My time

Its been a few ticks of the clock since I last had time to really reflect on my situation.  Well, what have I been doing? For starters, right now I am in Chicago loitering in Intelligentsia on Broadway trying to find the best way to spend a 50 dollar gift card. But in more of a larger sense, what have I been doing? Writing a barista manual is the first thing that comes to mind.  Writing it came up as more of a necessity for me to properly teach wholesale accounts to more easily become not just another place that makes crappy coffee, but a place that has the potential to make a great cup of coffee using good coffee and proper technique backed up by some in-depth reasoning and logic.  In making this manual, it has led me to put down my version, and it may vary from others, ways of thinking via the world of coffee.  An ultimate goal is to give people a step in the door of specialty coffee without having to scour the internets for potentially damaging disinformation.  This has basically consumed all of my free time, but do not think that I am neglecting anyone like Courtney.  She in fact happened to get a job here at Intelly where I am currently sitting.  So now, I live in Milwaukee, she in Chicago, both working in coffee.  Furthermore, somewhere along the way we became officially engaged.  This to me was no surprise seeing that I couldn't see living without her, not physically like right now with us in two states, but the big living, like life.  It also seemed appropriate that we have been living together for some years now and for all practical reasons are married. So, we are thinking May or June, but who really knows about these things.  

A larger thought on coffee though.  Having spent the last few days wandering around the Chicago visiting some shops and watching the flow of things, I am pondering the logistics of coffee more and more.  I must say that the shops I am visiting are of a higher caliber in comparison to a business just there for a profit or loss margin, or to appease a board like some huge corporation.  Having said that though, I have seen an immense amount of quality, insane amount of quality with the stress of huge lines and a very stressful holiday.  This quality was not sacrificed because of the holiday, nor was it sacrificed for profit.  The bottom line was quality... Still, there was one thing missing that I personally valued when I was behind the bar making drinks.  There is this empathy that needs to be had between the uber-informed barista and the blissfully ignorant customer.  Baristas need the chance to change the status quo of syrup based drinks to showcasing the coffee they are serving without coming off as demeaning, pretentious, or like the customer is an idiot.  It should also be noted that most average customers only form of  information is what they can find at the majority of coffee shops which unfortunately do not have a genuine focus on quality but on profit.  On the side of the customer though is the thought that no one wants an undesired, potentially bad drink but ultimately some form of personal enlightenment.  And coming from a slight background in psychology and a love of economics books in my spare time, I am led to believe that the influence of exclusivity and secrets lends to the idea of quality and a willingness to invest in quality.  In other words, the value must be realized before it can be appropriately and ironically consumed (in our case.) So how does a person run a successful coffee business with a focus on quality as well as empathy in understanding and education?

My conclusion on whether or not to polish after a tamp...

For the past few days, I would not say that I have been obsessing over whether or not polish an espresso puck after tamping, but I would say that it has not been far from my mind. I have very realistically been looking at so many aspects to this situation that it may have inhibited my view to see the what the physics of the situation dictate. I am not going to pretend that I didnt find any of our results fascinating in my previous blog post, but I will say that maybe and just maybe what was really happening, is that our tests were not accurate enough to specifically address the question at hand. What I mean is this, keeping all aspects(variables) the same in the situation to be scientific with respect to all sorts of weight tests and differences, as well as time and espressos visual cues we as much as we could have like to can not scientifically enough extract(pun intended) the necessary information to indicate one way or another if indeed polishing does or does not affect shot extraction. (I am sorry if that sentence was insanely incorrectly worded and not properly grammer-ized.) I had the pleasure of talking to Scott Rao tonight on the phone for a few minutes, and after listening and conversing, it came to my attention that whether or not a puck is polished, whether or not you tamp light or hard the major big guy in the situation is how much pressure is coming down onto the puck. Scott said the words "540 pounds" and "pancake" and I got hungry. No, I'm just kidding, but seriously, what he was saying made perfect sense in that even if you were to absolutely scientifically test this and made sure all the variables would not change that without a doubt the results could be that one was somehow different, but overall negligible. The focus should instead be primarily on those variables that do account for some huge changes(ie a tamp level, grind particle size being dialed in correctly and most importantly being in the golden taste zone of what is good. This has although not stopped my curiosity with the subject espresso... the questions and tests must go on!!!!!!

So my personal conclusion... Tamp once, do not bump, do not polish, just do it right the first time...

Polishing the puck. To polish or not to polish, that is the question.

Earlier today I posted on BaristaExchange.com about a strange experience I had recently with polishing an espresso puck. It brought up some more in depth questions than I thought I would have. My post went as follows: "Last night I was involved in a training session on espresso techniques, and as I was done tamping, I polished the puck by spinning the tamper 360 degrees on the puck. The trainee asked me why I polished and I was dumbstruck for a second not knowing the reason behind polishing. I quickly regained composer and thought back to my reading of the Gimme barista manual where it says that polishing "smooths out any small ridges on the surface of the puck and creates a perfectly flat surface for the water to hit once the pour begins." But it got me thinking, about the Reg-barber C-ripple and its waved design... in the evaluation of it at www.espressorun.blogspot.com they say the results of the ripple " is almost resemblant to that of a flat base." Billy Kangas in another discussion here on bx notices a sweeter extraction, but only in certain situations. Which to me means that with relatively huge ridges in the top of puck the effect is almost negligible. So, does polishing really make a huge difference? Is it important? I am not finding much on polishing the puck in any Internet sources... and as a general disclaimer, I am playing devils advocate a bit here to see what will potentially come up?"

As of right now, I still have not had any responses to the post and do not really foresee any one responding to it in the future. And in thinking this, I took matters into my own hands and began to ask around for some answers.
Ironically this afternoon, my good friend Josh Longsdorf (currently of Ritual Coffee Roasters) called me and I asked his opinion. He said that polishing the surface of the puck essentially smooths out the surface so as to allow water to more easily permeate the espresso allowing for easier saturation and therefore more consistent extraction.
Right after I got off the phone with Josh, I went up to Roast Coffee Company on the East side of Milwaukee to geek out with Brett Boy Wonder. So, with Josh's recommendation I performed the experiment of dosing and weighing out the espresso as accurately as possible, of the polished and un-polished espresso and measuring the difference in weights of the two before and after extraction. As a second measure of quality we also did a taste test of the espresso shots to see which tasted better, taking notes of all the above.

It really came as a suprise to me that the unpolished pucks managed to consistently gain more weight during extraction, leading me to believe that the pucks become more saturated during the shot extraction. Also, the shots seemed to have a fuller flavor profile with more fruity, high notes coming out. Whereas the polished shots seemed to stay within a more narrow range of saturation and weight during extraction as well as giving us more bitter, dryer finish shots.

What I am taking away from this experiment is that possibly the unpolished puck like the c-ripple tamper, has more of a turbulent surface and therefore more surface area for water to come in contact with initially in the espresso extraction. This would (I am assuming) lead to a little bit longer of an extraction, because of the duration of full contact with water. Also, I think it would lead to a potentially more even extraction. This would be because the water in contact with the top of the puck would pass through much easier, not causing an over-extraction of the top half of the puck.

Although, scientifically I can not really verify this information(I don't have the equipment or the means), I can only assume that by the test's results that we performed tonight, that shots un-polished have a better consistent, fuller flavor. The thought also comes to mind if I were to walk into a specialty coffee shop at random, would I be able to identify a shot polished or un-polished? No, definitely not, but in a side by side comparison the results were pretty clear.

I would really like to see some other peoples results from trying this or to know of other people that polish or do not polish and why? I still have not found much information on polishing online.

Update: A second note to what I had previously posted we were measuring the difference of weight of the puck before and after shot extraction with an average of quarter to slightly over half a gram more weight in the unpolished puck, Which got me thinking what the normal weight tolerance difference +/- is on average of baristas are??? Should the weight gain of an unpolished puck in the proportions of half a gram make a huge difference? My thoughts would lead me to think that like everything else in the coffee industry the small things tend to make a huge difference.

