the coffee press

he lives

2009-02-06T21:29:00.002-06:00

for the two of you who may not have given up hope that your rss would ever bring you another post from this blog, thank you.

but we've moved recently.

for unknown reasons this blog fell silent last autumn and never awoke. and now, for several reasons we have begun a new blog here and have begun rebuilding a body of commentary on all things coffee as they come to my finite mind.

please point your feedreaders to our new blog space and link us so we can re-link to you, coffee friends.

twittering has rekindled the desire to type thoughts for the world in 140+ characters and thus...

now, let the fun begin again.

coming up

2008-09-30T12:31:00.006-05:00

Catalina Coffee is the man. Or are the men. And women. Or something nice and props-able. I was so happy to be able to be in Houston for this event (see post below) and to be a part of Texas' growing coffee scene. Having grown up in Houston, the city has a sentimental place in my heart. But with the advent of Catalina and a small crop of fresh new coffee spaces (think Inversion, Taft Street and others) they are eschewing the soft-market sentimentality of feeling as though they have to offer the five "S'es" (sandwiches, soups, salads, syrups and smoothies) and going for the gusto by putting the coffee first and letting the chips fall where they may. And if my time at their recent Latte Art Throwdown (and my subsequent Sunday afternoon visit) were any indication, the chips are definitely falling their way.

Space is the enemy here, and geopolitical boundaries seem to be the enemy of our coalescence. Because the entity is known as "Texas" it seems to make sense that we should all be one big happy family. But as the interstate sign makes clear as you cross into Texas from Louisiana, this really is a big, big place. The sign reads: WELCOME TO TEXAS! Beaumont = 15 miles; Houston = 150 miles; El Paso = 798 miles. Thus, we have to make the best of our situation by grabbing every opportunity for community, no matter how frequency and geographically-challenged and those opportunities are.

Coming up: the second annual SCRBC in Austin and a chance for our corner of the world to continue to build both momentum and a tighter sense of community.

refereeing a fight

2008-09-26T09:23:00.005-05:00

my camera was sick and we sent it off to hospital lately. thus, i feel as though my creative impetus had been on hiatus. now it's back and here i am hitting the blogosphere again. coincidence? mayhaps.

so what's been up? i'm going to houston in a few hours to--get this--be a judge for a latte art competition. me. the guy who can consistently and perfectly pour the foam amoeba. but you know what they say...those who can't do, judge. or some such.

anyway, catalina coffee in houston, where the event will take place, has quietly done a solid job

becoming houston's most thoughtful espresso destinations. a few weeks ago catalina's owner,

max, called me up out of the blue (we had never met) and asked if they could order 50 lbs of Jacinto. he explained they have an enthusiastically pursued guest espresso program and they have been buying stuff from around the country and featuring it until the order runs dry. the espresso got there in good order and then...hurricane Ike. max says they kept power for

most of the time and that

they were one of the few places around who had power, which, one can hope, means all the Jacinto got consumed and, one can further hope, enjoyed, by desparate, powerless houstonians.

so one thing led to another and here i am making final preps and doing final roasts before going to houston to be part of this indieundergroundcoffeeevent. $20 to pour. winner takes all. who knows but that the winner might just be a hurricane victim and this could be the most direct charity line from fundraiser to relief distribution in the history of coffee. fun times in texas. hey, even the weather has cooperated. one thing about hurricanes: they definitely bring cooler (read: coffee buying and drinking) weather in their wakes.

cheers, all.

got milk?

2008-08-20T21:40:00.003-05:00

sweet. salty. bitter. sour. savory (umami). what's missing?

calcium, evidently.

a couple quick, random notes about this.

one. why is it always such a big deal to re-inform people that mice, rats and the like share such similar biological makeups, as though the rodents are somehow more exalted than other vermin, or as though we humans are simply nothing special? funny.

two. i'm not sold on the whole "human animal's evolutionary makeup innately senses the need for calcium and thus seeks out food rich in calcium" worldview. for one, it's too darwinian for me. second, i've read the omnivore's dilemma and, heck, i can eat anything i want (even though pollan's descriptors of why we can eat anything we want are, well, a touch darwinian for me.)

third. while there seems to be a lot of scientific-like writing here to buttress these claims, in the end--well, so far, at least--they are still largely unfounded claims in much the same way as, say, phrenology was way back when.

this is not necessarily a coffee-related post other than to say i consider myself to be at least an average cupper but don't recall having ever attributed anything on the cupping table to "calcium." mineral, maybe. creamy perhaps. but milky?

one day mayhaps we'll all be hunting for calcium in our micro lots. but poor umami. no sooner does it don the mantle of lingual legitimacy than it has to give up the spotlight to a bunch of milk drinking rats. no justice in this world, i tell ya.

global cooling?

2008-08-18T11:12:00.015-05:00

it's raining here in san antonio. something rare during the summer months here. and it got me onto some rainy morning ponderations and note-taking experimentations. i decided to think toward and play a bit with two parallel tracks: pour techniques for a manual brewer such as my chemex; and how taste perception changes as temperatures cool.

typically, when i use my chemex (which is about every morning) i set up the 6-8 tablespoons of grounds using a sort of aztec-maya inverted step pyramid array. meaning, i poke my finger into the middle and carve out a niche point in the bottom center, followed by a wider layer above it with a terrace, and finally capped with a rim about an eighth of an inch in diameter around the outer top. when my water reaches temp i pour from the melitta kettle (love that surgically precise spout tip!) into the bottom cave and up onto the next layer, leaving the outer rim of grounds dry. the center blooms--as chemex recommends--for about 30 seconds, at which time i encircle the wet grounds with another string of water...carefully, carefully so as not to overflow the center grounds. eventually, the water level has risen to the point that all the grounds are wet, but water has not been poured and agitated over either the very center or the very outer rim. this is built upon the assumption that you don't want 100% complete saturation of 100% of the grounds, which helps ensure that you don't over-solublize the final brew. pretty soon all the grounds are wet, as you would expect. eventually, as the water levels dip i pour water closer to the center and let it all drain down--the whole thing generally taking around 4:30 and producing in my 30 oz brewer about 20-22 oz.

i've blogged all that before, i think. suffice it to say i was looking to try something different this morning. so i thought i'd migrate my melitta pour over technique onto the chemex and see how it goes. the grounds and water quantities are the same, though the setup is basically the exact opposite: set up a little mountain in the middle of the filter; pour your hot water around the outer most rim of coffee and work your way inward. in this method, water actually never gets poured over the center peak (about a nickle's circumference) because the surrounding water eventually overtakes the peak and sinks it into the center inverted-cone the chemex brewer shape forces the filter to make. same principle as above--you don't want all the coffee grounds saturated the same way and to the same level.

i digress. aside from the fact that i was very pleased at the liquid results of my migratory brewing adaptation betwixt apparati, the main show for me this morning was how coffee cools, or rather, how we perceive the change in flavors as coffee cools.

i decided to use the last of my samples of a very nice coffee, one kenya gethumbwini (peaberry) (which brown has chosen to add to its lineup, btw), since it possesses such an unmistakable flavor signature. roast level and profile were typical of my production roasts and where the drop happens in the no man's land period toward the very end of first, awaiting the imminent invasion of second crack.

i set up my mountain in the filter cone and carefully poured water at 200F even over 3:45, yielding me ~19 oz and was, as per my usual ritual, careful to give a "decanting swirl" before pouring.

brew temp was a constant 178F throughout, falling to 165F by the time I poured into my mug. my first sips were at 154F. at that point all the fuss and glory was in the top end acid. no surprises there. as we worked lower, though--into the 140's--the depth began to show and at about 133F i would say i found the "center mark" of the roast i applied to this coffee. at that temp i found the acid and body were in their best balance. or rather, in their best dynamic tension, as complex coffees such as this, in my opinion are always pulling thither and yon, showing you something different, giving you a different angle.

anyways, toward the high 120's the deepness this coffee has latent in it really begins to come out to play: the black currant, the ruby red grapefruit, the overripe thompson grapes/raisins. acid almost completely disappeared from my perception, or i should perhaps rather say that though it was surely present, the fireworks were now well deeper in my tastebuds and i was mostly perceiving these lower tones.

i kept sipping this coffee with similar taste results, thermometer probe faithfully submerged into the mug, until about 102F, almost body temp. i had walked away from the table for a bit to put on a c.d. of one of the kids' favorite bands and when i picked up the mug for my last sip of the "experiment" i was surprisingly jolted back to the acid, something i thought had long dissipated in the taste mix. my only explanation for that is that as i kept tasting this coffee, the perception of acidity had become dulled and accounted for in my brain in much the same way as the midnight trains' traffic horns aren't even heard anymore from my downtown apartment's sleep. but upon return the great acid this coffee possesses was suddenly recalled in glorious splendor from a gloriously splendorous coffee.

my on-the-fly analysis? yes, complex coffees will present different stuff at different temps. no surprises there. maybe this is the appearance of different sugars that dance most at their respective temperature ranges between the tongue signals and the brain synapses. but the disappearance and re-emergance of acidity after i had walked away and revisited the cup was what i found most interesting, and that is what spurred this whole wander-through-the-forest-post.

would this phenomenon of resurgent acidity perception hold true with the same coffee roasted differently? or with other acid-forward coffees? what would be the result if i used a very low acid coffee? how much did/does brew technique affect that? brew apparatus?

just some swimming thoughts as i prepare to swim back out into the deluge of rain we're enjoying and run some errands. constructive comments welcomed.

third time's a charm

2008-08-05T13:52:00.002-05:00

wow. i can't believe it's been almost two months since my last blogpost. for you six regulars, thanks for coming back to check in (feedreaders help, doubtless).

lots of stuff happening these days, though summer is generally a slower time business-wise, especially in these 100+ F days. in love with coffee as i am, it is always funnily difficult for me to understand why people don't want to drink hot coffee when it's still 89F at 9:30pm. go figure.

anyway, slow times or not, we're still here, plugging away, slugging away, doing lots of cupping, tweaking Big Brown, trying lots of exciting samples for the fall, setting up new wholesale clients and generally taking advantage of the relative downtime to plan for cooler weather when things will grow mad and fast toward the end of the year.

on a huge and hugely personal note, my lovely wife and i are expecting our third child. estimated time of arrival: 21 January 2009. we are both stoked, naturally. friends ask us whether we'll try to learn the gender before the baby's born (no...why spoil one of life's only true surprises?), whether we are hoping for one gender over another (no...we only pray for a healthy baby with five fingers on each hand, five toes on each foot, and so forth) and how we think this will change our lives (who knows but God? but it WILL change, for sure!)

as i mentioned, we are ecstatic, though mom is still feeling a touch of nausea even here into the second trimester. but she looks great--she always has looked great during pregnancy--and is busy reading all about midwifery and homebirthing.

don't want to dominate this coffee blog with all the personal info. i promise i will get back to blogging coffee stuff very soon. i have been ruminating on some issues i'd like to share.

until then, stay cool.

envelopes

2008-06-09T15:16:00.004-05:00

i'm a skeptical soul by nature. i meet people very slowly and trust them even more slowly. i don't know why. on the contrary, i consider myself something of an early adopter of new ideas, always on the lookout for the next major improvement or the newest promising trend. it's funny, but perhaps the internet helps magnify my particular personality mix: if i had to take new ideas directly from people i might never get past my impressions of that person's in-person persona, and down to the idea(s) they were espousing.

my point? i'm just thinking about new ideas and what people are thinking when it comes to the directions coffee is heading. someone i just met once said that coffee auctions are a price discovery mechanism, not quality discovery. at first blush that sounds heretical to the latest received coffee wisdom out there. but there is more than a nugget of truth to that when the usual top lots in auctions like the c.o.e. and b.o.p. tend to outpace their lower-ranked brethren, sometimes by obscene amounts, when surely the coffee at the top can't be that much more amazing than the number two, three, four and so on.

this is not a new discussion. it's actually just an example of ideas and how reading them sometimes gives me pause to think in new ways.

what are you thinking about in coffee? are we still edge-pushers? what's new in your coffee world?

monday morning observations

2008-06-02T12:16:00.005-05:00

monday morning, 10:30am. i'm at the roasterie preparing the third in a series of five+ cuppings of five samples i received last week from el salvador. i am prepping the table, grinding samples and heating water when it hits me: i really enjoy what i do. i'm able to scratch out an almost honest living. and in this setting it's difficult to imagine doing anything different in life.

back to the coffee. when samples arrive i typically cup them over five or six days, comparing notes not only on defects and dominant flavor characteristics, but also tasting the maturation process that happens as each of the coffees degasses and begins to show age. this is a time consuming process but vital to what i do because 99% of my customers don't drink coffee from me that is only one day off the roast.

as the coffees age i also am able to concentrate more on the one or two i think i might like to purchase (if any), using the others as controls. i fidget with possible retail descriptors, imagining how i will phrase what i find to be a peculiarly delightful taste characteristic with a certain coffee on the table. i furrow my brow because a coffee i had relegated to the proverbial minor leagues after two days of cupping has pulled itself somewhat back into the horse race--probably not all the way back in, but enough to make it more of a complex operation than before.

as i work my way down the line of the single cup samples (no need for three or four cup samples by day three, as i pretty much know already what i'm getting into) i swallow most of the spoonfuls early on, as i still haven't had my morning cup yet and need a little push for the rest of the day.

i look up and see my two beautiful children at the computer, my lovely daughter working her way through simple addition sums on the computer while her older brother not-so-patiently tries to save her from the error of her ways. "Aden, six plus two isn't seven!" he says with all the force of luther or calvin, rescuing heretics from the flames.

i am a blessed man. i have a lovely and amazing wife; two incredible children who mature me and sharpen my vision of what is important in life; a challenging career starting and growing a still very small business. you realize from this plateau that money is really not as important as you hoped it would (could) be. yes, it is necessary. but it is not beautiful and inspiring and able to cause such lucid reflection on how life is and how it should be. it's just money.

it's a coffee tasting exercise. nothing more. not much less. but this day it helps peel back the veil between the plain material world we trudge through daily and the magical, spiritual and effervescent life that tingles and shines just behind that material mask if we only use the right eyes to see it.

teaspresso?

2008-05-28T12:10:00.003-05:00

if you went to the scaa show this year you may have seen this. i'm a little late to the game, having been scooped by others already. but i found this interesting in a detached sort of way. kind of like watching someone who is really, really in need of a leg up in life as they struggle down the sidewalk with too much stuff in their arms. your eyes have to just keep watching, though your heart is not big enough to actually go help because you know you will just end up having to carry their stuff for two miles and then they're gonna ask you to get all involved in their lifestuff and it'll just get too messy.

horrid i am.

but that's kind of how i always view tea stuff. just keep it at arms' length so you don't have to get too involved.

anyway, just watch and tell me what you, espresso freaks, think. [DISCLAIMER: the coffee press does not endorse the use of excessive sugars, sweeteners and general frou froueyness in drinks.] (hat tip: arizona coffee)

frozen wave

2008-05-23T14:24:00.003-05:00

i've been enduring one of those runs where i just can't seem to make myself a decent cup of coffee. it happens to the best of us at times, i know. it's been happening to me this week. cup after cup, morning after morning for the last week have just been...blah. roasts are good. greens are good. proportions and other fundamentals are good. i just can't seem to get it together. chemex. press. hario. aeropress. melitta pour over. no matter. it's just...off.

i'll get it together and have a great cup soon, i'm sure. just tossing that out there to the wind/ether.

have you ever had a frozen wave of mediocre cups by your own hand?

you can't fight city hall

2008-05-19T17:53:00.003-05:00

...or so the saying goes. i'm not sure the etymology of that saying, but the meaning is clearer to me these days in my long odyssey to become a law-abiding member of the san antonio business community.

mostly my frustrations come from what appears to me as a bunch of folks mired in thick bureaucracy of regulations and of mind. i guess you can get so stuck in a rut of how things have always been that it gets difficult to see past that.

the five regular readers of this blog are familiar with my journey to get my permits for our new roasterie. the good news is that we have not been asked to stop doing what we're (already) doing by the city until we come into compliance. the bad news is the list often seems to grow longer with each visit and concordant sign off by some city official, rather than shorter.

case in point: the health department. faithful readers of this blog will note some months back my complaint that caused me to have to spend $500 on a sink to wash a $5 scooping pitcher. another item on that list that the health department left with me that day was to have smooth drop ceiling tiles (i.e., impervious to moisture accumulation) over said sink area because of the possibility of moisture from the sink (that is used when i wash out that scoop once a week or whatever) creating mold spots overhead. no problem. some of the tiles in our place are actually already of the smooth variety of which they speak. i could simply trade out the ones over the sink and have done with it.

not so fast, say they of the department of health. when i arranged to have our final inspection with them, they (after two appointments, mind you, made by me and two no-shows, no-calls by them) said i need to replace ALL of the tiles overhead anywhere "food is being prepared," meaning basically over 3/4 of the roasterie. this is because, again, of the "moisture problem" as they were wont to call it. being the tightwad (and cynic) that i am, i naturally took it upon myself to gain some clarification from them as to exactly what moisture they considered to be a problem in a roasting business that has as one of its main necessities the consistent absence of excess moisture. i refrained from pointing out that the only real moisture in this place came from the item they insisted i purchase and install: the sink. further, i felt i needed some focus as to how moisture was such a problem in a roasting operation when roasters, by explicit design, are meant to eliminate what little moisture the food (in our case, coffee beans) have, on the way to a completely dry product. roasting, by definition, i explained, is the very process of going the opposite way of moist. "kind of like peanuts," i offered, which is more or less how i view my scenario, i explained, seeing how most of the time i feel as though i work for them (peanuts, that is). blank stare from behind glassy eyes. the inspector's sense of humor was about as dry as, well, about as dry as the atmosphere here in the roasterie, i guess. but no matter. off to the nearest home improvement store i would now have to go to buy the outrageously expensive, super-deluxe, ultra-dry, moisture fighting ceiling tiles. cha-ching. down the drain go a few hundred more bucks.

then the inspection wraps. the inspector writes up my to-do list (again with me getting the feeling of my list growing longer rather than shorter) and the bill at the bottom of the form to get my permits comes to an additional several hundred bucks. when i inquire as to the nature of these extra, unmentioned-until-now costs, the inspector blithely quipped, "oh, that's for your food permit."

me: [insert sound of needle screeching on vinyl] "my what?"

them: "your food permit...so you can serve coffee."

me: "er, but we...don't...serve 'coffee' here. we sell coffee beans here. no liquids."

them: "yes, but this is a coffeehouse and you'll need a food permit to serve coffee here."

me: "er, actually it's a coffee roasting company. we have no plans to serve any liquid coffee or any other foods at this place--only to roast coffee and sell whole bean coffee here."

them: "right. that's why you need a permit."

me: "why again?"

them: "because you're serving food."

me: [in my quiet but firm voice, trying to crack the syllogism] "ma'am, i'm not trying to be insolent here, but i just want to understand and to be understood. we're not actually serving food. we're selling food people take home to serve themselves. the whole reason you don't see any tables and chairs and local art on the walls and cups and lids, or hear jazz playing in the background and stuff like that is because, as per the state guidelines, whole bean coffee is not considered a food because you can't immediately consume it on the premises after purchase. we purposely are not a coffeehouse because we wanted to avoid these very detailed and unnecessary (and expensive) food inspections. however, i hear you saying that i need to get a food permit anyway despite what the state tells me, and honestly, that's a little bit perplexing to me because it seems to countermand the explicit state descriptions on what is and is not considered a food, let alone add an exceeding amount of frustration to my whole business planning process. we've been very purposeful in our plans and frankly all of this stuff turns it on its ear."

them: "well, sir, i can see your frustration and i'm sorry for that. but rules are rules. don't shoot the messenger. i'm just doing my job."

me: "i can see that. well, alright, hit me with the to-do list and the bill, i guess."

and that was that. you. can't. fight. city. hall.

i guess i'll head down there soon, pay for my permits, arrange to have my new space shuttle ceiling tiles inspected, and, whilst i'm there, invite everyone down there to come visit us and get a drink at the grand opening of our new coffeehouse. i mean, if you can't beat 'em...make lemonade [?] or some such saying like that.

post-it to self: you love coffee

2008-04-09T10:40:00.002-05:00

i'm not a caffeine addict. i drink and sell coffee for the love of it--for its taste and for its ability to floor me with beauty.

so it has been a difficult several days here with (what has come to be known as) the phoenix project and the attempt to maintain operations at their normal pace.

and in the frenzy i realized . . . i haven't had a cup of coffee in over three days. now seriously, i know what you may be thinking when i announce i'm not caffeine-enslaved: "DE-nial." but three days and no adverse effects and no, "gee, i'd like a cup of coffee"? proof positive, at least, that i was one distracted fellow.

and so this morning as i dusted off my chemex and went through my ritual steps for a morning coffee i began to realize my hiatus.

and the coffee . . . maybe it had been too long; but my cup was the sweetest, most insanely clear fruit i can recall having in, well, a long time. a great reminder of the sunshine coffee brings to the lives of so many. for the taste of it, not the drug of it. a great reminder of what it's really all about, what i got into this business for in the first place.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!", or, skyrocketing roasting profile comes to an abrupt and powdery end

2008-04-07T08:51:00.006-05:00

they say it happens to everyone, that there are only two kinds of roasters--those who have had a fire, and those who will.

last night at approximately 1900 hours we joined the ranks of the former group in what was a minor but still disappointing episode of pyrotechnics.

as the regular seven or eight readers of this blog know, we have been building a 20-25 lb capacity roaster for some months. said roaster has been in the roasterie for the last couple months getting some of her final tweaks and touch ups put in place. i have also been consuming the 300+ lbs of "practice greens" i had purchased some time ago in order to help break in the machine and to learn its mechanics at differing volumes of coffee, as well as to continue to troubleshoot certain areas during simulated live batch runs. (this practice coffee is not getting sold, or even tasted really. it's simply fodder for learning.) last night i was in the roasterie for a quiet night of more work on the machine when the meltdown occurred.

i won't bore you with all the gory details of what went wrong when and where. suffice it to say that our technical design, while a very good one, will continue to need some tightening and adjusting as the machine continues to "break in." i am thankful, though, that my nigh unto religious equipment cleaning and maintenance schedule--in that, "take care of the goose that lays the golden eggs" kind of way--has meant no crazy fires in odd nether regions of ducting, and i hope this is the worst it ever gets.

naturally, this all happens a week after my engineer has left for the summer.

meantime, last night was a mixture of disappointment, frustration and, in a strange sense, excitement at experiencing something i've never yet experienced. unlike many roaster fires i've heard of that happen very quickly and leave the roast-person in a state of flux as events unfold fast and furious, i was well aware of the potential for the fire from an early stage and was even able to observe it for a couple minutes before finally deciding to snuff it out when it became obvious it wouldn't simply expend itself. i was lucid, to wit, even wide-eyed at "my first fire" until i realized the fire probably was going to go on for a bit if i didn't intervene. enter...the fire extinguisher. (i hate that white powder. it seems like such a failure, even though, as in our case, a couple tiny bursts on the trigger really, really get the job done.) i have heard from other roasters that it isn't so much the fire--which in this case was completely contained in the burn chamber space below the drum and in no danger of spreading--as the ancillary damage the fire's excess heat begins to cause. this was true in our case as well and this morning's task is to disassemble the parts of the roaster that were affected by the heat last night and to observe firsthand what damage the heat did and, hopefully, repair and improve them.

roaster fire. check. done it. hopefully i can tick that off the list now for good as i now go in today to work on eliminating by design that flaw i knew was there but didn't know was there in that quantitative way.

blah, blah, blah. we had a fire at HQ last night. we're all safe and sound, but now we've got cleanup and fixin' to do.

guilt by association, or, "can i get a venti clover, please?"

