November 2010
23 posts
Sorry for the lack of posts this week.
Been super busy at the roastary. I’ll get some stuff lined up over the weekend and get the blog rolling. Thanks for your patience!
seanrrwilkins asked: Hey thanks for the follow. Would you mind telling me how you came across my blog?
Thanks,
Sean
Thanks,
Sean
This Is My Kind Of Flickr →
John Ermacoff’s flickr. Lots of cool espresso equipment pictures. Source: JimSeven
Cupping Observations
Recently some low-grade Ugandan coffee with some great direct trade opportunities found its way onto my cupping table. Perhaps through comunication and better practices, processing, shipping, and packaging (Grainpro), this coffee could be really good. I would have liked to upload my cupping scores and notes, but alas I was busy and didnt save them. But basically I found it to be a 76-78, very...
Watchsocialbarista:
check the beans
Check the trier
I've Been Sick :'-(
Sorry I’ve missed a few days, I’ve been under the weather. Feeling slightly better now, so I’ll get back to writing some new articles. In the meantime, please enjoy the Inverted French Press below, and if you didn’t read it check out the Defined Espresso Styles article also below.
New content soon, Promise.
Defined Espresso Styles
Coffee is not my only passion of flavor and aroma; in fact craft-beer brewing is where I got my first taste of the sensory experience that a specialty or craft beverage can offer. Through diligent brewing and tasting, I discovered the subtle changes that occur when parameters are tweaked. On top of developing vastly complicated and varied ales, beer brewers have done a great job of classifying...
tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?
Like what you see? Make our day by subscribing to our RSS feed and following us on Facebook.
Cupping V. French Press →
As a cupping nerd, and a person who has put a lot of thought into French Press physics I find this very compelling. I’m going to run the test myself soon and report back.
This one time at barista camp...Pt.2/3
It was recently my privilege to have a quick phone conversation with World Class barista Sammy Piccolo. Sammy is not only a great barista, he’s also a really nice guy. I’ve run into him a few times at SCAA events and found him to be a very approachable dude, especially considering that he’s in the Pantheon of barista legends. While it was really fun for me to conduct this interview, I must admit...
What Even Is Specialty Coffee?
Today I’m going to cheat. I have a lot of roasting to do, a couple of half baked blogs to finish, and an interview with Sammy Piccolo to prepare for (This one time at barista camp…Pt.2 of 3); so I’m straight up re-publishing something that I wrote a while ago for another blog. I like it.
So… what even is specialty coffee? This is an astonishingly difficult question to...
4 tags
Coffee Cupping Photo Tutorial
Coffee cupping is the industry standard method for grading and evaluating coffee flavor and aroma. As a coffee roaster, I cup coffee most days of the week. Sometimes just one or two samples for quality control or because there is a coffee that I’m thinking about buying. Other times I’ll have 10 samples on the table and a whopping 50 cup total. This is usually a weekly or bi-weekly...
October 2010
18 posts
4 tags
Extraction Ah-Ha's?
My wife and I where chatting last night while I was editing the photo-set for the cupping photo tutorial. She is also a coffee nerd, so our conversation led to a discussion of the vast difference between a well-extracted cup of coffee and a good coffee that gets ruined by over-extraction. This led me to muse that my biggest difficulty as a specialty coffee roaster/enthusiast/promoter is that...
If You Like My Blog, You'll Probably Also Like... →
6 tags
This one time at barista camp...Pt. 1
At the 2010 Roasters Guild Retreat I met a guy called Barista Alex. Alex Negranza is a barista in Seattle and a blogger for WhyNotCoffee.com (which I highly recommend). One of the things that we talked about was the first BGA (Barista Guild of America) retreat “Camp Pull-a-Shot”. The months went by, and certainly inspired by Alex, I started blogging. One of the...
5 tags
The Holistic Barista. More Than Great Coffee, A...
What follows is a dissertation that I read earlier tonight to a promising group of young baristas.
“Certainly it is understood among coffee professionals that barista is an art and a skilled craft. While it is of chief importance that a barista be an expert in the various ways of extracting coffee and creating excellent coffee beverages I believe that there’s more to the profession than...
4 tags
WatchVideo of a mypressi TWIST. Article from Danny, the owner of this particular unit, coming soon.
6 tags
3 tags
K-Cup Comparisons
I went to my parents, house today to help my father move a piano. Fun stuff. On the up-side he showed off his new Keurig coffee maker. My folks are really into their new machine and they use my coffee in it daily, they also use pre-ground inserts of Green Mountain. Woof.
Naturally, I had to test this thing out. These are my findings.
Right off the bat, I can never endorse any use of pre-ground...
Coffee Supply Side Economics, or The Impending... →
Link to a great blog worth checking out. This article discusses price instabilities and imbalances that are occurring in the Specialty and Commodity coffee market.
I’m in the process of working up a series about coffee cupping. Probably get it put together by mid next week. To hold you over some coffee pr0n photos!
6 tags
Just Some Pictures
Luchador Enjoying Morning Cafe.
(pictured Connor Garbe, Barista, JoeBot’s Coffee, Dwelling Spaces)
Cupping Spoons.
3 tags
Topeca Coffee Educational Blog →
More information for your understanding of specialty coffee.
7 tags
Fly Over Of Coffee From Tree Through Mill
I think that from the outset we should engage in some remedial discussion about coffee; and ask some simple questions such as, what is coffee and how is it processed?
So for this post I will take any beginners on a whirl wind photo tour through the beginning phases in the life of coffee on it’s way to export from it’s country of origin. And for any coffee aficionados who already know...
7 tags
Have Spoon Will Travel's First Post
Welcome to the Have Spoon blog. The essence of this particular url is to provide articles and answer questions about as well as post pictures of specialty coffee.
My name is John Quinten Cunningham, I’ll be going by J.Q. I am the roastmaster for Topeca Coffee in Tulsa Oklahoma. As a specialty coffee roaster I’ve recieved lots of training, mostly through the Specialty Coffee...