Day 1 Wednesday Jan 14Newark to Mesa de los SantosIt’s a long row to hoe. Providence to Newark to Miami to Bogata to Bucaramanga to Los Santos. Troy and Jaime join me in Newark. We’re greeted by a dose of fresh, thin air in Bogata. Troy immediately sets out on a quest for aguardiente, the legendarily potent anise liqueur, while I frustrate the woman behind the glass at the money exchange with my long-degraded Spanish. It’s really bad. After I finally acquire some pesos, I find a couple blocking my way up the stairs to the food court. Spanish for “excuse me”, anyone? I make some weird grunting noise as the rusty gears turn in my head, and they get the idea: give way for the strange mute man.Pardone me? Con permiso? I’m still not really sure. In any case, I survive the Bogata airport terminal, and finally meet Oswaldo Acevedo, the owner of Mesa de los Santos. Oswaldo lives in Bogata, and will be accompanying us on our final leg to Bucaramanga and the farm itself. We’re also joined by Max and Jennifer from Royal Coffee CA.After we land in Bucaramanga, we pile into a couple of SUVs for the long ascent up the Mesa. Troy and I ride with Oswaldo, with Javier at the wheel. After an hour or so of steep switchbacks, we arrive at Mesa—known locally as Hacienda El Roble. We are staying at the main house, a 150+ year-old white stucco beauty with a lush courtyard garden. After a late dinner of a light egg soup festooned with fresh savory herbs, we end a long, long day with a fair amount of anticipation for what sights sunrise will bring.Day 2 Thursday Jan 15Hacienda El RobleDaylight does not disappoint, as we wake to a landscape that is simultaneously wild and supremely ordered. The weather at Mesa de los Santos is perfect for human life. Warm, sunny mornings raise the temperature into the mid 70s, and right at lunchtime the wind starts whipping across the Mesa, maintaining optimal conditions. In fact, Oswaldo credits the wind for stressing his coffee trees a bit and concentrating sugars in the cherries, producing a sweeter cup.After breakfast, Oswaldo and his farm manager Fermin begin the tour in the nursery. There we find the expected—shiny green leaves of thousands of perfect coffee seedlings—and something else. Interspersed with the Bourbon and Caturra coffee plants are thick beds of aromatic herbs: oregano, basil, lavender, lemongrass, anise, mint and many others I can’t quite identify. Oswaldo stops at each bed and invites us to crumble a leaf under our noses. I’ve tried to grow a few herb gardens in my time, but nothing I’ve grown produces the kind of culinary perfume these plants do.And the irony: these redolent herbs are natural pesticides, carefully arranged to dissuade insects from finding a meal in the tender young leaves of the coffee seedlings. Luckily, a few of them will also find their way into the Mesa kitchen during our stay. Herbs, that is, not insects.After soaking up the nursery, we head into the “fields”. That’s a misnomer, of course, because great coffee does not grow in fields. What we see is a dense rainforest, with a riot of birdsong echoing off cedar, oak and galapo trees (and many others I can’t begin to name). Well below the leafy canopy, the forest floor is dotted with 4’ to 8’ tall coffee trees, with their distinctive british-racing-green leaves, and green, red and yellow coffee cherries.The constellation of fruit colors, even on the same branch, is our first glimpse of the immense labor that makes great coffee possible. Unlike virtually every other food crop of note, coffee must be picked by hand, and carefully at that. At Mesa, only the ripe red cherries (and the occasional yellow Bourbon) are picked. Each cherry holds two coffee beans, and it takes about 4,000 beans to make a pound of roasted coffee. Each coffee tree produces about one pound of coffee per season. Good to know. Regardless of the price we pay as roasters, retailers or consumers, we can all agree to one thing: coffee is a precious thing.Then we head down to the coffee garden. Here Oswaldo is growing 75 different varieties of coffee (a variety is a subspecies of coffea arabica; the Colombian Don Telmo coffee we roast at New Harvest is the Bourbon variety), with an eye on planting “microlots” of really special beans. It’s a fascinating experiment. The garden includes every imaginable variety from around the world, all grown under identical conditions.Even better, we are going to have the opportunity to taste 45 of them. More on this later.After another delicious meal prepared by Miriam and Juliana, we set out for the Los Santos school, just outside the gate to the farm. The school holds about 600 students, from kindergarten to 11th grade (the Colombian equivalent of our 12th grade). We are all impressed by the passion of the staff, and gratified to see the fruits of our importer’s longstanding support of the Mesa de los Santos region. The generosity of Royal Coffee is self-evident, from the basketball court to the computers and microscopes.Our next stop is the Big Show: the beneficio, or