2008-03-20T22:22:00.006-05:00

hard to quantify it exactly, but seeing this...

feels a little like the first time i saw this:
note the binders around his wrists.

let it ride

2008-03-12T22:26:00.002-05:00

just a quick post to say THANK YOU to all the people i know directly who have donated to the carlos and edwin garcia martin memorial fund through brown. so far you have donated close to $750 to help juana and her remaining family move through life without their husband, father, brother, son.

naturally, money does not make the world go round. and it can never keep the bed beside you warm, nor recreate the laugh of a high schooler. but thank the good Lord above that so many of you have given a little bit from your pocketbooks (something relatively easy for us rich nortenos to do) to smooth out some of the rocky roads ahead for this widow and family.

peace be on you.

post meeting

2008-02-28T22:04:00.014-06:00

there's been a lot of talk lately about the moves starbucks has been making since the re-succession to the throne of mr howard schultz. my friend-in-coffee sarah wrote a nice piece the other day about starbucks move to close its stores this week for three hours in order to retrain its employees ("partners") about the importance of good espresso beverage making technique.

after reading tonight over on the texas coffee people site a letter from "the inside" about the general contents of the meeting i got excited and began craving one of my favorite beverages from the siren while i was still working there: the double short cappuccino.

cast your mind. it's 9pm and your humble bloggerspondent finishes reading mr schultz's part about how the company has lost its focus by focusing too much on money, how the espresso is all-important and the three things every barista was going to promise to do to right the ship. customer is always right. check. espresso recalibrated to 19 seconds. okay, a definite move in the right direction. check. milk steamed to exacting standards to produce perfect microfoam every time, for each and every drink. check. i grabbed my keys and told my beautiful wife i'd be back. it was time for a little field experiment. what better time to try to get as good a drink as possible than in the immediate days after every north american starbucks store completely closed for three hours to focus on one thing and one thing only--the quality of their espresso beverages?

off to my nearest starbucks i went. as i approached the door and surveyed the static cling signage greeting my eyes i immediately felt the pangs of possible regret: on both doors was a cling displaying the words, "the neighborhood's best espresso." okay, maybe it was more eye-rollage than regret; but at any rate i figured that's what i was there to determine for myself, so in i went.

now, i have long been an advocate of the not-so-well-known-anymore cup size at starbucks known as "short." time was that the sizes went, "short," "tall" and "grande." along came "venti" (tm), and off went "short" from the menu. you could still get 'em if you asked. only you had to ask, and no one asks any questions at starbucks--probably out of fear that it might slow down the mile long line at 7:34am. still, those blessed eight ounces were often the exact size of liquid i was craving, especially when i was craving a morning cappuccino. since starbucks espresso is not really known for being interesting or even assertive aside from having a very bitey characteristic to it, i would most often buttress my short cappuccino to a double short to help at least bring the espresso to milk to foam ratio a little more into balance.

being the perfectionist that i was/am, when i was at the helm of my own starbucks store i trained and retrained my staff on the perfect way to create velvety microfoam; on the importance of steaming milk only to order; on how to free pour the perfect cappuccino, latte or mocha to within two one-hundredths of a pound by the scale every time; on the necessity of tasting the shots at least once per shift and recalibrating the espresso machine as needed to get a full 19 seconds from first visual out of each shot. (back then i had no idea about rich, sweet and intense espresso--i only knew the starbucks way, which was 13-17 seconds...which we promptly ignored to get a touch more umph out of our shots.)

my point with that last two paragraphs was to establish my own credworthiness on knowing what a starbucks double short cappuccino should look, smell and taste like.

so how did i fare on my trip down the street? in three words: not super well. i walked in, was greeted by two baristas laughing with each other about whatever inside joke they were both in on, waited about thirty seconds for them to stop joking and acknowledge my existence on this earth as a paying customer, and greeted the barista with my order: one double short cappuccino with milk steamed to 150F, please.

after another 10 seconds of laughing--i'm not sure whether at me or still toward this inside joke i came in on the fumes of--the barista rang up my beverage, still snickering, and handed my cup to the barista at the espresso machine.

this is where things really went south, for not only must this cappuccino probably now hold some sort of land speed record for quickest prep time, it was all-wrong on a number of levels. level one: the shots must've pulled about as long as it took barack obama to endorse president bush's doctrine of preemption in his debate the other day in ohio. level two: there was no steaming of milk. it had already happened. my guess is that when i asked for milk at 150F the barista on bar simply read the thermometer in the milk leftover from the previous drink and thought, "voila! this one will be easy. no work involved." no work, that is, if you exclude the work of actually scooping a heaping helping of milk foam with her spoon into my cup and handing it to me. level three: the look of the milk was just so wroooong. fish eyeballs. atlaspheres. whatever you want to call 'em, they were there in abundance on the top of my drink. huge bubbles that can only come from aerating milk to within an inch of its life. level four: the smell of the milk. argh! resteamed milk has its own unique smell. maybe it's reconstituted scaldation, but the burnt pudding aroma is not to be desired upon your worst enemy. and yet here i was, $3.24 (plus a $1 tip, i might add) lighter, having to endure this pain, this unbearable pain. and that was before i actually even took the first sip.

about that sip. i cannot here in the interest of keeping this a family-friendly blog describe the sensory experience that passed over my personhood as i got into my vehicle, removed the lid and took my first taste of this "cappuccino." even the thought of the thought is nigh unto unbearable. suffice it to say that the starbucks espresso profile has a mighty grip on what it means to be "deep roasted."

i'm not a complainer. i have never been able to get comfortable around the prospect of myself actually walking a drink back in, telling the barista the why's and werefore's of what's wrong with my drink and demanding another in its stead. i've always simply prefered to suck it up, upper lip stiffened, accepting the outcome whatever it may be as a learning experience. disappointed within myself, i thought i should at least give starbucks a second chance. ironically enough, i knew from experience that this company that has made its name on consistency would almost surely provide me with a diametrically different cappuccino experience in a store not but a few short miles away.

i was right. as i walked into the second store on my evening jaunt i was greeted not with exclusionary inside jeers but with a genuine smile and a courteous greeting. having been to both these stores on several occasions i knew that this second store, while being a little more friendly, was often inferior in production quality. and since every problem is a management problem, i chalked it up to the district manager's decision to stock this second store with a less-experienced, less customer service savvy manager, someone who could fill the post in a sort of starter role as he/she gained experience before being moved into a higher volume, higher profile store, such as the first store i visited. well, somebody forgot to inform me that the managers at these two stores must have either a) switched places, or b) switched skill levels; because the second store had hustling baristas who took my order speedily and took care to obviously follow the standards outlined in the meeting they had just had.

as an aside, i thought it a nice touch that the second store had chosen for its coffee of the day board design to write in bold letters, "OUR PROMISE: TO MAKE YOUR DRINK PERFECTLY OR TO REMAKE IT UNTIL YOU TELL US IT'S RIGHT." the board was then signed by the dozen or so baristas that worked there. bravo.

so i ordered my drink, a double tall cappuccino with milk steamed to 150F. the barista kindly acknowledged my drink and attempted to finish quickly the last bit of espresso machine maintenance he was absorbed with when i approached the counter before getting on with my drink. no problem. he was already in the middle of it, i thought. seconds later he asked me, "you said double tall, right?" no, i politely corrected: double short. no problem quoth he and went to wash out the milk pitcher. again he stopped to ask me a question, "milk to 150, right?" yup, i nodded, and off he went. carefully he steamed the milk, creating the appealing whisper of milk as it is first aerated, then submerged to finish steaming. with a careful eye on his milk thermometer, he turned off the steam wand at precisely the right temperature, perfect for immediate consumption. next was time for shots. 13 seconds from first visual. not so great. had he not been paying attention to that part of the meeting? no, in actuality, he had, for no sooner did the shots finish than he dumped those shots, rinsed the shot glasses and tried again. this time, 17 seconds. still not as long as i would've liked but survivable, especially considering all else thus far in this second store had been most pleasant. i even noticed the conspicuous absence of the "neighborhood's best espresso" stickers on the doors. surely they must've just not arrived yet at this store. after all, this is standardizationstarbucks.

the verdict on the second drink? much, much better. a world of improvement in visuals, olfactoryness and in the overall atmosphere of the store. and then came the clincher. when it came time to pay the barista actually just shook his head slightly, waved his hand in a sort of half-stop manner and said, "don't worry about it. i asked you way too many questions about your drink. i should've been paying better attention to you as a customer." what?!? what was this? i was taken aback. the look on my face must've surely been one of shock and awe. i was...genuinely surprised and delighted by the actions of this barista. my only recourse was to dump the money i was going to use to pay for the drink directly into the tip jar. and even THEN i was pleasantly surprised as he said, "hey man, that's not really necessary. i appreciate it a lot. thanks." whoah.

at this point i had to say something. while i felt ridiculous about revealing details of my evening's field experiment i knew some sort of compliment was in order if for no other reason than to solidly accept and reinforce the good vibe i was getting from what so many now call the cold call of the sterile siren. i took one sip of my velvety foam and said to the barista, "i just have to say thank you. this is the best double short cappuccino i have received at a starbucks in a long time." he acknowledged the compliment, thanked me once more and bade me farewell for the evening. as i began to turn for the door the only other thing i could muster in praise went something like, "looks like the little meeting worked, eh" and immediately upon the sound leaving my vocal cords i had almost wished it hadn't been uttered for fear of sounding condescending. yet to my surprise my hirsute compliment was met with a gracious and genuine smile and a, "you bet. thanks again for coming in. have a great night, sir." wow. surprise and delight is back in business at big green.

back in the vehicle i now had my two cappuccinos side by side to compare and, well, let's just say that once i got a really good drink of my second cappuccino, not even the amazing vibe and perfect milk foam was enough to overcome the vampire bite of such dark roasted espresso, leading me back to the maxim that a house is only as sturdy as its foundation. as both drinks cooled to about the same level on my drive back home, i could scarcely tell the difference between the first and second, save for the lingering remnants of the first drink's scalded milk peeking out from the shriekingly bitter double shots of espresso i called for. alas, this was starbucks after all, i reminded myself. and while i did catch a glimpse of the former days of the old gray mare's now faded coffee and customer service glory, it was as fleeting as, well, probably as fleeting as was the espresso's crema itself.

in conclusion i would have to say that although mr schultz is to be highly commended for his demonstrative retaking of the reigns into a radically public and different direction than his company has been earning its recent reputation for, starbucks will have to be equally singular about pursuing quality roasting profiles to go along with the other changes. simply lengthening the shot times is not going to cut it, although cut through my mouth with their bitterness they did--right to the gums. barring a radical change in actual espresso taste, no amount of training or retraining is going to get me back into the doors of a starbucks again, no matter how nice the barista is. and it's certainly no enticement back through the doors for the three minute, lingering inside joke sneers i would almost certainly have at least a 50/50 chance of enduring at any starbucks within driving distance.

field experiment now complete, i walked in the door, climbed the stairs and glided into the room where my wife was to have her opportunity for drink inspection. the differences in drinks were obvious upon the first eyeballing: the first drink was still visibly marred with globe bubbles while the second still had remnants of what was once glorious microfoam. [see drinks pics above, in order of appearance.] she nodded her approval of the second's foam. and then...the sip. it was like reading the directions on a shampoo bottle. view. smell. sip. find disappointment in the espresso. repeat.

repeat.

repeat.

and repeat a million times tomorrow and every day hereafter for big green.

i guess somehow despite all the store closings and promises made to make changes for the better, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Memorial Fund for Carlos and Edwin Martin

2008-02-25T18:29:00.003-06:00

In the wake of the tragic loss of life of Carlos and his son Edwin (see post below), this blog would ask you to consider making a secure online donation via PayPal over at Edwin Martinez' blog site. Or simply click here.

I would sincerely ask you to consider making a stretch and donating something maybe beyond what you might normally give. If for you that was $5, please consider donating $10. If it was $20, please think of giving $35. Even though some of the Martin children are grown, Carlos' widow Juana still has a lot of mouths to feed and clothe.

Anyway, please consider giving out of the abundance of your heart to help in this time of loss and grief and need.

Sleep. Sleep Tonight.

2008-02-19T21:55:00.015-06:00

if you've ever been to my friend edwin's family's coffee farm, you will surely remember the farm's patriarch of a manager, carlos. a wizened and wily veteran of years spent managing a coffee farm, he was as humble a presence at the dinner table as any man could be who had forgotten way more than everyone else around him would ever know about coffee.

father of twelve, he now leaves his wife a widow mother of eleven, for he (age 47) and his second oldest child (age 16) were killed a few days ago by roadside bandits. the two were traveling back up the valley from the city to the coffee farm with supplies for an upcoming church mission trip the farm would be hosting. they also had payroll with them, which in that part of remote guatemala during harvest season means cash and lots of it. a wise manager will stagger pay days randomly during the harvest to help protect the just-paid workers from coordinated attacks by bandits. it is logical to assume that this strategy was being employed by carlos as well, which makes the seeming randomness of the event all the more maddening. in those remote valleys, on those empty, rugged switchback roads the crime of opportunity simply must have been too good to pass up: the two lives that stood in the way but bumps in the road to whatever vices lay ahead for the perpetrators.

and so the lives of these two gentle souls were taken for the passing and corrupting thrill of the love of money, the root of all evil. we are all the poorer for it.

Rest in peace, brothers. Though most reading this may never have met you, and others--myself included--only briefly knew you, your lives connected with ours and we are the worse for your loss. Sleep. Sleep tonight. And may your dreams be realized.

similar similarities

2008-02-11T23:53:00.000-06:00

i'm struck by how similar the three phenomena of maillard, strecker and caramelization are. read the wikis and it is clear that the whole thing is, well, not really all that clear, especially as it pertains to something like coffee.

the long and short of it for me are to try to take advantage of maillard--the chemical reaction between proteins (amino acids) and reducing sugars--while not falling prey to caramelization. doing some controlled experiments with strecker would be not only fun but groundbreaking; and i suspect there are a few roasters who already intrinsically understand the implications of strecker. but i've yet to see anyone publish anything useful for peer-review. maybe jaime will chime in here...

because i keep a pretty light hand at the roaster there is rarely a scenario where the oxidation of sugars is an issue. but at least it's good enough to have read the material as a talisman against placing myself in such a dire scenario.

i mention these things because jacinto is finalized: a (somewhat prototypical) espresso that is snappy, sweet and clean--and that teases the perceptions of caramelites everywhere. i guess macchiatto espressos are nothing new. but this one was meant for not much more than macchiatto milk in order to see it at its best. straight shots of it are even better, insofar as "better" can mean "challenging" and even "bedeviling" if it's not done right. jacinto is not really--maybe--even a commercial or commercial type espresso, meaning, it may never be offered to the general public. it wasn't really even created for mass production. as i think about it, i think i created it mostly to change my own opinions of espresso--even though i say aloud that it is meant to "change people's opinions of espresso," a statement that, while pointing the finger at others, realizes there are three pointing back at myself.

i sent some to a friend and he enjoyed it. maybe you'll get that chance one day, too.

covering the $495 spread

2008-01-27T23:07:00.000-06:00

been an interesting week. monday was a holiday but tuesday marked the day inspectors for our new roasterie would start descending on our humble operational headquarters. in all, there were six division inspectors who would need to give their john hancocks saying we were good to go: building, mechanical, health (food), fire, electrical and plumbing. no problems, i figured. i'm sure we won't be 100% in the clear; but we should have at least enough stuff done to merit at least a provisional okay. plus, i'm articulate enough to snow my way through the rest of what we may lack. and that's pretty much how it went down. but not before long stretches of boredom and doubt. everyone was supposed to show up on tuesday. but oh yeah, these are bureaucrats. nothing happens on time or according to plan. and we pay them several hundred dollars for the privilege.

first, let me say that inspectors are worse than the cable guy. we always thought the four hour window of arrival the cable guy gave was bad. these inspectors say you have to be there between 7:45am-4:30pm. no clue when they might arrive. and you'd better be there. if you are gone for a quick lunch and they show...toast. if they arrive before you in the morning, God help you. and calling them is no help because they never return their voicemails. now, normally all this wouldn't be so bad. i have stuff to roast and ship and there's still plenty more to arrange in our new space. except for the bottom sentence on the envelope they give you to hold all your inspection paperwork which reads: "It is unlawful to occupy the premises until all inspections have been cleared." i got really hung up on the meaning of the word "occupy." did that mean we couldn't have any of our stuff in there, even if it was practically all in piles (which it was)? did it mean we just couldn't be up and running, making money at what we do? could i fire up the roaster and service my wholesale accounts? would the smell of roasted coffee tip them off that we had already jumped the gun? what would my lie, er, excuse be for the smell? would they believe that the place had already been freshly painted before i got in there? i decided to keep everything in a sort of working funk, stuff piled in corners or under other junk that i knew i could use but that looked, to the casual, non-coffee-industry observer, just like a pile of stuff. functional disarray, i called it. if we jumped the gun, or looked as though we were jumping the gun, no soap. back to square one.

i was really concerned about this issue and worried they would find my level of moved-inness to be illegal, thus voiding my application and sending me to said square one. i was worried, alright...that is, until the first inspector showed up. six hours into my wait, mind you. his visit took all of four minutes and was a breezy pass. my first one down. after that i could breathe a little easier, having suddenly remembered an age-old truism: bureaucrats simply don't give a hoot. they don't care whether or in what stage i am "occupying" the premises. honestly, i doubt half of them cared at all whether i called for inspections or not.

at the end of day one i had three inspections down and three to go. electric gave me a provisional green light, granted i got some minor stuff switched around. the building inspector literally spent all of 45 seconds in the place, asked what other inspectors had already shown up, said, "you're looking good here," and signed off. it was the final visit of the day that got me a little riled. the mechanical division inspector showed up, made a bee line toward the vertical ventilation stack for the roaster(s) and began rubbing his thumb and index fingers on his chin in that quizzical way. after about 30 seconds of that he said only, "um, no." to which i said, "um, no, what, sir?" to which he said, "where did you get this?"

me: i built it.
he: you did?
me: well, yeah. me and my father in law.
he: how?
me: well, with this 4" and 8" double wall ducting, those braces holding the ducting to the rafters, that aluminum tape, that flashing and those screws holding said flashing to the roof and the rain guard up top of it."
he: how does it work?
me: (i explain some of the technical aspects of the roasting and ventilation process)
he: um, no.
me: um, no, what, sir?
he: well, you gotta have a licensed and bonded contractor build that for you.
me: why? it works. why should i pay someone else to do what i can do for free?
he: where are the specs?
me: what specs?
he: the specs from the roaster.
me: what specs from the roaster?
he: the specs telling you how to build this thing. i can't sign off on this unless i see the roaster manufacturer's specs saying this layout isn't gonna burn the whole building down.
me: no disrespect sir, but isn't that the fire marshal's call?
he: well, i still need the okay from the roaster manufacturer.
me: i...don't think the roaster manufacturer is in the business of doing ventilation specs. they do roasters, not ventilation systems.
he: i can't pass this, then.
me: then what am i supposed to do?
he: get the specs from the roaster saying it's okay to build it this way.
me: um....er, well, would it help you if i just turn on the roaster and show you how it works?
he: no.
me: well then can i just call my roaster manufacturer now and get him on the phone so he can tell you we're okay?
he: no. i need to see the specs.

...and so it went for another couple minutes of back and forth. city bureaucrats. cannot see beyond the specs. no forest for the trees. seriously. stop to think for a minute and take a look at it and realize that it is probably the best darned built, most solid thing you've seen all day, dude. and realize that you probably see a bunch of crap-built stuff by so very many "licensed and bonded contractors." and stop once more to realize that all you really need to do is step out of the theoretical world of covering your a** and step into the world of a) turn it on; b) examine whether it does what we say it does and c) it poses no threat to anyone/anything because it's very simple, basic and safe technology; and you'll be just fine. but no. he needs. to see. the specs. now...i realize that this is for my own protection and whatnot, yada yada yada. but seriously. what is it that is so magical about having to pay a contractor? you will only pay more and have it done less well and then have to pay them again in six months to fix what they only should've done right the first time.

anyways, after day one we were 2-1. that evening (after bureaucrats go home for the day) i spent the next four hours roasting and bagging and got home after a 21 hour day. the next day, nobody showed up. i got up after 4 hours of sleep, sped over there to arrive on time...and waited the whole freaking day while NO ONE showed. doing nothing but watching dvd's on the computer, trying to "not occupy" the building, reading a book, listening to some new demo's from questions in dialect's summer release, doing a touch of textual analysis on the fascinatingly complex theological syllogism that is Romans 1-3 (it's in the Bible), eating leftover saltines because i was too scared to leave for lunch lest i miss someone, and so forth. wasted day on the inspections front. (if the shoe had been on the other foot and i had made them wait there...!)

thursday morning came the fire marshal. another two minute visit. another clear pass. why hadn't the mechanical division guy given his approval so easily, i asked the marshal? he couldn't tell me. suggested i appeal to his supervisor. i said i would. he said he'd come back in a few weeks to buy some coffee. i said he could have a bag on me. he began to get a scared look on his face. i realized he thought i might have been offering him a bribe. i told him to come back and pay full price when i was "occupying" the building. plumbing division inspector also came thursday. another quick green light.

all that remained was the health department. after three calls and voicemails to their department on wednesday and thursday and no reply, i could only assume they would show on friday.

and so they did. late on friday. as in, i was almost leaving for the weekend. and i received disappointing news. the long and short of it is that they expect me to pay $500 for a sink to wash a single $5 piece of equipment once every other week or so. no rats were dancing in the rafters. no cockroaches were squirming in the beans. the place was spotless and we were in tip top shape (that is, for someone who wasn't actually occupying anything). all except for the stainless steel scoop i measure beans with. not to code. filthy. full of disease and pestilence and every malodorous thing imaginable. at least that's how the inspector made me feel. in fact, the scoop is shiny and clean and has not a trace of dirt on it. and yet i will be required to purchase a full-on heavy duty commercial sink so that this scoop can be washed, then rinsed, then sanitized and put back into production. $500 for $5. sounds like a bureaucrat at work. no forest seen for the trees.

now, let it not be thought that i am anti clean or anti sinks. and in fact the sink is on our budgeted list of purchase items. only not for a couple months down the line when we actually begin to serve things using utensils and whatnot that require washing, rinsing and sanitizing, i.e, things that people will use to directly consume food. not this stainless steel scoop that will scoop beans that will then be roasted to well over twice the temperature required to kill any bacteria in any food item on the planet.

alas. if you want to dance with the pretty girls you have to dance with the ugly ones first.

it's true. moving into a new place will always cost you more and take longer than you think. even if you think about it taking longer and costing more than you originally thought. and in the final analysis none of this is a deal breaker or will be much more than a couple speed bumps on the road to a successful new plateau for brown. but it's fun (yes, fun in its own wretched, not-making-sense way) and you learn from it and become better. for now, though, i just want the green light to actually "occupy" the building so i don't have to be roasting in the dead of night.

try not to burn the place down

2008-01-10T22:45:00.000-06:00

so we're rolling.

today, more than many a recent day, i felt a surge of momentum carrying me forward on a number of fronts. a couple highlights include finally facing the prospect of having our floors deglued and ground smooth for sealing by the weekend; having our new t-shirts in stock and ready to roll out (they are cool and indie and very d.i.y.-ish); getting our ventilation and ducting ready at the roasterie for inspection; having some very interesting discussions on our local texas coffee boards about the structure of espresso blends and whether more or less beans may be "better;" and preparing to host some of our texas coffee pros for an afternoon of cupping, roasting and delicious margaritas afterward. just lots of cool stuff going on personally and professionally right now.

last night i was doing a couple test batches on the new ventilation stuff and i had quite a scare. all of a sudden the electrical outlet the roaster is connected to came to a screeching halt. with beans in it. hot. no electricity, no motor turning the drum. no roastie coffee, rightee? yeah. i don't have a long history of friendship with all things electrical--let us just say it all started when i shorted out all the lights on the back hallway of my junior high school one day on a dare...probably should've been killed by that stunt. and since it was pretty late at night and this is a new location for us and the roaster i wasn't too pleased to be seeing what i was seeing. after clearing out that ruined batch and resetting the breaker a bit later, i left the roasterie last night wondering how extensive the damage might be. well, night always gives way to day and upon inspection this morning it turns out there was a glitch in the roaster itself, not some systemic electrical deficiency in the building. should be easily enough solved.

and on we roll.

i just feel like we're heading into a good place. our first year was bone-crushingly difficult and slow as a business. last year i felt like i worked pretty hard to start building a little scratch here and there to somehow gain some momentum. not an unbeaten winning streak but just stringing together little wins at a time; then having streaks where you look back and have many more wins under your belt than losses for a given period. i ended the year thinking that this year would be a bigger year than we've had yet and so far those predictions are already proving true.
by nature i'm a pessimist about a good many things. doing something like moving into a new building and spending lots of my baby company's money on things like paint and glue-remover can seem hard to swallow. but when you meet people so quickly in your new place who begin to get very excited to see what you're doing and begin to open the doors of their resources and contacts to help you succeed at a greater level...that's inspiring.

we hope to have an open house in early february and i'd like to invite you all to come visit our new place and to see the stuff brown is becoming. we'll post up something here and what a treat it'd be to see you all here.

the good news is that this is not a blog just about my company. i'm also glad to see my own coffee growth as well. it is always key in a small company to grow ahead of the pace your company grows. otherwise you may be ill-equipped to lead it ere long. i'm always looking to grow; but i just feel like lately a renewal of all things coffee has come around for me and i've just reentered one of those plateaus where the discovery of coffee and coffee stuff is new again, fresh and invigorating. you know how that works? you sometimes just get to the place where it's dull, like you're not learning or spewing out anything new, where nothing exciting is happening. it's times like those when you start not only feeling dragged down but you start criticizing in your heart anyone who is showing any hmph to express something new and different. maybe that's just the perspective i had as the year closed out and i sat staring at batch after batch after endless batch tumbling in my little roaster, wondering if i would ever finally reach the next level, if all the blood, sweat and tears i had lost in this thing would pay off.

and as night turns to day, so december passes and january awakens me again to the possibilities of the new. it's amazing what positivism and determination can do for you. and it's true: the harder you work, the luckier you get.

i should be lucky this year. i will be. count on it.

come see us next month. watch this space for details.

