Rwanda Dukundekawa Musasa
Already this year, we’ve seen the Rwanda Dukunde Kawa Musasa come in and it’s been absolutely astounding. This is the second year in a row where we’ve bought this coffee and this year is better than last.  This year we’re seeing a little cleaner finish, more definition in the character of the body in the cup, and FAR fewer wet-potato defects caused by insects, which are abundant in coffees from Rwanda. This coffee is available in our online store.

Rwanda Abakundakawa & Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Kochere Gr.1
Hitting our shelves this weekend, are two more new coffees!
First, another offering from Rwanda, the Abakundakawa. It’s as fun to drink as it is to say. Similar to the Dukundekawa, but with more dark cherry and honey notes in the sweetness, as opposed to citrus. Secondly, we’ve got the Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Kochere Co-Op. Lots of customers have been waiting for this coffee because it is such a great representation of a great Yirgacheffe coffee. Jasmine tea, lemon peel, tropical fruit, cloves….Complex but still so easy to drink. We think this will be the stand-out coffee of the year…so far.

Both of these coffee are available in our online store.

We’re looking forward to adding some more coffees to our line-up as the summer begins. We should be seeing the fresh crop of the legendary Finca Santa Ana from Guatemala, and perhaps another unique Guatemalan coffee in late June.

Over the coming months you’ll see lots of coffees come and go based on what we have available and fresh on any given week. As Monday is our main roast day, we’ll be shipping all orders on Tuesday so they’ll be at your door and ready to drink for the weekend. If we have time we’ll also ship as orders come in, but you can always count on the Tuesdays.

Currently we’re only shipping to Canada and the U.S.A. via CanadaPost but look for international options via Fedex in the coming months. Check our rate calculator for live shipping rates.

We look forward to shipping you the finest quality coffees. Enjoy!

We’re looking for experienced Baristas and Bakery staff to join our team! Are you a happy, motivated, solid person? Then get in here with your resume!

Apply in-person to Patricia or Carsen.

After reading a great blog post on Brew Methods by James Hoffman of Square Mile Coffee in London, UK, we were left with more questions than answers. Are different brewing methods better for different coffees, depending on what aspects of the coffee you want to showcase? Do you want to showcase the sweet, fruit characteristics, or do you want to show the massive body of a coffee? French Press, Syphon or Pour Over will all show different things. These are the questions Hoffman asks.

What got us interested was the question of brew temperature. We do know that there is a massive difference in flavour extraction from a 204 degree brew to a 190 degree brew.

What do we already know?

• We know that water has to be within 197-205 degrees F to attain a tasty, sweet, complex brew.
• We know that you have to preheat your brewing vessel so as not to cool the water.
• We know you need to have your coffee ground accordingly to your device of choice. ie. Coarse for Press, Sand-like for drip…
• We know that the time of the brew is correlated with the size of your grind.

What about the fact that your grounds are only room temperature or slightly higher due to the heat caused by the friction of grinding? Would this not affect the temperature of the water with which you’re brewing?

Using our roast profiling software written by our good friends, Steve Paras-Charlton and his father, Jim Charlton, we were able to analyze temperatures on a time/temperature graph of our brews using the Pour-Over drip method. We analyzed these brews by placing the probe at the very tip of the pouring kettle, reading temperature at the point where water was exiting the kettle. To contrast this, we placed another probe in the bottom of the bed of coffee, almost at the point where the liquid exits the filter.

These are our results. The blue line indicates the probe in the kettle and the red line indicates the probe in the bed of the coffee.

These were separate brews, where we used the same starting temperature of 200 degrees in the kettle, and same amount of time of bloom and pour. 30 grams of coffee and 500 grams of water were used.

What is interesting is the slow decline in temperature of the water in the kettle as compared to the temperature of the bed of coffee and water. As you can see, as water is slowly added to the grounds, the bed rises in temperature.  It takes almost two minutes to reach the temperature of the water in the kettle.

What does this say?

It takes two minutes for the temperature of the bed of coffee and water to reach the “ideal” brew temperature of ~200F. That’s interesting. By looking at this graph, how would our brew result if we moved the intersection of the two lines to the left? This would be achieved by raising the temperature of the bed of coffee to 200F in less time. You could do this by adding more water to the bloom at a higher temperature, but how would that result in the end? Maybe a more “even” extraction?

