Meet the Press Pot

Sweetness, in 10g intervals

2010-08-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

Oh, hello. Hi there. How's it going? Good, that's great to hear. I'm glad you're well and keeping busy -- me too! You know, this-n-that. What's that? What's new with me? Well, you know, not a whole lot: Just celebrated my second anniversary of working with Counter Culture Coffee, and recently started writing for Serious Eats a bit in my downtime…

Oh! And I got this great present I can't wait to tell you about! It's the sweetest little coffee scoop; my best friends got it for me while they were visiting Japan!

Doesn't it just make you want to scoop the heck out of some beans, 10g at a time? It does me. I want to scoop them straight into my perfect little Hario hand grinder and crush them beyond recognition, and then I want to extract the living daylights out of them until there's some delicious magic going on in my cup.

It also makes me wish I could read any Japanese at all, so that when I shared the link from whence this scoop came I could at least tell you something about the company or the website or, well, anything relevant at all.

In any event, I think it was one of the sweetest little things I've ever gotten in the mail. Happy (early) birthday to me!

A beautiful thing

2010-04-23T08:19:00.000-05:00

Do you want to know what the best thing I've seen all week is?

This guy, right here. An original Faema E61 -- lovingly refurbished, in perfect working order, cranking out beautiful, buttery, smooth shots of Espresso Toscano.

Do you want to see this guy, too? Get thee to Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, my friends.

Get thee to Saraghina.

She's alive! Aliiiiive!

2010-04-13T21:35:00.001-05:00

Not only am I alive, but I'm still seeking coffee. And seeking it in, of all places, Oklahoma City.

Why Oklahoma City, you ask? Because that's where my incredible in-laws are from, and because that's where I spend at least one week a year -- one typically very undercaffeinated week a year, at that.

Sadly, this most recent trip back to OKC was not taken strictly for pleasure, though it did, like any other family trip, have its ultra-bright spots: My husband and I actually made the journey West to celebrate his dear mother, who passed away last week after a hard fight against a long and awful illness. Luckily for all of us, my mother-in-law was an amazing woman, and she leaves much celebrating behind her -- we laughed together, cried together, and marveled at the strength, intelligence, wit, determination and love she shared with everyone she knew. I'm proud to have known her, and only wish our time together could have been longer and healthier.

In any event, the week was punctuated by some lovely moments, some quiet living, some exploring of the city, and some good times with the good people who have invited me into their family.

One of these good times? Free Coffee Monday!

I know, too good to be true, right? But it is! It is true! Not only is it true, but it's good! Good free coffee, people. I wouldn't lie to you.

My nephew and his girlfriend (of course it is ridiculous to call a man who is almost exactly my age my "nephew" but this is one of the few awkward side notes of being married to a "much older man" -- a story for another time, perhaps) mentioned Free Coffee Monday to me over (awesome) pizza this past Sunday night, with a sweetly tentative, "Do you want to go? We'll be there at around 7:45am."

Heck yeah I do!

Hosted in part by coffee caterers Cafe Evoke and supported by beanheads like Elemental Coffee Roasters, Free Coffee Monday seems like an awesome way to unite a vibrant-if-small and definitely growing segment of the caffeinated population of Oklahoma City. To top it off, this past week's offerings were provided by a soon-to-open bakery in Norman, OK, called Crimson + Whipped Cream -- the really nice folks behind which I actually met at the recent Coffee Fest Meadowlands. Far out, right?

(For you non-Okies: Crimson and cream are the school colors of Oklahoma University, which makes it the palette for the OU Sooners, which even this yankette finds impossible not to root for. Boomer Sooner!)

The events have been held at the communal-ish space at 1708 NW 16th Street in Oklahoma City's Plaza District (home to some really funky galleries, boutiques and a salon-cum–vintage shop), though Evoke is looking to recruit other hosts as well. When I rolled in at around 8am to meet up with my relatives, the place was already jumping, full of exactly the type of cool urban folks I'd felt were eluding me on every previous trip to town.

So awesome. So validating. Finally, a place for me to fit in in the Heartland. And not just that, but also a place to enjoy a good cup of coffee and a really solid piece of pumpkin bread (and/or a chocolate-chip scone -- can't wait for C+WC to open).

Thanks, Cafe Evoke, for being the brains behind this operation. Thanks, Elemental Coffee Roasters, for the really killer French-pressed joe -- I needed that. And thanks, Crimson + Whipped Cream, for being really cool and friendly and for remembering me, and for definitely building a shop I will hang out all the time over those long, windy Christmas vacations. Long live Free Coffee Monday!

And even though it goes without saying, I'll say it: The coffee might be free, but livin' ain't. Tip your baristas.

Rosettas, relieved

2010-02-26T16:13:00.003-05:00

Way to raise more than $2k for mental-health and
trauma-response relief in Haiti, New York City!

Thanks to organizer and mastermind Sam Penix, sponsor/host Joe, beer savior Union Beer, baristas all over the NYC metropolitan area, and all the donor sponsors who made last night's Rosettas for Relief such a triumph.

People crushed into Joe to watch some of New York's best and brightest baristas go head-to-head for Haiti, and nobody was disappointed. Competing latte artists solicited sponsorships, and people stuffed all kinds of dollars into another donation jar at the door.

Raffle prizes were announced, rosettas were poured, beers were drunk (and occasionally spilled) and, frankly, a good time was had and a good deed was done by all. But above and beyond, the New York coffee community managed to raise more than $2,000 to benefit a brand-new foundation, REBATI, that is dedicated to getting mental-health professionals on the ground in Haiti.

To read more about REBATI's mission and leadership, please visit rebati.org.

Thanks to everyone everywhere: Participants, raffle-prize donors, organizers, mouthpieces, people with open wallets and anyone who offered a word of support. You really outdid yourselves this time.

Rosettas for Relief, v 2.0

2010-02-16T09:34:00.002-05:00

Be there or listen to your conscience for the rest of your life.

What? I'm just saying.

Sending help to Haiti

2010-01-15T22:43:00.006-05:00

Friends, I know you've already done a lot: You've donated money, you've sent prayers and thoughts, you've passed the word on to other people to give whatever they can and to send help to those who are suffering in Haiti. I have been so moved by the kindnesses people are bestowing in this time of need, and I feel lucky to be reminded of new ways to help all the time. I want to share one of those ways with you now, if you don't mind.

My friends at Barrington Coffee Roasting Company have been working on a Haitian Highlands coffee project for several years. Their partnership with the coffee producers of Haiti on this endeavor has been close and meaningful, and of course this tragedy hits very close to home.

BCRC is very generously pledging to donate the proceeds of sales of the coffee that is born of this project to the Partners In Health Earthquake Relief program on the island.

Please think of this as a way to not only send aid quickly and effectively to those who need it, but also as a means of celebrating the fruits of some of the hard work, dedication and culture of Haiti's people, even as the chips are down.

Click here to buy this delicious coffee and to do a bit more to help our down-and-out neighbors. And, of course, there are many, many other fine organizations accepting donations, as well. None of us can give too much.

Have a holly jolly, everybody

2009-12-25T10:09:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays from Meet the Press Pot!

Hope the last days of 2009 are full of heavily caffeinated treats,
complete with "blob"s of sweetened whipped cream.

In which our blogger gets oddly riled up about nothing important

2009-11-07T18:56:00.006-05:00

Look, you guys -- I'm not a coffee snob. I'm really not. I figure if I can enjoy a burger from Sonic as much as I enjoy a burger from Shake Shack, or a Bud Light on game day as much as a craft beer at a brew house with good friends, then there's no reason I can't admit to occasionally savoring a road-trip coffee from Dunkin' Donuts as much as a handcrafted, manual-brew microlot coffee at an incredible coffee shop. And that's really how I feel.

But really? Isn't this going just a bit too far?

To add insult to injury ("injury" in this case being that this is an artificial ingredient designed to simulate a drink that has done nothing but drive the average consumer that much farther afield from truly good coffee), the website for this stuff includes a recipe that calls for 1 tbs of chocolate syrup in addition to the 1/4 cup of Caramel Macchiato creamer. AND SPRINKLES.

That isn't coffee -- it's a 6-year-old's birthday party.

Why do I care about this? I don't actually know: I'm usually pretty live-and-let-live (or "Live and Let Die") about all things food and drink related, and this is such a silly thing to get in a bunch about. So what's up with the sudden ire, Meister?

Should I calm down and let flavored creamers lie? What do you think?

Is there an Ecco in here?

2009-10-21T09:44:00.002-05:00

I know this has already been announced by more fun, more compelling and more regularly updated sources, but I'd like to also pipe up and say that my alma mater, Joe, has made a big change today.

Not a big change like, "Whoops that balloon thing was a hoax," a big change like, "Whoopee, new coffee!"

There hasn't been much of an opportunity to experience Ecco's beautiful coffees in New York City until now, and I highly recommend you jump at the chance to raise your demitasse today and celebrate the new partnership. I know I plan on getting cup after cup of it all day until I'm full to my eyeballs with caffeinated goodness. Maybe I'll see you there!

Nature, nurture, bartending school?

2009-09-09T19:44:00.005-05:00

(Photo of Ed Kaufmann from two years ago—wowza!)

This interesting-slash–maybe kind of sad piece about whether or not bartending school is a waste of time, from today's Serious Eats, got me to thinking about my own job, and about people all over who do similar work in coffee (not because I think it's a waste of time, though—just keep reading).

How is a really good barista made? Can someone truly be taught to be good at this? What makes a good barista good?

It's a blessing and a curse to have the opportunity to think about these things all the time, not only when dealing with brand-new baristas but also when dealing with brand-new or prospective café owners. How do you take someone's (sometimes cursory) interest in coffee and help them mold it into a genuine dedication to a craft and a culinary art? I always tell employers to hire on personality and teach the rest, but is that really true?

These thoughts were compounded by the fact that today one of my trainees turned to me after I pulled a shot and asked, "Has anyone you've ever trained become as good as you are?"

At first, I didn't know how to answer—partially because I know it was likely just a little bit of teacher worship, partially because I am very shy, and partially because I was almost afraid of what my response might be. But after I thought about it for an awkward 20 seconds, I finally said, "I wasn't trained to be this good, per se; but I have been and am currently being trained very well and I wanted to learn even more, so I do everything in my power to accomplish that, all the time. I can probably teach you more than you know right now, but I can't necessarily teach you to want to learn and do more. And that's what makes somebody really good at this."

I think that's the G-d's truth. I want the baristas I work with to come away from our time with a more specific and more in-depth understanding of what they're doing. I want them to walk out of the training center knowing how to taste coffee, and how tiny pre-extraction details affect the finished cup. I can teach somebody how to do this, strictly speaking, but I can't teach someone how to feel the coffee in their bones, and that's the heart of the matter (to quote the poet Don Henley).

It's true that nothing shows you to work quickly and efficiently behind a bar better than simply working quickly and efficiently behind a bar—or, better yet, working slowly and inefficiently and realizing over time (and hopefully with some guidance) what needs to be improved on and how.

In this sense, I believe in working in real bar environments as often as possible if you're going to train people to be in coffee, because I think it makes one a better barista, which in turn makes one a better teacher (perhaps I got this idea from my alma mater?). Actually occasionally working at a busy café puts you on the same level as the folks you're responsible for training; it lets you speak their body language a little more and, and lets them feel like you're in the trenches alongside them; it lets you explain the real-time trials and tribulations they'll face (e.g. burning the same hand about a hundred times in a row, like I always do as soon as I step back behind an espresso machine for service for the first time in a while).

One important part of this is having humility—especially on the teacher's part. If a teacher can't realize that theirs isn't the only way to do something he or she is doing everybody a disservice. But the teacher can only teach; they can't force the student to look outside that box.

Do I think that the classroom environment is inappropriate for training? Heck no!(!!!!) I see the lessons and the education I have the chance to provide in the CCC NYC training center every day as an incredibly valuable part of the professional relationship I have with all my customers, and I see baristas who go through our programs get better and better every day because of it. But I also think there's no replacement for being challenged in an environment that comes with a little pressure, and for being forced to keep an open mind and realize that this is an adaptable and practical craft as much as an artistic and culinary one—that the classroom is one thing and the floor is quite another, but quality is quality and good taste is good taste no matter what the situation.

The element of pressure is absolutely pivotal for advancement, and that's what seems to be lacking in something like bartending school. That and, apparently, fresh lime juice.

But does it taste good??

PDXcellent

2009-08-14T10:46:00.005-05:00

Normally, when one of a person's best friends plans a wedding clear across the country, one's mind doesn't entertain notions of doing work-related travel during the trip to the ceremony. But when one's a coffee person and the wedding is in the Portland area--where one's never been!--you know what's going to happen.

Croissant and Americano at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel

Actually, I have to admit that my better half and I didn't make it to all that many coffee places during this trip, partially because we were on a tight time budget, and partially because come on, you gotta work with it when your husband is more interested in finding high-waisted 1940s trousers than analysing the aroma and mouthfeel of a masterfully crafted coffee. Not that he can't appreciate a masterfully crafted coffee, but marriage is a compromise!

(And I really had to compromise when I found like four stunning vintage dresses, a great cookbook and a 1960s airline carry-on bag during our shopping trips. Woe is me.)

Billy Wilson makes a vac pot of 49th Parallel's Wondo Worka for us at Barista

The best part of the coffee leg of our Portland trip was the chance to meet a whole new set of professionals in a whole new environment. It's not that I'm tired of the New York coffee scene, because I love the Big Apple and I love its Big Coffee Geeks. I love walking into any great cafe in town and running into no fewer than three industry colleagues there, just ready to catch up over a macchiato. But I love new people and new perspectives. I love new perspectives.

I always feel tremendously nervous walking into a coffee shop I've never been in before. Always. I'm a pretty naturally nervous person as it is (obviously), and I get even more nervous when I'm able to put myself in the shoes of whomever I'm dealing with. Having dealt with the occasional frustrating customer myself (I mean, let's call a spade a spade here), I have a totally irrepressible fear of becoming that person when I go someplace for a coffee. And then because I'm so nervous, I inevitably do something stupid or order something wrong or act so polite as to almost be unnervingly cloying. This compounded by the fact that the chances are pretty good that I know the barista I'm dealing with in New York City and would be mortified to do something ridiculous in front of them makes me even worse. EVEN WORSE!

In Portland, though, I knew almost nobody. I could go into a coffee shop and act stupid and nobody would even know the difference. G-d, that is so refreshing for the nervous! Add that to the fact that the coffee was great and man, you've got yourself a real treat, Meister.

So we had a great time in a great city. The vintage shopping was exceptional, the food was awesome, and the coffee we've already discussed. The drive up the coast to the ceremony location was winding and rocky and lush green, on long quiet roads bordered by roadside fruit stands.

But all that considered, I still have to say that the best part of the trip was seeing these two amazing people hold each other's hands and say "I do."

The perfect first dance

A new crop of blog posts… elsewhere

2009-07-26T19:38:00.004-05:00

There's been a lot of blogging going on lately, but sadly, none of it has been here. Hopefully that will change before too long.

In the meantime, tell me what you're drinking these days!

I've been enjoying our own beautiful new crop Finca El Puente from the Herrera-Caballero family farm in La Paz, Honduras, and I've enjoyed a couple rounds of Intelligentsia's lovely Los Inmortales out of Santa Ana, El Salvador. Seriously, delicious.

Food & coffee

2009-06-07T19:10:00.005-05:00

I never used to be a food person.

I mean, I ate food, but that was mostly because you have to in order to survive. And I would occasionally even make food, but it usually came out of a box and one of the main ingredients was typically dehydrated cheese product. And I mean, I always liked food—especially dehydrated cheese product–based food!—but no one in my family was especially culinary or concerned with how food can really affect your quality of life. We weren't exactly health-food people.

For instance, I was introduced to whole wheat bread by my girlfriend when I was 22 years old. And I thought she was just being a hippie! Seriously!

But learning more about coffee and being so inspired by its journey from crop to cup has completely altered the way that I think about all food, and that is one of the greatest gifts this crazy job and this beautiful industry has given me.

Every single time I explain the life cycle of a specialty-coffee bean—how long it takes for a plant to start producing cherry, how a single tree will have its cherry picked and picked again as they ripen over the course of several weeks, how the coffee is milled, how much of the work is done by hand—I think about the countless other things that we consume (without giving it much thought) that arrive to us in kind. Oranges, peanuts, rice, apples, wheat, leafy greens, corn—it's so overwhelming and awe-inspiring.

I decided at some point to stop taking food so for granted, and I have coffee to thank for that almost entirely. (Well, coffee and my undying love for Martha Stewart…) It has changed my life unbelievably.

Cherry tomato crisp from Everyday Food. It was delicious.

Just as how I stopped accepting my parents' preground, freezer-stored, no-roast-on-date coffee in my daily life in favor of sustainably traded and freshly roasted whole beans, I am now concerned with buying local, buying organic, buying ripe and preparing fresh myself—not "cooking" instant ramen every night or eating white-bread and American cheese sandwiches. I think about where a food is from before it goes in my pan, on my plate or in my mouth. And just like when I started to learn about great-quality coffee and how to prepare it well, my life is improved by learning more about food and how to prepare it. I have more control over my body and my health, I feel better about myself, I feel able to provide for myself and my husband, I can support farmers whose growing practices I believe in, and I can reclaim eating out as a special treat to be savored, not a daily necessity and anxiety.

Why do I bring this up? Because lately I've been thinking so much about how we craft a language around coffee in attempt to make it more accessible to the average person. So often I've used the wine analogy, and that's been helpful to a point. Although… I personally don't know anything about wine except that I like it? As I stood in an organic market today handing out tiny cups of free iced coffee, I got to glance at the expensive farmer cheese and organic bing cherries in people's baskets, though these were often the people who balked at "expensive" coffee compared with the market's proprietary blend.

I'm a bit late on this train, I know. The Slow Food thing is blazing and everybody is talking about artisinal and hand-crafted and I'm stuck in 2004 with the wine analogy. But I was also stuck in 1976 with my American cheese thing, so maybe you'll cut me a break.

