Open letter to some coffee educators

(Warning: Neil has proofed this and observed that it is “mushy”.)

To Peter, mark, rob, ellie, troy, jay, gerra, & everyone who positively influenced my coffee education in the past week.

I really can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me.

Professor Peter Giuliano.

This letter began as a note to Peter Giuliano after spending the day with him on Monday and attending the “Origins, History and Trade” class at the new Counter Culture Lab in NYC. We talked about coffee all day, and really, Peter was nowhere close to stopping. The depth and quality of the education I received, was, to put it simply, priceless.

Its not only the content from his class that was shocking in both its depth and clarity, but also the way in which it was presented: Peter constantly danced between being a coffee business man, economist, agrarian, sandanista, politician, and perhaps most importantly, a coffee ambassador. The way he speaks and writes with both a confident authority and a hospitable humility is why I find Peter to be the most resonant voice in the specialty coffee industry. This really isn’t meant to bolster Peter’s ego, in fact, it comes as kind of a counter-argument to egos: with an ego in the coffee business you can get yourself into trouble really fast. Thinking you know everything about coffee, to me at least, is a red flag that you really know almost nothing about coffee.

A speaker like Peter, who happily gets in front of people and says, “theres a lot of information out there, and this is my experience. My experience gets me to these general beliefs but by no means will I say they are the hard and fast rule” actually helps change the perception of what coffee, and the specialty coffee business, is really all about. It’s a constant game of “it’s really simple, and at the same time it’s very, very complicated.” And to have someone articulate that point clearly, without losing his audience, is something we need more desperately in the industry than I think we even realize.

Something that’s so special about the way Peter teaches people is that he will engage with everyone that is around him, he doesn’t pick and choose his favorite students, he is the epitome of a “there are no bad questions” kind of guy. I’d seen it in small doses with him before, with people asking him about griding coffee, or even in one of my first questions that I asked Peter about a fermentation tank experiment he was working on (which probably wasn’t the first question he expected out of a relatively young barista).

So that said, I think that everyone gets that Peter is one of my favorite coffee people in the industry. If you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak or attend his courses, take it. No matter how much you know about coffee, you will learn something new.

Phil & Kim make cups of coffee in Easton. Ellie waves as David Latourell makes a small cup of coffee (espresso).

Then, I hopped on a bus and headed to Easton PA on Tuesday for the Barista Jam and to visit with my friend Ellie from Coffee Solutions. As a bonus, I got even more great education. Mark Inman gave a great talk about the crucial importance of independent small businesses and businesses at the regional level. Ellie gave a really simple talk about the 12 steps of espresso extraction, which turned into a fun exercise and a spirited debate. You can also read my tweets from other talks. And maybe my brain was just really open because of Peter’s class on Monday, but I was once again inspired to keep up my work, and hope that my courses and events hold a candle to these other great educators in the industry.

Most importantly, it’s finally really squarely hit me on the head that we are not competitors – not by a long shot – there is just too much bad coffee and bad information about coffee out there to worry about other people in the specialty industry. We are all fighting the good fight, and the more we get along and provide a collective voice, the more we will all succeed.

Ah, but more on that later, as I tackle specialty coffee and the press.

Culture Cafe

This great new cafe opened up on 38th st this week. You should check it out. By part of the team that brought you Variety, Culture Cafe is going to be great. And they are in the same building where Project Runway is currently being filmed, so that’s exciting.

Also, Team TempTamp will be making Black Cat there for the next 2 weeks! So come by and say hi. Also so hi to the espresso machine, which comes all the way from Intelly Broadway.

Culture Cafe
72 W. 38th St.
near 6th Ave

Free Brazil COE coffee

Taste the coffee that sparked the Maxwell House v. Our Fancy Stuff challenge at Aldo Coffee, for FREE today at Cafe Grumpy in Park Slope. Visit grumpy’s location page to figure out where to go.

I sadly have to go into Manhattan.

TampCamp

This is, simply put, a plug for our next round of trainings at TampCamp. We’ve added a new touch to our “Opening a Cafe” class by inviting Borah Chung, owner of Dames coffee in Hoboken NJ. Do all these pictures of shiny new cafes get you dreaming of a coffee business? Come find out from an owner what she wished she had known from the outset! That class is on Monday, June 15th, so reserve your spot ASAP!

We also have our usual suspects, as well as a new iced coffee class, available next weekend.

