I updated my links on the bottom right of this page. Every one of them is a friend or at least a very interesting site/company/person. No gratuitous links. If you are a reader of this blog and you want me to link to you, drop me a note in the comments, or at daniel@coffeescholars.com.
Please click by these linked sites when you have time and spread the coffee love.
From this post by alicorn on the fantastic Less Wrong
Most propositional knowledge (knowledge of facts) is pretty easy to come by (at least in principle). There is only one capital of Venezuela, and if you wish to learn the capital of Venezuela, Wikipedia will cooperatively inform you that it is Caracas. For propositional knowledge that Wikipedia knoweth not, there is the scientific method. Procedural knowledge - the knowledge of how to do something - is a different animal entirely. This is true not only with regard to the question of whether Wikipedia will be helpful, but also in the brain architecture at work: anterograde amnesiacs can often pick up new procedural skills while remaining unable to learn new propositional information
.
One complication in learning new procedures is that there are usually dozens, if not hundreds, of ways to do something. Little details - the sorts of things that sink into the subconscious with practice but are crucial to know for a beginner - are frequently omitted in casual descriptions. Often, it can be very difficult to break into a new procedurally-oriented field of knowledge because so much background information is required. While there may be acknowledged masters of the procedure, it is rarely the case that their methods are ideal for every situation and potential user, because the success of a procedure depends on a vast array of circumstantial factors.
I propose below a general strategy for acquiring new procedural knowledge. First, saturate by getting a diverse set of instructions from different sources. Then, distill by identifying what all or most of them have in common. Finally, improvise within the remaining search space to find something that works reliably for you and your circumstances.
You can't turn every casual coffee drinker into a World Barista Champion in three hours. And even a barista champion will lack knowledge about, say, the breakdown of organic acids over time. When I teach, my goal is to saturate people with general coffee knowledge, and then quickly narrow in on their specific circumstances.
A purely procedural class will give someone a very flimsy, robotic knowledge of one way to make coffee. A purely theoretical class will be interesting, but leave people at sea when they want to make a good cup. Start with theory, move on to procedures. And all times be fueling the session with cups of great coffee!
Starting this week, I am officially working for Intelligentsia Coffee as a trainer and community relations specialist in New York City.
I've long had great respect for Intelligentsia, for their coffee, for the work they do, and for the people in that company, many of whom have been friends of mine for a long time now. I'm excited to be a part of such a dynamic, passionate team.
My work for Intelligentsia will not be full time, and I will continue on with the other odd things I manage to do, God willing. This includes the New York Coffee Society and my work with Coffee Scholars.
All weekend I'll be hanging at the Intelly booth at Coffee Fest Chicago pulling shots and pressing pots. Come on by if you're at the show!
Part of the reason I was out of touch for so long is that I spent the last two weeks wrapped up in a project that is, unfortunately, unbloggable.
I was evaluating coffee in a strange style: I wasn't cupping, nor was I straight-up drinking the stuff. I was drinking odd little half-cups of coffee brewed on an electric home machine. My daily intake was easily as high as it has ever been, caffeine-wise. Even my titanium nerves, inured to caffeine as they are, were jangled and jittery at the end of the day. On top of that, I had a two-hour train commute both ways to the location. On top of that, the coffee was terrible. I mean, truly god-awful. If I had been scoring on a standard 100-point, SCAA scale, maybe one or two of over 40 coffees tried (in multiple iterations, natch) would have broken 80 points. Many, many were sub-65 affairs.
So you will understand if, at the end of the day, I didn't feel like blogging. Plus, there wasn't that much to blog about.
This made it all the more sweet this week when my good friend Taylor "and Mindy" Mork, of Crop to Cup Coffee, invited me to his new office digs for a little cupping. I had some samples of green coffee from El Salvador provided by our mutual friend, Fernando Lima of the Cuzcachapa mill. I went to Cuzcachapa back in November of last year, and Fernando was one of the nicest people I met in a country full of kindness. Cuzcachapa, a large operation overall, has a huge specialty arm (not just an afterthought), and I snapped some photos while I was down there.
