Posted by Matt Milletto on February 17, 2008 at 4:03pm
I didn't get to watch all of the finalists today as I was in the booth, but did try to follow the comp as much as I could. A big congratulations to all who competed, and instead of trying to re-post everything here, for now, check out the sweet blog put on by Octane at www.coffeerevelation.com
Also congrats to Ben from Octane for winning the Millrock Latte Art Competition, along with Justin from Alterra coming in 2nd place! More to come soon.
- Matt
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I have this 2 unit pour-over contraption on a shelf at my shop that we've never used for the same reason we don't make drip for our "regular coffee". For the 25% of our clients who don't ask for espresso-based drinks we make French Press. The French Press coffee is made in 1.5 litre presses then decanted into airpots and refreshed/replaced as need be depending on how it ages and tastes (+/- 30 minutes) depending on the beans and their roast. But when someone wants a coffee other than what is available at the moment they have to wait 4 or 5 minutes while their individual press is prepared...(ie: if we've decided that it's a Papua New Guinea day and someone requests a Yemen, they have to wait.)4 or 5 minutes isn't much in geological terms but during the morning rush having this thirsty person shuffling around the end of the line in my small shop can be stressful to staff. Also, we're in the early stages of coffee education in our small town and there are no waits at the other shops because they make great vats of drip. First-timers who want something new could be disinclined to return if time is their controlling instinct...And they might never enjoy the benefits of good single origin beans - one of our goals.So this pour-over thingy...Are there gold (or other metal) Melitta-style filters that will allow the 'oils' to pass-through or am I stuck with papers?
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Posted by James Spano on February 16, 2008 at 4:28pm
Just a general idea of what's going on with my apprenticeship. Got into the shop at 6:00 A.M. and started up the roaster. I've gotten to the point where I (get to) start early by myself and clean things up and get the roaster started and ready for the day. Today was light, we roasted about 60 lbs. of Hue Hue. Mike comes down finally with coffee and a little something to eat. He reminds me (again and again) what I"m looking for in the roast and when to drop it in and when to take it out.Mike starts things up in the shop and after discussing options and planning things for my future shop, we open his at 9:00 A.M. (that's right). Everythings goes smoothly and I take care of the roasting side of the morning then finish up and help behind bar till lunch. At 1:00 P.M. We close up for a two hour lunch (I freakin' love the hours here, you can get away with them and still make enough).Except it's not our usual lunch then plan then maybe grab a 15 minute siesta. Mike gets a call around noon from a local tour guide. The guide brings tourists (mostly Italians) into the shop during the closed hours so they can get personal attention from a skilled barista on a machine from the motherland (Mike has a lever la Cimbali, they love it). So picture about 15 Italians crammed into this little shop all ordering singles, doubles, and ristrettos. While Mike trusts me behind the bar, he know just what these guys are looking for and want to give them exactly what they need. So he runs solo while I take everyones orders. Depending on their age, they order espressos how they know them: Ristretto, lungo, corto, double, normale. Mike smiles and nods and pulls beautiful shot after beautiful shot. Then some want to try the coffee. We pour out some Hue Hue and the expression on their face tells the story about this coffee: wow. Now, they all want coffee. Espresso, regular, ground for moka, drip, and professional machine. Then they see there's cacao. Well of course they need that too.There's a time when your working and there's so much going on and it just keeps building. Mike calls this being "in the weeds". We were in the weeds. Fortunately they had another site to see and could come back later, so they left us frantically packaging.The afternoon continued with more beans and brew to sell. We must have sold 20 lbs. of coffee today. To fully appreciate this, you'd have to see Mike's shop. It holds about 17 max with no elbow room and no hope of the barista getting out from behind the bar.We finally close at a very late (haha) 7:00 P.M. Then it's clean up and talk shop. These are amazing times where I can sit and listen to a guy with 20 years in coffee all over the world tell me about shops, customers, and the heart.Tomorrow we're off on a coffee run! We'll be gone to and a half days into farms searching for this years stellar bean. The harvest here is very late and a lot of coffee was lost in a big wind storm. I'm excited because Mike is visiting some farms new and old to him, so I can experience both of those aspects.Meanwhile I'm still deciding how to get things started. The capitol this is still a question. How to get it. I could work for a year (I mean, I am a certified teacher) or try to get on with somebody as a roaster or barista and save up. Or I could just start as a roaster which would greatly reduce my startup costs, then continue planning and saving and buy little things here and there. I'm still thinking and praying about all of it.So. That's my day. Almost two weeks in, and the rest of my life to go.
