From Precocious Love to Crowdfunding Controversy: The Invergo Story

Invergo Founder and Designer Cameron Hughes estimates he was roughly 12 when he first fell in love with coffee — the smell of it, anyway. The hot brown brew never seemed to taste as good as it smelled, until a few years later in high school when he discovered Café Grumpy.

“They make some really amazing coffee,” Hughes says, citing Grumpy’s Chelsea, N.Y., location, which opened his eyes and awakened his palate to the potential of coffee. Currently rounding the ripe old age of 21, Hughes has already wed his precocious love of excellent coffee to his appliance design acumen with the Invergo, an automated home pourover machine currently in pre-manufacturing and funded in part by a successful recent Kickstarter campaign.

The past few years have seen a spate of small drip brewing machines hit the home market that strive to automate manual pourover methods. A couple even come from the respected makers of classic manual pourover equipment, such as the Hario V60 Coffee King and the Chemex Ottomatic. Yet no machine currently available promises the same functionalities as the Invergo: Deliver water in a spiral — or in the Invergo’s case, “dynamic hypotrochoid” — pattern; customize the bloom and overall brewing time; set water temperature anywhere from 195-205F with PID control; adjust the volume of brewing from five to 50 fluid ounces; work with the user’s choice of vessel and cone; and start on a timer. It also has a slow-dripping cold brew function.

Other machines that promise this scope of functionality in the emerging automatic pourover race exist largely on the commercial front. Machines like the Otfes commercial spiral drip machine and the Poursteady, both of which, like the Invergo, made splashy appearances at the recent SCAA 2015 show in Seattle.

“I did look at that patent,” Hughes says of the Otfes, “and they use some sort of linear part for their gearing. I spoke to my lawyer and it’s definitely different from what we’re doing, so there shouldn’t be any problem with that.” He adds, “That machine’s also $6000.”

Consumers can currently pre-order the Invergo on Invergo’s website for $199.95. At such a home-friendly price point, it would seem to be smooth sailing ahead for the Invergo, although the seas to this point have been undeniably choppy from the winds of a tempestuous Kickstarter kickback.

The version of Kickstarter’s Terms of Use that was active at the time of the Invergo campaign’s launch made no requirement of explicit fiscal forthrightness on the part of a creator’s campaign. The Terms of Use were later updated to forbid any “material misrepresentations,” while the platform’s Creator Handbook has always clearly instructed, “Meeting your goal ensures that you’ll have the funds you need to complete your project and deliver rewards to your backers. Your funding goal should be the minimum amount needed to complete the project and fulfill rewards.”

Though the Invergo campaign remains governed only by the terms active at the time of its launch, it’s an awkward coincidence that the updated Terms of Use went into effect on October 19th, 2014, and Invergo’s fifth project update was posted on October 20th, which is exactly where things got a bit hairy.

Visible to backers only, the update was titled “SXSW and Opening Up Our Seed Round.” With the matter-of-fact manner of a routine briefing, it discussed an invitation to speak at SXSW and closed with a few lines about a search for angel investors. It candidly stated that without more money, Invergo would not be able to afford manufacturing, but that the successful Kickstarter campaign had provided the “traction” to take the important step of securing further capital.

Backers were upset. A heated comment-section melee promptly ensued. Speculation flurried. Accusations flew.

While most of Invergo’s communiques have been over a month apart, the sixth came just two days after the fifth, under the banner “Clarity and Transparency.” In it, Hughes — privately, for backers — provided a complete rundown of Invergo’s finances, expenses, and actual goals. “The reason we didn’t tell you about the external funding,” the update admitted, “is we honestly thought that because the goal was set relatively low that you would assume that the money from Kickstarter would not be the sole funding source. This is our mistake and we should have disclosed the need for additional capital in the Kickstarter.”

Some commenters appreciated the earnest, if belated, disclosure. Others felt only more justified in their condemnation of what was in their view a violation of Kickstarter rules and of the public trust.

What many backers were also putting together for the first time was that this was not the Invergo’s first whack at Kickstarter. It was no secret that in the fall of 2013, Hughes set a $250,000 fundraising goal on the project and failed, roping in just shy of $28,000, although to learn this you’d have to have done some clicking around. It was in the following summer that the project launched anew with a goal exactly one tenth the size of the original, setting the bar for success lower than what had already been achieved. This second campaign is what passed with flying colors, garnering the desired splash of positive press and three times as many backers as the first. It surpassed its modest goal by more than $10,000, yet it made no mention of the fact that without substantial additional funding, “The First Automated Pour Over Coffee System” would never see the light of day.

Tensions run high anywhere money and faith are involved. As such, crowdfunding services like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo are a dicey proposition no matter how you cut them. Aspirants put their projects and their good names on the line; patrons place their bets on products that don’t yet exist, as well as on individuals and companies that might also not be who they say they are. In return, backers expect a constant, detailed flow of total transparency, such as might be problematic for an inexperienced company navigating financial negotiations on the business front for the first time. And as noted in the recent New York Times article, “ZPM Espresso and the Rage of the Jilted Crowdfunder,” if backers get to a point of feeling crossed, things can take a dynamic hypotrochoidal nosedive in a hurry.

Creators, meanwhile, never know what sort of power or influence their backers might be capable of wielding should they be so inclined. Mark Prince, founder of the hugely popular coffee forum CoffeeGeek, is among the Invergo’s backers, for example. (Full disclosure: Howard Bryman, author of this article, is also a backer. Neither Bryman nor Roast Magazine benefit in any way, financially or with perks of any kind, in exchange for or as a result of this article.)

In the silence from Invergo that followed update number six, discontented backer Mark Prince decided to re-post the fifth and sixth updates, along with another very articulate backer’s reaction, publicly on Google Plus. Commenters started communicating with one another, apparently organizing towards retribution of some kind. Considering the crater still smoldering where the ZPM once brewed promise, the Invergo affair was on the precipice of true ugliness.

“It was totally my fault,” Hughes told Daily Coffee News in a recent phone conversation. “I didn’t understand what I was doing. It didn’t go well, with that. I did apologize to [the backers]. I should have been more transparent.”

But then a funny thing happened on Cameron’s way to the factory — nothing. While backers lamented — and continue to bemoan — a lack of communication, Cameron has continued his work on the Invergo. Machiavellian though the plan might seem to some, the good news is that it also seems to be working, and, at any rate, there’s no turning back. “Now we’re in a situation that [backers] are definitely going to get their units,” Hughes reports. “But I’m sorry for putting them in that position.”

There are huge and obvious differences between the ZPM debacle and Invergo’s missteps, chief among them being that Invergo is actually poised to cross the finish line and deliver. With ripples largely relaxed in the wake of his more heartening recent transmissions, Hughes has indicated some success in further fundraising and recalibrated the production plan to jibe with the reality of his resources. He did speak on a panel at SXSW and manned an Invergo booth at the SCAA Event, and through it all has been a full-time student of industrial design, interaction design, and entrepreneurship at Syracuse University. “I’m actually still in school,” says Hughes. “I’m doing both at the same time. It’s been very stressful.”

At the time of his last elucidation on Kickstarter, Hughes conveyed that beta units would be shipping in October. As of our conversation at the end of April, Hughes reported that the betas will actually ship sooner, although this news has yet to appear in an official Kickstarter update. The campaign’s promised delivery date was December, 2014; an actual delivery date less than one year later would, in Kickstarter time, still be a considerable success. The resolute Invergo helmsman took a few minutes from what can only be a mind-bending schedule to bring us up to date on all things Invergo. Here’s what he had to say.

We’re doing well, we’re in pre-manufacturing right now. We’re finishing up with the second revision of the PCB and we’re almost done with the first initial tooling, so we’re going to send that off and it will take about 60 to 75 days to get the aluminum tooling done. We’re going to get about 50 units from that, and that’s going to be sent out to the UL for approval, as well as some beta testers that signed up.

We have enough money to do the steel tooling and the first initial production run. That’s money that was not from Kickstarter. That was from other investors. Non-web-related channels. [The steel] tooling lasts up to 500,000 pieces each, but we’re only going to do an initial run of 5,000 pieces. We’re probably going to ship them actually in August, and the final units are going to be shipping in the end of the November. They’re going to be out for the holiday season — that’s what our plan is.

SXSW was nice. It was nice sharing my idea with a bunch of people. There was also a podcast that went really well. SCAA went really, really well. I feel like everyone that came up to the booth was really excited about the product. It was great to see people’s reaction when they used it and had a sample from it. Everyone left with a smile on their face, a few people gave me high-fives. There was actually a lot of interest from cafes, as well as from people for home use. Our plan for next year is to release a plumbed-in, NSF-certified version.

No, we’re not. We designed the unit to be built modularly, so we just change out a few parts and the tooling process, and it’ll be ready for use in cafes.

It’s been a little rough, communicating with my backers, because this has been like a personal thing as well as a business venture. I’m dealing directly with my customers, and it’s been really great getting their feedback, especially like when I did the PCB and I sent out the user interface. I sent out a working copy of the user interface that the backers could use, and they gave me their feedback on what they wanted changed and a few features that they wanted added, and I went right back and I was able to add that to the preproduction specifications for the unit. So that was actually really helpful. It’s been really helpful, but it’s also been a little bit difficult communicating with them.

