Return of the Links

Break out your umbrellas! After a dry December, the rain has returned to the Rose City—and how! We’re pushing record levels of precipitation over the last few days and the forecast is for a lot more over the next week. Meanwhile, I received an email from a friend in Orlando who said it was 82 degrees and sunny there today. Do you suppose there is good coffee down there? Might be worth taking a trip to find out.

Don’t let the gray get you down, though, there are plenty of things to do inside. Here are a few links to take your mind off the weather for a while:

This story about DD made me want start a campaign “Stop! America does not run on….well, you know.” The last thing this country needs is more opportunities to by more sugar, fat and mediocre coffee.

David Lynch, who produced Twin Peaks,  is obsessed with coffee, though he is down to only seven cups per day (from a high of twenty).

Headed to Seoul? Check this café out.

For the environment, which is worse—throwing nine billion (9,000,000,000!) K-cups into a landfill, or making coffee and not drinking all of it? This article from the Kansas City Star takes a look at that question.

The political philosopher Leo Strauss once wrote that democracies need apathetic populations to function properly. Apparently that’s true for dictatorships too. Coffee consumption has a history of scaring rulers bent on controlling their people, according to NPR. In some cultures in the past, coffee drinkers faced capital punishment for sipping up. Imagine what such a policy would do to the population of the Pacific Northwest.

The Northwest Barista Championship is coming up next week in Tacoma. Here’s the link to the competition’s site, where you can see the schedule of events and (soon, hopefully) the list of competitors (currently there’s a nice video from last year’s event on the site too, by the way!).

Stay dry (and out of low-lying areas)!

Ristretto Nicolai

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If you are someone who really likes coffee, the opening of a new specialty café in town is big news. On a quiet Sunday morning, Jinsu Lee (who shares a passion for good coffee and café experiences) and I went on a mission to find the new Ristretto Roasters café. Having not spent much time in that part of Northwest PDX, we were unsure about where to go, especially when we arrived at a large brick building with “Schoolhouse Electric Company” painted on the side. The multi-story brick structure looked like an old factory. It was surrounded by industrial and commercial buildings, with no houses or condos in sight. A freight train grumbled heavily by as we pulled up to park.

At first, we saw no indications of the café. After a bit of hesitation and wandering around in the street, though, we noticed the RR sign on the sidewalk. We were at the right spot after all.

Walking in, my first impression of the café was Wow – beautiful! Who would have thought a great café would exist here?

According to Ryan Cross, distribution manager for Ristretto (who happened to be working as a barista that day), the Schoolhouse Electric building was indeed an old factory, but it had served as an office building for several years, stuffed full of low ceilings and claustrophobic cubicles. No longer. The developer completely gutted the building for the renovation, throwing out the cubicles, getting rid of the false ceilings, and pulling plaster off the walls to expose the brick underneath. The space now has the feel of a cathedral, a cathedral of coffee.

The large windows that used to provide light for factory workers’ days now gives the café a light, open feel. The bright, airy feel of the café is juxtaposed against the imposing power of the massive wood pillars and beams that give strength to the space.

Accelerated Development, the same company that designed Coava’s Grand Avenue café space, also designed the new Ristretto Roasters café. You can see some similarities in the modern-retro-industrial chic design. It is an example of industrial elegance.

A shiny new La Marzocco Strada espresso machine sits on the  gracefully curved coffee bar, gleaming under the warm lights hanging overhead. Behind the bar, a legion of six(!!!) grinders stood ready to grind. Three were dedicated to coffees for pourovers, three were for espressos – one blend, one single-origin, and one decaf. A plethora of choices for most coffee drinkers, but a coffee wonderland for a pursuer of great coffee.

I tried two different coffees. The first was a pourover of a natural-processed coffee from El Salvador. The deep, fruity aroma preceded the sweet, medium-bodied coffee. The second coffee was an espresso of an East Timorese coffee. It was rather savory.

