espresso

hey. so i started to develop an espresso for competition next year. i roasted some on the sample roaster last monday and i had the opportunity to try them out in the lab myself yesterday. i chose to work with a pulp natural sumatra that is very highly sorted. of course there are some natural defects in the coffee because of the nature of coffee harvesting in sumatra however it is a pretty high grade of coffee.
i did about 6 batches myself in the sample roaster to try out different temps,etc. etc.
i ended up with some scorched ends in a couple of batches. but i was able to get some great espresso from one batch that tasted alot like a kenyan espresso and had crema that just would NOT quit.
overall, very exciting and i think that one of the roasters at the roastery is going to get some going for me this week at some point so that i will have something to play around with.
my idea is to have two SO espressos at competition. one for straight espressos, one for cappys and be able to combine the two into a signature beverage. the idea of skimming the espresso in the sig drinks has been tossed around as well. to highlight the transformative effects of skimming and being able to to it consistently.
if you get a chance, check out the new issue of barista mag. my co-worker matt is in the "tools baristas love" story.

holiday barista jam

hey all,
(meaning the one person i know who reads this blog)...
i had the priveledge of attending the holiday barista jam and latte art contest on sunday at the mall, of all places. the venue was weird but it was great to have a crowd of people who had no idea what was happening. i poured, myself, however it was not a heavyweight pour, and made it three rounds in before being put out to pasture. my friend and co-worker, katie won and my co-worker matt came in second place. it was fun to heckle michael elvin and pal around with other baristas.
tomorrow, i may be working on some sample roasts of SO espresso to use in competition next year. too pre-emptive?

here is a link to the pics of the coffeeworld i've been collecting over the past few years....

pictures of coffee

enjoy!

okay okay....

so i'm starting to get this whole "skimming" thing. i think.
so after my last visit to heart, and the acknowledgement of myself by randy as "difficult and stubborn", i decided to do some un-scientifically formulated experiments relating to temperature of water and skimming of espresso on americanos with a sumatran coffee that we had in the "guest" grinder's hopper. this wasnt roasted for espresso, but we used it anyway. why not?
when grinding, i smelt the very distinct herbacious aroma of the sumatran mandheling, which, to be honest, i'm not a huge fan of on the cupping table or brewed in any way from pourover to clover to press to drip. uh uh. i've never been a fan. but i put my inclination to not like it in the back of my mind as i updosed to about 21 grams in a double la marzocco basket. i extracted my first shot into an 8 oz cup with water at about 105 degrees. i then skimmed the crema off of the top. firstly, the temperature was optimal for the proper flavor to be processed by my taste buds. skimming the crema gave the coffee an oddly grapefruit juice like acidity and flavor, which transformed to a tingly herbacious ( sage and thyme) quality towards the bottom of the cup. and the coffee had a really nice soft and plush body that i found akin to an el salvador that i had had from verve coffee this past spring. very enjoyable. my co-workers who tasted the drink couldn't tell me that what they were drinking was sumatra. they were very surprised when i told them.
next, i contrasted the previous cup with an 8 oz 200 degree not skimmed americano. very different. the coffee had that same soft body but it still was very reminiscent of what the mandheling would be as a drip coffee.
and thirdly, we tried it as a 5.5 oz 105 degree skimmed americano, which in my opinion was not as good as the 8 oz. the coffee was still bright but the grapefruit juice flavor was overcome by the herbacious flavors in the smaller cup. one person said it tasted like sumatra that was run through the clover.

i also tasted some straight shots that were skimmed. the most common flavors were dark chocolate and cloves with a little orange zest thrown in for good measure. very surprising.
i also tried a skimmed shot in a capp, in which the flavors of the straight skimmed shot were lost. definitely more pronounced in a macch.

so this is the lesson:
Skimming, though i dont like to admit it, can help to take a coffee that has one set of qualities and lead it to have a whole other set of qualities ranging from body, texture, flavor, acidity. skimming could potentially revolutionize the way that a barista presents espresso to the consumer.
when any person enters a conversation, they enter that convo with their own pre-concieved notions about a subject of a thing because of their own previous life experience associated with the thing at hand. if you say to the consumer, " hey, you want to try the S.O. sumatran espresso in you macchiato?", that consumer may have a preconcieved notion of how it will taste and may say "no" because they have a negative feeling about indonesian coffees as a whole, as many people do. but to skim offer skimming as a way to open up new flavors of the coffee to the consumer, it has the possiblity of changing how that one consumer views a particular coffee or growing region as well as espresso as a whole.