To this just being my first business venture and my not understanding how to deal with customers, and that’s been completely my fault. But I’ve been learning along the way, and I think now my communication skills with my backers are much better, and they’re really excited about getting the product.

No one’s been asking for a refund now. I feel like I made up with them, and that they’re excited about the product now. They did ask for it, but once I clarified what’s going on and showed them our progress more transparently, they were excited about the project and they still want their coffee machine.

Actually I have quite a bit of ideas, for hardware, as well as some software. These will add some functionality, as well as some other coffee accessories, and different kinds of machines.

There might be. We are actually considering an online service that would be like a marketplace, for your coffee beans and the Invergo. Someplace where you can share your recipes with other users of the Invergo, so you can get the best possible extraction from the coffee that you’re using. Post the coffees you’ve gotten from different roasters, and then post the settings your using.

I’m really excited about finally shipping it this winter.

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Where is Coffee Hot in 2015: By Country

In 2013, we shared some Coffee Review readership data in a piece titled “Who Cares about Coffee Anyway.” It proved popular so we updated and expanded the information in a series of blog posts in early 2014 that looked at readership by city, state, and country.

We’ve updated the data with a quick look at reader data in early 2015.  As in the past, we looked at the data three ways: overall readership, per capita readership adjusted for population, and year-over-year percentage growth. Because we launched a new website in 2014, which had a dramatic impact on page views, this year we’re ranking the data by page views instead of traffic and we’re looking at a 2-month snapshot from January and February 2015 versus 2014.

Ranking by Overall Readership

Overall readership by country in 2015, as measured by page views, was largely predictable and consistent with traffic data from past years.  Countries with large English-speaking populations tend to rank higher on the list. In fact, the top three countries on the list – United States, Canada, and United Kingdom – remain unchanged from 2014 to 2015.   They all have significant English speaking populations, well developed coffee cultures, strong purchasing power, as well as high Internet access and literacy rates.

As we noted in the past, English-speaking population may not be as big of a factor as one thinks. I was surprised by the countries that have the largest English-speaking populations: 1) United States; 2) India; 3) Pakistan; 4) Nigeria; 5) United Kingdom.  Canada is tenth on the list.  Australia is 13th.  View the full list on Wikipedia.

With that in mind, it’s notable that Taiwan leapfrogged Australia into the No. 4 spot on the list.  This is remarkable though not terribly surprising to those who are already aware that the coffee market in Taiwan is vibrant and growing rapidly.  Coffee Review even has a page dedicated to coffees roasted in Taiwan.  Watch out U.K.!

Two other big moves…. China, which obviously has a huge population and was No. 1 in growth rate in 2013, dropped from the No. 7 spot to No. 12, as growth simply didn’t keep pace with other countries in the top 10.  We’re not sure how to explain the explosive growth in page views from Bulgaria, jumping from No. 49 in 2014 to No. 19 in 2015.  It may be a genuine market change or, perhaps just as likely, a statistical anomaly that has to do with the relatively short snapshot and the relatively small base of readers in 2014.

Ranking by Page Views (2014 rank in parentheses):

1. United States (1)

2. Canada (2)

3. United Kingdom (3)

4. Taiwan (5)

5. Australia (4)

6. Thailand (6)

7. India (8)

8. Malaysia (9)

9. South Korea (11)

10. Philippines (10)

11. Indonesia (14)

12. China (7)

13. Hong Kong (12)

14. Singapore (13)

15. Greece (17)

16. Netherlands (16)

17. Germany (15)

18. Turkey (30)

19. Bulgaria (49)

20. Japan (18)

Ranking by Per Capita Readership

When we look at per capita data, we see a different picture, one that is not driven by population and English-speaking population.  Countries with smaller populations are not fundamentally disadvantaged in the rankings.

The top 5 spots on a per capita basis remained the same: United States, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.  As we noted earlier, Bulgaria jumped from the No. 29 position in 2014 to No. 6 in early 2015.  The population of Bulgaria is about 7.5 million so, statistically, it’s easier to make a big jump with a relatively small increase in readership.

Ranking by Per Capita Page Views (2014 rank in parentheses):

1. United States (1)

2. Canada (2)

3. Singapore (3)

4. Hong Kong (4)

5. Taiwan (5)

6. Bulgaria (29)

7. Australia (6)

8. Ireland (7)

9. United Kingdom (9)

10. Greece (11)

11. Puerto Rico (16)

12. New Zealand (7)

13. Finland (20)

14. Denmark (12)

15. Norway (10)

16. United Arab Emirates (15)

17. Netherlands (18)

18. Panama (19)

19. Malaysia (17)

20. Slovakia (14)

Ranking by Percentage Growth

Finally, we again looked at percentage growth from early 2014 to 2015, where smaller countries have an advantage because their readership is growing off of a smaller base.  So, while the United States may have the most page views and most page views per capita, it tends to grow more slowly than other smaller countries.

One might argue that this list is the best gauge of “Where Coffee is Hot,” as positioning can quickly change over the course of a single year. Bulgaria topped the list with year-over-year readership growth of more than 500%.  We included 23 countries on this list, as they all showed growth in page views of more than 40% over 2014.

Ranking by Percentage Growth from 2014 to 2015:

1. Bulgaria

2. Hungary

3. Panama

4. Turkey

5. Israel

6. United Arab Emirates

7. Puerto Rico

8. Finland

9. Greece

10. Thailand

11. Poland

12. Pakistan

13. Romania

14. Colombia

15. Japan

16. Indonesia

17. India

18. Norway

19. Saudi Arabia

20. Sweden

21. United States

22. Netherlands

23. Malaysia

Tomorrow, we’ll post a piece on “Where Coffee in Hot in the U.S.”

Ron Walters, co-founder of Coffee Review, manages business operations, including CoffeeReview.com, marketing, and social media. He conceived of and helped pioneer the development of 100-point reviews in the specialty coffee industry. For the past twenty years, he has been engaged in strategy, marketing, and management of specialty food and beverage businesses.

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The Everyday Exceptional: Macro-Lots 2015

Coffees that attract a high rating on Coffee Review are often produced from very small, or “micro” lots of green coffee, specially selected for quality and distinctiveness, precisely described in regard to botanical variety and other details, and not likely to be available for more than a couple of months before they’re sold out. And usually (though not always) they cost considerably more than other, more generically described coffees from the same origin or region.

For this month’s article (I am lifting some language from our “macro-lots” article from 2010) we tried to tilt the playing field away from rare and expensive coffees toward everyday staple coffees. We required that any coffee we consider for review come from a single lot of a green, unroasted coffee of at least 100 bags, or around 13,000 to 15,000 pounds. For very large roasters, of course, 100 bags is nothing, a bean in a bucket of beans. On the other hand, committing to buying at least 100 bags of a coffee for a smaller roaster implies (we hope) a sufficient commitment to that coffee to suggest that it will be available to consumers for some months and represents the sort of everyday, staple offering we are looking for this month rather than specially selected “now or never” micro-lots with equally special pricing.

Pure, Complete and Balanced

We ended up cupping thirty-two samples. Among those thirty-two were some very impressive coffees. True, most were not the sort of startlingly different coffees we often receive when we set up cuppings using criteria that encourage small lots of fancy coffees. The best of the high-rated coffees from this month’s larger lots tended to stand out simply because they were deliciously pure, complete and balanced rather than startlingly different. Most were produced from respected, though not particularly rare or precious varieties of Arabica. All but three of the thirty-two samples we tested were processed by the standard wet or washed method rather than by more unusual methods like the dried-in-the-fruit or honey methods often applied to smaller, fancier lots of coffees.

Macro-Lot Ratings

Nevertheless, the ratings for this month’s samples from larger lots were impressive – thirty-two samples averaged a rating of 89.7, with a remarkable fifteen of the thirty-two samples generating ratings of 90 or higher. This is a much better record than achieved by our last macro-lot cupping in 2010, when forty-three samples averaged a lackluster 85.5 and only three of the forty-three rated 90 or higher.

Four Years of Change

I can think of at least one reason for the striking improvement in ratings generated by this set of macro-lot coffees compared to the ratings achieved by the coffees we sourced in 2010: The medium-roasting, green-coffee-first coffee culture, sometimes shorthanded as the “third wave,” has grown in size and influence over the past four years. Four years ago two of the companies that sent us stand-out medium-roasted coffees for this month’s cupping were mostly producing darker-roasted versions of mainly generically sourced green coffees. Several of the roasters with coffees reviewed at 91 or better this month didn’t even exist four years ago, while other smaller roasters born out of the so-called third wave have grown larger and are buying larger lots of coffee.

Fair Trade/Organic Stand-Outs

Another interesting result of the cupping: A perhaps surprising percentage of all of the tested macro-lot samples – and a particularly high percentage of the highest-rated among them – were either certified organically grown or certified Fair Trade, or both. What this perhaps suggests is that the more everyday, mainstream coffees offered by small- to medium-sized roasters tend to present certification as one of their differentiating selling points, whereas certification may simply be a side issue or bonus when those same roasters are selling elite micro-lots like the ones that often dominate our reviews.

