Beans, Beans, Beans!

Oh my golly-gee-wizz...  Today at University Avenue we are brewing up our Ethiopian Yrgacheffe.  Lately I've been just drinking espresso, but as I was grinding the Yrgacheffe the smell it gave off made my mouth water so I decided to go with some of that instead and I was not disappointed.  The aroma...  the fruit flavors... the intensity...  fantastic!  I've noticed that sometimes our coffee's change due to different crop cycles, but whatever happened here is AWESOME.  If you haven't tried our Yrgacheffe, now's the time.  The Ethiopian Moka Harrar is also tasting outstanding (the blueberry notes in it almost hit you in the face as you grind it).  And, of course, if you want a little of both plus some Rwanda, give our new African Adventure a try.  Of course, all these are Africans...

For you New World coffee types, if you haven't tried our Organic/Fair Trade Peru or our conventional Guatemala, I have always been impressed by those coffees.  We don't carry either of those at my store, but I'd be happy to special order anything for you if you're interested, or you can order them through this website.  If you decide to go for a special order at our store though I'd be happy to throw in a small taste comparison with you of the coffees we have brewed up that day, as well as a wealth of resources to answer any questions on pretty much any area of interest you have concerning coffee.

Lastly, I wouldn't want to leave out the Pacific Island folks.  Our Celebes has a WONDERFUL buttery mouthfeel, plus notes of caramel and earth, making it one of our best selling single-origins here at University.  Otherwise, if you want more of an adventure, go for our conventional Papua New Guinea.  It's a peaberry PNG, which gives it a very concentrated, yet complex set of flavors.  This is one we don't carry at our store, but the same special ordering rules apply as above. 

Happy tasting!!

Interesting Observations from University Ave

One question which I have asked myself since I started working in coffee shops is this: Why do a majority of people around Madison find darker roasted coffees so favorable?  Whenever I ask regulars at my store why they always go for the french roasted coffee I usually get responses like "It's the strongest one" or "It really wakes me up" or even "Dark coffee makes hair grow on your chest".  I'm interested to know where these ideas that dark coffees are somehow stronger or more manly come from.  Is it that they are more bitter and are thus a test of one's drinking ability?  I do know that many American's have simply grown up with darker roasted coffees (it IS a great way to cover up flaws in low-grade coffees), and thus may have become accustomed to the taste, but does that account for all of the myth and lore surrounding "the darkest coffee"?  Darkly roasted coffees are just as "strong" as lighter roasted coffees, and depending on the coffee different roast profiles bring out different and better tastes.  If you do prefer a french roasted coffee, I would love for you to come into our University Avenue store so I can hear your thoughts on this subject.  To be clear, I am not saying that dark roasted coffees are bad, I'm just saying that there seems to be a big push in this area towards them and I am curious as to why. 

The Making of our New Blend

Wow, the making of our new "African Adventure" blend sure was adventurous. Scott Pederson (our head roaster) and I got to work together on the project and were given a single guideline: Use our Rwandan coffee from the Gikongoro Bufcafe Cooperative. The Rwandan coffee itself had a sort of earthy, potato-like taste to it, so my immediate thought was to smooth it out with a New World coffee and then round it out with a Pacific Island coffee. We came up with a mix that included our conventional Guatemala SHB from the Huixoc Estate, our conventional Sumatra Mandheling from the south Tapanuli region of Sumatra, and, of course, the Rwanda. After cupping this mix and experimenting with proportions, we presented it to the staff at our roasterie. It was mostly met with a mediocre response, with people saying that the blend contained everything a blend should contain, but it didn't stand out as anything amazing. In other words, the blend needed "ZING". With this in mind, we went back to the drawing board and decided to try an all African blend to really concentrate the fruity, berry-like flavors one finds in many African coffees. The Rwandan would be used to round those flavors out instead of trying to round out the flavors already in the Rwanda. We put all of our African coffees on the cupping table and went to work. Finally, we found a really good mix of natural and washed processed Ethiopians which complement the Rwanda nicely. And thus, the "African Adventure" blend was born. Look forward to hints of blueberry, raspberry, pomegranate, and earth in this blend.

Coffee Class + Something to think about

Greetings all! Our first coffee class of the year, titled "Coffee Brewing Basics", was awesome. We covered the four main controllable variables when brewing a french press: correct grind, proportion of coffee, water temperature, and brew time. The people who attended seemed very interested and afterwards we had a very satisfying question and answer session in which I was able to talk about water hardness, various brewing methods, grinders, and my new fun toy that I am experimenting with, the Aeropress. The questions that were hardest to answer were about my favorite methods of brewing, since I think siphons, moka pots, melitta cones, and french presses all bring out different unique characteristics from each coffee, and I personally enjoy switching between them all depending on my mood :) We ended on a note which I believe is often lost in the scientific perfectionist culture of coffee connoisseurs, which is that ultimately coffee brewing is subjective, and finding the perfect balance in any particular coffee will range between different individuals. Making a perfect brew is somewhat of a personal adventure, and the more you experiment the more you find what you like, and the process is pleasant and rewarding. Sure, there are coffee conventions which have been around for years, but the advent of what is being coined the "third wave" has brought about many skeptical challengers to these conventions.  In other words, EXPERIMENT AND HAVE FUN! :)

Explanation of Third Wave

“The first wave of American coffee culture was probably the 19th-century surge that put Folgers on every table …

the second was the proliferation, starting in the 1960s at Peet’s and moving smartly through the Starbucks grande decaf latte, of espresso drinks and regionally labeled coffee.

We are now in the third wave of coffee connoisseurship, where beans are sourced from farms instead of countries, roasting is about bringing out rather than incinerating the unique characteristics of each bean, and the flavor is clean and hard and pure."

-Jonathan Gold (2002)
Food Critic and
Pulitzer Prize Winner