it is absolutely no secret that this year has been my best year in coffee so far. i've visited more coffee producing countries, made more friends and developed as a cupper and gained a better understanding of coffee and the trade all in all.
better, i've been part of training more ehtusiastic and skilled baristas (who often seemingly also are messaristas, but we have 2009 to deal with that). java barista håkon placed 2nd in the norwegian bc, kaffa bought josé ordones' entire production of finca buenos aires when there was no coe first harvest in colombia this year. right now, sr ordones is picking and processing only caturras for us. soon, we'll have new crop from colombia arriving - we bought several micro lots through the las mingas project and all of them are amazing coffees. and in vacuum. yay!
the year of vacuum. during the year, i've had lots of discussions about green storage with roasters, exporters, importers and producers. when visiting boquete in panama, casa ruíz generously hosted a cupping where different storing methods was put on the table. air tight, light tight, vacuum, no vacuum, plastic bins...from that cupping, i am sure that light is just as damaging to greens as air.
the year of the b - word. there's been discussions about what a barista should be, or what people should be called if not baristas. i don't know the answer to that question, but i do know that there's some kind of atlantic gap here where i enjoy the idea of the original use of the word - a bartender in italian. and yes, bartenders do work with espresso in italy. however, they are also bar professionals, making drinks, serving food, hosting. i like it, and i like the word. and i don't like changes, but this time, i don't think the sulution is changing the word, but maybe how the people hired as baristas are perfoming in their job. and i got to be the last 2008 cover girl of barista magazine so maybe i am a barista, too.
happy new year. and peace on earth!
long time, no blogging. but i've been busy! i can just as well be honest about my thing for christmas. i love it! when i was 21 i stopped going "home" to my parents for christmas, and since then i've celebrated in many different ways. the most important thing of all for me during these years; there are no rules! first of all, my favorite christmas preparation is cooking rice porridge for all of the incredible java and mocca baristas, and having them over for a small get-together before christmas. there's also this awful rule about that night, no other songs than christmas songs can be played. so no holiday music allowed until then, and after that - it's a mess...this year, i've also snuggled up with friends and family drinking apple gløgg. the traditional scandinavian gløgg is a version of glühwein, red wine spiced up and served wine (see klaus thomsens brilliant blog post post about danish gløgg). apple gløgg includes your best apple juice with different spices. heat slowly and spice even further with a dash of bourbon before serving. you can choose pretty much any spice you like, but classical christmas spices are cloves, ginger and cinnamon. far better than the red wine gløgg. and better for your head the next day.
next step for christmas preparations is to make sure you have fresh flowers in house, candles, and that you will make more cookies than anyone can ever eat up. favorites are ginger bread in different shapes - and a house of ginger bread. every year, i make a kind of white cookies which is very common up north in norway, they're just really sweet and not spicy at all, but i make them because children and my dad loves them. except from these two versions of traditional cookies (you're supposed to make 7 different kinds if you're a true christmas aficionado, but i can assure you neither of the 7 most common ones are very tasty, just old fashioned). so i've got two traditional down and five more explorative to go while i drink up my apple gløgg. this year i'm making biscotti, sarah bernards, honey cake, chocolate cake and a cake called kransekake.
for the 24th, which is the night for food and gifts here in norway, i've been eating pork all my life. with various company of family and friends and various side dishes. it's very common to have rice porridge early on the 24th, which makes sure you're stuffed the rest of the day anyways. this year, i will be celebrating with my parents who serve: tart shells with sea food. rib of pork with potatoes, sauerkraut, gravy, fresh pineapple and dried fruits. almond ice cream with cloudberries for dessert. same procedure as every year. for the years i spent without my parents and still demanding pork ribs - robert has been thinking a lot about doing a fresher version of the pig. with all that fat you really want some acidity to balance it. by the time we got to the 24th, the pig had been swimming in orange juice, cloves, ginger, chili and garlic. one year, we had only a salad with anchovies on the side. what i think is more important than the food in itself, is to remember to bring the hostess champagne, and for all the grease in pork ribs you really need some nice acidity. this year i have a few bottles left of agrapart blanc des blancs 1996 and at least one is reserved for christmas eve. but for back up i have a riesling from nahe, just in case.