wet mill. Once coffee has been picked, speed is essential. It must be depulped, fermented, washed and dried quickly, to ensure the highest quality.Here’s how it works: At the end of the day, pickers bring in between 400 and 800 lbs. of cherry, per person (depending on the season). Fermin or one of the other supervisors weigh each sack of cherry, and the pickers are paid by the kilo. The ripe cherry is loaded into the wet mill. First any green fruit and “floaters” (low-density, less favorable beans that float on the water) are removed. The remaining cherries are then depulped, with the fruit sloughed off into a dump truck to be taken to the composting sheds and the beans and water are pumped into fermentation tanks.After the coffee has been depulped, it still has a sticky “mucilage” that needs to be removed. This is where fermentation comes in. The coffee will remain in the tanks for about 12 hours, which is enough time for the mucilage to break down but not so long that the fermentation process effects the flavor of the coffee itself.After fermentation, the coffee is washed and dried.. At Mesa, some coffee is dried in the sun on wood-framed screens, but the majority of the beans are dried using mechanical dryers. At the end of the drying cycle, what we know as coffee beans are still surrounded by a husk, or “pergamino”. This pergamino goes in burlap bags and is stored temporarily in the bodega, or resting room. The coffee sits here for a couple of weeks, until it reaches a relative humidity of about 10 or 11%. Once it reaches the desired humidity, the coffee is sent to a dry mill in Bucaramanga, where the husk is removed (the husks are returned to Mesa where it is used to fuel the mechanical dryers). A final sorting is done at this point to remove defective beans. Then the final product—green coffee—is loaded into 69 kilo bags, placed into a container and shipped—to a roaster near you.Mesa Cupping CompetitionThere are two main species, arabica and robusta. Arabica is typically high-grown (above 1,000 meters), and is noted for its mild, sweet flavor. Robusta grows at lower altitudes, is a hardier plant and is notoriously bitter and unpleasant. Pretty much every specialty coffee roaster only deals with arabica coffee.It doesn’t stop there, however. Coffea Arabica is a dynamic plant, with many more varieties than wine grapes. Some common examples are Caturra, Typica and Bourbon. Each variety has its own distinct characteristics, as we experience personally on our first day at Mesa. The coffee garden I mentioned earlier is home to 75 different varieties, all grown under identical conditions. Over our two day stay at Mesa, we will be cupping and grading 45 of them, and Oswaldo plans to put the top two or three finishers into production.It’s an intense exercise, with high stakes. We cup three flights of 15 coffees, and choose 10 finalists for a championship cupping at the end of the second night. The coffees are all over the place during the three preliminary rounds. We are scoring on a scale of 1 to 100 (100 being the unattainable best), and the scores dip as low as 40 and as high as 96. The lower scoring coffees are fairly uniform in their attributes: woody, vegetal, salty, walnut, potato, fermented.The top scorers, however, each enjoy unique profiles and flavors. This is what makes great coffee so phenomenal. Here are some flavor notes on some of these coffees:3rd Round PrelimWinner: peach cobbler, strawberry rhubarb, blueberry, clove, chocolate, cinnamon.3rd Round, 2nd Place: papaya and orange peel aroma, vanilla, caramel, banana, tropical fruit flavors.Final Round, 2nd Place: peach and floral aroma, light red wine, raspberry and strawberry flavors, rich acidity.Final Round, Overall Winner: strawberry and toffee aroma, floral in the cup, syrupy body, dark chocolate, nutty, orange zest, balanced.And no, I can’t reveal their identities. But some of these will be planted shortly, and once the trees start producing cherries in about four years, we will be roasting these coffees.Day 3 Friday Jan 16Ring of Fire, and We Have a WinnerWe start the day at sunrise, with a birdwatching tour. Mesa is home to 126 species of birds, giving new meaning to the term “bird-friendly”. Much of the region has actually been deforested. Outside of Oswaldo’s farm, the landscape is dominated by poultry and cattle farms, and housing developments. The coffee farm is an oasis, a sanctuary for all manner of flora and fauna.After the birds, we return to the lab for the third preliminary round of the cupping competition. Now thoroughly caffeinated, it is of course time to ride horses. Now, I have only ridden a horse once before in my life, which was five minutes of terror at summer camp when I was 9. So I’m a little nervous, especially when I draw the biggest mount. She’s dark brown and feisty. Let’s call her Ring of Fire.I get on Ring of Fire, and things seem fine. I’m sitting on a horse, no big deal. Then we head out. It turns out I have the Alpha horse—she absolutely needs to be at the front of the