I love my job
Chad and I roast some beans. photo by Boyman.
Coffee is a cultural conundrum. The coffee bean ranks second in global trade, right behind oil. It is consumed daily by more than half of the adult population of the U.S. and is even more popular in Europe. Millions of lives are bound up in the coffee economy. Yet few people have much idea of what coffee is or what goes into an enjoyable cup. Most strangely, it is rare to encounter someone with both a love for and knowledge of coffee who is not already working in the coffee industry, unlike for instance fine wine which has a hundredfold more connoisseurs than producers.
So when coffee geeks get in a room together the topic rarely drifts away from coffee. Our non-coffee friends have probably all burned out on our nerdly ramblings, but amongst ourselves the torrent of coffee-speak is endless.
So it was both exhilarating and exhausting when the US Barista Championship arrived in Seattle last weekend bringing with it a horde of out of town coffee folks. I had just barely started to wind down the mental gears of a heady weekend of geekery, when Blue Bottle Coffee’s resident blogging barista Boyman made a field trip to Victrola bringing with him some great beans and providing an excuse for more cafe crawling. This week also brought beautiful samples of artisan espresso from our friends at Doma in Idaho and some green coffee samples from Rwanda that we are very excited about.
But all of this is the calm before the coffee storm. In mid April, the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) is having its big annual conference here in Seattle, as well as hosting the World Barista Championships. There will be little time for rest as I’ll be attending seminars, geeking out with dozens of my peers, party hopping (coffee people know how to throw down), cupping coffees, and playing tour guide to the Victrola roasting operation. The line between “hard-work” and “fun” has become blurred. I’ll endeavor to report from the trenches.
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March 21st, 2005 at 12:06 pm
tonx, you are the new spokesman for the third renaissance of coffee!
kyle
March 21st, 2005 at 1:47 pm
Did you attend the finals of the U.S. Barista’s Championship? My daughter works for Barista’s Daily Grind in Kearney, NE. Their Ryan Dennhardt placed 5th, but nobody can figure out how he placed that low. The previous week he won the Canadian West Regional in Vancouver. A commenter at CoffeeGeek singled him out as specifically appearing the most smooth/practiced of the finalists. Do you have any light to shed or “word on the street” to share about that?
PS… I enjoy small batch home coffee roasting (air popper - for now).
: )
March 22nd, 2005 at 9:51 pm
Speaking of roasting and Victrola, I finally made it over to you guys and sampled some espresso and took home a pound of Streamline and all I can say is great job!
I’m a big fan of your Streamline blend. It’s one of the best if not the best home espresso blends I’ve found in Seattle. I love the full body, I love the distinct African flavors. In general, it’s a really great coffee , though it is a tad hard to work on a home machine. Of course, on that beautiful Cyncra in the cafe it’s simply amazing.
How much of the rwanda did you get? I was lucky enough to get a half pound of the roast Billy Wilson was using from Stumptown and have been looking for anywhere up here I could find some more of it.
-Alex
March 22nd, 2005 at 10:00 pm
Oh, also, in response to CheekyGeek,
From watching Ryan over the Judges’ shoulders (I was working as a runner at the USBC) it was quite clear to me that he definitely was smooth and practiced. I don’t believe he lost many of his points on his presentation, but then again, everyone in the finals was smooth so I don’t think anyone else did either.
Where I do think Ryan lost points was in his shots and cappuccini. I didn’t get to try his shots, but they looked fairly quick coming out and were starting to go blond towards the end. I did get to taste his cappuccini though, and while they were good, they were to my taste fairly unbalanced and the foam was sort of hard. His signature drink was quite good, but maybe a bit heavy on the chocolate and light on the espresso.
He should have received his sensory and technical score sheets from the judges after the competition, so he can probably tell you better why they scored him how they did.
March 22nd, 2005 at 10:03 pm
We just got our first bag of Rwanda (from the Gatare washing station) and will try and profile it with a small batch or two tomorrow. We also fell in love with the Rwanda Karaba that Stumptown was using so if this goes well I think Rwandan coffees will be around the Vic for awhile. I’ll try and remember to send you an email when I’ve got some ready to test drive.
March 23rd, 2005 at 1:06 pm
Outstanding. I’d love to know when you get enough of the rwanda.
March 28th, 2005 at 1:33 pm
I second Alex’s positive comments on Streamline. You are my favourite local source for espresso blend. I’ve been enjoying it since you started up your roasting operation and really like the latest version - seems to be more fruit than a few months back.
I find it really easy to use at home - much easier than Paradise Roaster’s Espresso blend, which I just wrestled with through 5 lbs worth.
How about letting local fans sit in on a cupping and/or roasting session?
Dan
March 14th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
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