(the skull is smiling!)
(That's Fernando on the right, with head cupper Mauricio on the left)
(That's ALL specialty coffee in this picture.... oh glory!)
Anyway, Taylor's company got their start in Uganda, where he and his partner Jake have deep roots. Right now, they bring in some excellent coffee from the Bugisu region of Uganda, which I hope to visit sooner rather than later. But they are ambitious about expanding their offering list beyond their traditional comfort zone. Right now they are moving aggressively in Indonesia, with some interesting non-Sumatra prospects. One other place they have looked seriously is El Salvador, and if there is one country I have gotten to know well coffee-wise, that's the one.
So on Monday morning, I roasted up three samples (from farms called Las Nubes, La Palma, and El Paste) and trekked to downtown Brooklyn to cup with Taylor. He's got an office space in what has to be the coolest collective office space I have ever seen. It's in this old, yet sturdy 6-story building right near the mega-intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic. In another universe this building might have been derelict or turned into cheap condos by this point, but instead the owners have leased it out to a collective of green-oriented companies, Crop to Cup being one of them. They have a big, open floorplan, with skyline views of Brooklyn on both sides, a big industrial kitchen, and lots of very interesting people doing very interesting things.
I took some crappy photos with my cell phone. I wish I had captured better the overall coolness of the space, but here's a little corner of our cupping table to give you an idea...
We disturbed the peace a bit with Taylor's loud-ass Bunn grinder, but the slurping didn't seem to bother too many people. For the record, the coffee from Las Nubes was the clear winner. All three coffees had great sweetness, and a thick chocolate note. But only Las Nubes had that great, lively purple-fruit and citrus acidity that defines the best Central American coffees. Las Nubes was my choice for my morning press-pot today, Tuesday. I'm also intrigued to see the coffee from El Paste as an espresso component: very sweet and lovely, and not too much noise on either end of the spectrum.
Taylor also whipped out his Handpresso, which product I can't believe I've never played with before. Essentially you hand-pump the brew chamber to well-beyond 9 bars of pressure, then pour in near-boiling water and release the valve, at which point the water passes through a paper-filter pod and comes out as espresso on the other end. It completely lacks the full, fatty mouthfeel of high-grade commercial espresso, but I'll be damned if it wasn't pretty good and sweet. Perfect for traveling! Crop to Cup is offering their coffee in Handpresso pods soon.
All in all, Monday was a day to remember why I am in the specialty coffee industry to begin with: quality, love, taste, and people. It was such a welcome reminder after two weeks of dreck and train rides. Over the weekend, I even found time to go to the park with the lovely Liz...
... where we were thoroughly entertained by a bunch of kids running around and under a gigantic American flag, parachute-style, which their teachers/camp-counselors were billowing in the wind, which inspired me to strike a Barack Obama "coin pose"...
And on Sunday I even found time to stop by the local pub and watch the mighty Seattle Seahawks get their first of many victories this season, this one a thorough pwnage of the hated (and admittedly dreadful) Rams. There was a couple in the bar wearing San Francisco jerseys, watching the Niners dispatch the lowly Detroit Lions. I talked a little smack with them, rivals of the Seahawks as they are. The girl was friendly but the guy just snorted. They'll get their due comeuppance soon. (Did I mention the Niners were my first team when I was but a wee lad living in Sacramento? It's true, though I was born in Seattle and have never been to a Niners game and have been to several Hawks games.) Also: check out the Alex Smith jersey... ha! Oh where be ye now, young Alex?
The moral of the story is: if you get dreck, stick it out. Victory and sweet coffee are always just around the corner, if only you know where to look.
More to come...
There is the great Erin Meister. Meister has been a good friend of mine ever since I first relocated to Gotham. She was instrumental in turning Joe into the famous joint it is now, as a barista, as a trainer, and as an organizer and hostess of public events. When I first came to NY, all I had was one great friend in Brooklyn, 6 previous (brief) visits, a job at Grumpy, and my (tiny, tiny) good name as a top guy out of one of Seattle's best cafés at the time.