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Posted by Bel Townsend on February 16, 2008 at 7:24am
(NB: This is a follow up for uni - I started a discussion on here a while ago asking why coffee is perceived to be Italian at least in the UK. These are just some thoughts and experiences on that topic)Walking round Darlington town centre gives you a relatively large selection of places to get cups of coffee. There are numerous 'traditional tea rooms' where coffee is an afterthought, and greasy-spoon cafes who will do instant Nescafe in a polystyrene cup. And then there is two Costas, a Caffe Nero and the brand new Starbucks. So far, so uninteresting. Darlington does boast a few independent cafes, however: The Voodoo Cafe which I am still too biased to express an opinion about, Coffee Bamber – an expensive and somehow unappealing place which, commendably, only sells FairTrade coffee, and “Coffee @ Elliotts.” This company actually has two branches now on either side of town, and I decided to try it out.Coffee @ Elliotts is done out quite attractively, all art deco with huge chandeliers, ornate mirrors, heavy wooden furniture and the odd bust dotted around on shelves. There are also lots of sepia pictures of old style continental pavement cafes with titles in... French?This is surprising. I had honestly expected the elusive Elliott to pretend to be Italian. Costa claims to serve Italian-style coffee, Caffe Nero are so Italian they've even added the extra 'f', Starbucks was apparently inspired by Italian espresso bars... Admittedly, Coffee Bamber doesn't seem to know what it is selling, and I tried to make the Voodoo Cafe as Latino as possible, but otherwise it is a safe presumption that most coffee shops have some Italian connection. Elliotts does serve espresso, cappuccinos, lattes, and all the rest, but also apparently sell 'coffee' as well, without giving it an Italian identity. All drinks come in 'regular' or 'large' as opposed to 'grande' or even 'venti'. Although the emphasis is on coffees, they also serve panninis and biscottis, but also plain sandwiches, cakes and jacket potatoes. None of which sound particularly continental.The coffee at Elliott's wasn't bad at all, and was actually cheaper than the bigger chains. And then I found out why – they were using a Bean-to-Cup machine, which is about the same size as a Gaggia espresso maker and works on the same principle, but doesn't require the same human input. This machine will make espresso-based coffee, but only requires that you fill it up with beans, water and fresh milk in different compartments, and press the right button depending on what you want. It presses the coffee and steams the milk all by itself, and the 'barista' just has to put a cup underneath.This makes the coffee cheaper – not because it is cheaper to run, or cheaper on staff costs; the baristas are still there to bring your coffees to you and cash up etc. It is cheaper, I think, because it requires less skill to produce. And also, less showmanship. Making coffee like this, looks easier to anyone watching. Therefore, value cannot be added to it by making it look more skilled. The process does not look sufficiently complex to warrant charging more to compensate for the skilled labour involved. This sort of coffee is less of a luxury.This does not mean, however, that anyone could do it. It is still highly unlikely for many people to have a bean-to-cup machine at home, and so the luxury of having someone make it for you is still there. Even with a machine like that, there still has to be some product knowledge involved. An example is that the coffee from Interval bar at Sheffield university also comes from a bean-to-cup machine, just like at Elliotts. Elliotts coffee is infinitely better tasting however. Baristas still need to know how to maintain the machine, set it to the right temperatures and pressure, and what coffee to put in it. Elliotts coffee tasted as good, if not better, than Caffe Nero's equivalent, whereas the coffee at Interval is somewhere between burnt and stale and possibly flavoured with ground up car tyres. This, to me, implies that there is more to making coffee than just which machine you choose.As shown by the Barista Championships, there is a lot of skill, art and showmanship that goes in to making espresso based coffees, and the fact that these competitions, and this style of coffee-making are still so popular implies that it is still what consumers want – there must be a specific selling point to make the coffee shops invest in Gaggia machines and in training their staff. If the bean-to-cup machines were as good – and they are quicker, more efficient and dare I say it, convenient, then Starbucks and Nero would use them and the art of the barista wouldn't be so called for. Something has to make the 'real' espresso coffees of higher quality.I would argue that it is the Italianess that is that selling point. Italianess is part of the 'experience' which the big brands are so keen to promote. Caffe Nero, for instance, want to offer the experience of a old fashioned Italian espresso bar and continental cafe. It gives the coffee, and this 'experience' an identity, which is very important to the brand, Being 'Italian' not only makes the place sound sophisticated and if not exotic, then certainly different to the quaint English tea rooms, it also adds an element of performance. Espresso was invented and perfected in Italy, the first espresso machines were designed and patented by Italians. This style also happens to require more skilled human input, more visual techniques and as such, more labour. Increasing the labour involved increases the value of the end-product, the customer perceives it to be of better quality entirely because of the added labour-value, and so espresso coffees become more expensive. This could be the main reason why coffee shops, like Coffee @ Elliotts become Italian, when they are on Darlington high street, run by Americans and get their coffee beans from Brazil.
