Daniel's World of Coffee

Why Not Buy Cheapest Coffee?

A little while ago I noted (along with the rest of the coffee world) that Starbucks was rolling out instant coffee. This development prompted a thoughtful post over at Hungry Magazine, by Michael Nagrant. Nagrant makes an argument for cutting costs in tough economic times by forgoing fine coffee. It is, as I say, a thoughtful post, if a little shaky on his coffee knowledge (he confuses roasting with extraction, for example).

Even more interesting, the post prompted a lennnnnnngthy reply from Geoff Watts. Money quotes:

Meanwhile, the mainstream first-world consumer has held stubbornly to the idea that coffee is a cheap luxury, that the $1.00 bottomless mug is somehow a right or a deserved privilege. It is this very attitude that will continue to ensure that the modern smallholder coffee farmer has little hope of escaping a life of extreme poverty. Cheap coffee (and by “cheap” I mean low cost, which typically equates to low quality) is one of the many forces shackling the developing world and suppressing opportunity for advancement for a huge chunk of the planet’s population who depend on coffee to make a living.

.........

We are after the best coffee we can possibly develop, that is the purpose that drives us. To achieve that means paying higher prices to growers and giving them the resources (and the reason!) to produce better tasting coffees. While we certainly feel the impact of the depressed economy here in the States, that impact is not limited to us. The farmers that Intelligentsia works with around the world are feeling the same kinds of pressure—it’s a global phenomenon. And while of course it makes sense to be thrifty in difficult economic times, we still need to realize that the decisions we make will have an impact further down the line. For a consumer the choice to purchase cheaper coffee has ramifications that extend far beyond the personal sacrifice of taste in favor of lower cost. It impacts the way coffee is produced, the way it will be produced in the future, and the ability of those who produce it to earn a living wage from their efforts.

Watts drops some history along with his science, too. Read the whole thing here.

Incidentally, that instant coffee goes for about a dollar a pop. If you really want to save money, you could buy a pound of gorgeous beans from Rwanda or Bolivia, lovingly sourced and roasted by a specialty coffee company, and make yourself a much, much, much better cup of coffee with hot water and a french press. Average cost per large cup? Depending on how strong you like your coffee, about 75 cents.

Cupping this Sunday: Jersey Style!

Several months ago some friends of mine bought a small coffee company in Ridgewood, New Jersey. It's a great neighborhood joint where people of all types convene, right near the central park of Ridgewood, which is a very nice, walkable town with lots of shops and restaurants that attracts daily visitors from all over Bergen County.

My friends fixed the joint up a little and really went for high quality coffee. They trained their baristas, fixed up the equipment, and went with the best roasters to supply their beans. It's the best specialty cafe I know of in the area. When you consider how many people live in Northern New Jersey (millions!), it's good to know that specialty coffee is spreading there, too.

In that spirit, please come to a tasting I'll be hosting there this coming Sunday. The theme is seasonality in coffee. If you're confused or just interested about why coffee from Central America, where the harvest starts in October, isn't really that fresh in February but it is fresh in June (weird, huh?), come on by. We'll be tasting some great Southern Hemisphere coffees and talking about harvest in general. I'll also bring some fresh crop coffees from El Salvador... I guarantee you won't be able to taste any of these coffees for months. RSVP to [email protected] if you plan on coming:

Ridgewood Coffee Company

90 East Ridgewood Ave

Ridgewood, NJ

(train-takers, take the Bergen County line from Penn Station to Ridgewood Station... if you are taking the train from NYC and want to meet up with me, just mention it in your RSVP email and I'll try to swing it so we can travel together)

Sunday, March 1st 4 pm to 6 pm (or so)

Happy cupping!

My New Gig

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!

Poo Coffee and Other Luxuries

In November of 2007, I tasted the famous Kopi Luwak "Civet Cat Poo" Coffee. Present at the time was a writer for GQ magazine, Benjamin Wallace. He was doing an article about famous luxury items and whether they were worth the price. You can read about it here.

Today I came across this video from the "TED talks." In it Mr. Wallace talks about his experience researching the article. I was interested to see if he would mention the coffee among the two dozen items he tried (he only had 15 minutes to speak, apparently). He did indeed mention it, about halfway through, but curiously it's the one item he doesn't render an opinion on. At the time, if I recall, he was underwhelmed, as was I. I told him to try some Esmeralda if he wanted good and expensive coffee, but he had already checked off the coffee box on his list. And the "poo coffee" certainly makes for a more sensational hook than the "oranges and bergamot coffee."

