t o n x . o r g

I promised to write some sort of post Burning Man report… Lots of people. Lots of Art. Lots of fun. My old-timer cynicism eventually giving way to camaraderie and mayhem. The pound of Panama Thatcher’s Reserve I brought from Zoka made some fantastic cowboy coffee in camp and neighbor Brokeback Steve and I managed to do some respectable makeshift roasting in between dust storms.

Burning Man as seen by Leo’s camera. Brokeback Steve captures my bad posture roasting coffee on the playa.

A few days after returning from Nevada, it was back to the road - this time to Los Angeles to begin a special coffee project here. Along the way I had the chance to hit up some of my favorite coffee joints, talked shop with with other coffee nerds, and tested the apparently limitless patience of my driver/significant-other Emily (now that I’m in LA, my long, urban adolescence of not having a drivers license is about to come to an end).

Our first stop was Portland where we made the obligatory stop at Stumptown.

At the Stumptown bean annex I got to chat and taste coffees with newly Stumpified ex-Ritual barista extraordinaire Gabe who just relocated to Portland and Stephen Vick, Stumptown’s legendary trainer. The beefy, sweet Kenya and the wild melon-citrus Ethiopia Limu were highlights brewed on the Clover.

The next days drive to Berkeley left us a small window of time to swing over to Santa Rosa to visit good friends Andrew Barnett and a post-Burning Man Steve at Ecco Caffe as they finished an absurdly long roast day. In their weakened, sleep deprived state I was able to pry from them a few pounds of Cup of Excellence coffees which I would later take to munching on in the car as I couldn’t bear the gas station coffee.

Next stop was Berkeley for our rendezvous with my partner-in-crime Kyle Glanville at the legendary Chez Panisse. Kyle had planned this dinner several weeks ago, opting Alice Water’s famous Berkeley institution over Thomas Keller’s French Laundry (which we’d been advised would be underwhelming). Chez Panisse did not disappoint, though I would hold up the overall experience of Seattle favorites Dinette or Sitka & Spruce as being greater (but you should always be wary of taking your high-end restaurant advice from recovering vegetarians).

Friday morning’s coffee mission brought us to San Francisco’s Mission district on a pilgrimage to Ritual, probably one of the busiest coffeebars in North America.

Ritual is a fantastic space and maintains an amazing energy (somehow in spite of its un-part-able sea of laptops). Owners Jeremy and Eileen have a great thing going and it’s only going to get better as their roasting operation kicks in. Jeremy started some warm-up roasting last week on their vintage 5 kilo and the results were promising. Dating to 1918, this is probably the oldest production roaster in use and is a hand-me-down from Stumptown’s Duane Sorenson. It was great chatting with Jeremy and catching up with some old friends and colleagues - a simple coffee shop visit turning quickly into an almost exhausting mini coffee convention.

The coffee scene here in L.A. is quite a bit more subdued, but very big changes are ahead. Stay tuned.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 10th, 2006 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Coffee, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.