How have you found it most effective to talk to people about coffee? What's your hook? How can I be better at this? Help me, coffee people. Help me while I go eat this amazing cherry tomato crisp (the recipe for which, by the way, calls for white sandwich bread, which I don't eat anymore. So I used flax-quinoa bread instead!).

Movin' on up

2009-06-04T09:05:00.003-05:00

In between concerted efforts to teach people all over New York City how to make great coffee, team Counter Culture NYC has been prepping like mad for our new training center's coming-out party in a few weeks:

The space is pretty big, and we're all pretty busy, so it's been coming together in fits and starts. But now that we have a deadline, we're getting a little frantic! Shelves are being hung, tools are being organized, weird coffee-grinder-shaped lamps are being cleaned and refurbished...

(Photo by Liz Clayton)

...you know, the usual stuff.

But I forgot that it's just as hard to get an office really nicely set up as it is to get an apartment all set up. Painting, cleaning, organizing, figuring it all out. There are pieces of furniture that end up in a different place every day while we try to discover the best layout, and there are bags of coffee here there and everywhere. And to add to my coworkers' frustration, I'm totally the anal roommate. Not anal posting passive-aggressive notes about not eating other people's food, but you know. The tidying roommate. Constantly, constantly tidying. It's a nervous habit.

Anyway, this whole post is basically an excuse to share this picture of how that really cool bean invitation poster was made, because I just think it's the neatest:

Stay tuned for more "Beautifying the training center" posts...

Quick link zap

2009-05-29T10:05:00.003-05:00

Oh, hi there. Just wanted to take a sec to share a couple links in a totally self-promoting way. (Sorry! I promise this isn't really like me.)

Keep abreast (eventually--when we really start updating this regularly) of all the brews that are fit to drink (groan...) with Team Counter Culture Coffee in New York City.

And if you are sick of me not updating this silly blog, you can check in on my weekly contributions to Slashfood.com. It's not too late to weigh in on the great blade-vs-burr-grinder debate of 2009!

Can I get a "what what" for Hacienda la Esmeralda?!

2009-05-19T22:20:00.004-05:00

Yesterday morning, thanks to the seriously incredible generosity of the coffee-buying team back at Counter Culture HQ, an enthusiastic handful of coffee folks got to completely geek out about Hacienda la Esmeralda (a.k.a. some of the world's most expensive—and extraordinary—coffees).

In case you're not familiar with Esmeralda Special and the fervor it inspires among beanheads, here is the 101: The Peterson family bought a coffee farm in Boquete, Panama, in 1996. In 2002, the family discovered that the most exceptional coffees their farm produced were Geisha variety that grew in a higher-altitude microclimate that existed within their crop. The intensely special, low-yield beans culled from this section of the Petersons' farm perform incredibly (and undeniably uniquely) in the cup and have fetched remarkable prices in auction: $21 dollars/lb green in 2004, $50.25/lb in 2006 and an astounding $130/lb in 2007.

This year's auction took place today, and the coffee world waits with bated breath for news of who gets which lot and when we can expect it in our mugs. That curiosity piqued for us at 10am on West 26th Street in Manhattan yesterday, when a dozen local coffee people got an opportunity to cup seven samples from the Petersons' farm in advance of the auction, one from each Special lot that headed up to the block this morning.

Of the seven lots, which you can read about in more detail here, my personal favorites were the sweet-and-sour Mario Carnaval—the name comes from the fact that it was harvested in February, Panama's Carnaval month—which had notes of sweet orange candy, rosewater, hibiscus tea and violets; and Naranjo, which (true to its name) had an unmistakable orange characteristic along with deep florals, fruit and vanilla. Esmeralda Special is often noted for its strong jasmine quality, which was most up front in the Colgá lot from Cañas Verdes, as well as fresh corn and fennel.

I hope the auction was a success for everyone involved and that these beautiful coffees find their way onto taste buds all over the world pretty soon—there was not a single bummer among them, for sure!

Thanks again to team Counter Culture for sharing the wealth! What a righteously awesome gift to the coffee community that was.

Meet the Buyer!

2009-03-18T15:26:00.003-05:00

Click here for bigger version.

In which I make myself strangely vulnerable…?

2009-03-11T20:23:00.005-05:00

There are basically two types* of bloggers: those who recognize that updating frequently is beneficial to the life of their piddly little Web space and so regularly hit the "publish post" button, and those who recognize that updating frequently is beneficial to the life of their piddly little Web space and, yet, don't.

I hate being of the latter group, but let's face it.

I've actually been thinking a lot about having a blog and how much I have kind of grown to hate it, if you'll permit me to be a bit dramatic for a second. When people meet me and say, "Oh! You have that blog!," I almost always shrink away from them, embarrassed. Not because it's embarrassing to have a blog, but because I'm a little embarrassed about how I've had one.

What do I mean? Well, for one thing, I'm really, really boring here—and I don't think I'm being self-deprecating, believe it or not. I just honestly feel like my blog hasn't contributed anything to coffee or the industry or barista culture or anything. I'm not even sure at this point why I started it, because I am actually very shy and get very self-conscious talking about myself (er… except in this post, I guess?). But that's basically all I've ever done here—talk about what I did that day or what coffee I drank or how I brewed it or whatever. It's like long-form Twittering, except the whole point of Twittering is to not be long-form. Dumb!

The other thing that has been frustrating me about blogging lately is that—if I may make an already rather obvious confession—I am really quite skittish about confrontation. I don't mean "confrontation" as in a beer bottle smashed over the edge of a bar and lunged into the soft part of your belly during a roadhouse fight, I mean even civilized, articulately argumentative, theoretical confrontation about differing opinions relating to coffee—even (or especially?) with or from people in the industry who know far more than me and whose opinions and expertise I respect (who I'm just certain are constantly refreshing their RSS readers to see if there's a new post from the long-dormant Meet the Press Pot).

This last fear is not brought about because I don't want to learn, but almost because I am so desperate to learn that I am wary of being scared off by online humiliation or by putting my virtual foot in my e-mouth. I have gotten to the point where I'll sooner delete a gigantic post full of questions and ideas and discoveries than face the possibility of someone coming along and pointing out all my weaknesses and mistakes, and that is cowardly and, yes, absolutely mind-blowingly boring. I am scared of having a public persona; I am happier having these interactions and dialouges and learning these lessons in a more private way.

I won't tire you further by waxing psychological about the reasons for this kind of nonsensical fear, and I am not trying to drum up support for maintaining this thing, because I will probably keep it up anyway (albeit lamely—that is unless I can grow a tough emotional exoskeleton sometime in the near future). But I feel like it's silly to just leave this thing here gathering dust and pretending every once in a while that I'm still into posting because I occasionally link to a flier or mention an event.

What I want to do is actually have conversations with other coffee professionals, learn from them and learn from my own findings, good or bad. I want to feel able to make a statement without obsessively editing it over and over and over before the site counter clicks and rolls over another number. I want to talk about the things that inspire and disappoint me, and I want to learn how to emulate or reject them in my professional life (respectively!).

There have been things about having a blog that I have really and still really enjoy, like meeting really nice, really interesting people and hearing about their passions and adventures in coffee. Other people's enthusiasm for this industry and for these weird and exciting lives we lead has always been so motivating and wonderful to me, and I'm grateful for those who have shared their journey in comments, e-mails and shy introductions on the road (the shy part is mostly me).

Again, I don't mean to make this sound like a eulogy for Meet the Press Pot, I am just kind of getting it off my mind—putting to rest the weird sort of tension that builds up when you're done with a day of work and think, "Well, I could post on my blog… or I could do a million other totally nonproductive things, like watching '50s game shows or creating a new at-the-gym playlist on my iPod…"

And, in conclusion, here is a video of a Scottish fold kitten.

*Not including those lucky bastards that get paid to do this sort of thing. If I were getting paid, maybe I wouldn't be so ding dang shy.

Giving myself the finger(s)

2009-01-15T18:08:00.003-05:00

I would like to pose a burning question to you all. Well, not so much burning as cracking -- as in skin cracks, the painful little places on one's hands where the skin splits apart, usually as a result of overwashing and undermoisturizing (i.e., being a barista).

In the winter, the splits on my thumbs and index fingers especially are really terrible, and I've never been able to successfully prevent it from happening or treat my poor paws once it does. Does anybody else suffer from this, and are there any tried-and-true tips for going through winter without being covered in tiny finger Band-Aids? I've tried moisturizing like crazy, I've tried washing my hands less, I've tried sleeping while wearing gloves full of Vaseline, I've tried slathering the cuts with Neosporin -- nothing, nada, zilch. No improvement. Seriously, it is so annoying.

If you can suggest something that really works, I will send you some delicious coffee. Honest. Delicious coffee and my undying gratitude.

Ballad of the neglectful blogger

2008-12-15T10:17:00.003-05:00

Friends, readers, coffee lovers, this blogger is ashamed by her own neglect. I mean, it is a bit embarrassing: How it's possible that one may spend a chunk of one's daily time in front of the computer without updating one's long cobwebbed blog is one of the mysteries of online life, and one of many such mysteries I don't know how to solve.

I will, however, offer an olive-branch update.

A couple of weeks ago (although it already feels like light years away, as these things go), my husband, Brett, and I jetted off on a year-late honeymoon to London. Besides the giant clock, the Queen, beef pasties and Jamie Oliver, what else is there to look forward to seeing in London? These two gents, who -- unlike the Queen, bless her heart -- were willing to take we two Americans around to some of the worthwhile cafes of Soho.

Tim Styles has always patiently fielded my ignorant questions about flat whites, which is a drink that continues to elude me both in practice and in theory. To that end, I actually had the nerve to order one in front of him at Flat White, only to basically sum up the experience with, "Oh, so it's kind of just a latte!" To which he generously responded, "Basically?"

It might have had a bit more air-weight to it than the standard American latte, but the flavor was transported in a similar way. How do you like that for Meister making a huge deal out of nothing? I also had a straight shot at Flat White, whose espresso comes from Square Mile Coffee. It was fruity and bright, and a great relief after much of the drizzle I'd been enduring at local "espresso" bars (where the espresso looks as though it's come out of one of those little aluminum cups).

The second stop we made was the coffee bar at Fernandez & Wells, another Soho outpost and one with two halves: a first largely dedicated to food & wine, and second centered around the coffee. They serve Monmouth Coffee Company coffee here (more on that in a second, hold on), and a trio of stumpies went 'round for Tim, Stephen and myself. (The husband, not much for overcaffeinating himself, patiently tagged along while we waxed absolutely ridiculous about industry stuff.)

F&W has an incredibly appealing aesthetic: very Ninth Street Espresso, with stark white walls, lovely plain wood and a simple, straightforward menu. I really enjoyed my stumpy (pictured above), which is the drink that probably has the most numerous, strange and cutesy permutations of its name -- apparently both in the States and abroad. "Stumpy" might be my favorite, though, as it's often how I think of myself.

Our last stop was the Covent Garden location of Monmouth Coffee Company itself, the birthplace of much of the bean juice we were sampling along the way. I didn't snap any photos in the tiny space (though we did end up sharing a booth with a lovely woman in the most remarkable vintage outfit), but it's a pretty neat-looking place, with high, stiff-backed wooden booths and a tidy whole-bean retail bar in the front. Cups of coffee are brewed to order (Go Team Brew Rail!), and we ended up getting two Colombians and a Yirgacheffe between us as we chattered on.

Have stuffed my proverbial cheeks with enough good coffee to see me through the rest of the week, Brett and I parted ways with our gracious London-coffee-tour hosts and sauntered (well, kind of -- I fairly bounced) over to BFI to see a Preston Sturges movie... but that's neither here nor there, is it?

Thanks again for showing us around, Tim and Stephen, and thanks for the good coffee, Soho! And thanks to all of you whose eyes are skimming this belated entry; I'll try to be better, really I will.

The silence is broken

2008-11-12T13:41:00.002-05:00

(Sorry I am hotlinking to your scan, Anne & Neil!)

Thursday Night Throwdown NYC:
Blindfolded latte-art competition

Details
Where: Everyman Espresso (146 E 13th St between Third and Fourth Aves)
When: Sign up to compete at 7:45pm, throwdown starts at 8
How much: $5 to pour, $0 to watch
BYOB or nicely ask the person next to you to share

Rules & Regulaysh
• One pull, one pour = $5, winner takes the pot
• Entire latte must be constructed while wearing the blindfold, including espresso
• Yes, you may BYOC(up to pour into)

♥Amazing Fantastic Celebrity-Guest Judge: Chadd!♥

Extry, extry!

2008-10-10T09:58:00.002-05:00

Over at the other Press Pot: Barrington Coffee Roasting Company, part 2—Gregg Charbonneau.

Sorry I didn't post this update right away, but I was too busy trying to get all my ducks in a row for my trip to Dallas, where I am at this very moment.

Speaking of Dallas, the Espresso Map has nothing to offer me here and the SCAA Consumer Map is down. Does anyone have any coffee recommendations for Dallas/Fort Worth? I need some good coffee to counterbalance the chicken-friend bacon I'm going to eat at the Texas state fair tomorrow…

Boomer Sooner!

Second edition

2008-10-03T19:47:00.004-05:00

Extra! Extra! Read all about it: new interview posted at the recently refurbished Meet the Press Pot, located at meetthepresspot.wordpress.com!

Meet Barth Anderson of Barrington Coffee Roasting Company!

L to R: Barth Anderson, Gregg Charbonneau

Meet Meet the Press Pot

2008-09-25T00:00:00.001-05:00

Friends, coffee lovers, colleagues, peers, neophytes, blog readers: Allow me to introduce you to the new Meet the Press Pot.

Jam-packed with interviews, field reports and man-on-the-street reactions to the coffee world's latest developments, this Meet the Press Pot sister site will be updated every Thursday-ish (Meister says with her fingers crossed) and will harmoniously coexist with the charming and lovable—if sporadic, one-sided and occasionally boring—original. If I may say so myself.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll caffeinate. Update your feed readers, and let's go!

PS: For those of you asking yourselves, "What's the difference?" I can tell you it's that the original Meet the Press Pot is a blogspot.com site, and the new one is with wordpress.com (meetthepresspot.blogspot.com vs. meetthepresspot.wordpress.com. Capisci?)

Pressed for updates

2008-09-16T16:13:00.002-05:00

I am either plotting a total overhaul of the Press Pot or I am feeling a little less blog-talkative than usual while I get used to my new job. Either way, don't you forget about me; I'll be back in full force before too long.

In the meantime, please enjoy this incredibly entertaining podcast by Dr. Mark Miodownik, "How to make a perfect cup of coffee", and this Millrock run-down by the gang at Barista Magazine.

Major congratulations are due to Hiroshi Sawada of Caffe Milkart, who not only poured the winning latte, but then donated the prize money to Coffee Kids! Man, what an awesome thing to do. Congratulations, Hiroshi!

Stuff like that reminds me how much I coffee people. And I do love coffee people. So much.

Reading material

2008-09-06T20:08:00.004-05:00

Hello, coffee-loving friends. I need more coffee blogs and websites to populate the tumbleweed-rolling expanse of my RSS reader.

You guys read the Internet, apparently. What should I add?

Any and all recommendations appreciated. I love reading/I love coffee/I love reading about coffee!

>Slurp!<

2008-09-04T18:50:00.003-05:00

Hey, everybody: Let's cup the heck out of something!

When: Tomorrow, Friday 5 September @ noon
Where: Everyman Espresso, 136 E 13th St between Third and Fourth Aves
What: The weekly Counter Culture Coffee cupping, New York stylee

It's my first time cupping publicly in New York as a member of the CCC team, and it should be a fun, interesting and casual exploration of three fine selections from our bean catalog. "Which ones?" you ask? Well, you'll just have to join us to find out.

Hope to slurp next to you tomorrow…

The great coffee rodeo of 2008

2008-08-25T18:50:00.004-05:00

My nearly three weeks in Durham are winding down, and I think that by the end of it I will be sufficiently orientated in the ways of Counter Culture Coffee to start (hopefully) doing good work for the company. At least, that's everybody's idea, and I am crossing fingers and toes that I'm able to hit the ground if not running, at least at a steady trot.

I haven't bothered to remember to bring or take out an actual camera over this time, because my hands are so often occupied taking notes, good Virgo that I am. Please pardon this poor excuse for a cell-phone photo of a beanful cooling tray.

It's an interesting place to be in for me right now: professionally somewhat vulnerable, having left a job that I truly liked and was fairly good at for a completely different one that I already love but of which I'm admittedly a little intimidated. I'm not trying to be falsely humble by saying that -- if you were to add up the extent of my experience, it'd prove me to be someone who is utterly passionate about and enamored of coffee and always eager to learn more, but who has seen the industry through essentially two lenses: journalism and retail.

My job now is to be the liaison between a growing roasting company that handles more pounds of coffee in one week than I have heretofore been able to conjure in my mind's eye and coffeeshop owners and restaurateurs whose dreams of quality, efficiency, profit, sustainability, reputation, growth and success are on the line. I am now a part of that roasting company, part of the mythic "we." That is wild and intimidating and exciting. I want so much to be good at this, and to do well by these incredible new partners I've found myself among, on all sides.

Writing this strikes me as strange and perhaps too personal; it might be the product of staying alone in a hotel room night after night (and now that the Olympics are over...), or it might be a sea change. While this is arguably a "personal" blog, I think it's rarely been very telling about my emotions, opinions or fears (though I may see it differently than you, the beloved reader, does). Is this how they get you to reveal your deepest secrets on reality programs? Is this my barista confessional? Oh man. I feel like I'm on The Real World: New York... by way of Durham.

Regardless, I have learned so much about coffee in the past two and a half weeks, it's exhilerating and awesome. I have learned how to make myself a cup of something on a Clover right after cupping it to see how the processes compare; what a solenoid valve is and what its purpose is in a coffee brewer; how much I love the smell of jute bags first thing on a muggy morning; what an Agtron machine looks like and how it works; how much of an effect water temperature truly has on brewed coffee; and that North Carolina barbecue is vinegary and delicious.

That last one is really important.

Thank you, Mary Schroeder!

So here's to coffee, to coffee people, and to barbecue. And New York, I will see you on Friday night, you lucky sonofa...

