Daniel's World of Coffee

Coffee Anteater, Coffee People Singing, Coffee Farm Giant Tree — Panama

Here is a video of a baby anteater, an evening impromptu concert by a brother and sister, and a huge ancient iga tree waving in the wind on Finca de Eleta coffee farm in Panama.

I always post about the coffee-related things I do in my job, on the road. I thought it would be nice to share some of the little slices of life that happen on the periphery; they are the simple details that make life beautiful.

Since my last post in December I have been traveling a lot, with much more actual coffee-related stuff to post on. Over the next week I hope to go through some of my notes, videos, and pictures and clean them up a bit to share here on the blog.

Advanced Roasting Fun

Here's a video I took this afternoon... a sunny August afternoon in Northern California. This is day two of a three day Advanced Roasting Techniques class I am teaching at Boot Coffee.

There are three groups going here, one on a 1 pound San Franciscan roaster (the red one), one on a 5 kilo Probat from 1948 (the black one), and one on a three barrel Gothot sample roaster (the silver one). Each team has a different task to complete, using green coffee from the stock of dozens of different coffees Boot Coffee has in its lab.

Tomorrow morning we are going to cup the results (27 coffees!) and have each team interpret and defend the results of their experiments.

What I've Been Up To

The last time I posted in May, I was in Panama. I'm in Seattle now, and here's a quick run-down on what I've been up to in the coffee world.

1) First of all that Panama trip. As I noted before, I was acting as host for a group of Puerto Rican coffee farmers who were sent to Panama to observe specialty coffee practices in Panama. There were a dozen people in our group, and we spent our time in the western highlands of Chiriqui. I knew it was going to be fun before I left, but it really ended up exceeding my expectations. I'll post some videos and comments about this project over the next few days.

2) Speaking of Puerto Rico, I'm finishing up the analysis of the soil-data project I started way back in November. There's a huge document detailing all of our findings that I've created. I will share part of that this week, and the rest of it when it's all officially available.

3) As always, I'm teaching roasting and cupping courses in California with Boot Coffee. In May and June I was down there with Willem, Jodi, and the rest of the crew for some really great courses. I will be going down there again at the end of July for another 10 days, into August.

4) In the next 12 months I'll be teaching courses in Honduras (twice), Panama, and hopefully Colombia as well. Stay tuned here for more information. Or you can check out the Boot Coffee website.

5) After a long and arduous journey through my own preconceptions, I've become a full-on believer in Kahlua. It's just so much better than every other coffee liqueur I've tasted (and you'd be surprised how many I have tasted.... think double digits). Last September I did some work for Kahlua in Stockholm. In June, this project took me to grand old New York, where the Ost Café folks were as good as good can be to me, despite new babies and new pork sandwich stands springing up left and right. Best cafe in NYC, y'all. In the next few months I'll be doing more work for Kahlua here in the USA. I'm excited to share with you what I've been doing. I'll be sure to mention it here on the blog when it becomes appropriate. Did I mention I get free rum, coffee, and Kahlua?

6) Fresh Cup Magazine published an article I wrote in the June issue, about branching out from the old familiar origins and finding new gems (Nepalese coffee, anyone?). I'll post some snippets here, copyright permitting.

7) Theoretically I have something coming out in Parade Magazine... but I have yet to see it appear and your guess is as good as mine.

7) Somewhere along the line there I was in Houston for the SCAA conference. Somewhere along the line there, Alejandro Mendez from Viva Espresso in San Salvador won the World Barista Championship. Anyone who reads this blog is already well-informed of that stuff. But still... it did happen.

8) All work and no play makes Homer something something...

(PS I am in Seattle currently... oh wait, I already said that).

Panama in Winter

It's spring in North America, but in Panama the winter is just starting. Although it's pushing 90 degrees in the lowlands, and not much cooler up here in the mountains, the rainy season has begun in full force. And that's what defines the winter here.

I'm here with a group of coffee farmers from Puerto Rico, who are here to learn how things are done in Panama. Here are some pictures that show what coffee country looks like in the down times.

Panama Course: Crafting Quality at Origin

I just want to give a heads up to those of you that follow this blog: I'm teaching a course in Panama in March of 2011.

This is for folks who are damn serious about their coffee businesses and their coffee careers. The world's most unique coffee education course, among the coffee farms and cloud forests of Panama. A truly unforgettable learning experience that will launch you into the next level (and possibly several more levels beyond that).