2008 stuff

2007-12-30T21:44:00.000-06:00

yes, he still blogs.

no, he has not died.

yes, he still thinks about good blog topics and how to develop them.

no, he has not been ignoring you.

yes, 2008 will spell the return of the brown blogger in his new and improved, er, way. (don't know why especially it will be "new and improved" other than that we're always working to get better over at brown.)

anyways, i thought about a year in review but someone already beat me to it. then i thought about a top ten list but a certain other "across the ponder" stole the first punch. darn brits. so this entry will just be what i personally and professionally hope to see happen in 2008.

in no particular order...

i hope to expand my current roster of coffees that are purchased directly from the farm from about 20% to over 50%. baby steps, of course, and all that, but it's important to build that relationship. and since brown is building its volume it begins to make more sense to start talking in quantities that wouldn't just make farmers laugh. they may still laugh; just less.
getting this roasterie/warehouse/office/lab finished is key to expanding out operations. at this stage, barring inspection catastrophe or unforeseen obstacles, we should be finished with our refurb and have test fired big brown and have her ready to go into full production. this (setting up the new roaster) has taken longer than i had anticpated, primarily due to the fact that we are spitballing at best and have gotten to this point by sheer trial and error, without graphs or instruction manuals to guide us. no complaining. just it is what it is and we will lick this problem mid-january.
this is the year brown will become a member of the coe. i have no illusions brown will swoop in and steal a prized auction coffee that will shock the world. no, no. not my intent. basically we just want to put our money where our mouth is and since we finally are faced with the prospect of having some spare money...
i'll be traveling again in 2008. not sure where but i have my eye on el salvador and possibly even africa. but we'll see what pans out.
more stuff to buy. shirts. brewers. grinders. developing your market and so forth.

there's more to the story. maybe you haven't banished me from your feedreader and you'll stick around to see it unfold. 2

brownshirt

2007-12-25T00:14:00.000-06:00

email me if you want a homemade brown shirt. i cannot promise you a particular shirt color, ink color, or that i'll have your size. but hey, for $12 including s/h, what've you got to lose? plus, j.r. did his best to model these in his most american apparel-ish fashionisto stances.

brownshirt [AT] browncoffeeco [DOT] com

moving along

2007-12-11T23:28:00.000-06:00

oh dear Lord it's been a long time since i've updated this blog. in my defense, life here has been arriving fast and furious and we are in that three month period i predicted two months ago would be, well, fast and furious. the issues right now over at brown are mostly the bottleneck created by the volume of coffee needing to be roasted through our little tabletop roaster (affectionately known as 'little brown') as we await the final touches to be put on 'big brown.' when you have to roast so long so many days out to the week the fun of blogging just isn't.

but let's not dwell on the negative. the good news is we closed on our new roasterie/warehouse/lab across town and this week will see us making our big plans to renovate and build out to suit our needs. our needs aren't very elaborate right now, owing mostly to the fact that we are still a tiny company with a very focused market. but that space will help us take brown to the next level, both in terms of expanding our reach in our current markets (more volume to more customers) as well as to branch strategically into new areas (already we have begun our first toe dip into reselling allied products). and it will be refreshing to be back in a dedicated commercial storage space where trucks can pull up and deliver the goods, instead of me raking out the back two rows of the van and picking up pallets of coffee at the local freight terminals.

as i said, our plans are simple for our new space. we will store and roast beans there; keep retail and related wholesale inventory there (brewers, shirts, bags, boxes, etc.); i will office there; the kids will have a play/learning space there (my wife and i homeschool our children); and i will also build out a lab for espresso play and cupping with eventual regular public cuppings. while we will not be a retail space, we will likely have some dedicated display space and locals will be able to stop in and purchase whole beans and maybe talk a little coffee talk if i'm able.

here are some pics of the space (and the printerie that is behind our building) on my flickr site. you have to scroll through quite a few macro shots of old printing machines first before you get to the 'before' pictures of what the space currently looks like. just keep telling yourself, "these are the 'before' shots."

setback

2007-11-08T21:13:00.000-06:00

napolean had his elba. the americans had their anzio. set against that relief, the issues today with big brown probably don't merit me getting all down in the mouth. frustrating, for sure; but nothing to get defeatist about.

now that the big engineering and main fabrication is done all that is left is basically tweaking the tolerances so that our new homemade roaster acts predictably well every time. one area we've been spending a considerable amount of time on this week is the tolerances of the drum vis-a-vis the faceplates. when the faceplates were first installed they fit true to the rotation of the drum with less than 1/10th" gap on either side and on either top or bottom of the rotation. my father in law will tell you that, had he to do it over, he would've first cut the recirculation vents in the faceplates, then welded them to the bases to buttress the drum. doing it in the reverse order of that has caused, as best we can tell, the faceplates to bow ever so slightly as to rub ignominiously and irritatingly with every revolution. and metal on metal--argh!--ranks right up there with fingernails scratched down the chalkboard; or the "shing!" of a silver fork pulled out quickly from clenched teeth; or (perhaps worst of all) the sound of a barista's tamper banging the portafilter between tamps.

for the last two days, my intrepid father in law has been laboring under the assumption that some combination of tension and release between the rods that run from faceplate to faceplate was the answer to the swivel and swerve of the drum. but after no luck with that, this morning he arrived just after second-breakfast with a metal grinder and oversized grinder disk to shave slightly the edges of the drum. i had to roast and run errands for most of the first half of the day, but when i returned, there he was, still frustrated at the lack of progress even after all his maneuvers. add to that the smell of burning metal from the grinding and all was not going well today with our progress toward our larger roaster.

at this point perhaps it was my fresh perspective that must've (luckily, probably) recalled something we were discussing before he and my mother in law departed texas for a month. i suggested that perhaps the problem could be end-ran if we either a) loosened one or both of the bearings at either end of the shaft upon which the drum rotates, or b) loosened the collar on the shaft that resides between the faceplate(s) and the bearing(s) that constricts or frees the drum on the shaft to have some "walking room." after some trial and error down these twin paths we realized we were definitely on something resembling the right track, and with a few bumps of the rubber mallet on the backside pulley right at the shaft's end we were able to eliminate all but a paper thin revolving scrape of the drum on one corner of the front faceplate.

so, hands full of the smell of metal and minds full of the grime of unrealized ideas, we decided that to get to the place where all we had was a tiny shimmy that would either eventually run itself smooth during normal operations once we got up and running or that we could grind down the final infinitesimal extra bit another day was as good-a-progress as we were gonna' see today.

and so we left it.

that was perhaps--let us hope--the last major hurdle in this final set up phase. the rest from here appears to not be reliant upon such exactitudes.

from here? onward to our (still prospective) roasting space several miles away down toward the center of town. we made good progress earlier this week in our negotiations with the landlords and have verbally agreed to press forward exclusively in good faith. i hope one day to blog about carl and grace, the little couple who own that space and who are just the sweetest folk you would ever want to meet. in all honesty, they are a big reason we have decided to continue moving forward in exploring that space as our potential new world headquarters. the other is our desire to help build critical mass in an interesting and eclectic part of san antonio that is beginning to see economic and cultural revitalization. again, more on that stuff in a future blog post, should we close on that space: i'll post a sort of neighborhood primer for your late night blogreading.

enough for now though. thanks to you four who still read faithfully.

more to come.

fruit

2007-11-01T20:45:00.000-05:00

people talk about "fruit" all the time in reference to coffee. roasters and cuppers, especially, are particularly vocal offenders. as a retail coffee consumer it can understandably be daunting and a little bit intimidating hearing such nomenclature. to be sure, every area of study has its jargon but coffee descriptions can seem a touch over the top at times. and i seriously think that to be a good cupper is necessarily precluded by being a good vocabularist. with an alleged estimated 800+ identifiable flavor characteristics in coffees it's no wonder the two skill sets go hand in hand.

i know this because as both a roaster and a webtailer i am forever digging into the recesses of my tastebuds' memories for appropriate descriptor layovers for this new coffee or that. and while the bottom line is that in relation to good, clean fruit, good coffees have it and bad coffees don't, truthfully, there are layers upon layers of flavor complexities that the better coffees out there possess in spades. finding ways to capture lingually the essence of a substance that--quite literally--covers that very lingual muscle is an ever-elusive, ever-rewarding journey.

to that end, it makes imminent sense to your humble blogger that having a deep arsenal of "fruited" vocabulary can only come with an ongoing search for, well, more fruits to taste. real fruits. fruits you've tasted time and again (and can thus pull out when it's time to describe a coffee) and fruits you never knew existed. maybe that's the other layer to this onion of a scenario: maybe the reason a roaster or cupper begins to use the same fruit descriptors repeatedly is because he is only eating the same fruits repeatedly. over time, it becomes a little like the (old) adage that when the only tool you have in the toolbox is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

enough philosophizing. i've been buying weird, exotic fruits over the last several weeks with an eye (and a tongue) toward expanding my grasp of "fruit" as a coffee descriptor and refining my understanding of the sugar/sweet components in coffee--or, more appropriately, perhaps, how the brain perceives sweetness in coffee.

having access to a good produce market helps. dried up starfruit and bruised persimmons will never do. that's why--hate to say it, but--a place like austin-based whole foods is so helpful. they've been instrumental in this ad hoc learning journey of mine. not only do they stock a large assortment of traditional fruits, but they also bust out the fruits you've never even thought you've heard of hearing about. and let's not even get started on their extensive line of bulk dried fruits for everything from explosively sweet thompson flame raisins to curious acai and dried goji berries. (can't even begin to describe those. go. taste 'em for yourself.)

you're getting that the syllogism is simple: expand the base of knowledge your tastebuds have around the kinds of sugars that most prominently display themselves in fruits (of which coffee is one) and you'll likely be a more proficient cupper and thus able to identify more readily what is and is not a defect, overripe, etc. the goal is clear. it is to grow and mature as a coffee taster for the sake of unlocking ever more of coffee's myriad secrets. keeping sight of that goal each step will help the careful observer reference and categorize one's learnings into actionable thoughts and processes in the march toward greater coffee knowledge. couple that with a standard tool like the cupper's flavor wheel and you're arming yourself with knowledge at the cupping table that can help you better make those decisions of which coffees (if any) to buy and how best to market them after you buy them. it's both defensive and offensive in that sense. many wholesale dollars are riding on your decisions. many more potential retail dollars hang also in the balance. and between the two of those...you will be able to act with greater confidence as it pertains to sweetness and "fruit" in the cup.

everybody likes free stuff

2007-10-26T14:57:00.000-05:00

for those of you who still inexplicably think baseball is a sport played by scruffy fat men, eat this. taco bell announces prior to the world series that if and when any player on any team stole a base (a feat that requires skill, speed and agility) they would give a free taco to everyone in america on 30 october between 2-5p your local time. (presumably, folks who live near time zone lines can take double advantage of this offer.)

well, i'm here to announce that last night, in game 2's red sox victory, it was the wing-footed rookie, jacoby ellsbury, who stole a base, thus opening the door for everyone in america to claim that free taco. so eat up, america. and thank jacoby ellsbury when you do. (pic hat tip: boston dirt dogs)

still, i guess this might be a less expensive publicity stunt than the boston area furniture operation that told people back in march and april that if the sox won the world series this year, all purchase price of the furniture bought during that time would be refunded. in either case, whether eating junk fast food or loafing on your new couch, it's you (not the baseballers) who are lazy, slow and probably getting fatter by the moment--a probability enhanced by the fact that you sit around and read obscure coffee blogs.

p.s. the sox beat the rockies again, and are now up 2-0 in the best of seven series, with the venue now switching to denver for at least two more games.

pass the sugar

2007-10-23T19:59:00.000-05:00

i see it all the time. i saw it today. you taste coffee--supposedly good pedigree stuff--that tastes like it was stir-fried instead of roasted. quick and hot instead of done carefully like the slow food movement would dictate. seems people are going for cocoa and caramel instead of honey and fruit and are all up in a hurry to get there. and in their mad dash to the finish line they leave a lot of sweetness on the table. people want to attack density and moisture with fast heat, the end result of which is only a shadow, an outline, a facsimile of a glimpse of what that bean could tell you if you only took your time drying appropriately and finding a sane profile that actually made sense.

roasts may look even enough but the visual is not the only empirical tool the careful roaster has in his toolbox. sometimes it takes common sense, a sheet of paper and a trusty pencil. and common sense says taste what you've made and capture some notes and try to figure out if it's what you want, and if not, why not? i honestly think some roasters must never actually taste what comes out of their machines, or they don't know how to isolate the mistakes they've made, or don't have a clue how to defeat them. and i'm not saying i've achieved all wisdom and knowledge in this respect--cause the good Lord knows i've made just about every roasting misstep that can be made--but please, people. take some pride in what you put your name to. if it's crap, can you take it to decent? if it's decent, can you get it to pretty good? if it's pretty good can you step up your game and shoot for noteworthy? if it's solidly good can you force yourself through patience, practice and persistence to pull yourself up into the level approaching excellent the majority of the time? no one production roasting manually will roast perfectly one hundred percent of the time. life happens and simply gets in the way of that. but if you can consistently produce mediocre stuff at least try to consistently produce fine coffees roasted watchfully in a way that respects the labors of the good folks who toiled all year to get it into your hands.

try this one on for size when tooling with a new roast for profile (heh!):
people just seem bent on going for "roastiness" and forcing the sugars out of the equation, which only forces the customer to feel the need to add sugar after the fact.

anyways, just my thought/rant for the day

brown's first real, er, employee

2007-10-20T00:24:00.000-05:00

everyone, meet j.r.

he is Director of Awesomeness at brown. j.r. comes to us by way of last year's texas barista jam, whereupon he took it upon himself to come out from behind the counter of his then coffee job at ruta maya san antonio to join our festivities and quickly leave ruta in the dust, figuratively and in actuality (read: he actually got serious about coffee).

and now the news from him that he has recently hired himself as brown's southeastern u.s. rep at the currently going-on southeast regional barista competition.

so he calls me tonight and says, "man, have i been itching to talk to you for a few hours," then proceeds to tell me how he accidentally discovered--by awesomeness or luck, he wouldn't say--that said serbc was going on just a half mile from a little coffee place he had been meaning to visit for a while since moving to florida but was never really "in the neighborhood" (and i thought he was just politely putting me off when i suggested he might find decent espresso there).

anyways, he shows up at the serbc, schmoozes his way around, meeting coffee industry folks, trading stories and gathering information, all under the premise that he is, indeed, in the employ of brown. which is fine. i told him i'd probably have done the same. and it's fun to think he's leveraging brown so hard out there, getting in touch with farmers and other industry types. he represents well. so i promoted him from Awesomeness Intern all the way to head of the department.

oh, yes. he's also a closet republican. (he's ultimately too smart to buy all the current drivel and drone and no-actual-sound-argumentations that pass for liberal positions these days, which only reinforces the old adage that if you're not a liberal by the time you're twenty you have no heart; but if you're not a conservative by the time you're forty, well, you have no brain.)

now is the time

2007-10-11T10:23:00.001-05:00

i now this is a coffee blog. but those of you who know me know that i am a die-hard boston red sox fan and have been since boyhood. i can see the connection betwixt the two. coffee is a drug. baseball players use drugs to enhance their home-run hitting prowess.

anyway, i was tempted to post something here when they clinched a playoff spot earlier, then when that playoff spot was not just a back door wild card spot but the a.l. east division title (for the first time in--what?--13 years?). then i was going to post something when they finished with the best record in baseball, securing home-field advantage through the world series (should they get that far, and courtesy of the all-star game's outcome).
i waited and waited and now i can't/won't wait any longer because in the cleveland indians (the sox' opponent for the right to represent the american league in the world series) the sox are facing a mighty nemesis that actually matches up quite well with my beloved sox. first is pitching. sabathia and carmona are as good a one-two punch as any in the league and that will be a difficult proposition for the sox hitters. but on our side we have the indomitable josh beckett, who crushed the angels last series, then curt schilling, who has the best playoff stats of any pitcher, ever. and then the "fall-off guy" is daisuke matsuzaka, who, believe me, is no slouch.

in the batter's box we could go down the lineups but i just want to say that david ortiz and manny ramirez are both so locked in right now for the sox that i cannot see anything the indians put up there at the plate rivaling that. a month ago when we were crying foul at manny for waiting out his injury we should've been thanking him in advance for getting nice and healthy so he could c.r.u.s.h. the ball in his series against the angels. that walk-off homer he hit to end game two...i'm not sure it has actually landed yet. advantage: red sox.

and the bullpen. yes, you've got some guns in the cleveland pen. but look at the cannons in the sox pen in timlin, delcarmen, okajima (japan's other great export this year), gagne and papelbon and you'll realize the advantage boston has in keeping either a lead safe or keeping the other team from running away with it. in the end, however, i think the series goes to the sox because of those intangibles like heart and drive. sure, cleveland has that in spades--which is why they actually tied boston this year for best record in baseball (though the advantage goes to boston because of their 5-2 head to head regular season record versus cleveland). but all you need to do is watch carefully the likes of lowell, pedroia, crisp, youkilis and you will see that boston will not be denied a second trip to the dance in three years. and maybe, just maybe, their second world series ring as well.

but that's another post for another day. meantime, because this is an eastern time zone series, let's enjoy a great series with some great coffees. maybe next time i'll post about which sox player best correlates to which great coffee of the world.

words of wisdom

2007-10-09T21:59:00.000-05:00

sometimes people give you unsolicited advice that is basically worth little more than the hot air it took to expel the advice from the giver's oral cavity. other times the advice is spot on and worthy of all acceptance and you, under whatever circumstances you find yourself in at the time, are unable or unwilling to internalize that advice and profit from it.

and then there are the times when someone drops upon you a little nugget that is both accurate for your condition and timely and it falls on your ears like needed rain on dry land. such were the words i got the other day from a friend.

he said (as i paraphrase him): in the life cycle of every business, there comes a time when one of two things will happen. the first is that your business will exhaust its current client base and you will need an infusion of capital to capture a wider client base. this can seem both daunting and frustrating at once because it often seems like you're spending dollars to try to get more people to do the same thing--buy your product. the second scenario is the opposite. your current client are keeping you so busy that you cannot keep up your current production rate to satisfy their needs without a major infusion of capital to either upgrade your production capacity or hire a larger labor staff. again, a daunting and frustrating experience

i am in the latter space, currently. i'm living in the place where capacity is still not operational and current bankroll does not allow for a sufficient layout for more a needed boost in inventory. because of the addition of several key wholesale accounts i find my inventory depleting itself all too quickly and my little roaster running constantly to keep up. this is a good thing in my estimation, let me assure you. and when the paid invoices really get rolling this plateau i'm currently on will be but a learning experience, a significant turning point in the life of my business. thankfully, both of these issues (needing both larger roaster capacity and a boosted inventory) will seemingly be accounted for within the next 30 days. or so goes the plan.

and so meanwhile it's peck, peck, peck all day long, and pondering the sage advice that called this one loud and clear. now all that's left is the doing of it.

have you seen this place?

2007-10-01T23:52:00.001-05:00

i recently was pointed to a new coffee company that is turning a lot of heads by way of the star power they have in their lineup. by that i mean, star power as in people
(see pic, right) and star power as in coffees. so you might imagine i found it a little like seeing one's "stranger twin" in the grocery store looking through their coffee lineup looking eerily similar to mine. for one, it is a smallish lineup. nothing wrong with honing your sights on a few coffees that you know you can do well rather than trying to represent the whole world in a mediocre way. but a closer look reveals that not only are they carrying a focused roster of coffees, one of their five coffees is from the exact cooperative as i carry and another is from the exact farm. coincidence? i don't think so. i think someone over there in denmark has been secretly studying my strategy of finding great coffees to represent to the world and has tried to go public with a page from my very own playbook! no doubt a serious conspiracy is afoot. they have a coffee blog; i have a coffee blog. they like talking coffee with the great minds in coffee and so do i. word is, one klaus thompsen even considered going on that fabled trip to guatemala back in january...the very one i went on....hmmmmm. and now they have a new roaster just like me, too. i must dig deeper to reveal the dastardly layers of nefarious actions these crazed danes are willing to stoop to scoop the story on some fine coffees out from under my feet.

all kidding aside, i'd like to think that what this says is that great minds think alike (if that's what you can call mine!). and i'd also like to give a hat tip to klaus and friends with their new endeavor. i'm sure good things are in store for this crew. i'd say i'd like to get my hands on some of their coffees, but, um, right. at least maybe we'll meet one day in person. Lord knows we seem to have lots in common already. all except for the me not winning the world barista championship thing. oh, and the master's degrees and all that. and also probably the money thing. still, what does that matter between friends?

do check out the website and blog of the coffee collective and show them the love if you find yourself over on that side of the pond.