java, mocca and kaffa customers (and even colleagues within the coffee business) have been thinking and wondering about christmas coffee for quite some time now. so i ask them, "what kind of coffee would you like to be your christmas coffee?" i won't start a discussion about that now, because i can not think about any roastery i know of who is still doing holiday blends where the content is various coffees of unknown origins. however, the perfect varietal for christmas is pacamara. we have a spicy guatemala el injerto pacamara (the varietal they took 1st place in cup of excellence this year). nice acidity with lots of sweet citric notes, cloves, milk chocolate. and el salvador finca el porvenir (which was judged to a 3rd place in el salvador coe). intense florals in the aroma, but as for the flavor profile - it tastes a lot like hot chocolate. for now, happy holidays. and peace on earth!
a documentary about fair trade was shown on the state channel last night, and debates will follow tonight. finally. you can watch the documentary in norwegian here.
documentary about tea trade. riot in noruega tonight.
this is a previous post about fair trade i wrote a while ago.
years ago, when part of my coffee fascination was about equipment just as much as the coffee in itself - i purchased a beautiful antique vacuum pot in a thrift shop. i started figuring it out just recently - in lieu with my 50s house wife style cake baking. the design is simple and has been done in countless variations. two glass bulbs placed on top of each other - the upper for ground coffee and the lower for water. in addition, the upper bulb has a rubber valve to keep the grounds where they are supposed to be while brewing and after. as water is starting to boil, the pressure forces the water into the upper bulb - it will stay there with the grounds until the pressure falls by the temperature being lowered. the cooling makes the air contract and this creates a vacuum in the lower bulb. coffee is sucked back into the lower chamber and tada! the lower bulb is full of fresh brewed coffee.
now, that's the easy part. and for me it seems like this might be the perfect way of coffee brewing - no paper, only coffee and water together. let the puzzle begin! i started by using some known parameters for brewing - around 50g per liter of water. however, there is always some water left in the lower chamber that will be mixed with the ready brewed coffee. therefore, some over dosing is necessary - around 60g per liter of water has been a better dosage. yes yes, i've only been using KAFFA coffee, and so far i've been experimenting with a pacamara from el salvador finca el porvenir coe # 3. creamy. milk chocolate. orange blossoms. yum. i use the universal grind i've mentioned before - coarser than what most people think of as appropriate for filter brewing, finer than for a french press. after a while it became obvious that the water should be boiled in a kettle and then used in the vacuum pot - i'm too impatient to wait forever for a small glass flame heating the water slowly. too slow! when the water from the lower chamber is pressured into the coffee in the upper chamber, i turn down the gas. the point is to have enough heat to have the residual water simmering, but you also have to keep the brewing coffee in the upper chamber from boiling. i gently stir the coffee into the water, supervises the temperature for 3,5 to 4 minutes and then turn off the gas. the view of the ready brewed coffee pouring down is creating enthusiasm i've never experienced with any filter method. maybe i'm also excited because so far, the results has been somewhat different from brew to brew - but i'm improving the method for every brew i make and that's why i'm still doing it. never perfect. never done.
baking season already started with extensive comfort cooking going on in my kitchen. we don’t thank or give in norway today. instead, we’re baking: biscotti. actually, i call them clementine biscotti. because i had no orange in house and after all, it’s clementine season. seasonal baking. baking season. important biscotti notes about nuts: i once wanted to make really cool muli coloured biscotti for java – using pecan nuts. i even found lots of biscotti recipes including pecan nuts. don’t do it! they’re too fat and won’t crunch no matter how you treat them. for chic biscotti i give up on green and choose crunchy. late night comfort bakers choose honduras finca portillo coe # 7, pacas to go with tangerine biscotti.
ingredients:
120 g almonds
100 g hazelnuts
150 g butter
250 g sugar
400 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
clementine juice
3 large eggs
1 egg white
200 °C, continue on 180 °C
toast nuts in oven for 15 mins. cool. mix the rest - eggs and nuts in the end. make nice biscotti sausages - sized as desired. let rest for 30 mins somewhere cold. make nice on top using egg white. cook for 40 mins. cut biscotti pieces. place back on tray and cook for 10 more mins. put in your pretty jar. give your friends. have a nice coffee time.
