mie

i'm heading out of oslo for a while, or actually almost the entire month of march. it's my month off work, and i've dedicated it to coffee. no surprise. first, i'm quitting my job in managing java and mocca for now, it's been many fantastic years, but i am no longer managing the stores from day-to-day (actually, i haven't been for a while), and it's such a bliss to have two of my favorite baristas taking over the responsibilities from day to day.

to celebrate life and enjoy each other's company, the entire java / mocca / kaffa crew is closing the stores early on saturday and taking into the woods outside of oslo for a sleep over in a cabin we've rented. wildlife, here we come...robert, mr b, rune and myself are going there as soon as we can tomorrow after work to have some male bonding and family time with just the kaffa crew, and then, everyone is arriving at some point during saturday. it's about one hour skiing from the tram, so it'll be fun seeing everyone arrive...i'll post some photos, promise!

back from the woods, i'll be home for one night and early next morning i'm taking off to portland to enjoy the usbc. ten days of non-stop vacation, can't wait to have my morning coffee somewhere not java. the end of the month will be spent in el salvador with my friends at the consejo for the coe prenational jury and hopefully some cerveza and ceviche as well. sonia promised to take me to the beach. yay. we've started to cup ethiopians a while ago and i'm excited about a washed one in particular - thus waiting for someone to explain me the about the availability of coffees through the new system.

she's only 18 and often named on my flickr as "oda almighty" - yesterday she became the new norwegian barista champion! she started first of the six finalists saturday morning at 10am - after a very impressive performance, the next 12 hours was a long wait for the new champ. her espresso was the esmeralda geisha from panama, roasted by bjørnar at KAFFA - all the top four contestants used KAFFA coffee, which we are very excited about. both oda, håkon who placed second and rasmus placed as number four works at kaffemisjonen in bergen. number three was jannicke from MOCCA - congratulations to all! i also have to mention that håkon is 22, jannicke 19 - almost a new generation of baristas finding their way into the norwegian specialty coffee scene.

today, i had five production roasted "las mingas" coffees on the cupping table. like christmas and birthday in one hour of cupping. perhaps because of all the work getting to those exact five coffees (we bought 14 micro lots all together). all of them are from nariño - la union, and i will post cupping notes on kaffa.no later today.

it's also the week of the norwegian barista championship, and i am really looking forward to it - hopefully we will see the future of specialty coffee perform in the bc. kaffa was generously invited to a cupping with wendeltim, but mr b is bound for that spot. fortunately, i think there will be lots of cuppings going on where the competition is held at because most of the roasteries in norway will be present. the bc will be hosted by the norwegian culinary academy, and they will even be represented with one of their sommeliéres as a sensory judge during the competition.

all kinds of people are expected to show up in oslo this week, and i'm of course very excited. in particular, i have high expectations about the crew from "kaffemisjonen" in bergen participating in the bc. my old colleague from java, håkon, placed 2nd in the bc last year and rasmus won the cup tasting competition. last year, everything was about naturals from ethiopia, so i'm curious what the hype of the year is for 2009. i have some geisha plans for the cupping table tomorrow morning, and mocca barista jannicke will be using the esmeralda for all her drinks - i can not describe the exerience in any other way than saying it's like someone is trying to make espresso out of earl grey tea. so, tomorrow morning, we will try to decide what roast she will be using. i wrote rachel peterson of esmeralda because we had some questions about how they decided the lot # at esmeralda, and she answered so thuroughly and quickly, i decided i need to work harder to answer all my emails in the future to follow her excellent example.

i just realized this might be my last proper dinner in a week, so i'm going to make some spaghetti with meat balls. tomorrow, team KAFFA will be out and about with the zoka crew. yay.

our manager and barista trainer kaveh left java one week ago to pursue a career in politics, so i started training our newest staff memeber a few days ago. along the way, i've forgotten how much fun it is pulling shots and how glorious and fantastic the customers are at java. some of them are even glamorous.

so, right now, i'm very focused on details including exiting subjects like cleaning, napkin policies and coffee logistics. even though this also means working 7 days a week, i spent an hour or so this morning walking around the neighbourhood looking for treasures. even though i didn't have much money to spend, i wanted to treat myself with something nice. my bargains were: thriftstore finds: piano notes: debussy "the cake walk" (or petit negre, which was the original title) and a biography of norwegian crown princess märtha who died in the early 1950s. so early, so sad. glamorous, and that was exactly what i needed. by the way, i'm a biography addict, and was in serious doubt whether antoher book should be purchased instead, about the soccer player ole gunnar solskjær. it's called "æ" ("I"). i browsed through some pages where ole gunnar was talking about the love of his life (his wife...) and soccer business in the early 1990s. kindof hoping it will be there when i'm done with märtha. he obviously knows something about life i don't. then, i headed into the hardware store, they had advertised cheap kitchen scales - i really wanted one for our kitchen at home. so i will be entertained the entire weekend for the ridiculously low cost of only 20$. then, pulling shots at java and sweeping the side walk. it's snowing and snowing, never seen anything like it in oslo.