Also this morning I traveled back up to Roast Coffee Co to talk with Brett again and he noticed more and more differences in shot extraction between polished and un-polished. He was telling me that the un-polished pucks seemed to pull in the same time, but on the naked portafilter, the extraction began sooner. We performed the experiment again with the same result of last night, where the unpolished puck became more saturated, taking on more water weight. The taste is by far also better, with the unpolished puck. The only difference we did in our test today was that we measured the final shot weight unlike last night where we just didn't for some reason... this was really startling with the shot weight of the polished puck being 5.4 grams lighter... Does this mean that more water was allowed to pass through in the unpolished puck? Dose this mean more solids were extracted in the unpolished puck giving it a heavier weight?

Also, we noticed while on the polished tamp that the extraction on the naked portafilter tended to spiral. Where as the unpolished tended to extract straight and fast with no visual channeling.

Another note is that I have not tried this on a machine with pre-infusion and its effects? Any possiblity of someone giving this a shot? and results.

the Tao of Coffee

Always thinking of how interconnected coffee is with the rest of the world. Always thinking of the other things that we take away from coffee. Lessons that are not just the knowledge of how to make coffee, but lessons on life. It only took me a minute to see the parallels between my coffee adventure and Tao.

What is Tao? Although you can find it interpreted a million different ways to suit a million different needs, 'Tao' is literally translated as 'way', 'path', or 'route.' To me, more specifically as the way we interact with our world, become apart of it and realize how much impact we have. What is the Tao of coffee? As coffee people know, coffee begins to consume your life. You eat, drink, walk, sneeze, sleep and dream about coffee. Coffee becomes your life. The Tao of coffee is how coffee people unknowingly strive to become one with the coffee through their five senses, our ability to perceive the universe.

There are several principles to Tao, and to be learned by living life. Recently I asked myself, "Are you content? Can a human be content?" Very scientifically the answer is no because of laws of motion. In a different context, the context of Tao, we find that being content is "the only measure by which we should gauge personal success and how to use it as a filter through which society's values should be passed." What does this mean? Unlike the raving views of political or religious organizations redefining their views to fit a moment, we find in the coffee world that coffee comes from all over the planet from thousands of different farms from hundreds of different countries. The coffee comes from millions of different people from all walks of life, economically, religiously, politically, nationally, or hereditarily. Coffee also comes from potentially millions and millions of different plants, hundreds of different varietals, and processed dozens of different ways. So how do we gauge our success in the coffee industry? I can say for the most part that it is not monetarily for the majority of people involved in the coffee industry. So what is meant by being content? Does what you do make you happy? Do you take pride in what you do? Does coffee fill you up (metaphorically as well as physically) inside? Society is you and me, we humans make up the soul of humanity and our ability to distill so much from so much gives us the ability to appreciate the momentary bliss when sipping on a cup of coffee. That is Tao.

The Tao of coffee is exemplified in the small acts that we do, such as pulling a shot. This though does not seem to carry the same weight as what we are actually a part of in a larger sense. The idea of holism is "the idea that all the properties of a given system cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave." Take for example that having a morning cup of coffee for the average Joe is just a wake up tool. This Joe ideally purchased it from an independent micro roaster in a one pound bag. I have read from in many places that a single coffee tree only produces one pound of (roasted) coffee a year. Although highly unlikely (except possible in micro-lot situation), we can look relatively at that pound of coffee used by the average Joe as a single coffee tree. From the moment the coffee cherry was picked as Edwin Martinez says "the quality of the coffee can never go up, it can only go down." So in the processing, exporting, importing and cross country shipping, all the way down to guys roasting, selling, and even the Baristas preparing drinks, the quality of the coffee is potentially dropping. It is the job of these folks involved in the coffee industry to maintain the quality so that the average Joe can experience the greatness of the coffee. Relatively though, with coffee as the second highest traded commodity in the world next to oil, that those small steps that we do to ensure quality act as very small part of the greater world wide economic force that is coffee.

The third wave as defined by the famous Nick Cho is about "(appreciating) each coffee for what it truly is and takes whatever necessary steps to highlight the amazing, unique character in every coffee." Which leads us to the manifestations of the Tao of Coffee. We find this in the uncorrupted manifestations of coffee or as we have come to call it, the third wave. It seems that instead of just dumping canned coffee into a coffee machine in order to make a pot of coffee, I spend most of my time preparing. Preparing for these few small moments of hopefully capturing the essence of coffee. I focus on method of coffee preparation (ie, chemex, french-press, espresso, kona, vac-pot), I focus on grind particle size, water temperature, freshness of coffee, weight, roast style, origin, season, ambient moisture... My goal is to get the coffee, what the coffee is at origin to be in my cup. To a not coffee person this all must sound like over-kill, but I assure you and them that it is not. When you have that first cup of honed in perfection it all makes sense. We want to ultimately achieve this form of what the Tao calls 'enlightened self-interest.' I do not mean selfishness, but an act of bringing yourself to the next level of experience with coffee.

The next level of coffee experience starts with your five senses, and sometimes six senses if you have synesthesia, and boy would I like to talk to you about coffee if you did. Lao Tzu the first person to identify and write of Tao wrote "The people of the world all have a purpose; I alone appear stubborn and uncouth. I alone differ from the other people, And value drawing sustenance from the Mother." We can look at this and take away something so simple as that we can see beauty where others only see nothing. Too deep? Well, us few coffee lovers spend our time looking at a million attributes of the bean itself from color, pitch, touch, first and sometimes second cracks, the fragrance and aromas, and most importantly taste, and the flavors we take away from the coffee. We use our five senses as the means to feel the essence of the coffee and momentarily become one with it. There have been books singularly written on one coffee, and its incredible attributes. The Tao of Coffee is about discovery of the beauty of coffee.

With the discussion of coffee often comes up the subject of environmental impact as well as humanities impact by way of coffee. There are several organizations dedicated to reducing the impact of unnatural farming practices around the world, and with coffee a little 'FTO' sticker comes to mind. The real dedication and change comes about when we use the worlds natural balancing force of the economy to emulate our ethics. What do I mean by this? Simply that when a person purchases something, they are in essence voting for it with their wallet. When somebody buys something that is low quality, there by the laws of supply and demand a gap to fill, and more low quality and cost goods will be produced. With the third wave and a re-evaluation and emphasis on quality, the third-wave has spearheaded a movement that parallels the environmental movement towards a better way of living. It should only seem logical that those who seek the raw natural beauty of coffee and life would also like to see coffee produced without chemicals or unnatural practices occur in the name of quality coffee. Lao Tzu said "He who knows where to stop may be exempt from danger." This means that when you are dedicated enough to something that you should see all aspects of it and its limitations. The third-wave/ quality/ environmental movement can see the end of the road for excess, waste, and low quality coffee and is putting forward a new future based on the Taoist principles of becoming a positive force for change.

This brings me to my final part of the Tao of coffee. Lao Tzu say "Only the perfect man can go about the world without attracting attention to himself." This is not to say do nothing and nothing will be done to you. This is to say that being a rock-star and glamor will only distract you from the real goals of discovery, and potentially lead you to a life of enclosure and loneliness. The real goal of the Tao of Coffee is a personal journey of quality not to impress and destroy. The Tao of Coffee for me is about doing my best with what I have and what is available to me. Accepting natural transitions around me in the world. Being able to accept the beauty of what I am working with and working to create more beauty. Knowing that I am a piece of a larger puzzle and that my minimal contribution could mean nothing, or potentially everything. The Tao of coffee is to say that Tao is coffee, or that coffee is Tao!

training & muscle memory

I only had three hours, but I did my best at training this group of relative newcomers to the coffee industry. I started it all out with saying how much coffee means to me and how passionate you can become about coffee. I tried to describe all the things I have talked about in my previous blog posts: technique, questions, reaching for something more than just a cup of joe... I hope they bought it.

