Colombia Stories

Isaiah and I had a great, productive, educational trip to Colombia.  We returned Tuesday night, excited to be out of the cool mountain air and back to this fantastic heat.

We will be discussing the trip, showing our pictures, and divulging what we learned on Thursday, July 9 at 7p here at the DoubleShot.  Of course, we'll be brewing the San Rafael, Alfredo's coffee.  Please plan to come and invite friends you think might be interested.

Some Answered Questions, and a Coffee Book Review!

Thank you to everyone who came to the Illuminati event on Thursday! I emailed Mary at La Marzocco with the unanswered questions: How many machines does La Marzocco produce per year? and How long does it take to produce a single machine? She replied:

“Lead time varies according to the type of machine, eventual special colored panels etc. But excluding lead time issues, if we begin a machine on Monday, it will be ready by Friday.

We produce 2800 machines a year. Indeed, La Marzocco is a very small factory in comparison to other Italian brands.”

So…approximately 5 days/machine, 2800 machines/year. Maybe I’ll try to find out the numbers for other Italian brands…

On another note, starting with some biographical information: I have a degree in literature. No, I do not want to teach. I want to work in the coffee industry. However, I love to read and one of the best ways to satisfy both a love for reading and a love for coffee is to read books about coffee…obviously accompanied by a cup of Doubleshot coffee.

It’s time for a book review.

Today’s book is The Devil’s Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee, written by Stewart Lee Allen around 1999. It is a fabulously entertaining and informative read. Basically, the book chronicles Allen’s travels from Ethiopia to the United States—his route is determined by the route that coffee took in its spread from Africa to the rest of the world. You will learn about coffee’s role in ancient religious ceremonies, key figures in coffee’s expansion—like DeClieu, who risked death-by-dehydration in order to smuggle a coffee seedling to South America (his ship was becalmed, but he shared his scant water ration with the seedling)—other ways of consuming the coffee plant, etc. Oh, and how the introduction of coffee into a culture often coincides with periods of enlightenment (!). Allen is adventurous and has a good sense of humor—so this really is a fun book to read. It ends with a quest through the United States via Route 66 (go Oklahoma!) to find the worst cup of percolated diner coffee possible. Gross. The Devil’s Cup can be bought on amazon for about $11.00. I think Tulsa’s Central Library has a copy, and I believe it’s on the shelves at Doubleshot.

That’s all for now…feel free to comment, share reading recommendations, ask questions, etc!

Colombia

Isaiah and I are headed to Colombia on Tuesday.  We'll leave that morning and arrive back here the following Tuesday night.  So one week.

We'll be flying into Medellin and visiting Concordia again.  Cristina Garces is helping us so much.  It should be a really great trip- Isaiah's first trip to origin.  There isn't much coffee being harvested right now, but Alfredo (Finca San Rafael) is holding off on some of his harvesting so we can see his mill working while we're there.  I think we'll stay with Guillermo again at his farmhouse, which is an amazing place.  Hopefully we'll go on a horseback ride through the coffee fields.  Probably get some pictures of coffee flowers blooming.  I hope we learn a lot and are able to bring that back to share with you.

I also hope we find more amazing coffee.  I'm really enjoying the San Rafael from the last trip, and I hope you are too.

Cristina told me about a project going on in Concordia right now that we might be able to help with.  They're building a school and playroom for the kids while their mothers work in the coffee fields.  It's being built in the poorest part of Concordia.  We'll see it while we are there, and I'll bring back as much info as I can attain.

I'm also hoping to meet up with a girl I met before who works for The Federation, overseeing the building of houses for poor coffee pickers.  

I'm pretty excited.  We'll have another Illuminati meeting when Isaiah and I return, and we'll tell you all about the trip.

Espresso Machines!

Hello!--this is Tara. This Thursday at Doubleshot, at 7 pm, we're going to have an event focusing on espresso machines--the La Marzocco company in particular. I returned from a trip to Italy a couple weeks ago, and the best thing about the trip was getting to visit the La Marzocco factory outside of Florence. So we are going to be talking about that, hopefully seeing some pictures of espresso machines-in-progress, and finally (!) Ely, who is a wonderful machine technician and has taken La Marzocco's class on machine maintenance, is going to open up the Doubleshot machine so we can all get an insider's view on what, from an electrical-technical perspective, is happening in order to produce your perfect espresso, latte, etc.

OK, here's a preview on why it's so important to have a great espresso machine. This passage comes from David Schomer's book "Espresso Coffee: Professional Techniques." His book is very helpful in that it breaks down the factors that affect the quality of the espresso, explaining how each factor may go wrong, and what to do about it. His broad categories are: 1)Environmental Factors (like the weather) 2)Equipment Factors (the machine!, etc) 3) Ingredient Factors (not just the espresso blend but water quality, etc) and 4) Barista Techniques. Under each of these categories come many sub-categories, so it is obvious that pulling a perfect shot of espresso is a very precise process, and never as simple as just pushing a button. In chapter 7 of his book, Brewing Water Temperature, Schomer writes:

"The better you become at making espresso, the more that the factor of brewing water temperature will emerge as the final vexing problem. Brewing water temperature is a very difficult factor to control. But its control is essential to quality espresso making, because water temperature plays such an integral role in the preservation of coffee's volatile flavor compounds. Water temperature is responsible for the quality and quantity of flavors in the espresso coffee."