(photo hat tip: matt riddle via flickr)

couple more

2007-09-21T00:47:00.001-05:00

some final, quick pics before "big brown" arrives next week. remember, everything you have seen up to and including this point is completely homemade using regular off the shelf parts. Only a couple pieces of stainless steel were special ordered.

forgive the background with the starbucks coffee brewer. at least, to your right, you can see a well used french press. yes, the wood looks a bit bulky and awkward. yes, the amazing steelwork looks brilliant. we'll get it sorted out soon.

this is the cooling tray. i should say, it's the cooling tray 1.0, as it will no doubt be upgraded next month with an agitating arm(s) of some sort. yes, it is detached from the roaster (i.e., has its own separate fan apart from the airflow used on the roaster).

the part you're meant to see is that this arm lowers the screen of the cooling tray to dump beans into a separate holding bin after cooling.

next week she arrives. set up will be slow as we aren't in our roasterie yet. hopefully early november to be up and running.

upkeep

2007-09-18T17:59:00.000-05:00

those (four) of you who read this blog regularly know that i started in on a topic a month or so ago that i have yet to finish posting about. we were discussing the political, social, economic and quality ramifications of the various agencies and bureaucracies currently associated with the specialty coffee trade.

since that time an interesting thread has gotten going over on coffeed about fair trade pricing and all its attendant ramifications. in light of that educated discussion i'm going to bow out from completing my thoughts on it, as i have put my little hat in the ring over on that thread and don't want to be potentially talking out of turn.

in other news, the new roaster will be here shortly. in one week, to be exact. the last things to get done are the cooling tray, the trier and setting the rpm's correctly for the drum size. because we're basically short on time, my father-in-law is setting up a rudimentary but functional cooling system that will incorporate a regular box fan (separate from the roaster) and a lift type system to dump them into a bin once the beans are cooled. the trier will be fashioned out of stainless steel and will have a replaceable handle so i can use wood or something else in the future. i am seriously thinking about getting one of those custom reg barber triers seen at right (hat tip: geir oglend's flickr account).

the changeability of the cooler also highlights one of the great features of this roaster: it is easy to add, change, move and otherwise alter stuff on it in the future. tweaking will be a necessity, i'm sure. thank goodness it'll all be done under the watchful eye of my good ol' dad-in-law.

next item on the agenda: finalizing discussions on my new roasterie/warehouse. more on that soon (i hope).

rounding third

2007-09-07T17:35:00.000-05:00

we're almost round third base, heading for home. that, of course, is my father in law--the man responsible for cooking up the recipe i've concocted. thank goodness he knows what he's doing and how to put stuff together. this pic to the left is a view of the gas controls side panel and the pulleys that turn the drum inside the roaster. if the gas controls look familiar, say, kitchen-like-familiar, that's because they are formerly a part of a kitchen stove. with four burners arrayed like the top of a gas stove and a middle pipe-type burner running down the center of those, we should have the btu's to get 'er done right. natural gas, in case you're wondering.

speaking of the right, that's him again holding on the hopper and chute throat. on the drawing board the hopper's diameter seemed appropriate for our purposes. once it got sized up next to the actual roaster body, however, we both agreed that it is too tall, too thin. it may require a step stool to load manually, something i'm not too keen on doing, especially at near-capacity loads. but it's an easy fix for some future date and not a critical error. just fabricate a lower, wider one and voila!

today, i got this email from him that read:

Hi Aaron,
Just a quick note...You're looking, for the first time, through the sight glass of Big Brown. You're good to 1200 degrees F and have a 3 x 3' viewing area. The trier goes by the little tick mark just below it. -Dad

i think he went to the local fireplace shop to get that, since the other day he told me his son, my brother-in-law, had recently gotten some replacement glass for his fireplace there and it clicked that this would also serve our purposes. i would've probably also preferred the trier and sight glass to be on the left side as you face the front of the roaster, next to the gas controls. but now i think i might just be getting nitpicky. after all, my father-in-law did place the sight glass and trier at the exact heights i requested so i wouldn't have to stoop or tippy-toe up to see them, or have to hold my arm/shoulder in some ergonomically uncomfortable way for any period of time.

you can also see the drop door that will empty beans into the cooling tray. ah yes, the cooling tray. running into a spot of trouble there. the plan as it stands right now is to basically attach (possibly detachable) a box with a separate fan to the bottom of the chute area. time is a little low for us now, so that may be the running option and we can tweak or change it after it arrives. and about that e.t.a.? we're looking at just over two weeks now. unfortunately, i won't be roasting with it in two weeks, as I still need to find and sign for a new place to put her. but i've got a line on some places and the move in shouldn't be too big a wrinkle to iron out.

more later. just wanted to share some of my excitement.

has it really been almost a month?

2007-09-06T15:50:00.000-05:00

i'm getting pretty bad at blogging. maybe i blogged so much in the early days because i didn't have any real work to do. in any event, i just wanted to highlight an event i participated in a couple weeks ago that ties in with another project i've begun work on.

not long ago i took a trip up the road to austin to be part of the Texas Coffee Think Tank. the name sounds auspicious, but it was really just an informal gathering of texas coffee professionals designed to share experiences and encourage each other around coffee. i was asked to lead a cupping session for our inaugural meeting and afterward we would share lunch, beers and conversation around what we wanted the group to accomplish coffee-wise.

i thought about all the regular cupping sessions i've done in the past (geography as flavor, how roast affects flavor, cupping for defects, pre-ground versus fresh-ground, etc.) but since it was august i realized it was a golden opportunity to undertake a very special cupping.

some of you who have read here for a while know i am participating in a two year study with some colleagues that focuses on packaging and storing greens in ways that can possibly help maintain freshness better than traditional jute/burlap. with my friend jaime acting as catalyst we decided to vacuum pack several samples of fresh greens during our january/february '07 trip to guatemala. the idea was to separate vac-packed samples into room temp green samples and frozen green samples, and then every six months for two years we would open the corresponding samples from each storage method, roast them identically, cup them and capture any notes. jaime and i have both blogged about this before, so i won't rehash it all now. but i did notice in the run up to my meeting in austin that since it was now august (six months after returning from guatemala) it would be a golden opportunity to utilize the unbiased palates of the others at the meeting.

for the meeting's cupping i decided to try something a little different. it just so happens that i have greens from the same lot of the same farm in guatemala from '06 and '07, as well as the frozen samples from '07. so it was the nearly perfect apples to apples comparison i was looking for to determine the affects of time on greens. i say "nearly perfect" because both the '06 and '07 non-frozen have been carefully stored at room temperature, but the '07 non-frozen has actually also been rebagged out of jute and into plastic. and of course, the '07 frozen has been removed from jute, vac-packed and frozen immediately upon my return home at a constant zero degrees fahrenheit. close enough for government work, i guess.

anyways, visually, the greens were easily identifiable. the '06 had a pallid color relative to the solid jade of the '07 non-frozen. but the frozen '07 looked so much richer jade than even the non-frozen '07 that it almost looked as though they were different beans altogether. the roasted aroma of both whole bean and ground was almost a dead giveaway. and finally, of course, the tasting was the real test. no surprises...the frozen sample ran away with it. unbelievably fresh, fruited and sweet with a high degree of jasmine-citrus aromatics and fragrance.

now, typically i'm a big fan of blind cupping; and normally i would have conducted this session blindly as well. but i felt it was more important to make it known which was which for the purposes of level-setting everyone's palate to what fresh tastes like. did i tip the jury? i really don't think so. half the group had to ask me which was which anyways because they were busy talking among themselves as i was explaining. but they were asking which was which because when they got to the frozen sample they were blown away and were only asking to confirm what their tongues were telling them.

the rest of the meeting was productive and fun. john from jp's java (the founder of the group and our host for the day) made lasagna for everyone and supplied the beer. some great ideas were borne from the meeting and everyone looks forward to september's get together at austin java, where we are trying to get a screening of the movie black gold. eventually brown will host a meeting, if and when we get our roasterie built here.

oh and by the way, the purpose of the frozen greens experiment is not to get everyone to freeze their greens (although that was a clear winning argument from our first cupping). the purpose is to open the conversation about moving away from storing in jute/burlap by giving viable alternatives. i do have some '07 crop from that farm that is being purposely kept in jute to run against our frozen samples a little later in the year and into next.

on its way

2007-08-09T23:28:00.000-05:00

part two of my pseudo political drama blogpost is on its way soon...

meantime, i wanted to make mention of one of my new favorite blogs. not new in the sense that they're new; new in the sense that i had the good fortune of discovering them. "discovering them" as in, they ordered some coffee from me and were kind enough to post a not too harsh critique on their site.

the blog is called coffee and conversation and believe me, this is one of the more thoroughly researched blogs around. they aren't hacks like me; they actually do some homework instead of tossing around opinions. for starters (after reading the brown review, of course!), check out this fascinating and in-depth discussion of what it takes to be called "shade grown" and/or "bird friendly" according to two well-respected organizations: the rainforest allliance and the smithsonian migratory bird center.

anyway, just giving props and thanks to c & c for their shout out toward brown.

also, in a completely unrelated point, if you're not currently using an aggregator, may i suggest netvibes.

gutsy

2007-08-06T10:13:00.000-05:00

i said a couple posts below that i had nothing new to add to the wbc signals being pumped out across the blogosphere already. while that may be true, i did have a thought that i considered worthy of extrapolation, and that is how gutsy a move it is and how cross current it is for a barista like james hoffman to capture the title of world's best barista by seemingly going in the opposite direction of where the competition as a whole is going.

i guess here's what i mean. watching all the great video posted on zacharyzachary showed the wholesale complexification of the event into the next realm of true culinary events. now, for sure, there is still a long road ahead before the general field is producing performances that are anywhere food network worthy. but it was evident to this blogger that the sheer volume of participants and the overall level of seriousness and skill at which most of the participants competed shows that this competition is ready to take those next steps into acceptance and respect as a true global culinary event. (the fact that we may actually be 3-5 years (or more) away from those kinds of accolades and acceptance is not my point here. there seemed to be a tangible shift upward in the level of competition as a whole this year, which says to me that the event is gaining critical mass.)

therefore, with the level of complexity and sophistication moving generally upward it is mildly but pleasingly surprising to recognize jim as the world's best vis-a-vis the fact that he seemed to consciously go the opposite direction of this general complexification by winning it all with two single-origin coffees.

what i'm not saying is that jim is not deserving of it or hasn't the skills of anyone else. clearly not. what i'm saying--and loudly applauding--is the brilliance of his statement that simple is better, especially when it comes to espresso.

now, who knows but that this fact of simplicity wasn't merely a quick decision based on the fact that jim and company didn't want to have to blend anything, were too low on time to work up a good blend, or that they simply got access to those two coffees first and just decided to run with them for better or worse. etcetera. nonetheless, the move was gutsy and that it succeeded i think justifies their decision (and my long held belief) that striking coffees deserve a platform of their own. better that than blending them, however skillfully, into a symphony of other flavors. i respect that move but it is not a path i like to take.

so hats off to jim. you've reopened a vital conversation vein that is worthy of serious contemplation.

governmental, pseudo/wannabe-governmental, free market enterprise and the business of guilt assuagion

2007-08-05T13:06:00.000-05:00

[this is part one of two (or three?) in a discussion of how certain segments of the coffee industry operate and whether those operations are ultimately viable, relevant and good for coffee and the people who grow and consume it. it is NOT a technical white paper. it is my opinion; and i invite comments, questions and discussion.]

PART ONE: NAMING NAMES
i seem to have the same conversations over and over again. someone i know (or barely know) finds out i'm "the coffee guy" and almost the first question out of their mouth is, "so, you like all that fair trade stuff?"

i've blogged about this many times before; but something i've been thinking about has me blogging about it again. from a macro view, the whole fair trade question is really a question of which engine the majority of people think can most efficiently and effectively assuage their guilt when it comes to the question of first world westerners consuming goods produced solely by third worlders. as i contemplate the many, many moving parts of this question you can see the political arguments coming into play as well and the argument loses its coffee personality and eventually simply becomes a subject matter argued in exactly the same way as, say, healthcare or global warming or taxes or military spending or foreign aid...and on and on.

the question evolves (devolves!) into who do people believe can best execute the solution to tackle problem x, where x happens to be global wage inequities vis-a-vis coffee. it seems there are several candidates for the role of 'alleviating wage inequities' (which, to my mind, is really just codespeak for 'blotting out my rich, western consumer guilt') and bringing poor, helpless tropical farmers into the circle of comfort we in the northern hemisphere enjoy. the players: governments, pseudo/wannabe/para-governmental organizations/departments/bureaucracies and private (read: free market) enterprises.

our first candidate, governments, are easily enough defined and understood. by them i mean actual departments or segments of a sovereign government's actual budget that regulate, influence or otherwise attempt to control the prices of commodoties, goods and/or services. these can be tangible or intangible, bananas or pension funds, if you will. i include the auspices of the united nations in this first group because, even though they are a supergovernmental body, they overwhelmingly tend toward that strain of socialistic paternalism i'm considering in this post.

second are the clutch of players who are not governmental in actuality but who may work in tandem with sovereign national governments, or who present an air of governmental heaviness and officialness with their proclamations and certifications. i think of organizations like oxfam, trans-fair, quality assurance international, and the like, who certify whether, for example, big, rich, western multinational corporations are not taking advantage of small, poor outfits and individuals in developing nations of the world. their work is important and they have a place at the table of the macro-economic table of commodities movements. however, it should be noted that none of the players mentioned in this group or in the first group above make any claims toward issuing their certifications and edicts with regard to actual product quality (i.e., they don't measure taste). they are simply political/economical entities.

finally there are players in the market who are not governmentally associated or sponsored, who, relative to the first two groups, don't get involved in the politics of the situation(s) and whose primary focus is on quality and the appropriate recompense for quality. they are groups such as the cup of excellence program, utz kapeh, many of the online auctions such as the best of panama, and systems such as starbucks c.a.f.e. practices.

none of this is new territory. it has been more articulately laid out by brighter minds than mine. but in this first part i wanted to bring a new perspective of definition as to who ultimately is behind the entities controlling the fate of coffee producers and what the beliefs and stakes are for each.

in a sentence, it comes down to whether an entity believes that a government (or the semi-official proclamations of semi-governmental organizations) are best suited to regulate a product like coffee or is it best left in the hands of the free market.

in the next installment, i will attempt to lay out why governmental bureacracies and their softer n.g.o. siblings are ill-equipped to help the masses of smallholders come out of poverty (if that is even their goal) and produce quality, desired products such as great coffee. in short, why politics makes for a bitter brew.

here's to that day

2007-08-03T01:25:00.000-05:00

first off, a big congrats to james hoffmann of the u.k. for winning the title of world's best barista. hats off to king james. look at his winning perfomance (and that of almost all of the other 44 contestants, here.

other than that, i have zero original thoughts to add to the groundswell of opinions already being posted around the net with regard to the recently completed wbc and/or barista competitions in general, other than to say that it is always inspiring to be reminded, as i was while watching some of those clips, to recognize that there are some really passionate and cool coffee people out there. there are so many more of you out there that i have yet to connect with and just hope for the day we'll get to hang out over beers, without the need to feel we have to impress one another, and just...talk coffee. i had a glimpse and a taste of that a couple weeks ago in boston (see snippet below).

here's to that day for more of that.

back from boston

2007-07-27T01:07:00.000-05:00

no time to work out all the details just now. but my trip to boston was reinvigorating and refreshing and challenging and tiring (in a good way) and full, full of serious coffee considerations. what would you expect from the boys of barismo? seriously, more soon. i'm shot, though. i'm heading to dream about what a real shot of northern italian from george should taste like. meantime, you can head over to my flickr site to view the boston pics.

several trips in one, part three

2007-07-13T13:07:00.000-05:00

this is the final post in the series recapping my recent ventures. it's mostly an update on the ongoing project i'm undertaking in building a roaster. since my father in law is the hands on expert with his engineering background and know-how, and since he summers in indiana and i live in texas, it's important for me to check in regularly and see how the project is progressing and help answer as many questions as possible as we're (he's) building the thing we come up with.

so it was a great chance to visit the roaster to be at the tail end of our trip and see what's up first hand. included are some pics of the
progress.

since most of the stuff for the roaster are either displaced, disused or otherwise raw materiel, the cost thus far has been negligible. absolutely nothing yet has been special ordered, including the steel for the drum and chaff cyclone (that will soon change), and is being constructed of "junk" parts: a used gas stove; a thrown out fan; a rotisserie motor; etc. thank you, mostly, purdue university junkyard!
this will not be a roaster that wins any awards for aesthetics. sure, it will have some shiny parts on the outside. but anyone who notices that the external housing for a chaff collector, for example, is a used beer keg, or used gas stove burners, will get the idea of what we're going for here: functionality over beauty.

a lot of this stuff has been compiled doing basic internet research. thank you google. i have not been able to get a hold of actual roaster diagrams, which would help us immensely (if anyone has them in pdf, that would be amazingly cool). and some bits and pieces may or may not have actual uses when it's all said and done--an electronic "sequencer" that can execute multiple commands based on certain pre-set parameters (perhaps can be tied to temp sensors and sequenced to aid in pre-heating and cool down operations); or pieces of metal sheeting that may/may not be used as baffles to differently distribute heat from the burners.

as i mentioned, the need for special order materials will be showing up soon and that's where the (relative) expense will come in. but even still, when i look at the costs of having a roaster built by, say, a roaster building company, i am making out like a bandit in terms of costs saved. the good news about that is that normally one could say, "you get what you pay for" as far as building something so technically precise out of junkyard parts. as i've mentioned in previous posts, though, my father in law more than makes up for that otherwise deficiency with his technical and mechanical expertise. i am supremely confident in his ability to execute in the shop the plan we hatch on the drawing board.

obviously, there is still a ton more work ahead than is behind. but the broad skeleton is forming nicely and i am told the meat on the bones and the final touches will be done by late september/early october. and i can't wait.

thanks to everyone who has contributed opinions/wish-list items so far. keep the suggestions coming and again, if you have actual technical manuals you wouldn't mind forwarding to me, feel free.

thus, having spent a day and a half in the shop going over what has been done so far and talking about where to go from here, i left indiana comfortable in the knowledge that brown will soon have a very cool piece of home-cooked equipment that will look none-too-appealing, but will definitely pull its weight technically and volume wise. i arrived back in san antonio having taken a whilrwind trip through lots of coffee events and returned all the richer for it and ready to keep building this tiny, fledgling coffee company into its next stages and beyond.

several trips in one, part two

2007-07-09T12:10:00.000-05:00

we left tulsa later than scheduled because your humble blogger was busily engaged behind the la marzocco gb/5 at kokoa's second store, tracking pseudo-scientifically three separate profiles for the custom espresso brown created for kokoa. x seconds pre-infusion; y temperature. taste and make some notes. b seconds pre-infusion; c temperature. more notes and on the fly empirical comparisons. d seconds pre-infusion; e temperature. collate information and run the three again, only this time in reverse order, just for flow and to trick our palates a bit.

there sat my wife and two beautiful children patiently as we pulled shots after shots and compared notes, the manager and i, on what we liked at how many grams and so forth. this is critical work to be done and i feel extremely fortunate to have the chance to sort through it all in person as, again, i live eight hours to the south and don't figure to be able to just pop up to tulsa from san antonio at the drop of a hat.

anyways, we zeroed in on what we thought was an appropriate profile sequence and off i went with my amazing family to st. louis and the as-yet-to-be-determined rendezvous point where my in-laws would be meeting us to take my better half and our offspring the rest of the way up to lafayette, indiana. i, on the other hand, had a pick up of my own to make at the st. louis airport. my friend was flying in from california that afternoon and together he and i were to drive due north to what is my annual pilgrimage of amazing music and the fantastically rich depth of culture that is the life of faith in Christ (a life most outside observers simply have no inkling about) known as cornerstone festival. say what you will about a "christian music festival." but if scoffing is your agenda then you have no hope of grasping the breadth and width of what an event like this means to the ritual and tradition of a life freed from the cares and concerns of this world.

i digress. the highlights of the week at cornerstone were hanging with our friends and brothers from one of my favorite bands, questions in dialect, who played a simply mind-blowing set in front of hundreds of eager listeners. we sold a lot of merch, took lots of fun pics and had an all around great week seeing more bands than i can even recall right now. (credential and brave new world are two newer labels putting out some interesting bands, just as a quick tip...)

anyways, cstone wrapped up on saturday night with some sweet screamo and hardcore on the main stage from the likes of august burns red, emery, norma jean and underoath
but by early sunday morning my friend sean and i had said our goodbyes and were heading up to the windy city to meet my lovely wife for a day trip around town before heading back down to lafayette that night. unfortunately, we were famished by the time we arrived in chicago. fortunately, the taste of chicago was going on and we soon found ourselves surrounded by southern barbecue ribs, cuban pork sandwiches, indian mango chutneys, new york chocolate cheesecakes and of course, tons of deep dish chicago-style pizza. we ate until we couldn't hardly see straight. but i had other venues on my mind...

so we headed north just a few blocks on foot, past the ridiculatrons on the street with their embarrassingly derivative and shallow honk-for-peace protest posters with lazy analogies such as bushitler, america as terrorists and that stupidly uninformed number of 655,000 iraqis dead since the start of the war. normally i would relish in the opportunity to set morons like this straight about such misinformation/disinformation; but as i said before, i had other venues on my mind.

intelligentsia operates a sweet little place just a couple blocks off millenium park. of course, all the hype an operation such as this generates means my expectations were sky high. their reputation is held in such high regard by people who are held in high regard, so i was naturally eager to see for myself whether the reality lived up to the online buzz.

in a word, it didn't. it so clearly surpassed my expectations and hopes that i was filled with renewed vigor and enthusiasm for what i do in my own little corner of the coffee world. it is so rare to walk into a venue and see just about every detail of excellence being executed dead red on the money: from dosing, distributing, tamping and pulling great shots of black cat to extracting a delectably complex cup of anjilanaka, direct trade organic bolivia on the clover that, from their online descriptions, i couldn't decipher whether it was the big lot or the micro-lot. nonetheless, it was nearly flawless. here's what i got from it: very citrusy and crisp with good fruit like golden raisins and lime peels that dried up like the parting of the red sea in the leave. sounds macro. and i mean crisp, defined finish line that was licking-the-inside-of-a-walnut-shell dry. (i don't mean that as a negative description; it was super good and complex and took a quality turn i don't normally experience...always a plus in my book.) my friend and wife both noticed those same characteristics on their own (my wife cups better than me!) and so based on the predominantly crisp and clean profile we were experiencing, and based on the paltry $2.65/cup price tag, i'm gonna hazard that it was the macro lot and not the micro lot. anyone know for sure? in all, after a small clover cup and a double ristretto for me, a double for sean and an iced latte for my wife our overall first impression of this intelligentsia branch was one of solid praise and nary a negative to be spoken. well, one negative, i guess. i understand that there is an upstairs at this location (?) and i would have loved to spend some extra time over another clover cup and soak up that atmosphere as well. but we had a good vantage point downstairs where we were of what should be agreed upon as truly one of the best operations in america today. hats off to them for a fine display of operational excellence.

more later on chicago and the rest of the trip in the next and final episode, part three: building the roaster from scratch.

going, going

2007-07-07T13:21:00.000-05:00

fvh shirts are going pretty quickly. if you want one you should act soon.

several trips in one, part one

2007-07-05T08:21:00.000-05:00

what a whirlwind i have just returned from! it's very nice to be able to take a 'vacation' and have it tied largely to work (read: tax write off). i was fortunate enough to be able to do just that this past week as i traveled over 2500 miles on our federal interstate highway system across this great country of ours. this recap will not capture every detail of my trip; each of these segments of my trip do and may merit their own individual posts at some point in the future. but here's the first part of the trip: from san antonio to tulsa.