Adios, office coffee pot

2008-08-07T14:37:00.002-05:00

So, my friends, another page is turning in the book of Meister; today is my last day at Time Out NY, a place at which I have truly enjoyed working, alongside colleagues I've been honored to know and copyedit (both for and with). But I am off to more caffeinated pastures as a member of the New York team for…

…wait for it…

…Counter Culture Coffee!

I'm very excited to be heading down to Durham for three weeks of coffee college, and even though I've really enjoyed my editorial work (and will likely continue doing it here and there), every single person I've told about the choice has said some variation of "You are going where your heart is."

In the meantime, it's my last time in an office for a while, which is a little sad. My cube has been mostly disassembled; my sparkly plaster-armadillo bookend is back at home (much to Brett's chagrin); and my drawers are once again merely a receptacle for my officemates' menus, mustard packets and spare napkins—just like when I first started. Bittersweet. I hope the next person to sit here finds all the little treats that have been left in this copy of the dictionary by G-d knows who (e.g., the interrobang that highlights Merriam-Webster's inclusion of breast drill and the heart drawn next to the illustration of penguin).

In a last-ditch effort to make up for leaving a job I actually really liked, my final gift to my coworkers was to clean the living heck out of the coffee pot in the lunchroom—as best I could, anyway. Armed with a fierce dose of JoeGlo and the hottest water the place could manage, I soaked and scrubbed and flushed the pots and lines, and then I soaked and scrubbed and flushed 'em again. Who knows when the last time this situation was cleaned (if ever)? The old-coffee flakes that came out of that thing were amazing.

Now it's so spotless even I will drink what it brews—even if it is premeasured, preground doses of Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

As it happens, TONY's last gift to me was to allow me to interview Liza Minnelli, whose show I am also attending tonight. Talk about going out with a bang! Far out, my friends.

See you on the caffeinated flip side!

Ah, coffee cloud

2008-08-04T22:22:00.002-05:00

I love Threadless and I love this new coffee T-shirt they've got, hot off the printer:

Lord knows we could all use another coffee shirt or twelve. You can getcher own (designed by Maxim Cyr) by clicking below!

(And to answer your question, yes: There is an actual post forthcoming.)

The comfort of your own home

2008-07-20T18:45:00.003-05:00

Today, I felt like I broke the proverbial champagne bottle against my apartment.

Well, "our" apartment, that is—you know, since I've got that husband guy hanging around here sometimes, too. And if we are being totally technical about the whole thing, it's really his apartment, since he's lived here for, what, 18 years now? When I moved in with my Truman Capote books, my various coffee paraphernalia and my constantly growing collection of homemade vintage dresses, I was understandably moving into his world. It's been almost two years (for us as a couple and, shockingly, for me at this locale—ask me the story of how I kind of accidentally had to move in with Brett three months after we started dating!), and over the past few weeks, we've really hunkered down and made some big changes on ol' West 22nd Street. It's home. Our home, both of us. Wow.

So anyway. Today, in honor of feeling at home, comfortable, settled, domestic and on the verge of an exciting new job, I cupped some excellent coffees. Some might say the most excellent coffees, but I'll leave that to you, dear reader, when you cup them your own self. But yes, on the table today was (left to right) an Intelligentsia-roasted Panama Esmeralda and a Stumptown Ethiopia Misty Valley Indido.

Two absolutely beautiful crops, slurped in my now-completely-ideal domicile on what was an absolutely beautiful New York afternoon (my husband would take serious issue with my classifying today as beautiful; he doesn't really do summer)—doesn't get much better than that. Now, I've cupped at home before. But this somehow felt different. This felt like, "We're really gonna do this? Okay, cool." Maybe it was the magic of the Esmeralda? I mean, let's be frank: Nothing says "We're really gonna do this" like the world's arguably most coveted coffee. (I hope you'll excuse me if I leave my cupping notes out of this post; Esmeralda especially is probably a victim of its own descriptions, and I think a coffee this delicate is best encountered on its—and your—own terms.)

In any event, one of the reasons I really love cupping at home (and love cupping by myself, though it is such a dynamic, social and informative experience when done as part of a group) is that you can get lost in it. It's like cooking yourself a truly exceptional dinner and then eating it alone on the couch with some candles lit, not even tempted to continue reading that book you've been pawing at all afternoon, simply because what you're tasting is that good. There's no pressure to have this or that to say about the coffee; even though the process is no less formal and I do still go through the motions of taking notes, I am alone with my palate, these liquors and my powers of description; we're all getting to know each other better. It's almost too intimate an act. All this after having just talked about the house I've built with my husband—I guess I was making out with some coffee today. Whoops!

When I was done with the cupping, writing down my feelings and thinking about my future in this industry, I looked around at my—sorry, our—living room. This is the house of a coffee nut and a collector of paper ephemera; I put on Judy Garland and he puts on Nat King Cole and the two of us sing along with both. I like a strong cup of Chemex-brewed Mexican Chiapas in the morning and he likes a nice short macchiato after dinner, and I have everything in the world to be thankful for.

The other All-Star Game

2008-07-16T12:32:00.003-05:00

How long does it take to press and serve 20 or so coffees to an editorial panel of up to six people while they slurp, spit and jot notes? Apparently about three and a half very, very caffeinated hours. And roughly the same number of innings as the MLB All-Star Game!

The backstory is that I was called upon to assist a bit of an ambitious if informal coffee tasting in the offices of a magazine 'round these parts, in advance of an upcoming issue (thanks to my training in editorial-calendar secrecy, that is all I will say about the details for now; I was only peripherally involved, but I still know how to zip my trap sometimes). The coffees on that table were among the very best in the world: Intelligentsia, PT's, Counter Culture, Gimme!, 49th Parallel, Stumptown, the Roasterie, etc., etc., etc.… While I didn't really get to spend any time poring over individual coffees (mine was to answer questions, bloom grounds, plunge at four minutes and divide the sacred liquid into cups), I did sneak a couple sips here and there, and I will tell you that I was floored by Stumptown's Finca El Injerto (bourbon). Just a beautiful, clean, sparkling, crisp, floral, delicate cup. I was so grateful to have snatched a taste.

There are few things more pleasurable than facilitating people's enjoyment of coffee—even when you're too busy passing out mugs of it to really savor any yourself. But watching round after round rush by me and into the hands (and mouths) of happy, excited, receptive (and eventually somewhat jittery) folks who were talking about it in a really inquisitive and thoughtful way reminded me of why I'm drawn back into this world.

Next time, however, I might suggest cutting back on the number of samples sipped in one morning. I fear that may have been a lesson learned the hard way…

I think I might have heard the highway calling

2008-07-12T00:30:00.004-05:00

I've been hesitant to make any posts in regard to my recent career move (oh, did you guys know I was making a career move? because I did), but yes, let it be known that I'm headed back into coffee, headfirst. I can't wait to get down & dirty. I mean, it was a very difficult decision for me—I really do enjoy my current job and I adore my colleagues—but here we are, coffee and I. It's just one of those romances. You know how it goes.

Once I am 100% sure I won't screw this up—you never know with me!—I will be more detailed. For know just know that I am incredibly pleased and proud to be starting a new chapter of my life with a group of people for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect. I just hate to be a jinx.

Also? I interviewed Liza Minnelli on the phone today. Life is great!

Enough about me—how are you??

I will not mention blarney

2008-06-22T10:31:00.005-05:00

Congratulations, World Barista Champion Stephen Morrissey!

Absolutely brilliant barista, and one heckuva nice guy to boot.

Look here, you can even watch his semi-finals performance, as archived by Ustream, and be as blown away as the judges were (only without the added delight of tasting the espresso, unfortunately):

Web TV provided by Ustream

Congratulations, Stephen, and congratulations to all the rest of the competitors! What an excellent weekend for coffee. You all have so much to be proud of!

Boing Burn

2008-06-20T23:29:00.002-05:00

Hello from Detroit, where I am drinking a somewhat bland imported Canadian beer, relaxing before my friends' impending nuptials and driving my husband crazy by talking absolutely incessantly about coffee, despite being on quote-unquote vacation.

You know who else is suddenly talking a lot about coffee? Boing Boing, which I love (oh my heavens do I love Boing Boing). Even better, they're talking to and about US Barista Champ Kyle Glanville, who of course notched another one in his belt today in Copenhagen, turning in a polished, relaxed and eloquent performance at the World competition. Great job, Kyle. Truly. And best of luck out there!

Anyway, back to Boing Boing.

So I'm sure you've seen the Coffee Blog Linkfest 2008 to the two latest Boing Boing videos, wherein BB visit Intelligentsia L.A. and learn about coffee. They are pretty fun, and it's incredibly validating to go to your RSS reader and see a bunch of stuff about the thing you do that everybody thinks is kind of weird and crazy, and imagine some of those people listening to a barista you admire talk about coffee in a way that makes it seem less weird and crazy and more artistic and exciting. Maybe someone will watch these videos and be inspired to drink better coffee, and wouldn't that be wonderful?

Still.

So the latest video in this series features Mark Frauenfelder and his own home espresso machine—a Silvia—in the Intelly West hq, learning about making espresso. Kyle, who really seems like such a patient, expressive and gifted trainer, walks Mark F. through the steps to craft the perfect espresso, except…

…these are the ones that are repeated at the end of the clip, with any semblance of the espresso-coffee technique or nuance edited out—probably understandably, in a way, as our geeketry doesn't often make for the most captivating media studies.

But okay then, let's recap: To make the perfect espresso you need to

Scrub basket before use
Be aware of grind settings
Agitate coffee grinds before brewing ("You stupid coffee grinds!"—that is my favorite tip!)
Mind water temperature

It seems rather strange to me that these are the elements Team Boing Boing decide to focus on. And not just focus on because they're particularly interesting (because they're among probably the least-interesting things one can do when preparing espresso coffee), but to focus on them to the utter exclusion of any and all in-depth or explanatory details about the actual process of crafting coffee this way. I mean, in the video, reference or visuals of Kyle dosing or tamping the espresso are nicked down to the bare minimum. As a barista trainer—and specifically as a home-barista trainer—I would have to say that dosing, tamping and tasting are the three most important things to impart on a novice, not "agitate coffee grinds before brewing." And as a Boing Boing devotee, I would think that these sorts of superserious and intense details would be the ones they'd be drawn to.

But it's not about Boing Boing's failure to portray the craft of making espresso that is the issue here, really. Let me sort of explain.

I guess really what's happened is I've learned my lesson. I don't often delve deeply into my philosophies about coffee or the industry because there's enough of that floating around if you want it, and mine is not to judge or act superior, because I am certainly not superior in any way. I'm just a girl who loves coffee, when you get right down to it. But I will make an admission tonight, if you don't mind. Please excuse me.

Oh, you remember that piece in the Times about cupping? Yeah, well. A barista I respect and like very much (to whom I haven't spoken about this, because I can occasionally be a little reticent with my opinions, if you can believe it) seemed to take offense at how simplistic some of us have allowed public and nonprofessional cuppings to be—a perspective I can sympathize with. There is a point behind cupping, it has a certain ceremony to it that we do tend to bastardize for the "good" of the general public, and in making it so accessible as to open it up to first-timers or people who "have to use milk and sugar," we may be unintentionally doing the process and its importance a disservice.

That is one take on it, and it does make sense in its way, of course. Mine has always been a bit more populist a stance—about coffee in general, really—which might make me seem like less of a serious barista than I feel I can be in my heart, but that is an issue for another day.

By saying I am "populst" about coffee, I mean that I want people to know and approach it on their own terms. I want to say to them, "It's okay if you taste Pop-Tarts in this, because at least it means you're tasting something." I teach nonprofessionals about coffee, and often they are learning absolutely from scratch with me; it's what I do, and it's what I love to do. When I go into someone's house, I have to gauge where they're at, where their equipment is at, what level they are going to feel comfortable getting to. And I will tailor my lessons around that—I will never go into someone's kitchen and tell them that if they don't have this machine, setup, book or technique that they are wrong. I believe that if you like what you make when you taste it, then you are ahead of the game.

But still. This isn't just an arts-and-crafts project. This is an artisinal culinary skill. You are not paying me to come into your house and teach you how to make a pot of Folger's. You are paying me to teach you how to be a barista, how to speak to and understand your coffee—how to master and be mastered by it. I will always try to give my clients whatever knowledge I have about coffee, and when I do, I expect them to try to take it in and understand it, to put it to good use. When they are unable to do that, there's little else I can do but step back and hope their tongues are happy with whatever it is they can manage to eke out of their machine. You've got to push the bird out of the nest sometime, and you just hope it can fly.

So I saw this clip, and I got frustrated. I got frustrated because Kyle clearly spent some time explaining the art and nuance of espresso preparation and extraction, and he is at the very top of this game. I got frustrated because this is a skill and a craft and a set of instincts that is more than "agitating coffee grinds," and that Kyle is featured in this clip on account of precisely that—he is not in Copenhagen this weekend "agitating coffee grinds" (unless they agitate him first, I expect), but because he is an absolute master barista. And I got frustrated because I feel like a hypocrite for being so riled up about something being made so utterly "accessible" as to miss the point completely, and to actually impart almost literally no information about how to brew espresso, or why you would even really want to.

Is that what happens when you hear someone say they taste shoelaces, Cinnamon Toast Crunch or any other wackadoo thing during a cupping, even though you might be thrilled to see people getting excited about the whole idea? Then maybe I know a little better how you feel.

Link

I hate waxing metaphoric… and yet I do it

2008-06-18T13:37:00.004-05:00

Well, friends, it's wedding season. People are tying the knot left and right (including my pals Julie and Kate, at whose ceremony I'll be this weekend in Detroit), and June is abuzz with excitement, everlasting love, new outfits and fancy dishware.

But there is another kind of marriage we will be celebrating this weekend (and for which some people will be waking up very early).

It's like this: Skill and Passion passion meet, flirt, go out a few times, get to know each other and then amaze the world with how perfect they are together. The union of that skill and that passion is unstoppable, inspiring, incredible, totally bitchin' and maybe just a skosh bonkers, and is fêted at long last under one giant roof: the World Barista Championship!

Our very best baristas are the products of that skill and passion, just like a masterful cappuccino is the marriage of espresso and milk.

So while you're enjoying the WBC (more live-streaming action!) and reading the insightful, up-to-the-minute commentary on Barista Magazine's blog, I'll be toasting my friends Julie and Kate, probably doing the Chicken Dance, and hoping for the best for my two favorite champs: America's Kyle Glanville and Ireland's Stephen Morrissey. And, of course, for everybody else building drinks and pulling shots under the watchful eyes of that crack team of judges.

Good luck to all the competitors, and safe travels to everyone headed to Copenhagen!

Kyle concentrates very, very hard. That's why he's so good!

Well, wow

2008-06-06T10:02:00.006-05:00

Last night's Rosettas for Relief latte-art throwdown was staggeringly awesome, all thanks to you guys! ("You guys" here standing for "the coffee community at large" and anyone else who was with us in body or spirit, raising money for a good cause.)

In the course of raising more than $700 for the Red Cross (!!) we ran out of beer three times (thanks for getting us more, whoever made the last three runs!), though we had five cases of Sierra Nevada generously donated by Union Beer Distributors. There were also tons of great donated raffle prizes—including a coffee-themed apron specially designed and shipped overnight from Minneapolis just for the occasion (thank you so much, Michaelene!), a year's subscription to Bust magazine, a bunch of great demitasse cups from our pals at Café Grumpy and several pounds of coffee from Daterra Farms, lovingly roasted by Barrington Coffee—one of which my husband won, so I'm enjoying a cup of it right now!

The room was packed to the gills (some folks had to climb upstairs and poke their heads through the office windows), with baristas, coffee drinkers, foodies, photographers and passersby all fighting for a good look. The top of every chair saw the bottom of a pair of shoes at some point—even my poor mother had to stand on one in the back of the room! You'd think I could have arranged VIP seating for my own mom, right?

Joe's owner, Jonathan Rubinstein, had the genius forethought to arrange us a videographer and a projector (thanks guys!) so everybody could see the lattes as they were poured (and the beers as they were consumed, and the dozens of little camera shutters snap-snapping all over the place). Our crack team of judges (playwright Brian Bartels, Serious Eats' Alaina Broome and Counter Culture Coffee's Katie Carguilo) kept things fair and balanced, tallying each drink furiously on four parameters: symmetry, contrast, detail and style. And the competition was tough, I'll tell you.

You can see the judges and the projection in this photo! Two birds, one stone.

MC Adam Roberts (a.k.a. the Amateur Gourmet) did a fabulous job keeping things going and inserting lively, punchy banter when needed, taking "Man in the Café" interviews from people looking on and chatting with baristas before and after their pours.

About 20 baristas stepped up to the plate, including Ryan, Tal and Emily from Ninth Street Espresso; Wally from Kobricks Coffee in Jersey City; Julio from City Girl Café; Amber from Intelligentsia; Alie from Gimme!; Anne of Temp Tamp; Rickie, Brian, William, Jane, Angela, Dave and Nate from Joe; and a bunch more!

And the winning pour was courtesy of El Beit's Danger Dan, who must be pretty used to killing it at these things by now.

Dan took home a $300 gift certificate to Eleven Madison Park, generously donated by the Union Square Hospitality Group (thanks, Danny Meyer!). So, Dan, if you can figure out a way to split that among the 90 of us who were there last night… And don't be so modest!

Thanks again to absolutely every who came, saw and conquered last night, and for such generosity toward an amazing cause. The money is still coming in a little bit in drips and drabs (we can accept donations until the 10th—email meister@biynyc.com with questions about giving!), and I will give a final tally when it's all collected and accounted for.

Viva barista!

Edited to add: Check out what Gothamist has to say about the whole thing!

T minus one day to Rosettas for Relief!

2008-06-04T10:52:00.003-05:00

Rosettas for Relief on Eater!

UNION SQUARE— Thursday night Joe's 13th Street location is hosting a Latte Art Throwdown to benefit the Red Cross: "Baristas will have a single opportunity to wow the judges with their latte art skills. Judges will include Time Out New York Eat Out editor Gabriella Gershenson and Counter Culture Coffee's Katie Carguilo; the event’s emcee will be Adam Roberts of The Amateur Gourmet. Attendees will get to sip on complimentary beer." $10 suggested donation. [EaterWire]

Can't wait! Get those rosetta-pouring wrists and beer-lifting biceps ready, gang!