In addition to drinking coffee, we also got a lesson on some of the finer points of barista know-how. Cross gave us a close-up view of how the Strada works. The Strada is a high-tech machine with accurate temperature and pressure controls. The variable control paddles on the Strada are very sensitive, allowing the barista to precisely control the pressure, speed and intensity of the extraction. Cross showed us how he was pulling the espresso shots using a bottomless portafilter (no pour spouts). By taking off the spouts, he made it easier to spot any “channeling” through the filter.

Channeling is the phenomenon where water passes through the puck in small “channels” instead of filtering evenly through the coffee. One way to envision channeling is to think of the ground espresso as if it were the soil in a garden. When you water a garden, you want the water to sink evenly into the soil. Otherwise, the water will run together and form a trench (channel) in one part of the garden. The excess water washes the soil away and you lose both water and nutrients when this happens.  

Baristas want the water to evenly pass through all of the ground espresso in order to produce an extraction that pulls out the best flavors inside the coffee. When coffee channels, too much water passes through the grounds too quickly, causing overextraction in that part of the puck. Pulling a shot with a bottomless filter gives the barista a quick visual check on the evenness of the grind and the tamp. He or she can see if the coffee is coming out from one part of the bottom of the filter or if it is coming out evenly.

The new café shares a space with the Schoolhouse Lighting Company, a home décor store that takes used industrial equipment and gives it a new twist, fashioning it into usable home décor. Ristretto’s décor blends seamlessly into the space.

The café seemed isolated from any residential neighborhoods, farther away from houses than cafés usually are. Cross explained that when the building’s developer held an event to celebrate the renovation, Ristretto ran a pourover bar to serve coffee for the event. The developer was impressed, and he encouraged Ristretto’s owners to set up a café there, setting the wheels in motion. Northwest Portland residents should be glad they did.

Is that a card catalog over there under the bench?

Ristretto on Nicolai would make a great stop for coffee if you are in the Northwest area. The space is beautiful and the coffee, some of Portland’s finest. Not everyone who goes in will want to learn about the intricacies of the espresso extraction process, but everyone who visits the newest Ristretto will be able to sit and enjoy great coffee in a beautiful space. 

Vitals
Address: 2181 NW Nicolai, Portland, OR  97210 (map)
Phone: 503-227-2866
Hours: Monday-Friday 6am-6pm
            Saturday 8am-6pm
            Sunday 8am-4pm
Coffee: Ristretto
Wi-Fi? Yes, I believe so.
Recommendations? Ask what’s on grind…
Website: www.ristrettoroasters.com

Searching for the right word at Courier

You know how hard it is to come up with the right word sometimes, either in conversation or in writing? When I read great writers’ work, I am amazed at how well they are able to describe the scenes in their stories.  They make it easy to imagine whatever they are writing about. Settings are as crisp as the sharp crack of breaking glass, and the psychology of the characters burrows into the readers’ consciousness like an earthworm tunneling through soil. The best writers give you just enough description to trigger the images in your mind, without overburdening you with details.

As someone who writes a lot, I read often and try to emulate my favorite writers – Murakami, Asensi, and Hemmingway, for example (if you’re going to do something, you ought to try to do it well, don’t you think?).  I figure that if I aim for the stars, I might at least hit the moon.

One of the challenges of writing is trying to keep the writing fresh. You want to come up with new ways of saying the same thing. Think about it – how many ways has the ‘boy-chases-girl-girl-rejects-boy-boy-doesn’t-quit-until-he-wins-her-heart’ story been told? Thousands? Yes, but each time in a slightly different way.

If you use the same descriptors all the time, you start to be boring and you don’t grow your creativity muscles they way you could. My goal is to write about coffee without saying the same thing every time. In other words, keep it fresh, like good coffee (no apologies for bad puns, though. I like to hear the audience groan once in a while). Here is today’s snippet:

Coffee Cake

Courier Coffee was my destination this morning. They had several coffees available as pourovers, and one single-origin espresso. When I asked about being overpowered by the single-origin’s acidity, the barista assured me that even though it was a washed Ethiopian coffee, it was well-balanced and not overwhelmingly bright (no lemons). He didn’t have to work hard to persuade me to order the espresso.