i love these little guys!! it's from little people - a tiny street art project
makes me want to cook. makes me want to laugh. perfect.
hot spot of the norwegian coffee scene this weekend was bergen - west coast. i went to bergen last night to attend the one year anniversary party of kaffemisjonen ("coffee mission"). one year after the original mission opened, they are now 4 coffee shops known under various names - misjonen, edvard, boksen and bryggen. since my stop over was so quick, i have to admit i spent sunday afternoon cupping at the first store and did not see any of the other hot spots in day light. well, just another reason for going back as soon as possible.
besides coffee, i also got the chance to check out supposedly norway's first gastro pub - amongst the bergen crew, this international trend of gastronomy is conquering down town bergen right now. i have to admit the single most impressive thing about the place was the wine list and in addition, a framed chef's jacket with metallica autographs. they went there this summer for pizza. i had coalfish with leek, potatoes and bacon. my fish was delicious and maybe even perfect, but as i was eating my way through the dish i became more and more impatient about the bacon part. in my opinion, everything that's a gastronomical success should contain at least some bacon. cold potatoes did not help in direction of placing "jacobs" - the first gastro pub of norway - on my "to-do" list for your next visit in bergen. after asking about the bacon and potatoes, i had one bowl of panchetta and hot mashed potatoes, but that was after finishing the fish. it's like that when you go to gastro pubs. rough.
as usual, being around the kaffemisjonen staff was lots of fun. they are just about the youngest, most knowledgeable and ass kicking team of coffee people in the country. the party was great - and KAFFAs roaster mr b had apparently a fan club of his own on the west coast. after nagging about coffee all night we finally had a midnight cup of filter brewed panama esmeralda geisha lot # 8. after substantial amounts of nv champagne it was a perfect match!
i just landed in oslo - however, my head is apparently still traveling in coffee, i've dreamt about coffee descriptions the last few days - including on the plane. after the award ceremony friday night the following days were spent visiting coffee farms around carmo and pocos in mina gerais and even a few flights of nice coffees were cupped. also, a nice sunday afternoon brunch with new and old coffee friends took place in sao paulo before we all took off. i feel exhausted after traveling, yet very happy about the trip all in all. or to quote andrew barnett: "has everyone been nice to you today?". the answer is "yes! more than i could ever hope for". people have been generous and kind - spending their time with us, asking about coffee and taking care of us at all times.
about the winning coffees - lots of good coffees from carmo de minas (yellow bourbon) in minas gerais. the winning farm, faenda kaquend and third place winner fazenda tijuco preto were my over all favorites. also the coffee that was tide for third place, submitted by fazenda rainha near the city sao sebastiao da grama in sao paulo region (yellow bourbon as well) came out sweet, full bodied with elegant and clear acitidy. for brasil, all of these farms are relatively high, around 1300 masl. what i also found interesting, was that we saw (and tasted) a few impeccably processed naturals. however, most of them cupped really fresh and needs more resting (none of the coffees that went past the pre-selection done by the national jury were naturals).
the coffees were amazing, however only 100 farms submitted coffees to the pre-selection this year. something that needs discussion, regarding the fact that brasil is the biggest producing coffee nation in the world. we spent hours and hours driving through farms, they were huge!
i'll get back to the coffees later - for now i just have to announce that being in brasil and eating is how i suppose it was like being in the 70s (where i never went, btw). buffets, fried stuff...
traveling to coe means lots of cupping - standing still by cupping tables many hours per day in deep concentration and the rest of the time, it's fried food and other food. coca cola. cerveza. i feel stuffed. filled with buffet food from the 70s.
i didn't take any pictures yet, so i stole this from whorange.net which is a really cool site about designs. it's supposed to be cup of excellence judges riding a bus (and the dangers we meet on the road). because there's always a lot of bus riding going on. here in brasil, the coffee excellence centre where we do all the cupping is a bus ride away from machado where we're staying throughout the week. located in mina gerais, machado is about 4 hours north of sao paulo by car. we just finished cupping - day one is always about calibrating the judges. i think the necessity of spending a day calibrating can be discussed, however, it was obvious that everyone was excited to be in brasil for coffee. after the last calibration round, an optional naturals cupping was on the program. only a few judges preferred to go back to the hotel in machado. the rest seemed to be thrilled about slurping some more into the afternoon.
