Daniel's World of Coffee

These Cherries are Not Ripe . . .Yet!

Radio silence ended! Coffee Scholars has been moving its world headquarters for the last week or so, culminating with two days of madness Sunday and Monday. Thank goodness that is over. It even caused me to miss a great event...

Check out what Anne and Neil did on Sunday! Coffee at the New Amsterdam Market near the Seaport! To raise money for the market and for Bikes to Rwanda! Plus a cupping at a new (to the NYCS) spot on the same day!

And their report on the last NYCS cupping before that! Amazing stuff.

In the process of moving our offices and warehouse space, I realized just how many green samples I have laying around. The quantity isn't that mind-blowing (nothing that an addict like me couldn't put away in a couple of months), but there's a huge variety. I'm always complaining to people that I don't get enough green... well, I guess it's paid off without me even noticing. This calls for a cupping, and soon! It's time to give Anne a break, since she and Neil have been doing all the work round these parts lately.

I haven't done anything in BK lately, other than our little brunch shindig. Perhaps we shall do something at a café in my neighborhood for a change.

Coffee and coffee and coffee and food and coffee....

As always, the more going on, the less time I have to post about it. There's tons going on right now!

First of all, a huge round of applause for the new World Barista Champion, Stephen Morrissey of Ireland. Stephen is a great guy, and so dedicated to great coffee. He will be a great ambassador for our industry. I can't wait to see the wonderful things he does in the next year and beyond. Congrats to Stephen, U.S.A. champion Kyle, and all the great competitors! We all owe you so much!

Second, Bobbie and I had a great and delicious time on Saturday with our food and coffee pairing. As always, Bobbie outdid herself with the dishes. The prize for best dish was a close match between Bobbie's "breakfast quinoa" and the eminently edible steak and cheese sandwiches (I devoured mine like a hungry wolverine). But the dish that truly blew me away was the medium-boiled eggs with garden sprouts and fresh pea puree served with a Blue Batak Sumatra from Volcafé. I have been at this food-and-coffee pairing business for a while. I daresay I've done more of this than just about anyone in North America. And I can't say I have ever seen it nailed so well as Bobbie nailed it on Saturday. I kept going back and forth between the coffee and the puree, even rudely interrupting conversation, to taste the incredible similarities and contrasts. Wow! Thumbs up to Volcafe and the producers of the coffee, and double thumbs up to NYC's best-kept chef secret: Bobbie Marchand!!!

Thanks to Bobbie for doing all the work, Rachel G. for helping, and thanks to Cerise, Randal, Allie, Ashley and Ginnie for attending. (Ginnie has a rad science-writing blog here.)

Third, my colleague Willem Boot is in New York for two days on his way to Mexico for a conference on natural-processed coffees in Acapulco. We have big plans for the quality coffee scene in New York. I know I am more coy than revealing in these blog posts when it comes to future plans, but I'm not at liberty to say much now about our plans. But it will be cool! And it will result in better coffee for everyone in New York! Huzzah!

Fourth, the excellent and estimable Andrew Barnett of Ecco Caffé, of Santa Rosa, California, revealed to me last night that he's opening a roastery and café in New York City. AhhhhHHHH! Awesome. Anyone who knows me knows that I basically consider Andrew the pre-eminent coffee roaster in the United States. That he has been on the West Coast these two years that I have been on the East Coast has been a constant thorn in my coffee-loving side. There are many hurdles to clear and inspectors to placate in the meantime, but the knowledge that Ecco is on the way to Gotham makes me happy inside.

Go Andrew Barnett. Go Stephen Morrissey. Go Bobbie Marchand. Go Willem Boot. Go love it all.

Kyle Glanville at the WBC

Kyle gave a spot-on performance in the WBC first round in Copenhagen. Two interesting notes: He switched from the Finca Matalapa from El Salvador and instead went with the Santa Teresa from Panama... nice coffee! But I was surprised he made a change so soon after winning the US. Second, if you watch the video all the way through you hear Kyle tell the story of TSA deciding his grinder "looked like a missile" and dismantling it and then wrecking it when putting it back together while Kyle had to go through "security" at the airport. Sigh. (Though to be fair, Kyle does hate freedom).

Online Video provided by Ustream Finalists announced tomorrow.

Lily Pacas at the WBC

Awesome! Lily is a fifth-generation coffee person from El Salvador. She and her husband own Viva Espresso, where they have the best baristas in San Salvador. She is a member of the Pacas extended family, which has presence throughout the country, and for whom the pacas (and pacamara) varietals are named. Lily is a great friend and a wonderful hostess every time I visit El Salvador. What a strong performance she gives in Copenhagen!

Video clips hosted by Ustream

BoingBoing Video, Part Deux

Here's part two of Kyle and BoingBoing chilling at Intelligentsia... making espresso and making a vac pot. (sorry about the verizon ads)

Kyle is going at the WBC today (Friday), as is my good friend from El Salvador, the Salvadoran national champion, Lily Pacas. I'll post both their videos here. Or you can watch the live feed here.