I owe my success here in NYC in large part to people like Meister. She and the boys at Gimme! (specifically Mike and Chris), and my good friends at Grumpy were all I had. Danger Dan came along and helped me too, and Jack and all his posse. But Meister was there right from the start. If you don't know her work already, check out her blog on my blogroll at right, or go straight to her non-consulting consulting business here.
The NY Times article a few weeks back, by the intelligent and thorough Hannah Wallace, set off a mini-firestorm of interest in what I and others are trying to accomplish with great coffee in New York City, as Grey Lady articles are wont to do. I'm indebted to Hannah and the Times for covering our little niche, but there were a few things that bugged me about the article.
Meister, as a genuine coffee person in her own right, recently took notice of my reaction to the article on her blog. In the spirit of friendly interchange, then, I would like to take the opportunity to respond to her response to my response.
Still with me?
Good. So my primary objection to the way coffee-tasting was presented was that it seemed from the article that we were just making all of this up. If you talk to any great coffee cupper, more importantly if you spend a lot of time cupping coffee yourself, you realize that there's no BS involved at all. I understand why people are skeptical of how coffee cuppers pick out flavor profiles and aromas in coffee. For so long coffee has been an undifferentiated product. This is an old hat argument for the evangelists of quality coffee.
But I strongly feel that to truly move the general public to a truer understanding of coffee, we have to stick to the actual truth. So for a neophyte cupper, attending her first NYCS cupping, it's perfectly fine to express something a little off-the-wall, like, "This coffee reminds me of my Grandma's cinnamon cookies." I welcome that.
But for those of us with real training, it will serve us far better in the long run if we know how to relate those vague sentiments to the actual chemical components of coffee. Lasting paradigm shifts are always built on truth. Fads are built on fun. There's lots of lip-service paid to the idea that those of us in the wealthy world of specialty coffee are directly or indirectly helping to improve the lives of poor coffee producers ("farmers" is a sloppy term in this regard). I don't think this is BS at all. It's real. But if we want to make sure these trends are long-lasting, we have a duty to base them in real fact. Are you interested in feeling good about yourself, or in real, lasting change?
When I was in charge of cuppings (for staff-only and for the public... with this guy) at Victrola, I welcomed the strange descriptors. Rebekah Winters is one of the most astute cuppers I have ever cupped with. And I have cupped with Geoff Watts, Peter Giuliano, Mané Alves, and Willem Boot, among other greats. Rebekah, with no formal training beyond her barista training (provided by this guy, as long as I am name-dropping) and her own passionate love for great coffee, used to come up with the descriptors that nailed the coffee even though they were vague... I remember once she said, "Like love in a log cabin," and all nine cuppers present just nodded and smiled. I LOVE this. But it's got to be more than that. We need Winterses and Wattses.
So my objection to someone saying "honey smoked barbecue" when cupping coffee is no objection at all if this is a new cupper being welcomed into the fold. I encourage fun with coffee! I have based my whole life around it, basically. But the professionals have an obligation to know what the hell they are talking about.
Thanks to the modern world of blogging, a lot of people like me have reach beyond what we could ever have hoped for just ten years ago. Glorious thing! But beyond fun and self-promotion, if we hope to sustain the industry that currently sustains us, we must be serious about our trade. The variety in coffee flavors is truly astounding, and I feel bad for oenophiles who have yet to experience what true gustatory adventure tastes like. Let's keep it up with a degree of seriousness and professionalism that the producers deserve.
The crisis of the late nineties was bad enough. The C-market price is way up on Wall Street, and that's good. But the price of just about everything is up these days. To truly transform coffee into a quality-based industry (as opposed to a price-of-oil or price-of-water based industry) we have a TON of work to do. I, personally, welcome all players. There's almost literally no harm to be done in being dilettantes at this stage. But if we want it to stick beyond the next price-plummet (and without doubt that plummet will happen some day), we must learn our trade inside and out.
These are my thoughts for tonight. Thanks, Meister, for prompting them.
