattle Art Museum [SAM to Seattleites] which is hosting a roving exhibition of Chinese photography and video, in addition to some of their more permanent, dynastical collections. [Laryngitis in Chinese: ???].

Begin stream of consciousness diversion…

The collection contains some stunning images… one photo set featured a man repeatedly striking a large, carved wooden stamp upon the surface of a river. It was a vivid, focused reminder of a tale I’ve heard told and retold, of Tibetan monks printing words on water. Since I first heard the story, it’s impressed me as an artful metaphor for the ephemeral quality of the web… what I happen to do for a living.

End stream of consciousness diversion.

So at the Transfair reception, Ben Cohen [remember the shirt trick, above?] announces [seen here under the benevolent gaze of a Quing Dynasty citizen soldier... and no snarking, it's a cell-phone photo] that having been inspired and emboldened by their successes with Fair Trade coffee in their ice-cream, Ben & Jerry’s will be pursuing Fair Trade chocolate and vanilla as well. [Gasp. This is not a small undertaking.]

Very nice. Very nice, indeed.

And after that, the Experience Music Project event, which was honestly too cool for words.

Favorite exchange of the evening…

Me: Woah! Looks like this place was built by Frank Gehry.
She: No… it was built by Paul Allen.
Me: [blink]

Latin music. Beetles. Dylan. See, you just had to be there. And after that, walking 7 blocks up Capital Hill to a little club off an alley…

Come to think of it, it’s little wonder I got sick, eventually.

Just another lesson, I suppose, to remain in the present… this too, is ephemeral and will pass away.

Posted on April 17, 2005 - by deCadmus

SCAA Seattle, Day Two

A year ago I noted the Colombia Coffee Federation was planning an agressive international rollout of Juan Valdez-branded specialty cafes. This morning [early this morning!] the Juan Valdez at 5th and Pike in Seattle held its grand opening. It’s the third such coffee house now in the United States, and the first in the Mermaid’s backyard.

The coffee? Quite good. Okay, so the cappuccino was prepared in what I’ve come to think of as the Italian style… the milk textured and stiff, though still sweey and not dry.

The premise of the cafes: demonstrate to the coffee-drinker-on-the-street that there’s more to Colombian coffee than something that’s “Mountain Grown”… that there are, in fact, a great variety of coffee growing regions and resulting coffee flavors. At least as many regions, perhaps, as there are uniformed folks behind the counter in the shop.

The neat part of the plan: the hundreds of thousands of Colombian growers who are members of the Federation are, in fact, now shareholders in these new coffee shops. There are no middlemen… so there should be a significantly greater share of profits that find their way back to the growers.

The idea is bold. It’s risky. And it just might work.

Posted on April 17, 2005 - by deCadmus

More SCAA Stuff!

Owen is posting his photos from the SCAA on his spanking-new blog. Definitely worth a look; he’s a far, far better shutterbug than I.

And the poutine? It’s a Canuck thing.

Posted on April 16, 2005 - by deCadmus

SCAA Seattle, Day One

While day one at SCAA in Seattle offered a number of notable moments, not the least of which was an affirming and thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable keynote by Jane Goodall — yes, that Jane Goodall — in my mind it was an after-hours event at Hines Public Market coffee house that really capped the day.

Hines’ baristi — and more than a few talented counter folks from espresso bars from ’round the country and around the world — kept this five-group La Marzocco humming all night long.

The result: tazzo after tazzo of fabulous coffee… like this lovely espresso macchiato.

In Hines’ La Marzocco Lounge, a gleaming chrome mini-museum of vintage espresso machines — like this pristine La Marzocco paddle-group — fired the imagination, and more than a little gear-envy. [By the way, that's Green Mountain's Don Holly gesticulating in the background.]

Posted on April 15, 2005 - by deCadmus

Hello from Seattle…

Newsflash: It’s not raining in Seattle! At the moment, anyway.

Me and 10,000 of my closest personal friends are have converged in this, the city of my birth, for the Specialty Coffee Association of America Conference and Expo… and the place is *thick* with coffee folks. I ran into Kenneth Davids [of Coffee Review] and Danny O’Neil [of The Roasterie] just walkin’ from where the bus dropped me off [3 blocks from my hotel... and all uphill.]

More tomorrow, after I’ve shaken off 16 hours and 3 time zones worth of travel.

Now, I wonder where might I find a cup of coffee?