first up in our trip was dallas and the scrbc. this was held at the s.w. food expo and although it didn't get a lot of attention tucked away in the corner of the expo hall it was nonetheless a huge step forward in the emergence of texas baristaness as a viable player in the national scene. yes, it's true that we are still miles behind our comrades across the rest of the country. but my honest feel is that we posted loud and clear that we are ready to enter the same arena and learn and grow and make our own waves. congrats to patrick, clancy and jason for great presentations and for taking us to the next level. here's to many more levels in the very near future.

yes, in some ways this event had that slapped together feel. i feel this came as a result of the fact that we have never done/seen this type of thing before. but we'll get better and now that we've been there and done that you can be sure that that famous texas pride will not let us hang down in the "also ran" category for long. you have to give huge props to mike for putting in untold massive amounts of time to make this event run as well as it did. simply massive.

i left dallas even before the final round was completed and winners announced because we had to be in tulsa that evening for an event that would highlight the entire trip for me. i was set to visit one of my newer wholesale clients, kokoa chocolatier, and be their guest for a monthly dinner event they host. normally, kokoa is a chocolatier serving full plated desserts in the evening and a lite food menu for lunch. twice a month on consecutive days, however, they host a full-on dinner that pairs foods with wines and chocolates and yes, even coffees. i had faint idea what i was getting myself into as i stepped into the store, having only personally met the manager for the first time just minutes earlier. but as i sat down and looked over the eight course meal it began to hit me and the thought became louder and louder in my head: this is a good match for brown. (hate to say it in print, but) sometimes as a wholesaler you sell to people because you need volume and cash. sometimes, as in this case, however, you realize you really do have a good match. kokoa is a great example of that. they are quality driven, aesthetically concerned for all their products, they care highly about service and they love their customers. i sat through my eight course, $135-a-head meal and just spun. my head spun. my spirit spun. i knew this was right and good and worth growing a serious relationship with this client. especially when the last course was presented: a plate of freshly prepared cream, small chocolate brownie wedges, freshly sliced strawberries and shortbread cookies, presented cleanly on a plate and paired with the private house blend kokoa and brown have collaborated on. the dessert course was simple and phenomenal and paired perfectly with the coffee.

and of course, it helped cement the match (and really boosted my ego) as some of the dinner guests approached me and said they were big fans of my coffee. it is a very surreal experience to introduce yourself to someone(s) and have them say, "oh we know who you are, aaron!" it is perhaps even more divine to visit a client who is distance-prohibitive and see all the coffee pieces working together flawlessly in nearly the exact way you would do it yourself.

next time you're in tulsa, oklahoma, make sure you visit them at one of their two locations.

part two will discuss the next leg of the trip including a visit to a coffee retailer using a clover. i also hope to expound on some of the ramifications of this trip for brown as a business as a result of this trip and these experiences.

new stuff rules

2007-06-21T11:47:00.001-05:00

picked up my 2007 crop of fvh today. very pleased to have that in hand. also, shirts are on their way! pre-order stuff will be up on my main coffee site very shortly. super excited for these. i say pre-order because, as mentioned below, i'll be on vacation and not be roasting/delivering shirts until i get back in july.

road trip

2007-06-21T11:21:00.001-05:00

so it's that time of year again, the time when people get itching to get out on the road and go somewhere, do something. i'm not impervious to that bug so off i go. the fun thing of it is that much of my 'vacation' will actually be work (coffee) related.

early next week i'll be in dallas spectating at the scrbc. i really had hoped to be able to help in some capacity--as a judge, volunteer or some such. but my wife's work schedule precluded that. we'll be heading farther north from dallas so we all needed to have the same schedule in place. anyways, i'm very much looking forward to seeing the competition because of what it means for the continued building of our fledgling coffee community here in texas. many people have the misnotion that because we are geographically isolated coffee-wise that we are somehow less passionate about coffee and coffee culture. the fact is there are some very passionate people in this state whose only trouble with being a regular part of such a vibrant coffee culture is the fact that it can take literally a full day driving just to get from one good cafe to another. we're talking el paso actually being closer to los angeles than it is to houston. size does matter but that won't stop us from growing as a vibrant outpost of coffee culture.

i'm taking pics and submitting a little report on the event to barista magazine, so keep your eyes peeled for that in the next issue.

anyways, immediately after dallas--and i mean very much immediately, as in, i may be running out the door as they announce the scrbc winners--we'll be driving up to tulsa to visit with one of my clients for a special chocolate/food/wine/coffee dinner event. i'm stoked about that, as i'm told these events are very cutting edge regarding pairing the aforementioned types of foods. the next morning i may lead a quick, small cupping with the staff there--they are a chocolatier/restaurant at one location and they have a full coffee house as a second location. or we'll just spend some time working on their GB/5 and tweaking my espresso for their machine. i'm excited to spend some time working behind their bar to optimize the parameters for the espresso i've created for them. they've given me some outstanding feedback on it so far and i guess it'll just be cool to see it from their perspective.

by 10 a.m. we have to be leaving tulsa to be in st. louis by around 3 p.m. where we will pick up my friend at the airport and drop off my wife and kids with her parents who are are from indiana and are meeting us there to take them to indiana for a few days. my friend sean and i will be heading a couple hours north to cornerstone festival (we go every year) for a few days of too much music and maybe too little good coffee. sunday we both head over to indiana to spend a couple days with my in-laws and for me specifically, to get a first hand update on how the new roaster project is progressing. (by the way, the beer keg i referenced a couple posts ago is being used as housing for the chaff collector. cool!) i'll try to take some pics of that as well and keep everyone updated on that. i'm pumped about that, of course.

after that it's drive home with everyone. we'll drop off sean in austin on the way home, where his company has a satellite office, and then we'll continue on the 80 miles down the road to good old san antonio. home sweet home again.

we'll talk soon. wish us well.

we knew you when...

2007-06-14T00:34:00.000-05:00

tomorrow will be a good day. it is a big day for my friends at finca vista hermosa as they participate in their first cup of excellence. we are praying for a huge day for them in particular and, of course, for the continued push upward of super-premium coffee into the consciousness of the consuming public from a commodified morning necessity--basically, the coffee-as-fuel ethos--to something truly special, cared about and paid for based on quality, not gimmicks or hype.

we are praying for the advent of quality as the sole qualifier of price. and, guatemala being among the best of the centrals in cup quality year over year, we keep our fingers crossed to see huge gains in prices paid for quality tomorrow at auction.

am i rambling? maybe. i guess i'm mostly just nervously excited for my friends and want them to do well and gain more fans. it's the same way when you discover a great uberunderground band and want everyone to know you knew them way, way before all others by sporting their t-shirt. i feel a little this way about fvh and am insanely proud to have my name associated with fvh, if even on such a tiny scale as brown is able to produce.

whatever. go fvh! we knew you when...

progress

2007-06-06T15:45:00.000-05:00

a quick update on the build-a-roaster project. as mentioned previously, i am watching far away on the sidelines (read: out of the way) as my father-in-law helps build a roaster we are designing from not-necessarily industry specific parts.

though the project has been a little slow ramping it is beginning to steam forward a little bit, as many of the basic parts are being compiled. below is a picture of said father-in-law unit, with the unit, such as it is today...

says he:

I just got the stove [the other] day and you can see the burner assembly at the bottom center of the picture. Everything is coming up 30”. The box below will be the cabinet for the drum drive, blower, gas regulator and controls, and the tan colored sheet metal (center with insulation on it) is the inner lining of the drum housing. The drum is 20” in diameter and looks like it will be about 27” long to fit the housing. The stainless steel keg (below with the electric motor setting on it) will be the cyclone machine. You won’t see the keg because it will have insulation on it. I am going to recycle part of the hot air through it and don’t want to lose the heat. Not shown are a set of stainless steel legs that will support the s.s. cooling tray on the side.

so that's what we know for now. i mentioned to him how somehow figuring out a way to keep the keg showing would do worlds for my popularity. but i guess i'll have to submit my sense of fashion to the crushing needs of necessity. somewhere, a college kid's dream is dying.

in other news, i recently lost my warehouse space i was storing greens. our little pantry at home is paying the price right now, as is our ministorage space. our not-so-very-much-climate-controlled ministorage space. so someone is on the hot prowl for new storage and delivery space. i think we found it, downtown san antonio. and yes, climate will be controlled. so we should be back in business in a couple three weeks on that.

more soon.

oh my

2007-05-29T23:53:00.000-05:00

did you see this? at a cool $130/lb GREEN (probably in the neighborhood of $200/lb landed), what do you suppose the retailers will charge for this? and how much of it do you suppose they'll really play with to determine proper profiles? especially if you only got one bag of it.

i guess my thought is that now that the gesha has proved itself three years running, will we continue to see the gold rush to plant gesha all over the world as has already begun to happen? or, in the vein of latter day coffee explorers such as novo's brodsky, will people step up, show some creative moxy and get out there to look for the estimated hundreds (!) of as yet unknown african cultivars still undiscovered?

sadly, i think i know the answer. yes, i've had the esmeralda. yes, it is indeed almost physically and viscerally stunning. but i'm just afraid, as with most other things of this nature, that people will simply try to waltz down the winning path laid down by someone else, coffee's version of a bad pop song duked over a thousand times along the same tired old formulas.

fvh!

2007-05-24T00:14:00.000-05:00

for those of you who follow the cup of excellence program, you'll understand what a big deal it is for my friends down at finca vista hermosa to score a number 8 ranking in the upcoming auction. to get chosen alone is a huge distinction. to crack the top ten...well, that's just downright sick. i noticed also that the 2006 winner, el injerto, ranked 6th.

best of luck to the martinez family as they take their farm to the next level. scoring a beautiful 87.53 at an international level is a huge accomplishment for this great farm and group of people i have come to love.

in related news, this crop represents the 50th anniversary harvest and, if the coe auction is any indication, it will be a very special one indeed. to help fvh celebrate, brown has been finalizing some commemorative t-shirts that not only will look cool on your back but will go for a good cause. when our shipment arrives we intend to offer the coffee and t-shirt as a fundraising gift pack to help fvh in their local sustainability efforts. keep your eyes peeled for the finalized details on that.

there are a lot of storylines and strands weaving through this post. i guess the other to toss into the mix here is how edwin and fvh are to be commended not only on their commitment to quality and sustainability, but to innovation and hairbrained innovation. the frozen greens project comes to mind. the gps/gis project with tristan comes to mind. and the sheep, my goodness, the sheep! there are more to come. hats off to a class act in the industry i am proud to be associated with. i'm gushing like a schoolgirl. i should stop. but three cheers to greatness in the cup.

scratch

2007-05-06T22:38:00.000-05:00

i've gone a little back and forth on whether this post is blog worthy. but since it's been a while since i've posted regularly i figure this might be the impetus to do so.

i'm building a roaster from scratch. well, i should say i'm having it built and we'll be using a lot of parts that are more or less off the shelf. my father in law, a now retired aeronautical engineer and i got to talking a few months back(as i was telling him how i'll be outgrowing my baby roaster by year's end) about the physics of roasters and it got us to thinking about how basically simple the design of roasters are. tolerances. that's the big issue. sure, anyone can put together a washing machine on stilts and call it a roaster. but creating something to such precise tolerances as to have utter control over a vast range of subtle control issues without wasting energy and doing possible detriment to the beans and their fragile needs is the trick. that's the trick.

i guess it's important (to me, anyway) to say that the reason for this approach to upgrading my roasting capacity is driven completely by economics. i am growing brown organically without any bank loans or big infusions of cash. it's literally a shoestring operation that's growing by fits and starts into something stable. basically, i don't have the multi-thousands of dollars in the pot to go out and buy a roaster. so we're collecting and compiling in order to make it happen on our own. the old saying: if it's going to be it's up to me.

so, off we go. i say "we" in the royal we sense. it's really him. he's collecting raw materials and he'll be the one going to the university's machine fabrication shop where he still has the connections to let him build and bend at will to fabricate this thing to my desires. heck, he's not even here in texas. he's up in indiana (purdue university is his playground for this). let me just say that the amount of "stuff" that gets tossed from major american universities such as purdue--perfectly good stuff, the kinds of things that are ideal as the raw materials necessary for this project--is jaw dropping. and good for me.

estimated time of arrival: very early autumn when my father and mother-in-law return south for the texas winter. if my volume projections are correct for my growing wholesale and web retail sales, it'll be none too soon. i'll go from a 5 1/2 lb capacity electric table "beginner's roaster" to a 20-ish lb gas roaster. it may still be a beginner's roaster in the sense that this will essentially even still be a prototype. we'll get this thing up and running, find out what works and what we don't like and make tweaks as we go. eventually "we" may be building yet another roaster from scratch with what we learned went wrong with this one.

so that's the long and short of it. i am taking suggestions from you dear readers (all six of you) on a sort of wish list of things you would absolutely have to have if you could have your pick of bells and whistles and, more importantly, totally essential components. so...fire away.

no news is bad news

2007-05-02T12:08:00.000-05:00

getting new coffees is overwhelmingly fun, interesting and a little nervewracking.

this being the time of year to buy stuff (new crops coming online and all) i am giddy like a child at christmas as i visit my storage warehouse, get some samples and go roast them up to compare to the pre-shipment samples. it's always cool to compare notes with my earlier samples sent.

today i cupped three sample roasts of three coffees i just received: one each from mexico, java and sumatra. and despite the java and sumatra being close geographically (though obviously not process-wise), it would take some doing to find three more different flavor profiles at the table than these.

but the big deal here with this post is the huge difference fresh greens make. by the time it's time to reorder new crops the stuff you have left is getting a little long in the tooth. it's still good stuff; it just doesn't pop crisply. it's like those times when you've got a radio with a mute button that actually doesn't completely mute the sounds. you can still hear some of the tune faintly playing. well, maybe it's not that muted; but that's how coffees get over time. the other main thing you notice is the distinct lack of the now-famed cheerios effect. better quality beans account for this, of course, but also the freshness of the beans themselves is evident in the cup and especially at the cooler temps. no cheerios means more acidity, which i notice fades over time, even in climate controlled situations.

the almost translucent jade green of these beans is also a very happy-making thing. you can stick your nose in the bag when you first cut it open and practically smell the trees. or at least the mill.

those of you who know my business story know that this is the first year really that i'm in a position to buy with the seasons and let me just tell you what a huge difference it makes.

maybe i'll keep some of these back and freeze them right away. they can't be more than a couple months off the trees.

two surprises

2007-04-23T09:15:00.000-05:00

i know. shut up.

through one of those quirky twists of fate, i was uber fortunate enough to have been the accidental recipient of two very different but very cool coffees. long story about the winding road of the u.s. postal service, taiwanese characters and confused identities. suffice it to say that the two coffees, one a 20% kona blend supposedly designed for espresso and the other a very cinnamon-ey ethiopia idido misty valley, were both right on the money in their respective ways.

a brief word about the two. i didn't formally cup the 20% kona (yet) but i tried it from the overcup pourover at cone filter auto drip grind level and 195F water. very slight agitation and just under a two minute dwell time created a smokey (it was roasted oily dark) but intensely sweet concoction. as in, i was wide eyed at the clarity of sweetness achieved from such a dark roast. was not put through the paces on an espresso machine; but i'd be insanely curious to see those results.

second up was the ethiopia idido misty valley. some quickfire thoughts: unusual coloration of the roast. very light; very uniform; very surprising for what (i assume) is a d.p. coffee. a tribute to fastidious pre and post roast sorting? i cupped a line of six of these in a row and found unrivaled uniformity in every cup. no sign of off or renegade defects in isolated cups. it was radically cool. another stunning thing was the clarity these cups had almost immediately. i typically expect and see clarification coming about a third of the way down the tasting cup as the liquid cools. these were straightaway clear as a bell. and also unusually and delightfully "backward." what i mean is that a typical cupping session might consist of coffees that sweeten as they cool, displaying molasses, honey and the deeper sweetnesses as the temperatures drop. this coffee was sweet from the get go with (i hate to use the tired description of) strawberries, butter/cream and jasmine. only as it cooled did the sweetness tarten out a bit into a faint hint of lemon, lemongrass, cedar or, OR! lime in that sweettart way. lemon is too strong a citrus. lime fits the bill for this much better. this coffee surprised me. the hot water smell was raisins and plums. the break showed that cedar/lemongrass sweet tart streak and the first slurps were mild strawberries and cream. strawberries and cream? it was very buttery/creamy, i say. and even now, thirty minutes after, what a pleasant leave. it still tastes like strawberry shortcake piled with sweet cream. i scored it a 91.

i guess that's what no defects and a light roast put to superior coffee will do for you.

i need more info on this coffee? is this bagersh? is it indeed d.p.? if so, how many fingers were ground down to the nubs to sort this coffee? i applaud simon (the aforementioned taiwanese source) for his tireless efforts at clarity through exhaustive de-defecting. superb job. superbness shows in the cup.

merch

2007-03-20T22:07:00.000-05:00

anyone interested in a brown t-shirt?
i'm getting some set up over at cafe press with some basic designs. here's a couple examples. pretty soon i'm going to be getting a bunch of them done by a screen printer with some other rad designs. let me know if you want one or visit my cafepress store. yes, that's supposed to be a coffee stain on the jersey to your left.

these are basically test runs to see if anyone is even interested in them. in a couple months brown will be releasing a special, limited run t-shirt commemorating the arrival of edwin's finca vista hermosa '07 crop...their 50th anniversary crop! so keep your eyes peeled for that. one shirt. one farm. one name. pretty simple, really. don't you think?

coopetition

2007-03-19T10:21:00.000-05:00

so i'm thinking of this word and what it means, could mean, in the world of coffee. i think of a couple roasters (most of whom are far and away larger, more established business than me) and i think there are some prime opportunities for us to collaborate. sure, we are "competitors" in the ethereal sense that we are both competing for the same types of dollars though probably not the same actual customers. but geography being what it is i find myself drawn to the idea of working with some of my direct/indirect competitors--fish of about the same size in our little pond--to further our mutual cause of presenting excellence in coffee to our customers. (these, by the way, are not to be confused with the general coffee consuming public; they are not our customers, in my opinion. i'm refering to people who can appreciate differences and finer distinctions in the world of coffee and have preferences against things like supermarket shelf shopping for coffee.)

anyways, i guess the center of this vacuous post is to say that, in the name of our goals i am very comfortable "coopeting" with others like myself. many, sadly, are too territorial to enter into such arrangements, to their loss, i think. but there are so many more benefits to be realized through coopetition than through mere direct competition. the frozen greens project is a prime example.

just a thought. anyone who has collaboration/coopetition ideas, you can always count me in as a willing participant.

btw, i'm not posting about the frozen greens project to toot our horn about the project. i couldn't care less about the "fame" aspect of it. i think it's a fascinating project to undertake and i'm happy to learn where it may lead, and definitely could not have undertaken it alone. coopetition.

defecting, part two

2007-03-10T21:28:00.000-06:00

inspired by actual events, your humble blogger has decided to sort a random pound of coffee for defects, roast the defectless batch against a regular, other batch and cup the results. defects were culled using the scaa's defects poster as a guide.

so far the defect picking has been completed and here are the results. there were 72 defects in all, with the most common (38) defect being partial sours. the second most populous group were chipped, broken or partial beans (17), followed by peaberries (10). the rest comprised an amalgamation of the other cat 2 defects such as partial insect bites (1) and (very) partial black bean (2). the rest were unclear as to which category they neatly fit into, as their defectiveness was minor at best and displayed the markings of at least two defects on the list.

in all, there were no death knell defects to be found in the sample pound and this made me quite pleased. not that i expected to see any from this source whatsoever. only that it confirmed the presence of good beans. using the system for adding the defects, however, gave me a total of 12 full defects, which is 4 more than should be seen for premium grade and seven more than for specialty grade.

if i can get this camera in line with the macro lens i'll try for some up closes of the defects.
i'll also mention that in this randomly sampled pound i did not count beans with silverskin on them, something the scca poster indicates as a sign of immature or unripe beans. i didn't count these as defects because i have a pretty good foundation for believing that this source of beans is not picking immature or unripe beans, and because i rarely have any quakers in my batches of this coffee. i'm not sure what causes the silverskin to stay on--a sign of fermenting/drying practices that need to be tightened? i would venture that it's not a dry mill issue, as the beans are already at their necessary moisture content by that point. and i would assume it's not a pulping issue, as a pulper wouldn't remove silverskin anyway, the beans still being in pergomino. the only solution that seems left is fermentation tank/drying.

i digress. next post should be about the comparison cupping. maybe some defect pics.

ah yes, one more thing. while not on the scaa poster, technically a peaberry is a defect. i counted those ten in my defect total.

can defecting be apolitical?

2007-02-27T17:00:00.000-06:00

i'm in one of those weird temporal places just now. i don't know about you, but when i experience a very unusual thing like my trip to guatemala, it's sometimes hard for me to talk about it. i don't know why. maybe it stems from the fact that there's no way to adequately capture (or recapture) what i saw, smelled, heard, said, ate, touched, felt, etc. to try just makes me feel dumb and a little awkward. so, sorry for those of you who have been asking for updates. descriptors like "amazing" and "incredible" are so vapid and overused anyway.

also, i think i've come to a place where i've kind of decided to blog much less. the only reason for that would be that i spend too much time in front of a computer and not enough time living life that way. because i tend to put too much time and effort into my blog posts, rather than the quickfire posts so many other bloggers seem to be able to get away with successfully, i can justify my time spent on it less and less. i'm not going away. just maybe you'll see me much less around here. but we'll see.

anyways, i wanted to toss out an idea into the ether because it's been on my mind a lot lately and rather than chew it over with just me i figured i'd let the three of you who actually read this blog begin to discuss.

the idea is whether there is any such thing as completely defect free coffee? i ask this honestly without a solid opinion. knowing the little i know about growing, harvesting, processing and storing (and even roasting, since i, as a roaster, would categorize an improper roast as a defect of sorts) and what it takes and costs to eliminate defects such as sours, quakers, pest evidence, splitters and the like, and further knowing that even giving a lot one or two or maybe even three passes through the sorting equipment, you'll never be able to get them all out. i like jaime's offhanded comment about ordering the sorting monkeys to get to work de-defecting some greens. i like it because that's exactly what your brain would devolve to--the level of a monkey--if you had to sort defects 24/7. honestly, i don't know how those ladies at the conveyor belts at the mills do it without going postal after about four hours.

so given that, can we ever expect completely defect free coffee? even the coe lots are surely not 100% defect free. harking back to a post i did maybe a year ago about the harrar defect and defectless (or defect-LESS) cupping, i know i could've continued that experiments with even more and more and more sorting (although with the harrar there might be very little, if any, left!).

is there a market for it? is it just too ridiculously cost prohibitive to do? is it even desirable taste wise? could a roaster, for example, market the world's first 100% certified defect free coffee and command a premium? somehow i doubt it.

i could expand the argument, but i've made my point. i expect full participation on this one. let's talk it out and get the discussion going.

wow

2007-02-22T22:59:00.000-06:00

hi. i'm aaron. i blog here. at least i used to.

terribly sorry for the lack of updates. here's some stuff to tide you over until next month, when i may decide to blog again:

1. went to guatemala. had a smashing time. will go back one day for sure.

2. pics for guatemala are up on flickr. i think flickring has been my new blogging of late. (leave pithy comments. bloggers/flickrers love that.)

3. i've begun an experiment in coffee that will culminate two years from now. yes, i'm on the freezing train. more on this later, i'm sure. for now, the project is being laid out pretty scientifically with the hope of publishing a white paper of sorts down the road on freezing effects. comments, jeers, etc., are welcome. just be prepared for comments and jeers back.

4. finishing an article and a half for an upcoming barista magazine. excited for that.

5. trying to figure out darned google analytics for my website. anyone? bueller?