The first sip entered my mouth and swelled like the ocean before a storm. The tangy flavors began in the center of my mouth but grew until they filled the entire space. In some cases, the syrupy nature of an espresso comes through in the crema, but in this case, the coffee itself was heavy. The espresso’s texture stood out the most. The coffee bathed my entire tongue with a thick, viscous syrup. If it were a piece of clothing, it would have been flannel or denim, not silk or polyester.

The texture and the taste lingered – they coated my mouth as if I had just eaten the richest piece of chocolate cake from the finest bakery, with nothing to wash it down. I thought I could call it cakey, but according to the Urban Dictionary, that’s might not be the best word to use. I guess  I’ll just have to keep searching for the right word…

Some musings to welcome 2012

A new year has arrived! Did you wake up this morning feeling much different than yesterday (and I’m not just talking about a post-party hangover)? For some people, the new year is a time to reflect and make big plans for the year. It’s a chance to start over again with a fresh slate. For me, the calendar changes, but not much else.

Remembrances and Predictions

One year ago today, I posted a review of the Spunky Monkey, one of Portland’s quirkiest and weirdest hippie cafes. I don’t know if the café made it into the upcoming season of Portlandia, but it would certainly fit right in.

The past year was full of news of economic stagnation, natural disasters (especially the major Japanese earthquake), and an Arab spring which captured the world’s attention. We saw the end of several dictators in 2011 (hooray!), but with their demise came uncertainty about what the future holds. Hopefully whatever replaces them will be an improvement.

Most of the world economy is still struggling along and in the US, many people are out of work or working bad jobs just to get by.  Optimistic economists say things are going to get a little better in 2012, but it will be a slow grind upward. Europe is going to have a hard year. The effects of European austerity measures will be on display for all to see.

In the US, 2012 is going to be a busy year. If you haven’t heard there is a presidential election coming up. I predict that Obama narrowly defeats Romney for the presidency, and those in power will continue to avoid making important decisions unless a catastrophe is imminent. Feel free to share your own predictions.

Coffee in PDX

The upcoming year will be a big one for coffee in Portland. For a few days in April, the specialty coffee world will revolve around the Rose City (then again, doesn’t it already?). The SCAA is holding its annual gathering at the Convention Center from April 12-17. Around town, you might see more coffee nerds than usual discussing the finer points of various brewing methods or arguing over which espresso machine has the best technology.   

The US Barista Championship coincides with the convention, so the best of the country’s best baristas will be in town. It will be fun to see how Portland’s finest stack up with the rest of the country. My prediction? One of Portlands’s best (Sam Purvis, Ryan Willbur or Laila Ghambari, perhaps?) will bring home the national championship and go on to represent the US at the World Barista Championship in Vienna, Austria.

Resolve?

I don’t like resolutions that much, but I’m going to make one anyway. First, I want to get back to posting more regularly. The last few months, the number of posts have decreased significantly. I sat down to write the other day and remembered how much I enjoy the writing process, so I want to do more of that this year.

Lately, I’ve been focusing on preparing our next Harada Method course, coming up January 16^th-18^th (there are still slots available). We have reworked the training materials to give them a better flow and make them more professional. My spare time has also been filled with hours of guitar practice. My goal is to have an hour-long show prepared by June 1^st. After that, the onus will be on me to find a place to perform it. The thought of performing makes me nervous, but each day I convince myself a bit more that I can do it. Actually doing it will be a big victory.

Do you have any big plans for the year? Something exciting like traveling around the world or starting a new career project?

Thanks

Over the last year, I met a lot of interesting people and learned a lot about coffee.  It was fun to share these coffee adventures with you. Thanks for reading, and have a great 2012. 

