Last of the San Francisco Tecuamburo
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on September 25, 2008
Filed Under news | Leave a Comment
We’re down to the very last of the San Francisco Tecuamburo, and there was a lot less of this coffee produced by the farm this year than expected so when it is gone it is gone. Whilst we’ve loved this coffee, it is time for new offerings, and next year we’re working towards sourcing some new and interesting coffees from Guatemala. We’ll keep you posted on that - but if you want a bag or two before it goes you best be quick!
Open Cupping - 1st October
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on September 24, 2008
Filed Under Cupping, Event, New Coffee | 2 Comments
We haven’t had a cupping here for a while so the arrival of our coffees from El Salvador seems as good a time as any!
We’ll be cupping three coffees before they go live on the webshop and pulling shots of a single estate espresso we’ll be offering as well. Free entry - just shoot us an email to let us know you are coming, and when we hit 20 we’ll call it full.
Hope to see you there at 18:00 at the roastery!
Free coffee - 30 September
Posted by James Hoffmann and posted on September 23, 2008
Filed Under Event | Leave a Comment
Now we have your attention we should probably explain…
I think it was Seth Godin who reminded me that if you really believe in your product then you should be comfortable giving it away. On this occasion it isn’t Square Mile giving it away, instead we are supporting Bea’s of Bloomsbury as they give away their coffee for free all day on the 30th of September. They believe they’ve serve the best coffee in Bloomsbury and we’d agree!
So if you are in London that day then swing by for an espresso, or maybe a capp, and whilst you are there we strongly suggest you indulge a little bit in the cakes, pastries and all things sweet that Bea also excels at!
Exciting arrivals from El Salvador
Posted by James Hoffmann and posted on September 17, 2008
Filed Under New Coffee | 10 Comments
Just a quick post because we are very excited, but there was great giddiness in the roastery today when the delivery truck pulled up with 4 pallets of coffee for us from El Salvador. We’ll talk more about the coffees once they are roasted the way we want and are up in the shop, but for now here are just a few photos of the awesome bags that Aida Batlle and JASAL created:
Vac packed coffee from Finca Kilimanjaro:
The Luchadore on the Los Luchadores bags:
Lots of coffee:
The next open cupping (date announced on here very soon) will feature these coffees, cos we can’t wait to share them. Look out for them on the website in the next couple of weeks.
Nicaragua - Ramacafe
Posted by flyingthud and posted on September 17, 2008
Filed Under Event, espresso, news, origin, stephen, travel | 3 Comments
longish post
The light outside had woke me up, inviting me to peer out for the first time across Managua. I couldn’t identify any real town centre, just the hint of a city bubbling away under a floor of green. In the distance I could see the odd modern high rise standing out by its own looking embarrassed. I knew that if I could see it from my room on the 8th floor, that my building must be feeling equally awkward.
It was 5 am. In an attempt to beat the jet lag, I went to bed at 10pm the night before, (6am my time). The Crown Plaza had generously given me free board in a suite for my stay, complete with its own desk and living room area. I’d like to say I felt quite guilty, especially after seeing glimpes of the poverty on the drive in from the airport the night before, but once I had showered and got into bed, I was nothing but utterly grateful. Besides, I would go on to sleep in more simple surroundings later on in the trip.
At 6 am, I grabbed my Dad’s early edition of Casino Royale (so very very chauvinistic) and headed for breakfast. The breakfast was beautiful, and presented my first encounter where I had to speak spanish. Luckily I was able to say cafe solo easily enough as well as negotiate some extra orange juice. I was on the look out for anyone I knew, but at 6 am my only dining partners were hotel staff.
I had been told about Central American time, and how it seemed to move 30 seconds slower than what I’m used to. Despite the warnings, I turned up at the conference centre (across the road) at 8 am sharp. There were some people there already, but none I recognised bar Erika, one of the girls who met me at the airport the night before. Roughly 2 and a half hours later I met my co trainers for the workshops, Ellie Matuszak, Mireya Jones, Raul Rodas, Roger Alba, Luis Lopez Flores and Rodrigo Giammattei. We would be facilitating the training of around 30 baristas from Managua over two days. It was my first origin trip ever and the first event I’ve done since Copenhagen.
This is the 7th year of Ramacafe, the conference started and owned by Henry Hueck, a coffee farmer with farms in Matagalpa and Segovia in the north of the country. Its funny that this should be my first point of call on my first origin trip, following the exact same steps as my buddy Deaton Pigot two years previous, where he became friends with the 2006 World Barista Champion Klaus Thomsen and Kenneth R. Olson of Barista Magazine. I remember being incredibly jealous at the time, not knowing when I’d get the chance to do such a trip.
The three days of the event went by quickly. I loved training baristas who already had such a strong sense of the journey of coffee. Explaining the need to cut down waste, and drawing attention to the effort that had already gone into their coffee seemed a very obvious and simple concept to them, something that isn’t always comprehended too quickly at training sessions back home. Annoyingly, it became somewhat of a curse too if I’m honest.
We’ve been working off Anfims with timer modifications for quite a while now in the roastery, and to jump back on a machine preaching economy of waste and then begin to clumsily grapple with the throws of a super jolly made me feel just a little sheepish. Flashes of me traipsing through airports carrying my Anfim, refusing to ever make shots off anything else shot through my head, till I recalled my old distribution technique, and got back on point.