Courtney and Brett have been prepping more and more for the upcoming Great Lakes Barista Championship. Its not a bad thing but they keep asking me questions, great questions, and talking to me about coffee, and posing questions without question marks. I have loved it. Watching these two prepare for battle has made me feel like I finally have something to offer the coffee industry and these two bright stars are going to shine I tell ya!

I had a long conversation with Tif and Miro on the way out to Chicago a couple weekends ago. It consisted of many subjects revolving around coffee. Before I realized, it was time to drive home by myself, we had been talking about nothing but coffee for nearly two hours if you count the pre-drive prep time. How is it that as children we could all grow up with dreams of being astronauts and cowboys and find ourselves as adults thrilled and empowered by the roasted pit of a cherry?

So training as it was, consisted of me, two dudes and two ladies. One dude said he liked the idea of coffee and the atmosphere in coffee shops, the other said he knew nothing about coffee, one of the ladies had previously worked at some form of "barista"(and I use that term loosely) job where she worked on a super-automatic machine and had no idea about technical coffee, and the last lady had a pretty good understanding of the amount of work needed for good coffee. So, what do I do? My first goal is to get very technical so they understand the importance of coffee and that they are going to be, whether or not they wanted to be, involved in something that wasn't just another job at a chain retail coffee shop. I gave them the run over of all the good and bad things to do or not do with espresso and milk. I spent about 2 hours on very technical espresso (more than I learned in the first year or two in the industry) and about an hour on milk steaming. In the end I looked at them and they all seemed to have this "oh man, I need to practice" look on their faces. It made me happy to the point that I smiled about the whole way home.

What I realize now, is that the majority of what I was trying to teach or impart on these few people is that developing muscle memory with your technique can control some of the most important factors in preparing and serving good espresso. As baristas know, how you make espresso has a huge impact on the final results in the cup... emphasized HUGE! I am very confident even today that although I am not often on an espresso machine that I could (with my muscle memory learned technique) pull some great espresso, so to say I dont think I would be ashamed to serve it... if you get what I mean?

Watching Courtney and Brett is a lot of fun. I can see their muscle memory in action, tapping tamping, dosing, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and boy it is entertaining. We are trying to get coffees for blends down and trying different roast profiles and combos.

So, what about me? I am currently studying about the history of the industry, and the actual coffee plant. I think its good to have goals. So, I think my current goal is to ultimately source coffee and potentially work on a farm... possibly maybe a speck of hope to have a farm... oh, the dreams...

This coffee world...
I tend to wake up early now no matter what. All that I drank the night before doesn't keep me down and away from my beloved coffee. This past month or so has been really surreal with its ups and downs. The industry lost a great person and I lost a great new friend. I have managed to meet and greet with many industry professionals, and it seems that they are all pretty much as lost as I seem to be when it comes to the next steps. Should the industry be about growth patterns and working to the next step of enlightenment, or should we try to do the best we can without sacrificing our beliefs. If there is one thing I can really take away from everyone I am meeting and from those who I have lost, it is that life is short, and if you are not having fun and enjoying what you are doing then you probably shouldn't be doing it. I personally know that it is way easier to say then to put into practice but I am sure there is some truth that we can all see in it.

I attended the Roast Halloween Party last night, and it was pretty much insanity, and the most fun I have had in a while. It made me miss rocking out on an espresso machine and pouring some latte art. We had people from all over the region come out to watch and support Milwaukees baristas vs. Portland in a city to city latte art throwdown. Milwaukee narrowly beat Portland, but I imagine that without the sponsorship from PBR that the gap would have been a bit larger in Milwaukees favor.

I have to go wake up some hung over people who don't sleep much and try and get them to go out for some coffee with me. Two hours before I gotta take them back to Chicago. It is Halloween and I am ready for this strange day.

In less than an hour it will have been one month since I last posted anything. My life is a strange one, but as of this last month an even stranger one. I lost perspective on life and regained it, got a cold and just now am getting over it. Experienced some amazing times with coffee peoples and just overall reanalyzed my position both in life and in the coffee industry.

What am I? A coffee roaster person? A barista person? I have not been able to pin a title down to what I am or do. I love being a barista but I also love all aspects of what can be done with coffee, not just limited to serving customers. I love the science behind it. I love the process. I love having to meticulously think over a million aspects to the coffee and what will effect it in each way.

Water: temp, quality, hard, soft, ppm, etc.
Filter: bleached, natural, pre-wet/dry, gold filter, metal filter, etc,
Coffee: origin, varietal, blend, roast type, etc.
Method: kona, moka pot, ibrik, chemex, pour over, espresso machine, aero-press, siphon, french press, cupping, drip type brewer, etc.
Factors: Grind setting, dose size, distribution, channeling, air temp & moisture, age after/before roast date, agitation, bloom, etc.

Every time I make a cup, all these things are running through my head, and I love it because when it is all said and done you are left with something that only your senses can tell you if it is good or bad. How is your tongue today? What did you eat for breakfast? What tooth-paste did you use? Seriously, I am looking at every thing going into this. I believe that this is the most dedication that I have ever put into anything in my life, and I would love for it to continue for as long as the coffee and industry would have me. But, what is my title?

I got into a conversation today about whether or not I was a barista anymore, and well my answer is yes. I do not work on bar and I do not directly serve customers, but I can guarantee that I could do a better job at making, preparing, and serving coffee than the majority of people I see working as a barista. Do I love roasting coffee, and learning about roasting and taking this field as far as I can take it, yes. I find it to be the most fascinating aspect so far in the coffee industry. As it was put to me by Edwin of Finca Vista Hermosa at Coffee Talk, "the quality of the coffee does not really drop from the time it is picked to the time it gets put in the hopper on the roaster. There is nothing to you can do to make the coffee better from the time it was picked, you can only make it worse." That truth really struck me, and made me think of roasting coffee a bit differently. I want to manipulate and bring out the true, best representation of the coffee that I can while roasting, and be content that the coffee that I send out is that best representation. What happens with the barista, well that is in their job title.

Do I love both the jobs? Yes. Am I more one than the other? Well, I feel fortunate to have experienced both of them and can feel the extended process one step to another and how it will be received. What is next and what is my title? One day, and it will be one day way in the future (I think and hope) I would either love to work on a coffee farm, and I am a very hard worker, or perhaps if I win the lotto, own a coffee farm where I can use my not so green thumb as Courtney says to see if I can take my passion one step further. Even further into my thinking about and dreaming about the future, maybe I can work multiple levels and work as an importer and exporter. Maybe one day I will be just a customer, looking into the eyes of a barista hoping that they hold the same respect and passion that I do for coffee... one day. But again, what is my title? Coffee-person? Baroaster? Roasista... haha, I am really not sure... I just hope that its not "Industry professional" that sounds so general... Who know?

Lifers, lovers and part-timers.

Before I started drinking coffee almost 6 years ago, I thought that without a doubt that I would go throughout the rest of my life without drinking coffee. It wasnt a disinterest, and it wasn't because I hated it. The reason why I never wanted to have coffee was because I had never had good coffee. Every shop and every coffee I had ever tried up to the point I went to The Ugly Mug in Ypsilanti was contributing to this idea that all coffee was horrible. Looking back, I can see that maybe it was in part an over-roasted coffee, or maybe the blend was just horrible. But, now I think I'm coming to the conclusion that it could just be the people preparing and serving the coffee. My conclusion comes with a theory on people I meet in the coffee world. These people are loosly classified into three categories: Lifers, Lovers, and Part-Timers.