P.S. Hopefully I will be back to our regularly scheduled blog postings soon…

Sit & Wonder

I began to notice a trend of hipsters in my neighborhood only recently as we’ve had a spate of hipster-centric openings in the area. In addition to the old standbys of the past couple years (Abigail, Franklin Park) there’s a new bar, Washington Commons, with a huge beer selection and a giant backyard (and $3 beers from 3-8pm on weekdays). There’s a dive bar going in down the street from the Commons call The Manhattans which I hear may include a rooftop. But the most telling for me is the not one, not two, but three new coffee shops to open in the last year.

The 3rd new cafe, Sit and Wonder, is the biggest indicator of change. I walk by the place most every day on my way to work and I had noticed the new sign, but had no idea it was going to be a coffee shop serving terrifically prepared Stumptown coffee for $1 (Seriously. They were brewing Finca El Injerto, which I think is still last year’s coffee? And it was amazing.) They also have, I’ve heard, 63 electrical outlets, so I can go there to do work instead of sitting in my living room all day.

Also beautiful pastries and homemade breads and cakes.

So welcome to the neighborhood Sit & Wonder. I am excited you are here, and will definitely be as regular a customer as my schedule allows. But while I recognize my part in the change in my neighborhood, I hope the spate of recent openings doesn’t cause such a drastic change in the area that we’re forced to move. We just signed a two-year lease.

Esmeralda Cupping at Counter Culture Coffee

Yesterday we were invited to the newly minted Counter Culture Coffee NYC Training Center for a special cupping of the Esmeralda coffees available for auction this year. Katie and Meister were somehow able to talk CCC HQ into sending the samples to New York and invited everybody up to taste them, which was very nice of them. We were able to try 7 samples from the various areas of the Panamanian estate, and here they are:

Lot #1. Reserva De La Senora

This is the highest part of the farm at an elevation of 1,700-1,800M, and the rarest and most expensive. The 2 lots associated with it just sold today for $117.50 and $95.50. This makes this coffee the second most expensive coffee ever sold, behind the Esmeralda of two years ago.

We found orange, peanut butter, bergamot and strawberries in the fragrance and aroma, and orange marmalade or kool-aid in the taste with a strawberry-like brightness and sweet finish. I found it to be the most well-rounded and even of the coffees, but it wasn’t my favorite.

Lot #2. Caballeriza

This is another of the higher lots on the farm at 1500M, and is one of the new production areas. We found honey, cherries, strawberries, and chocolate in the aroma and fragrance, and orange, lilac, sweet caramel and stinky cheese (in a good way) in the flavor, with a tannic orange finish.

Lot #3. Mario Carnaval

Lots #3, 4 and 5 were really very interesting for us because, instead of separating the lots into growing areas of this farm, they separated them into harvest dates. I would never have thought that something like that would create such vastly different coffees, but it makes sense that weather would have possibly more impact on taste than a few hundred feet in elevation would. The Mario is the traditional award winning Esmeralda area of the farm.

In this lot, harvested in February (the time when Carnaval takes place in Panama), we found nuts, citrus, rose perfume and liquor in the aroma/fragrance, and hibiscus tea, sweet and sour (like chinese food), plum, and jarred cherries. This was agreed by many to have the best body, as it was juicy and clean, but not too syrupy, and it finished cleanly.

Lot #4. Mario San Jose

Mario San Jose, harvested in March (San Jose is the patron saint of the province, and his day is March 19th), was vastly different than Lot #3. We found currant, lime and chocolate in the fragrance and almonds and dried fruit in the aroma and break. It tasted like bergamot, strawberry jam, honeydew and cherry and finish with a sour lemon.

Lot #5. Mario Pascua

Pascua is spanish for Easter, thus this lot was harvested in April. In this one, we found BBQ, cherry almond and caramel in the aroma and fragrance, and bread & butter, squash blossoms, ginger, pumpkin seeds, and “easter ham” (courtesy of Eric) in the flavor.

Lot #6. Naranjo

This coffee is from on the the new production area in Jaramillo, near the Mario area of the farm. We found cocoa, peanut butter, potato, and almonds in the aroma, and orange, cherry and nuts in the flavor, with a sour grape-like lingering finish.

Lot #7. Colga

Another of the new-producing areas, this time in the Canas Verdes area near Lot #1. We found jasmine and orange blossom in the fragrance, and thought it was grassy and fennel-like in the aroma and break. The flavors were very simple and sweet, like candied apple and fresh corn, and it finished very dry.