line. I have a hard enough time keeping my hiking boots in the stirrups, holding the reins and keeping the unraveling tether from getting tangled up in the horse’s legs, and all she wants to do is run.We eventually achieve equipoise, and I even let her get up a gallop a few times during the two hour ride up and down the rutted trails of Mesa. I certainly would have won the “race” back to the stable if Troy hadn’t gotten a headstart when Jennifer and I turned back to find the wayward Max and Jaime.After a ridiculous dismount (my horse-muscles are plainly in disrepair), Oswaldo takes us for a more solicitous ride (in cars) to see Chichamocha Canyon. Chichamocha is a 4,000 foot deep canyon that marks the edge of Mesa de los Santos, and it is a striking site. When we return, we cup the final round of coffees, and select a winner. Champagne is poured and another delicious dinner is served, followed by the medicinal application of gin on the rocks. It has been a good day.Day 4 Saturday Jan 17Mesa de los Santos to San Pedro Sula, Honduras.Today we jump from Bucaramanga to Bogata to San Jose, Costa Rica and finally arrive in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The sun does not follow us, however, and we are greeted with three days of rain.In SPS, we meet the folks from Lafayette College who have been working with the residents of the small village of Lagunitas, Honduras for several years in fostering economic and social development. They assisted Lagunitas in constructing a water filtration system and forming a cooperative of 13 families to work towards entrepreneurship and improving living standards in the village.Fluney Hutchinson, economics professor at Lafayette, leads the group, which is comprised of four undergraduates on this trip, Lori, Katie, Jackie and Nick. Lori will also be serving as our interpreter during our time in Honduras, and she will be working hard over the next few days. There is a lot to talk about.Also joining us in SPS are Sergio and Oskar, who work for IHCAFE, the Honduran national Coffee Board. They will fill a crucial role, in evaluating the prospects for coffee production at Lagunitas, as well as connecting us with other growers hoping to export their coffee to the United States. And—they will also being driving us all over the place.Day 5 Sunday Jan 18San Pedro Sula to YoroLagunitas is located in the province of Yoro, about 75 miles southeast of SPS, in the rural interior of Honduras. Once we pass through the town of El Progreso, about 15 miles outside of SPS, the concrete highway largely gives way to dirt roads. Even through the rain and the mist, Honduras reveals itself as a beautiful country, covered with steep mountain passes and undisturbed rain forest.We arrive in Lagunitas in the early afternoon, and are immediately introduced to the members of the cooperative (Manos Unidas). After Fluney and Lori catch up with the members on the news since their last visit, we head out to their coffee nursery. It’s about a half-hour walk up and down a muddy track, across a stream and up another hill. Jaime comments on the fecundity of the environment—“anything will grow here”. And it’s true; the forest floor is thick with growth, and the canopy is nearly oqaque.After we visit the nursery, we return to the village for a meeting. This is when Fluney and Lori set to work. The Lagunitas project is not one where grants or loans are made without consideration of internal or external conditions. Manos Unidas wants to produce coffee, even build their own beneficio, but Fluney wants to make sure that this is the right choice for them. He turns to Jaime, Troy and I for guidance about the coffee market in the United States, and Lori in turn communicates this to Manos Unidas.Jaime in particular is extremely helpful. He has traveled to origin many times, and knows what it takes to produce good specialty coffee. The altitude of Lagunitas (900 meters) is on the low side, and the variety of coffee they are growing is an unknown. With 13 families, their production is likely to be quite small. It becomes clear that building a beneficio may not be the best use of their resources.That said, they may still want to pursue coffee production, and use an established beneficio at another cooperative to wet mill their coffee. Jaime makes the point that Manos Unidas needs to know what price they can expect to get for their coffee before deciding to move forward.As the sun sets, we squeeze back into the IHCAFE trucks and head into Yoro City, where we will stay for the night. As it happens, we make back in time to see the Steelers eliminate the Ravens.Day 6 Monday Jan 19Yoro to Las Vegas to YoroWe are met in Yoro City by Francisco Castillo, the regional coordinator of Cortes and Yoro provinces for IHCAFE. We head south for La Victoria and ultimately Las Vegas, home to Cooperativa 25 de Julio.25 de Julio has 43 members and produces 400 bags (60,800 lbs) of certified organic coffee per year. Currently all of 25 de Julio’s coffee is aggregated with coffee from other cooperatives, and is sold for export under a generic label. Sometimes they have to deal with coyotes: middlemen who pay a low upfront price for their production. 