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In the News (Singularly Focused Edition)
July 1, 2009 at 3:40 pm · Filed under Bar, Home, Industry, Roastery and tagged: Santa Cruz, Verve
Five Years
June 28, 2009 at 9:10 pm · Filed under Bar, Home, Industry, Roastery
This month marks my anniversary with coffee. In the past five years I have worked at three cafes, one roastery, and two barely-related jobs in the restaurant industry. Between sourcing, roasting, brewing, serving, drinking, writing, reading, thinking, and dreaming I don’t believe that coffee has left my mind once the entire time.
To say that I could not be luckier or happier to be doing what I do is a serious understatement. The common dream of doing for a living what one loves is so often unfulfilled that it is something of a cliche. I cannot image a better profession or a better life. I am enormously appreciative of the wonderful people*, coffee, and times that have filled the last five years. Here’s hoping (and working towards) many, many more!
*Not least of all, Liz, who I met through coffee and continues to not only support this obsession but takes an equally active interest in it.
Drink Swill & Save
June 6, 2009 at 8:17 pm · Filed under Bar, Industry
There’s been a peculiar trend the past couple weeks. I’ve been getting requests for bulk coffee to be ground for a Turkish* preparation. Some people have found they enjoy the “extra strength” a finer grind gives their brew, but ultimately respond well to suggestions to increase the amount of coffee they’re using instead.
Others, it would seem, have come across the idea that they can have the beans ground finer, use less, and save.**
What the hell? Was this suggested on some news network money saving tip program?? I’m too scared to do the search myself. Seen anything like this?
*I’d rather call it “ibrik coffee” too, but what are you going to do…
**sort of a “Step 1: Brew awful coffee Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit” kind of situation.
No Distribution
May 13, 2009 at 2:03 am · Filed under Abroad, Bar, Industry
I’d like to write about a new dosing technique I was recently exposed to, and my thoughts on my work with it so far. First, something in the way of back story.
In the 2007 WCBC finals, Kyle G and Chris B shared the uh, stage-area for their overlapping 15 minutes of preparation/performance, respectfully. Before time had started, Sarah Allen engaged Chris in some light banter. I forget the lead-up, but she must have hit upon the subject of the cool new grinding toys, as Kyle is moved to good-naturedly taunt Chris: “You ain’t got no distribution!”
General laughter, as I think to myself, “what a great coffee insult!” But oh no, when that first espresso is ground, I see I should take Kyle more literally. Chris has a distribution, in the sense that he gets the coffee into the basket. Portafilter angling? Fork knocking? Grooming? Leveling? Tamping? Nope! (OK, he tamped) That modified Anfim is timed so accurately, and swept so efficiently, he just doses the full weight into a clean little pyramid in the basket. Beautiful.
This is all old news, of course. In the time since then, we’ve seen the mass production and proliferation of similar grinders. Technique has changed to adapt to this new machinery, much to the tune of what as demonstrated in competition that day. Still, I had never given much thought to applying what I’d seen and learned from this new generation of grinders to traditional doser models.
On a trip to Verve not so long ago, I spent some time harassing Jared and Ashley during their shift. After waiting for their bar seating to clear out, I grabbed a seat and enjoyed a great vantage of their workspace. And it’s from here that Jared gets me thinking about all of this. On the bar are three stock Majors: flat burrs, doser (maybe a little sweep mod? Didn’t ask.), untimed…but employed like a Mazzer E series. He rests the portafilter on the fork, no angling or rotating, doses a neat little pile, knocks it at regular intervals, and tamps. This being new to me, I have some questions. Jared obligingly answers them & pulls a shot to show me again. His general philosophy? In a year grooming will be another dark age relic of espresso preparation. I think I may be starting to agree with him.
Ok. Onto some complete thoughts on this:
