With the move away from the individual seasonal names we wanted to look at where we thought we had succeeded with label and where we wanted to improve it.

The core of the idea was to try and increase the transparency behind the creation of the blend. Rather than filling the label with lots of data we wanted to show the breakdown of the components visually, and then explain why we had chosen each component and what it brings to the espresso.

Blending has long been marketed as a dark hidden art, full of proprietary recipes. Our approach has been different but we thought it would be fun and interesting to break down what goes into our espresso a little more.

We’re always open to feedback, and while there is a little less data on the label itself there is still lots available on the full information sheets.

We hope you like the label, and that you love the espresso too!

In an effort to better reflect the diversity of coffee, and to better match the blend changes to the arrival of newly harvested coffees, we’re dropping the individual season names.  The new name is Red Brick, which was chosen to reflect the changes in our own company – we recently moved our location to a red brick building.

The philosophy behind each new blend remains the same, and it is likely those changes will follow a similar time frame to the old Seasonal pattern, but not quite as regimented.  We still plan to enjoy the full spectrum of what great Seasonal espresso blends can be throughout the year.

We’ve also changed the labeling to better reflect what is most important to us about the blend – the transparency of the components and to better explain why each is present in the blend and what flavours and qualities it contributes.  We look forward to your feedback and we hope you enjoy the first incarnation of Red Brick.

Red Brick Seasonal Espresso – £7.50 per 350g

The idea was to blend for a different reason – to see how far we could go, to see how much sweet delicious fruit we can cram into a cup.  Some may say there is too much in here – for us there’s never enough!

The blend takes three of our favourite coffees – each capable of a different range of vibrant sweet flavours – and blended them together in equal parts.  Some may be nervous about the acidity in the espresso but these coffees are roasted very careful to showcase their sweetness above all else.  (Though if you prefer low acidity espressos then this probably isn’t for you.)

The recipe is:

1 part Kangocho AA (Kenya)

1 part Tegu AA (Kenya)

1 part Yirgacheffe (Ethiopia)

In the cup look for notes of:

Refreshers, pear drops, cola cubes, blackcurrant fruitella, cherry lips and sherbert lemons. This is an intensely fruity espresso blend, very sweet and with a balanced and pleasing acidity.

(click for full size  -  and you can expect a t-shirt of this very soon too!  Artwork courtesy of David “El Grifo” Gibbons)

A few very important things – please read before ordering:

We are roasting a limited amount of this on 31st of August only.  If you place an order for Sweet Shop that has other items the whole order will be held until that date, then fulfilled.

As we say above – this is a limited run.  We expect to sell out of it in the next week, as it has been available to pre-order already to our newsletter subscribers and over 70% has already gone.  (We like to say thank you however we can!)

Sweet Shop Espresso – £9.00 (350g)

If you’ve been following the updates on our Facebook page you probably already know what the Autumn is made from , but I’ll go through it in more detail here. It’s made up of three Central American coffees, Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador.

The largest component (40%) was also the last one sourced, and is from Hacienda Rio Jorco in Tarrazu, Costa Rica. It’s a washed coffee of the Caturra variety, which is a shorter and bushier mutation of Bourbon.  Rio Jorco is quite a large Estate, with it’s own mill and several smaller plots/farms, one of which made it into the Cup of Excellence auction in 2008. The Hacienda is run by the third generation owners,  brothers Luis and Jim Alfaro and their families. The welfare of their employees and the ecological balance of the Estate is a strong focus for the Alfaros, 75% of the land is dedicated as a natural reserve and many of the employees have built their homes on the farm. In addition, they run the Alfaro-Zeledon Coffee Museum where in view of the fields you can learn about all aspects of the coffee growing process.