25 de Julio is exactly the sort of cooperative that I would love to source directly, paying a fair price and in the process establishing an ongoing relationship.So I’m excited by the prospects raised by our meeting with 25 de Julio. Jaime, Troy and I all make presentations about our respective positions in the American specialty coffee market. I talk about how important Fair Trade Certified coffee has been for us at New Harvest in the past, but also about how we urgently want to move beyond it. I say that Fair Trade is a label, but what we really want—and what our customers really want—is a good connection to growers. We want to pay a fair price and see its effect: on the quality of the coffee, and on the quality of life for the people who grow it.Our meeting is upbeat and productive. We head up the muddy hill to see the beneficio, and we are not disappointed. It’s a very clean operation, with separate processing facilities for organic and transitional coffees and well-tended solar dryers for drying the coffee after depulping and fermentation. From there, we hike down to see the coffee on the trees. 25 de Julio grows their coffee at between 1,200 and 1,300 meters, under the shady canopy of old-growth cedar and gingko trees. Most of their coffee is of the Bourbon and Typica varieties, and is certified organic by Biolatina, a leading international certifying agency.Jaime, Troy and I are all energized by what we have seen and heard at 25 de Julio. Sourcing coffee direct from Honduras does not feel all that remote.We return to the hotel in Yoro City well after dark. There we meet Maira Gerente, president of COMISUYL, a large cooperative also based in Yoro province. The production by COMISUYL is large scale –380,000 lbs per year—but their processing practices are decidedly small scale. They do not have a central beneficio for wet-milling their coffee. Instead, each member of the coop pulps the coffee they harvest using a small hand-cranked mill and ferments it using their own personal fermentation tanks. The coop delivers the coffee to the exporter with 45% humidity—quite high. The exporter completes the drying process.We will not have time to visit COMISUYL, but Maira is an enthusiastic proponent of her coffee. We will meet her again tomorrow at IHCAFE headquarters in San Pedro Sula, and have the opportunity to cup her coffee.Day 7 Tuesday Jan 20Yoro to San Pedro SulaWe see peeks of sun as we leave Yoro. We are headed to IHCAFE’s main facility in SPS, where we tour their lab facilities, try some coffees and have a final meeting to talk about the process of bringing Honduran coffee to our customers.IHCAFE HQ is impressive. Honduras has the environment to produce great coffee—the same as Guatemala and Costa Rica, which have enjoyed sterling reputations for years. The folks at IHCAFE know this, and they are making the investment to make it happen. Ella shows us around the soil and water testing labs, and to the scene of last year’s Honduras Barista Championship. Ana Lucia Lardizabal de Hawit, last year’s Honduran champion, went on to finish 15th at the World Barista Championship—the highest finisher from Latin America.We head into the cupping lab. IHCAFE has an impressive array of Probat sample roasters, and they put them in service roasting the coffees we will be cupping. Two of the three samples are from Cooperativa 25 de Julio and COMISUYL. The coffees are a little fresh, both in terms of how recently the coffee was harvested and in just being roasted. Green coffee matures and mellows during export and storage, and we prefer to give roasted coffee at least 24 hours of resting time before we cup it. Nevertheless, this experience is all about potential—and it is there, in the cup.Day 8 Wednesday Jan 21San Pedro SulaAt Jaime’s suggestion, we squeeze in one more meeting in the morning before we leave. This is with Munir Hawit, owner of Cafex, a leading dry mill and coffee exporter. It turns out Munir exports coffee produced by 25 de Julio and COMISUYL, in addition to coffee from his own farm in Yoro, Finca Santa Marta. Santa Marta also won first place in the 2006 Honduras Cup of Excellence competition, scoring 91.41 and fetching a price of $6.70 per pound.Munir is quite open about the challenges faced by Honduran coffee. There are frequently breakdowns somewhere along the chain—picking, depulping, washing, fermentation and drying—that reduce the quality of the final product. Drying in particular has been an issue, which accounts for IHCAFE efforts to build solar dryers at coops like 25 de Julio. Munir also cited the need for Hondurans in the coffee industry to improve their cupping skills, to better appreciate the flavor characteristics prized in the American specialty market.Again, like everything else we experienced in Honduras, there is a desire to improve quality and seek direct relationships—exactly what we wanted to hear.