Panel no. 3 – Coffee Culture in New York

After the 2nd panel, we all headed downstairs for a delicious meal provided by our hosts, and cooked by the institute’s students, at L’Ecole. After lunch, we headed back upstairs for our last panel: Coffee Culture in New York, which is a very important topic for us, both as New York baristas and as coffee business owners.

Kevin Cuddleback from Gimme! Coffee was the first to speak in the third panel. Kevin spoke about the history of coffee in New York, and about culture of coffee emerging in New York. Kevin started by talking about the first coffee in New York, trying to make the point that this so called coffee revolution in New York is nothing new. He spoke about the oldest roaster in the country, Gillie’s, which is right in our home borough of Brooklyn. Other notable New York roasters that are still around are Porto Rico (1907), Dallis Coffee (1913), Kobrick’s (1920’s) Chock Full o’Nuts (1930’s), Moko d’Oro (1954), and Oren’s (1986). I’d also like to mention that representatives from both Oren’s and Dallis were present at the summit, and Oren’s offered samples at the post-summit reception.

After talking about the history of coffee, Kevin moved on to current trends in coffee, about how focusing on local products and obsessing over preparation is the best way to inspire great coffee in a growing specialty coffee environment. Moving forward, more coffee companies will be coming to New York to try to sell their products and roast here. However, it will be difficult because it is very expensive and the city regulations are difficult to navigate. However, he says, they will continue to come, and in the end, the consumer will benefit.

Next up was Manuel Terzi, owner of Terzi Coffee in Italy. Manuel, through a translator, talked about the history of espresso. Long ago, Italian coffee roasters saw a way to make money through espresso. They financed espresso equipment to cafes and told them that when they make espresso, there should be enough crema on each espresso that, no matter how bad it tastes, sugar shouldn’t sink when poured on the top. This allowed roasters to buy cheaper robusta coffee, because robusta coffee makes more crema. This bad espresso was the rule for many years, until North Europeans and Americans, who were used to the better tasting brewed coffee, came to visit and, unable to stomach the bitter espresso, decided to try to do it better. From this came all arabica blends which, although not as fluffy, tastes better. Later, as barista competitions arose, the italians began to follow the new rules for espresso, and are beginning to give up on the old way.

Hannah Wallace came next. Hannah spoke about her journey from coffee novice to obsessed coffee geek. She says she started at places like Oren’s and Porto Rico, but last year she began going to Cafe El Beit, where she met such coffee eccentrics as Dan Griffin (her gateway drug), and they began talking to her about coffee. Hannah says that baristas are one of the most important aspects of coffee education, as an enthusiastic, knowledgeable barista will infect their customers with the enthusiasm and make them want to learn more. Eventually she was invited to a coffee cupping (she also wrote this article), which was a revelation as she had never compared multiple coffees at the same time before. Since then she has been to many coffee classes and has tried to learn as much as she can about coffee.

Last up was our own Anne Nylander, who spoke about customer service and training. Anne talked about how it is important to “bridge the gap” between barista and consumer. That only through excellent customer service and great coffee preparation can we teach the consumer that coffee is something more than just coffee. But it is a difficult gap to bridge, as we are often trying to teach to people who have little interest in learning, so it is important to recognize those that want to be taught, and those that want to be left alone. The best way, she says, to do this is through proper training. It is imperative that baristas be taught well, and this doesn’t just mean being taught to make coffee. Customer service and even something as mundane as how to sweep a floor are just as important and should not be taken for granted.

In the end, though, Anne says that no matter the concept of the cafe or how much one wants to educate the consumer, the cafe must make a profit. If the business fails, the owners lose the opportunity to tell the stories of their great coffees.

Overall, I’m glad we were able to attend, and I’d like to thank both the French Culinary Institute and Edible Manhattan for putting it on. I look forward to next year!

Panel no 2. – Coffee in a Changing Economy

Before we start on the the economics panel, I just want to put it out there that I think economics is fascinating, especially macroeconomic issues such as global trade & globalization, unintended consequences, how market factors influence daily lives, etc. If anybody wants to read up on the current economic issues in America in general, I highly recommend NPR’s Planet Money blog, which in turn will send you to tons of other economics blogs.