The second element of the blend (30%) is a Pulped natural Bourbon from the Santa Isabel tableau at El Molino de Sta Rita, in Ataco, El Salvador. Some of you may remember we had the El Molino de Sta Rita on offer as a filter coffee last year, and perhaps it was the familiarity of the sweetness that drew me to this Sta Isabel selection when I cupped it earlier this year at the mill in El Salvador. Managing the farm is Jose Antonio Salaverria who was gracious enough to put up with my snapping away in his cupping lab.

The last element of the blend (30%) is a combination of the La Vega and Cipresal lots at Finca Vista Hermosa in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. These two selections were singled out and combined as although they are quite far apart geographically, they both cupped very differently to the other lots on the farm, but very similar to each other. The owner of the farm Edwin Martinez, explained in more detail:

“La Vega and Cipresal are both about 80% red bourbon, 10% caturra, 10% catuai.  It is all pulped with a very small JOTAGALLO brand depulper, washed and patio sun dried.  We don’t go by time, but we stop fermenting when the fruit is off the coffee and we are careful to agitate the coffee so no portion ferments faster or slower.  Also for uniformity after drying, we let it rest or reposo in parchment of at least 30 days AT the farm.
La Vega is about 47 cuerdas and Cipresal is about 26.  1 cuerda is 20 X 20 Meters. They are both between 4800′ and 5500′ elevation and the only reason they’re together is because they both cupped out identical over a dozen times.  We literally couldn’t tell the difference between these two but we could distinguish them from the others and the others from each other.”

Cipresal is a plot close to the main farm building and patios, while La Vega is further north. Edwin explained:

“This (La Vega) is by far the hardest micro lot to pick and we have as many big trees as possible with little foliage on them.  This is because we need their roots to hold the earth together and keep it from sliding down into the creek yet the banks are steep enough and perpendicular to the suns path of rise and fall that the banks themselves block all but mid day sun.  So we need all the sun we can get.  This coffee gets more shade than most certified shade grown trees…  too much really!”

We’re really happy with the espresso this season, it’s come out really nice and chocolaty, just what you need for comfort when the weather turns chilly! We hope you enjoy!

Due to the Monday Bank Holiday and a recent postal strike in our area (We’re not loving Royal Mail at the moment…) Some of you will experience delays in receiving Juice (and probably also September’s subscription coffee.)  Given that Juice will benefit from a weeks rest before it’s brewed as espresso, the delay should hopefully not interfere with the quality of the shots, so we apologize for the wait, and hope you’ll enjoy it once it finally reaches you!

We’ve put some brewing instructions on the bag for everyone who bought some of the Juice Espresso blend.  However we wanted a central place where people could discuss the coffee, and perhaps share their experiences and brew recipes.  We can’t anticipate every combination of machine and grinder, and only really share what worked well for us.

So ask any questions, tell us what you think, and hopefully just plain enjoy the blend!

Juice is a one-off roast – we will be roasting and shipping it on the 1st of September only.  If you order before that date, and if you order any other items, then the entire order will be held til that date.  There will only be a small quantity of it roasted, due to the scarcity of some of the coffees we plan to use.

Onto the fun stuff – this espresso blend is all about big juicy fruit flavours.  This won’t be a tolerant, chocolatey espresso blend – it will be the polar opposite.  It will still be sweet and tasty, but expect and crisp and bright acidity and tonnes and tonnes of fruit aromatics and flavours.

This isn’t for everyone, but if it appeals to you then we hope you’ll try it.

When you get the coffee there will be loads of information about the blend, the brew recipe and some other bits and pieces.  For now though – it remains a secret.

Juice (350g) – £8.00

Frustratingly the coffee from Discovery fell victim to our postal service (do you see a theme across these events!).

Onto the evening:  This was probably our busiest event to date, the room got pretty hot and so we opened the main door to let a little summer inside.

I pulled a lot of shots, and I think I was pretty happy with most of them.  The standard of coffees across these events has been insanely high which means we have a very demanding audience.  I think they all left very happy.

