t o n x . o r g

Last week I attended a 3 day espresso roasting and blending workshop in Mill Valley, California hosted by Willem Boot and Ken Davids. It shed some light into areas of my craft that have been in the realm of voodoo and offered some guidance for further experimentation and refinement. It was a real privilege to learn from these guys.

I’d had a mental bookmark for some time that if I made it to the Bay Area I would have to check out James Freeman’s Blue Bottle Coffee. He roasts out of a tiny shop in Oakland on a Diedrich IR3, similar to the IR12 we use at Victrola. Freeman is committed to only selling his coffees freshly roasted and roasts with extraordinary skill. Sadly, time Did not permit me visiting their facilities but I did make make an extreme Saturday morning detour to hit their stand at the Berkeley farmers market. I left with 2 great cups and 4 bags of beans.

As I write this I’m drinking more of Blue Bottle’s Bella Donovan “true mokka/java” blend. Absurdly good, and I’m usually not impressed with darker roasts. A blend of 3 african beans was also phenomenal. If you find yourself within a hundred miles of them, its worth a pilgrimage. They can also arrange for your mailman to bring you their beans for a reasonable fee. The Blue Bottle blog is also online to keep the worshipful informed of all happenings.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004 at 8:21 pm and is filed under Coffee, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.