A robusta on both their houses

Unnerving.

What makes specialty industry any better than the rest of them.  I know this is not an amazing economic time, but really WWI?  Are we going to start seeing chicory in our coffee too?

And a few more for the road

My love.

Great Pizza.  Cheesy and fatty and good.  No seating means you stand and eat which is good because pizza is better scarfed down while extra hot. We walked it all off at the MOMA free friday anyway, right.

a mouth full

Roots & Vines cupping March 13th 2009

Sometimes a good cupping comes with crazy people (link to come).  It was a really interesting cupping not just because we were trying beer stouts.  One of the rwandans had the potato taint!  It was so great to be able to smell and taste the difference between the two rwandas and while I have had the potato experience before it was in a controlled cupping setting which made it more explorative and not so gross.  And I was wrong Meister it is a microorganism not a bug as I had been told originally…you know better.

The coffee was excellent, the company was mostly excellent minus the crazy russian woman who came in the middle of the cupping and started talking about what she liked and did not like, and the beer was interesting.  I do not drink beer so its hard for me to say anything subjectively, but I did notice that one of the beers tasted like it had Rwandan coffee in it and fact it did.  Its always exciting to feel like you have an idea that you know what you are talking about.

The day of coffee:

I had errands to run on one of my few days off and decided to take a trip to cobble hill and visit the newly opened Peddlers (Stumptown coffee).  I live a mile away so it was an idea trip and well worth it.  I ran into Allie Camp a really excellent person who I had met at one of the roots cuppings.  I bought a 12 oz bag of their Ethiopia Wondo and had a shot of expresso, hair bender blend, which was fruit smooth and did not linger in my mouth.

Peddlers had a New England rustic feeling, homey atmosphere and friendly faces.  The pastries looked fresh and rich and I was lucky to have an espresso shot made by Elizabeth one of the roasters at Stumptown.

So although I was already thoroughly overcaffeinated we went to Everyman Coffee not very far from where I work.  I knew they served Counter Culture Coffee but I had not gone over there to check it out.  The space is odd as it serves as a theater with a little coffee nook in the corner.  The seating was sparse and the tables were for function and not comfort. I had a very good shot of toscano which I know very well.  I also had part of an americano and that was also very good.  I felt bad for the barista who had no knock box (she had to distribute into the trash) and the counter was extremely low to the point where she had to bend down when she was dosing.  Great coffee if you are on the run. They also sell espresso la forza.  I wish they had had aficionado as I think my father would really like it for his home brewing.

That is all for now.

But we do have a 12 oz bag of wondo to explore.

HoboDepot

Apparently hobos like using our compost bins as homes…this was according to a coworker who talked with a customer who saw one being used this way….Well at this point we have help to create a hobo community or hobo camp even.  But really, we had two new bins on sunday and one monday I came in and we had just one.  I have a feeling today I will come in and there will be none.  I say we pay a hobo 30 bucks to protect our bin at night.  We save 20 bucks this way.  We may start a hobo turf war, but really why the bins?! I really hope we come up with a system.  Maybe I will bring in some spray paint and put something snarky on it…although then they will have a custom home. Chains are more expensive, but at this point we have bought at least 3 chains.

How are we supposed to heal the world if the hobos steal our compost bins?

cupping athletics

Makes me want to go into the paper hot cup business

This cupping was fun.  It was just one kind of coffee put in storage.  It was fun and you could get an idea of how different air, light, moisture, and temperature affect coffees taste as well as how it is ground.  I think that if the coffees had been kept for a month and then tasted against fresh coffee one would really get a sense of how important proper storage/the 14 days from roasting rule really affects ones coffee.  As it was we were tasting an El Salvador which is not my favorite coffee so I had a hard time telling which was old and which was fresh.  I think if I was tasting different coffee every day this would be easier for me.  At octane every day was a new coffee so my language for coffee tasting was better and my ability to know which was which was also better.  Its like running if you stop for a week you lose 50% of your endurance and the same goes for tasting.  I feel a little out of tasting shape.  Maybe I need to start training for something.

Whiskey and coffee anything better?

I have been behind on the posting already.  This cuping was a Counter Culture cupping at Roots and Vines and we go every week.  It was Whiskey and coffee and I have to say it was really fun.  I do not drink whiskey and it was still fun and weird.  Like cheese whiskey and coffee have some of the same characteristics.  The difference between the two experiences is that whiskey made it really hard to taste any coffee after I had tried the whiskey.  I think I was also tired and coffeed out as I had worked that day.  I find that when I cup after tasting coffee and smelling coffee all day I am completely worthless at cuppings.

There was a great TED lecture on trying the finest wines and food and how at the end of a day of tasting the best wines they all blend together.  Well, I cannot even imagine how hard it is for those people who spend all day tasting and numbering coffees to determine their worth.  After an hour all I can taste is coffee….maybe I should stick to paint.

Cupping and Jade plants

Another great cupping at Roots & Vines. I was having a hard time with the tastes and then I had soem cheeseand understood what flavors I was missing in the coffee. Even before tasting the cheeses when I was just smelling them I saw the parallels between the cheese and the coffee they were placed across from.  Its hard enough finding words for what you are tasting and smelling, but going between a liquid and a solid is a whole new level of difficult.

I left with a buzz and a belly full of cheese.

fundamentals of the food industry

Focus groups have always been used to determine what people want, but the truth is people don’t know what they want:

“If I asked all you people what you wanted in a coffee you would say I want a dark, rich hearty roast.

What percentage actually want a dark, rich hearty roast? 25-27%

Most of you like milky weak coffee.”

Awesome TED talk by Malcom Gladwell on What we can learn from spaghetti sauce.

I think that making people explore outside of what they know they might find they do not like what they think they do.  The question of “which one is bolder” “which is more acidic” or  my favorite “which one is stronger” would cease to be uttered.

70% percent of the time when I tell someone espresso is supposed to be enjoyed within 10 seconds they change their order to porcelain.  And for those that just cannot spare that 10 seconds (b/c they need it for slacking off at work) I tell them a short americano is what they want.  And they do.  They do not know it, but when they have had it once that is what they want.  There is even a guy who only drinks short americanos now.

Next on my agenda is to read and reread some coffee books.  I highly recommend Uncommon Grounds and Coffee: A Dark History.

defeated by a cappucino

Today’s battle was one of wills.  I am a pretty open minded flexible person about some things, but when someone gets an iced cappucino I cannot help but cringe on the inside and think “I have been doing this for four years…does it ever get easier?”  I know I have worked at some places that are hard to rival, but I left Octane just as it was really raising the bar.  I just wanted to know that the espressos are never to go, 16 oz drinks are foreign, and cappucinos are hot.

Call me 3rd wave fashioned I just want people to care.

Off the high horse and into the coffee:

Our Ethiopia Sidamo does not taste good cold.  I thought that it would be an excellent iced coffee drink (yes, for some iced coffee is a gross idea) but, it tastes harsh when cold like a bitter melon.  I think its interesting for such a full bodied coffee.  I find that so far the best iced coffee is still sumatra maybe b/c its so earthy and roasty….remains to be seen.

Hope for tomorrow:

no XL lattes or iced crappucinos

greater hope:

lots of regulars who are happy with their rostrettos.

press pot

Ritual Yellow Icatu–jj’s notes

dry: butterfinger, caramel, chocolate covered peanuts

wet: Wachamacalit candy bar, ice cream cone wafer, caramel/twix, butterfinger, thick/oily like salmon, medium body, very smooth–no bite, tongue coating, and buttery.