Reading Schomer's book is fairly daunting, because there are so many things that can go wrong...that is just one example of what your espresso machine needs to do--maintain a stable, optimal water temperature. If the temperature is off but just a couple degrees, the espresso will start to taste sour, flat, or burnt...gross. All that to say, the espresso machine is important! So, come to Doubleshot Thursday, June 11 at 7 pm to learn more about them! Hope to see you there!

Tara Bowen

Hey everyone.  Or whoever reads this blog, anyway.  I know I've been a slacker lately, but I'm just so busy with this and that, I haven't made appropriate time to work the Illuminati group.  So.  I have asked Tara Bowen if she will help and she has accepted.  She's going to help plan events, get the word out, expand our coffee knowledge, and make sure you know about it all.  I've put her on the write-list for this blog, so she can post info about events and stuff we should know about coffee.  So thank you Tara for picking up the ball I dropped.  

The first event under Tara's new tutelage will be next Thursday June 11.  It'll be an informative session about espresso machines.  I'll let her tell you the details.

Another Trip to Colombia

I just bought tickets for Isaiah and I to fly to Colombia on June 16.  We'll come home the 23rd.  I originally planned to see Narino on this trip, but that doesn't seem so cut and dried.  So I decided to take Cristina Garces up on her generosity and kindness and go back to Medellin and Concordia.  I'm hoping we can take a short one-day trip to Jardin, where La Minita was building the mill.  It should be completed and it would be nice to see it in operation.  

This will be Isaiah's first trip to origin, so that's pretty exciting.  I think it will change the way he thinks about coffee.  I know it did for me.  And hopefully we'll both learn a lot during the trip.

I'll keep you posted.

New Coffees

Hopefully you've been able to taste Alfredo's San Rafael by now.  I roasted it twice last week.  Two different roast profiles.  Both results were good, but I think I can do better.  The coffee is outstanding.  I took some with me to a mountain bike race in Ardmore over the weekend and drank leftovers cold Sunday before the race.  Really complex coffee- subtle fruit, big body, some vegetal tastes round it out, and I think every time I've drunk it more flavors have come to me.

I'm drinking a cup of Yemen right now.  It tastes more nutty today than I remember.  The Yemen we have right now (half a bin full) is the end of the Mocca Sanani.  A lot of you have really enjoyed this coffee for its uniqueness, wildness, and sweetness.  So if you want to taste it again, you might give it a go right away.

On a brighter note, I just bought coffees from the many, many samples we have cupped recently.  In that order, I bought another Yemen.  This Yemen is from Anesi.  I've had trouble finding out much info about Anesi and this coffee in particular, but I'm hoping my broker (Anna from Cafe Imports) tells me more about it soon.  But I think Anesi is a small region within the Sanani region.  Regardless, the coffee cupped out beautifully.  The most dominating feature of the Anesi, to me, was a sweet (and sour) strawberry flavor.  Unfortunately this is a really expensive coffee.  From what I understand, Yemen doesn't produce that much coffee and their coffees are in high demand, especially in places that drink Turkish-style coffee.  Supposedly Saudi Arabia is a big buyer of Yemen coffee and they are willing to pay big bucks for it.  A lot of people in the Specialty industry in the U.S. consider Yemens to be too wild, fermented... basically defective coffee.  So that just goes to show you that different people like different stuff.  I think I'm going to sell the new Yemen for the same price as I sold the old Yemen ($17/lb).  I'll absorb the difference.  I keep doing that, and someday it's going to hurt us too bad to continue to do that.  The problem is, we keep tasting fantastic coffees and then find out they're expensive.  Oh well.  Just know you're getting a GREAT value at $17 on this coffee.

Other coffees I ordered from Cafe Imports include a Tanzania Peaberry Songea.  I know, I know.  You love it already.  Also a Brazil, "Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza Lot 11 Pulped Natural Hamilton and Celso Families."  Ask for it by name.  This coffee is from the Mococa region in Sao Paulo.  Pulped natural is the processing method, like the Panama Hartmann Honey, where they take the skins off the cherries and dry the seeds with the mucilage still intact.  One reason this coffee is better than most Brazilians is the picking.  The farmers triple pick the farm, being careful to harvest ripe cherries only.  This is probably the most crucial step in producing great coffee.  The varietals in this coffee are Yellow Bourbon, Red Catuai, and Mundo Novo.  I've only had a Yellow Bourbon once, in another Brazil.  Catuai is a tricky varietal, the reds are better than the yellows, but it's a plant that La Minita is trying to cull out of their coffee at Rio Negro.  Mundo Novo is a varietal I don't know much about, but it's some sort of hybrid.  

Another coffee I bought is a Kenya AA.  Not a lot of info about this coffee yet either.  It's a small lot that came out of the auction in Kenya.  Scored really high in cuppings at Cafe Imports.  Here are their cupping notes:  "Floral, red currant, clean acidity, grapefruit, coconut, caramel, creamy body, long sweet aftertaste."  Sometimes these coffees come and go so fast that I don't have the opportunity to get samples, roast, cup, and decide before they are gone.  So this time I took a chance on the professionals' advice.  

Anyway, we're looking forward to new variety in coffees around here.  It's tough, when I'm looking for something superb, to weed through a lot of sub-par coffees.  Hopefully we've done a satisfactory job.

By the way, I've started using twitter, so some info I want to share that's too short for a blog, I'm going to put up there.  If you want to follow that stream, you can find my page here:  http://twitter.com/thedoubleshot