I no longer roast coffee for Zoka. I now work bar for Sightglass coffee.

As much as I love Seattle,  San Francisco is heaps better. The food is better, the coffee is better (of course I would say that), the industry down here is less pretentious, the customers are willing to pay more money and pay more attention, the weather is nicer….

Some of my best friends in the industry work and live in San Francisco. Wonderful.

Finding this blog again comes at a perfect time– I have many experiments to come. Watch out.

Thanks to all to folks at Ritual and beyond who are helping me (monetarily) to get there. I have such nice friends.

I’m gonna work late roasting coffee wednesday then 5am Thursday packing coffee then 2pm flight then I get back on Tuesday and go straight to work again from the airport. That part will be shitty.

I’m excited to visit everyone and drink all the coffee and hopefully write about as much of the important stuff as I can. Yep.

We live and function under an economic (which controls the political) system that is inherently amoral.  Rather than immoral, as it isn’t against all moral code, our system functions without adhering to any morality. Furthermore our businesses as institutions generally run under a similar model, based upon competition in order to push the frontier of excellence in an environment of complete mediocrity. However this competition and market-based model doesn’t do such a thing. We end up with businesses that works for a market rather than a product. We end up with departments fighting each other to the point where no one wins and no one excels. Coffee should push its way outside of that.

The coffee company I strive to eventually create and support will mirror a model of community. Business should be run like a healthy relationship. There should be face time, communication, honesty, trust, consideration of others, teamwork, etc. We should always be on the same page and understand that we are all working to achieve the same ends and we are on the same path to get there.

Too often I see a mess of separated departments with different ideas in mind on how the company should function. Some say squeeze profits, some say save money, and some say make an excellent product while all strive to achieve their own goal within their space and fight with other departments on the significance of each goal. We who want a great product sometimes ignore the necessity of profits. We who want to make profit ignore the necessity of benevolent treatment of employees and the necessity of all things quality. There is a huge structural disconnect between customers, baristas, roasters, production staff, wholesale managers, Directors of operations, general managers, accountants, green buyers, producers, processors, and on and on.

Understandably there is little to no institutional support for the “relationship” type model of business but I hope specialty coffee can somewhat rise above. From the product perspective, I think of a previous blog post discussing congruency and calibration between steps in the process of coffee: http://timeglass.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/consumers-baristas-roasters-farmers/.  I would strive to have each employee while being a specialist in their position understand the process as a whole in any way possible. The business should be run with everyone in mind. Each employee will invest wholeheartedly into the company, while the company invests back into employees.

I wish I could articulate this better (or anything for that matter)

The more and more I learn about the business side of the coffee industry, the more I see a space for community to flourish. Every position in every step of the process of coffee should care about and trust each other. Roasteries need to put in a lot of time and effort to calibrate with and trust their employees, wholesale customers, importers and producers.  I see with my company how face time and trust in our primary importer Atlas Coffee Importers has immensely helped us learning about and bringing in excellent coffees. Same with Sergio and the Condado family in Brasil. When we strive to take care of each other and we understand that everyone in this process is here to create an excellent product, we work together rather than in competition.

We can continue to challenge, excite, and motivate each other toward a greater process and product.

I wanted to write more but I’ll stop on this now.

I’m going pubic. (I mean public).

I’m only going to California twice this summer (my original idea was three times). Once to San Fransisco for Ritual’s birthday and to hang out with CC since he’s awesome and I also won’t be able to make it down again for his birthday. Next visit will be in late July to the LA area.

I’m going to New York at the end of Summer/beginning of Autumn. Hold me to it.

I’m going to Portland next week to for overdue visits to those places and wonderful people.

I’m going to SERIOUSLY stop visiting places someday and save to buy my own roaster. Hopefully by the end of the year I’ll have a Probatino or a Giesen W1. Then in 2 years me and my UG 15 will blow the world up (it’ll be 2012 anywho).

I’m going to start home cuppings and brew parties because everyone should be drinking everyones coffee all of the time (to an extent).

I’m going to get more serious and work harder at tracking and understanding our green inventory and making big changes to our espresso to make it better and better and better.

I’m going to (probably not soon) thank my coworkers for being badass to the max.

I’m going (to write more things in parentheses).

what do you think?

I have thought about this quite a bit as I am very annoyed with getting great food and booze from a place but disgusting coffee. My first thought is to stay far away from espresso as it requires a lot more attention, space, and infrastructure than a restaurant can afford with such a small volume of espresso beverages.  Alternative brewing methods (pour over, press pot, etc) can be executed effectively without costing so much in money, time, and training.