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I just figured I would give this whole blog thing a shot. It's been a really long time since I have done this...not to mention my one and only blog was on xanga.... any who, it's late in Kansas and I am watching Harry Potter (#1) and just finished season 3 of 24. I did practically nothing today, with the exception of writing up descriptions of our competition espresso blend. It should be up on the site by Monday I would assume. Well, even though this is the 72nd time I have seen it, I must watch Harry's hijinks ensue....Holls
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our store uses a brew bar system (with Melitta cones and #4 filters) to make brewed coffee. my location (Mormon Trek) has six brew bar slots (four for straight coffee and two for flavor). to make it easier for customers to figure out where their coffee is, we make signs and direct customers to the sign under which their coffee is dripping away. i made some kickass signs today... breakfast cereal characters (with vintage cereal boxes for the pictures). included were Count Chocula, Trix Rabbit, Dig 'Em Frog, King Vitaman, Tony the Tiger, and Cap'n Crunch.while i was making the signs, i realized that a lot of breakfast cereal mascots have titles like Captain, Count, King, Sir, etc. that's weird. i don't think children are sitting at the table saying, "you know, i will only eat this sugary crunchy stuff if a dude with a fancy name endorses it."at least Cap'n Crunch isn't pretentious with his name... he's snappy!
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Posted by 3d7lj1n4xxk7t on February 15, 2008 at 10:30am
News arrived yesterday that the CIA has formed a partnership with Counter Culture. Reaction around the world has been a swift and resounding "What?!" And yet it is true. The implications of this unusual partnership bring up many troubling questions, paramount among them is how...Okay, I just can't go on with this farce any longer. Not that it can't be done, mind you, but there are simply too many possible jokes embedded within this news item for any sane person to willingly go on.So the real news is that the CIA--not the infamously humorless and freakishly disturbed US intelligence agency but The Culinary Institute of America--is developing a coffee curriculum in partnership with roaster and public educator Counter Culture Coffee. They plan to offer the coffee curriculum as a part of the culinary college’s baking and pastry arts program, including a new espresso and single-origin French press program for the CIA’s Apple Pie Bakery Café. Must. Resist. Mom and Apple Pie joke. Argh!Link (via Coffee Talk)Post originally published by Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee.
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I received a call from the spouse of a regular customer...Somebody wants to treat their Valentine to a treat in the shop and I don't know what to nake...Cinnamon Latte maybe?I normally discourage flavoured drinks in favour of tasty espresso but the masses speak.Any suggestions?