Rosettas for Relief

2008-05-29T09:38:00.006-05:00

Another reason I love coffee people…

Rosettas for Relief!

A latte-art throwdown to benefit international relief efforts by the Red Cross in Mayanmar and China!

When: Thursday June 5 @ 8pm
Where: Joe, 9 E 13th Street (between Fifth Ave & University Pl)
Cost: However much you can plunk down in the donation jar
What: Free beer, awesome raffle prizes, music, cute baristas (it's true!) and coffee, coffee, coffee!

Come watch your favorite bean-slingers compete for bragging rights, enjoy your other favorite brew and win tons of great stuff—all while supporting a wonderful cause! Donations will be tax-deductible and, thanks to cooperation by the Red Cross, all proceeds will go directly to aid affected areas of Myanmar and China in the wake of recent natural disasters.

Can't join us on Thursday? Donations are also being accepted at three locations of Joe—checks made out to the American Red Cross can be dropped off with a barista there or mailed to: Joe, 9 E 13th St, New York, NY 10002. Include your name and address to ensure tax credit!

For more information and to R.S.V.P., e-mail meister@biynyc.com

Have fun, make a difference and get buzzed for charity!

Memorable Day

2008-05-26T23:50:00.003-05:00

Is there anything in the world as wonderful as a long weekend?

A long weekend with a fresh Chemex pot of Mexican Chiapas! That's what.

I am in the throes of planning an event that is fast approaching; keep your peepers peeped and your RSS readers tuned for more details and the big reveal, possibly in the next couple days! In the meantime, I hope your long weekend had an awesome pot of something brewin'.

What's in your cup?

Pressing Press Pot

2008-05-11T19:58:00.003-05:00

Well, 2008's SCAA conference is over; I returned in one (somewhat harried, frazzled, exhausted and pensive) piece last Monday night. If I hadn't had to hit the ground running in terms of my Mon–Fri job, I would have provided this update sooner. My apologies to any Press Pot groupies who were champing at the bit for my particular take on the whole business. (That "groupies" part was a joke.)

The short version is that amazing people were met; informative lectures were attended; copious notes were taken in now-completely-illegible handwriting; blog posts were written on the fly; Prince was listened to in semifancy hotel rooms with no free Wi-Fi; local bars were scandalized and conquered; the USBC was thoroughly photographed; Scott Rao's book was read on the plane ride home; and Ecco Caffé's Konga–co-operative Ethiopian Yirgacheffe was lovingly consumed at my day job the day after returning (and the day after that, and the day after that…).

Now we're in reflective mode (we meaning me).

I came away from this conference with my head absolutely spinning. Having never been, I had no idea what to expect; having gone, I have no idea what to think. The event was, to me personally, many things at once: inspiring, overwhelming, thrilling, disheartening, motivating, difficult, social, alienating, enlightening, frustrating, wonderful. I hope you don't mind if I work through some of the more complex feelings here.

To be honest, when I first said goodbye to the Minneapolis convention center, I thought it meant I was shelving my tamper for good. I said as much to some friends, and to my husband when I got home. Not because I don't love coffee, but almost because I love it too much, and I love the industry too much. So much so that, like a big family full of tons of eccentric people, it can be incredibly rewarding and incredibly maddening at almost the exact same time. There were a lot of personalities under that roof: A lot of unsavory things were said, a lot of disappointing actions were taken (I'm looking at you, rude guy who was manning the Mazzer booth—consider yourself On Notice) and a lot of proverbial dicks were wagged. But I also saw unbelievable kindnesses, people giddily teaching and learning from other people, shop talked and shots shared, amazing camaraderie, truly inspiring professionalism. Of course, it's the latter list that stands out in my memory, but it's the former list that is, strangely, more motivating.

And the reason this was so overwhelming (and still is, even as I begin to process it) is that I feel so on the outside. I'm not slaving away in a shop, at a roastery, at origin: I work a day job and I make coffee mostly on the weekends. All the books are still in my living room; they're all still thumbed-through and dog-eared. But I don't spend my days asking and answering questions about coffee, and I'm never more aware of how little I know about it than when I'm surrounded by people who know so much.

I want to know more; I want to do more. But I don't know how. That's why I am feeling overwhelmed. In that car, on the way to the airport, I thought, "Either I will have to leave coffee altogether, or I will have to finally dedicate my life to it." It's like someone you've dated on and off for years but haven't fully committed to because the timing hasn't been right. Either do it or don't, but make up your mind, son!

So now I'm taking my time, thinking it through. What in the world am I going to do with myself? Is this a mini existential crisis? Am I being super dramatic? Can I really ever be good enough or smart enough about coffee to make a difference in the ways I would want to? G-d, I love coffee and coffee people so much. This is hard! Any and all advice and reflections welcome, encouraged, begged for.

And beyond all else, of course, a long-overdue congratulations (joining a million other laudatory Internet voices) go out to Kyle Glanville for winning this year's USBC, as well as just for being such a swell guy.

Also big ups to second-placer Pete Licata and third-placer Heather Perry, as well as to all of the finalists, semifinalists and anyone who entered any of this year's contests. It takes some real guts and confidence and love of the craft to go out there, and I'm impressed by all of you. You have so much to teach us.

(Remember, you can still watch all the finalists' performances here.)

Thanks to everyone I got to meet and talk with, who graciously shared their time and energy with me either as a blogger or as a coffee professional. Thank you to my fellow blog-team members, who were patient and funny and fascinating and bold. Thank you to Nick Cho for putting us together. Thank you to the SCAA for existing, and for looking to better itself. Thank you to Minneapolis for letting us crash your party. Thanks to Torani and the BGA for the free photobooth.

And thanks to you for reading, and I am really serious about the advice and information—I need all the help I can get.

You guys are all, seriously, the best.

Unstoppable

2008-05-04T18:32:00.001-05:00

Still blogging!

Check us out. It's hot. (As hot as this James Hoffmann–taken photograph, in which I am giving Zachary a sassy look.)

Metablog

2008-05-02T10:56:00.003-05:00

Here I am, blogging about a blog! How cool is that?

Check out the live blog of the SCAA Conference in Minneapolis here. It's wild, it's crazy, it's caffeinated!

Edited to Add: Because of a technical glitch (you never know how many they'll be until you get thurr), it might be easier to see the blog in its full glory here. And, of course, the full live stream of the US Barista Competish is here.

Christmas card from a blogger (almost) in Minneapolis

2008-04-30T20:58:00.006-05:00

Great things that are in Minneapolis:

Prince.
lakes.
Adrian Peterson (YES!).
and, most exciting of all (okay, Adrian Peterson is pretty exciting), the 2008 SCAA convention.

That means that as of tomorrow evening, the great city will enjoy a barrage of coffee nuts, lovers, producers, makers, brokers, educators, photographers, bloggers and just about every other thing under the sun. Myself included, camera(s), laptop and hand-held tape recorder in tow.

Look out, Prince!

Compost with the most

2008-04-27T15:09:00.003-05:00

You know what I love? Worms. You know what worms love? Digesting organic material and making it into compost. Isn't that awesome? Worms are so great.

When I was a kid, we had a huge compost pile in the back yard (putting a bunch of organic crap in a pile and letting it sit and marinate over a period of years is called "passive composting"; we were big into "passive" I think, there in suburban New Jersey), and there was something so wild and exotic about it to a young me. It seemed like such a Dad thing.

Later, I dated someone whose family kept a small ventilated compost bin in their kitchen, filled with egg shells and banana peels—more recognizable everyday things than my childhood Mount Kilimantrasho ever had on it. It seemed like such a cool your-parents-used-to-be-hippies-didn't-they thing.

Personally, I haven't kept compost myself since I reached double digits, even though I know its benefits outweigh its relative inconvenience (and I fully cop to this "relative inconvenience" being a BS excuse, since most major cities are actively making it easier and easier for individuals to manage their waste effectively). Recycling, reusing and reducing has always seemed like a more easily achieved sort of lifestyle, and one my husband and I actively maintain. But surely there must be more we can do…

And then Joe started a composting program, and my eyes were really opened.

When I first heard about the plan, I was skeptical for sure; how can already-overwhelmed baristas in a busy shop be expected to effectively and efficiently compost roughly 75% of a day's basic rubbish output? But it is as natural as though we had been doing it for years, and after a few times of having to fish Post-it notes out of the compost bin, even I got the hang of it.

Commercial composting can be so amazing, especially in an industry that naturally produces so much organic waste. Not only is composting coffee grounds and foodstuffs in one large, wheeled container that gets emptied nearly nightly by a professional crew vastly better for the environment than tossing roughly 200lbs of plastic-bagged trash every evening, but it also makes the actual rubbish so much more manageable and less messy. Win-win!

Here is some more information about composting on a small scale in New York, and how the Department of Sanitation can help residents be more earth-aware.

On the topic of the environment, get a load of these little beauties:

Available for purchase here, $20. (NB: back-ordered until mid May)

(Also, I'd like to say that I never, ever recommend doing a Google Image Search for "worm," even when writing a blog post about composting. The results are profoundly unpleasant.)

Don't blame the copy editor

2008-04-24T10:27:00.005-05:00

This story from a Time Out New York (my day job) of two weeks ago is one of the reasons it's hard being an undercover coffee professional in copy editor's clothing.

Starbucks Sirena Espresso Machine $399
Meant to replace: daily $6 triple grande nonfat lattes

Even most department store coffee makers can produce a decent cup o’ joe, but this classy-looking setup has the goods to make drinks so fancy you’ll barely be able to pronounce them. It’s self-tamping, and pulls premeasured single and double shots with robotic accuracy so you’ll never have to worry about your drink being too strong, or—worse—too wimpy. The steam wand is essential for making lattes and cappuccinos, and a pair of boilers make it one of the fastest machines this side of Seattle. Since BMW DesignWorks created the look, you won’t mind leaving it out on the counter all the time—just make sure to send all aspiring screenwriters and grad students packing before you start brewing.
Available exclusively at starbucks.com

What can I say? Nobody asks me!

2008-04-15T12:58:00.003-05:00

Probably the best gift I could ever have asked for as an erstwhile full-time barista coming back into the fold after a six-month hiatus is the chance I've had to reopen my mind about coffee.

If you work nonstop, you inevitably settle into techniques and create muscle memories that nudge you into a groove. Eight months, a year, six years after being trained in specialty coffee and working 30+ hours behind the bar, could you almost pull a shot with your eyes closed? Well, maybe not a great one, but something more or less resembling an espresso? Probably.

And what happens when that's gone?

Stepping behind that counter for the first three shifts was strange and unnerving; the portafilter seemed heavier than I remembered it, the grinder seemed more persnickety, my movements were stilted and choppy. It wasn't the dance I thought I knew at all; my arms bumped, my fingers shook and my timing was all wrong, like a toddler in a ballet class.

But that awkwardness was a blessing in a disguise, and continues to be. Now every time I go to make a movement, to turn a machine on or off, to do this or that to my coffee grounds, I'm forced to think: Why?

Why am I doing this particular thing right now, and is it the method that will produce the best effect? If I pull the demitasse out from under the espresso stream while it's pouring rather than turning off the group head, how does that change the product? If I knock my portafilter baskets empty rather than leaving the spent puck in the group, what difference will it make to the next shot, the next three shots, the next 20? What will a circular distribution accomplish, and how does that compare with the Chicago chop?

Half a year ago, these were givens. The answers were built into my routine, for better or worse, and I was making coffee in a way that was successful, but was it the best it could have been? Is our coffee ever the best it could be? There's always that next "Why?" out there, there's always a new explanation, a new experiment. There are always things to read, people to confer with and baristas to watch. There's always something to learn. Now that I'm not so busy being the one with the overhead projector and podium, I'm ecstatic to be in the front row, taking notes (and maybe doodling a little—just a little!).

I might take a little longer than I used to to build a drink, but at least now I can really tell you why.

Starwho?

2008-04-01T16:38:00.005-05:00

Check out this sweet little piece in this week's New York Magazine about how Big Green can dig out of the financial and credibility hole it's recently admitted getting itself into.

Besides wanting to recommend a quick, fun read (two of those weighing in on the issue have a somewhat outsidery perspective on the world of coffee, which is always interesting), I also couldn't pass up the chance to tell everyone that Joe's owner, Jonathan, has been immortalized in cartoon form for the thing.

Isn't that cute?

Nope, it's not like riding a bicycle!

2008-03-31T10:28:00.003-05:00

Oh, dear. I hurt.

This weekend, the first that Joe Chelsea (or Joe London Terrace, as you prefer) was open for business, I stretched my barista muscles after a long, idle six-month absence from behind the bar. It was a blast: Customers appear to love us, the coffee's great, the space is lovely, the coffee's great, the location is sunny and bright, did I mention the coffee's great?

But boy oh boy, I'm creaky today for sure.

My favorite thing about the new shop (aside from making lattes for neighbor Mario Cantone, on whose children's show I was one featured as a third grader) is the new drip bar.

(Photo by Michael Gitter from opening day, since I still haven't managed to crack my camera when I'm in the shop.)

I previously said that it was designed by the folks at Blue Bottle, using beehouse ceramic drippers. But I neglected to admit that it produces some of the most beautiful coffee I've ever had—probably because I didn't get near it until yesterday morning (don't even ask how busy we were Saturday afternoon). But yes, the coffee I made in that little cone was absolutely exceptional. With every sip something else came out in vibrant waves, all that berry and zest, those lower, tomato-soup type flavors, that clean finish. I felt like I was tasting the very essence of the origin.

Which allows me to go off on an unsolicited tangent.

Were I to open my own coffee shop—which I will likely not—I am beginning to think I'd forgo the espresso machine altogether. Press pots, individual Chemexes, a drip bar, daily cuppings, vacuum pots, cowboy coffee and, yes, a double-brewing Fetco, but no espresso.

Now, here's where I make an unpopular confession. I mean, I love espresso. I've truly and enthusiastically enjoyed shot after shot of it pulled by master baristas who are the top of their game, and I've even been thrilled by a fair percentage of my own pours. I love preparing espresso, and I live to build drinks with it. Teaching people to make it is my favorite thing in the world, and I will excitedly talk for hours with someone about their preferences and techniques.

But I think that while well-made espresso coffee can capture certain nuances and delicacies in a bean, drip-brewed coffee can be so much more accessible and varied, and to to prepare it in the shadow of an espresso machine (from which, let's face it, the bulk of the product is always going to be lattes and cappuccinos) is almost at times to diminish its value in the mind of the customer—not to mention the barista.

Let me stress at "at times."

Perhaps this is a New York or East Coast thing, and specifically perhaps a food-media thing even then, but in the past few years of industry growth out here, the emphasis has fallen squarely on the shoulders of the espresso, of the latte art, of the cool barista behind the Synesso who talks about distribution, grams and atmospheric bars of pressure. It seemed like it wasn't until the early Clover buzz that anyone started paying attention to nonconcentrated brewed coffees, and even then all the fuss was about a machine that essentially speeds up and re-creates extraction methods that have been around forever.

(That is not a back-handed knock on Clover, which does make quickly fresh-brewed single servings accessible in a way that a four-minute press pot can't. More it's an observation about the nature of the attention given to certain extraction methods over others.)

Meanwhile, walk into any of the great shops around here, and you can get a pressed-to-order cup of some of the most beautiful, rightfully expensive, high-quality coffees available in the world today. Where's the media profile about that? Where's the overdue buzz about the several very good and enthusiastic nonprofessional cuppings that happen regularly in and around New York?

I feel like too often drip drinkers are somehow considered secondary to espresso drinkers (or even latte drinkers) because there's something unexotic about getting a straight cup of coffee. Worse, I think it's common for a barista to be conditioned to look down on drip-coffee drinkers by accident or association—sometimes because there is much talk about profit margins, sometimes because of the judgments we place on people who take their coffee "regular," sometimes because we may assume drip-coffee drinkers don't know the difference between Cup of Excellence and Chock full O' Nuts, sometimes because we think it's that drip-coffee drinkers are in a rush and don't want to stand around waxing poetic about 12 ounces of a Guatemalan.

We're almost trained that way unintentionally—especially in a café with a huge brewer and some air pots. Have you ever heard of a shop that doesn't allow one of the baristas to make drip coffee without one-on-one after-hours training sessions? No way—toss it in the grinder, slap it in a filter and you're good to go. Of course no one wants the staff to misunderstand the importance of drip coffee, but we really do tend to kind of write it off in a way, most likely without meaning to.

What do I imagine would happen in a perfect world? Coffee shops that separate the arts as well as ones that marry them: drip-centric locations and pure espresso bars in addition to the hybrids we see everywhere as of now, and everyone bettering the craft of coffee.

What do I think should ideally happen in any specialty-coffee establishment that serves nonconcentrated coffee alongisde espresso? Long, talky sessions with new staff going over every step of every brewing process, and extensive tastings of every coffee on offer prepared using every method employed by the shop.

Is that realistic? Probably not. Do I still think it should happen? Absolutely. Should I shut my yap before I get roped into organizing just such a program myself? Probably!

Anyway, yes. That's my fantasy coffee shop. Also in my fantasy coffee shop, tasting flights of the same coffee brewed three or four different ways. Also also a secret GS/3 in the basement for when I want a shot of Black Cat or Barrington Gold or Hair Bender anyway. Hey, give a girl a break!

Oh, and what would it be called, you ask? The Big Drip!

Hello (again), Joe!

2008-03-24T15:07:00.002-05:00

Introducing the newest member of the Joe family: 23rd Street at Ninth Avenue!

For the past couple months, I've watched the transformation of this store as anxiously as any civilian coffee lover: My apartment is about a block and a half away, and I pass by every morning on my walk to work. Witnessing the development of a shop like this from the outside is fascinating and fun—it's such a treat to see those last finishing touches go up!

