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Five Years

In Bar, Home, Industry, Roastery on June 28, 2009 at 9:10 pm

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!

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Drink Swill & Save

In Bar, Industry on June 6, 2009 at 8:17 pm

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.

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No Distribution

In Abroad, Bar, Industry on May 13, 2009 at 2:03 am

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:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Good Morning All

In Bar, Roastery on May 4, 2009 at 12:24 pm

This may sound like mere Disney-esque springtime exuberance, but I’m having a beautiful day. Perhaps it’s the hour-long nap yesterday, or the overall sound night of sleep, or just the general contrast to a rocky and questionable weekend.

At any rate, I got out of bed this morning with a burst of energy uncharacteristic of me pre-4 am. Liz had ordered a couple things from Intelli which arrived Friday. Their Aqua Preta remained unopened, so I rushed to cup it while setting up a siphon. It is a beautiful coffee that embodies everything I feel a Brasillian should be. And my siphon, made 75% by unconscious reflex, was very drinkable!

Joseph had left some very interesting roast profile exercises for me to produce, using some coffee very much at the end of its life: both in terms of a decline in taste as well as the conclusion of our contracted order. It was a fun challenge to replicate the curves he asked for, and something I hope to do more of. The production roasts came together nicely as well. Feels like the rare day that I can finesse my way through the day’s batches without some minor complaint: spilling a handfull of beans or adjusting the flame a second too late. I was very much with it today and it’s a great feeling.

As I’m off in five minutes to my bar shift, my only hope is that this harmony of good mood and great luck will just keep seeing me through some perfectly flowing espresso and gorgeous milk!

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