The frequently heated debate between the more outspoken supporters of Fair Trade (“the only quality that matters is quality of life for producers”) and detractors (“Fair Trade is a misguided effort to prevent market forces from rewarding coffee quality, which is the only thing that matters”), has abated. It should be clear by now to any except the most stubborn free-trade ideologues that the Fair Trade movement can produce excellent coffees, while supporters of Fair Trade appear to have become more sanguine in their support, chastened both by schisms within the Fair Trade movement and by the complex results of increasingly sophisticated, statistic-based efforts to determine the impact of Fair Trade programs on rural poverty. (An excellent summary of that research can be found in the article “The Economics of Fair Trade” at thecosa.org).

Twelve at 91 or Higher

Returning to the coffees themselves, we offer reviews of twelve of the fourteen samples that attracted ratings of 91 or higher. We omitted a 93-rated Fair Trade/organic Ethiopia from Olympia Coffee Roasting and 91-rated samples from two companies, Courier Coffee and Thanksgiving Coffee, because each of these companies already had contributed a higher-rated coffee to the reviews. We added a coffee from the large, family-owned Rogers Family Company because it represented an unusual opportunity to taste a dark-roasted version of the rare Gesha variety, in this case the San Francisco Bay Reserve 100% Panama Bay Gesha (89).

Ethiopias at the Top, As Usual

Predictably, perhaps, the two highest-rated coffees in the cupping were Ethiopias that benefited from the familiar Ethiopia edge: They were produced from varieties of coffee tree native to Ethiopia, varieties that contribute the engagingly distinctive flower, citrus and cacao notes characteristic of the best Ethiopia coffees. Nevertheless, both the Olympia Ethiopia Biloya Organic (95) and the Kickapoo Organic Ethiopian Worka (94) were conventional coffees in the sense that they were processed by the meticulous wet or washed method traditional for fine Ethiopia coffee, netting a striking layered and intricate profile for the Olympia and a cleanly nectar-like lushness for the Kickapoo. By contrast, the two Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Arichas reviewed here, the Water Avenue (93) and the CafeTaster (92), were processed by the currently fashionable but unorthodox dried-in-the-fruit or natural method. Both displayed variations on the shifty, often unpredictable impact of natural processing on the Ethiopia profile, in this case a crisp, dryish pungency that complicated the more predictable sweet floral and cidery fruit tendencies of the type.

Colombias, Burundis, More

On the other hand, the highest-rated Colombias, the Reunion Island Colombia Las Hermosas (93) and the Topéca Alto del Obispo Colombia (92) were absolutely classic coffees in the mode more familiar to the Americas: sweetly bright, impressive in their balance, displaying a complete if not intricate set of aroma and flavor notes. The Equator Peru Cajamarca Fair Trade/Organic was another very pure coffee, sweetly crisp, gently bright, a classically fine coffee in the subtle Peru mode.

We received a surprisingly large turnout of coffees from the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa. Two Burundis scored very well; the Drift Away Burundi Buhorwa (93) showed a lovely version of the characteristic Great Lakes juxtaposition of sweet and savory, in this case incorporated in complex nut and floral notes. The Courier Coffee Tkana Cooperative Dukorere Burundi (also 93) was suavely balanced, sweet and round, with only a hint of savory. Also from the Great Lakes Region, the Thanksgiving Coffee Rwanda Musasa Fair Trade (92) was exceptionally immaculate and sweet, in this case showing none of the typical Great Lakes savory edge, only a lovely, lyric sweetness.

Finally, samples from two origins that seldom find their way to our cupping table rated well. The Bootstrap Papua New Guinea Ulya Wahgi Valley (93) displayed, like so many of this month’s high-rated coffees, delicacy, poise and aromatic completeness. The Korean roaster Namusairo offered a coffee that, although representing one of the most widely used coffee types in the world, is seldom offered by North American roasters as a single origin: a dried-in-the-fruit or natural Brazil (91). Like many of this month’s high-rated coffees, it was a graceful and characteristic expression of its type: in this case, sweet, nut-toned, with a quiet but vibrant acidity.

What about Prices?

When we compare prices for the macro-lot coffees reviewed this month to prices for coffees reviewed for two recent cuppings that were heavy on fancy microlots, a considerable value edge for the macro-lots emerges. The average for the reviewed coffees in this month’s macro-lot cupping was almost exactly $17.00 per 12 ounces, whereas the average price for the coffees reviewed for a single-varieties article (Geshas and the Rest: Single-Variety, Single-Lot Coffees, November 2014) was a daunting $36.00 per 12 ounces, and the average price for Honey and Natural Coffees, Central America 2014, September 2014 was about $25.00 per 12 ounces. A fairer comparison can be gotten if we remove the very expensive Gesha coffees from all three sets of reviews, plus omit a couple of atypical outliers, in which case we obtain what is probably a more normative comparison: $15.50/12 ounces for this month’s macro-lot coffees, $19.00/12 ounces for the single-variety coffees (again, omitting the Geshas), and $18.50/12 ounces for the honey- and natural-process Central Americas.

A Last Caution

Finally, one caution on these results. In the large picture this month’s results still tend to support the idea that genuine microlots, when one can find them and afford them, offer not only a more distinctive coffee experience but also arguably a more consistently high quality experience. A few of the larger lot coffees we cupped this month that we did not review betrayed mild but clear quality issues, ranging from apparent fading from being held too long or suffering during transport, to a couple of samples that were outright tainted, including one Rwanda that startled us with a cup displaying the infamous and unmistakable potato defect.

Producers and buyers of microlot coffees typically are too aware of their reputation to risk either fading during transport or even the very mildest of processing taints. Microlot coffees, for example, are typically transported in sealed moisture-and-gas resistant 50-pound bags rather than in the larger more familiar (and perhaps more romantic) burlap or jute bags, and are often air-shipped from origin to avoid possible deterioration during long ocean transport.

Kenneth Davids is a coffee expert, author and co-founder of Coffee Review. He has been involved with coffee since the early 1970s and has published three books on coffee, including the influential Home Roasting: Romance and Revival, now in its second edition, and Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying, which has sold nearly 250,000 copies over five editions. His workshops and seminars on coffee sourcing, evaluation and communication have been featured at professional coffee meetings on six continents.

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Open Source Espresso Blends

With this espresso tasting we focus on what appears to be a new trend in espresso blending – the open disclosure to customer and competitor of the identity of the specific green coffees that compose a blend, as opposed to the deliberate secrecy around blending that has prevailed in the coffee industry for decades. The old approach to blending implied secret mastery of arcane coffee knowledge that only the blend master possessed, a mystification basically aimed at convincing consumers that a proprietary blend, with its evocative name and mysterious contents, was a singular sensory opportunity that could only be could be had through one company, the blender’s company, and not through any other. A collateral advantage to secret blend formulas might be saving money by slipping in some cheaper coffees along with the better ones while still maintaining the fundamental character of the blend.

On the other hand, when the components of a blend are openly disclosed, as they are in the twenty blends we tested for this article, the goal of blending is partly stripped of its branding and cost-savings functions. It becomes more clearly a creative sensory act, aimed at creating a coffee experience that has never existed before in quite the same way, one in which hopefully the sensory whole of the blend transcends the contributions of its parts. This is an idealistic coffee goal, but a worthy one.

Farther long in this piece I discuss some the trends and strategies suggested by the selection of green coffees in the blends we tested. But what I had not quite anticipated was how evocative overall these twenty blends would be in mapping some of the larger trends and polarizations in contemporary espresso blend design, at least as they are playing out in North America with a short detour through one coffee-loving East Asian country, Taiwan.

Co-Taster Ethan Hill, Barista Benjamin Roberts and the La Marzocco Lab

My co-taster for this survey was Ethan Hill, Head of Production at Victrola Coffee. (Victrola Coffee did not have coffees involved in the tasting, of course.) Ethan is a licensed Q-grader who proved to be an experienced and incisive taster and describer of espresso. See the end of this article for Ethan’s impressive bio. We conducted the tasting at the La Marzocco North America laboratory in Seattle, Washington, with shots pulled by the very experienced Victrola barista, Benjamin Roberts. We ended up tasting twenty “open source” espresso blends, seventeen from leading North American roasters ranging from very large to very small, and three from Taiwan-based roasting companies. We sourced over thirty blends, but were forced to limit our tasting to twenty owing to time constraints. Some blends we eliminated because roasters did not send us the minimum of sixteen ounces we need to calibrate the grinder, produce the shots, and take roast color readings afterwards. In other cases we made arbitrary inclusions or exclusions based on how interesting or original the blends sounded based on their constituent coffees.

The Crucial Starbucks Entry

One blend we did include was extremely important, I think, in understanding the entire exercise: the Starbucks Reserve Pantheon Blend No.1. This is a flagship blend roasted in very limited quantities on the small-batch roasting machine prominently displayed on the top level of the spectacular new Starbucks Reserve Roastery facility in Seattle. Like almost everything else involved in the new Starbucks showplace roastery, the Pantheon Blend displays a detailed, almost textbook-like understanding of the latest trends in specialty coffee. The Pantheon is clearly intended as a transparent, open-source blend of the newer kind. The blend name itself implies that this is the first in a series of seasonal blends (Pantheon Blend No. 1; presumably as green coffee opportunities change through the year we will have Pantheon Blends No. 2, No. 3, and so on). Furthermore, the constituents of this version #1 are revealed in considerable detail, in some cases in more detail than revealed by some of the smaller and presumably trendier roasters that produced other blends in the tasting.