Last Sunday we had a wee tester of a shift, and it seemed to go off without a hitch. I mean, I hadn't built a drink in six months, so maybe I was too nervous pouring to notice any hitches going off around me, but I doubt it; the joint couldn't be blessed with a better staff or a lovelier setup.

[Photo by Michael Gitter]

Café Grumpy's own Chris stopped by to inspect the Blue Bottle–designed drip bar (which, for the record, I have not come remotely near—yet!), and it was very nice to be introduced to some of the neighbors.

It's easy to forget what it's like to start from scratch with a new clientele who may or may not have ever had a ristretto, a latte or a freshly prepared individual cup of coffee. But it's also the best part of the job, from where I'm sitting.

[Photo by Michael Gitter]
For Pete's sake, it's hard to coax out latte art after a hiatus!

So stop in for a coffee sometime; maybe by then I will have learned how to make a cup on the filter bar! I can't wait to have a cup of Yirgacheffe from that thing my own self…

The biggish reveal

2008-03-23T12:17:00.003-05:00

I would like to introduce you to the other thing in my life—besides the interstate travel and often-ten-hour-workdays—that has been keeping me occupied and my blog updateless.

(Don't be deceived by the utter simplicity of the website; it took me forever to build! Ha.)

For the past few years, my partner-in-percolation, Amanda, and I have been going into the homes of trusting coffee enthusiasts all over the five boroughs, showing them how to master their own machines, beans and palates. I quickly found it to be the most rewarding part of being a coffee professional: Not only because I know that each session means there is one less person choking down subpar espresso from expensive equipment capable of much more (hello, Silvia!), but also because it is one more person who will appreciate and seek out specialty coffee when not at home, to the benefit of everyone: from farmers all the way up to baristas—not to mention the coffee drinker him/herself.

There is nothing I love more than seeing a coffee novice's eyes light up during her first cupping, when you can just see her thinking, Wow, I really can taste freshly-ground black pepper!

Or watching someone's shots go from rusty-brown water to thick, mahogany-colored crema, and to hear him call into the living room: "Honey, come here! You've got to try this."

I respect coffee more and more every day, with every new thing I learn about it. Now it's time to spread the love. So we're stepping it up. We've organized, planned, dreamed and, yes, procrastinated, and we're ready for action.

Coffee lovers of the world, BIY has got your back!

Lucky Clover

2008-03-20T11:31:00.007-05:00

Of course, I'm like the last person to report on Starbucks acquiring Clover, but… Well, wow. This, in addition to the retraining thing, in addition to slashing prices makes for a very interesting season for the ’bucks guys, indeed. Not to mention the rest of us!

I have a bunch of thoughts about this, as I'm sure we all do.

(1) What will Starbucks' coffee taste like brewed on a Clover? Will they have specific coffees set aside for the machine?

(2) How does this positively enormous company plan to train thousands of employees to work such an incredibly sensitive and complicated machine? The logistics alone are mind-boggling, unless some major reconfiguring of the technology is in order. Fascinating!

(3) What does this mean for specialty coffeeshops that already own these units? Will this have any long-term impact on parts/servicing/warranties, since the product will no longer be available outside of the Starbucks brand?

(4) I'm curious about the decision by Clover's founders to sell the company to anybody (Starbucks or otherwise) and would be really interested to hear what they have to say about it. Big ups to them, though, both for having developed the technology and for what I'm sure was a lucrative move for them. What an exciting development this must be! But more info! More info! Please! We're desperate.

Oh, wait, Clover folks respond on their website! What an age of miracles we live in!

Coffee. We believe in it.

You've known all along that we share your passion for brewed coffee. Since day one, our website has broadcast those five short words.

We are proud to announce that the Starbucks Coffee Company has entered into an agreement to acquire The Coffee Equipment Company. This merger will take our passion for coffee, hardware and innovation to the biggest possible stage. The Clover revolution couldn't have happened without all of our friends—the roasters, the baristas, the cafés, and the growers. The revolution lives on.

So interesting. I don't doubt these guys thought long and hard about this decision, but I'm anxious to hear/read more about the details as they roll in. Tonx has some interesting things to say about it; I recommend we start there.

Any further thoughts, links, knowledge you'd like to share? Tell it to the Press Pot.

Long-overdue update No. 1

2008-03-07T14:02:00.007-05:00

Last week at this time, my husband and I were in the early stages of a 1,000-mile drive, starting in Las Vegas, NV, and ending in Bisbee, AZ, a small mining town just a whisper north of the Mexican border in the southeastern corner of the state.

During the trip, your coffee-loving friend Meister had at least one pleasant surprise: Late for the Train Coffee in Flagstaff.

The backstory is that our trip had started somewhat rockily, travel-wise. Scheduled to leave at 4:20pm, our flight actually took off at 6:30, putting us in town at roughly midnight our time. A kerfluffle at the car-rental agency made it closer to 1am EST by the time we were at our hotel and naturally, being in Sin City and all, we were in little rush to get to bed.

The next morning, we left Vegas super early (by that town's standards, anyway: we were on the road at the crack of 11am) to get on the road into Flagstaff, a roughly 250-mile drive. By the time we shambled into town (8pm or so), we were absolutely beat.

Saturday morning, we got up early again, as the road to Bisbee stretched a long 350 miles in front of us. While Brett was in the shower of our historic room in a haunted hotel, I wandered down the street, desperate for some coffee. Kitty-corner to our hotel sat bakery-slash-coffeeshop Late for the Train Coffee, sunlight streaming through the windows as though the angels were shining a spotlight. Hallelujah!

When I walked in the front door and heard the quiet frrrrffffffff of microfoam being aerated, I knew I was in the right place.

It was a quiet morning, but I did manage to ask whether the shop roasts its own beans (yes) and learn what's in the incredibly smooth espresso blend (African, American and Indian coffees). I had to thank the fellow who made my drink for doing me the favor of helping me through my long-driving day; the latte he made me was, honestly, exquisite.

So thanks again, Late for the Train! My husband, the Arizona highways and the 7 million things I took pictures of that day thank you for keeping me awake, alert and content all day.

2008-02-04T10:45:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks have been full of great coffee: two café crawls, one special Chemex pot of a fancy new brew, a catching-up beer with an industry friend and sugarplum dreams of competitions dancing in my head.

Let's break it down!

Crawlin'

A few weeks ago, a pair of Gimme! guys and my own little self hopped (and got hopped up) at a host of shops we admire-slash-respect-slash-like-slash–hadn't been to, including (but not limited to—there's only so many photos you can take in one supercaffeinated day):

Ninth Street Espresso (AlphaCity location)

Abraço (new E.Vill spot)

and

Everyman Espresso (thatsa shot of SO Biloya by Counter Culture)

I know that all of the pictured coffees are Counter Culture, but lest you think that's all we tasted, we also stopped by Joe (2 locations!), the new Gimme! on Mott Street and, blessedly, Fiddlesticks Pub, where a couple other kinds of brew were imbibed by yours truly. (Wow, what a truly horrendous website Fiddlesticks has.)

Chemex-citement

I had an exceptional cup of coffee last week, and I wanted to blog 'er up. On Wednesday, my pal & coffee partner Amanda Byron handed me a wee bag of Barrington Coffee's Ecuador Galápagos (Hacienda El Cafetal), which I proceeded to fall in love with. According to the notes I hastily jotted on a Post-it note, I got a lot of pleasant tartness straight up front—like grapefruit or just-ripe green grapes—which settled in to a bit of woodsmoke, banana and vanilla with just a hint of nut in the aftertaste. A really clean, nicely balanced cup; you all know I'm crazy about Barrington, but man, I'll tell you, this is an exceptional coffee.

Cosmic visitation

Who should drop by last Thursday but the one and only Troy Reynard of Easton, PA's Cosmic Cup—host and organizer of the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Barista Jam in his own fair city.

The event (which I, sadly, can't attend this year) is a great meeting-of-the-minds in a casual environment. Lessons, demonstrations, tastings and practice, practice, practice! Last year's was a blast, and this year the guest list includes Jay aragay, Chris DeFerio, Ellie Matuszak and reigning World Barista Champion James Hoffmann, among others!

Details
March 5-7, 2008 at the Bank Street Annex, Easton, PA.

Wednesday evening registration and reception featuring food/coffee pairings.
'Spro-Down, Espresso extraction competition. (Entry fees to benefit Bikes to Rwanda.)
Latte Art Throwdown (Entry fees to benefit Bikes to Rwanda.)
Two jam sessions open to the public, where jam participants will make drinks for the public, donations to benefit Bikes to Rwanda.

Oh, did we mention free beer? Free beer! Check it out, friends.

Nor-way to go!

Yesterday morning, I woke up at the crack of 9am to meet Nordic barista Hanne, who was in New York on an 18-hour layover, following the Nordic baristas' whirlwind trip to Nicaragua.

She and I (without my camera—it was a bit of a harried weekend!) visited the ever-delightful Café Grumpy (whose new Heartbreaker espresso is fantastic); the NSE in Chelsea Market, where we were welcomed warmly (and with exceptional shots) by Tal and Emily; and the Waverly Place location of Joe, where we got to sit outside and talk about the things she learned and saw on her trip, and about the differences between Scandinavian and American coffee stylee.

I had to leave regretfully early, but Hanne was in great hands when Liz Clayton stopped by to pick up the crawl. Where did you guys end up going, Liz?

Phew, all this coffee talk is making me dizzy… I'd better recaffeinate!

She's alive! ALIVE!

2008-01-25T17:43:00.000-05:00

It's true, friends. I'm still among the living, breathing, coffee-drinking masses. I've just been busy spending the vast majority of my time building a website (yes, coffee related), and the remainder on Barista Exchange, which is my brand-new obsesh.

[Elapsed time: six minutes]

Just as I was composing this update, a coworker came over and commented rather delightedly on the I HEART ESPRESSO pin I have tacked up in my pod. Suddenly I feel like chairman of the board of coffee dweebs. But at least I've found a fellow traveler!

What you can't see are the Gimme! sticker; postcards of Judy Garland, Truman Capote and Buster Keaton; and my Milhouse-adorned Nalgene bottle.

You can take the girl out of the café…

More Mary Please

2008-01-07T22:20:00.000-05:00

Longing for some mindless recreation tonight after a (not at all long, the hours actually fly) day of copy editing, I flicked on the TV, which I really rarely do.

But oh! What a fortuitous moment to be channel surfing, because I love The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and lo and behold, there it was on some channel I didn't even know we had (who the heck can keep track these days—did you know there were like four VH1s, for instance?).

I've always aspired to be like Mary Tyler Moore (or, I suppose, Mary Richards), and now I know why:

Not only is she an ambitious and independent modern career woman, she apparently knows how to make a brilliant cup of coffee! Nice Chemex, Mary. I just got a second one for Christmas! Birds of a feather? (In my dreams.)

What do you think she's got in there, a nice Sulawesi perhaps? Papa New Guinea? Kenya AA? Wouldn't be surprised; she's a smart cookie, that one.

That Mary! She's foxy.

2008-01-06T17:17:00.000-05:00

My husband has long collected vintage magazines, and has had a couple dozen of them hanging out under the couch in the living room. When we got married and I started to nag him about storage space, he conceded in regards to the magazines, and has kindly been sorting, cleaning, storing and storytelling all day.

While he's toiling away in the dust, I've been flipping through some of the wackier titles (Deliniator is an odd name for a magazine) and came across this little advertising gem in a 1935 issue of…wait for it…Physical Culture—The Personal Problem Magazine.

(Click to enlarge.)

While I'll agree with Jim that restless nights do indeed count among our "personal problems," I must gently protest. I mean jeez, Mary! Let a brother live a little!

A barista's delirium tremens

2008-01-04T16:25:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm not getting my hands covered in the stuff, I find myself reading about coffee all day long. I lurk for hours at a time on Coffeed even though I'm not a member, I endlessly refresh my blogroll hoping someone has posted (thankfully, the developments at Gimme! have kept me pretty well satiated—thanks, Mike!) and I troll roasters' websites to see what's new in the cooker.

Is this the sign of withdrawal, or of the special kind of appreciation that comes with distance? Must be time to start cupping at home again…

Cups and bucks

2007-12-20T14:52:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday, I entered what some among us may consider the final frontier, and I took eight other people with me.

We cupped…

…a Starbucks coffee.

I was leading a class about the ways roast levels can affect a coffee's natural (and more or less regional, just for the sake of simplification) flavor profile. On limited time, a limited budget and limited resources, I scouted three Ethiopian coffees, keeping in mind that this class (which was aimed at people who have never cupped a coffee or who are perhaps relatively new to thinking of coffee in a culinary or palate-centric way) was not in an way meant to be a "comparison" of the "good" or "bad" qualities in the coffees on the table.

First of all, I love Ethiopian coffees—they are probably, regionally speaking, my favorites, more or less across the board. I like to think of them as afternoon coffees, the kind you enjoy while sitting on the couch on a Sunday at 3pm, your back propped up against two soft pillows, your nose in a great book. I get really excited about them, and I get really excited by the different ways they take to roast.

When the class was conceived, I knew right away that we would simply have to enter Starbucks territory, since they get such a bad rap on the darkness tip. Because the packaging on their coffee says nothing about the roast level (or date, for that matter, other than the somewhat disheartening stamp of "Use by March 2008") except for the somewhat misleading adjective, "Bold," I told everyone in the class to approach it with an open mind.

It sat there on the cupping table, looking up at us from its position among Counter Culture Coffee's Biloya , (purchased at Ninth Street Espresso), and Novo Coffee Roasters' Beloya Selection One, (purchased at Café Grumpy), and the Starbucks was clearly much darker. A more seasoned professional could probably tell you the degree of roast by looking at it, but I, in my limited exposure, could not. Perhaps a shade or two past Vienna? I don't know. Fascinating.

Second of all, exactly two of the eight students standing before me had ever had an Ethiopian coffee before, or even had really ever given thought to the complexities of the bean, its growth or its preparation in the roaster—so we had a wee (and I mean wee) lesson about the spectrum.

"So what do you think all of this means in terms of flavor?" I asked my class.

[Crickets]

"Okay then, let's try them!" And we dug in.

People with very little coffee experience are often the most interesting to have take part in something like this, because you can get really honest opinions and reactions from them. Here are some of our collective cupping notes, which were great (though we were all feeling a little shy):

Counter Culture's Biloya (natural sundried—Biloya, Ethiopia)
Aroma: unmistakable dark, tart berries; fresh nutmeg or cinnamon.
Fragrance: tomatoes and grapefriut at first, then curries or birch bark.
~~Brightness:~~ (I find this to be the hardest quality to explain to people new to cupping. Often, if they are really struggling with it, I'll tell them not to worry, that it will come with time and experience.)
Flavor: mentions of cherries, baked tarts, cinnamon; "It's the tartest of the three, in a really nice way"; some woodsy, savory notes, but very subtle.
Body: "Like wine."
Aftertaste: "Almost none at all. It melts in your mouth."

The Counter Culture was the group's overall favorite. "It's so clean!" exclaimed one woman. "I could drink the whole sample," said another.

Novo Coffee's Beloya Selection One (Sidamo, Ethiopia)
Aroma: blueberries, blueberries, blueberries. oh, and vanilla.
Fragrance: rather intense lemon.
Flavor: very mild and bright, still strong blueberry tones, and some "corn or some other sweet vegetable."
Body: like herbal tea—barely there. (I thought it was a bit like the weight of lemonade or salt water—very pleasantly so)
Aftertaste: none or very little.

This was the subtlest—and lightest—of the three. Its mouthfeel and sweet finish really rounded out the cup. The citrus really popped as the sample cooled, too.

Starbucks' Ethiopian Sidamo ("Bold")
Aroma: salt, tobacco, cloves, "dirt."
Fragrance: mud, black pepper, "coffee."
Flavor: "really minty," which I think was my favorite. I could totally see where she would get that! wild.
Body: heavier than the other two, by far; a bit more of a bite in the cheeks as it left your mouth.
Aftertaste: the longest linger of the three.

One woman whole-heartedly preferred this one, saying that it kind of blew the others out of the water for her. I told her that's fine: "You're cultivating preferences; that is really important. If you learn more about what you like, you will be less frequently disappointed by expensive bags of 'gourmet' coffee that sit unused and stale in your kitchen!" That's part of the point of this class and, I like to think, any other I might teach: finding out what we like and understanding why.

I actually thought the 'bucks beans held up pretty well under the gun, considering the fact that, uh, who knows when they were roasted! I'm not by any stretch a Starbucks hater, but I really didn't think it would be as pleasant and interesting an experience as it turned out to be. I don't dislike their coffees in general, but I do normally favor stuff on which a lighter hand was taken.

Have any of you ever cupped an SB product, especially in comparison with a microroast or a more-strictly-speaking specialty coffee? I'm really curious!

(Thanks for inspiring me to post, Chris Owens! Hope this one doesn't disappoint…)

Coffee love

2007-12-09T14:32:00.001-05:00

"I now pronounce you Press Pot and Mr. Press Pot."

(Left to right: me, our lovely officiant, my wonderful husband)

Thanks to Joe and its great coffee for helping me find everlasting love! And to Brett for giving a macchiato like me a chance.

Wish you were here

2007-12-01T21:44:00.000-05:00

It hasn't been that long, but I already miss making coffee. If any of you local NYC-type coffee people ever find a hole in your weekend schedules and wouldn't mind letting this old-timer guest barista someday, holler at a sister, kay?

Plus, what can I say, gotta start saving up some dough for that "honeymoon fund." Think my beau will mind a romantic trip to origin? "Honey, I know somewhere we can go on our honeymoon to get a great tan and plenty of, er, exercise. It's kind of outdoorsy…"

Put this in your Chemex and roast it

2007-11-02T09:42:00.000-05:00

"It smells like someone is burning corn," my boss said this morning. "Why would someone be burning corn?"

That's not corn, I replied. That's me. Me and my Chemex and my 100% Yemen from Blue Bottle that I "borrowed" from the owner of Joe last night (Anne told me it was okay, Jonathan! I swear!).

It's a darker roast than I (or my coworkers, who are slowly discovering with their schnozzes that I have a coffee maker on my desk) am used to, but it's very clean and crisp, and though I would probably describe it as more fruity (in a deep way), I can see Noah's point on the roast. A lot of savory, vegetabley stuff going on, for sure.