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Posted by Andy Newbom on February 13, 2008 at 1:38pm
February is the month of coffee and love with Valentines day and Specialty Coffee month sharing the stage. And that coffee love is blooming at Silicon valley's Barefoot Coffee Roasters. Barefoot is hosting Guatemalan National Barista Champion Noe Castro for the month of February. Noe Castro was the Guatemala national Barista champion and went on the compete in the 2006 World Barista Championships in Tokyo nabbing 28th place. Noe recently took third place at the 2007 Guatemala Barista Championship and won the title of “Best Espresso” at the championships.For the months of February and March Noe will be participating in a Barista Exchange at Barefoot Coffee Roasters. Noe will be exchanging information, techniques, coffee passion and stories with the Barefoot Coffee team. This is a unique arrangement that builds great rapport between all of the participants. The high end of the specialty coffee industry is a supportive community that thrives on open communication and co-opetition. Noe will be learning to roast coffee, cup and blend coffees from many different countries and learn new espresso extraction techniques. In exchange Noe will be helping to train Barefoot's Barista competition team, Monica Hill and Marie Holston, as they prepare for the Western Regional Barista Competition March 29-31st 2008 in Berkeley, CA. Noe will also be working the espresso bar pulling espressos for customers throughout the month at Barefoot's coffee bar.“My passion is coffee. ” Said Noe Castro Cacao. “Working with Barefoot Coffee is a remarkable opportunity for me to advance my coffee knowledge, skill and passion. The level of coffee preparation knowledge in the United States will allow me to achieve my goal of representing Guatemala in the World Barista Championships in 2009.”And to continue the spirit of the exchange he will also be spending a week or two at Ritual Roasters in San Francisco doing many of the same educational opportunities. This type of open community and exchange is a hallmark of the artisan coffee industry where relationships and results are more important than brand.Artisan roasters take great pride in hand crafting coffees of the highest magnitude. The multi-layered flavor complexities exceed that of even the finest wines. And many of these roasters take the coffee so seriously that they develop direct relationships with coffee farmers in producing countries to ensure the highest quality and most unique flavors. These relationships also serve to pass more of the profits to the coffee farmers themselves through education and awareness.“ Noe is an amazing Barista and representative of Guatemala Coffee. “ Mused Andy Newbom, Chief Espresso Officer of Barefoot Coffee Roasters, Inc. “We are honored to be able to host a true champion of great coffee. We met Noe Castro on a trip to visit farms in Guatemala in February 2007, while we were training a group of Guatemalan Baristas and we offered to help Noe refine his presentation for the World competition. His passion, dedication, charm and humility are backed up by his exemplary skill in making great coffee. Damn! This is gonna be a fun month!”“ In Guatemala most Baristas have little or no contact with coffee roasters.” explained Edwin Martinez, owner of Guatemalan coffee estate Finca Vista Hermosa in Huehuetenango. “For Noe to work directly with an artisan coffee roaster of the level of Barefoot Coffee and to learn roasting, blending and cupping is a huge opportunity for him.”
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Posted by 3d7lj1n4xxk7t on February 13, 2008 at 5:30am
A day of reckoning approaches, friends, for on February 26, 2008, between the hours of 5:30PM and 8:30PM local time, the billion dollar global retail coffee monolith known as Starbucks will close all 7,100 US company-operated stores to train--or, as they call it, retrain--their employees in the elusive art of pulling espresso shots. Well, my word, this is news!Questions most definitely arise in the wake of this announcement. Is this decision to close for a whole three hours an admission of overwhelming guilt? Perhaps an acknowledgment that, through the many years of endless additions of unrelated coffee product, they sadly lost focus on why they're in the business by not training their baristas well in the first place? Maybe, maybe not.Either way, let's hope that Mike can get some decent espresso drink justice when he bravely returns to the North Oakland Ave. Starbucks after February 26. But truly, friends, only time--and training--will tell.Link (via Coffee Talk)Post originally published by Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee.
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Posted by Matt Milletto on February 12, 2008 at 9:30am
At Bellissimo’s January 2008 staff retreat, we discussed if it was possible to re-release the complete Dr. Illy Milan Interview, which we originally released on video a few years ago. We all agreed that the time was right for the latest generation of coffee people to see this 75-minute interview and be exposed to the insight and amazing perspective offered by Dr. Illy.
Last week as we got the sad news of Dr. Illy's passing, and at the end of the week the DVDs arrived in our office. Re-releasing this interview is not about making money — the thousands of people in the coffee industry who should watch it, will probably never find it on our site. This release is only about making it available, and those who purchase it will not be sorry. I just watched the interview again, after not having seen it for a number of years, and I was blown away at the information that it contains.
25% of the proceeds will be donated to Coffee Kids.
We will be having a Celebration of the Life of Dr. Illy at the American Barista & Coffee School on February 22nd, 2008. The night will include wine, Illy espresso, a time for people to tell stories about meeting Dr. Illy and how he had a profound influence on so many of us in the coffee industry. We will be watching the Dr. Illy Milan Interviews in their entirety as well.
We really hope that many of you can make it to the event, and join us in paying respect to such a passionate and unique person, who dedicated his life to the advancement of espresso and specialty coffee.
If you cannot make it but would still like to watch the DVD we do have them available on the Bellissimo website.
