In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

This past weekend I traveled to Tacoma Washington to help judge the 2012 NW Regional Barista Competition.

This regional competition usually entices some extremely talented baristas from the Northwest, including the top baristas from Portland and Seattle.  2012 was definitely no exception.

Upon arriving in Tacoma, I flew right into judges calibration.  This year's judges calibration was a beefed up version of its former self.  I have to give a huge shoutout to Scott Conary and the rest of the head judges for creating a much more intensive and effective calibration and testing.  I was really impressed, and ultimately I felt like we as a judging group were really well prepared to judge some of the top baristas in the nation.

It was really nice to catch up with old friends and make some new ones in Tacoma.  Our pals at Sprudge.com did an incredible job covering the entire weekend, and created some really visually striking videos capturing the essence of the weekend.  I would highly recommend going to their site and seeing some of them.  The days in Tacoma were lightened up by the arrival of the "Portland Bad Boys", Sean and Mikey, some friends of our Portland Baristas, who made outrageous signs, ridiculous t-shirts, and brought a coffee outsider's innocence that really put things into perspective. What a blast.

There were a total of 20 competitors spanned over 2 days, and on the second day, that field was narrowed down to 6 finalists.  After the final round, the winners looked like this (no particular order after 3rd place)

1st Place Devin Chapman - Coava Coffee Roasters

2nd Place Laila Ghambari -Stumptown

3rd Place Tyler Stevens -Barista

Sam Purvis - Coava Coffee

Marty Lopes - Barista

Collin Schneider - Sterling Coffee

I found that this year it seemed like people were more focused on flavors and sensory experiences instead of a routine based around their experience at their particular coffee farm.  Some people haven't been to origin, and that is ok, it is not a prerequisite to being a champion barista.

I have some theories, but this could possibly be a result of Pete Licata, the 2011 USBC champ, taking the "barista at a coffee farm" approach to new heights in 2011 by literally picking his own coffee.  How can someone top that?  Aside from a barista planting their own coffee and competing 5 years later with that little seedling matured into a big bad coffee plant, they can't, so, why not talk about something every pro barista should know a hell of a lot about, flavors and sensory experiences.  I like it. 

Elaborating on this topic a bit more, I had some really interesting conversations with Devin Chapman of Coava about this very thing.  In his routine, Devin didn't even mention which coffee he was actually using.  He gave the judges three cards with different coffees Coava has on bar right now, and had them guess which one he used throughout the competition.  Devin spoke to me about introducing people to unbelievable flavor experiences first, then support that with origin information, only if they want to learn more.  I got the feeling that he feels like extremely specific origin information doesn't always need to be beaten over customer's heads, instead, lets let them come to us to find out more if and when they choose to.

On the airplane home I thought a lot about this.  I thought a lot about what we as an industry are doing well, and what we aren't doing so well specifically regarding dissemenating this information.  I like this analogy:  A person who is selling the most comfortable bed in the world is not going to lead his pitch with how many microcells the bed has, the chemical makeup of the fibers, or the specific pressure of the bed, he is simply going to say, "Why dont you just lay down on this bed and try it out?"

It has to be the same thing with coffee for most people.  Lets lead with our outstanding coffee flavors, let the coffee do the talking, and be dedicated to having supporting information easily available about our producers to give to our cafe customers who really want to take their coffee education to the next level on their terms, not ours. I am not saying lets throw out beanologies and extended producer profiles at all, but people that truly understand and appreciate a high quality coffee experience will ultimately want to know more, and its our job to be knowledgable and available when they do. 

We as the Cafe Imports team are pumped to be taking Devin along to Costa Rica with us as part of our origin trip sponsorship in January 2013.  We cannot wait to see what other champion baristas will be joining us over the next few months.

Congrats to Devin and the Coava team!  And well done everyone who got out and competed.

-Noah

As barista competition season gears up in the US, and new competitions like the Brewers Cup and World Roasting Challenge gain momentum, we felt like it would be useful for us to point out some of our current standout "competition coffees".

What do we consider a competition coffee?

We believe that in order for a coffee to even be considered for any competition, it must be an exemplarary coffee in its own category.  Competition coffee must be a shining example of what a coffee of that variety or from that region/country can and should be.  We have selected some incredible coffees from several different origins that we believe to be just that.

This was not an easy task, but we have went through our existing inventory of high end specialty coffee, and selected several standout coffees that would surely impress any jury across the globe:

Brasil Microlot ID3802: Fazenda Recreio

Burundi Gacokwe ID3612 

Colombian Geisha ID3734: Finca Esperanza

Colombia Cup of Excellence #1 Lot: Arnulfo Leguizamo

El Salvador Cup of Excellence #6 Lot: Sergio Edmundo Ticas Reyes

El Salvador Cup of Excellence #23 Lot: Juan Jose Ernesto Menendez Arguello

Kenya Microlot: Ruthagati ID3228  

Kenya Microlot: Kaiguri ID3242 

We are really digging all of the above coffees right now, and we hope you get an opportunity to play around with any of them.  They will surely impress in your shops. 