Coffee follies - a moka misadventure

The goal: make some good coffee using a moka pot

The result: a pot full of steam and not much else (story below)

For those who enjoy drinking strong coffee (espresso, anyone?), if you want something stronger than brewed coffee but don’t have the money to spend on a high-quality home espresso machine, the moka pot makes a reasonable substitute. A moka pot is sometimes called a stovetop espresso maker, even though it does not make real espresso. Although it uses steam to brew coffee, the steam is not pressed through the grounds at high enough pressure to emulsify the oils inside the coffee, a key part of the espresso-making process. Nonetheless, the coffee that comes out is very strong, which is how I prefer to drink it.

The apparatus has three parts—a water chamber on the bottom, a coffee carafe on top, and a filter pot where the coffee grounds are held, sandwiched in between. As water from the bottom chamber heats up and boils, steam pushes up through the grounds and brews the coffee, filling the upper part of the coffee maker.

Back when we lived in Boston, we used a moka pot regularly. We weren’t as aware of coffee quality in those days, but we were generally pleased with the coffee it made. Last night, we broke out our new (used) moka pot to see if we could make some good late-evening coffee. It turned out to be harder than it should have been.

Start with good coffee

No matter what method you use to make coffee, the most important thing is to start with is good coffee. We had that. Batdorf and Bronson, a coffee roaster based in Olympia, Washington, just sent me two freshly-roasted coffees to try—a single-origin from Papua New Guinea and also the company’s Holiday Blend. Our plan was to brew some of the Papua New Guinea coffee with the moka pot.

Add water

We looked to Stumptown’s online brewing guide for some tips on how to best use the moka pot. The most important tip was to fill the water chamber with hot water instead of cold. When you do this, the heat from the burner does not cook the grounds before the water gets hot. We were also advised to pull the pot from the heat when the coffee coming out the tower was about the color of honey. That seemed easy enough, so we set to work making the coffee. Shayna ground the beans and filled the carafe with hot water. She set the pot  on the stove (medium heat)with the lid open, so we could watch the coffee as it brewed. If the smell of the fresh grounds was any indication, the coffee was going to be tasty.

Ready to brew

Our gustatory pleasure was not forthcoming, however.

And wait….

As we sat there watching the pot with anticipation, the coffee seemed in no hurry to come out. Since the water was hot when we put it in, the pot should have begun bubbling out coffee pretty quickly. The water did boil (we could hear it gurgling in the chamber beneath the grounds) but nothing happened. No coffee came up the spout.

Maybe it just needs a little more time, we thought. We waited another minute or two to see what would happen. Still nothing.

Maybe it needs just a little more heat. We turned the burner up to high and waited some more. Same result.

Where's the coffee?

Maybe next time

By this time, the kitchen was filling up with the smell of singed coffee, sweet and burnt. The heavy odor nearly pushed us out of the kitchen, and soon we conceded we were not going to get any coffee, pulling the pot off the burner.

Not much there

It took a while to figure out why the pot didn’t work, and I’m still not 100% sure. The spout where the coffee should have come out was worn, but that should not have prevented the coffee from brewing. A little online investigation led us to the conclusion that the seal between the water chamber and the top half of the pot was probably the culprit. Even though it looked okay, it must have been letting steam escape out the sides of the pot instead of pushing up through the grounds.

Evidence of a tired coffee maker. It looks like a lot of coffee has passed through there.

Not to be denied

Thwarted in our effort to make moka coffee but still craving something to sip, we broke out the French press and brewed a batch. The coffee was a bit fruity, with some walnut flavors too. It had a full mouthfeel and was evenly balanced. The flavors were vibrant and it was obvious the coffee was high quality.

While we enjoyed the coffee, it was a shame that we could not try it with the moka pot too. I’ll have to get a new seal and try again.

Our lesson for the evening was that “you get what you pay for.” We had bought the moka pot at Goodwill for a couple dollars and all we got was a couple drips of burned coffee. Oh well, next time…

Humbuggery

People who know me well know that I less than enthusiastic about the holidays, including Christmas. The Grinch and I have quite a bit in common. My take on the season is more Humbug than Merry Christmas.