i know i have had some strong opinions against skimming but i think that i had to experiment on my own to really understand why it's so good.
on the other hand, i dont believe that skimming a shot made from an espresso blend would be beneficial. for one, most espresso blends are formulated not only for flavor but also for the persistence of crema in a shot. for so long, crema has been the gold standard for proper extraction and companies have built their brands around the espresso blend that they formulate that have great crema.
secondly, to skim the crema off of a "blended" shot, may take away an integral part of the espresso itself, a flavor that helps to keep that shot of coffee tasting balanced versus "roasty" or "burnt".

i suppose skimming espresso is much like scraping the head off of a high quality beer. bartenders have been doing it for years at microbreweries, as a way to stop the creamy foam on top from interrupting your palate while drinking a highly complex micro-brew. perhaps if you do not scrape off the head, you may not get the subtle apricot flavor from a hoppy winter ale that the brewmaster had every intention of you tasting.

ah rant over.
happy thanksgiving.

coffeesnob OLY

i know it's been too long and really i have no excuse besides the total upheaval of my life and starting anew on the left coast.
Olympia, washington is my new home and i love it here. right now, darkness reigns supreme but coffee is her lady in waiting.
I'm now working for Batdorf & Bronson coffee roasters, being a barista, working my way up the ranks, absorbing as much training as i possibly can. so far, i've done roasting workshops, latte art workshops, espresso training, more espresso training. you get the point.
you may be wondering what my reasons were for leaving pittsburgh after such a long time of working at Tazza D'oro. Well, i had felt that i had reached the highest level of training and ability that i could have achieved while working there.there were more opportunities available but they were not really for me. it really was my time to move on to seek a new challenge and a way to grow as a coffee professional. i wish all the folks at tazza and pittsburgh the best in their own personal and professional growth.

living in the pacific northwest, good coffee is super easy peasy to find. i have it timed to drive perfectly from portland back to olympia perfectly where i get an americano at Heart (http://heartroasters.com/) at 7am and get back to olympia at 8:50, just in time to hop in the shower and get a second americano at caffe vita on my walk to work.
Heart is definitely my favorite coffee place in the PacNW. so far. the environment that they have created in their cafe is awesome. there are turntables playing records, interesting taxonomy prints on the walls, a synesso AND a la marzocco, siphon brewing, friendly baristas and a GIANT probat roaster sitting it the middle of it all. i feel very much at home when i stop in every friday morning. they skim their espresso there though, which i have some strong opinions on. the first americano i got there, some weeks ago, was made with sumatran 'spro and was creamy in texture and had a fabulous jasminey aroma. the next one that i got was made with guatemalan spro, upon which after the barista poured it began to skim off the crema, which then became a discussion, in which i stated some very strong opinions about the whole matter and now i'm known as "the-friend-of-ryan-who-hates-the-idea-of-skimming-and-lets-everyone-know-about-it".
whoops.
but i still go there. i give them all my money for delicious drinks. and you should too. whenever you are in portland.
i have stopped in to many places and have discovered so many great things about my new region.
a short list:
cellar door coffee roasters
cascadia rising gluten-free bakery and cafe ( dude, HEMP MILK MOCHA!!!!!)
dalo's ethiopian kitchen (they serve ethiopian coffee exclusively)
little red bike cafe
all of portland's many yarn stores
potato champion food cart
olympia free herbal clinic ( a great resource for a broke barista to get some treatment for coffee-induced injuries {willow bark and jamaican dogwood are my new friends})
pay what you can yoga
fresh fish!

Long story short, i love my new home and cannot wait to write more about all the great things that i'm getting to do in my new job.
till next time.

oh geesh

it has been a LONNNNNNGGGG time since i wrote anything here.
life has been a rollercoaster of decision making and heart breaks the past few months.
i have decided to leave pittsburgh,as of august 27th -ish in pursuit of a more coffee-centric existence. the plan as of now, is to make my way to st. louis to meet up with a friend from college and drive along the lewis & clark trail to oregon. from there, my friend is taking the ferry to alaska for her big move and i will see if i can find a job in the great wild west.
i would really like to find a job working at either a shop run by a roastery or at an actual roastery. perhaps a place like what the barismo guys are now doing out of their shop in Beantown.
ideally everything will work out and we will all live happily ever after, but if it doesnt, i will come back to the east coast to discover what philadelphia has to offer.

the hardest part is definitely thinking about what will happen once i'm gone. will anyone remember that time i served them the best looking macchiato they'd ever seen? will anyone remember that time i rigged the latte art competition so that i would win? kidding.
no really though. this move has brought up alot of quandries for myself as to place, community and one's existence as a barista in society. as a player on the fringe, how does my decision to leave effect my community. will the quality of coffee beverages at my place of employment go down? will jokes not be in as much of an abundance and without that daily laughter, is everyone going to die sooner?
serious questions, my friends.
this move has also put me into an obligatory place where i have to write everything that i have done down, rather than just remembering that i have done something. i have to create a record for otehrs to reference in the future. writing is hard and so is remembering to write everything.

whoa portland... what a place....

