Normally I like to designate each blog post per one topic, however we’ve got so many things happening right now, it only makes sense to compose a smorgasbord of a post to cover all in one. With that being said, Jason and Rob are doing their light summer traveling in the next couple of weeks, while I just returned from Florida for a visit with friends and family. Between catching up with everyone and trying not to melt, I found a little time to drive up to Gainesville to visit Anthony Rue and the staff at Volta Coffee, Tea & Chocolate, where I formerly worked as a barista. In the bar, a customer installed an impressive collection of vintage and antique coffee cans which I believe nearly span the entire 20th century.
Volta has the coolest cupping corner.
We have been running through green coffee faster than ever. In fact, it was only a couple of weeks ago that our bag stacks were at eye level. With this, comes new coffees as well as an entirely different espresso blend. We can’t predict a time line, though samples have been arriving. On the topic of green coffee, we are working on our first efforts involving Relationship Coffee (most call this direct trade). You can certainly expect to read much more about this as developments pan out.
Currently, our newest coffee comes from Finca Puerta Verde within the Antigua region of Guatemala. This is an assertive cup with pleasant raw sugar and nectar notes (I’ve actually heard someone say ‘pink Pez’). Also, this coffee was shipped in Grain Pro bags which makes us very happy!
Over the last few days we’ve been lucky enough to have received several bags of coffee from our roaster, barista and production friends at Ritual Coffee Roasters, Sightglass Coffee, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Market Lane Coffee and Four Barrel coffee. Thanks everyone, we’ve been drinking these daily!
It occurred to me earlier today while roasting back to back batches of our perpetually evolving espresso, that we have yet to officially announce the blend change. We apologize for the curve ball if things suddenly tasted different about a month ago and you didn’t notice the recipe change on the bag. With that being said, you can expect to see this blend for just over another month. As it stands this is the 4th iteration of our rotating espresso blend and we are currently going to stick with the name 14th Street Espresso until/ or unless the changes cause major confusion in identifying and discussing past and present blends.
This current blend consists of equal parts Fazenda Serra Negra, from Brazil and Cafe Alajuela from the Vida Cooperative in Costa Rica. Not all coffees work well as espresso, and even less so for those accustom to a classic Brazil, East Africa & Indonesian blend. Our approach to constructing blends is first theorized around the forthcoming origin harvests we are anticipating followed by several cuppings, ratio experiments, and finally evaluating it’s integrity within milk; all with different roast profiles. I’ve been writing a lot of flavor descriptions lately, and frankly I can’t bring myself to dissect my notes to put together something informative and objective, so I give you what I have written down- ‘It’s like if you stuffed your mouth with an orange creamsicle (asuming it could exist in a non-frozen form) and a blood orange chocolate truffle at the same time’.
The newest addition to our current offerings is a fully washed Caturra gem from the Cafetalera Zamorana estate in Costa Rica; however what makes this specific coffee so unique, is that it is the first crop Jorge Zamora has set aside as a single farm lot, which has ultimately been named Finca San Luis. Unlike the Finca Las Lajas and Cafetalera Herbazu we had last year from Costa Rica the FInca San Luis produces a much different cup character, shifting from a lemon-rind/ Kenyaesq quality to a more subtle Concord grape jam/ wine acidity with a very satisfying layered mouth feel and not-so-aggressive finish. This coffee is currently being served at the Sandbox Bakery, The Stable Cafe as well as Pinkie’s Bakery and while it just rolled in about a week ago, we have a limited amount and expect it to go rather quickly.
Speaking of Pinkies Bakery- Cheryl has recently moved her kitchen from Potrero Hill to 1196 Folsom St (at 8th) in SOMA and has been pouring beautiful coffees on the custom V60 bar we built two days ago. Needles to say we are more than thrilled to have Pinkie’s on board.