Revelation by Contrast

However, as it turned out, the Starbucks blend differed in one dramatic way from all the other nineteen blends we tested: It was darker roasted than any of the others. Not nearly as dark roasted as some Starbucks coffees, but considerably darker roasted than any of the other nineteen samples in our tasting.

And by its mildly roasty presence in the mix the Pantheon Blend dramatized through contrast how relatively bright and high-toned most other high-end North American espresso blends have become in recent years. High-toned brightness obviously can be promoted in a couple of ways; first through a lighter roast style and second through incorporating bright, acidy coffees into blends: bright, floral wet-processed coffees from Ethiopia were one of the favorites in this set of blends, for example, as were wet-processed coffees from a variety of origins in Latin America. Balancing these brighter coffees were everyone’s favorite for achieving smoothness in espresso blends: nutty, chocolaty dried-in-the-fruit or “natural” coffees from Brazil. But also very important in many of these blends were the fruitier, sweeter style of dried-in-the-fruit coffees, particularly those from Ethiopia, which tend to add a juicy, sometimes slightly fermenty fullness to espresso blends. Now and then a robust, presumably earth- or cedar-toned wet-hulled Sumatra put in an appearance as a foil to the brighter wet-processed coffees, but there were far fewer Sumatras than there might have been some years ago when espresso blends were roasted darker and the pungent, woodsy contribution of Sumatras was more valued.

Favored Sweet Spots in the Roast

In respect to final degree or darkness of roast there appeared to be two main “sweet spots” for the creators of these blends. One was just at the very first hint of the “second crack” which signals the transition from medium to darker roast. Of the eleven blends we reviewed at 92 or higher, three were brought to this subtly pivotal point in roast development. Two of them were roasted in Taiwan – Simon Hsieh’s Proud Goat Espresso Blend (93) and the Mellow Coffee Dawning Espresso (92) – and one in the States, the Tony’s Coffees & Teas Ganesha Espresso (92).

However, it appears that the favorite settling spot for final roast color among the North American blends we reviewed was a classic medium roast, roughly where sugars and aromatics are well developed but before any hint of pungent roast taste puts in an appearance. Six of the eleven 92-plus blends, including the top-rated Taiwanese Bignose Espresso (94), roughly fell into the classic medium-roast category.

Roast-Level Outliers

The two outliers in roast development among the eleven reviewed coffees were the Starbucks Pantheon Blend, which showed a distinct dark roast pungency and which by machine reading of roast color was brought to the cusp between dark and medium dark, and the Bonlife Top Shelf Espresso, which, for an espresso, was very light roasted, medium-light to light.

My co-taster Ethan generally appeared to take a more critical position toward the impact of roast than I did; he was considerably more critical of the Starbucks than I was, for example, although he still assigned it a rating of 91. Three or four of the blends that we did not review struck him as too sharp, bitter and/or tart; in these cases my ratings often came in modestly higher than his did.

A New North-American Norm?

At any rate, these espresso blends did suggest a certain overall trend, a new norm perhaps for North American espresso blends: bright but not too bright, medium-roasted, with a balance of moderately acidy wet-processed coffees, round, nut-toned Brazils, and juicy natural, dried-in-the-fruit Ethiopias. Although they did not appear to be optimized for drinking as a cappuccino or other short milk drink, most did show well in cappuccino-scaled milk, softening but maintaining character. And, of course, given the new openness around blend communication, we now have an opportunity to know and appreciate some of the coffee thinking that went into their production and subtle differences.

Final Thanks To …

Co-taster Ethan Hill, Victrola barista Benjamin Roberts, who skillfully dialed in and pulled every espresso shot for the tasting, and La Marzocco North America for the use of its superb lab and equipment, including the support of KEXP Project Manager Amy Hattemer and her staff (not to mention their excellent recommendations for lunch).

About this Month’s Co-Cupper

Ethan Hill is the Head of Production and Quality Control at Victrola Coffee Roasters in Seattle, WA. He was raised on a six-acre coffee farm in the Puna district of the Big Island of Hawaii. He co-founded Puna Moon Estate Coffees in 1995 and the Hilo Coffee Mill – East Hawaii’s first full-service roastery and coffee mill – in 1999. He has over ten years of roasting experience, having served as Production Roaster for Hilo Coffee Mill, Head Roaster for Rimini Coffee Inc. in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Head of Production for Victrola Coffee Roasters. He has taught coffee-related courses on a variety of topics for the University of Utah and the Specialty Coffee Association of America. He is a licensed Q-Grader.  He reports: “I was thrilled to serve as a sensory analyst for Coffee Review’s Open-Source Espresso Blends article, and to contribute my thoughts and impressions to the article. It was exciting to see such a wide range of flavor profiles in the espresso submissions. I was particularly struck by how blends that ended up scoring the same rating were so dramatically different from one another.”

Kenneth Davids is a coffee expert, author and co-founder of Coffee Review. He has been involved with coffee since the early 1970s and has published three books on coffee, including the influential Home Roasting: Romance and Revival, now in its second edition, and Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying, which has sold nearly 250,000 copies over five editions. His workshops and seminars on coffee sourcing, evaluation and communication have been featured at professional coffee meetings on six continents.

View the original article here

New Advertiser Specials Extended

Coffee Review is fortunate to work with numerous long-time advertisers who support our goal of providing readers with interesting and informative tasting reports and reviews every month.

We’re pleased to welcome some new advertisers who have taken advantage of starter programs that we began offering in 2015.  These popular programs, which offer new advertisers discounts of more than 50% off our normal monthly rates, were scheduled to end on March 31.  However, quite a few folks at SCAA in Seattle told us they needed more time so we’ve extended our deadline to April 30.

If you’re interested in finding out more about these fantastic opportunities that cost as little as $495 for 3 months of advertising, contact ron@CoffeeReview.com or download the Coffee Review 2015 media kit.

Ron Walters, co-founder of Coffee Review, manages business operations, including CoffeeReview.com, marketing, and social media. He conceived of and helped pioneer the development of 100-point reviews in the specialty coffee industry. For the past twenty years, he has been engaged in strategy, marketing, and management of specialty food and beverage businesses.

View the original article here

Seeking Wet-hulled Indonesias

Roasters offering wet-hulled coffees from Indonesia (wet-hulled coffees is a category that includes most Sumatras, most Sulawesis, most smaller island Indonesia coffees except Bali naturals) are invited to submit one or more samples for our April 2015 tasting report and reviews.  The deadline for arrival has been extended to Thursday, March 26.

Ron Walters, co-founder of Coffee Review, manages business operations, including CoffeeReview.com, marketing, and social media. He conceived of and helped pioneer the development of 100-point reviews in the specialty coffee industry. For the past twenty years, he has been engaged in strategy, marketing, and management of specialty food and beverage businesses.

View the original article here

Elegant Earth: Wet-Hulled Sumatras and One Sulawesi

Wet-hulling is not an obscure Olympics sailing event nor (at least to my knowledge) a special trick in waterskiing or wakeboarding. It is a fruit removal and drying variation that contributes much of the distinct character of traditional Indonesia coffees, particularly those from Sumatra and Sulawesi. It is also practiced on other Indonesian islands, almost everywhere in Indonesia where small holders produce the coffee. In Sumatra it is called “giling basah” in local Batak languages.

Recall that in traditional wet-processing, the skin and pulp of the coffee fruit is removed from the “beans” or seeds in several stages after which the beans are dried to about 12.5% moisture, whereupon they are stored encased in the remaining dry, crumbly “parchment skin” until they are ready to be shipped. It is only at that point, well after drying has been completed, that the parchment skins are removed.

In the wet-hulling variation of wet-processing the soft fruit residue is removed by small producers as it is elsewhere, by removing the skins from the fruit, loosening the sticky fruit flesh through fermentation, then washing the loosened flesh off the beans. However, in the wet-hulling variation the parchment skins are removed in the middle of the drying process, when the beans still retain somewhere between 20% to 40% moisture. The beans are dried the rest of the way, to 12% to 13%, after parchment removal. This atypical practice is additionally complicated by an unusual supply chain in Indonesia, one in which the fruit removal and a first drying is usually performed by small producers, after which collectors bring the partly dried coffee to a mill where it is dried a bit more before being hulled at 20% to 40% moisture. Final drying to 12% to 13% moisture may take place at the mill or in the port before the coffee is shipped.

Contributing Depth without Domination

Somewhere along the line, probably during the prolonged serial steps in drying, the beans pick up a slight mustiness that contributes the characteristic fruit-toned “earthiness” for which Sumatras are famous. Up to ten or twelve years ago the problem was finding specific lots of Sumatra that expressed this accidental flavor complex sweetly and pleasingly rather than harshly; in other words, finding lots that tasted richly earthy rather than overbearingly musty.

Over the past ten years the wet-hulling process has been refined, particularly in Sumatra, to the point that the earth note is backgrounded and transformed, bringing a rich, sweet pungency that deepens and grounds profiles without dominating them. At times one can call this sensation earthy in the sense that it suggests sweet humus or moist fresh-fallen leaves; just as often it provokes associations like pipe tobacco, fresh-cut cedar or fir, or spice notes like pink peppercorn and clove. Influenced by this pungent base are fruit and floral suggestions, with the whole aromatic package usually supported by a cleanly expressed structure of sweet-toned acidity and silky to syrupy mouthfeel.