calibrating the judges can be done in many ways - today we cupped the same table three times, evaluating after the first round, then the same order over again with no evaluation. the last flight was in revised order - in that way we are able to see how consistent we are as cuppers. it's exciting and interesting, and everyone seems pretty curious about how the others are calibrated. i love being able to spend a day of calibration - it's something i can never do at home. besides, i like feeling the group dynamics and i learned a few things already about how people perceive the score sheet. in my opinion, average coffees should not be scored 84 or above. that's for excellent coffees (and it IS entry level for coe)! but then again, being a cupper is realizing there are no right or wrong answers. just a lot of really good coffes that we have yet to taste.
i'm about to take off to brasil for the cup of excellence (coe) jury - although work is piling up faster than i can take it away, it seems like i can actually leave with no breathing problems ahead for the next week or so. just aspirating that coffee. i even sent off my spanish homework to my tutor - juan - so he can use that ridiculous red pen he is tagging down my books with.
as i am about to leave, i started wondering what other jurors are doing before leaving their home - for me it's normally a lot to take care off work wise, and then i leave the house just taking care of necessities. like, turning off the gas. i don't pack until the last minute before i go to bed the night before - most flights leave at 630am to amsterdam or charles de gaulle where i am taking off from most often when traveling. at that insanely early hour i have to get out of bed i am so tired i feel almost feverish. but: this time, i am not leaving until sunday - the travel will be a snap: oslo - amsteram - sao paulo. and it's saturday - i'm off work except a few small things. therefore, whatever i'm doing to make the house and myself look nice, i need to do it asap - starting...now! robert is in indonesia, and what is not better than coming home to a clean and fresh house? first thing will be to do some fall work in the garden for a few hours, then i hope to see my mom for a late lunch. after, i want to clean that nasty bathroom sink and i need to get my hideous legs ready to see daylight again after months of hiding under panty hoses. and scented candle, i need to bring a scented candle for hotel room nights - i want it to smell home-ish (and i'm a candle addict). i LOVE my work and being able to do coffee things with coffee colleagues, but i'm really not that crazy about fabric smelling, dense hotel rooms that are too hot or too cold or just in general too gross. my worst (and at the same time most exciting) memory is from putting my feet on the floor after a too short and too gekko-fear-filled night in el salvador - only for realizing "hey, it's water". and then: "it's water - from the toilet". yikes! would be easier if i was a guy, right?
serving as a coe judge can be intensive - there are most often things going on at night and day, clock round all the week. in addition, i suppose i'm not the only one that have emails coming in, phones ringing - so a lot of work needs to be taken care of for home as well. i hope i will be online, i hope i can receive phone calls, but you never know before you actually get there. ok. piles of leaves in the garden are waiting for me.
recently, my flickr account was deleted, and i now have a new flickr account name: mieh1. i'm the one with no contacts yet.
one of my favorite things about being in coffee – working in “specialty coffee” - is that i always, at every season, every year, over and over again have this excited feeling about being at the beginning of the beginning. something is about to happen. friday night text message from friend out traveling ticked in with a question about what coffee to choose after a magnificent, outstanding dining experience. the choice was between "india mysore" or "kona coffee". um. well. at least it was a choice, and again i was thinking "something is about to happen".
let me go back a few weeks when husband and i visited nyc. we had delicious cappuccinos at gimme!. coffee brewed a la minute on clovers at café grumpy and el beit. and brown water at pretty much every restaurant visited. i started sympathize with all those people i’ve encountered over the years that claim they simply “don’t like coffee”. so there i am, in the world’s best city, paying hundreds of dollars for delicious food and 10$ for a cup of coffee – turns out it’s dish water. don’t think i’m trying to label nyc, this is also status quo in oslo and everywhere else in norway. the second largest coffee consuming country per capita after our eastern neighbors finland. seriously, i’ve never met anyone working in food or wine around the cupping table that couldn’t taste the difference. KAFFA is hosting public cuppings every morning during the week. i know i’m sort of lame on showing up on things myself, but if there was a regular wine tasting every day i’m sure people would show up even if they didn’t “care for the style” (yes, i once had someone working in wine entering one of our public cuppings, claiming he only liked “good coffee” and therefore refused to cup our coffees, but that’s a completely different story. at least he had a stand point in this matter).