We have recently been putting our feelers out there a little to hire someone to rebuild our website; however we simply do not have enough time in our week to fully commit to the search. This is also something we have been talking about for nearly 6 months, so you can imagine where we stand on the issue. If you or someone you know is interested please send an email introducing yourself with a few examples of past work to sharky@delapazcoffee.com and I will be happy to fill you in as to what we are looking to achieve.
Located within the Yirga Cheffe region of Ethiopia, the city of Koke houses Solomon Worku’s washing station and mill collectively named Koke Cooperative. Grown between 2,000-2,300 meters above sea level this fully washed and hand sorted Heirloom Ethiopia is the epitome of classic Yirgacheffe terroir- heavy citrus-lemon upfront acidity, with rose hip black tea mids accompanied by a subtle mouth feel and a pleasantly crisp-winey finish. This is truly a remarkable coffee and we are thrilled to offer what little bit we were able to purchase. The online store will be updated shortly and as always, if you live in the city, feel free to stop by the warehouse to say hi and pick up a bag (933 Treat Ave. SF,CA).
Our production roasts are roasted on a Coffee Per San Franciscan 25B. It is old, and we are not the first owners. That said, we do our best to make-up for it’s past cleaning and maintenance neglect. One such chore is cleaning all 24 burners, which are alined in 3 rows in sets of 8. Cleaning these can be a day long effort as we are forced to remove the company’s logo plate, unscrew and lift the drum siding, take out the insulation and finally remove one last plate between the insulation and the pilot- just to get to the burners. Once removed the burners are soaked first in water from our hot water tower, then a Simple Green bath (recommend to us by Coffee Per). A #58 welder’s tip cleaner is used to punch out any foreign matter that may be clogged in each dispersion aperture. Last the burners are scrubbed and rinsed several times with warm water, making sure all of the Simple Green has been washed away.
While this may seem rather laborious, I can’t stress enough how important this has proven. The overall temperature application is nearly twice as responsive allowing for much more precise adjustments at and after first crack. To top it off, our total gas needed to heat the drum, has also reduced by about 35%.
For those who don’t already know, we are one of three main beta testers for the newly developed platform/ software and storage program called Roastlog. Out of respect for the owners, I will not divulge too much information about Roastlog here, as it is set to be debuted in 10 days at this year’s SCAA Exposition in Anaheim, CA. I will however leave you with a screen shot of one of my roast curves (that last bit of up and down on the graph is me simply ramping up for the next roast- I forgot to turn the logger off).
A few weeks ago, we began introducing a new way of labeling our bags in hopes of offering a more informative approach at selling retail bags. As a trial they were initially sold at Sandbox Bakery, and then Bi-Rite Market. The feedback we’ve received thus far seems to be leaning in favor of this new approach. After a few months of toying with several different options, we believe we’ve settled on something informative enough to satisfy what we want our customers to read on a bag of coffee, as well as something that reads fluid and easy. Simply slapping a sticker on a bag riddled with coffee jargon, such as washed Bourbon from Santa Ana seemed obvious to us, however we realize not everyone that picks up a bag of coffee will know what those terms mean. Going forward, you should expect to see farm, country, region, varietal and process type on all of our bags, as well as blend recipes on all of our blends.
Last Wednesday while I was finishing the last roast of a few Indonesian samples that had arrived the day prior, our grounds keeper, Robert Smith nearly broke down the door in his, unintentional best Kramer impersonation; all flustered and short of breath yelling, “You have a delivery! And it’s from someone called lar-mar-zoo-ka” I didn’t know if I should be scared or excited. Turns out, it was the two months behind schedule delivery of our La Marzocco paddle group GS3. With the help of Bob and Ryan we had it plumed-in and pouring shots that evening. While this machine is rather small and compact, it holds temperature drink after drink much better than I had hoped- which is great as we intend to put it to use outside of the warehouse…..
