Mexican Barista Championship 2008
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on September 5, 2008
Filed Under barista competition, travel | 1 Comment
(warning - long post!)
As much as I love traveling I do feel bad for abandoning James on his own for a week while I go to Mexico City to judge at the 2008 Mexican Barista Championship. Still I’m thrilled to have been invited and who could say no to go and see the home of one of my favourite barista champions of all time- Salvador ‘Chava’ Benitez.
Transiting through Houston, Texas I keep looking around to see if any of the other invited judges might be on the same flight as me- but it looks like I’m going it on my own. I’m so excited to meet up with these guys again, the incomparable Sonja Grant of just started Kaffismidja Islands, world traveller in food and coffee Jay Caragay, Sarah Allen of Barista Magazine and Brent Fortune from Crema coffee and Bakery in Portland OR, the wonderful Andrew Barnett of Ecco Caffe in Santa Rosa CA, and the legend that is Reg Barber. Not to mention our lovely and incredibly gracious hosts Arturo Hernandes and Jose Cleofas Arreola.
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New Arrival - El Portillo
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on August 31, 2008
Filed Under New Coffee, webshop | Leave a Comment
New in the shop today - the El Portillo, our Costa Rican CoE offering this year.
We’ve really been enjoying this coffee during its roast development, very sweet and pleasantly juicy. More details on the cup, farm and farmers in the shop.
We bought two bags of it, so don’t expect it to be around for too long.
Taste of New Zealand - 10th September
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on August 28, 2008
Filed Under Event, espresso | 2 Comments
In the second of our international espresso events we are bringing in some of the best espressos in New Zealand to taste side by side. We’ll brew them like they ask us to, and maybe have a chat about them afterwards over a beer. All of the profits from the tickets sales go to Bikes To Rwanda.
We decided to make it a ticketed event after the demand for the last event was so high. Tickets are for sale in the shop (and are apparently very heavy!) This is a rare chance to taste espressos from a country with one of the best global reputations for espresso and speciality coffee.
We took recommendations from friends in and out of the industry and the roasters we have invited to take part are:
Altura Coffee Roasters
Supreme Coffee Roasters
Atomic Coffee Roasters
Tiger Mountain Coffee Roasters
Rocket Coffee Roasters
The last event was really interesting and a lot of fun, and we hope you can join us for this one!
If you are from New Zealand and fancy bringing along any traditional kiwi foods then please, please do!
Any questions then leave a comment or drop us a line.
Taste of Norway - Report
Posted by James Hoffmann and posted on August 26, 2008
Filed Under Event, espresso | Leave a Comment
We’d like to blame Norwegian postmen for the small problems we had with the Taste of Norway event. We had asked 5 roasters in Norway to take part and all had agreed. Then began the problems: Unfortunately not all the coffee arrived on time!
Our hair was torn out.
Two roasters did manage to break the postal deadlock and get their espresso to us, and we were very excited to recieve their coffee! Tim Wendelboe sent us his espresso, as well as a bag of his new Kenya and a bag of his Aricha. Supreme Roastworks (the new kids on the block) sent us their new espresso.
Lots of people turned up to taste the offerings, and it was a real mixture of coffee people from London. We started by cupping Tim’s two coffees, and I think his Aricha was the favourite of the two by the group - though my favourite was the Kenya which we almost didn’t have enough of because I kept drinking it through the week.
Then we moved onto the espresso. Supreme’s espresso was great - tonnes of fruit, acidity and sweetness. They had “juiced” up the blend by adding a little of their Aricha lot and it really gave the shots some great top notes . We pulled it at 92C as requested, but then also took the temp up a little more. It seemed to split the group with about 60% prefering the cooler brew.
As we only had two espressos to taste we were very pleased to see Per Nordby from De Matteo who was in town. Whilst Da Matteo are Swedish and not Norwegian it still seemed ok to brew his coffee too. Per was a little unhappy that the coffee was too fresh, but it stilled pulled well and the shots were very tasty. A lot of people really enjoyed the heavier, more nutty and cocoa-y shots it produced, and it was good to have a very contrasting style of Nordic espresso as I think we sometimes get into the bad habit of talking in a general way about the style of Nordic espresso, the way we used to have the bad habit of talking generally about an origin’s flavour profile. There were a few smiles when Per revealed the contents of the blend - despite being developed very independently the components were very similar to our WBC blend. Great minds…..