so, i’m sure people notice the difference, and they are not forced into buying the (good) stuff, but still, most cuppings are done with baristas and only baristas. people working in food / wine obviously have the palate to detect the difference between a cup of any industrial blend and a specialty coffee. defining specialty coffee like erna knutsen coined the term in 1974: "to describe beans of outstanding flavor produced by special microclimates".
let’s leave the training required for making espresso out of the discussion this time. i would be satisfied with no choice for espresso / espresso based drinks available, just a clean, delicious cup of chemex, french press or filter brewed coffee. restaurants quite frequently uses french press, for example, why do they put horrible coffee in it? i’m not talking about coffee that was roasted into something I don’t care particularly much about, or processed in a way i’m not fond of for that specific coffee. i’m talking about coffee they bought from where they buy their candles, napkins or whatever. i know that a restaurateur can be quite price sensitive, but i’m sure the difference of a few dollars per cup of coffee is something customers aren’t that reluctant to spend after spending hundreds on food and wine. especially if they are served that coffee with the same knowledge about the differences between minas gerais and bahia as their sommelier showed when explaining the differences in burgundy terroir between côte de beaune from côte de nuits. specialty roasters seems to care a lot about sourcing coffees, so there is a lot of information available regarding where the coffee came from, what’s special about that region etc.
of course, there are many exceptions. and lots of things can also be said about pairing coffees with desserts. a sweet dessert with lots of fat will bring out the brighter notes in a coffee that you thought of as dark and savory. paired with extreme sweetness, you will have to think about that coffee in another way. a long discussion for another time. so for now, that excited feeling of being at the beginning of the beginning is still there.
most mornings, all my life, i've chosen earl grey tea for breakfast. it has probably something to do with my upbringing. i was raised served tea at the most awkward times. i previously wrote about my dad's (and he's the one making all the food in the family) obsession about spaghetti to pretty much any dish. in addition to potatoes. well. he has the same idea about tea. it all comes from his family: serving earl grey tea for breakfast. ok, makes sense. serving earl grey tea for lunch. normal as well. serving earl grey tea for different dinner dishes: traditional norwegian meat balls, shrimps and any dish including eggs. only for true enthusiasts. therefore, i've always preferred tea for my breakfast. and until recently, instead of white wine accompanying sea food. but now, i can never trade a good riesling for earl grey. i do them both.
i'm not one of those people who can skip breakfast and rush into the nearest coffee shop (that being JAVA) to have my morning coffee and no food. not most mornings, at least. instead, i have fresh bread, candles and newspapers by our kitchen table. and, now i can surprise my husband with a freshly brewed cup of java bedside. ahwwww. because his moka pot is my new fling!
actually, he was the one starting it, this whole moka pot thing. he's been the grind - and brewmaster in our home for all these years. and we most often only had coffee at night, except saturdays and sundays where i have chocolate after breakfast and need some good coffee. but lately, our daily routine has changed dramatically, because of the moka pot. robert has for as long as i can remember always been advocating coarser grinds. and universal grinds. sort of developed our own house brewing style with a universal grind for all brewing methods, except french press which we never use anyways. methods frequently used for brewing are: melitta, chemex, aero press and now proudly introducing the moka pot. so simple and fast even your impatient wife can make it:
grind your small amount of coffee. use a grind a littlebit coarser than what you normally would consider a filter grind, like raw sugar or similar to what you would use for cuppings. grounds should not clamp or form too well when squeezed. boil water in a kettle. use the boiled water in your moka pot, and turn on the gas. wa-wa-woom: less than two minutes after putting on the water boiler, i have a freshly brewed cuppa!
