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!

And last, but certainly not least- This!

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Shark

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’.

Shark

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.

Shark

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).

Shark

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).

Shark

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.

Shark

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…..

Also,

Shark

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.

Shark

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!

DLP