Don't forget! This Wednesday evening is my cheese and coffee class at Artisanal Premium Cheese. The bubbly will be flowing (and we might whip out the port at the end too), three fantastic coffees from around the world married with six unbelievable cheeses.
Here is my longer post about it.
Sign up at Artisanal here.
See you there!
This is a picture of my afternoon yesterday. Round after round of great cheese at the Artisanal Premium Cheese Center in Chelsea.
You might spot some coffee cups there in the background, that's because Matt Russo and Waldemar Albrecht-Luna of Artisanal, and I were trying out our ideas for our upcoming Coffee and Cheese class.
Some of the combos were actually kind of mind-blowing. I was afraid the fattiness of the cheese would just overwhelm the coffees. And in fact that was the case with a few pairings. But there were many others that brought out amazing combinations of complimentary and contrasting flavors. I highly, highly recommend this activity for coffee lovers, and cheese lovers too! Makes a great breakfast treat, and a great dessert.
Here's my promo lit for our class:
Wednesday, April 15th, turn in your taxes and come try some delicious cheese and coffee pairings! I'm teaching a class at Artisanal Premium Cheese in Chelsea, with one of New York's foremost cheese experts, Waldemar Albrecht-Luna.
Many of you are probably already familiar with Artisanal, the company behind chef Terrance Brennan's restaurant Picholine's groundbreaking cheese program, and the home of Max MacCalman, author of "The Cheese Plate." They have the only working cheese caves in New York City, and oh my goodness is it a great place if you like cheese.
Artisanal does a lot of wine/cheese classes, but recently they have branched out into roasting fresh specialty coffee. So Waldemar and I thought it would be a no-brainer to do some pairings with coffee.
We've worked out a delicious, educational, and surprising menu for the evening. You'll be able to ask cheese questions of Waldemar and coffee questions of Daniel (me!). And as always, bring your taste buds!
It's Wednesday April 15th and will start at 6:30 with a reception of gougeres, fondue, cava and cheeses from the Caves. Artisanal's Cheese Center is at Tenth Avenue between 36th and 37th, and the formal address is 500 West 37th Street. Go to Artisanal's website to sign up!
Hope to see you there.
I'd like to offer belated congratulations and praise for the newly crowned United States Barista Champion, Mr. Mike Phillips of Intelligentsia. It's an honor to work with Mike.
Intelligentsia had four of the top five finishers, and this makes two straight years winning the top spot! Can you say domination?
I watched Mike's performance in Chicago, where he finished 5th in the regional. I was really impressed with the concept behind his signature drink, though I never got to try it. Mike made two different drink components based on two stages of his espresso inspiring textraction. As a trainer, I often break down a shot of espresso and have my students taste each stage. That is, I take, say 5 seconds worth of liquid then slide another set of shot glasses under the spouts to collect 5 seconds more, and on and on all the way to severely overextracted coffee. As soon as I heard that Mike was using this coffee-lover's tool to make his signature drink I was really blown away: what a great idea! And how simple! Amazing that no one had thought of it before.
Furthermore, if there is one coffee that is saw me through the last dragging month of winter, it's definitely the Anjilanaka from Bolivia. Ask the guys at Ost; ask anyone who has cupped with me at the lab; ask anyone who worked the booth with me in Chicago, over the last few weeks I can't stop talking about this coffee. It's so sweet, delicate-yet-rich, soft-yet-bright, and just generally lovely. Well... I must have impeccable taste (natch), because Mike used the same coffee as a single origin espresso to win the tournament. You can buy the best espresso in the United States here.
But of course, ideas and beans are nothing without execution, and it's such a tribute to Mike's dedication and talent that he was able to take the top prize. Doug Zell has an inspiring take on it on his blog. No American has ever won the World Championship. Well... it's just a few weeks away and this time it's on our home turf, in Atlanta, Georgia. If anyone can win top honors for U. S. and A., I think Mike might be the man! Go Mike!
Sunday morning, March 1st, around 8 million people woke up in New York City to greet the first blush of spring. Sure it had been blustery all week, with yet another cold snap thrown in for good measure. But Friday and Saturday had been just a little nicer, and the ceiling of clouds hanging over the city had lifted a little higher into the sky, like a foot relieving pressure from a head it had been stepping on.
Well, the winds blew and night fell and on came the snow and by midnight it had coated everyone and everything with several more inches of winter.
But! In between I went to New Jersey and had a lovely afternoon with the people at Ridgewood Coffee Company. Many more than we expected showed up to taste coffee and talk coffee. Rich and Debra, the owners, were gracious hosts as always. And Joe, their son and a dedicated coffee guy in his own right, made me a really lovely shot of single origin espresso (Guatemala). They're really doing a fantastic job there! If you are in Bergen County, I highly recommend stopping by.
I'm lucky enough to work with and move amongst people who are really dedicated and passionate about what they do, so I think sometimes I'm in danger of taking for granted people's interest in all these things. Unlike that at some of our barista-infested NYCS events, the crowd today at Ridgewood contained exactly one other coffee professional, one other person who had been to a cupping, and over 20 complete newbies. The level of interest and engagement and friendliness was truly outstanding. I should remember more diligently the spread of specialty coffee is only just beginning. Thanks, New Jersey!
Incidentally, these larger events are sometimes tricky to organize. We have another in the works (for Manhattan this time). But if anyone wants to talk coffee with me this week in a little more personal setting, I have the following plans:
Tuesday the 3rd and Saturday the 7th in the afternoon, Espresso Enthusiast Classes at Intelligentsia's Soho Lab, for which some spots are still available. These classes are in-depth, hands-on, personalized training on a professional barista set-up. I train you on pulling espresso, espresso theory, steaming milk, pouring art, and anything else you want to know or learn about coffee. Info here.
Thursday the 5th, a cupping at said lab, at 11:30 am. Really great, in-season, Southern Hemisphere coffees to taste right now. Same link for info.
Sunday the 8th, slinging shots all day long at Ost Cafe on 12th and A. Come on by and say hi! Perhaps the snow will have melted by then... in the meantime, I'm off to stomp my boots in it.
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.
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.
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.
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