-The Cafe Imports Team

We will be hosting a COE Brasil cupping Tuesday the 17th at 9:30 and 11:00 AM. 

We will cup the top 16 coffees, including Fazenda Rainha, the #1 COE winner, which is a coffee we have bought for the last 5+ years. We are so happy for them!

Come join us!

Please email ian@cafeimports.com to come and reserve your spot.

Thanks

We got some unfortunate news out of East Africa Today concerning new containers shipping out of Mombasa.  

Cafe Imports is proud to announce that we will be supplying the green coffee for the 1st ever World Coffee Roasting Challenge, taking place at the World of Coffee Event in Vienna this summer.  Roasters will be able to choose 1 of 3 incredible lots we are going to set aside specifically for this competition.  Competitors then are taken through a three day gauntlet evaluating the green coffee, roasting, and cupping the final product.  This is sure to be a groundbreaking event in the coffee world, and something we are extremely proud to be a part of. 

For more information, please visit: www.worldcoffeeroasting.org    

One of our most important projects, Asociacion Los Naranjos, rewards farmers directly for quality.  A big component for preserving quality in coffee is proper drying, and just like roasting there is no single perfect drying curve.  There are many variables involved in drying which makes it complicated to standardize; humidity, temperature, coffee density, among others all play a role in the drying process.  Los Naranjos asked us to provide them with a moisture meter so they could deliver better and more consistent coffee--and we gladly did.

In an effort to make high-end specialty coffee available to more people around the globe Café Imports has been warehousing coffee in London and Melbourne the past several years.  We will maintain a permanent position for roasters to order from. 

A full container of various Colombian microlots from the region of Nariño just landed in London and are available now.  Nariño is in the south of Colombia in close proximity to Huila and bordering Ecuador.  These coffees exhibit a classic southern-Colombia profile.  The IDs for these coffees are: P3762-3767 and appear as “Eniti Limited UK” in our online offerings.

http://tinyurl.com/EnitiLtdOfferings

In the next couple of months we will stock our Australian warehouse with a couple of new coffees.  The first two offerings will be a full container of our Brazil Yellow Bourbon, traceable to a specific farm, and a full container of our Colombia Los Naranjos from San Agustin, Huila.

For sales in Europe contact Jason@cafeimports.com

For sales in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand contact noah@cafeimports.com

Deep in the heart of Africa is the tiny country of Burundi and deep in Burundi is Café Imports. We have been trekking to this tiny country located south of Rwanda on Lake Tanganyika since 2006. We have logged seven trips so far and spent about two months total on the ground. We have really enjoyed passing along our findings and experience in some previous blogs from previous years.

Our many trips have not been without results. We’ve cupped coffees from more than 50 washing stations over the years, pinpointing on stations with the best cupping coffees. It was no surprise to us that our Burundian coffees won seventy five percent of the recent Prestige Cup competition that took place in Bujumbura this August.

Burundi is just south of Rwanda but miles and miles away in the cup. The two countries share much; the same tribes, the same varietals, a similar history, but the cups are not even related. This is a case of terroir. While Rwandan coffees cup with lovely sugary and lemon citrus notes, the mountains of Burundi produce a deep fig and fruity coffee –almost a Malbec of a cup highlighted by a firm supporting acidity. Washing stations around Kiryama and Kinyovu have a floral-citrus, almost tangerine acidity to compliment the underlying deep fruit, while others like Bwayi are straight on figgy compote. Why the cup varies so much from nearby southern Rwandan Butare cups I do not know. I do know, though, that the Burundi cup produces one of, if not the best, single origin espressos that I’ve pulled as the deep clean fruit along with supportive acidity and solid body make a mind blowing shot.

Coffee in Burundi is a logistics challenge--even for the best of us. It is a particularly poor country tied with Congo for the lowest GDP among African countries. The tiny land locked country also shares the same tribal conflicts that Rwanda has experienced, but unlike Rwanda, they’ve never been reconciled. AK47 gunfire and flares over Congo border the evening I was leaving on my last visit highlight ongoing simmering political tensions. In spite of all this, our work and investment on the ground over the years has allowed us to consistently get the coffees we are proud of and that many of you have grown to love.

Our first container from this year’s harvest is arriving this month and we have many of the coffees from the Prestige Cup likely arriving just after the first of the year. If you know this coffee, I’m sure you’re already in touch with us for new crop and if you do not, I am sure it is a cup that you’ll know soon.

