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The Coffee Collective

Copenhagen was not what I expected, in just about every way. I thought I’d get more time to roam the streets, visit cafes and hang out. Somehow it ended up being very busy indeed. That didn’t mean, however, that I missed out on my favourite part of these events – seeing lots of great people. Too many to list, and all of whom I wish I could have hung out with longer and in more relaxed circumstances.

Did I mention Anette and I drove to Copenhagen? No? Well when we got there it didn’t seem like the smartest thing to do. Six countries in a day, 14 hours on the road, and the autobahn actually gets pretty boring pretty quickly (unless, I guess, your car can do 150mph – which our rental could not). It was nice to be able to bring all the competition stuff, spare stuff and lots and lots of our coffee. Seeing as the roastery had only just gone live I have to admit that this being our first real public showing for our espresso was quite terrifying. We had a quick chance to taste it with a few of the Intelli folks at the LM Denmark distributors place. It didn’t taste how we wanted it to and that was a bit stressful, but then it came back to life at the event during Stephen’s first practice time. Then we got quite excited. We got to share a couple of shots with people and the reaction was great – especially what the lovely Barista Magazine folks wrote on their blog about Stephen’s performance.

MCing was interesting. I have to be honest and say I didn’t love MCing on my own, but it was an honour to be on stage with those baristas – even if some of them put me through the emotional ringer whilst I was up there with them. MCing the finals was a great pleasure though. It felt like Carl and I made a good team on stage, and the differences in our styles seemed to compliment each other well. I was pretty relieved to have something to do instead of worrying about Stephen’s set up and water glasses etc. I think Stephen and I were very pleased to have Jenny there to help keep things on track as she did before in Tokyo – so much thanks due to her. On the one day I wasn’t MCing the cupping competition provided the distractions – I was very pleased to get 5th. I don’t think I could have expected more, and Casper was an inspiring winner and it was just a lot of fun to be up there with some great people like Jorge and Edwin. The afternoon of lecturing also helped distract me – I suppose it is quite funny my lecture was titled (not by me) “Breaking the WBC code”. Didn’t appreciate getting locked out of the complex by the staff.

So – the result. Calling out those names was always going to be intense. Each card hoping it wouldn’t be Stephen and then having the excitement tempered by feeling bad for each of the amazing finalists who had come so close. I had some really great drinks up on that stage – Dave’s sig drink was a lesson in working with fruit and using its natural acidity to very cleverly and simply compliment a coffee. A simple idea that is incredibly difficult to execute. I had snuck a shot of his espresso that morning and it was tasting great too. I also have to say that Daniel’s coffee was a lot of fun to drink – and passing them out to the audience always makes me think that the baristas on stage should be sharing more of the coffee with the people watching.

Stephen entered both the competition and the finals in a great psychological position – what I would consider the ideal position: excited, nervous and aiming only to give the best presentation he could and not worry about his final result. The mistakes in the first round gave us focus for the finals and he gave a great performance. I’d seen it many times before but never enjoyed it that much. Seeing the scores his drinks got afterwards was wonderful – he did a great job preserving and delivering what we love about those coffees to the judges. I hope that Stephen’s win will be a signpost to future competitors, and I think the judges are sending a clear message that I hope the community will hear and understand. Already I am curious about next year’s competition.

Stephen is going to have a great year, and I hope I can help him in any way and pass on my experiences (both good and bad) to help him get the most out of it. It is an amazing year of learning and a great privilege coupled with a great responsibility. We are all excited about what the year will bring.

Now it is back to relative normality. Anette is back doing incredible things at the roaster and we are all excited about the potential we have to improve and explore what we are doing. Talking to Andrew Barnett (something I could do for hours) we were talking through the geeky facts of competition and I think we have two firsts – Anette is the first person to roast WBC winning coffee twice, and this is the first winning coffee to be all washed coffees. (Do correct me if I am wrong on these).

Usually these long posts are peppered with photos, but my camera is almost as broken as my mac (let’s not even start on how borked the macbook is – sorry to those suffering email issues with me) so no photos were taken. Anette took a few I think, and they should end up online soon I hope.

I didn’t bring home as much coffee as I initially wanted to, but then winning kind of changed my plans. We are planning to run open evenings of espresso tastings for other baristas around London and surrounding area and the first one was going to be the top 6 WBC blends, but now it seems a bit commercial. Instead we will be doing one country at a time, getting coffee from 5 or 6 of our favourite roasteries and sharing them over the course of an evening once a month or so. Instead the first one will probably be Norway but more on that another time – I am way off topic here!

Thanks to everyone who helped us, who helped Stephen and massive thanks to Anette for not only being awesome but for doing great things with coffee in a very quiet way. I hope to see lots of you soon, either in London or if I end up travelling more again. And once more:

Congratulations Stephen!

Fear of Dilution

This is something that I think we all agree on at Square Mile HQ – a little dilution is not a bad thing.

As coffee is forced onwards in an online game of one-upmanship it seems shots have been getting shorter and shorter. No doubt the very visual medium of the internet means we are more terrified than ever of even the vaguest signs of blonding.