so i've been back for a couple of days and my jetlag is mostly gone. i had a really great time, geeking and the like with the left-coast baristas. some highlights:

first coffee was had at stumptown on belmont on my first day, only after consuming a voodoo donut (the "no-name") and vegan biscuits and gravy at hungry tiger,too. i had a macchiato which did not have contrast and was acrid and bitter in taste. i said to myself, "perhaps it was a fluke..." and went about my merry way. we walked around the belmont area, wasting time until the 3pm cupping at the annex, two doors down from the belmont stumptown locale. while wasting our time we discovered a rhubarb soda which was tart and refreshing on the unseasonably hot sunny day.
the cupping at stumptown was good, a classic beginner's cupping table lead by a really nice lady whose name escapes me as i write this. the table was arranged from a C.O.E guatemala to a colombia to a kenya to a sumatra. it's always nice to see how other people set up cupping tables. everywhere and everyperson does it just a little different. it was also nice not to have to do all the explanations of "what cupping is" to newbies. i even got randy to participate, despite his hatred of coffee. he liked the sumatra because it reminded him of old books, his favorite smell.
we steadily made our way to BARISTA, in the pearl. i had a couple of shots of the ecco beloya and eyed the vac-pot bar. i couldnt find it within myself to pay $9 for a cup but i vowed that next time i would.
the beloya was tasty and a little mono in taste. though the dark chocolate dry finish and the lemon zest quality at the beginning were nice. i really didnt know what to expect. he had some verve coffee on the shelves, along with a variety of ecco, intelligentsia and stumptown coffee for sale.
the next day i really wanted to try out coffeehouse NW. i am in love with this shop. and i'm not overstating the fact. the shots pulled by daniel on the first day i went were from freshly roasted hairbender from stumptown. after my macchiato experience, i was hesitant to try hairbender again. however having espresso that had been roasted that very morning was too good to pass up. the shots i had rival the best espresso i've ever had. the double was sweet and had a strong aroma of cinnamon and a finish not unlike a chocolate stout. i loved it so much i had to have another, while randy sipped on black iced tea with sassafras. the baristas were so friendly and accomodating, telling me new spots to check out that i vowed to come back.
staying at the jupiter hotel on burnside, the closest (good) coffee is at the stumptown on 3rd ave. downtown. i tried another espresso at that location but it couldnt even hold a candle to the 'spro i had the previous day at coffeehouse NW. i tried it in a latte and liked it more, however, my lactose intolerance made it impossible to be comfortable for the rest of the day.
after a delicious lunch from the food cart, thai basil, we went to crema bakery and cafe for dessert. the bike that i rode around definitely lead to more caloric intake than usual and the peach rhubarb pie was a welcome sugar rush, as was the "special" rwandan espresso, currently made famous by the reigning US barista champion. i loved crema's ambience and lazy afternoon vibe. i could have stayed all day if it werent for my teeth beginning to ache from too much sugar and espresso.
two more trips to coffeehouse NW sealed my reputation as a "geek". randy accompanied me both times, though we only shared their famous hot chocolate once. the hot chocolate is worth a visit to portland in itself. made from single origin cocoa and himalayan sea salt, melted with half and half, then mixed with microfoamed whole milk. it's worth every penny of the $5 but is far too rich to drink alone. i strongly suggest bringing a friend to share it with.
i tried albina press on my last day. i liked the atmosphere though the barista's holier-than-thou attitudes were a bit much for the occasion.
i miss the coffee already. it's only been 3 days and i'm having serious withdrawal symptons from the look, the feel and attitude of the portland coffee scene.

WBC finals

just watched michael phillips perform at finals in atlanta. he is such a nice person and so genuine and i think that really comes through in his performance and his bar skills. michael and i had a really long conversation via phone this past fall about coffee and both of our upcoming respective regional barista competitions. needless to say, my performance did not go as well as i had hoped at the regional level. i was wowed by his knowledge as a barista and a coffee professional and i am honored to call him an acquaintance.
in other notes, since it's been a while since i updated this thingy here.....
my beloved has moved clear across the country to portland, the greatest coffeeland/mecca/heaven in the world. soooooo in good beloved fashion, i'm planning a trip to the northwest to go visit and see the feasibility of moving there to participate in their culture. i'm really excited about it all. i'm thinking of staying at the ace hotel, which has a stumptown coffee shop in the lobby. or the jupiter hotel which offers the guests free stumptown coffee in the rooms as an amenity. i'm going to overdose on coffee and come back to the burgh with a whole new perspective on coffee and what it means to be a coffee professional in a marginal market like pittsburgh. i'm also really nervous about it all. it could also signal the beginning of an end for me in pittsburgh. we'll see what happens....
i've been working with some really cool espressos. first it was a blend that was meant to be served as a super-duper ristretto at 34-45 seconds. i know right. crazy 'spro. i loved working with it and i loved being able to nail it and get some really great tasting shots while only having a couple of pounds to work with. then i worked with a single origin ethiopia that was %75 natural and %25 washed from the yirgacheffe region. probably my favorite espresso i've ever tasted. fucking incredible. chocolate, sweet as hell, blueberries and cream, dark-ass crema and syrupy body. when we ran out, i cried a little. next up was a single origin costa rica tarrazu. also incredible.not as syrupy in body as the ethiopia but definitely worth writing about. candied citrus, sweet as hell. reminded me ALOT of ritual's colombia sweettooth espresso blend.