Some additional random notes:

Varietals
- Bourbon
- Jackson (Bourbon varietal)
- Mibirzi (Bourbon varietal)

Processing
Traditional Burundian processing methods are used by the cooperatives/washing stations that we are buying from. This method is where the coffee is pulped and “dry fermented” up to twelve hours before being fully washed with clean mountain water from twelve to twenty four hours and then finally soaked for an additional twelve to eighteen hours before being dried in parchment on raised beds, called African beds in Central American. I got laughs in Kenya many years ago when I referred to the raised beds that way!

Geography and Altitude
Coffee is produced across the country from 750 meters outside Bujumbura to 2000 meters in the northern areas of Kayanza and Ngozi--our personal two favorite areas. We have been buying from 1700 to 2000 meter coffees for many years.
 

We just want to say a quick thanks to all of the roasters that donated coffee for the send back to the respective producer of their lot of coffee in El Salvador.  We are so excited that these hardworking farmers get to enjoy some really awesome coffee roasted by you for the holidays.  We are sure they will take great pride in tasting your coffee and keeping your bag in their homes.

Thank you all!

Olympia Coffee Roasting, Verve, Octane/Primavera, One Line, Sumas Mountain, Sight Glass, The Great Lakes, Oddly Correct, Roast Coffee Co, Lucky Goat, and Populace

The Cup of Excellence competition has pushed the limits in the quality coffee movement since 1999.  It has played a major role in developing the high-end specialty market and was the tool that connected many farmers to buyers.  Opinions might differ here, but this program was one of the first (if not the first) to introduce highly traceable microlots into our market with a great deal of information but always giving priority to cup quality.  Our vision and ideals are aligned with the CoE program and this is why we are involved and support it.

This harvest season we brought in three different Cup of Excellence microlots from El Salvador.  All of these three lots are from producers we personally know and have worked with in the past.  Jason and I had the privilege to hang out with all of them on our pre-harvest visit to El Salvador a couple of weeks ago.  Producers both in El Salvador and Nicaragua kept mentioning how important placing at the Cup of Excellence had been for their coffee career.  For many it is what paved the road to success.

Available now:

Fernando Lima at Santa Elena

#34 – Andalucia from Sociedad Lima y Hermanos (P3665)

This is an organic farm that is owned by the Lima brothers.  We have worked with them for several years now with Santa Elena Estate and Campanula (part of our microlot selection).  This group has proven year after year their commitment to quality at the Cup of Excellence program.  This year alone they had three different farms win awards including Santa Elena!  Coffee farming is nothing new for them as it has been in their family for multiple generations now.  Andalucia is located on the western side of the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range in Ahuachapan (close to the Santa Ana area).  Cupping notes: lemon, apple, cranberry, floral, berry, apricot, papaya, blackberry, sugar cane juice and peach.

Ernesto Menendez at Las Brumas

#23 – Las Brumas from Ernesto Menendez (P3664)

Las Brumas (The Mist) is an amazing variety garden were coffee is being cultivated and segregated by variety.  This lot is mostly comprised of Bourbon variety, a heirloom Arabica variety that has prevailed in El Salvador for many years even though it is not as high-yielding as others and is more susceptible to pests.  The sweetness in the cup of this variety is unbelievable though!  Ernesto is a well-seasoned cupper, Q grader, has been involved with CQI and has served in multiple CoE juries.  Las Brumas is located at 1450 – 1700 masl, which is extremely high for El Salvador.  The mist in the area is extremely volatile.  At one point we could see the ocean and five minutes later it was gone.  Cupping notes: tropical fruit, papaya, cinnamon, apple butter, rum, caramel, blackcurrant and honey.

#6 – Los Planes from Sergio Ticas (P3666)

Los Planes is located in the department of Chalatenango and in close proximity to the town of La Palma.  This is on the northwest part of the country bordering Honduras.  This is an up-and-coming growing region in El Salvador that has largely been unexplored.  We are really excited to be working with Sergio to get the best coffees from the region.  Chalatenango is full of pergamineros (farmers who do their own depulping and drying).  This adds another level of complexity to the producer since they do not outsource this part of the processing.  Sergio is an icon of specialty coffee in El Salvador and one of the most well respected producers.  Los Planes is at about 1600 masl and has focused on traditional Bourbon and Pacamara varieties.  Keep an eye on this micro-region in El Salvador!  Cupping notes: vanilla, butter, caramel, lemon, orange, cinnamon, honeysuckle, melon and berry.

All of these coffees have been vetted multiple times by a national and international jury.  They are certainly the crème-of-the-crop as far as El Salvador goes.  We are excited for the future of specialty coffee and grateful for Cup of Excellence for pushing the bar!

Give us a call to get your hands on any of these exclusive offerings from El Salvador.

View from Las Brumas