Ten Good Ones

This month we review ten such wet-hulled coffees, nine from Sumatra and one from Sulawesi, all expressing refined variations on this sweetly pungent, wet-hulled theme. Four additional samples, all Sumatras, attracted ratings of 90 through 91, but are not reviewed here. The disappointing news, perhaps, is the absence of wet-hulled samples from islands other than Sumatra and Sulawesi. I would guess that the probably costly efforts to refine the wet-hulled process are only worth the focus and investment when an exporter is working with an already well-known and celebrated origin like Sumatra, or at the very least, Sulawesi.

Consult the Fine Print

Those readers interested in exploring the sensory character of these coffees would do well to look at the blind assessment paragraphs of the ten reviews associated with this article carefully. Although several reviews make allusion to hints of moist, fresh-fallen leaves or deploy similar foresty descriptors, specific profiles differ greatly, dramatically even. Details of wet-hulling vary, lot by lot, and botanical variety, although only beginning to be reflected in market descriptors in Sumatra, may be at work in the background as well, along with the even less-understood impact of subtly varying terroirs. Plus, of course, roast is crucial in differentiating these samples, perhaps even more crucial than it is in respect to influencing the character of more conventional coffee profiles.

The PT’s Silimakuta AAA Sumatra (93) displays perhaps the most explicit (though still quietly integrated) earth notes of the ten reviewed samples; the fusion of this gently stated suggestion with more conventional chocolate and apricot- and raisin-like fruit notes nets an engaging expression of the wet-hulled style. By comparison, neither the top-rated Papa Lin’s Lake Toba Peaberry (94) nor the Equator Sumatra Ulos Batak (94) appear to exhibit explicit earth-related notes, yet both display variations that in my experience reflect the impact of wet-hulling: the particularly zesty and pungently grapefruity character of the Equator, and the spice and herb innuendoes complicating the softly lush, floral and stone-fruit of the Papa Lin’s. Other reviewed samples range from the more delicate, nutty and crisp (the Bird Rock Sumatra Ulos Batak, 93, for example) to the Kenya-like dry berry, citrus and chocolate of the Seattle Coffee Works Sumatra Ulos Batak (93).

A Little Farther Back in the Pack

Of course, not all of the wet-hulled Sumatras we sampled were quite as successful as the ten reviewed here, or the additional four not reviewed that rated 90 to 91. The complex set of processing procedures involved with wet-hulling, performed in different places by different parties, must make achieving consistency difficult. Ever since the new, more refined style of wet-hulled Sumatras started appearing on the market a decade or so ago I’ve been amazed by the achievement of cooperative leaders, exporters and others in achieving the consistency represented by the best of these engaging and original coffees.

Returning to the samples not reviewed here, we tasted only one outright tainted sample, although several more showed mild inconsistencies from cup to cup. We sampled a couple of the more generic style of “Mandheling” Sumatras displaying the older style of explicit earthiness that can come across as broodingly rough and robust in darker roast styles, but in the currently fashionable medium roasts simply comes across as, well, rough. Other samples seemed to have suffered during green coffee storage and transport (always an issue with Indonesia coffees) and showed up tasting a bit dull and woody.

Two Good Bets

Some well-known green coffee names representing the new refined style of Sumatra were absent from this cupping, perhaps because of timing or availability issues. Of those green coffee names or brands that did appear in our lab this month and rated well, the two most frequent to appear were the “Ulos Batak” branded Lintong-region coffees from the cooperative exporter Klasik Beans, and two excellent samples (both certified organically grown) from the Ketiara Cooperative located in the Aceh growing region at the far northwestern tip of Sumatra.

* Photo courtesy of Crop to Cup Coffee

Kenneth Davids is a coffee expert, author and co-founder of Coffee Review. He has been involved with coffee since the early 1970s and has published three books on coffee, including the influential Home Roasting: Romance and Revival, now in its second edition, and Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying, which has sold nearly 250,000 copies over five editions. His workshops and seminars on coffee sourcing, evaluation and communication have been featured at professional coffee meetings on six continents.

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Ranking U.S. States by Readership

Yesterday, we shared some Coffee Review readership data by country in a piece called “Where is Coffee Hot in 2015: By Country.” Perhaps not surprisingly, the United States is the country with the greatest Coffee Review readership and readership per capita. Today, we take a closer look at how readership and growth varies by U.S. state.

Obviously, a big driver of traffic is the population of each state.  For example, you would expect California to have more readers than Hawaii just based on the large difference in population, roughly 38 million versus 1.4 million, respectively.  So, we normalized for population to calculate per capita readership, which is a better gauge of how passionate a particular state is about coffee.

Two notes about methodology: 1) Because we launched a new website in 2014, which had a dramatic impact on page views, we’re ranking states on the basis of page views instead of traffic, as we did in 2014; 2) For year-over-year growth, we used 2-month snapshot from January and February 2015 versus 2014.

Ranking by Per Capita Readership

The ranking of states by per capita readership has not changed dramatically since our last look in early 2014. The top ten spots have shuffled quite a bit but nine of the ten states remain are the same as 2014.

Hawaii remains in the No. 1 spot.  As we’ve noted in the past, that might seem surprising at first glance but, when you consider that Hawaii is the only state that produces significant quantities of coffee, it stands to reason that a lot of people have a vested interest in coffee news and reviews.

Minnesota made the biggest jump from 2014 to 2015, moving from the No. 10 spot to No. 2.  This likely a function of a vibrant and growing coffee scene in greater Minneapolis, with numerous quality roasters such as Paradise Roasters (a Coffee Review advertiser), Spyhouse Coffee, Bootstrap Coffee, Bull Run, True Stone, and Caribou Coffee.  It may also be a function of traffic directed to the site by roasters and local press that reported on the Top 30 Coffees of 2014 and other great reviews in January and February.

This is certainly the case for California moving up a spot to No. 5.  Thirteen of the Top 30 Coffees of 2014 were roasted in California and local media, particularly in Sacramento, provided a lot of well deserved coverage.

Illinois jumped into the top ten at No. 9.  New Hampshire, which had been No. 7, dropped out of the top ten.

It’s interesting to note that Vermont (No. 4 to No. 8), New Hampshire (No. 7 to No. 15), and Maine (No. 24 to No. 39) showed some of the largest year-over-year drops.  I wonder if the incredibly harsh winter played a role in reducing readership?

Ranking by Per Capita Page Views (2014 rank in parentheses):

1. Hawaii (1)

2. Minnesota (10)

3. Massachusetts (3)

4. Washington (2)

5. California (6)

6. Colorado (8)

7. Oregon (5)

8. Vermont (4)

9. Illinois (12)

10. New York (9)

11. New Jersey (16)

12. Virginia (11)

13. Maryland (15)

14. Connecticut (14)

15. New Hampshire (7)

16. Pennsylvania (23)

17. Nebraska (19)

18. Florida (27)

19. Alaska (26)

20. Georgia (32)

21. Rhode Island (18)

22. Missouri (29)

23. Kansas (17)

24. Arizona (28)

25. Oklahoma (30)

26. Texas (34)

27. Michigan 31)

28. Tennessee (27)

29. North Carolina (35)

30. Kentucky (36)

31. Wisconsin (20)

32. Nevada (22)

33. Delaware (31)

34. Montana (13)

35. Ohio (33)

36. South Dakota (45)

37. Wyoming (38)

38. North Dakota (43)

39. Maine (24)

40. Indiana (35)

41. New Mexico (39)

42. Utah (44)

43. Louisiana (46)

44.  Iowa (41)

45. South Carolina (50)

46. Alabama (42)

47. West Virginia (48)

48. Idaho (40)

49. Arkansas (47)

50. Mississippi (49)

Ranking by Percentage Growth

We also looked at percentage growth from early 2014 to 2015.  On average, page views increased 42% from 2014 to 2015.  It stands to reason that states that had greater than 42% growth rose in the per capita rankings and those with less than 42% growth fell.  The fastest growing state in terms of Coffee Review readership was South Dakota, with a growth rate of 91%.  Yes, it was off a small base, as was the case for several of the fastest growing states.

Ranking by Percentage Growth from 2014 to 2015:

1. South Dakota

2. Minnesota

3. North Dakota

4. Hawaii

5. Louisiana

6. Tennessee

7. Kentucky

8. Florida

9. Georgia

10. New Jersey

11. Pennsylvania

12. West Virginia

13. Texas

14. California

15. Missouri

16. Utah

17. Wyoming

18. Alaska

19. Maryland

20. Massachusetts

21. Nebraska

22. Colorado

23. South Carolina

24. Illinois

25. Arkansas

26. New York

27. Ohio

28. Oklahoma

29. Arizona

30. Rhode Island

31. Vermont

32. Iowa

33. New Mexico

34. Alabama

35. Indiana

36. Delaware

37. Michigan

38. Connecticut

39. Mississippi

40. North Carolina

41. Oregon

42. Wisconsin

43. Virginia

44. Nevada

45. Maine

46. Washington

47. Kansas

48. Idaho

49. New Hampshire

50. Montana

Ron Walters, co-founder of Coffee Review, manages business operations, including CoffeeReview.com, marketing, and social media. He conceived of and helped pioneer the development of 100-point reviews in the specialty coffee industry. For the past twenty years, he has been engaged in strategy, marketing, and management of specialty food and beverage businesses.