The thing I dislike the most about this time of year is the orgy of commercialism that the holidays have become. In the news this week there was a report of how there is no one “it” gift this year. Retailers were disappointed that there was not one product that created such irrational demand that customers would line up before stores opened for a shot at the toy or gadget. I suppose that the iPad is the closest thing to a “must have” this year, but it’s too expensive to be a gift for the masses. That’s not good for retailers, but most of the stuff people buy for the season ends up cluttering up a drawer or a closet somewhere anyway. 

Even without the “one thing that everyone must have,” the retailers are still trying. I saw Christmas stuff in the stores before Halloween this year.  That’s crazy. Pretty soon they’re going to start having Christmas sales in July (oh, wait, they already do). It’s nearly as bad as the continual election cycle our politicians have fallen into.

I’m not completely hopeless when it comes to the holidays. There are a few things I enjoy about the holidays, like seeing friends and family.

Sara McLachlan’s Wintersong is another thing I like about the season. The album is my favorite Christmas album of all time. It came out in 2006 when I was working at Starbucks in Boston. We had to listen to nothing but Christmas music for a month. Most of the music the company played nearly drove me nuts, but McLachlan’s music was refreshing. With her breathy, mournful voice, McLachlan gives the music a haunting, dreamlike quality. You can almost feel the snow and the cold coming through the speakers.

Naturally tasty

On a different note, I have had a couple of  natural-processed coffees recently that were quite interesting, at least as espressos. Case Study is currently offering a natural Bourbon (variety) from Finca El Manzano in El Salvador. Actually, they have a suite of the same coffee processed in three different ways—washed, pulp natural, natural—that you can compare side-by-side if you choose. I took the “flight” and tried all three, which set my heart racing. The natural was the most interesting, with flavors of fermented peaches and plums.

The second natural I had was from Extracto, from the Ethiopia Yirgacheffe region. The crema was sweet and smelled like strawberry jam. There was a lot of wine notes in the coffee, as well as some aggressive, tongue-smacking tannins.

In addition to the two single-origin naturals, Public Domain currently has some natural-processed Ethiopia Harrar coffee in its Prometheus espresso blend. The natural adds a lot of sweetness to the blend. Jackson, one of the baristas there, told me that the blend changes pretty regularly and that they are only offering the current blend for  a few more days. If you are interested in trying a natural that is not too wild, getting a taste of it in the Prometheus blend is a good way to go.

It is hard for me to resist ordering naturals when I find them on a café’s menu. The flavors are bold, complex and somewhat unpredictable. While they might not be something that most people could drink every day, naturals are just the thing if you are in the mood for experimenting. If you’ve had any great naturals out there somewhere, let us know!

If not, well…Humbug. Or…Happy Holidays, if you prefer.

Coffeenomics, social responsibility, and CAN coffee (a review)

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Classical economic theory proposes that the sole purpose of a business is to enrich the shareholders of a company. The profits it generates will eventually circulate into the wider economy and improve the material well-being of everyone in the society (the idea that a “rising tide lifts all boats”). The conclusion of this is that focusing on anything other than profits would hurt the value of the company and therefore society.

The theory is controversial, to say the least. In the short term, its implementation ignores many externalities (pollution, labor market instability, etc.) that are detrimental to society as a whole. Another weakness of the theory is that it relies on the belief that money (and what it buys) is the equivalent of satisfaction (utility). Notwithstanding, it is an idea that many people subscribe themselves to. They believe that profits are the only important thing in business, and any discussion of business’ effects on the environment or the rest of society are dismissed as leftist conspiracies to bring down capitalism.

While there are some leftists who do want to get rid of capitalism, there is a wide middle ground between the two viewpoints. More today than ever before, select business leaders realize that taking care of the environment and the people who work for them are important too. In Portland, for example, many coffee companies have taken up the mentality that they want to treat their employees and coffee growers fairly. Portland Roasting is a leader in this area, but is not the only one building stronger links between the coffee growers and coffee drinkers. If you stop in at Stumptown’s Annex, for example, you can learn about several of the growers  who raise coffee for the company. By raising the profile of the growers, roasters can differentiate the coffees more easily and sell them at higher prices.