This course is five days of intensive coffee education amid the splendor of coffee farms growing along a nature preserve in the volcanic cloud forests of Panama. It's as beautiful as it sounds.

And by the way, March is absolutely the month you want to be in the mountains of Panama. Warm and sunny without being humid. Cool breezes among the trees and mountainsides... it's paradise. The farm we are staying at is surrounded by nature preserves, and serves as a stopover for dozens of different tropical and migratory birds. In fact, they get annual groups of ornithologists that come and stay in these cabins.

But this is no idle sightseeing trip. We'll be studying intensively the workings of a coffee farm, with a special eye towards how quality is crafted. Course topics include:

• • Introduction to Sensory Analysis
• • Intensive Tasting Exercises
• • Coffee Tasting Training and Triangulation
• • Applied Roasting Theory
• • Hands-on Roasting Sessions
• • The Workings of a Coffee Farm
• • Tours of High Altitude Specialty Coffee Farms
• • Theory of Growing Coffee
• • Coffee Processing Up Close and Personal
• • Environmental and Social Sustainability
• • Buying Coffee for Your Business
• • Developing Relationships with Growers

Finally I should mention too that March is the end of the harvest season in Panama. We will have dozens upon dozens of fresh-crop, unsold specialty coffees on site for roasting and cupping. It would be great to see some of you blog-readers in Panama, but space is very limited, of course.

There's a website about the class here. Or you can send me an email to danielh@bootcoffee.com

This Blog

Welcome Foodistas.

This blog isn't like most coffee blogs. I'm not a barista (though I was, once upon a time), and I'm not a hobbyist coffee enthusiast (though I am indeed enthusiastic about coffee). I'm a coffee educator and consultant, and I travel for development projects and teach classes in the USA and in coffee-producing countries. I don't work for any single roaster or coffee shop, so you get an unbiased expert opinion here... or at least the closest approximation I can manage, given my own personal preferences and friendships.

I also don't tend to post long musings on the meaning of customer service in the coffee industry in this postmodern world of ours, or other such navel-gazing nonsense. There's plenty of that out there, as I'm sure you've noticed. I like to keep my posts centered around my work, and my work centered around interesting stuff like week-long marathon tasting sessions, or trips to Africa. Of course, I also reserve the right to get philosophical, and therefore hypocritical, at any moment. It's my blog.

I was on the road for a development project when I got a notice from Foodista that I'd be featured on their homepage. So there won't be any new videos or anything till later this week... I'm busy working on my latest project in Puerto Rico. But if you stay tuned, I promise you pictures of deep purple colored dirt in a plastic baggy... trust me, it has something very interesting to do with coffee.

If you are new here, there's plenty to check out. I recommend the recent series on Panama... you can find the links in the side bar, "A new kind of hotness," "Getting high in Panama," and "Finca Sofia". Feel free to leave comments, and anyone who really loves coffee, professional, amateur, or aspiring know-it-all, is always free to email me at daniel at dot com coffeescholars, mutatis mutandis. I'll be back in the States with more material on Wednesday or so.

Cheers!

Isla del Encanto

Hello from Puerto Rico. This is just the way this blog goes sometimes. I go on trips for my work in the coffee industry, and while I'm gone, I have trouble posting. Sometimes there's no internet, sometimes I'm up in the mountains somewhere, sometimes I'm just having too much fun to hole up indoors and work on my computer. Then I get home from a trip, camera fat with pictures and video, and I have lots to say, and the posts come at a faster clip.

Right now I'm in Puerto Rico for a research project investigating the effect of different soil types on coffee plants and coffee flavors. Did you know that Puerto Rico has almost every type of soil in the world represented somewhere on the island? I did not know that before recently. But it does, and this project is going to take advantage of that little fact nicely.

It sounds a little funny to call Puerto Rico "undiscovered," because as far as tropical locales go, this island is as un-exotic as they come, at least for United Statesians. But as far as specialty coffee is concerned, it is indeed undiscovered; it might as well not even exist Puerto Rico has some very, very nice coffees, but you would never know that from inside the insular world of specialty coffee in North America.

Why is that? Why can you find an El Salvador coffee in every single hoity-toity super-specialty tattoo-bedecked-barista-having coffee shop in western Brooklyn, but you can't find a single Puerto Rican coffee? Is this because the coffee in El Salvador is categorically superior to that of Puerto Rico. No, it is because of a whole host of other factors, having to do with development, history, economics, and well shoot...