This leads us to our next question. What would happen in the case of French Press, or Aeropress, where you’re adding all of the water right away to the grounds. That would likely move the intersection point to the left. Maybe this is why brews on Aeropress or French Press, or any full-immersion brewing method taste different than filter drip, aside from the lack of fine sediment and oils.

We can see on a brew of a French Press, that it takes less than a minute, or about the same amount of time to pour the water to bring the whole solution to the optimal brewing temperature. This then leaves the coffee to brew for the rest of the time at 200F, declining to 196F at the “plunge”.

So, with this knowledge, why do I prefer pour-over drip coffees, when they don’t follow the “rules” of coffee brewing? By all rights, the pour-over should be underextracted and lacking complexity, but it wasn’t. It was delicious. I thought that the French Press was good, but the amount of oils and fine sediment cloud the more delicate flavours (in my opinion).

There are a lot of unanswered questions here, and the aim of this post, like James’, was to iterate our musings rather than state fact. Perhaps this data tells us that we should “get to know” the characteristics of not only our coffees but our brewers better and compensate water temperatures, and take into account the size of the thermal mass in our brewer before we start.

We’re excited to try new methods and now, with this knowledge, we’ve got lots of experiments to do.

It should also be noted that we could over-analyze ever aspect of brewing and the “rules” of coffee. At some point, we could just say, “It tastes good, just leave it alone.” But that’s no fun

Guatemala Finca Santa Ana

Sometimes a coffee comes along and hits you out of left field when you’re not expecting it. Santa Ana did that to us. Sent to us through an unconventional channel, we were blown away with the sample of this coffee. Complex flavours of chocolate and nuts, with just a hint of fruit juice dominated the cup. It takes an enormous amount of care on the farmer’s side to produce a coffee with such a clean, yet memorable impression. So memorable in fact, that we bought the entire lot.

Also unconventional about this coffee is that it’s from southern Guatemala, Nuevo Viñas, in particular, around Volcano Tecuamburro. As far as I can recall, I’ve never tried a coffee from this region. In the past, we’ve bought coffees from Antigua or the northern region of Huehuetenango, which have vastly different flavour profiles respectively. It’s exciting experiencing coffees from new regions because you have no pre-conceived notions as to how the coffee *should* taste. What a surprise with the Santa Ana.

Roberto Diaz, the owner of Finca Santa Ana is an award winning coffee farmer. He has placed in the top 10 in many international competitions. Most recently Santa Ana won 4th place in the 2010 Cup of Excellence in Guatemala. We’re so excited to be able to offer it to you.  We’d be happy to serve you a cup of it to drink or a pound of it for you to enjoy at home.

Here are some vitals on Santa Ana:
Harvest Period: February-April 2011
Varietal: Bourbon
Processing: Selectively picked, washed, and sundried
Altitude: 1770m
Region: Volcano Tecuamburro

Happy new year!

We have a perfect answer for you. Coffee!

This year we’re offering some world class coffees for you to give to your friends, loved ones, enemies, or to just savor over the holidays. These are coffees that roasters all over the world covet, and usually save for themselves to drink

Gift Bags – A great way to enjoy our coffees over the holidays is with our coffee gift bags! Featuring two 230g bags of featured single origin coffees and one 230g bag of our Christmas Blend, you can sample a wide range of flavours, showcasing different growing regions’ characteristics. $22 each.

Kenya Kangocho AA – No question about it, this is the most exciting cup of coffee we’ve brewed this year. Kangocho screams with lively acidity, strawberry and sweet grapefruit aromas, and a deep, complex body. $19 for a 12oz bag.

Guatemala Finca Santa Ana – Our first direct trade micro-lot purchase! Santa Ana is a farm in the Tecuamburro region of Guatemala. It’s the most balanced and clean coffee in our offering list, featuring an intense chocolate sweetness and overtones of toasted nuts and red fruits. In 2010, this coffee was ranked #4 in all of Guatemala and rightfully so. It’s delicious. $17/lb.

Costa Rica Las Lajas Perla Negra Espresso – Las Lajas is a micro mill in the West Valley region of Costa Rica. We carried their coffee last year and it was delicious. This year we bought a specially prepared lot called Perla Negra. This dry-processed lot has a massive fruit-forward flavour profile, with a rich undertone of tobacco and chocolate. Roasted for espresso, it produces a thick, creamy, balanced shot. $17/lb.

Brew Classes – Our brew class for Saturday, Dec.17 is now fully booked. We’ll be posting the info for the next Home Brew Class in January. Stay tuned!