6. trying to figure out where on earth the coffee i sent to a pilot friend just arrived in afghanistan has gotten off to. we're at four weeks and counting.

7. always thinking of retail possibilities. send me money please, and i won't send you anything in return.

just one quick pic

2007-02-12T00:50:00.000-06:00

...to give you a picture of what's to come. i have a ton of pics from my recently concluded trip to guatemala, some of which are already up on my flickr account. this one is of yellow catui from the farm of el injerto, last year's cup of excellence winner for guatemala.

this one is at LEAST worth a thousand words

2007-01-24T12:42:00.000-06:00

repeatability is key repeatability is key

2007-01-21T15:28:00.000-06:00

so i was discussing on the new texas coffee people blog about a new coffee i received recently, honduras finca las canas, and was discussing the general roasting and cupping routine i observe when i receive a new coffee. my protocols for brown are not earth shattering or original and actually seem somewhat simplistic. but simple is beautiful and so often it is the functional arts that prepare the way for the fine arts. after all, the cistine chapel had to be built by calloused hands and bulging muscles before it could be adorned by meticulous fingers under a gimlet eye.

anyways, as i mentioned over there, receiving a new coffee for me means roasting at least three one pound samples for evaluation over a few days. the first roast is very light, sometimes with quite leprous looking beans, pulled just at or just past the first pop. in my limited experience this is both one of the most difficult roast levels to replicate and one of the most telling of cup quality. jaime was mentioning the release and/or disappearance of (at least the perception of) sugars in the beans through a roast curve and often i feel that this sample roast doesn't actually even fully set the stage for the sweetness of a bean to shine. the vast majority of beans just don't have the moxy to show really impressive stuff here. would that i always had the resources to only source beans that could do best even at light sample roasts. alas, reality is where you are, not necessarily where you want to be or think you will be eventually.

i've blogged about drinking sample roasts before and have posited that while they do have their purposes, it is often more helpful to take a new coffee somewhat past the traditional sample coloring and into the realm that one could conceivably use as a production roast at its earliest colorations. so i do a second roast to this level. if the traditional sample roast is basically to cup defensively vis a vis defects, this second roast is a gambit of sorts--though certainly no hail mary--just to push the boundaries of what might be a publicly acceptable taste. might push the envelope a bit and make some uncomfortable. might open some eyes with a pleased epiphany. or it might still taste immature and unfinished. fall flat. one just never knows when one first receives a new coffee. and that's what this process is all about.

the third roast is much more infield for me. it is a very safe roast progression to a very comfortable feeling roast coloration. generally for me that means i still won't get into second pop--at the least not very far into it. and after a couple three days there may be only a slight few beads of sweat on a few beans. relative to the first two roasts, cupping this third level often seems like sucking on a piece of charcoal, even though the reality is that i'm actually well within the boundaries of what most premium roasters feel comfortable putting into their customers' hands. it's all relative.

and it's all in desperate need of repeatability. that is the key. repitition is the key to success. repetition is the key to success. repetition is the key to success. what is the key to success?

after cupping the three i will usually do a two way cupping leaving the lightest of the three out and trying to settle on a production roast level. typically this is a split the difference between the middle and 'darkest' roasts. after slurping down to the grinds, copious notes and much internal deliberation i might even try to find that agreed upon roast with another go at the roaster. but in any case my goal is to capture and recapture that experience every single time. there may be less than five percent of drinkers out there who would be able to notice a different roast from one bag to the next. but that is the demographic i'm reaching for and so i will continue to hone my skills to move from an educated beginner in the world of roasting to a novice 'pretty good' roaster. master roaster? maybe one day. but that goal is far, far off; and i have many more roasts to go before then, trying to capture sweet essence of the coffee bean and repeat it over and again.

texas coffee people

2007-01-21T15:00:00.000-06:00

just wanted to give a heads up on a new group blog alliance. it's called texas coffee people, and as the name suggests, its main axes are texas, coffee, and people. you don't have to be a texan to read or comment, of course. you just have to care a bit about nurturing a burgeoning scene at its roots.

thanks to jason haeger for heading this up.

ticking

2007-01-16T22:10:00.000-06:00

the day is looming on the horizon, ever nearer. i'm getting really excited for my trip to guatemala to visit edwin and his family's farm. but as excited as i get i'm getting all clenched up inside at the remainder of stuff i have to settle before i leave. setting up clients with enough coffee while i'm away (including a major new one...yea!); coordinating the travel logistics, reminders and whatnot for the trip attendees; finishing the seemingly massive to do list for this project edwin, jaime and i are undertaking...and so forth. daunting. the hours are ticking down.

it's gonna be grand.

meta tags and google

2007-01-15T00:43:00.000-06:00

i've mentioned this i think over on my 'regular' blog before. but have you ever googled yourself? i've googled myself personally. (turns out i'm some sort of judo master in spain.) but, silly me, i've never googled brown. well, that's not entirely true. i haven't googled brown in a long time because when i was setting up the site originally i didn't know how to use the meta tags and descriptors to capture the attention of web crawlers. so when i tried to google brown nothing came up. nothing. bummer. that can't be good for business.

i still don't. but i just put "coffee" in there a ton of times. oh, and i also put "wal-mart" in there a bunch, just for good measure.

just kidding on that one. but hey...

well, something must be working because before the best i could hope for was a web spider capturing my sig line on a coffeed post. this time? page three, baby! moving on up. (come on, "wal-mart!")

so does anyone know how to set up meta tags? i need some experienced help.

oil and sweat

2007-01-15T00:22:00.000-06:00

so as i mentioned earlier the reworked website is up. i've been toiling on it all weekend and i'm liking how it's shaping up. i still have to populate the 'links' page. other than that it's about done.

one thing i'm quite pleased with is the new and improved shopping cart. it has maps for the major growing regions, for the specific countries and the close up zoom shot (for about half the coffees thus far) is an actual shot of those beans. and i mean it gets really zoomy.

seems also that the most of the six or so beanshots i have up on the shopping cart site are slightly oiled to oiled beans. that's normal for the malabar. it's just best at that roast. the sumatra and java take lighter roasts; but the beans are now approaching a week and some of the oils have slightly eeked their way out of the beans, creating beads of 'sweat.'

i don't know why i'm bothering to discuss those details, except to say that brown prides itself on lighter roasts and these, though light, don't look as light as others. especially with the sumatra, note the lighter tones of the beans, yet there are still a couple stray beads. that takes some doing, folks.

whatever. go. look. comment here.

UPDATE: i have also begun posting some BROWN T-SHIRTS! more on that later. some of the details are here.

more promised than before

2007-01-14T10:40:00.000-06:00

okay so after some wandering in the wilderness i think we're basically up and ready to rock again on the brown site. mostly i've heard feedback about the color scheme and general questions about why change the layout and design in the first place. after all, if it's not broken, why fix it?

i get bored. i need to keep things changed up. plus that old site was my very first attempt at building a site. and it showed. not that this new site is an earth smashing success over the last one. but hopefully it flows a little better, looks a little sleeker and feels less like a starter mcweb site and more like, like a real operation. hey, that's what i am. really!

take a visit. also visit the shopping cart, which has been revamped as well. and if you're a brown customer, send me a pic of you drinking brown. if we post it on the site you'll get free brown for life*

*life = as long as it takes you to consume one bag of your favorite brown coffee

argh

2007-01-11T21:22:00.000-06:00

trying to revamp the brown website in the next few days. i'm doing terribly at it. it may be down for a while. if it goes down i'll keep posting here. and you can always visit the shopping cart still...

sorting it out at the workbench

2007-01-11T10:45:00.000-06:00

there is a real romance to roasting coffee. and there is a real need for precision and analysis. roasters have to be among the most evenly balanced left-right brains out there. for sure, there are myriad ways and means of capturing data with regard to roast time, moisture content, bean and/or internal drum temperature and so forth. the list can be eye-glazing, to be sure.

but there is also the artisinal, craftsmanlike ethos that almost borders on mystical. sometimes i feel a little bit like luke skywalker hearing obi wan's voice as i make my final run to destroy the death star. "use the force, luke. let go." and it's in those times during a roast that i put the pen down for a few moments and just enjoy the sensuality of the moment: the smell of the beans as they gain brownness and lose moisture; the waff of smoke heading out the exhaust piping; the carefree way in which the beans tumble over and over in a seemingly eternal cycle, traveling in their equivalent to ezekiel's wheel within a wheel from obscure jade greenish pebbles into the alchemist's gold. it's pure magic. and in those moments all the struggles and cares that attend an emerging business melt away and i am gently reminded by those beans what i'm meant to be doing in this world.

late rip

2006-12-30T01:14:00.000-06:00

found this over at arizona coffee and figured, hey, why not rip this and toss it up on my own blog?not sure i'd head down to the depths of 'triple shotgun murder.' perhaps a bit of british understatement might do it a touch better: 'things here are a mite sticky.' indeed.

aeropress redux

2006-12-27T23:20:00.000-06:00

so i've been saying for some time now that i have an alternate brewing method for the alternate brewing method that is the aerobie aeropress. suffice it to say that while i have been brewing and drinking a lot of coffee lately--most of it from the likes of the aeropress--i do not have any huge revelations to share, no great knowledge to drop on any of you that you probably haven't already thought of.

that said, i do think i have an alternate version of brewing that is at least as worthy of consideration as the version that has been getting a bit of attention lately: the version where the brewer buys or makes a sort of felt filter in lieu of the plastic (and metal) stock one and brews the aeropress coffee upside down.

when i first heard of and then tried that method i realized that, while perhaps it might yield a nominally better cup, it was not worth the extra hassle, mess and spillage that almost invariably occured each time it was used in this manner. and while it's true that most of us who own one of these gadgets rarely uses it to specs, brewing upside down is one of the more radical methods of use.

as mentioned above, my method will not produce a mind-blowingly different/better result than the specs will. although it has produced, in my opinion and in the opinion of a few others i have introduced it to in blind taste tests, a distinguishably noticeable difference in taste with a mere modicum of modification to one's regular method of madness.

the long and short of my methodology focuses on three tenets: using less coffee/more water; pressing water through the grounds in two distinct stages; and stirring and emptying attentively. my assumption is also that the desired drinking quantity is somewhere in the six to eight fluid ounces of final product. anything else with the aeropress is, in my opinion, for what you're going for, something bordering on too much of a good thing. (don't shoot...after all, you wouldn't want a 16 ounce "espresso," a twenty ounce cappuccino or a 32 ounce coffee big gulp, would you? everything in its right place, as radiohead would say.)

back to the stuff. first, the ratios. unlike a traditional espresso, the aeropress is not pure in its prep methodology. i won't get into all that, as it has been said better and more completely by others elsewhere. but, unlike some who dismiss it as an unworthy subject for study because it basically opens the door to the bastardization of espresso, i firmly believe it is worthy of acceptance as a brewing method on the twin grounds that a) it follows all the general parameters required for good extraction of good coffee--it relies on fresh, high quality, properly and freshly ground coffee; clean water; a consistent temp; and rewards consistency in stirring; and b) if these parameters are followed closely it opens new avenues to allow the coffee to express itself and its characteristics. in other words, just as espresso itself may have been initially regarded as the bastardization of coffee, or coffee heresy back at its onset, additional expression of coffee such the aeropress can do the same in our time.

okay already, enough dribble. the method, please, you say. and so on with the show.

we were talking about ratios and i was saying that as a genuine brewing alternative the ratio of coffee to water must be understood and more or less universally accepted just as it is for drip coffee or other methods. the coffee "recipe" for the aeropress is crucial. and, as the generally accepted recipe for brewing coffee is two tablespoons coffee per six fluid ounces water, steeped for approximately four minutes, i would like to submit that after much deliberation i prefer one full "serving" of ground coffee--where the coffee just touches the top of the "1" circle and enough hot water (more on temp below) to get to the very top of the "4" circle. this is in violation of the aeropress doctrine that the numbers should correspond. but frankly, if one is trying to line up numbers for any amount more than "2" one runs the very real risk of overflowing the container if the coffee is fresh and blooms over. besides, as my method proposes below, we will neither be using all the water in one motion, nor will we be necessarily adding water post press from an external source. more on that in a second.

first, a subnote on water temp. aeropress says to use water that is in the 170F range for best flavor expressions of the coffee. this is tripe and accounts, in my opinion, for the "dullness" some contend aeropressed coffees present. in my experience with the aeropress, regularly temped water (i.e., 195-205F) is just fine.

second, a quick subnote on running more water through the grounds versus adding it post brew, or even adding coffee into pre-poured hot water in the cup. unlike an americano, where the strength of the properly pulled espresso is nearly guaranteed to shine through the addition of external water (either pre or post extraction), the human hand vacuum created by the aeropress is not sufficient to force enough emulsification through the grounds and thus depends critically on running all the water through the grounds, and, specifically, in two separate phases, as i'll explain now.

in traditional espresso, the high water temp, fine grind of the coffee and the incredible pressure brought to bear on it emulsifies the oils in the coffee and bleeds that through a portafilter and into the coffee receptacle. in the aeropress the "emulsification" process is the stir stick and the method of vacuuming water through the coffee in two stages. as is mentioned in the upside down brewing descriptor page, the main problem with the aeropress method is that the "emulsified" oils from the coffee cannot physically be forced all the way through the puck because of the limited strength of the presser and the vacuum created in the aeropress chamber. the solution posited by the upside down brew method is that by inverting the puck at the right time you basically allow more of those oils--the essence of the flavor characteristics of the coffee--to reach the receptacle. aside from timing and messiness issues, this makes a lot of sense. but instead of messing with messy inversions that need to be timed just so, why not simply add water and stir in two stages? like so...

first, add coffee (i like to use a grind finer that for auto drip but not as fine as i use for a hario pour over and certainly not as fine as for espresso) to the top of the "1" into the press chamber. add hot water to the water chamber to the very top of the "4." now, with your aeropress positioned over your receptacle, add about half the water to the grounds, leaving water to right about the top of the number "2" (not the top of the "2" oval). using the stirring element--or any stirring element, really--poke the water through to evenly saturate the grounds, then stir thoroughly until the "crema" colored foam has fully developed on top. when you remove your stirring device the grounds should slide off easily. if too much is still on the stirrer, you should be adding a touch more water to the brew in the first place. just a little tap to the stirrer and the water/coffee should mostly clear itself off into the brew. now, s-l-o-w-l-y and c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y move your vacuum top, half the water still in it--into position over the brew chamber and s-l-o-w-l-y and c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y press the vacuum down until you've reached the point where the chamber begins to "hiss" and most of the water has readily vacated the premises an into the cup. this is generally at about the top-pish of the number "2," give or take a centimeter. if you look at the puck, though, it still has tiny water/air bubbles in it that have not been forced through. do not keep pressing down. instead, very slowly and very carefully begin to weedle the water vacuum part back up and out of the brew chamber. i prefer to either twist and pull up or the to a sort of 90 degree twist and 90 degree retwist as i pull upward again and off. it cannot be stressed enough the importance of doing this pull up carefully because of the paper filter's propensity to curl up on an end from time to time under such conditions, resulting in grounds in the cup. not a good thing.

anyways, once the water portion has been released, add the remaining water to the not-quite-puck and, as before, stir very thoroughly to achieve as much as a crema foam as you did initially. this answers the inversion method's dilemma and need to brew upside down to get all the oils into the cup. by adding more water and now stirring those oils through the grounds you achieve a much greater scenario for the oils to make it down into the cup than if you simply brew and push in one motion. as mentioned above, the difference is noticeable, but not mind-blowing.

also as mentioned above, there is also the final step of "emptying" the rest of the coffee into the cup. this is basically a series of small pushes onto the puck to force the remaining water/oils into the black filter area; but it also includes lifting, tipping and releasing that coffee into the cup again and again to get the remaining good stuff in there. generally, after my second infusion of water i will press down completely and with all the strength i can muster, then lift the entire aeropress up at about a 45 degree angle, with the device pointing, say, to the "north" of the cup, which releases coffee drops into the cup. i'll then replace the aeropress over the cup and press again firmly, repeating my 45 degree lift, only this time lifting to the "south;" then again to the "east;" and yet again to the "west," and so forth, until no more drips readily come out into the cup. in this manner one is able to fully extract as much from the coffee and the device as possible to achieve a more favorable (flavorable?) experience.

an acceptable variation on this method is to follow all the steps outlined above, but during the second pour, refill the water chamber back up with more water--back up the top of the "4" if you want--and pour all of that through. this allows you to add volume and still extract it through the grounds as opposed to the external post add.

try it for a week or so to get it down. leave your comments here on what you found/did not find.

i should also say here that the aeropress pic comes from j. vaclav of paradigm photography, austin texas. if you're looking for a great photographer with a great eye and a very cool philosophy/approach to photography, check him out in this link to some of his blog pics he's posted of our recent texas barista jam, among other things. he'll do you right.

brown interview

2006-12-26T23:09:00.000-06:00

some of you who've been reading these blog pages for a bit know that i have been doing occassional email interviews with folks i think are all that. a new year's resolution from me is to get back to that with vigor. i've got some ideas already on next people. hey, maybe i'll interview someone who thinks blogs such as this one are too esoteric and full of b.s. okay, maybe not.

but anyways, in the meantime, someone has interviewed me and i thought you may be interested in watching me have the tables turned on myself a bit. jeremy is a friend of mine from church who has gulped up tons of brown coffee with his wife at church and in their home. (yes, our church drinks brown coffee from press pots.)

besides the diversion into my interview, jeremy's relatively new blog is a good read. he's a good writer with a quick wit and some interesting takes on some of life's smaller details many others might quickly overlook.

enjoy.

have an enjoyable winter solstice around your holiday tree

2006-12-24T23:57:00.000-06:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone! yes, i said, MERRY CHRISTMAS, not "happy holidays." this is christmas, after all, not just a generic holiday. if you celebrate chanukkah, then HAPPY CHANUKKAH. if you celebrate kwaanza, then HAPPY KWAANZA.

my point being, christmas (as are all of them) is a distinct holiday that has its own history and traditions and i'll not water it down because someone is queasy about their relationship vis a vis Jesus, God, heaven, etc. it started as a christian holiday and still is, identity stealing p.c. secularists notwithstanding.

so anyways, MERRY CHRISTMAS...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS! thanks, everyone, for reading this blog and for your kind support over the year. here's to a great 2007 and beyond.

woohoo

2006-12-20T11:28:00.000-06:00

yeah! we made it. so wouldn't you know it that the very first issue me and brown are going to be on display in barista magazine, it would be christmas season and the mail would be running a week or so late.

this blog (and the company behind it) is a sentimental sort of operation. while we're no limelight hounds, we get excited when we have the opportunity to strut our stuff on the big stage. so i was really pleased when the opportunity came knocking to do a quick write up on our recent barista jam.

ah, the joys of being a blogger who has no idea what he's talking about. i guess i'm one of the ones who raises the ire of those who rule opinion in the industry by virture of their ability to carry a microphone and recording equipment. (and even if not, i include myself in there because i'm precocious that way.) yep, i have no idea what i'm doing. i'm just plodding along blindly and dumbly, hoping to back into my lucky break by--God forbid!--being published in b-mag, which, of course, only encourages me to continue doing what i'm doing. "can't shut down the business now, honey; we're in barista magazine this month!" (because as we all know, posting esoteric blogposts and getting printed in barista magazine = money, recognition and validation. "sarah, where's my fat check?!?") i'm sure it has nothing to do with the concept of being bold/stupid enough to try/say just about anything in the attempt to learn, be taught, push the envelope in any direction, proffer slightly touchy or controversial opinions, poke, prod and the like. it's all done for the sake of the coffee, not for the sake of ourselves. go, jaime! long live barismo!

the hypocrisy is just overflowing with irony. and i love irony. that stuff needs to be called out because it's diametrically counter to everything most of us love about this industry. especially if you haven't met most or even any of the people you're publicly downing. massively immature and quite a shallow, "we four and no more" viewpoint. perhaps just stop reading and you won't have to be pestered by our unwillingness to go away and stop being so meddlesome into the private party that is the specialty coffee industry.

i guess i, like many of the other blogs in question, didn't receive the memo that there are only a few spaces at the table, reserved for elite members of the community who go to all the conferences and shake the right hands. i suppose the only two options for an outpost of a blog such as this one is to either celebrate the little victories we can get--the proverbial crumbs off the table of the big dogs--with every piece of tiny recognition we can get; or shutter our doors and call it a great experience and move on to something else.

upset, am i? not in the least...not anymore, anyways. now i just sort of roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of it all--of a medium-sized fish calling the minnows a tedium. "can't be bothered by aspiration. i've already arrived. there can't be anything else to learn and study and ponder and discuss."

get over yourself. i invite you to apologize, reconsider, rephrase, recant, or remove your comments. they are surely not what we (thought we) knew about you.

as for us, here we come. get used to us. ain't going nowhere.

frozen chosen

2006-12-16T10:26:00.000-06:00

it was seventh grade during a physical education class. a friend and i were walking the track on a hot spring morning in texas, discussing some of the pros and cons of hot weather versus cold. my friend, a 'yankee' from upstate new york, opined that he liked cold weather much better than hot because with cold weather, said he, you could always keep piling on more and more layers. but in hot weather, "once you get down to the skin there's not much else you can do." (yes, i still remember those words all these years later.)

i work through those types of deductions sometimes in my own head regarding the state of excellence in coffee and how i can continue to improve in this area or with that process. some areas i've found a good groove: turnaround time for orders placed is very regularly less than 12 hours from order placed to order roasted. often, local deliveries get my sermon on overfreshness--i have to put the brakes on them and remind them that they need to wait a day before enjoying this two hour old coffee.

with the idea of overfreshness in mind i recall that conversation from so many years ago and conclude that there's not much more that can be done on the roasting side of the equation that will get the freshest possible coffee into the hands of my customers. so what other areas can i add "layers" and continue to improve?

it goes without saying that buying quality greens will produce quality browns, all other factors in play being carefully kept in line, such as the basic ticker below:

--storage: temp and temp swings, humidity, packaging, dust, rodent activity, exposure to ultraviolet light, etc.

--transportation considerations: what has happened to those carefully processed coffees in the interim from the mill to your warehouse? on the export dock? on the ship? the import dock? the importer's warehouse? in his delivery truck?

--roasting: the roasting itself can, of course, ruin all the other well-executed steps. as i've mentioned previously, a great discussion is unfolding over at barismo in the comments section of jaime's review of my guatemala finca vista hermosa. (i'm getting my butt handed to me by the pros, is what's happening.)

with those few areas there are worlds upons worlds where quality can be introduced, gained and improved upon.

this post is a call for discussion on storage, and in particular, on freezing as means of preserving peak ripeness. i've heard discussions of it here and there and know that some groups have been doing serious experimentation and implementation for a couple years now (i'd love to read some scientific type results...ahem!).

some parameter questions i've cooked up:

--does water in greens help/hurt the composition when frozen? ice crystals? does the water act as a sort of stabilizer?

--someone i recently read about was deep freezing freshly roasted. huh? benefits/drawbacks of that versus green?

--flash freeze?

--thaw parameters? in bag? how quickly? bean surface moisture/condensation in the thaw? how long before it's roaster ready?

--how do you determine the "peak" at which to freeze? can you, for instance, buy an early new crop, cup it out over a month or two until it "matures" into peak ripeness and then freeze? do you have to wait 'til mid crop ripeness and buy those beans and freeze immediately? can you make any money doing that, because surely then you'd be taking a bunch of extra steps and expense to get it from its grown country to your storage space?

--what is the best material for storage bags? mylar? food grade plastic? doesn't the composition of most materials break down/impart their composition to the beans after a while?