A paler pour does not equal bad taste, it just means that there are less coffee solubles in that pour.

From the colour we can not gauge the quality of those solubles. Empirical evidence certainly suggests that the longer the paler pour continues the more increased the bitterness in the cup. However for me it is all about balance I struggle to find balance in super short shots. Even from a technical standpoint I struggle to see how a complete extraction of all the goodness the coffee has to offer can be done with such a small amount of liquid. (Even though, as Andy Schecter points out here, more energy is being spent in the cake in these type of shots)

The constant chase for the heavier bodied, “sweeter” shot sometimes makes me sad as I wonder how many good flavours and desirable aspects of the coffee get knocked out with the spent puck.

This shot may be blonding to some people but it still tasted good

The rapidly disappearing single espresso

This one also turns me a bit ranty I am afraid. Maybe it is the bigger, better, harder, stronger thing but in many places around the world when you order an espresso you get a double. Whether the volume is 30ml, 45ml or 60ml this is irrelevant. I like coffee, I like drinking espresso and I like tasting different things. Whilst I may worry about coming across as the curmudgeonly Italian we specialty people all complain about who gets angry about our excessive dosing of coffee, I can’t help but agree that too much caffeine really limits my ability to enjoy my coffee. I really like a single espresso I think one of the most attractive things about great espresso in Scandanavia is that they are all just as hardcore about the quality but don’t feel the pressure of the big drinks to need every espresso brewed to be a double.

This isn’t really a rant about the single basket. I know a lot of people lament its rapid disappearance and I know it is a damn finicky thing to work with. That said one of my most viewed is this one – a single basket naked pour:

Naked single basket

How to enjoy espresso

This one is less rant and a bit more fun I guess. Tasting shots you brew, or shots you are assessing is rarely, if ever, fun. Inspecting the shot in minute detail with your tongue and olfactory system you quickly find the flaws – a touch of astringency, or a hint of underextraction or maybe the shot shows itself a little overextracted in the finish. It is easy to demolish just about any shot (ask a competition judge if you don’t believe me!) but it is often very difficult to enjoy it.

A friend of mine once told me that a different part of your brain assesses things than makes hedonic decisions¹. One part of your brain decides if it like, and the other part analyzes it. One part tends to dominate (the mean, cynical part going by personal experience). Recently I’ve taken to trying to trick myself. (I am aware I am starting to sound crazy now). It all started when we were pulling shots of Coffee Collective’s espresso that Stephen used to win the Irish Barista championship. He pulled me a great looking shot and just as I got it to my lips he asked a distracting question and instead of paying attention to the shot my mind was elsewhere. When my brain finally reconnected with my mouth all that was left was an overall awareness of deliciousness but little more. Suddenly I was like a normal customer, a person who drinks coffee for money because they like it. It had been a long time since I had thought like that, and I really liked it.

So now I will either drink espresso as a harsh judge, and look for every flaw or I will try not to pay attention – to distract myself so I can just switch that part of my brain off to enjoy an espresso now and again.

1. Though I confess, while I completely trust him – he is painfully smart – I never did go and find papers online to back this up

Both Anette and I were gutted we couldn’t be in Dublin to support Stephen, and to watch him win. I know from Tokyo that Jen (Stephen’s better half) is great at supporting someone competing and Tim Styles no doubt did a great job of helping do all the things that make competing a little bit easier and a tiny bit less stressful.

I am looking forward to finding out more about how Stephen did and reading his write up of the event. In the meatime I hope he got very, very drunk after the event as I believe is fitting.

Thanks also to the Coffee Collective for roasting awesome coffee, and as they have set the bar very high when it comes to working on a coffee for Stephen to use in Copenhagen once we start roasting.

Stephen is a great barista, and a great ambassador for coffee in Ireland and in general. I can’t wait to watch and support him in Copenhagen!

Congratulations again.

However I think the photoset from the Probat Museum will be of interest to quite a lot of people. I’ve tried to add a little info to the pictures – size of batch, date of manufacture etc…

Probat Museum Photoset

I have the museum guide so if anyone has any questions I will try and answer them. If you

Probat Museum Roasters

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the coffee.  The farm’s profile has been lifted by Edwin Martinez, one of the most vocal, active and interested growers I’ve come across online.  As much as I’ve read about him, his farm and his coffee I didn’t really have any specific expectations of how it would taste.

This isn’t really a coffee review, just a pleasant snapshot.  It is a rainy Sunday, getting dark and I am wading through some design stuff.  The music is good and I am slightly sad because this cup of coffee is almost finished.  This has been a deeply satisfying cup of coffee, and I am looking longingly at my Eva Solo, wishing I had brewed more.  I can’t read the Danish, or I can’t understand it anyway, so I don’t know what I am supposed to be tasting but it is one of those very balanced cups, harmonious if you will.  There is that note in coffee I tend to call chocolate and it is sweet and full bodied and balanced.  It is delicious, pure and simple.

I guess it has hit me in the perfect mood for it, but I don’t remember enjoying a cup as simply as this for a long time.  My gratitude to the Collective and Finca Vista Hermosa.