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Posted by Alun Evans on February 2, 2009 at 1:30pm
It was February 6th 2007 when the last big floods hit us in Jakarta. I remember that day well as our cafe in Kemang was flooded a metre deep with muddy, dirty river water that had climbed out of the nearby creek and covered all of the leafy South Jakarta suburb within a few hours. The cleanup took a while, but I am proud to say that we were trading on the sidewalk the very next day for customers in a need for a coffee do not just go away.Yesterday I woke up to the third successive day of heavy tropical rain. It simply is that time of year again, not much can be done about it. I had been thinking about doing a motorbike trip into the West Java countryside, just to snap a few pictures of the locals going abut everyday life. I thought it might be good to post these on BX. In the States most of the Javanese Coffee available is from East Java, some 1200km from where I live. West Java however was where it all begun for the coffee industry in Indonesia. The Dutch originally brought coffee here, Arabica from India, over 300 years ago. Planting initially was around Batavia (modern day Jakarta). In the capital city today streets such as Jl Kopi and suburbs like Jatrinegara are testimony to the fact that agriculture was once part of the trading life blood of the place.The Dutch quickly pushed their systems of plantation agriculture south, through Bogor and all the way to the town of Pelabhuan Ratu (Queens Harbour) on the Indian Ocean coast. Where I live, Sentul, is just about smack in the middle of where the heaviest concentration of plantations once stood. On the hills that wind in towards Jonggol and Bandung, coffee, pepper, rubber, clove and even the occasional nutmeg tree can still be found growing. Many of these old estates are now overgrown, but the trees and the way they were planted in grid patterns gives testimony to the agricultural systems of the day.With the rain still falling I wrapped the camera in several plastic bags, donned some very inadequate wet weather gear and hit the road. Conditions ranged from between warm and very wet, to bloody cold and very wet. The good news was that the light was perfect for photographing the villagers as they sheltered in their verandas of gathered in local Warungs to drink coffee and chat. It was not too hard to get a smile, I looked like the proverbial drowned rat.The villages in this area are still untouched by a lot of the expectation and disappointment that big city life creates in cities as big as Jakarta, or as small as Bogor. Graffiti is rare, people look healthy and are genuinely happy. Don't get me wrong, it is not my place as a visitor here to say that village life is many ways is superior to that in the city. Literacy levels (low) and infant mortality rates (high) are still a problem in rural Indonesia. However, in the coffee projects we operate here we are working hard to keep the farmers on the land, pay them well and develop infrastructure. I think there is no doubt that we have seen rural communities would rather stay in villages as long as they have a similar level of access to resources as those in the cities.On this day I got thoroughly wet. I was caked in thick, sticky mud up to my knees. My eyes stung from the constant rain and the concentration required to keep the bike firmly on the road. My butt hurt from the constant trampolining effect the buckled tracks produced under the bike. By wrists ached, by back was sore. However I had a great day and have absolutely no regrets on doing the trip. Lots of coffee, thick, hot, tar-like Robusta with sugar was drunk along the way. I met newborn babies to a couple of 95 year men who told me stories of the Japanese occupation and Independence. I ate rambutan and sweet manggis picked from trees hanging over the road. I helped villagers pull a dilapidated land cruiser from a swollen river and walked amongst the ruins of a long abandoned colonial coffee plantation. Yes, a great day. Next week I will bring back the prints of the photos I took yesterday for the friends I made along the way and, hopefully, get a few more pictures while I am at it.
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I've missed you. I've missed my Linea, my tamper that got destroyed by that Liberace barista with all the rings. I've missed making those maccs, too. I've missed Ted throwing hot quakers at me.It was really great to see you again, Kean Coffee. I broke up with you more than three months ago- and i'm so glad we're still good friends. I hope you find everything you need (especially some decent Roburs; if anyone deserves them in the high-volume world, it's you).So, here's to great friends in far away places.Cheers.