"gjør fremtidens merkesak til en vanesak" in norwegian can be translated to something similar to "making the future's labeling issue into a choice of habit"...or something. doesn't rhyme in english, but...this is what norwegians can see on giant posters and in magazine ads all over the country right now, it's a governmental supported campaign that will go on for about a month. celebrities are advocating the importance of making the right choice, advocating the importance of certifications.
so, friday morning after viewing the campaign on several posters walking over to MOCCA and KAFFAbutikk from JAVA, i tried to get a little bit deeper in the shit, googling fair trade (FT) in norway. i even met a political advisor for the government (supporting the campaign) at bar JAVA last night who i got to discuss this fascinating subject with briefly. respect & thank you to my new friend jørund. what i found of particular interest googling the subject, was that fair trade is something businesses mention quite frequently, and consumers seems to be obsessing about right now. the discussion board of the campaign’s web site is full of questions about where these fine commodities can be bought. oh my, what did i get myself started with and why don't i like it particularly much?
over the years, many, many customers have asked me about fair trade. why we don’t do FT coffees. working on the slow food event in the us, i became aware of the fact that there is some kind of “atlantic gap” here, but also in norway, consumers are more and more aware of and willing to discuss the issue of fair trade certifications. the fact is, that for instance some of the ethiopia / kenya coffees we’ve been buying are fair trade certified. organic hooray. you name it. but KAFFA never label the coffees with certifications – and we don’t say direct trade either. this is certainly not something only caused by the atlantic gap i mentioned ealier, there are enough roasteries doing this kind of labeling here.
in fact, i think i've concluded my part so far. most often my problem (read about my husband describing me "stubborn as a goat" in a previous post). fair trade isn’t good enough. it’s not good enough for the farmers, and it’s not good enough for businesses or consumers. i know i’m stepping on people’s toes here, but so be it. isn’t the only fair thing to pay farmers the right price to do an amazing job with what they grow? i'm in coffee solely for the sake of coffee. doing healthy business is just what it takes.
so, what is the right price? i used to study economy – and one of my favorite part was microeconomics and game theory. pricing, while not rocket science, is pretty important and deserves a lot more attention than many people give it, especially in an industry based on a commodity most often known for being extremely fragile for the market's response for pricing.
for those who didn't hear about that, world trade organization (WTO)'s important doha round was a lot about farm subsidies. as far as i am concerned, FT doesn't diverse too much from subsidies. paying a tiny bit of money (i don't know the current premium, but it's a matter of cents per pound / ca 450g) above the market price, doesn't allow for anything but even more overproduction. current producers are producing more coffee from higher yielding varietals - like the colombiana case in colombia, of lower cup quality - and new producers enters the market on these premises. again, leading to over production and lower prices in the marketplace. and a tiny premium to the producers joining cooperatives who are FT certified.
my last point is a bit vague, although i'm working on it. it is my firm belief after meeting many coffee producers, that joining cooperatives will only limit their opportunities since they will never be able to reach a niche in the marketplace. in coffee, FT is based on political assumptions about how to organize labour. since this certification is only available not to a single farm, but only to coops, coffee that most specialty coffee roasters are buying from i.e. central america won't be FT certified. from the producers perspective, one can be forced into putting your coffee into a coop instead of trying to hit a market niche of roasters.
a niche where it's all about traceability and transparency. where even a commodity like coffee has it's history. this is our (KAFFA's) first season where our labeling of the coffees highlight the varietal. instead of being tricked into believing you, as a consumer, are doing FAIR TRADE, you can actually make a difference. know your roaster. buy your coffee from someone that's doing real business. when i see a FT coffee in the shelves in the supermarket, and i know that the price difference between that coffee (green) and the other coffees displayed are just a few cents, it's strange that they are sold for such a high price from the (industrialized) roaster. take those few cents, times 10 or there about to find what norwegian consumers think the premium they are paying is. fair trade isn’t good enough. so easy to say, so hard to change consumer's minds.
picture: (morenitos, thanks to my friend chris davidson for this awesome pic)
the first time i visited nyc back in 2002 nothing much was going on in coffee in the city. i mean, we spent a lot of time trying to find the mud truck - a nyc classic. found it, and didn't care so much for it. really, doing coffee out of a truck you need to be on your toes as a barista. java was for three months just a cart out in the park back in 2004 when java was rebuilt and doubled in size, so we've tried the cart life. since 2002 i've been able to come back to nyc a few times, and it's such a different (coffee) world now.