I really have made myself prejudice against darker roasts, which is strange, because outside of the specialty world it seems that's nearly all that exists. It's true that my delicate composish can't withstand too-dark a roast (ask me about the time I learned that sad truth!), but pushing one's limits every so often doesn't always have to end in tragedy.

Anyway, the point is that it's weird to see myself becoming That Guy who brings in all these exotic-seeming single-origin coffees and uses a dorky electric teakettle and whose boss is driven slowly crazy because everything always smells like one thing or another.

Oh, well.

It's here!

2007-10-31T17:55:00.000-05:00

Here, and miraculous.

It was a slow Monday at work. Slower than an elephant on crutches. Slower than a dial-up connection loading Flickr's 7 Days Most Interesting. Slower than…sorry, I'll stop there.

You get the picture; there was nothing to do.

So imagine my delight when the surface of my desk was suddenly partially obscured by a large corrugated-cardboard box, inside of which were tucked my brand new 1–3 cup Chemex, some unfolded Chemex filters and a $10 electric teakettle. I unpacked them with care. I rinsed and washed every rinsable and washable surface.

And then yesterday, after a full day of waiting, I made my first cup.

First of all, let me explain that I am the kind of person who is terrified of trying new things. I don't know why; in a lot of other ways I'm very adventurous, but not when it comes to (a) public transportation, (b) going into new restaurants by myself, and (c) using certain appliances. Because of my anxiety involving (c), I read the three-page instruction book for my electric teakettle roughly 6,000 times before deeming it safe to try. And then I boiled roughly 25 batches of water to make sure I'd gotten the process down. Then I folded and unfolded a Chemex filter to make sure I drove the point home. Then I read everything I could find online about brewing in a Chemex. Finally, I was satisfied.

So I was ready. I prepared my kettle, folded my filter (for real this time!), measured out my rounded tablespoons of Barrington Coffee's organic Mexican (Chiapas), let my grounds bloom, and watched the magical elixir of my morning drip out the bottom of the cone.

And then I took the first sip.

Oh heavens, it was wonderful. Possibly—I know, this is crazy!—possibly the best cup of coffee I have ever had. I put down my mug, dropped my red editor pencil on the desk and quoted the poet Chris "Mr. Big" Noth: "Goddamn, that's good coffee."

Get your own; you won't be sorry.

See? I told you I'd still post.

2007-10-18T16:59:00.000-05:00

My upcoming transition into full-time office jockeyhood leaves me with a problem: There is no decent coffee in the neighborhood of my office. None. Zip. Zilch.

We will occasionally venture across the street to the gas station, where one naturally finds some bastardization of "Gourmet Colombian Supremo" that's been cooking on a burner all day. (At least they have International Delights flavored individual packets of half-and-half. Um, yum?)

There's also a very neglected office coffeemaker, but…well, to be honest, I don't trust it any more than I do the sludge in the quick-mart downstairs.

Having an electric pot on my desk is a little much (I mean, really), and I'm not terribly fond of cleaning up after press pots (ironic!), which brings us to our current pickle.

A little browsing turned up this lovely Bodum insu-pot, and I wondered if anyone reading had any experience with it:

She sure is a beaut, there's no denying that!

We have hot-cold watercoolers, and I wonder if it would be hot enough to brew and sustain a nice fresh pot, or if I'm going to be stuck sipping lukewarm New Guinea for the rest of my desk-bound days. Am I just going to have to face the behemoth in the kitchen and bring in my own coffee? That doesn't seem fair. At least this way I can always offer to people sitting in my immediate pod.

Please advise! The grammatical integrity of the magazine depends on my sustained enjoyment of good coffee!

Something brewing

2007-10-12T13:07:00.000-05:00

Dear readers, I have some news. I guess to say it wasn't inevitable would be a little silly, but it's still something of a shock to even me.

I got a full-time, non-coffee job at my other workplace, Time Out NY. A week from tomorrow, I will be essentially knocking out my last espresso pucks for my last round of customers. I will certainly make my last granita (not that I don't love making…no, I don't, I can't even pretend). I will accept my last tips. At least for now.

And…

…I will occasionally wear Chuck Taylors that don't smell like old milk. Big time!

No, friends, I'm not giving up on coffee completely; I'm just moving in a different direction for a while. I'll still do some training and consulting, I'll still blog occasionally (though probably even more occasionally than I do now, which must sound somewhat ridiculous), and I'll continue to be passionate, informed and excited to learn about as much as I can about this stuff.

It's actually been a lot harder to make this decision and transition than I thought; the day I accepted the job, I sat at my desk long after my colleagues had left and had a good little cry. I've been a barista for seven years; my tamping arm is going to atrophy! This has been as much a part of my life and my identity as my Jersey accent and my weirdly overwhelming love for Judy Garland. It's seen me through every major relationship I've had, and it's directly responsible for the true and lasting love I've found.

Oh, heavens. Listen to me go on.

Anyway, thank goodness I live so near Grumpy; at least I can still have wunna these almost any time I want:

Peace and portafilters,
Meister

Two in a row!

2007-09-22T17:51:00.000-05:00

Excited but not sated by yesterday's cupping adventure, I decided to try my hand at a little home-brew today. I've never performed a cupping myself, let alone try to do one on my own in my living room, so I wasn't expecting 100% success.

Armed with Ted R. Lingle's The Coffee Cupper's Handbook and some fresh coffee from Cafe Grumpy, I set out to tackle a one-off home cupping, in hopes that it might become a habit.

The coffee I chose to cup was Counter Culture Coffee's Ethiopian Yirgacheffe (Koke), courtesy of Grumpy's ongoing Ethiopian Coffees Month. I didn't read any of the descriptions about it at the shop, because I didn't want to be swayed by published notes, and I have no idea how my findings stack up, but let's give 'er a shot, eh?

The fragrance that hit me first was oaky, like a very dense Northeastern forest. It also had a tartness, like just underripe red berries.

A lot of that berry-tartness came out in the wet aroma, too, and it also had a kind of rainy, underbrush thing going on. The break brought out some vanilla and grapefruit, and a really strong kind of gardeny undertone. Like, a vegetable garden before any of the vegetables develop.

By the way, can you tell that we only have one very low table in our house? Do you know how hard it is to cup when you're, like, essentially folded in half over the coffee, trying to get your nose in there? You've got to be Houdini to do this comfortably!

Ah yes, the most flattering of photos.

The body was on the lighter side, almost the mouthfeel of sweet, fresh lemonade, if that makes sense. A lot of pleasant citrusy brightness, and some deep oranges, dark cherries, woodsmoke, leafy greens and some balsamic vinaigrette. The aftertaste was woody and smoky—hickory maybe?

So! Here's what Grumpy has to say about this coffee:

Yirgacheffe Koke:
Koke was one of the first places in Yirgacheffe to process their beans using the washed method in 1959. This is a nice clean cup with great balanced acitity and flavors of roots and herbs as well as sweet fruit. This coffee was judged the "Best Ethiopian Coffee" at the East African Fine Coffee Association's annual contest. Taste for yourself.

Well waddaya know! Not too shabby, I guess.

Do any of you guys cup at home? Any favorites/suggestions/tips? Other than "Get a higher table," that is.

Coffee 10, Yankees 0

2007-09-21T20:02:00.000-05:00

You know what I love? Cupping. You know why? Because it's almost entirely about simile and metaphor, about analogy. It makes sense to me; I'm a writer.

Plus, man, that stuff tastes good!

This afternoon, Counter Culture Coffee's John Moore (the company's regional sales representative in New York) led a small group of us nerds through a three-coffee cupping. All of the beans on offer were Counter Culture sourced and roasted.

It was a blind cupping, which is my favorite kind, and it was awesome how shocked we all were by the reveals at the end.

Using senses like this, in a truly palatable, taste-tangible way, is the closest thing to which I can compare the process of writing. When you have a scene in your mind and you're trying to commit it to paper in the most accurate way, when you're trying to find the perfect pitch, the right language to use to describe the feelings you're experiencing for your characters, that's what it's like to put your nose down next to a coffee liquor and draw it into your nose and into the back of your throat, trying to think of what it reminds you.

Intense!

We cupped two El Salvadors (Finca Muritania and Finca Kilimanjaro) and a Honduran (Finca Bashasa). The Finca Kilimanjaro was by far one of the most surprising coffees I'd ever tasted. The whole time we were profiling it we were all getting berries, spices, tomato, toasty notes with a tealike body, and we were pretty sure it was an African coffee.

After telling us we were all wrong (that never happens! kidding, kidding), John made an interesting point about moving away from thinking about beans in terms of region and more in terms of farms. Every farm is so different, especially when you get into really high-quality COE-level crops.

John was a great facilitator—very open and receptive, and incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic, not only about coffee in general, but about the coffees with which he works, which is no small thing!

I would also like to state for the record that Danger Dan will use any excuse to taste leather in something. Just saying!

In other news, the Yankees are losing 0-4 right now against Toronto, and I'm displeased. At least my fiancé's Oklahoma Sooners are winning (so far, knock on wood). It's only right that somebody should be happy with sports in this house!

No'spresso

2007-09-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

I took one for the team today, guys.

While browsing at Williams-Sonoma for an engagement gift for a pair of good friends, I was beckoned over to some little boxy metal thing by a seemingly nice lady in one of those fancy green W-S aprons.

"Would you like to try an espresso?" she asked.

"Always!" I said.

"Oh…wow!" I replied when she handed me the above cup. "Thank…you."

"It's Nespresso!" she replied perkily. "They're owned by Nestlé! The machine always works at 19 bars of pressure!"

"Really?" I asked. "Always at 19 bars?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "It's the most powerful home espresso machine you can buy! It's owned by Nestlé!"

Then she showed me the pods. Apparently they last for 12 months and are hawked by women who are fond of describing things as "hermetically sealed." And you can get them through Nestlé. Ok!

In this pod is your "ristretto":

"Ristretto is the typical Italian espresso. It is a short, strong, full-bodied espresso with a touch of acidity. It has a pleasantly lingering taste."

And here is your "decaffinato intenso" (are those fake words? they sound fake!):

"A harmonious blended mixture of Arabica coffees from Latin America with an added touch of Robusta to give it body and character."

The machine itself is unobtrusive and unremarkable looking, and I suppose that's the point. Williams-Sonoma sure does also sell giant, expensive automatic machines that are done up to look extry fancy, but they are plugging this little Nespresso thing hard.

A fellow after me decided to make his own, and I asked if I could snap a photo or two. He agreed, popped the pod in its cockpit and fired away.

Six seconds later:

Nineteen seconds later:

It's not the worst coffee in the world by any means, and I know they're wildly popular—more so in Europe than here, although they're picking up speed in the states as well. But I guess I can't help my skepticism. Any time a company decides a machine can make a comestible better than a really well-trained human can, my eyes narrow and at least one eyebrow raises. It's a condition I have.

I drank my "shot" and it was fine. It tasted like brown and gave me agita so it must be "coffee." I guess I'm just more of a hands-on type of person.

Unless we're at a Quick Check and I have the option of getting a "French Vanilla Cappuccino." Those are genius.

Just kidding, jeez!

Brews and news

2007-09-14T12:52:00.001-05:00

Well, friends, which do you want first: the good news or the bad news?

Psych! There is no bad news! Trick question!

1. On Monday, Sept 17, the Friends of NYC Coffee Professionals (which is a fake organization I just invented to describe Mike from Gimme! and Ed from Grumpy) are conducting a very important meeting to determine who can gracefully (or gracelessly) consume the most Kaffinator and eat the most cheese.

Spuyten Duyvil, 8pm. 359 Metropolitan Ave (at Hope St?), Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Let's hope I don't get lost under the bridge this time!

2. The new location of Ninth Street Espresso is, of course, taking Chelsea Market by storm.

Since it seems like everybody else has already gone to see it without me, I decided to take the scenic route to work today and swing by for a shot.

Man, is that space beautiful or what? I've only actually been in Chelsea Market once before, about three days before NSE opened, and I'm still pretty awestruck by how nicely designed it is in there. I mean, hello, the fountain? The produce market? Knowing that Major League Baseball has an outpost upstairs? Sweet. Plus, there are baked treats everywhere you turn! I love baked treats.

Anyway, coffee.

Well jeez, it's just lovely. I mean top-to-bottom lovely. The shop, the now-oft-talked-about espresso map, the stations on the standing bar, the glassware, the whole shebang. Loved it. Mean it.

The two baristi (seen above!) were kind enough to humor my questions about the espresso they're pulling now (Counter Culture Coffee's 11th Hour Espresso—Brazil Fatima and Sumatra Lintong), and said that my broham Derek (seen below below!) was working later today. Pretty bummed I missed him, but I'm sure we'll cross coffee paths someday, right? Even if he is kind of an urban vagabond.

D-rock, that rips!

2½. I'm still trying to decide if I want to take myself to Coffee Fest or Disneyworld in November. True story! Disneyworld is, as one would expect, pretty expensive, but, you know, I could eat a turkey leg there.

Brilliant.

Half iced tea, half farm-ade

2007-09-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

This past Monday morning, a chatty gentleman came in during one of our rare late-summer quiet moments, and as I was (wo)manning the register at the time, we got to talking for a moment before he ordered.

"I'm just passing through town," he said, "headed home from Farm Aid."

Oh, cool, I responded. How was that?

He went on to tell me that it was lovely, that he was friends with the organizers, and that he worked for several nonprofit organizations dedicated to various efforts, including but not limited to encouraging restaurants to go green and/or local, supporting pro-farmer legislation, promoting the spread of organic agricultural techniques in the U.S., bringing whole foods to children in inner cities—all admirable projects.

Well, I said after a little small talk, what can I get for you?

"A large vanilla latte in a double cup, please."

Ok, I replied, that will be X dollars.

"X dollars?! Wow, are you serious?! What in the world!"

Surely some of you are nodding your heads at the irony of this, "double cup" aside?

Which brings us to today, when no less than three people have already forwarded me this highly appropriate New York Times article:

To Burundi and Beyond for Coffee’s Holy Grail
By Peter Meehan.
Sept 12, 2007

“Direct trade”…means, most simply, that the roasters buy their beans directly from the farms and cooperatives that grow them, not from brokers.…

Direct trade — which also means intensive communication between the buyer and the grower — stands in stark contrast to the old (but still prevalent) model, in which international conglomerates buy coffee by the steamer ship, through brokers, for the lowest price the commodity market will bear.

It also represents, at least for many in the specialty coffee world, an improvement on labels like Fair Trade, bird-friendly or organic. Such labels relate to how the coffee is grown and may persuade consumers to pay a little extra for their beans, but offer no assurance about flavor or quality. Direct-trade coffee companies, on the other hand, see ecologically sound agriculture and prices above even the Fair Trade premium both as sound business practices and as a route to better-tasting coffee.

Ours, like that at of many of our peers, is at the very least Fair Trade coffee, and most of Barrington's offerings are direct trade or "relationship coffee." There is a dedication to the farmers that extends to a dedication to the beans, and vice versa. We can sleep at night because our farmers get paid a decent (certainly by agricultural standards, if not, say, by Manhattan-apartment-rent standards) rate, and that we support programs that care for the well-being of their families and the education of their children.

The very foundation of the industry should be, in my humble opinion, the farmers and their health, safety and welfare, and here is a section of the coffee roasting, retail and extraction world that feels the same way. I work behind its counter because I know the beans we use are treated with respect every step of the way: from the ground out of which they sprout to the hands that pick and clean and care for them.

And so, to my friend with the Farm Aid T-shirt, sure, it's a little bit more than you'd pay at a run-of-the-mill coffee shop whose beans come from G-d knows where and whose farmers are paid in pennies, but think of how proud Willie, Neil, Dave and Johnny Cougar would be.

See you in September

2007-09-05T22:48:00.000-05:00

Well hello, coffee-lovers!

Much of my "free" time over the past little while has been devoted to writing a new article for Barista Magazine (everybody's favorite joe journal!), working on developing a Barista Boot Camp for the store and training new employees, like Jane here.

Jane is one of those new baristas who is just a dream to work with in those first few sessions: she's eager, quick, intuitive and asks great, challenging questions. You know how sometimes you can just tell when somebody's going to be crack at this game? Man, is that a good feeling or what?

Here's a picture of Jane learning how to tamp!

While it's a cool photo, I'm sorry to report that she has two actual human arms, not one ghostly almost-invisible arm, in real-life. Too bad, I kind of like the ghost arm!

I'm also in the early planning stages of booking my first trip to Coffee Fest Seattle and, possibly (also not possibly, knowing me) competing in the latte-art competition that goes along with it. My latte art isn't the best in the world, for sure, but I do love pouring it, and I do love meeting other people who are into this geekery.

So who knows. But darned if I don't love a good workshop about gelato. Don't mind if I do!

Also, for my birthday this year, the world gave me a beautiful sunset and a great view of the Statue of Liberty. That's worth blogging about!

Tough life, am I right?

Everyman Espresso for himself!

2007-08-28T22:10:00.000-05:00

Friends, Romans, espresso-drinkers, I'd like to introduce you to the new kid on the block—specifically, the block of East 13th St just east of Fourth Ave.

Everyman Espresso, as clearly indicated on this cool sign! A picture of which I took with my cheesy camera phone because the battery in my camera is, embarrassingly, dead!

Formerly an annex of Ninth Street Espresso and now under new ownership, the new Everyman Espresso is run by a lovely guy named Edmond—a longtime NSE barista who wanted to try his hand at small businessmanship. Not even a hiccup in production, Edmond took the reins and was making coffee the very day the signs changed.

Here he is making my espresso macchiato yesterday!

And here's the finished product, which was built using a Counter Culture blend, and was the perfect coffee to enjoy…on my 15-minute break from Joe (true story!).

Meanwhile, Ninth Street is celebrating the opening of its Chelsea Market location! And everybody's happy.

Pour House

2007-08-16T17:36:00.000-05:00

Surely everyone who reads my blog must already follow that of the newly appointed World Barista Champion, James Hoffmann. And so, naturally, you've been paying attention to the submissions for his Absurd Latte Art Challenge?

