Roasters Guild Retreat, 2007
August 16–19, coffee professionals, including our roaster, Neal Wilson, gathered at Ruttger's Sugar Lake Lodge in Grand Rapids, Minnesota for the 7th Annual Roasters Guild Retreat. This four day event brings coffee roasters together to learn more about coffee, discuss issues important to our industry, and have a good time. What follows is Neal's report on this event.
Ethiopia 2006
Early in December, 2005, I received an email from Phyllis Johnson of BD Imports informing me that my name came up as a potential judge for the 2006 eCafé Gold Ethiopian Cooperatives Competition and asking if I would be interested in going to Ethiopia for this event. My reply started, "A trip to Ethiopia, the opportunity to try what are likely to be some of the finest and most interesting coffees in the world, and a chance to support something that I believe is a positive development in the coffee trade? Of course I'm interested!" This is how I came to be on a flight to Ethiopia in February, 2006.
What is Cupping?
Cupping is an important part of what we do to deliver quality coffees. As such, we often mention it without explaining what it is. Yet, outside of coffee professionals and serious connoisseurs, the term, "cupping," may still seem alien. So, what is cupping?
An Ethiopian Coffee Competition
Of all the world's beverages, perhaps the most complex and variable is coffee. More than 800 distinct molecular species contribute to the flavor and aroma of roasted coffee. While the method and style of roasting can greatly influence the cup flavor of coffee, the potential of the cup is set before the unroasted coffee reaches a roastery by the care taken in growing, picking, and processing the coffee, the environmental conditions in which the coffee was grown including soil composition and patterns of shade, rain, and temperature. Coffee grown on one side of a mountain will note taste the same as coffee grown on the other and considerable effort has gone into defining geographic regions that produce distinct coffees.
With the remarkable variety found within coffee, it may come as a surprise that most coffee is sold as a commodity. This failure within the global coffee market to capture the distinctiveness of coffees has led many to consider alternative economic models.
What's so Special About Specialty Coffee?
When talking about our coffees we often refer to them as specialty coffees. It would be fair to ask what makes a specialty coffee special. This is a thorny topic and one that many in the coffee business have only a partial understanding of.
Buying Coffee, Drinking Coffee
Wilson's Coffee & Tea is Racine's original roaster of coffee. The roaster allows us to provide the freshest coffee and maintain a higher level of quality control than is otherwise available. In particular, we can try many different degrees and methods of roasting to determine how we think a particular coffee should be roasted to deliver the best possible flavor from each coffee we carry. Buying coffee this obsessed over is not enough to enjoy coffee to the fullest.
Home Espresso Savvy
Home espresso makers are among the fussiest machines commonly in use for making a cup of coffee. While preparing a perfect espresso takes practice on any equipment, home models are a little less forgiving than their commercial counterparts due to a smaller boiler size and a pump mechanism that is not as powerful. As a result, many people get a home espresso maker, play with it for a while, and find they are spending a lot of time and effort only to end up with bad coffee. They then pack the machine back in the box where it collects dust indefinitely. Pull that espresso maker out of the box because it is possible to make good espresso with home machines. While it will still take a little practice, understanding the technical issues involved can help.
Coffee Lover's Guide
In order to enjoy the best possible cup of coffee, it is necessary to learn a bit about the coffee bean and the brewing process. This contains a few questions commonly asked by our customers.
Guide to Decaffeinated Coffee
Caffeine was first discovered in coffee in 1820 and since that time scientists have looked for ways to remove it. The problem has always been preserving the taste of the coffee while removing the caffeine. Today there exist several effective methods of achieving this.
Roasting Coffee
Now that we've settled into our new home and are roasting all of our coffee, you've probably seen somebody standing at the back of the shop watching a large machine, occasionally moving a lever or taking a note. What's going on is coffee roasting.
The Art of Espresso Blending
Many people who roast and blend coffee describe the process as an art and a science. The careful record keeping, extensive experimentation and a systematic approach to determining the best way to roast and blend for a particular taste is the science part. The intuition of the roaster and blender and the subjective nature of what constitutes the best taste of various coffees makes up the art part.
Costa Rican Coffee
A growing trend in coffee producing countries is to identify the unique micro-climates where coffee is grown and to group them into larger but still well defined growing regions that produce coffees with distinct characteristics. Costa Rica has seven of these growing regions: West Valley, Central Valley, Tarrazú, Orosi, Turrialba, Tres Rios, and Brunca. The best coffees from these regions taste different from each other. Our Costa Rican coffee is from Hacienda La Minita in the Tarrazú region, which is just south of the capital city of San José.
Hacienda La Minita
Our trip to Costa Rica was fun and educational. We cupped a wonderful Guatemalan Antigua and heard many good things about a Colombian Supremo which we were able to confirm shortly after getting back. The main purpose of the trip, however, was to become more familiar with the farm and the people on the farm that produces our wonderful Costa Rican La Minita coffee and see the beneficio they finished purchasing while we were there.