update

my friend james traded his fancy-schmancy old-timey french brewer for his newly completely customized,bejeweled, napoleon bonaparte-themed tamper from espressopartsNW.
will be available to drool over on the OMG section of sprudge.com soon, i'm sure.

pourover geekout

My dear coffee-geekin' friend james came over to my new apartment the other day for a "mid 19th century french vs. 2010 japanese" pourover contest. He had discovered an incredible french brewer, the likes of which i had never seen in an antique shop in seattle. the guy who sold it to him said that it was most definitely a tea pot. however, we were convinced otherwise.


We didnt know how it worked. we were just going on a whim. we ground the coffee coarse. and thought that it would not slip through the holes in the middle "pourover" chamber into the bottom of the pot.


little did we know that the pot was meant to hold the grounds and be the brewer, while the middle cyclinder, which we thought was the filter was actually a dispersion method for making sure that the hot water went over the coffee grounds evenly.
there was this nifty little doodad in the bottom of the pot, which held back the grounds whilst you poured out your brewed coffee into your cup.


the brew that we made using our hypothesis took 7 minutes to brew and tasted awful. overextracted mess. i really wanted to know where we went wrong, but first i had to school James on my bad-ass hario pourover method, ala Scott Rao.
I have been perfecting my method after reading "everything but espresso" by Scott Rao and also writing the methodology for "manual brewing" for Training and Education @ B&B. Every brew i have made, i have put through the Extract MoJo and it gets a "good score" every time. I'm sure it needs work. there is always room for improvement, But since James just started working at a new job that requires the ability to make Bad-ass pourover coffee, I thought that i owed him a tutorial



note the cellphone as a timer.



the end


ps. for some eye candy

http://vimeo.com/11181154

coffee comraderie

so i just wanted to put in this little note about my thoughts on comraderie in the coffee industry.
there is none.
why so competitive, people?
a customer ( an annoying one, but that's besides the point), asked if it was true that there is a lot of in-fighting in the coffee business. i couldnt say that it was not true. it's sad.
yesterday, i was coffeegeeking at a local competitor's shop with a fellow barista. we tried to make some plans to get together and make some coffee science experiments happen. unfortunately, because the two businesses we work for are competitors, neither of us could invite the other to use the facilities at the roasting works at either place. that was just annoying.
it seems like it isnt the baristas who are the source of this industry wide rivalry/in-fighting, but the coffee roasters/shop owners/industry professionals who are making it so evident.
i think that the only way that we will really accomplish any real comraderie is if these shop owners and higher-ups each take the high ground and open up their doors to each other.
in pittsburgh, i think that this was beginning to happen to some extent. there was sharing of resources between shop owners. there was definite comraderie amongst the baristas, for sure.
i just want everyone to TRULY get over themselves and realize that our purose, besides making money, is to educate the public about coffee and in turn educate growers about what the consumers want.

ps. read sprudge.com

michael phillips. yes. chris baca. yes.

hi.
so yesterday was the final for the USBC (united states barista competition). michael phillips, from intelligentsia coffee & tea took first place (most deservedly) and chris baca from verve coffee took second.
i am so inspired by these two baristas. they bring so much passion, knowledge and "can-do" attitude to the barista competitions. Both were thoroughly engaging as far as their desire to educated the judges and their audience about the coffees that they were using. Both did a most beautiful presentation, from table cloths to the way their drinks looked. Michael's was supremely technical, showcasing three different coffees three different ways, in his sig drink, espresso and capps, plus his sig drink was three different vessels with the three espressos pulled the different ways. he used different dose, volume and length of extraction with all three coffees. and explained WHY he pulled each coffee differently. so impressive.
Chris Baca, pulled of a very calculated performance, making his sig drink first, which looked gorgeous. he also engaged the judges by making two extra sig drinks, one for himself and one for the head judge and demonstrated how he wanted the judges to drink his beverage. and each judge did EXACTLY as he did. not only did he engage each judge but he also had a great story about his coffee and where is comes from. it wasnt that his presentation had alot of "flash" because it didnt, if you dont count the flourescent pink details throughout his place setting. he just expertly pulled off his performance. there were no glitches. it was very natural. it seemed to me as though it was an accurate portrayal of the experience that you may get if you were to walk into the verve coffee bar in santa cruz, and have the pleasure of having him serve you coffee.
on the interwebs:
http://www.justin.tv/usbcscaa/b/262428774#r=Lc0KgXk~&s=07


just saying... inspiring

holy shizzles.

so. long overdue update.

new job: retail trainer for Batdorf & Bronson, Olympia retail.
cool? yes.
starting to see some results from my overly passionate nature rubbing off on my minions. i kid about "the minions" part.

i spend alot of time zoning out and daydreaming about the future of my own professional life and the future of coffee. i have alot of ideas of the things i want to do with my life and the knowledge that has been imparted unto me by some of my coffee heroes.


some of my new ideas:
coffee shop opening within the next year.
selling french press cozies to pay for it.
making "barista butter: it's the balm!" to also pay for my coffee shop.

working a little more on sig drinks for next year's nwbc. i think that if you can at least make it to the finals in this region, that you have a good chance at nationals. so i've got my fingers crossed that i will do well and the secret to doing well, is knowing the coffee, knowing the routine and practice, practice practice.

i'll keep you posted but i think that something involving an alternative brewing method in addition to 'spro. but i'm not sure what that will look like, taste like etc. i basically want to engage the judges in all of the sensory perception that is possible. i want to show them my passion through my ability to demonstrate how well i know the coffee that i'm working with.
i tried some square mile coffee the other day and i would like to formulate something close to that, a 50/50 blend of a pulped natural and a natural. just what do i try is the question. a pulped natural would really add to the crema of the spro, but having something really dynamic flavor wise would be excellent. just how do i accomplish that bomb, dynamic flavor without overwhelming the palate with too much fruity-ness.
???
so.... until next time....

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.