It has been from experience that I have learned to spot a "Lifer" from a mile away. They usually are wearing a coffee related t-shirt, always talk at length about coffee, and know where all the spots to go are in any town around the world. They can come off as pretentious at times, but have all the best intentions of spreading the word of coffee far and wide. These are the people who are always tweaking, playing, and doing things a million different ways just to see where it can go. Coffee is fun to these people, it is what they think about when they wake up, and it is what they think about all day long.

You have the Lovers lumped in this large middle category. It has its basis in people who can love and appreciate coffee for all its intricacies, but never take what they have in front of them any further than just that. It is an appreciation of it, not a quest to better themselves with the coffee. They generally work in the cafe for the environment and the people they will meet and hang out with but are not really interested in investing much beyond the social aspects of cafe life.

The part-timers are the people in the industry that I am not very fond of. You know these people when you walk into a cafe and clearly see the disdain on their faces. They hang out or work in coffee shops most likely part time to help supplement their other income or job. They don't care about the coffee, they don't care about what they are doing outside of making money and having a job. Quality, what quality? Not here, not with these people. Absolutely zero investment in the coffee, customer, or coffee shop.

Now, why would I mass generalize about what I perceive to be as separate groups of people in the coffee world? Well, because recently I have noticed how I rarely go into other coffee shops because I know whatever I get is most likely going to be made by part-timers. Even if I know that the coffee shop has a good coffee roaster behind them, the final results in the cup are not going to do justice to the coffee. So, what can be done about this? What can I do about this? What can we do about this?

I would really like to find a way to influence other coffee shops and interested coffee "lovers" to move into the first category of "lifers" and use the time that they spend in the cafe to learn and to have fun with the coffee. My parents did a good job teaching me as a kid that having fun with something will make the time go by faster, and make life all around more fulfilling and better. I know though that its not possible to show everyone that they can have fun by learning about coffee because people still have this archaic view of coffee as coming from a can, produced by some Latin American guy wearing a poncho with donkey in tow.

My idea to semi-remedy the problem is enforcement by cafe owners and managers to have Baristas do what is defined in their job description. The job of a Barista in my eyes is that of someone paid to properly represent the coffee they are given. Whether that be by making sure a grind setting is on, making sure the brew weights are right, or even to make sure the origin of coffee is done justice by the brew method. If a Barista pulls a shot based on volume and not by when the shot is properly extracted, they are not fulfilling their job title. It is as if I have seen time and time again that most people in the coffee industry calling themselves Baristas do not look at it as a real job. There is no final outcome for these people, it is just a food service thing for them. No value for them or anyone, just means to an end.

My conclusion is that the job of a Barista should be one of respect, a career, and one of constant betterment and learning. I am unhappy about the fact the the job of the Barista has been demeaned by the corporate coffee world. The majority of Barista jobs around the U.S. holds no value for anyone beyond being the new burger flipper at a Micky D's. Cafes, cafe owners, and cafe managers need to give the job respect again and create more lifers for the investment and return they will get from the customer. These are the people who will start to also respect the position and in turn take pride in contributing to the craft that is being a Barista. When you think about turning the job of a Barista into a career it starts to take on a different form. You start asking yourself "What can I do to do my job better?" And, "What can I do to bring respect to my job and therefore myself?"

I am a lifer. I love, respect, cherish my job and position in the coffee world. My goal is to do the best I can with what I have, to produce something everyone in the world can tell that I take pride in. Here's for hope!

Mittens and High Fives!

It has been a while since I have last posted. Long story short, I have been inundated with Dexter, Weeds, and now Heroes, amongst other tons of things having more specifically to do with coffee. I have just gotten back home last night from a very long trip to Michigan to meet up with many coffee peoples there and to spend time with friends and family. It was much needed and very much appreciated.

This coffee adventure starts out with me finding out about a week or so ago that my last shop, Kozy Koffee, had just closed. Whether or not it had anything to do with me and Courtney leaving 2 months previously and the customer base falling off rapidly thereafter or just the owner giving up for financial reasons or lack of effort, both which I know are contributing factors. That makes it now the third shop I have worked at that has closed within months of me leaving them. I would hate for that to sound bad, like I was a cause of these closures, because in all the cases decisions that were not mine contributed far more to the closures than the positive things I did to keep them open. I think I may be concluding that, in Michigan at least that although I have poured my heart into three potentially great shops that once the ownership starts to make bad decisions in order to limit quality and steers away from the focus of coffee that the snow ball has started to build momentum turning itself into an avalanche ending with the closure.

Getting into Michigan just in time to say happy birthday and good night to my lovely Courtney it was around 7 on the 20th that we arrived. We woke around 11am and headed almost instantly to Ann Arbor to eat at Seva and get some coffee at Comet Coffee. We had from what I can remember now a couple shots of Epic from 49th Parallel and a pour over of the Costa they had brewing that day... all I can say is they can make some of the best pour over that I have ever had.


We continued out to Ypsilanti for some time with the Uglies before the throwdown that night. We talked tons of coffee and a lot of industry concluding with drinks and food at Sidetracks (which has awesome vegetarian food I might add for any out of towners) before heading over for a drunken good time at the Ugly Mug for the throw down versus Milwaukee.

Courtney was lucky enough to get to throw down for Ypsie since we have in the past worked for them kinda, roasting in the back and occasionally playing on bar. Unfortunately for my Michigan homies they ended up loosing to Milwaukee in a very strange way with an over all fun filled, beer saturated, time.

As a funny side story, Ramiro was supposed to throw down against Scott at Alterra for the final head to head, but before that happened we made our way over to the Corner Brewery to have some of the worlds greatest beers, which is precisely where we found out that Ramiro was supposed to throw down against Scott. I guess we will never know what could have happened. We eventually made our ways to the Elbow Room in Ypsie and had a few rounds and headed all the way back to Highland for the night. I hope Courtney liked her birthday and all the coffee time with these crazy Michigan guys!


The next morning we woke around 10 or so, ate breakfast, and headed out to Grand Rapids to meet up with the great people at MadCap Coffee. We were lucky enough upon our arrival to be greeted by the whole gang of MadCappers (if they would let me call them that) Ryan, Trevor, Laura, and Chad. We had a blast chatting it up about the upcoming throwdown at the beginning of October, as well as potentially sourcing some amazing coffees together from Costa Rica... Pumped. We even had time to do a side by side comparison of some Kenya Peaberry Ruera Estate Vs 49th Parallel's AA of the same estate, I know I am partial to the stuff roasted by us so of course I thought ours was the better in this battle, but realistically it was just fun to see the coffees up against eachother and the flavor differences of two of the same estate coffees, just different types. Very fun I must say, but we had to head out for a vegan birthday party in Lansing. Ironically though, before we left Grand Rapids, we stopped at a friends house on the way out and standing on the front porch we spotted Kurt Stauffer's roasting business 'Rowsters.' Another unfortunate thing of just stopping in town suddenly is that he wasnt there, but I was able to get a hold of him and chat it up a bit over the phone for a minute or two. Seriously an awesome guy, If anyone is ever in the area stop by, he is a great roaster.

Eventually we made it out to Lansing where I had the opportunity to hang with some of my close friends where one of them (Joe Matteson formerly of the Mug-shot in Highland, one of my old shops) just so happened to have one pound of the first batches roasted my good friend Josh Longsdorf, under his side company RootCoffee out in Napa, CA... I didnt have any means to brew the coffee at the time so I mocked up a way to cup it on the spot and was really just blown away at the amazing coffee... I feel stupid now, but I dont remember what the coffee was (thats what drinking after the fact does) but I can tell you that the guy is an amazing roaster and everyone should keep an eye out for him in the future and buy some coffee off his website if there is any left!

As for the rest of the weekend, I spent some time with friends playing baseball, eating with my family and catching up on old times. Oh, I almost forgot. My sister, Megan Pattison, was helping me manufacture my pour over system, and well the final product is made and is actually in Anodyne right now. Personally I think they look amazing and really just stand out above all the other pour over systems I have seen made. Hopefully soon here I will stop procrastinating and have a website made so I can start an actual production made on these things and cure the world of the ugly pour over station...