I always thought it would be cool for a roastery to create a restaurant specific program and pay attention to it. I feel like although the revenue is very small (couldn’t be more than 50lbs a week, especially without espresso) it would be beneficial to be associated with fancy pants places and fancy pants folk. Such a roastery could create a coffee menu for consumers at the restaurants with information about the roastery, the brew methods, and brief blurb about each coffee.  These menus would change as often as new coffees come out, and the restaurant would probably only carry 2 or 3  single origin coffees and maybe a seasonal “restaurant blend”. The menus could have the restaurants name on it, maybe even further catered to the restaurants desires if feasible.

Hopefully, there would be one employee of the restaurant as the designated coffee person. that person will be training with the roastery more frequently than others and will understand in a communicable way processing methods, single origin, direct trade, extraction, roasting, dah dah dah as this person will be answering all questions and providing information for customers and fellow employees.  The overall quality of the coffee program ultimately depends on the ambition of the restaurant, but the roastery can make it pretty easy for them. I think.

I’m not very educated or interested in food pairings, but perhaps in the future perfect restaurant there will be a specialty head chef and a specialty head of coffee program who will work closely with each other to create pairings for deserts, drinks, whatever. maybe I’ll go there and think its coo.

In any case, my cousin is thinking of opening a breakfast diner style restaurant with very high quality food and a high quality coffee program. He’s been asking me a lot of questions as far as how to execute such a coffee program. With a breakfast place there is a higher volume of non-espresso beverages (especially where he wants to go) and an expectation for free refills. In a coffee shop we can educate against bottomless cups of coffee and brewing from large brewers because we are entirely focused on this cup being a craft and that is the center of our business. However in a “breakfast joint” it would be much more difficult. I thought of by the cup pourover bar, but I’ve seen how stressful and packed Sunday brunch already is without having to spend  of minutes on each cup of coffee. I foresee a million conversations like “No, I can’t give you a warm up, but if you finish that cup of coffee I can brew you another one.”

Then I thought about a Technivorm. I’ve never actually had it but I’ve heard great things about the device, but I can’t seem to find one for commercial use.

Then I thought about Fetco. I’ve had some excellent coffee out of a Fetco brewer and I’ve also had some hooorrrriiiibbblllee cups even from good beans.  Seems that 9 times out of 9 the pot is dirty and the coffee has been sitting for too long or a new pot is brewed over old coffee and the brew specs are off to begin with.

The Fetco would then serve a ‘coffee of the day’ which is either the “restaurant blend” or a single origin coffee (hopefully the latter). The Roastery would construct a 2 station brew bar (Ritual does the welded copper piping with glass harios dropped in which seems to work very well) for brewing of alternative single origins by request and decaf.  Hopefully.

Overall:

-Stay away from espresso

-Brew in alternate methods with badass SO coffees and maybe a badass blend

-Create a separate coffee menu with information on the coffee/roastery

-Designate one leader of coffee program at restaurant.

-Clean your Fetcos (if you need them) and brew pourovers by the cup or french press for a table.

-Treat  Restaurant customers separately from Wholesale customers, separate style of training, separate focus.

-be badass

I still don’t know all of the answers. I just wonder what will work. Any other ideas on improving sometimes unwanted coffee programs for customers who bring in very little to no revenue for you anyway?

I went down to San Fransisco last Thursday til Monday to visit my friends at Ritual and to check out some other places. Ritual’s new space looks pretty damn cool. They just refurbished a BOSS five barrel gas sample roaster (which is only functioning on fourbarrels right now hee hee) but their ug22 isn’t set up yet.

Had a good time at their roastery meeting all of those people with names and drinking a lot of beer with their roasters CC and Joel. Their cafe looks much more awesome since the last time I visited in October. I personally hate cafes with no real separation between roaster/green coffee and annoying customers.  They also sold their clovers and had their wonderful service tech Kyle build copper pipe brew bars for their v60s. I wish I could show a picture but I didn’t bring a camera. Anywho, seven station brew bar making all of their coffee brewed by the cup is pretty awesome.

I went into Fourbarrel once and then left. Although I do love the set up of that cafe. If I were to have a roaster and production area in a cafe it would be set up like that, in the back and separated from the cafe.

CC and I also went to De La Paz coffee roasters and hung out with Sharky. They have a pretty cool 25lb San Fransiscan and a very pretty 1lb San Fransiscan.  Sharky was really fucking cool. I love when roasters (and coffee people in general)  are open and nice and want to talk about coffee and roasting and DON’T act like they know everything.  He also likes tequila which always a plus for anyone I meet.

Then I went to Sightglass. Right now they’re serving Verve from a Slayer espresso machine and brewed coffee to order from a Chemex. Although I don’t think the Slayer is the end all be all of espresso, I do really like the machine.  Outside of a volume cafe setting it has produced great results for me. I depend on the machine we have in Kirkland for espresso QC because it gives us a much clearer picture of the potential of each component than any other machine I have access to.  However our machine has broken down so many times from use in a production setting that I’m starting to give up on it outside of a $30k lab machine. But we have an earlier model and hopefully those folks have worked out the kinks because if it 100% worked 100% of the time it would definitely be the machine I’d have in my shop.