i met lots of coffee friends and had nice coffee times. it seems a bit extreme for me to squeeze in as much as 21 grams of espresso in a filter and serve it as a "triple ristretto" - but then again, what is espresso really?
from the hard core coffee nerds at gimme! coffee, cafe grumpy and 9th street espresso a few newcomers has also made their way into nyc and are doing a very good job with coffee. i especially liked the el beit in williamsburg. we also did a training at fika - a swedish espresso bar just about to open its 2nd location at park av and 28th after running its first for a few years already. that's more like what i think about coffee in nyc in general - fika is using coffee roasted by löfberg's back in sweden and it's shipped there about once or twice a month. so, it's swedish all right. remember, löfberg is the coffee you can bring home from ikea, so you are welcome to check it out. robert always insists on doing cupping sessions with trainings, which makes a lot of sense. on the table was their "brewing coffee" (a löfberg designed blend of guatemala, brasil and kenya), stumptown roasted sumastra mandheling and kaffa roasted panama hacienda esmeralda 'special' lot # 8. it's always very interesting to cup with people who's never cupped before. they liked the löfberg blend best. ooops.
nyc in general was serving me a lot of really nice shots, with milk and without milk. a lot of people seems to be thinking about roasting there in the near future. yes, you've heard it before. stumptown is setting up a roastery in red hook to serve their accounts as well as their café in the ace hotel - soon to be opened. grumpy will roast their own coffee. i bumped into andrew barnett of ecco a few times and he's definitely looking for a retail / roasting space. etc. etc. thinking about it, gimme! is actually the only place roasting their own coffees right now.
yesterday, i celebrated potato day! early morning, a text message ticked in from food writer and friend andreas, who invited us for potato tastings and all kinds of potato fun at the potato day celebration that supposedly was taking place in oslo that day.
walking around oslo sunday morning, i was resembled with a goat by my dear better half. robert explained to me how it "really makes a lot of sense" to do so - i eat everything, i am mostly happy but incredibly stubborn. all of this, because i was trying my hardest to focus on finding our way to a potato tasting in time. and i was nowhere near convinced he actually knew the way better than myself. who never went to that particular place before. but robert knows his way around oslo, and we actually made it.
the other part of the context is that the UN has named 2008 for international year of the potato. oh yes. potato events are organized all over the world, and this weekend it was oslo's turn to celebrate and be educated about this product. the fact is, that every year for generations has been the year of the potato in norway. in my family, for instance, it is eaten pretty much 365 days a year. to be noted: not instead of, but along with spaghetti. it has been like that since the spaghetti was cooked by my great grandmother along with cloudberry jam, potato and pretty much any kind of game. also for preserved fish dishes, as fish pudding. yum. but who knew that this event would showcase more than 100 potato varietals? we could also cheer in the semi finals before the norwegian potato peeling championship next weekend or attend potato tastings. a selection of potato varietals made up a flight with about 20 different to taste - boiled to perfection and served with salt. from the sweet and mellom "beate" to the almost acidic and stringent "blue congolese". most varietals had too difficult names to remember, there were princesses ("cinderella", "anastacia") and other nobleness ("lady claire", "lady felicia") and old classics ("kerrs pink") and many more.
we also got to discuss potato farming with simen volden who along with his wife grows around 200 different varietals of potatoes. unfortunately, as far as i could understand, there is no market for these varietals here - and they are therefore not sold outside the farm. celebrating or not.
this year, we have so much coffee from panama, or should i say boquete, that we really need to have a panama festival. boquete is situated up north in the tiny country. panama is pretty much right on the equator, and boquete is nestled into a craggy mountain valley a short hour drive north from david - the nearest airport. kaffa bought coffees from different farms, different varietals (three geisha lots from two different farms...) and different processing methods used on these coffees.
the mountain range that is right by boquete, is separating the atlantic ocean climate from the pacific. since boquete is situated on the pacific side, but right under these mountains, all the cool climate comes in and is creating unique micro climates from farm to farm. from a coffee buyers' perspective, it makes sense then to have different farms and different processing methods for different varietals represented.
kaffa is currently buying:
PANAMA hacienda Esmeralda, geisha special lot # 8 + # 9 (aqua pulped)
PANAMA estate Don Pepe, caturra (aqua pulped)
PANAMA estate Don Pepe, caturra (honey)
PANAMA estate Mama Cata, caturra (aqua pulped)
PANAMA estate Mama Cata, geisha (honey)
i'm really hoping for us to sometime in the future be real "boquetenos", but that's a different discussion. for now, i still live on price peterson calling me a princess (without me telling him to do so...).
