Before I headed off to Ethiopia in March, I went to Mill Valley, California, where I often go. That's where the laboratory of Boot Coffee Consulting is. I do lots of work with Boot Coffee. It's a pretty unique operation. Basically, this is super high-end coffee education.
For the last few years I have helped teach the classes in the laboratory there, specifically cupping and roasting courses. I'm now often the lead instructor for the Intro level courses. If you have ever read this blog and thought about taking some coffee courses, you should think about coming to one of our Roast Profiling & Cupping courses. I'm teaching one in May and another in June, but Boot Coffee offers them year round.
Students always remark on what a great class it is. There's a great blend of technical information, theoretical instruction, and hands-on work. I've had people who worked in the industry 10 years come to one of these and leave by remarking how much they learned in just three days. But we also get beginners all the time. After one course they are already way ahead of the game.
We always make great friends, and the setting in Marin County, California, is beautiful and peaceful.
For instance, this picture is from a class I taught this past winter. The middle two gentlemen, Rick and Daniel, were passionate coffee lovers but had not really worked in the industry much. Flash forward a couple of months... I just ran into each of them at the trade show in Los Angeles, where they were cupping fresh crop micro-lots by the dozen; coffees that many professionals never get the chance to experience. These guys are hard core!
So I was down in California doing this stuff before I went to Ethiopia, and I will be back there again soon. In our next installment: off to Africa.
Hello coffee people!
After a long spell working on the Project Which Shall Not be Named, I'm back to the old blog. Thanks for sticking around!
I'm in Marin County, California, this week, teaching a roasting and cupping course. So because I'll be talking lots of theory this week with my students, I think I'll drop a little theory here on the blog. The class is through Boot Coffee. Willem Boot himself is on his way to Honduras and then Ethiopia, as a part of the Ethiopia Cupping Caravan project I'm also working on. So in the meantime I'm here in California teaching this course.
It's a ton of fun. I have 7 students here, learning how to cup and how to really roast with knowledge. Here in the lab (a converted garage) there are four roasting machines, an espresso machine, grinders, and more coffee making devices than you can shake a stick at. We have green coffee from every corner of the globe, even more roasted coffee, cups, spoons, videos, pictures, maps, one dog, and a cat. Just to give you an idea of what's here, here's one of the sample roasting machines we're using:
Hope you all have been well. Sorry for the absence, but once again, as always, I'm back! Happy coffee to y'all.
Even before Esmeralda became the most famous coffee in the world, it was a pretty famous coffee.
The geisha coffee from Hacienda la Esmeralda in Panama was well-known in the specialty coffee world well before it got a jaw-dropping $130/pound (that's green coffee) in the 2007 Best of Panama internet auction. In fact, it had been winning that annual competition every year, and even setting price records. To those who had been paying attention, it was no surprise that Esmeralda was tops in Panama in 2007. The only surprise was the price.
I remember the first time I had Esmeralda. I was working at Victrola Coffee Roasters in Seattle, and the staff held a cupping with samples from all of the winning coffees. This was 2005. I think there were about 22 lots that year. For some reason we decided to cup all 22 coffees at once, so I was working quickly to get through the line.
Anyone who has done professional cupping can tell you, commenting during the cupping is a big no-no. In fact, it's a bad idea to even make little noises or faces. Your reaction to a given coffee can heavily influence the way your fellow cuppers will approach it. If you shout out "Lemon!" everyone is going to taste lemon. If you even mutter "gross" to yourself and make a little face, you are liable to bring down the score of the cupper next in line.
Well, the Esmeralda caused me to violate rules. I was going down the line, tasting, evaluating, and enjoying. Keep in mind these were the 22 best coffees from Panama that year. It's not like we had 21 bad coffees and then the Esmeralda. We had 21 outstanding, unique coffees, and then the Esmeralda. As I zipped down the line, slurping away, suddenly I stopped in my tracks and literally did a trible take. I think I made a little, inarticulate, "Hahh?" noise. Then I stood there and took about five sips in a row.
I've had the Esmeralda Reserve a few times since, plus several other outstanding Panama geishas. It's hard for me to know now how much of my memory is tainted by knowledge I got later. And since I don't still have my notes from that session lo these 4 and a half years ago, I have to rely on my memory. One thing I know for sure, because I remember telling friends about it later that day over beers, is that the Esmeralda tasted just like really sweet, fresh orange juice. I don't mean the stuff from a frozen artillery shell. I mean if you've every had an orange in its native tropical environment, still warm from the sun when you cut it open. So sweet! That was the Esmeralda geisha.
After the cupping, incidentally, there was no liquid left in those particular cups. Everyone had drunk it all down. We enjoyed it so much that it was after that cupping session that I started hosting public cuppings at Victrola with my friend Tonx. And people thought we were crazy... [And look what kind of nonsense came out of that, speaking of the Esmeralda.]
Most of the geisha I have had belongs in my Top 20 Coffees of All Time, but I'm just gonna put it in there once. The first time I had it will always be the strongest memory I have of it. Isn't that always the way life goes?
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