the baristas at java had already decided to promote a washed ethiopia sidamo from adem bedane, processed at kombo, one of the operation cherry red coffees. it was on one of the grinders, like eating lemon candy. yum.

i'm sick and in bed, not even bored, because i'm so troubled with espresso thoughts. existensialism. i wish i had my flower panties to make me feel better...why are we blending for espresso ? this was the focal point in a presentation i did for one of the whole sale accounts this week. before i got sick. i tried to do some internet research, but nothing. i mean, there's a lot about espresso that's sort of "entry level" knowledge, but i really wanted to see some cupping notes where comparative tastings were done meticulously. some kind of methodology for explaining espresso flavor according to aromas, mouthfeel and balance (acidity / sweetness).

espresso is not a coffee, a blend or a roast. espresso is one interpretation of coffee brewing - and one common interpretation of what coffee should be used is to blend different components to make a fuller palate.

it was interesting to plan cuppings in order to make baristas able to decide what kind of style they preferred for espresso by experiencing how flavors changes with different brewing methods. typically, one of kaffa's blends is a pulped natural from brazil, a semi-washed indonesian coffee, a washed kenya and a natural from ethiopia. which clearly is one of the most successful versions of caffe tenore ever presented, like a berry basket. but then again, somewhat weird with milk. for caffe tenore i recommend a decent espresso con panna, nothing less.

i think it is interesting how roasteries view their blends. typically in oslo these days, "state-of-the-art" coffee shops would have at least two grinders with one so option. it was strange browsing through all those web pages, but no one really explained why they were blending in the first place. how amazing it is that blends would change according to what coffees that are available - since more and more roasteries are open about the components of their blends. and last, but not least, the roasting of blends. how are they roasted and why ? what in particular does a darker roast take out compared to a lighter roast ? i swear, i've had customers that i've known for ten years asking me about coffee from france, when they really wanted to ask about french roast (which is not how we talk about roasting, but it's a big thing in oslo). the biggest chain in oslo's special blend is a 3/4 italian and 1/4 french roast. that's all.

all in all, there's a lot of fuzz about how amazing the components are, but not so much focus on how they change when espresso brewed vs filter brewed or cupped. give it to me.

i spent some time this week trying to figure out accurate measures for french press brewing. i would be straight out lying if i said that sailing season is coming up soon here in norway. nevertheless, KAFFAs roast master mr b just volunteered to crew this summer on the biggest over night regatta in the world with robert and myself. so far in life, that's about the only time a year i actually delve into french press brewing and the best thing i can say, is that it's freshly brewed coffee. we race. our boat is made for racing. there's no pantry so the only hot meals we can make is what we mix with boiling water while tacking down the oslo fjord. and with the entire quality control - and roasting department of KAFFA supervising, i want to make good coffee times on board. the other reason i'm interested in the fine arts of french press brewing is that i'm obsessing with the paper tainted flavour all filter brewing methods are adding. but the sailing story seemed more fun.

trying to figure out french press, i've watched youtube videos and read about different techniques. after my visits on the west coast in the us of a i am tired of the conundrum : filter brewed awful coffee or top quality coffee french press brewed. my norwegian palate being used to the cleanliness of a filter brew, the french press technique most often used is as far as i've seen "old style" - resulting in a particular unclean mouthfeel and sediments sitting forever and ever adding bitterness and all the coffee oils on the walls of your stolen ritual mug while you eat your bread pudding at tartine. james hoffman, tim wendelboe and other nerds had long discussions about different techniques on their blogs - skimming and / or breaking and then pressing on their blogs and coffeed.

i was pleased to discover how the skimming took away bitterness and the not-so-pleasant mouthfeel. i've also had good luck in pouring water, letting it sit for a minute, stirring and then leave with a lid for three more minutes before skimming (not breaking) and pressing. so today, i spent some time in KAFFAbutikk serving french press brewed guatemala el injerto, pacamara and i even sold a few more bags of coffee. the french press is my newest coffee friend.

during my 10th year in oslo, i have felt that oslove several times: watching the city from the fjord on a quiet summer night after a late swim, and yesterday afternoon: skiing in a winter wonderland. bliss!