As always at the end voting for favourites was somewhat split – which is no bad thing!  What made me very relieved was that the crowd’s descriptions pretty much matched what the roasters themselves described.  Except for ‘puppies.’  Once again I really want to know who wrote that on the board!

We do always ask participating roasters if they fancy making a video, and occasionally they do and this time we have an awesome one for you:

49th Parallel Coffee Roasters – Epic Espresso

Thanks for all at 49th Parallel Roasters for both the video and the amazing coffee, and thank you to Transcend Coffee, JJ Bean, Origins and Discovery for taking part!

]]> http://www.squaremileblog.com/2009/07/08/taste-of-canada-report/feed/ 2 http://www.squaremileblog.com/2009/06/14/taste-of-canada/ http://www.squaremileblog.com/2009/06/14/taste-of-canada/#comments Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:20:33 +0000 James Hoffmann http://www.squaremileblog.com/?p=278

Quiet for a while, then two posts in one day!  Such a flurry of activity!

So – the final Taste of Event that we are going to do for a while.  They have been a huge success (far more popular than we ever expected) but we don’t want the format to become stale.  We will still be doing events and tastings, but not pulling hundreds of shots of espresso at 7 at night!

The roasters we have for this means that these events go out on a high!  We hope to have coffee from:

49th Parallel, JJ Bean, Discovery Coffee, Transcend Coffee, Hines/Origins and Phil & Sebastian.

Awesome!  40 tickets in the webshop, so be quick!

Taste of Canada tickets.

***IF YOU WANT TO COME, PLEASE LET US KNOW BY LEAVING A COMMENT OR BY SENDING US AN EMAIL!!!***

On Sunday March 8th you are cordially invited to join us at the roastery to watch the 2009 United States Barista Championships live via the internets! The top 6 baristas from across the US will battle it out for the crown and sash, and the lifetime opportunity to go to…. Atlanta GA in April, to vie for the WBC title.

The finals kick off at 20:00 UK time, and without too much of a delay the results and award ceremony should be done around 23:30. We’ll be open for business from 7-ish, and will make sure there will be plenty of coffee around to thoroughly frazzle your nerves before the grueling battle begins! If you want to bring something we suggest chairs (cus the floor is cold) a beverage of your choice (as stated coffee’s on us) or foods (we’ll need our strength).

Join us for an evening of cheering at people making coffee on a big screen, crying and hugging each other as the champion is announced, the Barista Drinking Games and a few more beers to fuel an uninhibited and uncoordinated latte art throwdown!

PLEASE drop us a line or leave a comment here if you are coming, so we know roughly how many flags to get for waivin’.

USBC Teaser from wrbc on Vimeo.

Yesterday saw the last of the UK regional heats take place in Lewes, featuring baristas from London and the South East plus a couple of out of region entrants.

We knew this last heat was going to be a tough one, with some very solid baristas battling it out for the coveted semi final spots. Unsurprisingly, five out of the seven competing scored high enough to move on to the next round, the highest number for any regional!

Gwilym gave a wonderful performance and served up some really tasty drinks in his 15 minutes on stage. (Or so we were told- James and I are rubbish at watching when the clock starts, so were nervously pacing the back room trying not to watch the clock ticking down!) But the hard work, late nights, endless dishes and constant nerves proved worth it, and he not only won the heat, he did so with a very, very good score and won best signature drink on top of it all!

A very deserving winner and all round top bloke, Gwilym is a fantastic barista and coffee advocate, genuinely doing what he loves best and serving delicious coffee to London’s thirsty masses from his carts on Whitecross Street and Columbia Road markets. We’ve been honoured to work with him over the last few months, and we’re very proud that he chose to use our coffee.

Of the 80-something entrants across the UK 25 have moved on to the semi finals in Glasgow, and the top 6 from there will throw down in a seriously intense finals on Wednesday. Hopefully there will be a live feed up somewhere so even if you can’t make it up there to watch, you can cheer online and along with all of us nervously waiting off stage be the first to know who will be representing the UK at the Worlds in April!