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Posted by Barbara Adams on January 29, 2009 at 9:23am
Our Realtor has found some interesting leads for locations. Let me tell you: the prices have dropped dramatically to purchase a business. Location lease prices are down. It starting to seem like a favorable time to enter the market. As long as you have enough cash for operating capital to survive this slope.
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Chekkit. Here's some pics from my new place, dose espressohttp://tinyurl.com/dh8zybmy site is http://www.dose-espresso.comIf anyone is interested, I'm also active on twitter (dose_espresso) and have a facebook page too that I update that frequently. There's just too many forums/blogs/social networking sites for a busy man to keep up with!James (heminui)
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Posted by Jason Haeger on January 28, 2009 at 12:02pm
(via)A Focused Approach for Tough Economic TimesOne consultant/trainer's perspective on ways to keep your specialty coffee retailer afloat. (by me)___________________________________________________
As the recession continues to loom overhead, and even progress further down, it has probably become obvious to many that the sale of higher priced ticket items are on the decline as more people try to economize by sticking with the less-expensive brewed options.While this may seem on the surface to be a negative hit to retailers, it does not have to be so.When recessions hit, the smart investors start buying up stock, taking over other companies, and the likes as have been seen recently, as well as what happened in the Great Depression of the 30's. SOMEONE stands to profit from it. The trick is learning how to work it to your advantage as well.In the world of coffee retail, many many people have worked their tails off trying to educate their customers, trying to get them to try new coffees, trying to push the COFFEE, rather than the 'recipe'. Consider the retail phenomenon we're seeing as a golden ticket of opportunity. If you show your customers that your shop is trustworthy, and is looking out for their best interests, you can survive, and even thrive.Roasting companies are doing pretty well in these times. That's been the word from the roasters I have asked about it, and I'm assuming that goes for most others as well, assuming they are doing a decent job with their coffees.How can a retailer profit from this? Sell more whole-bean coffees, offer different brew methods, hold free classes for consumers, and offer affordable brew-at-home equipment in your stores.Brewing up batches of coffee is awfully convenient, but when the rush slows in the late morning and into the afternoon, how much of it gets thrown out? If the answer is "none", is it because it's not being refreshed with fresh brews, or is it because it's being sold? If the answer sounds something like the first of those two, then it's time to change something.If you have been reading Texas Coffee People for awhile, you may remember our piece about Bottomless Coffee, and why it may not be such a great idea afterall. If you have read that piece, then what you've just read may sound like a repeat of information. It is. more...___________________________________________________The best stuff is much further down. I don't personally feel like it's a good idea to syndicate something this long in its entirety, so click through if you're interested in read moreRead more…
This morning's edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel featured an article about the Stone Creek Coffee Blog. It's been nearly four years since we launched our blog and it has been a great tool for us to communicate with you, our customers. Grab a cup of your favorite blend and head on over to JSonline to read how Blogs can draw customers deeper into businesses.
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Posted by angela payne on January 28, 2009 at 4:17am