--40F below? i've heard of that. who has that much storage space at that constant temp? don't you stand to create an exhorbitantly huge environmental footprint just keeping that much space cold? how many smallish roasteries have access to that kind of space?

--fridge freezing: others say temps at something more like 0 degrees F will do. is there any consensus? what are the arguments for each?

--will freezing help even the score between super high grown beans and lower altitude beans? since it's generally accepted that density helps preserve flavor better/longer, couldn't freezing help level the playing field and potentially open even more doors for discovering great coffees that are grown lower?

--vacuum: do you vacuum pack bags? create a "near vacuum"? are one-way valves a no-no at such temps?

...and so forth. i'm expecting some good comments here, so bring 'em on. let's keep pushing the envelope. if these questions have been answered by someone, please hopefully we can see some printed materials somewhere.

great discussion

2006-12-13T18:20:00.000-06:00

...doesn't only happen here on this blog (just so you know). i want to point you to barismo, a site run by a small consortium of fellows whose opinions i think more people need to hear. there is currently a very interesting discussion unfolding in the comments section for the post jaime put up after reviewing my treatment of my guatemala finca vista hermosa.

the discussion centers around coaxing out lighter roasts for the purposes of better character clarity.

i love the input already put in there and maybe you'll enjoy reading it and contributing to the discussion as well.

a quick toot

2006-12-10T09:24:00.000-06:00

have to give a shout out of thanks to jaime van schyndel of barismo for his kind words in a recent review of my guatemala finca vista hermosa. it's nice to get a little kudos once in a while, especially from someone whose opinion you respect.

eating the whole thing

2006-12-07T10:09:00.000-06:00

from time to time i come across a coffee site on the interweb that so intrigues me i spend hours soaking up all that it has to offer. yesterday i fell across this site while looking up something similar for my friend edwin.

i realize this is a commercial for guatemalan specialty coffee. but what a beautifully appointed commercial, rich with detail, and pleasantly detailed info about the country's major growing regions, down to the local roads and specific farms. before he had pulled up the site i was able to tell him the four closest farms surrounding his own farm. then he got online and we worked through the site together. it was a fascinating conversation we were having on the phone as we both perused the site on our own terminals several states away.
of course, it helps that edwin was born and reared in guatemala and he was able to add lots of great side/back info into the pics and diagrams on the site, even down to the stories behind the different hat and blouse designs of the people in the pics.

UPDATE: remember that if you're interested in visiting edwin's family's coffee plantation there are still some spots available. leave a comment here if you want more info or email me at browncoffeeco AT gmail DOT com.

some cupping permutations

2006-12-06T00:49:00.000-06:00

how i set up my stuff.

christmas? in november?!?

2006-11-25T10:48:00.000-06:00

in case you haven't heard, brown has a christmas blend up and running and ready for order. it's called 'winter's bane' and is a very unusual mix of african and asian coffees that is spicy, thick and luxurious. get it here.

shutters and jitters

2006-11-20T01:26:00.000-06:00

heading to austin tuesday to meet up with a new friend who owns a camera and knows how to use it. "J" (short for jonathan) came to our recent barista jam and i got to chat with him subsequent to that on the phone for a solid hour or so. he is a stand up guy and, as i mentioned, is handy with the ol' point and shoot. take a gander at his blog.

what does this have to do with coffee? well, if all goes according to plan, i'll be able to convince J to come back to san antonio sometime soon to snap some pics of me in action at the roaster and the cupping table and other such 'action shots' for a future revamp of my website.

also, j's brother and sister in law own and operate caffe medici, austin's hip new espresso bar, so we should be slingin' back the 'spro while we hang out.

a few thousand words

2006-11-18T00:46:00.000-06:00

a few starter pics of last weekend's barista jam. more to come...

"pretty"

2006-11-17T22:19:00.000-06:00

so the death matches haven't materialized as promised. those of you who were eagerly awaiting one like a pay per view cage match, get a life.

i am currently sipping on the last of what is a most delightful coffee: stumptown's guatemala el injerto. this is the maragogype version. huge...and i mean enormous...beans smile up at you from the bag and give of a kind of lavendar/vanilla scent.

i remember when stephen vick from stumptown sent me an email with the descriptors of the coffees they were donating for the jam he used a descriptor i had not really thought to use for coffee before: pretty. being something of a word junkie i tucked that one away for possible later use. but i kept it in my mind tonight as i was pressing the last of it. for beans with this much brawn there's a lot of real beauty here. very lilting. even crushed and sitting in the bottom of my personal press this coffee was still all smiles. pretty, indeed.

this is a tricky coffee for me to give apt description to. there is a definite vanilla feel in it. like one of those light purple wildflowers that grows in the median between the interstate. delicate but not about to just blow away with any passing car. it's underpinned with what seems like a very subtle minerality: faint glimpses of the same roundness that is a hallmark of edwin martinez' finca vista hermosa coffee. but it takes its own path. it is sweet and floral, slightly acidic but not crisp with that lavendar silkiness that dances around my mouth with i sip it.

i know you see this coming, but i have to agree completely with stephen's assessment. this is a pretty coffee that you must try.

huehuetenango, anyone?

2006-11-15T00:04:00.000-06:00

and may i have this dance? anyone wanna go to guatemala with edwin martinez of finca vista hermosa and me in january? we're cooking up a trip very soon that will be open to all baristas (loosely defined). already we have some interest from a certain well placed champion barista, which should make things interesting. we're gonna boogey with the details here very soon, so be ready to call in sick in late january for about 10 days.

i also promise and promise

2006-11-15T00:01:00.000-06:00

some of you have been asking about a barista jam recap. okay. that, and a first blush review of the clover is in the works. i should have some pics ready with that, too. meantime, be looking soon for deathmatch 2 between two more barista jam 'leftover' coffees.

showdown at the c.p. corral, inaugural installment

2006-11-13T17:12:00.000-06:00

taking advantage of a rare convergence of moon and stars, your humble blogger will commence a series of one on one, winner take all, fight to the death cuppings of coffees from around the world. said convergence is possible right now due to some leftovers (lefties) i took home that weren't snatched up by baristas at our recent barista jam. through the generosity of some of the country's finest roasteries our event witnessed what was the finest collection of boutique coffees i have ever seen in one space. heck, even the lefties are still way, way hotter than the best stuff coming from many a coffee company. i seriously must have drunk at least two gallons of coffee that day, three or four ounces at a time, out of that clover. i'm surprised i've slept since then.

i'll cup quickly in the days to come, hoping to catch each coffee in its peak freshness. i've taken the extra step of rebagging coffees in airtight containers that have been opened and are not in resealable bags. maybe this will become a more permanent series if it catches on and i start getting samples sent to me from roasteries. ahem!but back to the event at hand. the premise is simple. put two animals in a cage alone and leave them to duke it out until only one is left standing. the set up is bare and to the point: two 5.5oz glass whisky cuppers, two nickel plated cupping spoons in hot water in a rinse bowl, one glass of water to cleanse the palate between coffees, timer, spit cup, pen and paper. and oh yes...the coffee. 2 exact tablespoons ground to between paper filter and gold cone drip filter fineness, with 198F water poured over and allowed to steep for exactly four minutes. instead of a formal cupping sheet your humble blogger has chosen the more chaotic train of thought method for determining winners. i have simlply divided the sheet in two longways down the middle to give scrawl room for each coffee along the same set of rough parameters: dry ground and break aroma; first impression; second looks; cooldown tasting; leave. that may sound like a lot but it's instead designed to flow quickly and unobtrusively, allowing me to wield the spoon much more than the pen. pretty much every fight, er cupping, i do will follow this process. at the end i'll choose the winner based on these entirely subjective criteria. there is absolutely no appeal process, for my judgment is just and final and losers will only stand to make themselves appear whiny and thus become loathsome to my presence.

"scores" at the end are merely for comparison purposes and not a result of any actual scoring system. remember, i am supreme leader of this escapade and my whims translate perfectly into incontravertable "scores" that cannot be gainsaid.

so there it is.
today's smackdown will feature two seriously good coffees from very different growing regions. coffee one is counter culture's honduras el puente, marysabel caballero, aka 'the purple princess.' the pic on the left is the picture ccc pasted up there on their site next to the coffee description. one can only assume she is indeed the alleged purple princess, althoug i see very little purple anywhere on her person relative to what one would expect from such a moniker. hmmm. rather suspect if you ask me. coffee two is simply known as novo coffee company's hache and while this cup may not be as pretty as the ccc coffee girl, no one's gonna be drinkin' the brightly colored hat, guys. looks like the classic bait and switch if you ask me.
typically i will try to select two fighters, er, coffees that will be similar in build. or at least sound kinda cool together. i selected these two because i thought the terms 'hache' and 'purple princess' had a nice roll to it. maybe "hache!" is something purple princesses say when they sell their coffee at really high prices to american coffee companies.

but enough conjecture. on to the coffees. when i ground counter culture coffee's princess (the cccp?) it had to me a distinct note of red grapes. maybe even dark red, purple-ish grapes. hmmmm.... the hache, meanwhile, resounded with a light but sure blueberry aroma even from the moment i opened the bag and started to mangle the beans in the bag. the dry and wet grounds only carried that through. this would be a bad omen for the princess, as i have ever been known to be a sucker for blueberries in the cup. four minutes after drowning the princess and the novohache/hachenovo (which sounds better to you?) i broke the crust with my upside down spoon. the princess had quickly gone from sweet grapes to sour grape leaves. or it may be more accurate to call them savory, almost beefy grape leaves. at any rate, any grape goodwill had been replaced by plant like reality. meanwhile, over on the novo side of the ring, the blueberried hache had taken on a sweet lime dimension to it. i would say lemon but this was definitely less citric and more sweetly...hey, like a lime! i was beginning to formulate a winner already and i hadn't even begun the slurps.

after spoon rinsing, i dipped my spoon into ccc's offering, which was oddly not very purple looking. but doubt quickly gave way to belief as the princess kissed my lips. "i get it," i said aloud, realizing why peter giuliano et al over at ccc have so dubbed this coffee. all kidding aside, it was resolent with a purple feeling in a way few coffees have made me think of colors. i know the psychology behind the power of suggestion, but i almost couldn't help myself. i was feeling like grape ape as this coffee washed over my gums. it was almost uncanny, yet very, very cool. not only was the princess sweet, she carried an almost bitter baking cocoa taste after a couple slurps. dimension is good. complexity is good. fresh bamboo is not so good. i started to get a plant-like astringency that was akin to a plum that is yet unripe. tart and a little sharp. hache might easily pull this one out in a landslide so long as it doesn't screw up.

hache, meantime, was pleasing my fruity sensibilities with blueberry, huckleberry, black currant and that persistent limeness that sometimes fell into pineapple. sweet and tart at the same time. i like it. i kept tasting. solid acidity. slight bitterness on the sides of my tongue. blueberries. blueberries. blueberries. more blueberries. and on and on with the berries. what was happening? it was almost like someone had forgotten to teach this monkey more than one trick. sure, it was delicious to both look at and experience; but with only one solid dimension i started to find myself wanting to find more than this coffee might be able to deliver. it was beginning to feel like a rookie big league pitcher with one pitch--the fastball--that pretty soon gets timed and plunked by just about everybody in the league. yes, the fastball approaches 100mph. yes, he can blow you away once or twice or even a third time for the strikeout. but yes, eventually you want more. expect more. need more from a coffee of this calibre.

this berry delicious coffee trend continued as it cooled. the hache seemed to get almost sweeter and sweeter as it cooled. a very mild milk chocolate started to present itself but then would fade. a basket of other fruits tried to rally but went down with a whimper. it seemed as though whenever this coffee wanted to unfold and reveal something deeper, the berry clan rose up to beat it down. ccc's purple princess, however, began to strut her stuff. a buttery base began to present itself as the temperature dropped and the grape and lavender tones began to show again. more complexity equals good. princess is beautiful and smart. hache is all brawn and not nearly as much brains. round one to the hache. round two to the little princess that could.

onto the leave. while the princess seemed to dry me out a little bit it wasn't like falling over a cliff or anything. i scribbled the words, "drier than expected but not 'dry'" on my paper, and then scratched a quick "91" below. to the right, the hache got: "solid leave. delicious coffee! smooth afters" followed by a 90 for its final score.

and so there you have it. the purple princess, down on the ropes early on and fearing for her life got up, picked up her whuppin' stick and begun to go to work, beatin' down the hache with weapon after weapon until the hache was left standing speechless in the end, with only a hammer and one nail in hand. maybe it may be more appropriate to say that the purple princess built something big and beautiful out of what looked at first like noah's ark in the desert; whereas the hache drove up in a porsche that was fast and sleek on the straighaways but didn't quite have the world class suspension to handle the curves of the princess. not enough tools in the toolbox. to keep the car metaphor alive, there was the princess with all those curves and the hache didn't have the brakes.

big time hats off to novo for such a stunningly beautiful coffee in the hache. it would be easy to presume that because the princess took top honors that the hache was not a worthy opponent. in this case that is nowhere close to the reality. perhaps any other coffee and you would have been triumphant, hache. and thumbs up to our winner, counter culture's el puente, the purple princess. i guess it's true that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

until next time...keep on cuppin' and keep reachin' for the stars. er, right.

all star lineup

2006-11-13T08:23:00.000-06:00

let me list, off the top of my head, the lineup of coffees present at the event. my hope is to give at least a passing review in the days to come of all the coffees i tasted--which was most that where there--so that you'll feel jealous of me somehow and think better of me as a coffee dude. or something.

in no particular order (except by company) and by no means do i claim to remember them all:

counter culture coffee:
espresso toscana
espresso aficianado
espresso forte
espresso aida (nick cho's el sal blend of competition espresso)
el salvador santa ana, finca mauritania
kenya gaaki co-op auction lot #....? (can't remember)
honduras la paz, el puente ('the purple princess')

cuvee coffee:
panama (unnamed region, co-op, etc.)
el salvador, finca san joaquin

paradise coffee roasters:
sumatra lake tawar
aged sumatra

ecco cafe: brazil coe espresso

stumptown coffee:
guatemala el injerto maragogype
ethiopia wild forest limu
nicaragua finca el cipres
sumatra lake tawar

novo coffee:
ethiopia hache
sumatra lake tawar
panama bambito estate
ethiopia wild forest tega
tawar rouge espresso

terroir:
kenya mamuto, kirinyaga (top two faves at the event)
ethiopia yrgacheffe

and some of my brown:
ethiopia organic dp sidamo (total rock star, esp via the clover)
guatemala huehuetenango, finca vista hermosa
java pancoer
costa rica tres rios, aguas claras
kenya aa tembo
ethiopia harar
brazil cerrado (espresso)

just think about that for a second. if you're familiar with these coffees, you know how mind-numbingly good they all are. if you're not, the company names alone are enough of a who's who among u.s. roasters to make you giddy. and everyone delivered fabulously. i have a lot of big thank you's to get to...

which means...gotta run

not a full review

2006-11-13T08:17:00.000-06:00

i'm not going to give the full-on review here without pics. i will in a day or so. suffice it to say now that this was one of the most fun coffee events i have ever participated in. everything went smoothly, generally according to plan, and only one small group of participants were mistreated because of my poor sense of distance judgment...they must've walked a mile each way to lunch.

i'm only beginning to fathom the depth of the greatness of the coffees that were present at the event. after everyone took home what they wanted there was still a stunning lineup of 'lefties' for me to play with this week. i'm rebagging everything into resealable bags to try to keep the freshness flame burning as long as i can. time. running. out. must. get. to. all. coffees. quickly!

look for full review and pics very soon.

super rad fun

2006-11-01T21:22:00.000-06:00

sorry the updates have been slim pickin's lately. been really busy tying up loose ends here for the texas barista jam i'm coordinating. i'm really pumped about it now that we come into the beginning of the end and just before we get into the last minute stuff.

i am really pleased to know that counter culture coffee will be so generous as to donate some of their killer selection of coffees, along with novo coffee (hope we can get some of that wild forest stuff they rave about!) and a small selection of coffees i've ordered just for the event to run through the clover. i feel as though this event will really benefit ME. everyone else is welcome to come along for my event.

of course, that's not exactly how it'll be. there are some great workshops and presentations lined up and i know everyone in attendance will get lots of good stuff out of it. but it is really cool to know that this was a jam i set up (with great help and plenty of donations such as the ones listed above) and i built it the way i wanted.

building this event made me remember how much i enjoy putting together big events such as this. events like i used to do when i was working with middle school and high school students back in philadelphia. fun events. events that when it was all over you said, "that was a ton of hard work...and it was super rad fun."

anyways, can't wait.

housekeeping and whatnot

2006-10-27T00:54:00.000-05:00

some updates to communicate. a few weeks ago 'the forum that shall not be named' decided to 'go public,' meaning they gave the go ahead for those of us who love it and read it twice (thrice even) daily to mention it by name on our various web sites. so, please go visit coffeed if you really want to hear it from the best of the best in the coffee industry.

also, updated blogroll and links, right.

barista jam is coming along well. almost got all my stuff together. now just working through processes and logistical flow. la marzocco espresso machine? check. clover? check. great espresso and coffee to play with all day? check. now all we need are baristas. come on, baristas.and i'm having our logo professionally rendered. here are a couple of the leading candidates so far... i think i want the coloring of the top bean here rendered in the 3-d style below. this new logo--well, my kwee rendering of it on microsoft paintshop--has already begun to adorn our bags of coffee. we will turn this into a 3' x 6' banner and also use it for t-shirts, both of which i expect to have on display and for sale in time for christmas. t-shirt will likely be brown...go figure...with the phrase, 'brown (coffee) is the new black (coffee)' somewhere on it. what do you think of these logos?

rorsarch for coffee?

2006-10-25T23:53:00.000-05:00

[pic hat tip: james hoffman]
you coffee nerds already have seen this site, i'm sure.

but for the other two of you lurking here: rate my rosetta. a rosetta is, well, i don't know what the heck it is. it's a fern. it's a palm frond. it's an anemonae. who knows. it's geeky and cool to see, that's all i'm sayin'.

p.s. to the uninitiated, these are free pours, done with nothing but steamed milk poured skillfully over espresso. no spoons, no carving knives, no nothing but you, the espresso and the milk. and the cup to hold them. and that's it. well, and the pitcher in which to steam the milk. nothing else. well, except the espresso machine to pull the shot and steam the milk in the pitcher. but that's it. just you, the espresso (ground in the grinder) and the milk, with a cup and a pitcher to steam the milk and the espresso machine for shots and milk steaming. you betcha.

wired in austin

2006-10-23T18:30:00.000-05:00

spent the better part of the day today in austin, doing some follow up for the barista jam posters i mailed to all the austin-area espresso bars there. it was really cool to learn that, yes indeed, there are some decent places to get espresso in austin.

one of my most pleasant surprises was progress coffee. tucked away on what should be a quiet side street on austin's near east side--but what is in fact a bustling warehouse block of boutiques, studios and, of course, an espresso bar--is, well, progress coffee. i got up early this morning (8am is early for me!) to drive the 80 miles to austin because i knew i had a lot of places to hit in a limited amount of time. i had seen progress' website in my pre-trip research and was excited to see pics online of what looked like a promising site to pitch the concept of a barista jam. i had planned to make them my first stop in the city and when i pulled onto the street that houses the edifice i knew my plans were going to be richly rewarded. you know you're going to find a cool vibe inside a coffeehouse when there's a moped studio, an artist's gallery and a pilates warehouse all on the same warehouse block. this is typical new urbanism style. the only things missing were the second/third, etc., story lofts above.

anyways, walking inside it felt clean, comfortable, stylish. i was met by an alterna-emo britrock type barista with a mouthful of pearly whites and a clean british accent. i ordered a single espresso (my usual order when i'm checking out espresso bars--weird, eh?) and bought a bottle of water.

i'm always a little hesitant to reveal that i work in coffee when i go to these places for fear the baristas and owners will think i'm trying to either spy on them or convert them into a wholesale client. fear of being seen as having an ulterior motive has probably kept me from having a ton of cool coffee conversations over the years.

but i digress. before long i was sipping my espresso--a bit on the thin side, but fairly sweet and presented well--and chasing it with boutique water. the water cost more than the espresso!

anyways, i was so very pleased with the overall atmosphere at this place that it didn't really matter too much that i've had better espresso at many other places. at least they had a clean machine and prepared the espresso well. maybe i will return and ask to place a bid on their espresso account. superior coffee would just be the icing on the cake. currently, their in-store lit mentions that their coffee is fair-trade and organic. but beyond that there is little by way of origin descriptors, tasting notes, or even a menu listing all the coffees they serve. like a typical texas coffee bar their bread and butter is actually, well, more like bread and butter than coffee and espresso. but like i said, the place was cool, cool, cool; so that was just fine by me. i asked for the owner and was told he was in a meeting. and so, gulp, i pulled out my jam poster and told the britbarista my story. well received and not the slightest hint that he was accusing me of trying to take over their place. before long a girl who worked there came up and had a look at the poster and they both began to feed off each other at what a good idea a barista jam in texas would be. we all smiled and exchanged "yeah's" and i mentioned that i would like to return a little later to say hi to the owner. as i walked out the door i could hear them still talking about it among themselves: "i wonder if we could just shut down the shop that day and all go down to san antonio for this thing." jackpot.

next stop: jp's java. a rather unfortunate name i think, with a location than was a nightmare for parking due to its proximity to the university of texas campus and all the residential parking surrounding the place. after a couple passes i finally was able to secure a spot triple parking a fire hydrant and i scooted on inside. busy feel. a bit cluttered and the furniture had a slightly used thrift store feel to it. but most tables were taken with laptops and poets and the la marzocco was getting some good use. i had learned before i drove up to austin that this place used zoka coffee from seattle, so i was expecting above average stuff. i stepped up to the plate, ordered a single espresso and plopped down my money and then waddled over to the hand off area. like i said, i was expecting decent stuff. what i got, however, was more like a miracle from the espresso gods. rich, red-rust honey poured out of the portafilter and into my demi. as the barista handed it to me i could smell its sweetness. i almost didn't want to drink it a) for fear it might not taste as good as it looked/smelled; and b) that the experience of a 1.5 oz shot might not tide me over long enough. well, here goes nothing i said to myself and enjoyed what would be the best tasting shot of espresso i had all day. indeed, i would hazard that it was the best tasting shot of espresso i've had in the year i've been in texas. it was so sweet and mesmerizing. i hardly could pull my poster out to give to the barista, i was so excited. but once i did he mentioned that he had already gotten one (i had forgotten i had already mailed them one, so i was all surprised at 'how fast the word spreads'!). we talked for a quick minute and i complimented him profusely on his espresso and he said, "you want another one?" i'm all, "is the pope catholic?!?" so he pulled me another shot on the house and i sucked that one down almost quicker than the first.

and off i went.

the next several establishments were rather forgettable with espresso that ranged from bad to metallic to one that was so terribly repulsive it was all i could do to finish it, put it down, run out the door and start spitting the second i hit the parking lot. perhaps that place needed a barista jam poster more than most; but i just couldn't stay in there long enough to get it to them. sorry!

a few places later i pulled into the parking lot of cafe medici, which i had been recommended to by a barista at jp's and which delivered as predicted. medici is newly opened in september and by the look of it they are already fitting into the austin community well. all their coffee is press pots and the house itself has a cozy, laid back feel that is clean and inviting. again, dark, rich looking espresso with lots of deep caramel in the demi, pulled from a hybrid la marzocco. (read a little about the hybrid and medici here.) it was here that i really got off schedule because of the loooong conversation i got into with the barista there, clancy. a cool guy who seemed really excited at the prospect of a barista jam, as they had been to one some months earlier in dallas. it's great to see the kids these days gettin' all excited about the scene and i hope to see clancy and some others from the medici crew at next month's jam.

so after my layover at medici i knew i had to boogie before heading back south to san antonio. so off i went in search of a few more espresso bars on my list. yes, i compiled a list of over a dozen places i might visit. some i visited. some i drove by and decided against visiting. others i didn't even drive by due to time or because i couldn't actually remember why i put them on the list in the first place, and since i had limited time i simply decided to keep driving.

because i'm such a sucker for good espresso and good vibes i made a deal with myself. i wanted to leave austin on a positive espresso note so after a couple more visits to average coffeehouses i hit jp's java for a single macchiatto (it was simple and sweet...more like a noisette than a macchiatto, but still very nice) and then hit progress on my way out of town for a bite to eat.

now, when it came to food i was in a bit of a quandry because austin is a really great food town. because of the university and also because of dell computers and other high-tech peripheral companies there, austin has a real sophisticated and cosmopolitan type feel to it, even though it does a great job of actually staying down to earth and college-y. as a result, there are any number of cuisines to be had in the city and i was really feeling a bit of consternation as to which quick bite i might have to visit before heading home. (there are also to be had in austin the best bubble teas anywhere in texas, which was also a real tough decision to forego; but as this was a business trip instead of a pleasure trip and because i was pressed for time i decided to skip it and go next time with my wife. we both adore momoko bubble teas.)

so anyways, after much thought and self-deliberation i decided to swing back by progress coffee to kill two stones with one bird: i would get a bite to eat and i would also check in on the owners. i succeeded brilliantly in both endeavors. my roast beef and brie sandwich was delectable and after lunch i found the owners and introduced myself as we talked about the barista jam and being in coffee in texas. a very nice couple. it was a brief, enjoyable conversation i hope to continue next month at the barista jam. sometimes you can tell when people are just being polite by hearing you out, waiting for you to get bored and go away. i felt a genuine interest coming from both owners--husband and wife--and they asked enough questions about the event to let me know they were serious about considering it and would likely bring themselves and a few of their team down with them. so that'll be cool to see them there.

so all in all i drank like a gallon of espresso. and despite some really awful shots, the memories of the few good ones far outweighed those of the bad...maybe because in texas bad espresso is the norm and the expectation so when it happens you don't really think twice about it; but when you get the good stuff it makes you sit up and really take notice.

so now i'm feeling pretty good about how the jam is shaping up. i think we may see a pretty good turnout, which is good because i've put a ton of work into making this a great jam and lined up some really great machines and folks to come share their knowledge and expertise. we're gonna have a grand time here, deep in the heart of texas.

free and fair?