Besides that there is a ton of news that I cant really talk about yet because they are plans in the works but I am super psyched to be doing some of these things, so stay tuned.

Michigan, I love and miss you already!

What you need to know and why you need to know it!

The other day I had overheard a conversation and was inspired to write an article on the importance of coffee origins, varietals, processing and the roll of the barsista in educating themselves as well as the consumer. The problem I found was that I did not know where to start. So, in a twist of fate, I turned to my good friend Josh Longsdorf's Blog and found that he had already written a very poignant article on just those subjects. I think it is a really great read and that everyone should give it a gander, so I copied it here for everyones reading pleasure:

Reinventing the Role of the Barista
March 19th 2009 | Posted by Josh Longsdorf

The past couple decades have seen an evolution among coffee growers, roasters, and importers, with changes occurring faster than they themselves can keep up with. The industry as a whole is seeking a means to decommoditize coffee, to create a truly sustainable coffee infrastructure - one that is sustainable for the land, the growers, the customer, and everyone involved in between.

In the industry I think sustainability can be likened to a cup of coffee. While many agree coffee should be enjoyed black – or, in it’s natural state, if you will – this doesn’t always work for everyone. To some black coffee is an acquired taste that they have to work hard at enjoying. Others may never be able to enjoy it at all. The same is true of sustainability. Each farmer, each importer, and each roaster has their own cup of sustainable measures that make the relationship between them taste good. While each of these relationships is unique, the one thing common to all of them is the importance of transparency. This is where the barista comes in.

Baristas must do their best to keep this cup of sustainability black and clear – transparent – and garner as much appreciation as possible from our customers. To do this, we must reevaluate our role in coffee. We can no longer limit ourselves to just preparing it. We must also act as its representative to the consumer. We must provide them with the knowledge of what makes each cup of coffee so unique.

Things to know when representing the coffees:

• Where does your coffee come from?
There are currently more than 30 countries that grow the Coffea arabica plant; within each there are usually several growing regions and within each region there are hundreds of farms and some of these farms are even broken into several different micro lots. Therefore it is no longer a matter of whether your coffee comes from Brasil or Ethiopia. We also need to know the growing region, farm or co-op, and even the lot number in some cases. Every coffee has its own story to tell, and that story is reflected in the cup. Whether it’s from three separate micro-lots from the same farm or three farms from the same region, each coffee will be unique, and the barista should be able to explain that to the customer

• Who is the grower or producer?
1 in 10 people in the world work in a job some how related to coffee. With this fact it is then not surprising that there are more than 25 million coffee growers in the world, many of them go unrecognized. A lot of the growth in cup quality that we have seen throughout the years is attributed these growers.

• What is the cultivar or varietal?
Simply put in biological terms, varietals are naturally occurring and cultivars are produced or cultivated through selective breeding. In coffee however the two are often used interchangeably. With more than 40 cultivars stemming from the two varietals Typica and Bourbon, along with Mocha in Yemen and Ethiopia, and wild plants of Ethiopia there are more than 50 varietals and cultivars of Arabica coffee. Many producers grow more than one varietal or cultivar of coffee, all of which will have their own unique characteristics. A Bourbon will have different characteristics then a Pacamara will from the same farm.

• How was it processed?
The easiest way to think of processing is how was the fruit removed from the seed. Today we are seeing many exciting methods of processing, but generally are three major categories; wet or washed, dry or natural, and semi or pulped natural.

• Elevation?
Usually represented by a number followed by ‘masl’ (meters above sea level). Higher elevations mean less atmosphere, thus slower growth, which generally equates to a denser bean.

Of equal importance to properly representing the coffees is involving the customer.

Consumers generally want to know what they’re consuming, and we often fail to help them much in this regard. Edwin Martinez of Finca Vista Hermosa Farms in Huehuetenango, Guatemala says it best: “If more of us can taste and experience coffee we can begin to uncover the layers and become intimately familiar with it’s origin. Decommoditizing coffee hinges on ensuring the farmer is not anonymous.” By creating situations for customers to ask questions we can involve them in a way that is comfortable and educational for them. So how do we spark their interest?

• Cuppings-Traditionally, cuppings have been used for greens purchasing and quality control. These days, many are finding cuppings useful for educating consumers and introducing them to new coffees. Cupping allows the consumer to explore the fragrance, aroma, mouth feel, and taste of several coffees side by side.

• Flights-Taking a cue from an industry that does well in educating their customers; the wine industry has used flights to both educate and sell to customers for centuries. Whether we’re talking varietal/cultivar, origin, producer, or three completely different coffees all together, flights can be a fun way to compare and contrast coffees with customers. Remember to use small servings for flights, possibly with the option of taking a cup of their favorite with them afterwards.

• Single Origin Espresso-Ditch the ol’ blend, grab your favorite coffee and offer it up as espresso. Many roasters are now roasting some of their coffees specifically for single origin espresso; however, if your roaster doesn’t roast single origin espresso, you should be able to pull shots with most coffees as long as they were roasted well to begin with. S/O espresso gives the consumer the chance to see a coffee in a new light, and gives you a chance to introduce each unique bean to espresso drinkers.

To some this information may be a second language, and to others second nature. Either way, every barista could be doing more to educate the world about coffee. Remember in educating the consumer it is not the knowledge you have that matters, rather it is the experience they walk away with.

If this information isn’t available to you, a good place to gain it is to talk with your roaster.

If you like this then check out his website at rootcoffee for more stuff, I am sure he will be posting more of his stuff soon.

Current events!

WOW, the weekend already and I feel like I have had the shortest week in the world. Today, I woke up extra early, and worked the farmers market doing pour overs for the nice peoples of Bay View. Unfortunately though, even though we had people gladly waiting for more than 10 minutes for a cup, we were told that we could not do the pour overs any more. This is because other "nameless" vendors complained that we were stealing business or something like that, so basically we are not going to be doing the whole pour over thing anymore. The good news is that I have two on order from Michigan to get in Anodyne... I am very pumped about this let me tell you!

In other news, a group of us got together last Wednesday(I think)and had some coffee fun and experimentation. We had on hand for coffees a Costa-Rican Palmares Centro pulped-natural coffee, a El Salvador San Emilio 100% Bourbon pulped-natural, a Organic Mexican Alta de Pacifico, and some Schweik from Metropolis. We were also brewing them via multiple dosages and styles on the Chemex brewers and on the siphon brewer. If we had more time we were planning on utilizing the french press and moka-pot since James or Brett said that they had never had a good moka-pot, and well I feel very confident that I could do justice on a brewing system like that. The results and methods were very striking with changes ranging in the dosing sizes of the coffee, the method of adding and subtracting coffees and even pouring technique. I should definatly say that it was all for fun and we ended up all having a lot of coffee and I am sure we all left feeling great!



But back to my very busy day today, after the farmers market, I took a little break and had some lunch at home, but promptly met up with Steve to go do a semi-planned espresso crawl in Madison Wisconsin where I had heard that there is a pretty good coffee scene. To my slight disappointment, the coffee shops there were pretty mediocre. With the exception of Bradburys' which was amazing, and Indie's Coffee house where the Barista did a great job, I just really was not a fan of the espresso blend. I think that almost all of the coffee shops were not bad or even close to some horrible coffee shops I have been into, but that they have a lot of great potential as far as making a great shot of espresso given the right blends and training. All in all, I would say that Madison was a cool town and there is a pretty open landscape for quality coffees to come into play there.



To really finish off my night I hung out with the Boywonder from Roast on the 'East Side', and our great friend Chase, as well as the Girl and Luke. We drank some brews and ate at Honeypie's on Kinnickinnic and left feeling absolutely amazing... I can tell you right now that I am perhaps the most tired I have been in a long time. I sincerely hope that no one calls me before noon tomorrow so I can get my sleep on. I know this probably wont happen though because I can never sleep past 9 anyway but hey heres for hoping!