The newest addition to our current offerings is a very special coffee from Fazenda Esperança. 744 is a small lot of peaberries, which occurs when only one seed is produced in the coffee cherry- normally there are two. When only one seed forms, two discerning factors arise. First, the physical shape of the seed is malformed. Most have one flat side which is the product of two seeds facing one-another. With the presence of only one, the seed takes on a much more rounded shape which resbles that of a pea. Second, the nutrients produced for two seeds is designated to only one, increasing it’s density and inherent qualities.
Generally, Brazils tend to score lower on the perception of acidity, mostly due to the overall lower elevation in which they are grown; however this peaberry cupped out much sweeter than any Brazil I’ve ever tasted. In addition to it’s candied- banana upfront sweetness, the pulped natural processing lends itself to this coffee’s mouth-feel which coats the palate like a chocolaty oil and follows into a pleasantly lingering finish of toasted almonds. This is a remarkable coffee and we are thrilled to have it on our current roster.
The holidays are approaching just as fast as our business is growing, which explains why we couldn’t find the time to make a kitschy season’s greetings, or put together gift packages to sell- as we had hoped. Sorry, perhaps next year! Besides being swamped in the best way possible, I did get a chance to make a small update to our online store which can be viewed here. Pictured above is the coffee that was delivered to Haus this afternoon. They’ve got such a stellar lineup right now- Finca El Retiro, El Salvador/ Fazenda Boa Sorte lot# 502, Brazil/ Cauca Tierradentro, Colombia and Finca Santa Clara, Guatemala.
We’ve got a ton of new things in the works for this up coming year and couldn’t be more excited.
Happy holidays everyone!
One of our newest accounts is the retail outlet for the brilliant baker Mutsumi, named Sandbox Bakery. After having cupped four coffees they decided on our Finca El Retiro, El Salvador to share the Hario drip stand with Ritual. Sandbox Bakery will be opening their doors Monday morning December 7th. I unfortunately will not be able to attend the grand opening due to some staff development with a few Huas baristas; however Jason will be there around 7:00am to check in and make sure things are running smoothly. If you are in the mission, I suggest biking south on Folsom, up and over Bernal- the view of the city is stunning!
This is Rob and our cargo bike built by Rick Hunter. Together, our coffee is delivered fast, efficiently and in a manner we believe in. Also, our friend Ian recently put together a couple rain proof rear bags which will certainly come in handy as we are approaching San Francisco’s wet season.
Earlier this morning I held a public cupping at De La Paz account, La Victoria. Among the coffees we cupped were two currently being served at La Victoria- Finca El Injerto, Guatemala and Cafetalera Herbazu, Costa Rica as well two of our newest offerings, Finca El Retiro, El Salvador and Cauca Tierradentro, Colombia. Owner Jamie, plans to hold these events monthly in-conjunction with De La Paz until February, when his shop takes over completely. Until then I will be leading, December 10th 6pm at La Victoria- 24th & Alabama. These cuppings are free and open to the public- you need no prior experince outside the simple desire to learn a bit more about coffee. We only ask that you do not wear any perfume or cologne.
Since this past Friday we have received five brand new coffees; all of which, we are more than thrilled about. With that however, comes the daunting task of developing all new roast profiles and brew specs specifically for each coffee. Going into the roasts we have a general idea of what to expect, though working (and then production) roasts give Jason and myself the opportunity to pull out the distinct and inherent qualities in each coffee. This is the part of my job I love most because the line between challenging and exciting is very blurry. From a roaster/ cupper’s perspective this is the barista’s equivalent of dialing in an all new espresso- exciting, right!? Following these new coffees, will be an update on the online store as well as a printed offerings menu.
Earlier this afternoon I did an informal/ preliminary cupping of our first roast of the Finca Santa Clara, Guatemala. The following are a few things that initially jumped out. Fragrance- apple, butter, mellon, deep spice. Aroma- anise. Acidity- pretty mellow. Red fruit, very sweet, approaching raw sugar. Body and finish- molasses! Brewed, the Finca Santa Clara did very well as a 2:1 press pot. Get a book, sit and drink this coffee slowly- it deserves it!