Alan Kaiser from the National Coffee Association was the first to speak in the second panel. Alan went over the data from the most recent NCA study (conducted from May-December 2008, finished in January) discussing consumer coffee habits. Overall, coffee consumption has returned to its 2002 levels, which is still substantially higher than, say, 1997 when coffee first bypassed soda for frequency of consumption (now they’re about even, soda caught back up). An average coffee drinker drinks 3.3 cups of coffee per day, neither up or down from previous years. The majority of coffee drinkers (89%) have not changed their coffee drinking habits in the past six months.

Overall Alan stated that ‘flat is the new up’ in this economy, and that we should be overall happy that the coffee business hasn’t tanked during the recession. This is a sentiment for which I am extremely grateful. The continued demand for coffee is what keeps my company alive, so of course I am glad that coffee is still in demand. Do I hope to see more growth? Of course.

Also, there were some troubling questions in the survey, especially the one that asked where consumers drank coffee. It didn’t include the coffee house, or cafe. It had office, gas station, and home. This of course irked the specialty-coffee centrics in the audience, and I think shows that the findings aren’t necessarily relevant to specialty. I know that the SCAA has conducted similar surveys in the past, but I’m not sure if there is one out for 2008. If there is, I would love to see it.

Another key point Alan brought up was that coffee bean sales – for home use – has gone up in the past year. I think this is something that anecdotally we’ve all been doing instinctively – the intelly website is all about home brewing right now – but this confirmed our theories.

Aleco Chigounis from stumptown coffee was up next. Aleco’s speech was pretty brief. He simply said that specialty coffee, and businesses like his, have the ability to really control what the consumer can receive and expect in terms of truly exceptional coffees. With that, though, must come a higher price tag for coffee. That price must be explained by connecting the consumer to the real work and effort that goes into producing great coffees. And with that, he showed this excellent video, which I recommend watching, with the hopes you’ll come back to read about coffee in Malawi.

Jan Willem van den Broek from the United Nations was the final speaker on the panel. He told us about his experience developing a coffee program in Malawi. I think this was one of the most interesting discussions, describing just how far we as a coffee community still have to go on the agricultural side, in terms of picking ripe cherries and proper processing. Similarly Malawian coffee producers have a difficult time exporting their coffees, much like the more famed Ethiopian troubles. One way that his program helped improve coffee quality at origin was to send samples to roasters and then not only ask if they want to purchase it, but also provide feedback on the cup quality and what steps farmers should take to improve so that roasters might buy it in the future. I thought this was an interesting idea, and wonder if more coffee farmers or organizations do this already in any methodical way. I’m sure there are but I hadn’t heard about it being a systematic, customer feedback approach. So that talk was very interesting.

NYC Summit Panel no. 1 “Coffee in a Changing Environment.”

We started on Friday without too much fanfare (after of course the delicious coffee from Stumptown & Intelligentsia). We were introduced to David Rosengarten, who would serve as our moderator for the day. David asked great questions and was a very gracious host to each of the panelists.

The first topic was “Coffee in a Changing Environment.”

First, Bethany Koch from The Rainforest Alliance spoke about the environmental impact of coffee – or rather, that coffee growing actually prevents some of the most significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions – clear cutting and cattle farming. Bethany argues that coffee, with its reduced tillage and use of fertilizers or chemicals, is truly not a significant cause of deforestation or greenhouse gasses. In fact, most coffee farms could begin to sell the carbon they capture, which would further incentivize their environmentally-friendly practices. In addition, she also covered the Rainforest Alliance’s certification program, which has 94 main points growers must support (over 50% must be put into practice).

Another interesting point she brought up about certification is the shade requirements, which is something that always puzzled me. Daterra, one of the most famous coffee farms in the world, is a sun-grown coffee farm, and yet they’re RA certified. How? Bethany told us that Daterra has sequestered 50% of their property and have allowed it to return to natural habitat. That’s a truly significant commitment to creating a sustainable agricultural product, and so is considered RA certified (along with many other criteria). “Just imagine sequestering 50% of your apartment to habitat” she said.

Next, Edgar Cordero, who is the Vice President of the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia, spoke about coffee production in Colombia, and their environmental efforts. Speaking on behalf of a country for which 24% of the land is used to grow coffee, he spoke of the vested interest coffee growers have in improving both the environmental stability (he mentioned that the growing regions where Colombian coffee is produced is also most likely to impacted by global warming). “Sustainable coffee growing is more than just a trend,” he said. “It’s a way of life.”

