What Does Sweet and Clean Get You?

The flight out of Minneapolis was delayed and bumpy. Once airborne I saw there were multiple bands of clouds of different formations. This I take to mean a convergence of conflicting weather systems .

There had been a summer-like humidity in the air on the ground as Daniel Mulu and I waited for our taxi to pick us up from our hotel, the exterior of which, incidentally, was decorate to look like some sort of French chateau. On Thursday and Friday, however, the Ethiopian delegation had been grumbling about the cold, and indeed, there had been chill blasts of wind up and down the streets of the city. Friday night I walked about 15 blocks to the the riverside to one of the big coffee parties (this one held by Volcafé, Clover, and Intelligentsia). It was streaming down a pretty steady cold rain. Except for the complete lack of elevation-change, I felt I could have been in the Jefferson-Jackson-4th-5th-6th area of Seattle.

Minneapolis has a classic-modern American downtown. By this I mean it consists mainly of tall steel and glass towers surrounded by lesser concrete structures, out of which pour white collar workers at five o'clock to populate the somewhat cookie-cutter bars and restaurants. Then these people leave, presumably for the suburbs or high up into the apartment towers where they remain until the morning. At night it's positively devoid of life, or even economic activity. I am sure that quite nearby there are some interesting neighborhoods with local flavor and culture and people walking; on my short stay I did not encounter them.

Many people remarked how this year's show seemed a little underattended. I noticed this too, but it was only my third show, so my data set is a little small for me to reach any sweeping conclusions. But even a smallish show has far, far too much content for one person to take in. I managed not to attend a single seminar when there were a dozen which appealed to me.

On the show floor I had some good coffee and some bad. There were plastic bags for sale, and equipment with which to fill them, and the roasters for sale to roast the coffee for the bags, the green coffee producers proclaiming the superiority of their countries' coffees for filling your roasting machine with, the importers who promised the best price and product and service in bringing you those green coffees, the magazines and information services, the consultants, the coffee shops, the baristas, the board members and board presidents, the fluorescent lights and packed grey carpet over the slick cement floor. At the refreshment stand Sunday afternoon where I stumbled caffeine-stricken and sleep-deprived, searching purely for calories without regard for other nutrients, I found I had insufficient cash for a coke and fries. Felicia behind the counter gave me fifty cents out of her own pocket so I could buy them.

Felicia, strangely, was also the name of the girl at the front desk of my erstwhile-chateau, who gave me several plastic laundry bags this morning when I checked out. I needed the bags to wrap up securely the coffee samples Daniel Mulu had brought to my room the night before. I am writing this on the airplane and hanging over my head in the overhead compartment (three feet above 37,000) are several kilos of washed coffee from Aleta Wondo via Lensemo Lamisso (official score: 91.3) and natural coffee from Biloya via S. A. Bagersh (official score: 90.5). These precious beans are to replenish my dwindling supply of green that I brought back from Ethiopia.

The supply is ever-dwindling because there has been a series of delays getting sample material air-freighted from Addis Ababa. The details are many and bureaucratic, and so I will spare you. Happily though, some colleagues were able to pin down the state minister and elicit a promise that the export letter will be forthcoming. Soon we will take delivery on the 600 kilos of samples at Dallis Coffee in New York (these people being the ones so kind and devoted to the industry that they are allowing us to use their facility for this project with no compensation or recognition other than the pittance I can offer on this blog). Then there will be much coffee, for a while at least. Someday, of course, it will all be gone.

An Ethiopian Yirgacheffe took the Roaster's Guild Coffee of the Year at the tasting pavilion. But for me the star coffee of the show was from Finca Matalapa in El Salvador.

We cupped about 30 different coffees at the El Salvador booth over the course of the weekend. I think I was the only one who cupped all of these coffees this weekend (many others, at the Consejo in San Salvador and during the Cup of Excellence competition, have of course cupped them all as well). The quality was thoroughgoing, consistent, and astonishing. Everything was so sweet and clean. The bourbons offered up orange and chocolate and caramel; the pacamaras were strange dark brews of sweetness, lemongrass and pipe tobacco.

Finca Matalapa did exceptionally well on the cupping table (it turned up twice), even among such elevated company. It's sweet and smooth, with a balanced acidity based around a sweet, sweet orange core. It was these characteristics that led Kyle Glanville to select it for use in competition as a single-origin espresso. I think I was the last person to understand that the same coffee I liked so much was the same coffee that my good friend and junior-senior-mentor-buddy was using in the championship. Intelligentsia bought this coffee and then rushed the delivery to Los Angeles so the fresh-crop could be roasted and developed for Kyle.

A single-origin Central American is a huge risk, but this coffee was up to the test; and this barista, too, was up to the test. Seeing Kyle win was the highlight of the show. I have been openly pulling for him since we first competed together under the Victrola banner in 2005. I make no secret of my partisanship, even though there are many other deserving baristas, and indeed many other good friends of mine who I would love to see win. But even my open and rampant pro-Kyle homerism had not prepared me for how nervous I felt as they announced the results yesterday. One by one James Hoffmann read off the names of the competitors... 6th place, 5th place. By the time it was down to three (Pete, Heather, Kyle), I felt a palpable buttefly sensation and when Heather was announced as 3rd place, I even said out loud, "He has to win."

Well, he did. There was much applause and cheering.

The Salvadorans are well-organized. Brett Walker is a nice guy and his competition blend from Zoka is quite tasty. The musicians the Ethiopians brought to the US to represent their culture went underground and have not been heard from since. The Roaster's Guild meeting was surprisingly tenderhearted and touching.

The BGA party on Saturday was a fully drunken affair. The Torani syrup people had a private booth with several bottles of Grey Goose going but by the time I made it there they were all gone. David Latourell was sweet and danced all night as usual. There was also the prettiest girl there I saw all weekend dressed in a pink minidress and she turned four heads at once at one point (I saw the heads turn). She was a waitress and not a coffee person, which surprised me a little, because the women who work in specialty coffee are usually the most beautiful women around.

Another spring, another SCAA show... now to wait for all those coffees to arrive on our shores in full force. The happy season is nearly upon us.

Comments

[Luis R]

Daniel:

It was so great to see you at the show, thanks for all your help and the kind words!...you rock dude! can'r wait to see you again...

L