To finish off was Tim Wendelboe’s espresso. Instead of having people talk about how the shots taste - which is often intimidating in a large group - we asked people to write up any notes on our whiteboard when they tasted the coffees. This worked really well and people threw down some great descriptions. Tim’s espresso was very clean and sweet, though I have to admit that I didn’t do as good a job as I wanted to pulling the shots and I had to repull a few espressos for people. Sorry Tim - I suck!
There was no clear favourite on the night - opinions split across the three espressos - though I think Supreme’s was the most unusual and divisive (in a good way!). We are really looking forward to the Taste of New Zealand, and we’ll be posting the date up on here in the next few days. It will be a ticketed event, with all of the small fee going to Bikes to Rwanda.
Thanks to everyone who attended and made it a lot of fun - we hope to see you and more soon!
A few more flickr photos here.
WBC Espresso Sold Out
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on August 21, 2008
Filed Under espresso, news, webshop | 7 Comments
After a monster order from Poland we are now sold out of WBC Espresso. Those of you who have emailed asking about shipping for specific destinations will get your coffee! The response has been amazing, and we are glad people have enjoyed it.
The new espresso blend will be on the site fairly soon. In the meantime we suggest a nice french press of the Muchoki, or maybe a chemex of the La Rosa.
No more Nyamagabe
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on August 19, 2008
Filed Under news, webshop | 1 Comment
We’ve almost run out of Nyamagabe, and it has been removed from the shop - however the little we do have will go into the last of the WBC espresso blend, so if you are curious about that espresso blend then now would be a good time to check it out!
Our online shop now live
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on August 13, 2008
Filed Under news, webshop | 8 Comments
We are delighted to annouce that as of this evening the online shop is now live.
We hope people enjoy the coffee and use the feedback form on this blog to let us know what they think. We are still working on the shipping charges for overseas orders and they should be in place tomorrow.
Happy shopping!
Future Espresso Events
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on August 11, 2008
Filed Under Event, espresso | 9 Comments
So the first of the planned ‘Taste of….’ series starts with Norway in a couple of days. As we’re fully subscribed and people keep asking when the next one is and when their favourite country is coming up I thought I’d list the intended order now, and hope that the planets align to make it run smoothly. We have a fairly good idea of which roasters from which place we want to explore, but if you know of a hidden gem that we really should get in touch with, let us know in the comments and we’ll see what we can do.
We’ll try and do one each month and hope to run in this order:
August: Norway
September: New Zealand
October: West Coast US
November: Sweden
December: Australia
January: East Coast US
February: Denmark
March: Canada
April: Japan
We’ll post up some pictures and reviews of the event on Wednesday - the first couple of coffees are already here and we are looking at the bags and drooling!
Writeup - Open Cupping 31st July
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on August 1, 2008
Filed Under Cupping, Event | Leave a Comment
Our first proper open cupping was a lot of fun. With about 25 people there we were pretty much up to capacity, and it was an interesting mixture of coffee people - consumers, baristas, cafe owners and (probably for the first time in London) roasters from 4 different roasteries in London all cupping together.
Just three coffees were put out - the La Rosa, the Escondida preship sample and the Muchoki peaberry. (more details for these coffees will be available when the webshop goes live - likely around the 6th or 7th August.) The favourite, by a good number of votes, was the Muchoki.
We’ll get our next open cupping scheduled in asap and get the details up here. Maybe next time we’ll even take a few photos!
Thank you to everyone for coming and making it a lot of fun, and an extra thank you to Bill and Flick for the tasty cake!
Taste of Norway - 13th August
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on July 24, 2008
Filed Under Event, espresso | 2 Comments
UPDATE: WE ARE FULL! Right now we are signed up to capacity, but if you are interested you are welcome to still get in touch and if a spot opens up then we’ll let you know asap.
Kicking off the first of several espresso events we have planned is “Taste of Norway”! (We have loads of countries to get through, but how could I not start with this one…)
The idea is simple - we want to know what the best espressos from different countries taste like, so we thought we would pick a few roasters, get their espresso in, pull the shots as they suggest and get coffee people in to share it with.
It will be happening on Wednesday 13th August at 6pm at the roastery.
For this event we have espresso from:
Spaces are limited, and because of the added incentive of there being waffles with brown cheese made afterwards (oh so Norwegian) we aren’t going to charge but there will be a suggested donation of £5 going to Bikes to Rwanda.
We are really looking forward to this, and we will be doing these regularly as we explore the espresso blends from roasteries in cities and countries around the world. (So many delicious possibilities!)
We hope you can join us - do please get in touch!
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