Here's mine (which, I'll admit, was far harder to pour than I expected):

Let's see some more! C'mon, people, git pourin'!

Momentary Diversion

2007-08-09T15:26:00.000-05:00

By the way, friends and frenemies, I started a new, not-coffee-related blog last week.

Snack Smack!

Enjoy—it's tasty!

Setting it Strait

2007-08-08T23:15:00.000-05:00

Time is short, and so am I. In place of an actual entry today, I will share the beauty of the soy Gibraltar that Café Grumpy's Ed poured for me two days ago.

Look at that beauty, am I right?

The Gibraltar is an interesting new(ish) development. Where did it come from? Who is responsible for this brilliance? I love it. I approve.

I like this photo because it makes Ed look kind of like a giant.

Thanks, Ed, and thank you, whoever first decided to make a latte in a Gibraltar cup! You guys are the best.

Mini Field Trip

2007-08-04T22:12:00.000-05:00

This weekend (meaning Friday–Saturday, since neither my fiancée nor I actually have much of a traditional "weekend"), we took a tiny road-trip to Boston to see the Edward Hopper retrospective exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts (only up until 8/19—shake a tail feather and get out there if you can).

While we were in town, I insisted we stop by what was always one of my favorite coffee shops when I lived in the area: Diesel Cafe.

A very good friend of mine is part of their training staff now, which is another reason we visited. (Though I didn't get any good photos of my friend Drake—or anyone, for that matter!—because everybody was moving around too fast.) Drake's own latte art is beautiful: You can see some here.

In my day, Diesel was a modest-sized hangout staffed almost exclusively by attractive queer girls of whom I was always pretty intimidated. The coffee was dark-roasted across the board, the pool table was the big draw, and I would sit by myself and write long letters to my then-long-distance-girlfriend about all of the people-watching I did sitting by those big industrial front windows.

I also applied for a job there once but never even scored an interview. Ouch! (I'm sort of kidding about the "Ouch.")

It's one of the places I've relished seeing grow, even at a distance: They expanded the coffeeshop by adding a large seating area in the back, and the owners have recently opened a new venture elsewhere in town.

One of the most interesting parts of visiting this place after having not been there in, oh, what, a year? is noticing the ways they've made very specific changes in things like line-flow and staff organization. Management has seemed to make a set of very conscious and very productive decisions about how things are run behind the counter, which is also heartening—so often it can be rather difficult to get an owner or manager to reconsider the ways the fundamentals of a shop are working or not working, mostly because they think they are trapped within their own architecture.

Unfortunately, we hit the place in the midst of their lunch rush (as seen in the photo, there are several people working the line at one time; some dedicated to food, some to coffee and a pair at checkout), and I didn't want to bother anyone with my millions of questions about their coffees and their processes. I'm not aggressive that way; I'm pretty shy!

I did, however, enjoy a really quality latte (the natural sweetness of the milk brought out some great chocolate and nut notes in the espresso, which I'm guessing is a lighter roast? Northern Italian? and according to this, the blend is Bolivian/Brazilian/Mexican) and snag a really sweet T-shirt.

Oh, also? There's a photobooth.

Thanks, kind folks at Diesel! We had a great time.

Congratulations, Baristas!

2007-08-03T00:00:00.001-05:00

James "JimSeven" Hoffmann, who seems like a heckuva nice guy and is one of my favorite coffee bloggers, just landed himself the title of World Barista Champeen!

This calls for a thumbs-up keychain!

Hats off to the other competitors, including the U.S.'s own Heather Perry, who came in second!

Check out the videos here.

Happy (early) Birthday to Me

2007-08-02T14:22:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of coffee-thoughts brewin' in my noggin'.

(Yes, brewin'. I know, I don't care, I liked it.)

So I've been thinking and thinking about the direction I want my for-now part-time coffee life to go, and how I want to remain committed to it and to learning new things, and then a little shot-timer went off and I realized that I want to do more cupping. By myself, with my staff, with total strangers, at parties, in the kitchen at my office—all the time, all kinds of coffee, let's cup the hell out of it.

So I bought myself an early birthday present: a ton of cupping supplies!

Spoons! Cups! The whole works! I feel like I just threw myself a surprise party at which there was a magician AND a Fudgie the Whale cake!

The best part is that the package will probably arrive before my actual birthday (August 31: send e-cards!), which means I can have a coffee party, which sounds like the only thing in the world better than the pizza-and-bowling shindig I had when I turned eight, at which I wore a side-ponytail and an oversize shirt designed with sparkly puff-paint.

Okay, I'll rein it in a little bit. But truth be told, I'm excited to have equipment of my own, to be able to do whatever I want with it, to have the freedom to spread the coffee word from here to Timbuktu.

I wonder what it would be like to cup in Timbuktu! I smell an adventure...

I am not a Styrofoam cup from Dunkin' Donuts

2007-07-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

Much has been said recently about "carbon footprints" and being "green" and a bunch of other "eco-friendly buzzwords I am putting in quote marks here for some reason."

It's great! I'm glad. Honor thy Mother Earth! She just wants you to be happy and settle down with a decent guy and start having grandkids for her to spoil rotten.

Maaa! I told you not to give them candy before dinner!

As coffee lovers and coffee professionals, being earth-friendly can feel like a losing battle—especially in a city like New York, where the sanitation department seemingly goes out of its way to make recycling virtually impossible (don't listen when they tell you otherwise).

Some coffee retailers—including the small company at which I knocked out my first spent espresso puck—have switched to expensive-but-ecological paper products. Others, like Joe, have started offering discounts to people who reuse or provide their own cups.

The other day, we got a shipment of fancy new travel mugs and water bottles, and I took the plunge myself. Until then, I had been part of the problem with my daily trips to D.Donuts (my office is in Hell's Kitchen! don't judge me!).

And even though I would reuse bottled-water bottles for several days*, I was starting to feel that mother-instilled guilt. (Mother Earth is even better at it than my own mom!)

So now my desk at work looks like this most days:

Sure, I feel a little silly being "The Joe Girl" at the office, but hey, they were available, I needed them, and now I can drink coffee and water all day with reckless, if green, abandon!

Browse the virtual shelves at Amazon.com for an earth conscious solution to your coffee problem! (I vote you all get the Scooby Doo one.)

* Despite rumors to the contrary, doing this is not bad for you.

'Tis the season not to season

2007-07-18T22:17:00.001-05:00

A few months ago, during a manager's meeting, the subject of cleanliness came up. I mentioned some of the things I had learned while doing preliminary training for the NERBC with Nick Cho (whoops, I totally didn't compete! sorry!). I piped up that Nick had offered me a very compelling argument for not keeping spent coffee pucks in the portafilters in between shots, despite having been trained and trained again to do just that.

"It's like a wok," they always said!

"It's not like a wok," Nick Cho countered! But that, I guess, is another conversation for another day. Let's keep it simple today.

So during the meeting, I was going on and on about midshift maintenance and cleaning, about minimizing grounds waste, about how it's so frustrating and disheartening to walk onto a shift when the person before you hasn't (a) dosed directly and efficiently into their portafilter, (b) grabbed the next barista some clean rags, and/or (c) wiped the counter clean.

"Meister!" my boss said with a good-natured laugh. "What are you talking about? You're a mess!"

No kidding! But you know what? I had no idea! Totally oblivious.

Since then, I've done a lot of reading/thinking/cleaning/tasting. And it seems like the most obvious thing in the whole world, but it is brilliant and a complete revelation.

Coffee flavors are volatile, sensitive compounds that can be adversely affected by any number of factors. Nowhere is this more apparent than in relationship to machine cleaning. Espresso coffee that has been prepared on a dirty espresso machine attacks the taste buds with a mid-tongue bite that registers as a bitter-sour flavor. In fact, a clean espresso machine will foul in about 40 minutes after making a shot of espresso if oily deposits in the porta-filter and within the group head are left to become rancid. (David Schomer, Espresso Coffee: (Updated) Professional Techniques, p. 125)

So this is my new(est) project: Absolute attention to cleanliness. Empty portafilters, regularly backflushed lines (and not just at the end of the night, either), pristine and sterile rags, and some gentle-ish reminders to my staff to start thinking about doing the same.

This photo was snapped (quickly!) in the middle of an early-afternoon rush. It took me about a minute longer than it would have to clear the line out the door, but even without knowing it, my customers appreciate it.

The thing is unlearning an entire staff of their bad habits—especially when they used to be your bad habits! Especially when you personally, you as their trainer, taught them something you now believe to be wrong. What to do?

This is especially hard because I'm not around the store all that much these days—something that had already been giving me major agita, because I feel like I'm doing my charges a disservice by not being available for help, support and ongoing training. Short of sending email after email (which, let's face it, we're all tired of) or pulling each one of them aside and recommunicating this point, what is a part-time trainer to do? Simply teach by example?

I don't have the answers yet, but in the meantime, what is your take on the puck in/puck out debate?

Perc ya later!

2007-07-14T01:01:00.000-05:00

Hello, Press Pot readers!

Today, I was thinking: What can I do to help the communities that make great coffee possible?

Why, self, you could donate to a charity! I thought back.

But, well, see, I don't have any money.

No matter! Design a T-shirt, sell it on your blog, and donate the money to charity!

Okay, self! That's a pretty good idea!

So, I present to you, the Meet the Press Pot store!

For all your t-shirt, tote bag, magnet, sticker and other general nonsense needs.

Also, help me pick a coffee-related charity to which I can donate whatever proceeds I get from this project! Do you have a favorite industry cause? Don't be shy!

Sense and cents abilities

2007-07-12T15:10:00.000-05:00

I'm embarrassed: I've let days—nay, weeks!—slip by with nary a peep regarding coffee.

In fact I'm actually a little bit tired: I'm working a lot and pitching journalistic stories left and right (no bites yet, but keep your little caffeinated fingers crossed) and it's summer and all I want to do is enjoy an alternating schedule of going to the gym and jogging to Tasti D-Lite.

I haven't even had a decent cup of coffee in weeks: My home-to-work-to-home trajectory brings me past no fewer than two Dunkin Donuts and two Starbucks(es?), but no cool indie shops with anything resembling a decent macchiato. If only I could convince the higher-ups here that we need a Silvia for the kitchen...

But even without me there, life goes on at Joe: Both the Waverly and 13th St stores just got beautiful, shiny, new, bumblebee-quiet Mazzer Roburs. At long last!

Thank you for the photo for which I didn't ask permission, Espresso Parts!

It's easy to get envious of the equipment that other shops have (GB5s, for instance—oh boy, what I wouldn't give to have one of those at my disposal), and to sometimes wonder why this kind of change can take so long.

But there are two halves to that equation: Always having the best and newest equipment means always shelling out fistfuls and fistfuls of dollars.

It's easy for me to get antsy about progress because they ain't my dollars to be shelling out, and of course it's easy for a business owner to get antsy when his top brass is constantly recommending this or that new, expensive thingamajig.

But, to paraphrase the poet Gusteau, as he says in the new documentary film Ratatouille: Anybody can make coffee.

Like I teach my in-home clients: If you know what you are doing, if you respect coffee and your sense of taste and your work, if you take the time to learn from your own mistakes, you will be amazed at the results you can achieve, even in a less-than-perfect world, on less-than-perfect machinery.

When I got frustrated that the Mazzer Majors were overheating under the crush of our springtime rushes, I remembered that I can troubleshoot that situation—I know how to cheat, pamper and coax them back into working order, or at least to bypass the problem until there's a lull. I wouldn't have known how to solve that problem if I had never been faced with it—there's putting a positive spin on things, am I right?!

Rely on your personal resources if your mechanical ones aren't 100% superb. Compensating for imperfections is how we learn to make our jobs easier and our skills more sublime. If I can pull a great shot and pour beautiful latte art on a Francis Francis, then I sure as hell better be able to make a great-tasting and great-looking cup of coffee on a spunky if exhausted, four-year-old Linea, even if I do always have visions of GB5s dancing in my head.

Patience, little green beans. Progress comes in its own time, and at its own cost.

What a genius, that Gusteau!

Part-Time Lover

2007-06-30T21:48:00.000-05:00

Coffee is pretty forgiving. Not "like riding a bike," because I'm sure if I stopped riding a bike for a long time and then tried to start again, I'd be right back to falling over and steering directly into traffic all over again. That's just how I am.

But no, coffee is forgiving, and coffee drinkers are forgiving.

"Oh, I haven't seen you in a while!"
Yes, I have a new job most days of the week.
"Good for you! I'm glad to see you here, though."
Thank you, and the same to you! Here is your large latte to stay.

As it is, I'm still not especially good at my other job (I just started and it's pretty hard!), and so these two-days-a-week behind the counter are basically a vanity trip for me: At the shop I'm just as much of a minor-league hot shot as I was four, five months ago when I ran part of the show.

(Of course I say "hot shot" here with a healthy portion of tongue in cheek, but you know what I mean.)

Today was one of those days when hitting quick at the store is your salvation, your daily bread, the thing that reminds you why you're in this sweltering, foul-smelling city in the first place: You like people, and you like coffee, and you like people who like coffee. It's that simple.

I don't often make any major pronouncements here about the benefits or detriments of, say, weighing grinds as opposed to setting one's Roburs up to timers, or about the amount of robusta that goes into a quality espresso blend, because while I have my own opinions about that nonsense, the Internet is full of people weighing in on these points ad nauseam. I'm here and I write in this thing because coffee is one of the things in my life that I find incessantly, consistently and entirely inspiring, if I'll let it be.

The point of this blog, if I may be allowed to even pretend that the silly thing has a point, is, I hope, to remind myself and maybe one or two other coffee professionals about the people of this business, and the heart of it, and the soul of it.

This is a fun job, possibly the world's funnest job (to coin a phrase). The art of it is as rewarding as the boundless science. But to lose sight of its overall purpose, to the good that it does the world to sell a good cup of coffee, that is a tragedy to me. And what goes along with that is to be patient, kind, smart, fast, fun, funny, generous and business-minded.

Two days a week? No problemo.

2007-06-16T18:20:00.000-05:00

It's hard to feel so divorced from coffee right now. To go from an incredibly social, high-energy job to one at which I am at a desk for roughly 9 hours a day is strange and disorienting, even if I am enjoying the new challenges it affords me. But I miss my regulars, I miss my colleagues, and I miss having an Americano any g.d. time I please (even if I don't miss, say, waking up at 6am).

But just because I've cut back behind the counter doesn't mean I've stopped thinking and theorizing, planning and plotting and scheming. It does, however, mean that I'm reduced to drinking crappy hours-old robusta sludge from the gas station quik mart across the street from my office, which is tragic.

Anyway, because I'll be spending some time over the next couple of weeks training near-novices how to pull professional-grade espresso shots, I've been thinking a lot about the value of visual troubleshooting guides, and of the ol' tiger stripe.

I know that there are nearly as many opinions of a "god shot" as there are baristas on this planet, and I know (because I'm occasionally told) that I, personally, prefer my shots on the short side, but I wonder if there is anything in particular one may tell a trainee to look for when pulling a shot, regardless of pers-pref (personal preference, that is).

(Going forward in this ramble, I'd like to say that I'm talking specifically within "specialty coffee," which implies a foundation of quality from the gate. I'm not comparing competition-level espresso with, say, the yellow water one gets at the end of a meal at 98% of this country's Italian restaurants.)

A while back, I stumbled upon this website, for instance: The Espresso Pages, From Sweet Maria's. (Sweet Maria's is a website dedicated to home roasting.)

This is a shot the folks at SM's have up as exemplary:

And this is one of my own:

They both look great to me, I would drink them both in a second! But I find it so fascinating how different, visually, a well-pulled espresso can be, shot to shot.

Of course, there are innumerable variables here (What kind of beans are they using, and what kind of machine, at what temperature? What is the weather like, how long did the shot sit, how warm was the demitasse?), but on the face of it, it proves a point.

To say an espresso is good is sort of like saying a girl on the street is pretty: Every good shot of espresso and every pretty girl may share this or that characteristic, but if you were to line them all up, one hopes one's taste is varied enough that they would all be rather different piece by piece. Right?

So how does one train one's pupils to pull good espresso? By making them taste, taste, taste and taste again. This is a people-driven industry, and a taste-bud driven industry.

And if there's no way of standardizing "great" espresso, the least we can do, I guess, is create great baristas.

One hopes.

Junebug

2007-06-08T14:32:00.000-05:00

Oh, dear. It's been a while, hasn't it?

Well, my job has changed pretty dramatically over the past few weeks. I've been taken on as a part-time copy editor at a local magazine. Three days a week, I sit in a very low chair at a desk in a pod that faces a window through which the Statue of Liberty can be seen. Pretty cool!

Two out of the other four days of the week, however, you'll still find me with coffee under my nails, singing Stevie Wonder songs and talking people's ears off about the differences between flat and conical burr grinders.

And, of course, training.

Meet Caleb, my latest trainee and one heckuva nice guy, who also happens to know a thinger two about coffee.

(This guy pulled me a shot last week that I'm still talking about. The espresso was smooth and bright like ours is meant to be, but it had the most striking undertone of cloves. I mean, I tasted cloves for the whole rest of the day! It was awesome).

Beyond that, I don't have much else to offer. But if anyone has any ideas for where Brett & my wedding could be, send 'em my way because this "planning" nonsense is stressing my shit right out.

And last and most importantly of all, happy summer you guys!

(That's me & one of my colleagues, Josh, aboard Coney Island's fantastic, if life-threatening, wooden roller coaster, the Cyclone.)

A whole latte love

2007-05-23T10:01:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for your comments and support regarding my engagement! And look, here's an actual photo of us!

(Photo by my friend Ben, who just got married himself!)

Have I ever mentioned to you, my dear, sparse readership, how I met this fellow? It's coffee-related!

Brett (my beau) works as an administrator at a university around the corner from one of the Joe shops.

While I noticed him right away, he, er, did not take quite the same instant interest in my little self. Can't really say as I blame him; It was a, how do you say, transitional period for me (read: I looked a bit like a boy, as seen here, and was incredibly shy around strangers.).