The snarky tone in this video is grating. I don't even think it's entirely Mr. Wallace's fault, though he does invite the listener to knowingly guffaw at the pretensions of the wealthy (a classic form of edification/gratification). Rather, the whole tenor of these talks, especially when it's not a scientist but a journalist or popularizer speaking, is redolent of self-congratulation. Have you ever been to a literary reading and all the questions in the Q&A section seem mainly designed to prove to the room that the questioner is an erudite and sophisticated person? The cackling laughter in this video reminded me of that.

Nevertheless, interesting work by Mr. Wallace who, I might add, is a nice guy.

I want that car.

Gelatinous Noobs

Listening to Coleman Hawkins and the sun has been out this week. Today I cleaned out the single dirtiest espresso grinder I've ever seen. It was a La San Marco SM91, a pretty good little machine, but good God it was filthy. It had apparently been run a few times and then left completely alone. The coffee powder lodged into all the little internal slots and burrs had turned into a gelatinous, night-colored coating over all that brass. I scraped it off in long, curling peels of filth with a screwdriver, one little lane of clean at a time. My compatriot in scouring remarked that it reminded him of some of the filthiest deep-fryers he's been around.

In any case, we got the sucker clean and she works like a charm. The burrs are like brand new. We still didn't manage to pull any good espresso on it (another task for another day), but I had a distinct feeling of satisfaction seeing that steel and copper gleaming. Now if I could just get the filth out from under my fingernails.

Saturday I returned from El Salvador. While there I had a chance to cup about 40 fresh crop samples across three days, mostly from Apaneca/Lamatepec (aka Santa Ana), and came away really impressed. The focus on specialty in El Salvador is more apparent every time I go there; I think it's going to be one of the origins of the year this year, despite the irregular rains earlier in the growing season.

Already, a couple of the farms I visited in the east were done picking and had begun the long and laborious work of pruning. I had fun helping to cut back a few trees and painting the stumps with bright blue copper sulfate solution to protect them from fungus. It's a part of the growing process I have had explained to me before, but this was my first chance to observe and participate first hand. In one year the shoots will grow back with fresh life, and in two years they will produce fruit again, with more vigor than the older branches had been doing. Typically a well-managed farm does this to about a fifth of their plantation a year, to keep everything continually renewed.

As always, I brought back some samples. In this case, they are particular valuable: all fresh-crop, and all from top farms. In all it's about 3 kilos of green gold. I'll be sharing it with the public along with the top of last year's crop at an event in New York City soon, so stay tuned for that.

That makes 7 trips to El Salvador in the last 15 months. I don't know when I am going to go back again; all the projects I have been working on are wrapping up, and the new projects I have in the fire are still in the incubation stage. I suppose it won't be very long, but I really can't speculate at this point. Next trips on the horizon will most likely be Nicaragua and Ethiopia.

And, oh yeah! Chicago! This weekend is Coffee Fest, along with the Great Lakes Regional Barista Championship. Great Lakes is one of the strongest regions in the nation. Should make for good watchin'. I have a bit of a life-change announcement to make on a related note. I'll post more about that tomorrow.

For now, ponder Steve McQueen.

The Chic Set, the Beautiful People

Hello from El Salvador. It's going to be 99 degrees this week, or so say the meteor-men. I've been down here two of the last three weeks, and very busy in the New York interim doing trainings and various high-glamor emailing and bean-counting.

I'm helping to lead a tour for micro-roasters down here. Over the next four days we'll be visiting farms, mills and co-ops, cupping coffee and picking cherries. The crop came in a little late this year because of funky rains in July and August, so there's still a lot of picking going on in the highlands. Looks like about an average crop, both quality-wise and quantity-wise. I'll know more after this week's cuppings.

Check out this article in the NY Times about Steve Mierisch and David Latourell of Intelligentsia, and how they shop for gear for the slick Intelly SoHo training space, titled, oddly enough, Shopping with David Latourell and Steve Mierisch.

Oh, to be one of the fur-hat wearing few.