I wish I had pictures because I wont try to describe the build they are doing for their cafe/roastery. I will say that it is badass and you all have to see it and they have a GORGEOUS ’61 probat 22 that I can’t stop thinking about. Jared and Justin seem like pretty nice dudes, they said the roaster should be up and running in two weeks… which means I’ll have to visit again before the spring is over because that’s how excited I am.

In the four and a half days I spent in San Fransisco (which is the longest I’ve ever spent there) I didn’t get too over-focused on coffee. I probably had 4,000 burritos, drank beer, got high on the sun and parks, told off a bartender, and drank some good tequila. CC and I spent every minute together which is always a good time. I began some exciting friendships with some folks, including the dazzling Alexie and Joel from Ritual. I visited Oakland for the first time.

I love that city in a completely different way then I love Seattle. It makes my life very difficult, I wish I could just get the best of both. Oh well.

I’m very tired and my head aches from this stupid sinus infection and I’m not going to check this before I post it. Goodnight.

Dear Chris Schooley

THANK YOU for saying this.

-me.

http://forums.roastersguild.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=45#p140

More about absolutes from me later.

From late 2008 to mid 2009 I spent many days drinking espresso and cupping coffee with wide eyes and a new hope. Then I watched some of my best friends leave town to do greater and bigger things.  Now, regardless of what these folks are doing, all of them still tell me they are happier. I stuck around, some say like a fool, believing in a light I saw. I watched a new crowd flow in, new and passionate coffee professionals from around the country. I watched excitement and feelings of revolution develop. I had a crew again and I fought so damn hard for everything I could believe in in coffee.  But we were products of our leaders emotional whirlwinds, when high feeling so damn high, and when low feeling irreparable, until the lows gotten even lower and lower still.  Then once again the folks who came from a beaten path to an even more beaten stop, left on the beaten path again. Afterwards another crew came, same story.

Still I stuck around, some say like a fool, bathing in ashes.

I’ve heard a lot of hurt coming from those this tyrannical figure. He loved to bring people up then break them down. But, truthfully, when he brought us all up we saw what we could be, and eventually we couldn’t be brought down any more. Or at least we weren’t willing to take it.

But I’m still holding onto this dream even with everyone gone who helped me create it.  I’ve taken horrible beatings and lost some crucial fights all for this dream. I want to do something right, so damn right its unmistakable and undeniable. Truthfully, before this coffee thing and all the friends I’ve made in the meantime, I had no confidence.  When every group left, part of me died and my name disappeared. Then a new group came in and my broken spirit looked them straight in the eyes. When folks kept leaving I had to constantly reevaluate my identity. I’m used to people letting me know how to be and how to act. I’m used to constantly doubting myself and shrinking until someone else takes the space.

That is not me anymore.

I’ve been forced to be and to be with power and confidence. Now that I’ve seen a path that leads up the mountain of greatness I can be, there is nothing to stop me. It took a strong and destructive wind to make this tiny sapling strong, but I am now. I am ready again to blow up.

Before I was surrounded by equally driven folks, but my foundation was weak. Now I am founded upon stone and I alone am a force to grow, with others and from my own motivation, and I am a force to fight the right fight.

I will never give up, not now, not anymore.

What I see is that we used to drink and roast and buy coffee for roast’s sake, such as for breakfast blends and french roasts. Now we drink and buy and roast for individual coffee’s sake. I’ve dealt with coffees where I’ve had to “roast out” certain unpleasantness. I’ve also dealt with coffees where I’ve had to expose and pronounce certain pleasantness. I’ve seen more and more roasteries (in my short career of coffee drinking) with shorter and/or ligher roasts of higher qualities single origin coffees that stand alone and less with darker and/or longer roasts of blends and lower quality single origins that just “taste like coffee”.

Good thing.  Juicy, sweet, bright, complex… good things.

Exposing the coffee isn’t as easy as it sounds though, and this is where our job comes in. There are 300 flavor compounds of green coffee and 850 flavor compounds of roasted coffee. A little bird told me there are 120 reactions that may happen at different times or not at all in the first 8 minutes of the roast. And we still have to have some development of this coffee. I’ve definitely had too light and definitely had too short.

Now I have 120 different toys and countless results of 850 different compounds. Let’s have fun?

ALSO: My new ‘task’ is to work on espresso QC. Should be fun hanging out with the tumultuous Nick and getting jacked up on vegan pastries and espresso. Updates to come.