Oh, and heres a pic (she will most likely hate) just for the heck of it of me and the girl...Good night Coffee Blog!

So, it is the weekend again. Time for me to collect my thoughts on my life, coffee, and everything going on in general. I have been trying really hard latly to get things moving in the catagory of getting stuff done, or accomplishing goals.

Milwaukee
First off, personally, I feel great! I am surrounded by people who love and care for coffee as much as I do. We talk and debate about coffee all day long. Truth be told, I do not think I would rather be anyplace besides Milwaukee. Working at Anodyne has provided me with an opportunity to really put my knowledge into practice, work with some excellent coffees and people, and is giving me a chance to experiment with coffee and feel out its boundaries. Milwaukee is a town where there are tons of quality coffee shops hidden all over. If you have never been here, most likely you have least heard of Alterra. Alterra has some great coffee, and some great people working for them. You have Anodyne, where the focus is not about opening up franchises, but about roasting the best coffee and representing it to the best of our ability. I do not know much about them but The National. Every time I go into The National I get amazing spro from Metropolis out of Chicago. The baristas at The National know how to pull it and brew a good cup. There are also the guys up at Roast Coffee Co who can do great things with coffee (if you get a few drinks in them), but seriously they can do awesome things with some coffee. We also here in Milwaukee, happen to be bordered by Madison where there are a crap-ton of roasters and coffee shops, I have not been there yet, but plan on doing an espresso crawl in the next coming weeks.


The Holy Coffee Grail
I really want to do something amazing with coffee, but I kind of feel intimidated by the thousands of years of history behind coffee and feel like there is not much left for a person to discover or conclude about coffee. Although I do know that we are just skimming the top of an ocean of coffee adventure, I just get the feeling like I am scraping the bottom of my bowl and need a refill of this coffee awesomeness. It is like I want to discover something awesome in this multi-cultural, multi-national thing, a beast of sorts. I hear stories about how great things are being done all over, from a several thousand dollar siphon thing in California, to the Slayer people up in the North-West. But, when all is said and done, I can not help but get this feeling like we are all looking for this "coffee grail." Seriously, I see it in all serious coffee people. This look that is almost coveted, a way of living, we have this esoteric thing, coffee. When they speak to non-coffee people the look is always the same too, "What, you have not experienced the awe-inspiring amazing-ness that is great coffee?" I know this sounds weird to a non-coffee person too. "Dude, it is just coffee, couple bucks in a can at the store. Duhh!" I guess I just want to scream about how great it is, be its number one advocate. But, there is this almost quest going on to find the best way to brew, and the best coffee to brew. If you know the secret, it is amazing. If you don't know the secret and its just a cup of coffee, well, thats great too, but yeah. This grail though, this need to find and achieve coffee bliss, we are all looking for... I wish I had words to describe it.

Movies
Something I find funny is movies. More specifically coffee in movies. I occasionally see a french press or a moka-pot in these Hollywood movies and wonder "Do they know how to use that?" I, for sure, do not want to sound pretentious but seriously, it makes me think about the Hollywood stars too. They have almost this unlimited source of income and you always end up seeing these paparazzi photos of everyone walking down the street holding a cup by "you know who." I do find it funny, but could only imagine if I had this level of income, the coffee I would drink... I guess this makes me come to the conclusion that I would love to see some more people who waste money regularly, waste it on coffee, and great coffee at that.

Ultimate conclusion for the day
I am sitting at my kitchen table, typing on my laptop. I cant complain about anything. I think I am going to go get some coffee right now, my chem-exed "summer awesome fun yeah blend" was not enough to quench my thirst. I definitely have my head in the clouds today, not thinking to seriously about anything.

Busy, busy, Busy

I have been sooo busy lately that I do not know when I will have time to sit down and write some more in depth coffee stuff on here. But, I have been doing some coffee related stuffs that I could put up on this blog...

My sweet, awesome mother bought this old, awesome grinder that is in great condition at a garage sale for me, but I also just got my bratza maestro grinder for the apartment, so its more of a decoration for the house...


I have been experimenting on grind sizes for pour overs... I think we have a great cup...


This is the new addition to my sleeve, beans and a sunset... ohhh coffee, what you do to me...


This is the drip station that I have had made up for me, it is big pimpin and I am having two of them made for Anodyne, both at the farmers market and one in the cafe... It should end up being great for the shop and all Milwaukee



Yeah, thats it for now, I have to go finish making my toddy for luke to try and to see if it would be good in a coffee stout... but more on that later...

Where should my focus be?

So, where is your focus? I think we may have gotten lost along the way.
Back in Michigan, when I worked at Kozy Koffee, I was struck with an idea. Where should my focus be? The coffee? The industry? The method? The job? Well, I concluded that since I was fortunate enough to work in the industry as a barista that I should redefine my title. I, in fact, do not and did not want to be a barista, I wanted to be a scientist and a researcher. So, I looked and found that there was many views and styles of producing the consumable coffee.

At the time I had been pretty lost and apathetic towards my job and my life. I really had not any reason at that point to be investing any time into coffee beyond the fact that I was paying bills and that sure felt good. I still to this day do not feel any connection to the rock-star barista lifestyle. It is not my goal to become famous and I pretty much despise idol worship. I have other ideas and plans, and as far as the industry is concerned, well as you could tell by my last blog post, I really am not happy with the current industry and its focus on certifications and processes. Although, I am happy with a few dudes doing some great things for the coffee itself.

The coffee, well, I love the coffee. I think it is beautiful and fantastic and it touches so many people around the world. This is indeed where a lot of my focus has been lately, but I sincerely find that beyond that, I have become very upset with what is done to the coffee by both uneducated persons and persons ignorant to the proper and professional ways of making coffee.

Which leads me to what I was thinking about back in Michigan. I was working with one other person (Courtney) who actually cared about the coffee as much as me. And well, I took it in my own hands to better my knowledge and do the right thing with the coffee. I personally bought a Chemex and designed my very own pour over/ drip station. I really wanted to find the right way of making coffee that would compliment the specific coffee brewed. I was very sick of airpot coffees that would sit for hours at a time. Coffees that would be dosed incorrectly, coffees that would not be ground to the correct setting, and mostly over extracted coffee. I was sick of coffees that were tainted with flavors added to them. To this day, I get angry thinking about how there are forces out there in the world that define coffee as just an economic commodity that needs sugar, milk, syrups and sauces.

I can understand working a job to make money to pay the bills, but lack of care and ignorance leads to bad quality, there is no doubt about it. I honestly refuse to go into most coffee shops because I know I can not get a good cup of coffee. I never, and I mean never, order a cup of coffee from a restaurant because there is no focus on the coffee, it is a restaurant. I also never get gas station coffee, I will leave that right there.

So the focus, where should the focus be in my rant? The focus is on the quality. The focus is on the coffee bean. The focus is on the method. Every coffee blog and site you go to will have fifty million different ways of telling you how to prepare the coffee, and how to properly do everything coffee related. The truth is, everyone is really just learning. Although the story of coffee is as old as humanity, maybe even older, we are just now in the past 100 years roasting the beans to a standard level, and only for the past ten to fifteen years been roasting the coffee to get real flavors, and I am not talking about dark roasted anything.

I feel like we are on the cusp right now of righting wrongs that have been wrong for so long. All the misconceptions are in the process of being de-misconceived, (if that is even a word.) The point is this, the more we learn about coffee the more we need to hold the standard higher. An analogy is in order : Yes, you can paint at home, but most likely, you will never be a Monet or a Da Vinci. Its the same with coffee, you can most likely make a good cup of coffee at home, but if you get it professionally made, it can be life changing.

