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We’re running low on 3 of our coffees, Kenya Peaberry, El Salvador Finca Matalapa and Ethiopia Organic Shakiso. We’ve enjoyed sharing these coffees with you and are a little sad to see them go (especially the El Salvador which has been my personal favorite so far this year). We have new, exciting coffees headed to Weekly Roast from countries all over the world which should arrive next week – but in the meantime, it’s first dibs on these 3 – get ‘em while the gettin’s good! -Ken Don’t miss out on these coffees, click on the coffee names below to see more… Kenya Peaberry El Salvador Finca Matalapa Ethiopia Organic Shakiso Posted in Running the Business. August 8, 2010 By Ken
Time Your Grind Timing is everything… and the timing of when you grind your coffee beans matters. I’ve briefly mentioned it before, but there is a huge difference in the taste of brewed coffee when you brew within 60 seconds of grinding vs. brewing coffee with beans you ground the night before while setting up the coffee machine before bed (or worse, preground coffee). Here’s why… The thing that makes coffee taste so good are the coffee oils found inside the coffee beans. During the coffee roasting process, sugars are caramelized and oils are formed and trapped inside the bean, encapsulated and protected from the outside world for a very short period of time. These coffee oils are essentially what gives brewed coffee its great taste. In a perfect world, these oils would just hang out inside the bean indefinitely, but there are 2 forces working against these oils: carbon dioxide and oxygen. These two goons have a special assignment: destroy the coffee oils within 10 days, and if we let them, they’ll do just that – every time. Let’s take carbon dioxide. One result of the coffee roasting process is that carbon dioxide is emitted from a freshly roasted coffee bean for about 2 weeks. The CO2 is the result of the volatile roasting process… think of it like a Pepsi can shaken up. It takes a little while for the Pepsi to normalize and the pressure to subside. Same thing with fresh roasted coffee – the coffee bean is in a volatile state and over the course of 10 days or so, the carbon dioxide slowly pushes the trapped coffee oils hiding inside the bean out to the surface, the oils escaping through cracks and crevices found throughout the interior and surface of the bean. The cracks are too small for oxygen to enter, so the carbon dioxide does the dirty work by forcing the oils out. Now that the coffee oils are exposed on the surface of the bean, the second force – oxygen – takes over by attacking the oils and in a very small amount of time (30-60 minutes) the oils become rancid and if the beans are used, the resulting coffee will taste very stale and bitter. With that background, it’s easy to see how ground coffee creates so much more surface area for oxygen to come in and do its thing. And not only do you have 30-60 minutes to brew your coffee after grinding, but 80% of any carbon dioxide left inside the coffee beans dissipate into the atmosphere within 60 seconds of grinding! CO2 is the main transport mechanism for pushing out any oils inside the bean casing into the water when we brew, so we really need to do what we can (brew quickly after grinding!) to use it to our advantage to get those oils out. Try brewing within 60 seconds of grinding your coffee beans and I bet you’ll make a better tasting cup of coffee. Posted in Coffee 101. July 20, 2010 By Ken
We just received a micro-lot of green coffee from the Finca la Camiseta farm in Panama. Camiseta is also the name of the district in the Boquete region of Panama. The coffee is a traditional wet-process (which means the fruit that was covering the coffee beans was removed before the coffee was dried). The varietals are an assortment of Caturra, Typica and Bourbon. We get lots of caramel and hazelnut notes in the dry fragrance after grinding. The wet aroma gives us almonds and milk chocolate. This Panama has a medium body and creamy mouthfeel with hints of cedar as the cup cools. We have carried a lot of our favorites over the past few months (up to 8 coffees at a time!) but are going to move towards only having 3-4 offerings at any given time with a more frequent rotation. There are just too many amazing coffees out there to not shake things up more often. Our 3, 6 and 12-month subscribers get first dibs on new lots! Click here to view this coffee. Posted in Running the Business. July 6, 2010 By Ken
We’ve been planning our Father’s Day promotion for a few weeks now and are excited to offer Dad’s Blend for the next 48 hours on our Web site, a great gift for that coffee-loving Dad. Something really cool for Dad: if you want a special message printed on the coffee bag label, right above the “roasted on” date, like “Happy Father’s Day from _____”, just contact us. Yeah, you can do cool things like this when you’re a small business… while the “big guys” shutter at the thought, even more so at the thought of including a “roasted on” date. The cutoff for orders is noon on Monday, June 14th… that’s when we’re roasting, packing and shipping all orders to make sure they get to you (or Dad) in time for Father’s Day. Click here for more details and please let us know your thoughts or ask any questions in the comments! P.S. Check out the coffee description on the label… we think Dad will get a kick out of it.  Dad's Blend Father's Day Coffee Posted in Running the Business. June 12, 2010 By Ken
A Portable, Recyclable French Press This week I came across a Chris Pirillo video on a new product being made by XPress, called the XPress smartcup. The smartcup is a portable, recyclable french press, completely made of plastic. It works like a regular 3-cup french press would – add the ground coffee to the cup, pour in hot water (195-205 degrees Fahrenheit), stir after a minute, then after 3 more minutes of steeping, slowly push down on the plastic ‘T” part until it clicks and you’re ready to drink (you can see this about 4 minutes into the video linked below). I don’t really see too many people using this in the home (but I could be wrong). I do see the value of the smartcup in coffee shops and coffee bars. Most shops use drip brew coffee machines which can limit the flavor potential of the coffee, but a handful of shops offer french press coffee to customers (small, 3-cup presses or large, 8-12 cup presses for groups). Plastic french presses don’t really hold heat too well, though, and glass french presses are dropped far too often. For these reasons, I think individual, recyclable french press cups that customers can take with them has a lot of potential, as long as coffee shops make sure to grind the beans coarsely, use the right temperature of water and also educate customers on how to use the french press cups. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Posted in In the News. May 25, 2010 By Ken |
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