I thought his discussion was particularly interesting after recently attending a talk from the founders of the Las Mingas Project at Gimme coffee in Brooklyn, which lamented on the fact that the Juan Valdez program, while certainly raising the awareness and therefore the price of Colombian green coffee, has also stereotyped the coffee from Colombia as “mild,” perhaps even boring, while all along the Las Mingas project has found truly exceptional coffees. This again goes back a question I keep asking myself as a coffee professional: are we trying to help as many farmers as possible (and I feel like it would be hard to argue that Juan Valdez didn’t help a great number of farmers), or should we really only financially reward the best products available? The free marketers in us want to do the latter, while the fair traders in us want to do the former. I feel like it’s always a matter of personal belief and choice when we get down to the nitty gritty of coffee politics. I personally err on the side of fiscal reward, but of course it’s always hard when we’re talking about another human being’s entire livelihood. This is why I think as much education on proper cultivation and harvest is much more crucial than almost any other aspect of the coffee industry.

Oh, I’m getting preachy and I’m only at the 2nd Panelist! Let’s move on, shall we?

Next up was Intelligentsia Coffee. Doug Zell was scheduled to speak, but he graciously let Geoff Watts speak for half of his allotted time. He cracked a joke about Geoff going over time and no one laughed – for a second. Geoff was surprisingly succinct and to the point, however, talking about the importance of buying and selling green coffee only when it is in season. This is a relatively new concept in the coffee industry, although it seems of such basic importance in terms of working with an agricultural product that it’s almost embarrassing that we’re only coming around to it now. But, because we are moving away from the commodity coffee model, these are factors people like Geoff Watts need to discuss so that we can continue to learn about our coffees (and enjoy them more!).

Doug then chimed in talking about bringing the fruits of Geoff’s labors to the forefront of any coffee retail program. For restaurants who focus heavily on local, seasonal menus, remember that coffee is a seasonal product as well. Offer different coffees at different price points – to show that not all coffees are created equal. Stop offering free refills. When was the last time you had a free refill of a glass of wine? A Belgian beer? Showcase your award-winning coffees for what they are. For coffee bars, work on your home-brewing program. Show your customers how to make great coffees by the cup at home. This is a huge focus for Intelligentsia right now, as we’ve seen the dip in sales of the dreaded… $4 latte. Still, all of us in the specialty coffee industry want to see the $4 coffee stand on its own.

I didn’t get to ask Geoff a question but would still love to know the answer – he mentioned that coffees lose their intrinsic sweetness and flavors because the chemicals begin to break down in the seed. I was curious if that meant that the coffee would also have less nutrional value – now that the antioxidants are being touted as the newest great reason to drink a cup of coffee. Since I usually don’t care much about nutritional theories, I let some other questions get answered.

(also hint to coffee drinkers: Both Peter Guiliano and Doug Zell have recently said “This is the cheapest time to buy the world’s best coffees. Drink them while you can still afford them!”)

New York Coffee Summit

Now, on to the more lengthy blog post, a report on New York’s First Coffee Summit.

For those just looking for a brief summary or review:

I thought that overall the summit was an excellent start to a dialogue coffee professionals in New York and across the country. Rachel Graville put together an overwhelming arrray of talented coffee professionals from the smallest niche to the National Coffee Association. I think that her perspective as an outsider gave more balance to a summit that could have easily turned into a healthy pat on the back for all of us specialty coffee kids for what a job well done. Instead, it was an engaging dialogue from all different sectors of the coffee community in NYC. My only regret was that we didn’t have more time to talk about the topics at hand. We could have easily broken out into separate rooms and discussed what each panelist was allotted 10 minutes to cover. Oh well, it made it more like a preview for next year!

Thanks again so much to the Edibles publication for spearheading this event, to the International Culinary Center for hosting us. Oh yeah, and to Duane Sorensen, Lizz Hudson, Mike Philips, and Stephen Morrissey for making the coffee in the morning. Kind of took the spotlight off of Neil temping for Terzi coffee in the corner, but Neil’s not big on spotlights anyway.

For those looking for in depth coverage, my notes from the event will follow. (Sorry that the photos of panelists are less than glamorous). I am now realizing that these posts are going to be quite legnthy, so I am going to break them down into a post for each Panel topic.