Also trying to work in some time to do some mods to the mazzer major this week before my vacation. the problem lies in getting the appropriate tools to take the dosing chamber off the grinder to attach the mods, mostly the elvinator (designed by coffee genius, michael elvin of espressoparts NW) and and a stainless steel grid to cut down on clumping and spray from the throat of the grinder.the mods will pay for themselves in a day for the waste that they save. i'm excited for that definitely, especially now that i'm using the major more and more these days.

Also, trying the solidify the details of training more and more and to get that more regimented to leave sort of a legacy at the shop for future generations.

the coffeeworld is changing as i type this, as you read this. my word. hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen, now begins our thrill ride.

gender and coffee

i recently read in ms. or bitch magazine, one or the other, i forget. about how coffee has been portrayed as a very gendered thing. tough guys in movies are always drinking coffee black. the blonde ditz is always ordering a skim sugar-free vanilla latte. frou-frou drinks are, according to the author of this article that i dont remember where i read, considered very feminine. stupid people order them in movies.
i'm not exactly sure whether i agree though. i love drinking coffee black. well, i love drinking ethiopian coffee and costa ricas black. i never order drinks that have to be made up more than a drag queen on halloween, but am i not feminine?
the tough guys that come in to the shop and order mochas with extra whip cream. or a soy caramel latte. they exist. are they not masculine?
i'm just saying......

MARBC 2009

so it's all over.
the mid-atlantic regional barista comp is over and done with. a little bit of a disappointment that pittsburgh's specialty coffee scene was represented by a crazy mocha employee (crazy mocha being the pittsburgh equivalent of starbucks). crazy mocha isnt exactly what comes to mind when i think specialty coffee. actually what comes to mind is "undrinkable swill". drew from 21st street and frank from aldo both had incredibly strong performances. i think that i didnt do too shabby myself, however this year i recieved the exact same score as i did last year. however, my performance this year was a thousand times better than last years.
there is definitely a bad taste in my mouth left by this year's competition. i will be judging at the USBC in portland this spring and hopefully that will lend me some sort of perspective as to what it's like on the other side of the table.

i am happy that katie duris won. she is an incredible barista and has an incredible skill level. her presentation was very well put together and her signature drink was very well thought out.
i was impressed by most of the competitors. everyone put on a good show.

decaf?

so we all know what it's like to get the shakes from taste testing too much damn espresso. so why not try the odd decaf every now and then? i'll tell you why not. decaf is pointless. every decaf i've ever tried has made me want to scrape my tongue off. david letterman said it best in the peak of the ratings wars...."decaf is pointless brown sludge. what is the point?". i couldnt agree with him more. what kills me is people who order decaf skim lattes with sugar free syrups. but they order the largest size possible. why not just get a small latte with one shot of real espresso and no sugar free anything in it? has everyone forgotten moderation as far as volume and caffeine are concerned? i think so. i know i have forgotten caffeine level moderation, at least.
a new coffeeshop opened recently in pittsburgh. it's opening has been much anticipated by all coffeesnobs in the pittsburgh area, including myself. voluto coffee is located on penn ave. between the heart of garfield and east liberty. they carry 49th parallel coffee from vancouver, which i had never had before. the space is beautiful,high lofty ceilings with lots of light. it looks very much like an ikea catalogue, which is not a bad thing at all. very modern and very classy. they have a 3 group synesso machine and brew all of their coffee via french press ( one cant help think that they were inspired to do so by pittsburgh's old standard, tazza d'oro). on my first visit i had an espresso and a traditional cappucino. both were good though i would very much like to see them carry a single origin espresso. the espresso is very smooth and chocolatey, i like a little fruity sweetness in my 'spro too, though. the hot chocolate i purchased on my second visit was also exceptional, though i was expecting a might bit of chalkiness since they use a powder. i also ordered an ethiopia sidamo coffee which was right up my alley. i am a sucker for a good african coffee. the sidamo got increasingly sweeter as the coffee got colder, which to me, is the true test of a well-roasted and brewed coffee.
overall, i am impressed by voluto. it's great to have another coffeeshop in the pittsburgh community that is continually raising the bar of quality. yes please. i would love some more!