I thoroughly enjoyed working with other trainers, especially Ellie Matuszak of Coffee Solutions. We both teach in a similar manner, and I was delighted for her to be able to use my training presentation, her spanish being considerably better than my few broken phrases. I’m pretty excited to be working with Ellie again later next month in LA. We’ll be doing a special course bringing baristas up to date on whats expected in Barista Competitions, something I think far too much about and can’t wait to harp on about for two days. Those of you out West can learn more here.
Other highlights of the Nicaragua trip were standing on the back of a pick up with Mark Inman, driving around Managua at night, and sampling the various years of the national rum, Flor de Cana, (of course not all at the same time). I only got to see a few of the presentations, but remember really enjoying Tracey Ging’s talk on the Q Programme.
On the 4th day I bid farewell to my American friends and spent 4 hours, with 10 people driving north to Matagalpa in a small van that continued to amaze me as it trudged through rivers and up worryingly steep and rough terrain. Eventually we arrived at La Virgen, the estate belonging to Henry Hueck, the first coffee farmer I ever met, 4 years previous at a trade show in Dublin. Within minutes I was being shown the farm, a quick tour primarily in spanish but thankfully translated by Jose of Coffee Kids. The farm manager Benito showed me the housing for the permanent staff, the nursery, the clinic they’d built for both workers and the surrounding community, the washing station and eventually, despite it being a month before harvest, some coffee trees. It was interesting to see how this my first farm, made such an impression on Jose and the other visitors. Clearly the farm employs many socially responsible practices, something I knew I wouldn’t always see on future farm visits.
There were only a few red cherries on the branches and I was a little nervous when I picked the first one only to see an ant crawling over it. I’m not normally too bothered by ants but it was when the guys started saying just eat it, its only an ant, and me doing just that when I became slightly anxious, and now that I think about it, a little upset in the tummy.
Despite this, I was immediately struck by the sweetness. I think I was expecting something a little more subtle, and perhaps it was my appetite, but I found myself sneakily popping as many reds into my mouth as I could the rest of the stay. (Avoiding ants and bugs where possible)
I spent three wonderful days on Henry’s farm, relaxing in hammocks, touring the local lands, catching up on mail, making coffee for the kids on the farm, firing my first gun and getting my neck savagely burnt by the sun. On the last day we drove north to the border of Honduras to visit Henry’s newest farm Las Marias in Segovia, a beautiful small farm that Henry only recently took over. He was able to arrange a small green sample from the previous harvest to bring home. It’ll be great to taste it as I remember feeling slightly frustrated walking around with a thousand questions wondering how or if everything I saw related to taste. I remember seeing things like tree bears, frogs and butterflies and the first thought always being I wonder what they lend to the cup!
Catching up with James today, he recalled the similar sentiment of feeling that you knew far too little about this to get the most of it. This was very much the case for me, and I’m determined to do the relevant research before my next farm visit early next month to Colombia for the Sustainable Harvest conference, Lets Talk Coffee.
There were a thousand things that I could post about, the people I met, the scenery, the food, but these must wait as this post is far too long already. After Nicaragua, I flew to Guatemala - stay tuned.
Taste of New Zealand Report
Posted by James Hoffmann and posted on September 11, 2008
Filed Under Event, espresso | 6 Comments
Whilst we are still some way from our goal of an event like the Coffee Pavilion at Slow Food Nation, we can’t help but feel happy that there are strong signs of a coffee community coming together in London.
We accidentally oversold the event last night, but it was still a bit of surprise to see around 45 people take the time, put their hands in their pockets for charity, and turn up and to drink coffee (even if that did mean I had to pull around 160 shots in under hour on my own - a rare work out these days). The event was a real mix of people - consumers, baristas, roasters and general coffee types - some travelling a really long way to come down (Though I think we caffeinated Dale enough for his 100ish mile drive back to Bristol!)
As usual we served the coffees blind, people were offered repulls if they weren’t happy with how their shot was made, and people were invited to leave any cupping notes on our whiteboard anonymously (because few of us like standing in front of a crowd and nervously suggesting “redcurrants”.)
Again some of the blends fell victim to our postal service, despite being posted ahead of others that arrived, and we’d like to thank all the roasters who took part.
Each one of the 4 blends we tasted were very different, and each had a portion of the crowd nominating it their favourite. One thing that did seem to run through most of the blends was a presence of PNG - though I guess that is probably the closest growing origin to New Zealand (despite the hard work of Mountain Top and others I am not going to count Australia in that!). However, other than that one vague commonality, the shots produced were a range of espresso styles which was very interesting.
The event was a lot of fun - thank you to everyone who came out and kept us busy, and an extra thank you to Andrew Tolley for manning the camera and the guys from Bullet Coffee Roasters for the exceptionally delicious brownies!
Here is a short video:
Taste of New Zealand from James Hoffmann on Vimeo.
Taste of New Zealand - SOLD OUT!
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on September 8, 2008
Filed Under Event | 2 Comments
Just a quick post to let people know that Taste of New Zealand is completely and utterly sold out and then some.
Really looking forward to it. So far we have 4 different coffees to taste and waiting on a couple more this week (they have all been shipped in good time so it is in the hands of the British posties.)
If you’re down to come - we look forward to seeing you! We’ll put some photos, maybe some video too, up after the event along with the group’s tasting notes. We’ll also announce the date of the Taste of the West Coast soon.
Mexican Barista Championship 2008
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on September 5, 2008
Filed Under barista competition, travel | 5 Comments
(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.
Read more
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.
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