GOOD MORNING EVERYONE, I AM NEW TO BARISTA EXCHANGE SO I THOUGHT I WOULD GET ON AND INTRODUCE MYSELF TO EVERYONE, MY NAME IS ANGIE AND I AM 39 YEARS YOUNG. I AM FROM KOKOMO INDIANA BETTER KNOWN AS STOP LIGHT CITY OR BFE AS I HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO CALL IT. I HAVE THREE KIDS, TWO ARE GROWN AND ON THERE OWN AND I HAVE A 15 YEAR OLD AT HOME. (HE THINKS HE IS 30) I HAVE ONE GRANDSON WHO IS TWO. I TOOK A BUYOUT FROM MY JOB AFTER 15 YEARS A COUPLE YEARS AGO FOR HEALTH REASONS, I WORKED IN A LARGE AUTOMOTIVE COMPANY AND I AM ALLERGIC TO OIL SO IT WAS REALLY TAKING A TOLL ON MY LUNGS SO I GOT OUT WHILE THE GETTIN WAS GOOD. THEN I WENT TO THE ACADEMY AND BECAME A CORRECTIONAL OFFICER IN A LARGE PRISON, I WORKED THERE UNTIL I MET MY HUSBAND AND WHEN WE GOT MARRIED HE WASNT HAPPY ABOUT ME WORKING IN THERE SO HE ASKED ME TO GIVE IT UP AND I DID. IT IS HARD STAYING HOME AFTER WORKING FOR SO MANY YEARS. I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF, BUT I ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING. I AM GETTING READY TO START SCHOOL FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SO THAT WILL KEEP ME BUSY. WELL BUSY FOR 4 YEARS ANYWAY. I AM NOT IN THE COFFEE INDUSTRY, BUT I LOVE COFFEE AND GOOD COVERSATION OVER COFFEE. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING NEW FRIENDS AND GETTING TO KNOW YOU SO IF YOUR INTERESTED IN GETTING TO KNOW ME YOU KNOW HOW TO CONTACT ME. THANKS FOR THE TWO FRIEND INVITES I ALREADY GOT, I APPRECIATE IT AND LOOK FORWARD TO TALKING TO YOU.HAVE A GOOD DAY AND TRY AND STAY WARM IF ITS COLD WHERE YOU ARE LIKE IT IS HERE. WE HAVE ABOUT 10 INCHES OF SNOW AND ITS STILL SNOWING. HUGS, ANGIE
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Posted by Dave Green on January 28, 2009 at 3:27am
Starbucks UK has some fantastic coffees, However not the full selection available across the Starbucks range. If anybody working for Starbucks elsewhere in the world would like to swap markouts I would be more than happy to talk to u :D
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Posted by Mike Ferguson on January 27, 2009 at 10:00am
January 27, 2009The SCAA Board of Directors has approved the following slate of nominees, selected by the nominating committee, for election to the board of directors. The election will be conducted March 2 – March 31, 2009.OFFICERSTim O'Connor for Second Vice President - Allied Member (Pacific Espresso)Shawn Hamilton for Secretary/Treasurer – Roaster Member (Java City)NOTE: The Second Vice President will Become Vice President on May 1, 2010, and president of the board on May 1, 2011.DIRECTORSEllie Matuszak for Director – Allied Member (Coffee Solutions)Ellen Rogers for Director – Coffee Retailer Member (Dunkin’ Donuts)Nathalie Gabbay for Director – Importer Member (RGC Coffee, Inc.)Price Peterson for Director – Producer Member (Hacienda Esmeralda/Panama)Max Quirin for Director – Producer Association Member (ANACAFE)25 Signatures Due on February 25, 2009, for Petition Candidates to be Placed on BallotIndividuals who wish to be considered by the membership for election to the board, but who were not selected through the nominating committee process, may submit a signature petition to be placed on the ballot. The SCAA Bylaws currently state:"Section 11: (d) Additional nominees may be proposed through a petition process. Should any member be proposed by petition, the petition must contain a minimum of twenty-five (25) signatures from eligible voting members. The petition shall be submitted at least thirty (30) days prior to the mailing of the ballots. All nominees qualified under the Bylaws and receiving the required number of signatures will be placed on the ballot. All candidates will be given equal access to promote their candidacy through membership mailings and by access to the membership lists."In this current election year, PETITIONS ARE DUE TO SCAA HEADQUARTERS ON FEBRUARY 25, 2009. Also due on February 25, 2009 are biographies/statements and photos from all nominees, whether selected through petition or by the nominating committee. Photographs and statements from the candidates are optional, but all nominees are encouraged to submit a 500 word biographical and vision statement. Photos and statements will be printed in an online ballot book for members to review before voting. Please note that all 25 signatures submitted by petition candidates must be from current SCAA members in voting categories and only one signature per member company is allowed. Associate and individual members of SCAA are not voting members. Please contact Mansi Chokshi at mchokshi at scaa dot org or (562) 624-4100, if you have any questions or need assistance with the petition process.
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I got up at 5am after a late night with my grand daughter who was staying over - she would not go to sleep. She is only 3 years old; Shannon - the first thing I did was make coffee. The first sips are the best.I also want to visit a new Café that opened up in town, if we have the time this morning.The weather: -21°C this morning in Moncton going up to -11°C this afternoon with blue sky and lots of sun.