Whereas Portland is the leader in producing more sustainable coffee, the city’s coffee companies do not hold a monopoly on trying to make the world a better place. Smaller roasters in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Kansas City, Durham and other cities across the country are building a movement that is benefiting coffee drinkers and coffee farmers.

CAN Coffee

One participant in this movement is an organization known as the Community Agroecology Network (CAN), based in Santa Cruz, California. In 2001, CAN was founded by Dr. Stephen Gliessman, a researcher in environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz, and Robbie Jaffie, also a lecturer in environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz. CAN comprises a network of coffee cooperatives that includes communities in four coffee-producing countries—Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua—as well as resources from UC Santa Cruz. The coffee is grown and processed outside the US by the cooperatives then sent to the United States. Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company roasts the coffee once it arrives and CAN sells it under the AgroEco label.

CAN recently sent me a bag of AgroEco coffee for review [note: CAN sent the coffee at no charge, but none of the links are affiliate links]. The coffee arrived at my house in a vacuum-packed bag. It was labeled as a single-origin, light roast from a coffee cooperative in Nicaragua called Union de Cooperativas Augusto Cesar Sandino (also called UCA San Ramón, or UCASR). I looked for a roast date on the package, but could not find one. When I asked Daniel Fuentes, CAN’s Marketing Coordinator, about this, he told me the company roasts in small batches and goes through its inventory in less than two weeks, so when the coffee arrives in the customer’s mailbox, it will have been between one and three weeks since being roasted. CAN will grind the coffee if a customer chooses (but if you care about freshness, why would you do that?).

Fresh out of the French press, the coffee had a sweet aroma, but the sweetness did not dominate the coffee. I picked up hints of unsweetened baker’s cocoa and rose petals in the medium-bodied brew.

The thing that stood out the most to me about CAN’s coffee was its unique label. Most coffee labels trumpet the coffee’s unique flavors, or highlight its story, but the AgroEco label was primarily used to give the facts about the coffee’s sustainability. If you look at it in the picture, you can see what makes the label unique. CAN is very transparent about where the coffee came from, the demographics of the coffee farmers in the cooperative, and the prices that farmers received for the coffee. The cooperative received $3.42/lb for the coffee, significantly higher than the Fair Trade price or the market price for coffee.

How can the farmers be paid a higher price for the coffee and the roaster still make money? One of the ways CAN does this is by cutting out middlemen between the growers and the roaster. Coffee typically passes through several hands before it reaches the consumer, each of which take a cut of the purchase price. In this case, the coffee goes from the coffee cooperative through an importer directly to the roaster, who then sells the roasted coffee to consumers. The more direct supply chain lowers overhead costs, making the coffee more profitable for both producer and roaster.

Though not certified as organic, the coffee from UCASR is grown without pesticides or herbicides. The costs involved with obtaining certification can be too high for some farmers, and the return on the investment does not always pay off. One of CAN’s goals is to help promote farmers who produce their coffee without chemicals, whether or not they obtain the official organic certification.

The coffee from UCA San Ramón is also shade-grown, so instead of clear-cutting forests to grow only coffee, the coffee is grown beneath other trees. Mango, citrus and cacao trees are grown in and around the coffee, providing additional food and income for cooperative members. Thus, the shade-grown coffee helps diversify the farmers’ production risk and increases their food security. Raising coffee this way also provides more habitat for wildlife, especially migratory birds.

CAN shortens the supply chain to provide more benefits to growers

Overall, the quality of the AgroEco coffee was somewhere between Ristretto (perhaps Portland’s best) and Starbucks coffee. If social and environmental issues factor heavily in your coffee-purchasing decisions, AgroEco coffee would be worth checking out. Given the company’s transparency, you can feel confident you are supporting coffee growers and their communities. In a country where the collective spending decisions of consumers shape the direction of both economic and political decisions, choosing which products to carries much responsibility. The choices are yours, make them wisely.

For more information about CAN, visit http://www.canunite.org.