I really hope that this does not come off as overly pretentious. It is just that when consumers go into coffee shops with uneducated baristas, it really projects onto the consumer. The consumer then becomes also mis-educated and passes the ignorance along. The current coffee markets have been in many ways very progressive by allowing the importation of some of the best coffee to ever have been tasted, and in so many cases this great coffee's potential is ruined by this ignorance. I am reminded of those medicine commercials you see on the television for all the new drugs being marketed, “Please consult a professional before use!” We have the ability to make great coffee, just a lack of knowledge currently that is stopping most.


Common problems that are constantly being corrected:
1.Do not freeze your coffee
2.Do not keep it in the fridge
3.You have thirty days limit after the roast day to use your coffee before spoilage occurs
4.Only grind your coffee right before you are about to use it
5.Dark roasted equates to “burned all the flavor away”
6.Dark roasted coffee also does not have more caffeine than light roasted coffee

Empathy, dignity, and economy...

Last night, I stayed up late watching the 2006 movie "Black Gold." It is based around a man named Tadesse Meskela. He happens to be the main guy at the OROMIA coffee Cooperative in Ethiopia. His "mission (is) to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy," as the website blackgoldmovie.com says. I watched the movie intently, I watched the farmers in the movie intently, and I watched the British, and American consumers intently.
I see something unnerving in this picture and it starts in that I love coffee. Not just the morning cup, and not the exploits of becoming a "rock-star" barista. I love coffee in that I feel as if I am a part of something that is as old as history. It is in the story of the bean, that the trouble starts. The story that stands behind every coffee bean that is picked and the person that had to pick that bean in order to stay alive.
I must confess that I have only been "in" the coffee industry for about five years now and am by no means an expert, but I am a human and have what I feel to be an immense amount of empathy for other humans. What I have come to learn in my five years, is that in the "industry" of coffee, the people who pick all the coffees from around the world, work for next to nothing in comparison to what their labor produces for others in the chain of coffee consumption. What I mean is this; the average coffee farmer get pennies per pound of coffee sold, and through the normal channels of international trade the coffee comes out on my end in a cafe/roaster setting costing the consumer nearly eleven dollars per pound. The gap is huge. Where does the money go and why are the coffee farmers still living in poverty?
I am by no means going to pretend to be stupid and ignore the fact that there are costs involved in shipping hundreds of thousands of pounds of coffees from all corners of the earth to thousands of other places around the globe, on the contrary, I am very aware. But I am also aware of quality and the debate on Fair Trade vs. not Fair Trade. The debate stems from the fact that the certification by the Fair Trade organization in turn pays the coffee farmers more per pound of coffee than the average non-Fair Trade coffee. This in turn also helps the farmer out by giving them more money to re-invest back into the farms, labor and increase the quality of their lives. The counter point is that the term Fair Trade in no way indicates quality. From the viewpoint that I currently stand, I only want the best coffees that I can buy. Unfortunately, the Fair Trade markets have driven, in some respects, the quality of coffee down by instead of promoting quality coffee, promoting certification by the Fair Trade organization, so that the farmers could get more money by producing an inferior bean.
Writing this, I feel a certain level of guilt. I do feel like coffee farmers need to be paid more, but only a premium to those who dedicate themselves to quality. The comparison that I often reference is that of natural selection. The website Wikipedia.org defines natural selection as "the process where heritable traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common over successive generations of a population." In terms of the economy of coffee, when consumers support this "Fair Trade" over quality, they are inhibiting the natural flow of increasing the quality of their crop and therefor inhibiting the farmer from getting paid more for producing quality coffee.
What happens, as I have read, is that instead of all these farmers producing better quality coffees, they work the farm from a mostly "get the job done" perspective, not caring and therefore driving the quality and market for the coffee down. The market is driven down when average quality coffee is taken to the local cooperatives, where they are often mixed together with all the other coffees from the regions where they are harvested. This is really a big thing considering that this will mix all the hard work of the farmers who care with the coffees of the farmers who do not really care. On my end, what this does is gives us, the roasters and the consumers? We end up with coffees that have no merit beyond the Fair Trade certification.
Again I would hate to come off as stupid and ignore the hard work of a few daring souls that are out there really working to increase quality of coffee and quality of life for the farmers. Intelligentsia has created and copyrighted the term "Direct-Trade," where they deal directly with the farmer, but even more recently as written on his personal blog of at dougzell.com, Doug Zell, who basically is Intelligentsia has begun importing coffee and by doing so "are... guaranteeing our growers great prices for great coffees through our pioneering Direct Trade program, but importing and financing our coffee ourselves provides an even greater degree of transparency and logistical control that allows us to land carefully selected Direct Trade coffees months sooner than if we were using outside importers." There is also Stumptown coffee who "pays the highest prices ever seen in these countries in pursuit of these (coffees)." The coffees they purchase are among the best you can buy and are according to their website "the product of a maximum commitment of time, energy and money from our farmers."
My personal problem lies in the question "What can I do to help?" On the small scale roasters side of things, is it possible to really help when the the roaster to go through an importer? Is it possible to help these farmers when it is at this point almost impossible for the average coffee shop to survive? Is it possible to help when misinformation and greed permeates the roots of the coffee industry?

So, last night I watched a movie... It moved me, it changed the way I am thinking about the coffee industry, it has inspired me. It has been a goal of mine for the last year or two to source my own coffee, giving dignity, context, and a face to the coffee farmer, buying directly from him. My hopes are that the industry will change for the better by then. It shouldnt have to be so hard to show you care...

My homies from Michigan

Just another short little thing. Last weekend Courtney and I ventured out to Michigan so she could get her second session done on her tattoo sleeve. We were fortunate enough to make it out to The Ugly Mug in Ypsilanti on Saturday morning where these awesome guys were kind enough to hook us up with some killer new Ugly Mug shirts and some coffee. We posted the cupping notes for it over on the Anodyne blog so check it out, but for real we had a blast. We had a chance to pose here in a family photo:

From the top left: My good friend Josh Bongwater, Miro "Always" Lomeli, Me, Courtney Vaquera, Second row:Jim Saborio owner of Comet Coffee AA, MI), and Ypsilanti famous Ethan Billups

The Jam at Alterra

So, I know its kinda late but I decided that since "Luke" just uploaded these pics of the jam last Friday at Alterra on Humbolt, I can post them now. Its basically just me and the girl, and if you wanna see the others go to his flickr page and he has a ton up or check the Anodyne blog because I am going to post some up there too.

me and bee...

the girl pouring her heart out

me and an octopus's garden

Coffee Cupping

When I first started in the coffee industry I didn't drink coffee. Well, I drank coffee, but had thought that all coffee tasted so bad that it was pretty much undrinkable. So, like most all other coffee drinkers I added syrups, sugar, and milk to it anytime I wanted a cup. I had worked in the Highland, MI location of the chain coffee house "Its A Grind" where I was a manager, and ironically did not really know a thing about coffee. I must confess if it was not for Josh Longsdorf, (then of the Ugly Mug in Ypsilanti, MI and now of Ritual Coffee Roasters in California) I would probably not be working in coffee. I most likely still would not know a thing about coffee and frankly, I would not be living in Milwaukee. It was Josh who walked into our small coffee shop and found a few people who were like sponges waiting for the knowledge of coffee to be dripped on them. He first helped us learn the quality of espresso over corporate standards and practices, that coffee was one of the most important functioning parts of the world economy, and that above all it was delicious, beautiful and dynamic beyond most peoples’ comprehension. It was also Josh who took me to my first cupping and helped me understand the importance of cupping. It was this first cupping that I went to that helped me realize that coffee was by itself, as a single origin, amazing. It didn't need additives, it didn’t need milk, it didn’t need to be dark roasted, it needed to be just coffee.
Which brings me to my focus: What is cupping and why is it important? Well, as you can find cupping defined on the search engine Wikipedia.org, it is loosely defined as "the practice of observing the tastes and aromas of brewed coffee." Or basically just tasting the coffee and seeing what flavors you can taste in the coffee. But as a precursor to actually cupping, a few things must be defined in order to properly understand the depth of this unique practice.