View the original article here

April Fools’ Coffee: 100-point O’Ima Lion Farms

Yesterday, in the spirit of April Fools’ Day, we posted a 100-point review for O’Ima Lion Farms April No. 1 Natural by San Veritas Roasters.  In case you missed it, the spoof appears below:

Coffee Review has never awarded 100 points to a coffee.  Since 1997, twelve coffees have earned a score of 97 points.  Of the twelve, four are geishas, three were Kenyas, two were Ethiopias, two were Guatemalas (both bourbons), and one was a Kona natural.

The 97-pointers are as follows:

Klatch Coffee – Panama Ironman Camilina Geisha, September 2014

Barrington Coffee Roasting Co. – Perci Red Panama Gesha, December 2012

Caribou Coffee – Roastmaster’s Reserve Esmeralda, September 2012

Terroir Coffee – El Vergel Guatemala, March 2012

Wood-Fire Roasted Coffee – Kenya Nyeri AB Gichatha-ini, November 2011

Temple Coffee & Tea – Guatemala Hunapu Antigua Bourbon, October 2010

Simon Hsieh Aroma Roast – Ethiopia Washed Yirgacheffe, Koke Grade 1, December 2009

Hula Daddy – Kona Sweet 100% Kona, December 2008

Terroir Coffee – Kenya Mamuto, March 2008

The Roasterie – Esmerala Especial Best of Panama, October 2007

Paradise Roasters – Kenya AA Wagamuga Auction Lot, August 2007

Paradise Roasters – Ethiopia Biloya Special, May 2007

******************************************************************

San Veritas Coffee Roasters – Portland, Oregon

O’Ima Lion Farms April No. 1 Natural

Reviewed: April 1, 2015

Price: >$1000.00/16 ounces (at auction)

Origin: O’Ima Lion Farms, Pacific Ocean, east of the Hawaiian Islands.

OVERALL RATING: 100

Notes: San Veritas Coffee is a previously unheard of boutique coffee roaster that claims to roast exotic coffee beans one at a time. O’Ima Lion Farms is located on a recently formed volcanic island approximately one hundred miles southeast of Hawaii. It is located on the slopes of the older part of the island, which was formed ten years ago. The residual heat from the lava rock is said to encourage a particularly lush growth. Shade is provided by volcanic haze. Only one pound of this coffee was produced and will be sold at auction.

Blind assessment: So good, we almost peed in our pants when we tasted this coffee.

Who should drink it: Coffee lovers who appreciate April Fools’ jokes, a decadent American tradition. If you found this review amusing, or even if you found it irritating, please consider making a small donation to www.groundsforhealth.org or HawaiiCommunityFoundation.org to help support these fine charitable organizations.

Ron Walters, co-founder of Coffee Review, manages business operations, including CoffeeReview.com, marketing, and social media. He conceived of and helped pioneer the development of 100-point reviews in the specialty coffee industry. For the past twenty years, he has been engaged in strategy, marketing, and management of specialty food and beverage businesses.

View the original article here

2015 World Barista Champ Crowned

The 2015 World Barista Champion is Sasa Sestic from Ona Coffee in Canberra, Australia.

A total of 49 National Barista Champions competed in the 16th World Barista Championship, which took place over four days in Seattle this past weekend, as part of the Specialty Coffee Association of America annual coffee conference.  The World Barista Championship is an annual event for national barista champions.  In each competition, with numerous local and regional preliminary events, baristas prepare espressos, cappuccinos and original espresso signature drinks to exacting standards for a panel of international judges.

Charles Babinski, from Go Get ‘Em Tiger in Los Angeles, represented the United States of America and finished as the runner-up.

Third place went to Ben Put from Monogram Coffee in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Congratulations to Sasa, Charles, and Ben, as well as the rest of the incredibly talented competitors.

Ron Walters, co-founder of Coffee Review, manages business operations, including CoffeeReview.com, marketing, and social media. He conceived of and helped pioneer the development of 100-point reviews in the specialty coffee industry. For the past twenty years, he has been engaged in strategy, marketing, and management of specialty food and beverage businesses.

View the original article here

What’s In a Name?

It would come as no surprise to industry professionals or even your average coffee lover that specialty coffees have become, well, more specialized over the years.  Nowadays, coffees are segmented and differentiated by every conceivable measure: by country of origin, farm, varietal, crop year, processing method, micro-lot, altitude, roast, blend… you name it.

That’s a good thing.  It’s a sign that the coffee industry is evolving and maturing, providing consumers with more choices that can better meet their personal tastes and preferences.  We’ve moved beyond the days of offering consumers breakfast blend, french roast, espresso blend, and decaf.

It stands to reason that coffee names would now require additional information to describe more differentiated coffees.  To test the theory, we compared the names of coffees in our March 1997 tasting report of Straight Coffees from Africa with the names of coffees in March 2015 tasting report of Macro-Lot Coffees. Arguably, macro-lot coffees might even have relatively shorter names, given that they aren’t “micro” in some sense.

In the March 2015 tasting report, the average length of a coffee name was 28.3 letters, not counting the name of the roaster.  All of the coffees carried the country of origin, which accounted for an average of 7.7 letters.  So, roughly 21 letters were needed to describe the coffee beyond its country of origin.

I had to chuckle when I looked at the coffee names from March 1997.  Six of the twelve coffees were named “Kenya AA.”  That’s it.  “Kenya AA.” Two were named “Ethiopia Yirgacheffe” and two others were called “Ethiopia Sidamo.”  One of the coffees – Cafe del Mundo’s Smaldeel Estate – carried the name of the farm where the coffee was grown.  That was quite a novel concept at the time.

In any case, the average length of the coffee name in the March 1997 report was 12.9 letters.  The country of origin, when it was included, was 6.4 letters.  An average, roughly 7 letters were needed to describe the coffee beyond its country of origin.

Some will argue that this is a sign that coffees have become too fussy.  However, I appreciate the extra information and transparency.  It allows interested consumers to identify and purchase more differentiated coffees, arguably better quality coffees.  In many cases, consumers will pay more for these distinguished coffees, which in turn helps reward the growers and roasters who invest time, energy, passion, and money in producing these coffees.

Ron Walters, co-founder of Coffee Review, manages business operations, including CoffeeReview.com, marketing, and social media. He conceived of and helped pioneer the development of 100-point reviews in the specialty coffee industry. For the past twenty years, he has been engaged in strategy, marketing, and management of specialty food and beverage businesses.

View the original article here

Meet Meredith Taylor, Counter Culture Coffee’s New Sustainability Coordinator

What is sustainable coffee?

As a member of the Specialty Coffee Association of America Sustainability Council, Meredith Taylor says this question, as simple as it sounds, is somewhat unanswerable.

“We’ve wondered in the sustainability council if we should define sustainable coffee,” Taylor recently told Daily Coffee News. “But is that our job to do? Is it possible to do? I know it’s going to be difficult for us to know what we’re talking about as an industry if we’re not transparent about this.”

Transparency is among the key charges for Taylor in her new role as sustainability coordinator for Durham, N.C.-based roaster and wholesaler Counter Culture Coffee. CCC has long been one of coffee’s most forward-thinking companies, but its 8-year-old sustainability department has essentially been manned by one person until now, green coffee buyer and sustainability manager Kim Elena Ionescu.

Counter Culture Coffee Sustainability Coordinator Meredith Taylor

While Ionescu’s sustainability efforts have naturally leaned toward supply sustainability and issues at origin, Taylor says she hopes to help the company grow a more well-rounded sustainability approach.

“Think companies like Patagonia, Seventh Generation or New Belgium — when people think of sustainable companies, we want to be on that list,” says Taylor, who got her start in coffee as a barista then manager at Washington D.C.’s Peregrine Espresso. “We’ve done a lot toward sustainability in the coffee world, but not much outside the coffee world.”

To this end, Taylor says the company plans to look deeper inward. “This new position is meant to do a lot of the projects that have been thought of, but that have been put on hold,” she says. “We’re trying to figure out all the sustainability metrics we want to track internally and figure out procedures to measure those.”

For example, under Ionescu’s leadership, CCC has measured seed-to-cup greenhouse gas emissions for several years, but it has not yet tracked internal water usage. The idea is to develop a sustainability approach that reaches every part of the company, from origin to roastery to board room to wholesale delivery.

“We’re also figuring out good ways to report all this stuff,” says Taylor. “We want to be increasingly transparent, and part of that involves getting that raw data and transforming it into something usable, interesting and digestible.”

That digestible data, she says will improve both internal and external communications regarding the company’s sustainability plan. Says Taylor, “I’ve been talking a lot with marketing about how to better communicate the sustainability of our coffees, not necessarily to consumers, but to our employees and our partners.”

This goes back to the problematic question of defining sustainable coffee.

“How do we communicate that sustainability is a spectrum?” Taylor asks. “A lot of times, sustainability is presented as a dichotomy — ‘Is this coffee organic or is it not?’ Well, there are farms that are organic but not socially or environmentally sustainable. There is no clear definition of sustainable coffee, and we need to evolve our collective understanding of the spectrum.”