It's 85 degrees outside, it's Friday afternoon, the sun is starting to go down, I'm two blocks from the beach, and I'm ready for a little relaxation after a week of tramping around the research station and driving the curvy roads in the mountains. Suffice it to say, I've had an extremely interesting time, and I'll have lots more to share when I get back, on the blog, in person in Seattle, and perhaps in New York City, too, the Dear willing.

In the meantimes, enjoy your coffee, wherever you might be.

More Morsels from Scandinavia

In a previous post, I neglected to mention one of the most charming things I discovered about coffee in Sweden, the tradition of fika. Fika is an afternoon coffee break, often with sweets and baked goods. It's similar to English tea time, but does not have such a formalized background. In fact "fika" can mean a break of any kind, or even a little date. But usually the term refers to a break in the afternoon for refreshment, the chief form of which is coffee.

In fact, the word fika comes from reversing the order of the syllables in kaffi (coffee). According to wikipedia: 'The word is an example of the back slang used in the 19th century, in which syllables of a word were reversed, deriving fika from kaffi, an earlier variant of the Swedish word kaffe ("coffee"). From fika also comes the word fik (a colloquial term for "café") through a process of back-formation.'

A gentleman I met in Stockholm told me that comes from the days when coffee was still considered déclassé, a drink for the rabble. People would refer to coffee time as "fika" to avoid arousing suspicion. A simple code for a simple tradition. Now everyone in Sweden enjoys fika, and kaffi at their fika.

Thanks to my friend Suzanne, who helped remind me of this little morsel during our own Seattle-style fika yesterday afternoon.

The speeches that were given at the Nordic Barista Cup in Oslo, on the other side of the fat part of Scandinavia, are available on their website. I encourage you to listen to all three, by Stephen Vick, George Howell, and Erling Dokk Holm. Scroll down past the Harry Potter pictures to find links to the audio.

I will have something specific to say about George Howell's talk in my next post.

Giuliano Makes Tortillas

Back in July, after teaching some roasting seminars in Guatemala City, I spent a morning in the nearby town of Antigua with some coffee friends. Peter Giuliano, one of the key leaders of the specialty coffee industry in the United States — and indeed the world — was with us, too.

You could write an entire book and still not name all the important work Peter has done in the coffee industry. His company, Counter Culture Coffee, has helped revolutionize the way people grow, buy, roast, and drink coffee. He's also been a key leader at the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

But in addition to being a coffee guru, Peter's also just a fun guy to be around. He's willing to try anything, and his enthusiasm for life and for people is contagious. If you're having a hard time getting motivated on a Monday morning, check out Peter cheerfully learning how to make tortillas in Guatemala... and this was on a Saturday morning after a long week of work and travel. And he never lets dropping a few get him down.

By the way, the tortillas were delicious.

Roast Profiling and Cupping

For the next three days I am in Marin County, California, teaching a class at Boot Coffee Consulting. The course is called Roast Profiling and Cupping. It combines information on sensory analysis, heat-transfer dynamics, and artisan roasting techniques.

The first day of this class begins with, well, coffee of course. Once everyone's acclimated to the lab, where we have several different sample roasters, brewing equipment, an AV set-up, cupping lab, coffee library, etc, we start with a lot of theory. What's the difference between convection, conduction, and radiation when it comes to the development of coffee during the roasting process? How does processing affect the way beans of different densities absorb heat?

Then we dive right into sensory analysis. We do sessions with nuts, dried fruits, chocolates, apples of different acidity levels and sweetness levels, fruits with different kinds of mouthfeel. All this is leading into the really important stuff: the sensory analysis of coffee. Cupping, that is.

We cover cupping vocabulary, cupping protocols, cupping technique, and we do LOTS of triangulation exercises to put people through their paces. And that's all just day one.

Day two and day three involve a lot more theory, but mainly it's about roasting and cupping, and roasting and cupping, and roasting and cupping. I teach or help teach this class several times each year. We have roasters from all over the world come to learn and practice. This class has folks from California, New York, Wisconsin, Seattle, Massachusettes, Australia, and Singapore.

This week we set up a canopy outside because of the heat in Northern California. Students are starting to arrive right now as I type this. Time to go!