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so, almost everyone's newest fling in coffee seems to be the operation cherry red project in ethiopia. the project in itself is pretty self explaining - picking only the ripe cherries makes cleaner, riper and more complete cups of coffee in the end. KAFFA has these days our first new crop arrivals directly from ethiopia in stores - and all of them are labeled OCR - washed and sun dried ("natural"). cupping the first production roast this morning really convinced me that the cleanliness of these coffees must be referred to as exceptional.
the project was started with 1 million euro funded by the dutch government and the eu and the project was initiated by dutch coffee trader and ethiopia specialist menno sims and his trading company trabocca in cooperation with their customers. the money has been invested in various parts of the coffee processing and trading operations in the coffee growing regions yirgacheffe, sidamo and limu. robert and i cupped with menno in amsterdam in april, and he explained back then that there are several goals about these project. over all, it is all aiming at improving the cup quality, but it's also about developing an understanding for what this means amongst the people in coffee. if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. if you teach him how to fish, he will have food for life. um. still with me?
firstly, it's about investing in new, environmentally friendly machinery - pulping machines, dry-hullers, graders, drying tables etc. secondly, it's hiring acknowledged experts like agronomists and cupping trainers. this is to pass on and develop the local expertise amongst the growers and in that way also be sustainable. trabocca is also working on the packaging of greens (as most exporters are these days) - vacuum or similar and in addition they are supporting local administration - management, banking and documentation is all done from origin.
and as always - it makes a lot of sense to pay more money for more carefully picked and sustainable processed coffee when this comes through so clean and complete at the cupping table.
september started with a visit to coffee friends and colleagues in san francisco, california, the americas. i was volunteering at the slow food nation event as a taste captain, but also spent time cupping, sample roasting, hanging out in parks and in coffee shops for the entire week before the event. actually, when i think about it, i spent about five days up and down valencia street between the beautiful new-opened fourbarrel and the not-so-new-but-still-a-classic ritual coffee roasters. and tartine. and bi-rite. and dolores park. more about that another time.
being a taste captain can be compared to what i do for whole sale accounts, coffee shop customers and baristas every day. i talk about coffee. and it really felt like the people that showed up for the tastings (and yes, there were lines...) really liked to hear about the origins. how the coffee was harvested and processed, elevation of the farm, micro climatic conditions, varietals etc. after doing taste flights for five hours straight, i was sick and tired of hearing my own voice and realized i elegantly leaped over focal points - as pointing out the country where the coffee was produced, but got straight into bourbon varietal history. um. time for a beer and some charcutrie, then. the food event in itself was almost too huge for me to digest. not literally, i have a big belly. pavilions with coffee, tea, bread, fish, charcutrie, pizza, beer, wine, ice cream. yum.
it is impossible to talk about coffee events without thinking about the people behind it. andrew barnett of ecco caffe, eileen hassi of ritual coffee roasters and tonx of tonx.org was co-curating the coffee pavilion, and brent fortune did an amazing job organizing all the volunteers. i don't know how many volunteers he was juggling around, but he did quite an impression on me with his google spreadsheets and strict dress code. i had the cutest and nicest runners that did dishes all day long, brought ceviche and i was constantly inspired by the extremely knowledgeable peter giuliano from counter culture coffee and all my other co-captains and all the baristas working on machines pulling shots of the same coffees. oh my.
before going to california i heard so much about verve coffee roasters in santa cruz (totally into naturals from central america...). i was thrilled to be able to do a tiny road trip with a few friends down to santa cruz monday after the show. i could almost not wait to have my face melted (they supposedly call their espresso for a face melter)! stopping by tartine in the mission /sf for a early morning bun and bread pudding before taking off and then down south. their roasting operation looked neat, and their cafe is situated in the neighboring building. one of the owners told me they looked into the design of java and mocca before designing the space. well, if so, i'm honored, their space was beautiful and the baristas totally melted my face!