'Taste', a term that is often confused with the term 'flavor' is actually the ability of your tongue to detect flavor. Whereas flavor is the chemical reactions upon your senses, and what we are talking about are those chemical impressions left by roasted and ground coffee beans. In other words, you taste things with your tongue, and flavors are what you taste. There are some other basic terms that are most often referred to when cupping that will be helpful to know:

1. Fragrance- in our case the odor or scent that is found when coffee is ground.
2. Aroma- the odors that are found and defined when breaking the crust of the coffee while cupping.
3. Mouth-feel/ body- the tactile sensations the coffee gives to the mouth.
4. Brightness- referring to the level of acidity in the coffee.
5. Finish- How the coffee stays and reacts on your pallet over time after it leaves the pallet

So cupping as a practice goes basically as follows:

1. You have a pre-weighed amount of ground coffee that you find in cupping bowls. Holding the cupping bowls in your hands and spinning the coffee inside it gives off the fragrance of the ground coffee. Most of the time you will find cuppers comparing different coffees, and the flavors in the coffees. Sometimes though, you will find people cupping the same coffee origin but different roast profiles to find which profile best suits the flavors that could be pulled from the coffee.
2. Once all of the bowls are set with the pre-determined weight of coffee, you add near boiling water directly to the coffees, filling the bowls and then let them brew for approximately four minutes. This is to allow the coffee to fully extract all the flavors in a very concentrated form with all the oils, fats and flavors. This method allows the coffee not to be tainted by a bleached filter or other method of processing. Although you can find resources stating different ways to cup this should be sufficient for a basic level of cupping.
3. After approximately four minutes you ‘Break the Crust.’ This is where you hover very closely over the cup, almost to the point of your nose touching the crust of the coffee. At this point you use a spoon to push the grounds that are floating on top to the side and inhale both with your nose as well as your mouth in order to pick up any aromas that the coffee might be giving off . The crust acts as an aroma inhibitor, and agitating the grounds at this point releases the aromas from the brewed coffee underneath.
4. You now remove the remaining grounds from top of the cup with a spoon. Most of the grounds should have fallen to the bottom of the cup from the agitation with the spoon while breaking the crust. This step is done more as a precautionary step so that while tasting the brewed coffee your are not getting a large amount of grounds in your mouth.
5. At this point you can begin tasting the brewed coffee in the bowl. You do this by putting your spoon in the coffee letting it fill up your spoon as if you were about to eat soup. You slurp the coffee into your mouth, spritzing your pallet with the brewed coffee. Slurping allows the coffee to properly penetrate your taste buds and at the same time aerate, and stimulate your pallet. This allows you to pick up more flavors of the coffee as well as better experience the brightness and body of individual coffees. It’s common in a basic setting that you would take notes of the specifics of the coffee throughout the cupping and when finished collaborate with other cuppers on the specifics of what everyone experienced with the coffees cupped.

So why do we post cupping notes and what if you don't taste what we posted in our cupping notes? Well, cupping is very subjective and our cupping notes are meant more as a general guideline of what we tasted in the coffees. So don't be upset if you don't happen to pick up some high-notes of ginger-spice and blueberries that we tasted, instead look for flavors you could identify with. I have been working really hard to develop my pallet and flavor definitions over the past year in order to pick out more aspects of coffee profiles. Cupping is a very great tool to increase your flavor vocabulary, it gives you an opportunity to focus on specific coffees, compare them to others, and really just give yourself a better threshold for tasting coffees in a general setting.

As far as I am concerned, I fell in love with coffee at my first cupping. I don't remember what the coffee was, but I do remember tasting full on sweet blueberries and not the harsh, bitter, over-extracted coffee that you will find at almost every coffee shop and diner around the world. After that day, I began researching coffee and all its aspects. I wanted to find out what made it tick and why it held such insane flavors for my tongue to discover. A few times of week, I spend my mornings, afternoons and nights cupping, diving deeper into the flavors and roast profiles from coffees around the world .

This situation, this Coffee...

So, a little over 2 months ago now, I was surfing the internet on baristaexchange.com. I was skimming through the current posts and someone was there looking for a job in the Midwest and I just so happened to click on it for some odd reason. I did not need a job, I had a job, a good job, getting paid under the table plus tips. I was doing fairly well for myself, catching up on bills, paying student loans for a degree that I never finished (yet). This post had one response from Steve Kessler, a man I have come to know really well in the past 2 months, saying that Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co. was hiring for a wholesale guy. It peaked my interest.

I had recently been thinking about what I have wanted to do with myself in the world of coffee. I had also just gotten done reading "God in a Cup" and it made me realize that this rock-star barista thing that everyone is competing so hard for was not really me. As much as I like a good challenge, I really prefer working together to complete a common goal with a group of people I really like. I wanted to no longer be a barista, but work behind the scenes and produce something worthwhile for myself and for others. So, I replied to the reply, and within minutes I had gotten an email from Steve at Anodyne. We had from that point and in the next few following weeks hammered out the details for me to suddenly move out of state from Michigan to Wisconsin. It took about two weeks for me to quit my job working at Kozy Koffee in Highland, Mi to move to Bay View, one of the boroughs in Milwaukee WI. In my last few weeks in Highland, we partied, and partied hard. We threw a show where we were not allowed to throw a show, our favorite bands and favorite people were all there. There were lots of hugs and a few tears, but no sooner did this all happen, than were all of our things packed into a u-haul and were we on the road.

When I think to myself, I sometimes remember all the way back to when I lived in Warren, MI. It is the city to the north boardering Detroit. I grew up there for the first 12.5 years of my life on the notorious 8 mile. Yes, that 8 mile, the same 8 mile Eminem is from. I remember riding my bike all over the place. Places where I know I should not have ever been or where I should probably never return. The important part was all the bike riding. It seems like a thing you do when you are a child, you learn to do it, then soon forget it when you are old enough to drive. I guess looking at it in retrospect, this moving to Milwaukee where there are bike lanes everywhere, where I do not own a car, I feel like I have returned to my childhood in some weird way.

My journey thus far has forced me to meet peoples from all over the world, from different backgrounds, from different perspectives. I have become part of a team of people passionate about coffee, people who love coffee, people that go out to dinner and talk about nothing but coffee. It feels really good to be surrounded by these people who share some of the same ideas and passions as I do.

Just the other day, Luke, my roommate and best friend had gotten into the conversation about how we are hedonists in pursuit of only those things that pleasure us. I would hate for this to be taken the wrong way, but I believe it to be true in some sense. We are hedonists in that I have moved to Milwaukee in hopes of satisfying my love for coffee, the pleasure I get out of coffee as a plant, beverage, an industry, and as a way of having fun. We are hedonists in that I get the feeling of my childhood coming back to me, "lets ride bikes" not because we need to get somewhere, but because we want to. Lets seek out beauty, lets capture the essence of a place or a thing. We are hedonists in that humanity has reached a point in that I can take full advantage of 'our' industries, governments, and manipulate them to conform to my passions and loves so as to instigate more of what I want.

Ultimately, I am viewing my current situation as a means to do more of the things I want. Not money, not fame, not anything but those things I want to do because they make me happy. Eventually I dream of coffee taking me around the world so I can experience more of humanity through the eyes of coffee, more human perspectives, more of everything.

It has only been two months since I was surfing the Internet in search of nothing in particular. today I am sitting in Anodyne drinking some Kenya Peaberry Ruera that tastes like chocolate and guava. I am beyond happy!

It was a request...

I have created this blog with the hopes that all of my adventures in coffee will be recorded in one place for others to read, comment, enjoy, and learn. I am going to try and fill in my past coffee experiences and most definitely my new ones. I hope you like it.