6:00 p.m - 9:00 p.m. Friday, February 22 at the American Barista & Coffee School, 1028 SE Water Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97214. This event will be a celebration of the life of the good doctor. We hope you can attend. For directions or to RSVP please email or call us at 800-655-3955
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Posted by Jason Haeger on February 12, 2008 at 9:28am
The Industry, the Community, the People, the Customers; Everything.It keeps me motivated, and I feel fortunate to be in a business that I am in love with.Anyone else?Who else feels the love! :o)
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i think its really hard having to deal with people all the time. you get some nice and then some not so nice but when the not so nice come you usually want to confront them and ask why they think they need to act the way they do.......when i started out working with people in the food service industry i was pretty much up front and treated everyone like crap then i thought of how i am a christian andi need to reflect how jesus is and that changed the way i acted twards others. its makes me sad to think back in the day i used to be so mean and then there are non christians who are way nicer than me. lame!so it seems as though lately i have been back to where i was before i havent been as nice to the not so nice people and it makes me sad. I'm getting yet again back to that place cause i need to be back there but it still makes me sad that i might have reflected the wrong image of christ or but a bad name for young people or my sisters bistro.....i guess its all ok though cause I'm forgiven and I'm coming back! YAY!proverbs 12:16A fool is quick-tempered,but a wise person stays calm when insulted
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Posted by 3d7lj1n4xxk7t on February 12, 2008 at 7:30am
So yesterday I blogged about Oliver Jeffers' use of coffee rings in his illustrative art, which can be viewed on his web site. Ingenious! After being so inspired, I decided to take a look around the ole Internets to find some more and viola! I happily ran across the site of Andrew Saur and Angel Sarkela-Saur. These two have some amazing talent, and I'm not joshin' ya, people.Andrew and Angel create paintings entirely in the medium of coffee. Utilizing a full range of possible tones, the works are striking and inventive. They also have a short video they put together in the style of a silent film--it's a bit schmaltzy, but if you're into cute, you should give it a screening.Take a look-see for yourself.Enjoy!Post originally published by Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee.
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Posted by Joe Stormer on February 12, 2008 at 5:35am
I really love working alone. And while I have my solitude and independence, there are always customers to keep from feeling deprived of human contact. Except on days like yesterday.Yesterday, I crawled out of bed and slapped two fried eggs between the slices of a day-old-day-old-day-old bagel. I felt like I was dead. I could not believe how tired I was. But I stumbled out of the house, hopped on my bike and took to the streets.The streets were empty and so was the bike trail. The sun was nowhere near rising and when I got to work it was like being the jailer in an old west ghost town. Things picked up eventually, but not before numbing my brain out of my skull.Then in the evening I looked at my alarm clock and thought, "It's 7:45 already?" Then I looked back at my computer: "6:45pm". I looked at the clock and the computer again . . . "7:45pm" . . . "6:45pm" . . .Quickly I shuffled through my email account until I found my first email of the day: 6:42am. I wrote that email after opening the store while I sipped a cappuccino and waited for the first customer, marveling that no one was coming in.We open at seven.
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Here's what I like about closing the store: we get to take home all the day-old pastries that didn't sell that day. We had a LOT last night, so I took most of them home because I hate seeing them thrown away. Apparently my kitten REALLY likes bagels and he chewed one up through the bag. I'll add a picture later, it's pretty awesome.And with that, I'm going to go eat a lemon poppy seed muffin. (I almost wrote Lemon POOPY seed. Hah.)
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Posted by 3d7lj1n4xxk7t on February 11, 2008 at 11:30am
Dallas Business Journal is reporting that Starbucks has made a deal with AT&T to offer free Wi-Fi at their stores to all AT&T broadband, U-verse and remote access service business Internet customers. In addition, Starbucks card holders can get two hours of free Wi-Fi per day at participating locations beginning this spring.Meanwhile, the poor saps who decline a Starbucks card and exercise their consumer choice by using a provider other than AT&T will have to pay $3.99 per two-hour blocks or a monthly membership fee of $19.99 for wireless Internet.Well, I’m just glad these two shy, unassuming kids could finally get together, aren’t you?Link (via Coffee Talk)Post originally published by Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee.Read more…
Posted by 3d7lj1n4xxk7t on February 11, 2008 at 6:30am
Oliver Jeffers has some incredible illustrations using coffee rings up on his web site. Both my husband and I have doodled in and around coffee stains, so this really brightened up my day.Go to Jeffers’ site and find them under his Illustration section. (via Drawn!)Post originally published by Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee.
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