Taylor is spending some of here existing time simply brushing up on buzzwords and other corporate-speak — the unfortunate result of sustainability increasingly making good business sense. “There is a lot of that corporate-speak and jargon,” she says. “I think it’s important for us to understand how other companies talk about sustainability, even if we don’t want to use that language.”

CCC has launched a new sustainability section on its site, including several new blog posts from Taylor on the company’s sustainability program, as well as coffee sustainability issues, at large.

Author: Nick Brown Nick Brown is the editorial director of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. Feedback and story ideas of welcome at publisher@dailycoffeenews.com.

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A Specialty Coffee Guide to Boise, the Gem State Capital

Grant Shealy of Neckar Coffee. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

Snugly hunkered up against the arid western foothills of the Rockies is the lush, low-key metropolis of Boise, Idaho. Geographically remote and politically conservative, the walls of this valley tend to resist winds of change, although with each generation comes some progress.

Coffeewise, this was manifested in the 1990s through a handful of early independent shops that staked their claim prior to the Starbucks invasion, and these remain the go-to shops for Gem State capital loyalists. Today, the sprouts of another generation in coffee are unfurling in the light of the high desert sun.

It is an electrifying time for artisan gastronomy in the Treasure Valley. Crafty, Northwest-style breweries are proliferating, the Treefort Music Fest is fast becoming an annual pin on the nation’s indie music roadmap, and in just the past few years Boise has cut ribbons on its first Whole Foods and its first Trader Joe’s — all significant milestones for consumer culture here.

Brian Wight, owner of eight drive-thru Dutch Bros Coffee franchise locations in Boise, has observed “a dramatic upswing in consumerism” over the past five years. “Our volumes are up 30 to 40 percent across our stores,” Wight tells Daily Coffee News. In 23 years the Oregon-based drive-thru company has erupted into 245 locations spread out over seven states, and only four of these stores have seating. Dutch Bros’ fifth-ever — and first in Idaho — seated location is slated to open at the intersection of State and 15th near downtown this coming August — a well-researched indication as an uptick in coffee consumption here.

Boise is a well-established enclave among college football fans, retirees, Mormons, and the NRA, but it also seems like potentially fertile ground for burgeoning micro roasters. Grant Shealy, affable 26-year-old proprietor of Neckar Coffee, is just that. Shealy’s got big plans for a brick-and-mortar Neckar flagship somewhere in the downtown area within the next year or two, and the coffee business is poised to push quality forward for all of Boise.

In the meantime, the city’s solid showing of old-guard indie drink-builders and handful of inspiringly up-to-date go-getters keep the people abuzz and the local industry heading in the right direction.

Here’s a roundup of the Boise coffee scene as it stands today:

Guru Donuts. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

Yes, even Boise now enjoys a purveyor of rich, fluffy, yeasted vegan donuts, right alongside the maple-bacons and other inventive offerings in the downtown brick-and-mortar home of Guru Donuts, which opened in January 2015. An imaginative selection of fresh decadent square and circular sweets is available daily with coffee roasted by Hailey, Idaho-based Maps Coffee (not to be confused with the Kansas micro-roaster of the same name). “We decided to partner with Maps Coffee because they do offer a lighter, brighter roast,” manager Darryl Vickers told Daily Coffee News. “We wanted to be unique in the valley with that, and we feel it pairs well with our donuts.” Jens Peterson, son of the owners of longstanding Hailey roaster Grace Organics, is the skateboarder at the helm of Maps. Grace has been roasting for 25 years, but Maps, the boutique-style next generation, has gone from apprentice to primetime independence with Guru as its first commercial client.

Neckar Coffee. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

Neckar‘s Diedrich IR2 lives happily behind the scenes in the Woodland Empire Ale Craft brewery space. These two businesses, along with the occasional food trucks that swing by to sling munchies to sudsy Woodland patrons, constitute an exemplary ground zero of Boise’s upward trajectory in creative sips and eats. You can find Shealy and company serving careful pourovers at the new Boise Farmer’s Market most Saturdays, as well as select streets and events around town. Within the coming months, pending requisite approvals from the city, Neckar intends to step up production to break into the metropolitan wholesale market.

The Crux. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

The Crux is a cavernous coffeehouse by day and a venue by night, with gritty local art on every wall and most of the square footage wide open for performances. Local and traveling bands can rock out then return the next morning for some Hair Bender, of the dog. Owner Bob Cooper fell in love with the Stumptown coffee served to him by gifted baristas at the Albina Press in Portland, Ore., the city in which he still runs a hardwood flooring business from afar. Despite all training and scrutiny he, with some dismay, recalls going through in the process of earning Stumptown’s approval, he nevertheless jumped at the opportunity to be Boise’s exclusive brewer of Stumptown, a deal he believes the company would not have made today. Four years later, he’s still pretty sure he serves the best coffee in town, and it’s hard to argue. Bob is surprised that most sales are still just grab and go, but that’s life downtown. The upside is that for those that prefer to take it slow, there’s usually plenty of room on the Crux’s several couches and sunny storefront window tables.

Flying M. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

The Flying M Coffeehouse is kind of like Boise’s Central Perk, only bigger and with less upholstery. Its doors first opened in 1995 and it quickly expanded from a small space into the larger space next door. Their perennial espresso blend and similarly enduring House Blend help maintain the M’s slot among shops most often recommended to visitors as either the best in town or at least better than the nationwide chains with which they would seem to compete. Also on offer is a consistent selection of single-origin coffees in whole bean form, in-house baked goods, and smoothies. Flying M’s zanily colored walls and furnishings, local art, and tchotchkes galore are rounded off with a cheeky novelty gift shop occupying a semi-cordoned corner inside the cafe. Meanwhile, behind the counter, a shiny new Nuova Simonelli Aurelia II rules, and if you squint through the towers of branded merch you may spy a WBC sticker on the back of one of their grinders. Service is speedy and friendly, the atmosphere is bustling, and the clientele is as eclectic as it gets here in Les Bois.

Dawson Taylor downtown

Dawson Taylor is the earthy farm-worker-themed mosaic counterpoint to Flying M’s hypercolor alternative vibe. Both opened in 1995, both have one downtown location and second locations at their roasteries, and both do wholesale, although DT is the company more likely to knock more than once in pursuit of your business should you be setting up shop anywhere around Boise. Artsy, unassuming, and mildly granola, the DT downtown shop is on the northernmost pedestrian block of 8th Street, which is lined with posh eateries, apparel shops, and nightspots. The ample front patio seating is a hub of community chitchat, and their paralysis-inducing selection of coffees includes no fewer than eight decafs, along with single-origins and blends. Brewed behind the counter there’s a daily rotation of three regulars and one decaf, plus all manner of espresso and milk drinks. It’s fascinating to note that, like the set of a Hollywood underdog movie, directly across the narrow pedestrian street is the lone Boise location of the sleek 16-store Washington-based coffee chain Thomas Hammer. It may take a harrowing dodgeball tournament to decide which one will ultimately prevail.

Afro Phil, the man. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

Afro Phil is unapologetically Afro Phil. If you meet the man in any food-related context, he will probably introduce himself as Afro Phil, and, really, every town should have an Afro Phil. A West Boise nanoroaster with a driver’s license that actually reads Phil Tegethoff, Afro Phil roasts one kilo at a time on a diminutive Probatino in his home garage, surrounded by his kids’ toys and bikes. He’ll slide up the door and sell coffee right there, though he also sells online, ships through the mail, and will even deliver it locally. Afro Phil has been operating for about two years and maintains a few cafe accounts. He estimates his business is at this point roughly half retail, half wholesale, although he fell a bit behind in the wake of recent equipment snafus for which he found service and support to be painfully unresponsive. Now back in the saddle, Phil continues logging every roast in a spiral notebook and cupping obsessively throughout the day, striving for balance, consistency, and his marque “smoothness.” He also hosts occasional public cuppings in his backyard, in an effort to create a better informed and more zealous Boise coffee culture.

Java Cafe downtown location. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

Java’s trademarked tagline reads “Wake Up and Live,” although as head barista and quality control tech Jude Claffey points out, their official coffee slogan is “Coffee That Rocks.” It’s a play on the volcanic coffee island moniker as well as the fact that Java’s owner, Todd Rippo, is a guitarist living in Sun Valley that has jammed with the likes of Bruce Willis. The drink on Java’s menu called the Keith Richards — a quad-shot Mexican mocha — is born from Rippo’s actual experience rockin’ out with Keef. Founded in Ketchum in 1991, Java has six total locations, two of which are fixtures of the Boise coffee scene. The downtown spot opened in the mid 1990s, followed a few year later by a second location in Boise’s quaint Hyde Park neighborhood. Downtown, Java has high ceilings, Warhol on every wall, and is the only Java not nestled in a repurposed house. The Hyde Park location is a freestanding house with a spacious patio and porch, and an interior with couches and a hearth providing living-room coziness. Both offer full breakfast and lunch, with organic, Fair Trade coffee by San Diego roaster Café Moto.