For the next couple of months, Brett would come in every day, chat friendlily with whoever was at the counter, get his coffee and go back to work. I was too shy to say hello, despite having immediately developed a crush on him. But my colleagues kept saying "Oh, Meister, you'd like that guy. He's a writer! He loves old movies!" and a thousand other things about him that did, in fact, hint that I would like him quite a bit. I knew I had to do something to get him to notice me.

In the seven years I have been a barista, I've had a tradition of baking batches of cookies for my favorite regulars. Two Christmases ago, I baked ginger molasses cookies from scratch—royal icing, to boot!—and gave them out to eight or ten people, Brett included, even though we had not yet said a word to each other.

When he came back from his winter break, however, it was as though we had been friends for ages, just chattering away at each other on opposite sides of the counter, talking about anything and everything.

It wasn't long before we were inseparable friends (even as my hair was growing out), or before I fell completely in love with him, or before I admitted as much to him, and finally, last summer we found our way into a wonderful, warm and easy romance.

Now, here we are, like espresso and milk: Pretty good individually, but fantastic together.

(Photo by Drake King.)

Here's to coffee romance and finally crossing the counter to find the person who percs you up. Get it? Percs!

(So don't be shy, you guys! You never know.)

Surprise!

2007-05-15T17:33:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the neglect, everyone, but I've been busy getting engaged to my boyfriend.

(I would post a picture of the two of us here, but I don't have any good ones. Meaning, I look bad in all of them! So this latte will have to do for now.)

I haven't forgotten about you or the ol' Press Pot, so look for me after this weekend, when I will need to update my blog in an attempt to procrastinate on reception planning!

Long in the truth

2007-05-04T10:53:00.000-05:00

I understand that it's unfashionable for professional baristas to talk about Starbucks, but if you will humor me for a moment, we're going to go there.

Look, I'm no snob. I know what I'm doing, and I know a lot about coffee and what differentiates the good from the bad. But if I can enjoy a cheeseburger as much as I enjoy a filet mignon (and I can), then I'm not above allowing myself the guilty pleasure of a Frappuccino every once in a while. You feel me?

(Also, ok, let's face it, there is a Starbucks so close to my apartment that I could practically spit on it from my couch. And sometimes, when I'm walking home from the gym, I want a coffee or an iced tea, and I'm not easily convinced to walk my elliptical machine–sore legs the extra three blocks to get really, incredibly good coffee. So I break rank and go in, and sometimes, I really love it.)

Do you know why I really love going to the totally anonymous Starbucks near my house sometimes? Because I don't have to be embarrassed if I decide I want to order something really fussy or, on my own turf, deemed "beneath" a true coffee professional's accepted range of taste

Today, for instance, I ordered a "grande" (ugh) black unsweetened iced tea with no ice. I would never in my wildest dreams think of going to a coffee shop where I knew people who worked there and ordering an iced tea without ice, but I did it today without one moment's hesitation.

And this got me to thinking.

Last weekend, my boss(es) hosted what they called a Staff Hospitality Seminar. It was a sit-down meeting lasting a little over an hour, in which we discussed and were given examples of what Danny Meyer calls "Enlightened Hospitality."

What is Enlightened Hospitality? It means always being on the side of the customer. It means always understanding and acknowledging the way your words and actions make someone else feel. It means being patient, generous and kind. It means bringing an atmosphere of fun and focus to the workplace.

It means that I shouldn't have to be embarrassed to order whatever I want from wherever I want, and neither should a single one of my customers, even if their favorite drink is something I personally and secretly consider 100% absurd.

Enlightened Hospitality is the philosophy around which we are encouraged to work and live every day, and it's essentially the entire mission statement of the shop, outside of other important tenets about quality and cleanliness. Once I leave the environment we've created by following these principals, I feel somewhat vulnerable as a customer, exposed to the moods and whims of other people who don't necessarily hold these guidelines to themselves. So when I want to deviate from my grade-A espresso lifestyle for an afternoon and enjoy something silly or sweet, I seek out places where I can be nameless and faceless, and as a result, I really miss out on the community-building experience a high-quality neighborhood coffeeshop offers. And to be honest, that makes me a little blue.

The moral of this story? May I never sneer at another customer for ordering iced tea without ice, or a large decaf skim granita with two Splenda and whipped cream, and may I never be sneered at for one day ordering the same thing someplace else because I happen to want it.

Zen and the Art of Coffee-Making

2007-04-22T19:43:00.000-05:00

My windows are open, the breeze is coming in, past the tiny flowers that have opened on the branches of the tree outside our apartment. Even now, I'm dreaming about coffee.

I wonder if every coffee professional goes through these emotional undulations: The weeks during which a barista spends afternoons pretending not to hear when people lean over the machine to say "Where's my drink?" or "I said 'decaf,' do you have it ready yet?"

And then there are the weeks when jokes come easier than rolled eyes, when the shots run perfectly every time, when waking up early to open the store feels great because of the cool air and the perfect blue of the sky.

"Barista Zen" I call it, in the interest of completely misappropriating a legitimate philosophy, religion and way of life to make an insignificant point.

As a celebration of this springtime caffeine nirvana, I will now share a crappy haiku that I composed myself right now, sitting on the couch:

crowds, milk, beans, shots, build,
listening to hall and oates:
more lattes, more bliss

Find a job you love, and you'll never work a day in your life. —Confucius

Caffeine Dream

2007-04-16T11:46:00.000-05:00

Oh, dang! I guess I have a piece about caffeine in the new issue of Barista Magazine!

You should probably subscribe, if you don't already! It's a great, sassy little pub.

National Lampoon's Joe Road Trip to Massachusetts

2007-04-12T20:26:00.000-05:00

Thanks to our boss, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, the Taconic Parkway and the great state of Massachusetts, seven Joe kids had the time of their lives on-site at our roasters' place yesterday. We stumbled bleary-eyed into a sweet van at roughly 8am and crawled out of it around noon, in the parking lot of the Northeast's own Barrington Coffee Roasting Company (BCRC).

Before they knew it, roasters & co-owners Gregg and Barth (thanks, guys!!) and their bang-up team of coffee fanatics were face-to-face with some of the most geeked-out baristas Joe has to offer: store managers Cameron, Amanda and Josh Z., and their respective assistant managers, Derek, Josh W. and Anne. Oh, and me.

Derek and Cameron listen to Barth talk about sourcing, buying and storing green beans.

Even though some of us had been to a roastery before, for people really passionate about this industry, getting the behind-the-scenes tour of the works never gets old. Neither does the smell of fresh-roasted coffee, or the sight of those little beans newly browned and swirling around the bottom of a cooling tray.

Cameron gets up in some beans' business; Anne looks on.

Gregg watches them beans.

We also got to cup two of Barrington's coffees: an East Timor and an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. The Timor was a syrupy-bodied, smoky coffee with chocolate notes and a lot of sweetness as it cooled down; the Yirgacheffe was tealike and subtle, with floral and citrus notes, as well as a kind of lingering vegetal undertone.

Josh W. got some of the grinds on his nose, but unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to snatch a photo of it. Rats!

Amanda shows the newbies at the table how to aspirate a coffee to get its full flavor.

After the cupping, Barth pulled us all shots on the roastery's two-group Synesso. Instead of using the standard espresso blend we get from BCRC for our own shots, he isolated one of the beans from the batch and pulled us straighties of the acidity-forward element, a monsoon.

Anne tucks into one of the craziest, most intense and straight-up awesome shots any of us have ever had.

The espresso was brilliant, and by separating the bean from the blend we're all so used to, it gave us all a new perspective and a whole new vocabulary for the coffee we serve everyday. As we each took our respective first-sips, it was clear how much the components of the blend really "clicked" with us all.

Before high-tailing it out of town, we swung by Amanda's old haunt and the cafe owned by Barrington's own Gregg: Lenox Coffee.

Latte pulled by Jenna.

Amanda lived up here for a couple years before starting her tenure at Joe, and she divided her time among working at the roastery, acting and sitting around at Lenox Coffee, drinking shots and smoking on the porch. Man, if that ain't a life you could get used to, am I right?!

It was great to finally go on a trip about which we'd spent so much time daydreaming: As soon as we went public with the details, it seemed like everybody was in on it and jazzed up, which was such a great feeling. I think it's safe to say nobody walked away disappointed. It was amazing to see how much joy and excitement our staff had for the coffee they were experiencing, and how eager they were to ask questions and learn and taste and get in there.

There's something so magical about bonding with not only the people who make this craft possible, but the beans as well—and when you can do both simultaneously, all the freaking better.

Next time, we'll all have to go to origin. Don't forget to pack your swim trunks!

Haven't had your fill of photos? Full Flickr set here.

Chugga-chugga woo-woo! (Training)

2007-04-10T22:38:00.000-05:00

Well, now that the Anna Nicole Smith paternity mystery is solved, there's little else for which I have want. Except, of course, to train, train, train!

Hamad started with us at the Soho store about, what, two months ago? He and I had spent two nights training on espresso and milk, and he's obviously been practicing his little tail off. It pays!

And so, in honor of Anna and little Daniellyn, my main man Hamad poured this killer guy here:

BAM! My job here is done! Go forth, make good coffee!

Coming soon: Joe road trip to Barrington Coffee Roasting Co! Seven baristas! One van! Coffees! Diner food! Mix CDs! Madness!

Stay tuned...

Other Coffees, Other Rooms

2007-04-06T09:34:00.000-05:00

Sunday's press pot adventure went really well! I didn't take any photos because it was crowded and I was too busy tasting coffees, but we were very pleased with the offerings.

The Ethiopia (Adado-Abeba) from NOVO Coffee had some of the strongest berry notes I've ever gotten in an African, as well as some lovely florals and a touch of spice. The finish was smooth, and the balance was perfect.

Counter Culture's East Timor (Maubesse) was a savory cup, with a lot of smoke, spice, cinnamon and leathery excitement going on. It was a little overshadowed by the pizazz of the Ethiopian, but was still a fine coffee with a nice, slightly heavier body and clean finish.

ON DECK THIS WEEK: Intelligentsia Coffee's La Tortuga (direct trade Honduras) and a Papa New Guinea.

In other exciting coffee news, this came for me in the mail yesterday, setting my heart to flutter:

A bag of Ritual Roasters espresso, along with a direct trade Gutemala (Finca el Injerto) and some Colombia La Virginia (COE #3)!

Since I likely won't be on bar again for a couple days, I tossed some of the espresso into a spare hopper yesterday during a shift, just to give 'er a whirl.

Oh boy, oh man! What a freaking treat! This stuff is so smooth and rich, with some chocolate and light spice notes, and very little brightness right up front. The aftertaste was awesome—almost as satisfying on its own as the actual shots.

In other news, stay tuned for a new web-adventure from me, while I toss around the idea of building a satellite version of Meet the Press Pot, with a little different angle...

Happy Billy Dee Williams's Birthday, everybody! He's 70 today.

Domingo! Domingo! Domingo!

2007-03-30T15:39:00.000-05:00

Starting this Sunday, we've got a new employee enrichment program here at Joe: A casual and friendly look at some of the great coffees from roasters around the country.

Each week, yours truly will pick two coffees from different origins and roasting labs to put into the press pots at the Waverly Place location of Joe, and our entire staff is invited to come and expand their knowledge and appreciation of what different professionals are doing with our favorite little beaners from around the world.

On deck this Sunday: Counter Culture Coffee's East Timor (Maubesse) and Novo Coffee's Ethiopia (Adado-Abeba), both acquired from our friend Caroline at Cafe Grumpy.

It's time to broaden horizons! Experience different taste sensations! Maybe drink coffee outside in the sunshine with our big goofy sunglasses on! Which means we can probably also play with all the dogs that pass by! Oh, and also, it's educational.

Full report to follow, and who knows: maybe we'll be able to open the invitation to our shot-slinging friends at Gimme!, Grumpy, 9th St, Oslo and wherever else.

Until then, these two little bags will sit unmolested and fragrant in my kitchen, where I will look at them longingly until their big break comes. Sigh...

Flattie

2007-03-29T08:48:00.000-05:00

All I've wanted to do in the past week is post a new blog entry!

Ok, I've also wanted to sleep past 9am, sit in the park, drink wine outside at night, wear ugly sunglasses, smooch, write actual letters and take long walks. Spring fever, I guess.

But all that will have to wait, because now it's blog-entry-time.

International hoparound Tim Williams (seen inspecting the cups at Gimme! Coffee, above), visited our fair city last week from his London base, where he is turning out some Australian-style specialty stuff (dude's a transplanted Aussie).

Among other things, he finally explained the difference between a flat white and a latte, which has had us baffled at Joe and, no doubt, disappointing the heck out of our antipodean regulars for ages now.

According to my man here, a flat white is served in a smaller vessel (215-240mL, and always a china cup) than a latte , which is served in a specific glass. Neat!

Thanks for visiting, Tim! Can't wait to see you on your own turf wunna these days.

B-I-N-Joe

2007-03-25T14:48:00.000-05:00

As things get crazier (and curiouser) in the shops with the beautiful weather—oh my G-d, have you been outside today?!—it gets a little harder to keep morale up. You know, when you're working seven hours straight on bar and your feet are barking and there's a line to the door and it's 75 degrees out and you're stuck inside making large nonfat Americano au laits.

Wait! Americano au lait? Let me just mark that one down on my...

Joe BINGO Card! (Click here for a bigger version)

Everyone seemed to really like playing, and I'm thinking of transforming it into a monthly company-wide event: First person to get BINGO wins ... something awesome!

Speaking of awesome, good luck at the NERBC and MARBC this week, everybody who's going! Take a buncha photos!

Dunk This!

2007-03-23T11:12:00.000-05:00

In honor of my trip to Dunkin' Donuts this morning (I was running to an editing gig! Don't judge me!), I present I Am Known (The Dunkin' Donuts Song).

A fellow we know and like (and a devoted Joe regular), Adam Roberts has this pretty killer blog, The Amateur Gourmet, on which, apparently, he writes and performs genius-caliber dinner ditties!

Here is a link to Adam's other fine songs! Bully job there, boyo, but where, pray tell, is the Joe song?!

Babyccino.

2007-03-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

Coffee-related post forthcoming. In the meantime, I would like you to meet my brand new nephew, Logan!

Looks like somebody needs a macchiato.

Nightcap

2007-03-18T21:10:00.000-05:00

The past couple of days have been capital-E Exciting and capital-E Exhausting; training for the barista competition started (and finished) on Wednesday*; my sister had a baby on Thursday, I was sick for the better part of Friday, and yesterday my beau and I drove up to Massachusetts for the wedding of two old friends of mine.

Overall, a beautiful and wonderful and thrilling little while, but still, Phew!

We rolled back into town this evening in a snappy little rental car, as beat as the day is long—but it was certainly no fault of the lovely coffee we enjoyed before leaving Northampton.

Northampton Coffee is a cozy, spare little shop right outside of the heart of one of my favorite New England towns. Like Joe, NoHoCo (a nickname I'm certain I didn't coin and which probably boils the blood of the nice folks who work there) uses Barrington Coffee, and the patient fellows who work there let me snap a few pictures without much visible irritation.

The latte was rich, smooth and perfect—exactly what I needed before embarking on what would inadvertently become a nearly six hour journey home. I could use another one right about now, actually, but more likely I'll just finally toddle off to bed, not a moment too soon.

Congratulations to my sister, my dear friends Bob & Jason, and 100% good luck to everybody who actually is going to the MA- and NERBCs. I'm wicked jeal.

* By the way, I know, I'm sorry—I've decided not to compete in the NEBRC, despite having talked about it nonstop for, oh, what, four months? Five months? A long time. I'm a little disappointed, truth be told, but you know, life happens, my friends.

Git 'er Done

2007-03-10T18:49:00.000-05:00

In a short two weeks, the North East region will see its first bona-fide barista competition, thanks to the geniuses behind Portafilter.

The three-day event is great for a ton of reasons—namely the special guests, community-building and learning, learning, learning—but of course much of the buzz has been about, you know, showing off our mad skillz.

Well, darlings, I for one am as critical of my mad skillz as I am wicked excited to, er, show 'em off. I've been dreaming for years of competing next to some of the baristas I admire most, and I guess now's my chance? Except, I'm really nervous?

Never fear, Meister—Nick Cho is here!

The Murky Coffee owner, celebrity both actual and internetual, competition guru and all-around nice guy invited me down for a little help on my technique, as well as just sort of keeping me abreast of what this whole shebang entails in the first place. Knowing is half the battle, and having never seen a full competition set, I had no idea what to expect until Nick explained some of the rules, regulations and protocol of the thing. I still have tons and tons of work to do, but at least I know a lot of what I have been doing wrong and what I can do to make a good impression.

Now, let's talk a little about the idea of competing. Lately I've had a lot of really interesting conversations with people (most of whom know much better than I do) about origin, culinary art, food culture, agriculture and real-life (so-to-speak) barista skills. I've talked with people who are pro, con and indifferent about events like this, and I've taken some quiet time to digest all of their points of view. I understand that this kind of pageantry should in no way define my career as a barista and as an educator, and I know that as a professional in my position, I respresent the second-to-last phase in the life cycle of a quality coffee.

My reasons for wanting to compete are not to best anybody, they're not to show off (I couldn't) or to win (I probably won't) or to be superior to any one of my innumerable peers out there (I'm not).

So, Meister, why do you want to compete?

I want to compete because I'm passionate about coffee, and about the people of coffee.

I want to compete because I think that the specialty coffee industry can do so much good for the farmers of the world, and for their nations, families and crops.

I want to compete because I'm a cocksure woman barista who may not know everything, but who isn't afraid of asking for help, advice and knowledge, and who isn't afraid of offering it in return.

I want to compete because this is a new region for specialty coffee, relatively speaking, and I want to represent the East Coast attitude.

I want to compete because I'm proud of Joe, and am honored to be able to represent us.

I want to compete because I love and respect the roasters whose coffees we use at Joe, and if I can do them any amount of justice in a public arena like this, I want to.

And most of all, I want to compete because I want to learn from those who are better than me, and to become a stronger barista and person because of it.

To my fellow competitors, spectators, enthusiasts and nerds, may the portafilter be with you.