Oh, Dear Lord

The brainchild of the lovely Liz Clayton, at twitchy.org

So.... stay up all night or get up really early?

Coffee Erotica

I've been compiling all the cupping data from the final round of March's Ethiopia Limited competition in Addis Ababa. This involves going through the score sheets of specific judges one by one and recording any notes they made on each individual coffee. Then we pass along this information to bidders so they have a little more cupping data beyond the raw scores.

Sounded like dull work when I started it, but it's turned out to be a lot of fun. Reading back through these score sheets, it's remarkable how distinct my memories of these coffees are. I'm just getting over a cold, too, and my inability to taste or smell anything in my immediate environment is probably contributing to my crystal clear recollections of the aromatics from three months ago.

If you've ever seen one of these auction offerings sheets, you may have been (as I remember being) a bit confused by the proliferation of descriptors. Some get repeated over and over. For instance, "sweet," is on just about every sheet. Well, for coffees that are scoring in the high 80's and 90's, I should hope so! Then you have your outliers that only one person noted (I will proudly own up to the mentions of "pineapple" you will see on this year's auction sheet).

Reading these is like reading coffee erotica. As distinct from espresso porn, which is an entirely visual arousal. This is the literary version.

Here's the entry for a typical sun-dried natural coffee, the #9-ranked Sidamo from Adam Bedane: berries, ripe cherries, sweet, vanilla, fresh butter, dark chocolate, oranges, tangerine, great snap, finishes smooth, citrus, sweet and fat

I leave off all the negative comments. They are few and far between, but they do pop up from time to time... with the washed coffees it's usually a hint of astringency or "youth" in the coffee; with the naturals it's usually a hesitant question about uniformity. Suffice to say these are outlier remarks too: if more than one judge detected something like this, the coffee wouldn't have scored high enough to make the finals.

I also, regrettably, must leave off most of the truly creative descriptors. So my note of "astonishing!!!" for the natural Korate from SMS is not on the list. Nor is Tracy Allen's note of "preacher's daughter," on Yitbarek Tilahun's washed coffee from Aleta Wondo.

So , while sloppiness in descriptors can make me cranky, let the court record show that I admit it's impossible not to find joy in things like the flavor of mango in a coffee. For the truly dorky, I'm transcribing every single descriptor from this list after the jump.

Cool Video from BoingBoing

As part of my ongoing effort to completely abdicate my responsibility to post original content and to live vicariously through my former brother-in-portafilter-arms, Kyle Glanville, here is a cool video from BoingBoing (again with the coffee, BB!). It's a visit to the Intelly LA roastery. Also, the title of the video is "Part One," so if they post a part two, I suppose I have to follow suit.

Original post here.

"With the Chemex, even a moron can make good coffee.”

Via the always delightful Boingboing.....

The Chemex coffee maker is part chemist’s funnel, part Erlenmeyer flask, with a blond leather band in the middle corseting its hourglass curves. An iconic symbol of German modernism and simple, functional Bauhaus style, the device—a Pyrex glass container with a sturdy paper filter—produced M.F.K. Fisher’s favorite cup of coffee and still holds an alluring power over coffee purists and design geeks. Its success launched its inventor, Dr. Peter Schlumbohm, into the arms of the design establishment (the coffee maker has been a part of the MOMA’s design collection since 1944, just three years after Schlumbohm patented it), and in the early years of World War II, it was considered a patriotic alternative to products made from metals and plastics (which were essential to the war effort). A Time Magazine article from November 1946 quotes the ebullient inventor as saying, “with the Chemex, even a moron can make good coffee.”

Read more....

Back into the Belly of the (B)East

Today is my last day on the West Coast. I have been in Seattle since Friday, tying up all kinds of loose ends. So this extended period of floating around away from New York is coming to an end and we're about to jump back into things full force in Gotham.

I've neglected the café reviews this time around because it's only been a few months since I was here last, and that kind of thing can get a little old. Suffice to say that the coffee is still damn good out here (provided you go to the right places), and that on the day it was 99 in NYC and people were literally dying from heat stroke, it was around 50 degrees and misting and so windy in downtown Seattle that I almost lost my footing just standing on the street corner.

I'm bringing all kinds of interesting green coffee (Ethiopians, Kenyans, Brazilian, Panamanian and a couple of Sumatrans) to roast up and cup (or just, ahem, you know, drink). This will come in very handy because at last count we have four events sceduled for the next couple of weeks... tomorrow night (read the post below this one); New Amsterdam Market on June 29 (more on Neil's project there forthcoming); coffee brunch at Bobbie's on the 21st; plus another Ethiopia Limited event between now and the first week of July. Plus I think we have to do a hardcore NYCS coffee-scoring class between now and then, too.

My next out-of-country trip will be to Ethiopia in July. In the meantime, it will be all New York, all the time. Other upcoming goals include getting a new camera (this blog is looking awfully drab, methinks), and setting up some cool long-term monthly programs centered around coffee quality in NYC. More on that last one to come soon.