Big City Coffee. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

Big City Coffee and Café is equal parts chow-house and coffeehouse. The tidiness of the shop’s façade and picnic-table sidewalk seating plays against the circus of old-timey signage exploding within, while in-house baked goods and a diner-style, all-day breakfast and lunch menu scores high marks with the locals. Its barn-like exposed wooden rafters and well-worn wooden furnishings are all country, though Big City Coffee is the go-to spot for a hot cup or capp in Boise’s thoroughly urban Linen District, as well as at the Boise Airport, where it recently established a presence. Big City’s coffees are roasted by Doma Coffee Roasting Company, the only Idaho roaster chosen as a finalist in the 2014 Good Food Awards. Doma also garners accolades for its beautiful packaging, part of its private label service for Big City’s retail packages, including Big City’s Joe Cans fundraising line, proceeds of which go to support breast cancer awareness and early detection efforts. Joe Cans include such feistily named offerings as the Big Titty Blend, Bra-zilian Brew, and Double D Decaf.

Janjou Patisserie. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

The interior of Janjou Patisserie is almost defiantly precise and pristine, in Apple Store-like contrast to the rest of the town’s rustic, mountain-sporty aesthetic. Since 2008, the artisan boutique bakery has served delicately crafted pastries alongside traditional espresso drinks, including a faithful 6-ounce cappuccino and 4-ounce macchiato, which are rarities in this town. Their coffee is roasted by Lizzy’s Fresh Coffee, an outfit based in Ketchum, Idaho, a few hours east of Boise. (See the “Firestarters” column of the January/February 2012 issue of Roast Magazine for more on Lizzy’s founder and roaster Liz Roquet.)

The Kahve Coffee sign, made by Boise artist Noel Webber. Photo by Howard Bryman for Daily Coffee News.

The Boise International Market is an exciting recent addition to Boise’s evolving culinary tapestry, with Kahve Coffee situated right up front. A coffee lover’s window to the world, Kahve might also be the closest thing Boise has to a multi-roaster café. Their Turkish comes from Turkey, their Arabic-style is made with coffee from Jordan, and their Cuban is, well, from Miami. For drip and espresso, Kahve serves fresh roasts from Full Circle Exchange, a non-profit social enterprise brand based in the neighboring city of Eagle, that is devoted to empowering women and lifting communities out of poverty through sustainable commerce. The gorgeous and intricately gilded glass “Coffee & Tea” sign hanging over Kahve was hand-made by legendary Boise sign artist Noel Weber over 30 years ago. The piece is so unique that Weber bought it back when its original home café shuttered, and it took a fair amount of convincing by Kahve to get Weber to part with it again. Or so the legend goes as told by Omid, the friendly and knowledgeable Kahve barista. In Persian, Omid’s name means “hope,” which makes him a fine representative of Boise’s budding coffee scene.

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Hario Introduces Wine-Bottle-Shaped Cold Brewer

In summer-fun accoutrements news, Japanese coffee brewing equipment manufacturer Hario has introduced a wine-bottle-shaped version of its cold immersion brewer, Mizudashi.

The brewer is a variation of Hario’s existing Mizudashi cold brewer, which maintains a cylindrical shape. The new model, called Filter-In Coffee Bottle, more closely resembles Hario’s bottle-shaped tea brewer, which was released in 2013.

Made at Hario’s manufactuing headquarters in Koga, Ibaraki, the Filter-In Coffee model includes a 650ml-capacity glass bottle, removable silicone rubber stoppers and spouts, and a polyester mesh filter with a plastic strainer. Hario suggests starting with cold water, and allowing for an eight-hour extraction time in the refrigerator.

Author: Nick Brown Nick Brown is the editorial director of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. Feedback and story ideas of welcome at publisher@dailycoffeenews.com.

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We Talk Swedish Coffee Breaks with ‘Fika’ Co-Author Anna Brones

Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break. Photo by Luc Revel

In Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break, a new book co-authored by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall, coffee in the United States is associated with speed — it is something to be consumed early to engage the senses, or to be used for a quick pick-me-up.

Fika, a word that acts as both a verb and noun in Swedish, represents a contrary approach to coffee consumption. It is simply the pairing of coffee, or tea, and homemade baked goods, and savoring them with the people around you.

“At the end of the day, fika and this book is about taking a break having a coffee, eating something great with it,” Brones told Daily Coffee News shortly after the book’s publication. “Who doesn’t like that?”

For Brones and Kindvall, the book represents something of a Swedish soul connection. Both credit the scratch baking of their Swedish mothers as inspiration. Brones, who is American-born and living in Paris, says family members in Sweden were obsessively sharing links to a Huffington Post piece on the book that was reposted in the native language.

“I think it is hilarious — they wouldn’t need the book in Sweden,” says Brones. “In Sweden, [fika] is just kind of a normal thing that you do.”

The book contains recipes for dozens of traditional Swedish homemade tarts, breads, tortes, cakes, cookies, buns and more. There are also a few modern takes on Swedish baked goods, which are framed in the book by chapters such as “The Outdoor Season” and “Modern-Day Fika.”

A brief history of Swedish coffee and coffee culture lead into the recipe sections. Recipes themselves are put in cultural and culinary context: How might this fruitcake be an improvement over the hard, dry cakes that make Americans shudder? Or, What are the traditional baked goods in a traditional Julaftong (Christmas Eve spread)? There is also some wonderful explication of Swedish language. One could most likely speak fluently in a Swedish home kitchen if her or she were to commit the pages to memory.

Brones and Kindvall pitched a hard manuscript of the book to Berkeley, Calif.-based 10 Speed Press, associated with a division of Random House, three years ago. They got an immediate green light, and Fika was officially released last month. Some glowing reviews from the likes of the New York Times T Magazine, Cool Hunting and Paste Magazine have propelled the book to early success.

“Part of the reason we did the proposal was because, even at that time, Scandinavian food culture was just coming into fashion,” Brones says, citing the growing Fika coffee chain in New York, as well as other independent single shops that borrow the name in Sydney, London and Seoul. “I think there has been a kind of reattachment to the word.”

In the book publishing world, timing is always a gamble. “You’d probably have a hard time pitching a book on kale smoothies and mason jars right now,” says Brones, who maintains Foodie Underground, writes about food for numerous publications, and dove into coffee writing through her work with Sprudge.

Asked whether she’s tired of the word fika after three years of pitching, writing, editing and promoting, Brones says, “No, I love fika. Fika is the best thing ever.”

Brones and Kindvall are currently in the midst of a mini book tour, including upcoming signing events in New York, Seattle, Portland and London. Visit Brones’ Foodie Underground for the latest.

Author: Nick Brown Nick Brown is the editorial director of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. Feedback and story ideas of welcome at publisher@dailycoffeenews.com.

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Chinese Roaster DTS8 Relocating Headquarters to Vancouver from Shanghai

DTS8 Coffee Co. Ltd.

Chinese green coffee importer and roaster DTS8 Coffee Company today announced plans to relocate its corporate headquarters from Shanghai to Vancouver, British Colombia, citing plans to capitalize on the growing North American specialty coffee market.

DTS8’s Chinese roasting operations, based in Huzhou, and sales operations in Shanghai will be unaffected by the move, and the six-year-old company plans to open its new corporate offices Aug. 1 of this year.

“The relocation will strengthen DTS8 by hedging the country risk associated with doing business exclusively in China,” the publicly traded company said in today’s announcement. “It will allow DTS8 to pursue new revenue opportunities in the North American green bean coffee market.”

DTS8 currently roasts markets and wholesales coffees for numerous private label partners, while its own brands include DTS8 Premium, Single Origin Premium and Don Manuel, an all Colombian blend. The Don Manuel brand represents a licensing agreement for branded Colombian coffee with New York-based Coffee Holding Company.

“This relocation is focused on implementing necessary measures with a view towards improving our operations in China, increasing revenues for the benefit of our shareholders, and to minimize the negative perceptions associated with being a solely China based company,” DTS8 Chairman Alex Liang said in a statement. “DTS8 plans to expand its footprint with a steady flow of roasted and green bean coffee products targeted at the growing North American gourmet coffee market and allowing us to be well-positioned for future growth opportunities in China and North America.”

Author: Nick Brown Nick Brown is the editorial director of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. Feedback and story ideas of welcome at publisher@dailycoffeenews.com.

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Lineup for the Barista Guild of Europe’s Inaugural CoLab Event in Prague

The Barista Guild of Europe has announced the speaking lineup for the inaugural CoLab event in Prague, which involves a day of educational content framed by two half days of exploring the city’s coffee scene.

CoLab is being hosted in collaboration with Coffee Embassy from May 21-23. The 22nd, the big education day, will include the following speakers:

The speaking lineup was coordinated in collaboration with Tamper Tantrum, the live and online lecture and discussion coordination and broadcasting project created by Colin Harmon and Steven Leighton. Incidentally, Harmon and Leighton have somewhat formalized Tamper Tantrum this year after five years of informally staging panel discussions, individual interviews, podcasts and speaking engagements on all things coffee. Harmon and Leighton have added World Coffee Events marketing manager Jen Rugolo to the team, and TT now boasts of being “one of the world’s premier platforms for coffee bickering, brainstorming, and live speaking engagements.”

After the Prague event, which costs guests €85, the BGE plans to host an additional 2015 CoLab in Paris, and it is seeking interest for partners for 2016 events in other cities. The group has more on the Prague program here. And if you want a head start, check out our guide to Prague coffee.

Author: Nick Brown Nick Brown is the editorial director of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. Feedback and story ideas of welcome at publisher@dailycoffeenews.com.

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