In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

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.

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    

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

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

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

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