2006-10-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

somewhere, i suspect, in the intricate webworks of the specialty coffee world there are many intersections of politics and economics affecting the lives of the masses of coffee workers. this is nothing new, i suppose; for everyone who buys green coffee has at one point or another been subject to the pricing whims of the market as a measure of their cost of goods. and while the scale of proportion maxim rings very true that pennies per pound to a roaster means a year's survival--or not--to a farmer and his people there are even more of those clouds brewing overhead in the near future that, sadly, have very little to do with the quality of coffee itself.

one such intersection of the economics of coffee comes in the upcoming elections to be held next month in the u.s. more specifically, it has to do with the politics of power and how economic policies here in the u.s. can have terrible ramifications for people in many, many other nations.

i'm talking about the potential loss of power by the republicans and the unwillingness of their more economically liberal democrats to bring legislation to the table that would eliminate tariffs between the u.s. and other nations. much has been made about the democrats' proclivity toward protectionism and how a return to power by the democrats could mean a return to the glory days of influence peddling by organized labor and their populist policies.

in other words, a classic battle is brewing between the forces of free trade and the forces of fair trade.

on the face of it it seems pretty straightforward. fair-trade has been a boon for many coffee farmers and helped them escape a crushing cycle of poverty. but it also has a tendency to create a bloated bureaucracy around its implementation, is a huge disincentive toward quality coffee and is wholly unverifiable to any degree of comfort for this blogger. it is an artificial system to level the playing field by making everyone and everything equal, regardless of merit or quality of product. and while, yes, it definitely has helped quite a few, ultimately, like the failed socialistic systems of the former soviet republic, fair trade will finally collapse under its own weight because either the people will see it for the sham it has become or because a truer view of specialty coffee will prevail, one in which spectacular coffee is valued at a much higher rate of return than the fair trade movement can keep pace with (see examples here and here). but the fair trade scheme is typical of any system that is often blindly touted as a savior for coffee and countries. it doesn't matter what the merits are, let's just give them all a ribbon and call it good. this is the radical egalitarian ethos and summation of the liberal left currently vying for power in the upcoming elections. and if indeed republicans do lose those six seats in the senate and the handful of seats in the house the hard won victories for free trade in the americas could come to a screeching halt, raising the price of coffee yet again--based on artificial economics and not on quality. democrats might likely attempt to repeal both nafta and cafta and seem certain to keep any potential similar legislation from even reaching the floor of the legislative bodies.

the other side of the coin is the free trade reality that some say is not really all that free for all. often, one side stands to gain much more from the opening of economic borders than nearly all others combined. the case has been made many times that the u.s. is the single largest beneficiary of free trade agreements such as nafta and cafta because in the world market, u.s. manufacturing might (would?) effectively crowd out local products, opening the way for further globalization and domination by american companies. this is, obviously, wholly irrelevant to the discussion of coffee, since only one state in the union even produces coffee--and has its own set of artificial price propper-uppers that are completely devoid of merit, in my opinion. continued free trade between the americas only stands to help american coffee importers, roasters and consumers, since we would be able to continue to enjoy the benefits of great coffee arriving at our shores without taxes, tariffs and trade regulations which would bump the price ever higher both artificially and arbitrarily. the long and short of that equation is that freed up american dollars always flow downward, creating a rising tide that lifts all boats. before long, americans will start comparing what kind of boats between them and begin to race/consume toward the top of that category. in that analogy, specialty coffee is the 'boat' category that is set to continue floating ever higher under any free trade agreement.

republicans: good for specialty coffee?

a lot of 'spro

2006-10-18T00:03:00.000-05:00

i used to work long hours on a la marzocco linea. four groups of pure espresso madness pouring out into paper cups with an aquatic tart emblazoned across the front and into the hands of an adoring public that couldn't get enough caramel macchiatos (the drink so terrible every indie shop within fifty miles of here has to rip off the name and recipe of exactly!). i didn't know half of what i know now by the time we had switched to the superauto verismo machines...you know, the ones originally designed for office coffee service. i can't believe in my naivete that i was actually happy to have the 'upgrade.' i think mostly i was happy because the verismos were so fast and consistent compared to all our mistakes and do-overs on the manual. we gladly gave up quality taste for ease of use. the monkey machines, as one of my baristas called the verismo. but in my store we were like crazy busy with espresso beverages. something on the order of 85-95 uph. on busy days and during holiday season that number would spike to over 100 uph. insane. that's a lot of gingerbread lattes, dude.

i just read that the australian coffee market is like 99% espresso beverages. holy kabootin cactus, batman. talk about the eye of the tiger. Lord only knows their breakdown of supers to semis; but even still, the line gets backed up unless you're pullin' the bucket o' milk at a time system.

anyways...

a fig tree cannot produce thistles

2006-10-14T00:43:00.000-05:00

this will sound weird, un/under-educated, perhaps misplaced, and so forth. but i find it nearly useless to 'cup' for espresso. here's why.

typically, when i'm cupping i'm doing so for two main reasons. one is to cup for defects. i'm slurping quickly and deftly across a few or even a large number of coffees. fast and furious, simply working the table to separate the contenders from the pretenders. i call this cupping defensively because i'm basically putting up my filter system--comprised of my nose, my tongue and my gums (yes, i'm a firm believer in chewing coffee and washing it over my gums as part of mouthfeel)--to detect stuff in my work cup that i don't want to show up in my pleasure cup.

while cupping defensively is very, very important to my decision on whether to buy a coffee it cannot be done alone, which is why i also 'cup forward,' or, cup with the goal of proactively looking for desireable stuff that will enhance someone's experience when they are at home after ordering one of my coffees. this is where i use my skill as a wordsmith almost as much (in some cases, more) as my skills in assessing acidity, body, flavor and aroma. i'm cupping forward and taking notes, sometimes mentally, sometimes feeling as though my pen will run dry before i finish with the adjectives pouring from my brain. the synapses of syntax are firing and i'm generally at a loss trying to hold both the pen and the spoon at once.

this second reason for cupping is keenly important to the frontline roaster because whereas a professional cupper who is determining whether coffee will be sent from, say, the beneficio to the exporter is mainly concerned not with the subtle nuances inherent in a particular lot, but more, as my friend edwin martinez (see the last interview below) says, on the 'health' of the cup. they are simply concerned with passing it up the protein chain. i have to romanticize it, describe it ad infinitum, to sell the sizzle as much as the steak itself. so i begin come with the flower of language, which is guided by efforts at cupping forward. i am learning to be more relaxed, to take more profound slurps which can be as much philosophical as physical. i am deliberately slowing my rate of slurp not to detect crap but to enjoy the possibility of future bliss. i'm sucking at the future, at the what will be after i (potentially) buy this coffee, not sucking at the past, at what has already been done that i have no power of control over.

what, you may be wondering, in the sam hill heck does this have to do with espresso? some of you see it already. others...here it comes.

as i mentioned at the top of the post, cupping for espresso is, for me, nearly useless. because i am a cupping hack? because i don't have a delicate enough palate? because i'm trying to get more than one person at a time to comment in the comments section by using the talk radio controversy approach to blogging? no. no. and, no. in that order. i say useless not really meaning completely devoid of benefit for me in guesstimating educatedly where an espresso will land or fly--or not--as it comes out of the portafilter. it does have its purposes. but those purposes are effectively obfuscated to me as i cup because i am using absolutely none of the same tools. it'd be like trying to run at a track meet in skis. or trying to hit a football with a baseball bat. how could one possibly be expected to make a judgment about Y using tools that have been designed to give insight into Q? another way of putting it might be to say that you're using the wrong map in the wrong laguage. when i want to determine how a coffee will taste as espresso the way to do that is through an espresso machine, with an espresso grind, at what more closely resembles an espresso roast (not necessarily an oiled roast, mind you), into an espresso holder.

maybe this is old news to any serious coffee person. but i seem to hear over and again people's conversations on making espresso blends, conversations that are devoid of the espresso machine. and that sounds a lot to me like the adage that when you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. maybe roasters get tunnel vision and try to approach espresso nirvana strictly from the cold science of the cupping table instead of the fanciful artistry of the espresso machine. two parts new guinea. one part brazil. three parts this, that or the other. stir vigorously and shazam! espresso alchemy.

me, i'm not built that way. maybe that means i'm more a barista at heart than a roaster at heart.

or maybe i am indeed just a hack at cupping.

oh yeah, i have a blog

2006-10-09T18:50:00.000-05:00

sorry for lack of updates lately. i've been consumed lately with coordinating this barista jam next month. so far i've got a nifty poster. just kidding. (i mean, i do have the poster and i do think it's nifty. i do have more than just that, though.)

actually, i'm getting excited for the program that's shaping up. here's a general schedule of events for the day:

7:00–8:00a Registration, networking, coffee and pastries

8:00a Introductions and Announcements

8:30a Group Cupping: “Geography As Flavor”

9:00a Ideas Exchange: “Sustainability in Coffee”
Angel Mena, Ruta Maya Riverwalk Coffeehouse, San Antonio, TX

9:45a Equipment Demo: Clover 1S
David Latourell, Coffee Equipment Co., Seattle, Wa

10:00a Skills Workshop: “Espresso 101–201"
Mike McKim, Cuvee Coffee Roasting Co., Spring, TX

10:00a Skills Workshop: “How To Brew Anything”
Aaron Blanco, The Brown Coffee Co., San Antonio, TX

10:45a Coffee Break

11:00a Ideas Exchange: “Seed to Cup: The Story of Finca Vista Hermosa”
Edwin Martinez, Finca Vista Hermosa, Huehuetenango, Guatemala

12:00p Lunch On Your Own

1:00p Free Time On Machines

1:30p Group Cupping: “How Roast Affects Flavor”

2:00p Skills Workshop: “Milk Stuff 101–201”
Jason Haeger, Mangia Bevanda Coffeehouse, Lubbock, TX

2:00p Skills Workshop: “Fixing What Goes Wrong”
Mike McKim, Cuvee Coffee Roasting Co., Spring, TX

2:45p Espresso Break

3:00p Free Time On Machines

4:45p Wrap Up; Door Prizes; Clean Up

5:00p Good-Byes

and then afterward we'll hit a pub and talk about coffee into the night...

one thing i am changing is having the skills workshops go concurrently, then have everyone switch. meaning, for example, at 10am half the group will participate in mike's workshop while half are in mine. then we'll switch them and the other half will be in mine while my original group will go to mike's session. this is going to take more than 45 minutes to do each workshop twice, though. so i guess we can just push into coffee break time and then some. the same will happen at 2p.

all in all, i'm really pumped about how it has been shaping up. most everyone i've contacted about sponsorships of some kind has been very helpful: syrups, amazing coffees, killer equipment to play on, and so on. there is so much that goes into coordinating one of these things. but it's not stressful. hey, when you used to coordinate events to keep middle school and high school students occupied for two hours each, twice a week every week for two and a half years, putting together a barista jam is a walk in the park.

now, off to more planning.

oh yeah, if you're interested in attending the jam, register and pre-pay here.

big green overload?

2006-10-02T20:03:00.000-05:00

at risk of focusing too much on big green lately, here's another interview/podcast posted over on portafilter.net a truly fascinating interview indeed, one which nick cho of murky coffee needs to take a ton of credit for. great, great interview, nick. your questions were spot on. now you need to have a follow up for that podcast and ask me the exact same questions about sbux. i'll give you the real skinny that bryant simon was only guessing at.

i found myself being the (sometimes not so silent) third conversant, clearing up inaccuracies here, filling in the blanks there. we three had a great time doing that podcast.

a fun podcast to listen to. go listen now.

the beautiful view

2006-09-28T21:26:00.000-05:00

so we're back with the second half of my interview with edwin martinez of finca vista hermosa in huehuetenango, guatemala. rather than bloviate any more, let's get right down to business. enjoy.

********************

8. talk about the role of the coyote in the coffee chain.

In countries like Brazil and Colombia the average grower is middle class or higher and they are a fairly large land owner. The average grower in most other countries is far below middle class and more distant from technology and the market. Thus it takes more middle men to make things happen. Although they often get a bad rap and do tend to abuse their position, their role is vital. More often than not a coyote is someone who owns or has access to a vehicle to move coffee for another who otherwise couldn’t get their product to the next link in the chain.

9. what are some of the earmarks a visitor should notice to determine whether a coffee farm is concerned with quality?

I would first gauge the social climate. How are people treated (be it a co-op or large estate)? Does everyone, particularly those picking coffee, feel they have purpose and ownership? Do they still have their pride and their dignity? Or do you feel like your visiting a sweat shop? Then I might be curious to see if records are kept of all activities. It is important to track history to improve future [production]. It’s not like it’s a daily cycle where you can keep trying again and take risks experimenting. An annual cycle leaves little room for error. One specific thing I look for is if it is a wet milled/washed coffee, is the coffee wet milled the same day it is picked? And how meticulous are they in determining when to cut off fermentation and begin washing?

10. how do you feel about the Fair Trade movement?

Oh boy. You had to ask. I believe historically it has encouraged mediocrity in quality. It is what it is. It guarantees what is average fair wage to qualifying co-ops. Average fair wage is not real attractive in the highlands of Guatemala where there is an exceptionally high cost of production. However, it is a nice insurance for those who are not producing an exceptional coffee that they’ll always get a decent price if the market is not hot. As long as there is a growing consumer market for Fair Trade, this seems to be a fairly sustainable model. The only wrinkle of unsustainability in the system is when the C [commodity coffee futures market tied to the New York Board of Trade] is well above fair trade, than many of FT’s contracts get shorted. I am a big fan of it in these cases where I believe they do successfully meet the goals of their mission statement. They are in fact bringing more of a fair wage to many who otherwise couldn’t make ends meet when the market is low. I remember a few years back people gave Transfair USA a hard time for seeking to improve the lives of so many yet paying a salary of $200k or more to their CEO. I have no problem with this as I know you couldn’t just hire more people with that same amount to accomplish the same thing. Companies this size need qualified CEO’s to be effective. I hope fair trade grows with tremendous success, however there are other models that I feel will accomplish the same, but be based on quality. They just can’t be built up overnight. It will require much collaboration by many over time as well as an increasingly educated consumer base.

11. most of your calendar year is spent in the united states. what are some of the challenges of keeping an eye on quality control during the year and how do you overcome them?

The challenges are absolutely endless. From land and water rights disputes, problems with too much liquor, guerilla warfare in the 80’s, lack of rain, lack of sun, lack of labor, you name it. There are many factors that are controllable and many that aren’t. Some may say the key to quality control is in the details. I would agree, but I believe there is another factor that is much more important.

We have very good people. Our goal is to be sure they are well equipped and happy.

Mitch (as in the hurricane...not a friend) knocked out roads, and Anacafe [Guatemala's coffee oversight organization] feared Guatemala would suffer a greater loss than it did. Not because of Mitch damaging the coffee trees directly, but rather because it eliminated roads. In this case many land owners who live in the city of Huehuetenango were not able to make their regular visits for weeks. They were not able to haul in needed fertilizer and other supplies. We are very well stocked in advance and managed by very forward thinking problem solvers who are respected leaders in their communities. I have to admit there is a sense of concern when someone of our family is not there. But every time there has been a problem--and believe me there have been plenty--it is often handled internally better than it would have been if I or we were there. Last year Carlos goofed up a few thousand pounds of coffee and let it go too long in the tanks. Rather than mixing with the rest, we set this aside. Had he not done this on his own, we would never have known otherwise until it was too late.

12. any cool coffee projects you're working on lately?

I’m always excited about half a dozen projects. I just committed to running a collaborative experiment – which you Aaron are a part of via the study group on [online coffee forum name deleted...you know who you are!], evaluating changes in coffee during the fermentation process. I’ve also been challenged by George Howell [Terroir Coffee] to keep our mirco lots separate... probably so he can pick his favorite. This month we partnered up with Orca Bay Coffee and Toad Mountain Coffee to launch a new venture separate from all of our businesses. We are setting the bar very high for a new retail location that will put a serious dent in coffee education geared towards end consumers in NW Washington.

13. what does a typical day on your farm look like during harvest season? non-harvest season?

For harvest season...this will be a few pages of text… I think you’ll just have to come down and visit and tell this story yourself. Non-harvest time, I will say that every day’s different. Networking and being a resource to our customers sums it up. We’re sold out for life, but there is some natural attrition as well as attrition that I’m pushing for as not all our customers are ideal match. I’d like to have a better relationship with less customers. Monday of this week I’m going down to SEATTLE with Jeff and Rob, our two new business partners for this new “project” mentioned above to visit roasters and retailers to share and mostly learn and brainstorm. My passion is that this new venture is just SCREAMING QUALITY AND SUSTAINABILITY. Tuesday I’m starting to build a deck on our barn and meeting with the health dept and city planning. Wed I drive to eastern Washington to do a TV spot, a few presentations and then pay a visit to some places that are carrying our coffee. Then I’ll spend the weekend with my father in-law as my wife takes her mom, aunt and Grandmother to Vegas for Grandma’s 85th birthday.

14. what do you think the best thing is that could happen to specialty coffee in the next five years?

That someone discovers that coffee is both the cure to cancer and AIDS.

On a serious note, I really don’t know, I’d like to have a smart answer for this, but every day I learn more about coffee and the industry I realize how much I don’t know. But in efforts to give you something, I might say TIME. The 5 years themselves. I think in 5 years we’ll have witnessed many cool things. The specialty industry has evolved in such an accelerated manner the last 5-10 years I can’t imagine what we’ll see in the future. I do dream of a day when I pick up a pound of coffee and I can read stats on the label such as soil type, amount of rainfall, elevation, actual varietal meaning something like “Caturra, Catuai, or Bourbon” in addition to the estate or co-op and region.

15. any final thoughts to share?

A good friend of mine in Bellingham, Washington, has been very helpful to me in shaping where and how we choose to do business. He recently spoke to a gathering of one of the largest accounting firms in British Columbia and based much of his talk on a book titled “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't” by Jim Collins. I haven’t read the book myself, but who needs to read books when you have friends that do? I share this because when I think about the future of the coffee industry I get really excited. I see a growing number of companies and people that are increasingly on the pursuit of excellence! I see more collaboration than ever before, I see guilds forming and forums (and blogs like this one) growing. I see new market developments connecting growers direct to roasters. And I get really excited when I see quality driven folks genuinely striving to make their customers successful. What a novel idea! It truly is an exciting time to be in the coffee industry. I am blessed to be a part of it.
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thank you, edwin, for your insightful interview and candor. readers, please give his website a visit at www.fincavistahermosa.com

precipice

2006-09-28T21:10:00.000-05:00

i think i may be going off the deep end. i told my wife recently that i'm beginning to notice myself drink coffee for pleasure...by cupping. more and more my personal production roasts are resembling my sampling roasts, though my production roasts still tend to be toward the lighter end of the spectrum. a couple thoughts on this.

first, i am viewing this as a good thing because i am wanting to capture in my own personal production roasts more of what i captured in the sample roasts/cupping sessions. this makes sense because i want to taste in production what made me want to buy a particular coffee anyway: what i tasted from the sample roast and cupping session. i see it as a move toward consistency.

second, i find so much sugar and fruit in my sample roasts that just fleets away with a full city or darker roast, roasts where the marbling has just about smoothed out and you have to watch for second crack and the onset of some oil beads on a few beans here or there. i almost never roast "to the sweat" on any beans. but nowadays i find myself craving the sweet and sour notes of sample roasts because they are so juicy and ripe.

third, it helps that the quality of beans i'm procuring are just getting better and better.

fourth, it is weird and funny that i end up drinking a lot of what i cup at the table. hey, i'm there already. pleasure cupping, if you will. if i'm cupping in the morning that's when it's more likely going to happen as i may not have already had my morning cup yet. after cupping and note taking, i just start 'drinking' from the spoon until i get to the sludge. either that or i just keep screech slurping it down to the sludge.

so here i am, pleasure cupping everything i get and finding myself wanting to reproduce that more and more for my customers. and maybe i can pull it off, because i barely have any customers to upset!

well, i don't see the sample roasts making their way into my full blown production roasts anytime soon. but i'm just saying that i'm noticing myself getting lighter and lighter in the quest for the ultimate coffee drinking experience.

revisionist history

2006-09-28T08:45:00.000-05:00

i guess i need to eat a little bit of crow. in the past i have done a coffee-off between two pieces of brewing equipment and have given the edge to the french press over the aeropress, even though in my heart i probably gave a much bigger edge to the french press.

i need to revise that statement and let it be a lesson to all not to get stuck in old modes of thinking, to always be willing to expand your base of knowledge and experimentation around coffee.

in the last month i can count on one hand the number of times i have reached for the french press when wanting personal coffee. it has almost always been the aeropress that has made its way onto the kitchen counter. it's quicker, easier to clean up and the taste profile is radically good. used to be i would savor how a coffee might taste in the press. now i wonder to myself how this coffee or that will be as an aeropress 'espresso shot' or 'americano.' always it makes me stand up and notice flavors i didn't think i'd find.

so hat's off to the aeropress for making a firm believer out of me. i mean, here's to the aeropress...we always knew you were headed for greatness from day one. er, right.

those of you who have an aeropress, any thoughts?