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Let's see...I don't have a lot of coffee related topics to blog about, but I can talk about what I'm up to.Lately I've been super busy. I'm in the begining of a school semster where I am taking double the credit hours that I'm used to, still working about 30 hours at the shop (which has come to include the fun open and close split shifts,) still setting aside time to work in the a/v area of my church, and somewhere still finding time to do things like sleep.At first the new crazy pace of life was knocking me out, but I think I am slowly getting used to it.Things are good at the shop, not counting the slow down in business which I think everyone is feeling right now. I currently have a good group of barista's that know their stuff and are handling shifts on their own now. (I think last time I blogged I mentioned all the training I was doing.) There are still a couple of girls that need some work before they are allowed to serve drinks to the customers, but it'll happen. Guess a trainers work is never done.Recently the person that comes from our roaster to do periodic in-house training came. Overall he seemed pleased with the level of training I've been able to give our staff, which I take as a complament. :)Despite my hectic pace I've been thinking a lot about the level of training I give to others and how I really want to gain some more taining for myself so I can up the level for my trainees. How to go about this I haven't a clue yet, but hey.And as a random thought, there really needs to be mini barista and coffee schools across the country, not just in Portland.Anyway, that's pretty much where my life is at right now. Sprinkle on some smiles over the upcoming coffee fest in Chicago and that fills out the picture. So with that, I think I'm done.Until my next blog - which might be in a few months from the looks of it.Cherie
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I just got off the phone to a friend, Bob. He was in Toronto the same time I was - he got down to the Green Beanery but I missed it. He pick up 20 pounds of green beans, this is just for his home. Oh well we can't do everything.
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Posted by Anthony Epp on January 26, 2009 at 10:34am
How to Affect the Taste of an EspressoAs I’m coming up on getting into more training, I’ve been thinking a lot about the different ways a barista can affect the taste of a shot.For the time being I’m going to leave out the temperature and pressure adjustments as I don’t have the privilege of working on a machine with those controls. For now my thinking revolves around: Grind, Dose, Tamp & Brew Time.For a cafe setting I am going with the argument there is going to be a set & standard ‘shop way’ of pulling shots for the 12oz and larger milk drinks. I would apply that same standard to demitasse drinks as well after factoring the baristas familiarity with the customer. The may be a difference in the way a single or a double is pulled as there needs to be enough espresso to provide a certain level of coffee flavor in order to pull through the bigger milk drinks. I don’t see this as a problem as those that are getting espressos are going to appreciate the slight difference in the shot from day today and often times look for that.I’m for consistency if I’m for anything in a cafe setting as the number one reason I hear from my regulars as they travel is that they go to Starbux because they know what they are going to get, not necessarily because they like what they are going to get. A lot of independent shops have not been extremely focused on stressing quality or worried too much about maintaining a certain level of consistent quality so people are never really sure as to what thy are going to get when they go into an indie shop they have never been in before.So the espresso has been chosen, and the desired taste/flavor profile has been decided upon. For the moment let’s assume that is 20g @ 20sec at a volume of 1 oz. Everything is set and in place and humming along and then something changes and the shots are no longer quite as sexy as they were at opening. How does one go about correcting the problem? Because of the training I have received, I am immediately say to change the grind to get things back in line. Now I don’t mind the occasional glass of Cool-Aide, but how long am I going to continue to let myself be drowned by it?Is changing the grind the best way to go about bringing the “flavor profile” back in alignment?Do the 4 things mentioned above, that a barista has direct & immediate control over, have different things in the flavor profile that they control. For example: Does the Tamp cave the most direct control over the amount of “cocoa” tasted in the shot, the Dose the Fruits, the Grind the Spice, and Brew Time the Citrus?Does one change several at once, or take a more scientific/methodical approach to things? Making the grind finer, barring nothing else changing, will increase the shot time, but so will any of the other 3 factors. But in what ways do they affect it. While this hypothetical shot is somehow running short, how has the taste been affected? If everything is the same except for the citrus/acidity angle, but not the time factor or any of the other flavors. How is this best corrected?Or,, the shots are running long. Conventional thought would say to make the grind coarser. But what would happen if the Tamp was lightened or even the dose lightened up?How would one go about determining things like this if they are even measurable.Am I even making any sense? Or should I just have another whiskey and go to bed?
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Posted by nik orosi on January 26, 2009 at 10:30am
You all know them but once again, imagine a firm with 3 coffee world champions, 2007 World Cup Tasting Champion Anette Moldvaer, 2007 World Barista Champion James Hoffmann and 2008 World Barista Champion Stephen Morrissey...dream firm! And guess what, i have their coffee to taste...I know that some of you have tasted their coffee, im just afraid of opening the bags and start to enjoy. Is that normal?
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oh boy it is cold out -26°C (-14 Fahrenheit) this morning in Moncton going up to -20°C (-4 Fahrenheit) but we have blue sky and lots of sun - I'm so happy to have had a wonderful hot mug of coffee this morning.
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