Good Food Awards

I'm incredibly honored to be judging the coffee category for the Good Food Awards.

But I'm also quite nervous. If you look at the list of people I'm judging with - the bar's being set quite high. I'm confident in my palate as a general rule - but this is a whole different ball game.

On the other hand, it's also a chance for me to learn a ton. Some of the coffee cuppers I most respect in the world will be judging with me - and that's an incredible opportunity for me.

I'm planning on posting some thoughts on the experience, the coffees, etc - probably later this coming week. With luck I'll be able to steal some of Tonx's photos to illustrate....

"An Epidemic of Underdevelopment"

Anyone who pays attention to coffee will have noticed the (welcome) trend away from darker roasted coffee in the high end ("craft") segment of the speciality market.

It's incredibly nice to be able to taste the coffee - rather than just tasting the roast. It's incredibly nice to be able to experience more of the full range of flavours the coffee can represent (rather than tiny permutations on a roast flavour profile).

But all is not rosy in the world.

I've been quietly talking to various folks in the coffee industry for a bit about some of the negative experiences I've been having with coffee recently. I tweeted about this a little while back when I noted that there seems to be an "epidemic" of underdeveloped coffees.

Now Vince (the genius behind ExtractMojo) has shared his own (scientific) insights into this topic. In this (fantastic) post, Vince clearly illustrates that the (sensory) perception that I (and many others) have noted can be quantified and measured. We now have evidence to back up opinion.

Given this... here are some quick observations and opinions on the topic (in no particular order).

1. While underdevelopment is in no way tied to light roast degrees, roasting light is harder than roasting dark. I've had underdeveloped coffees roasted to a Full City+ roast degree - and I've had coffees that were roasted to a Cinnamon degree and were wonderfully and fully developed. But it does seem like a lot of the underdeveloped coffees come from folks who are (bluntly) still learning how to roast to a light degree.
2. That being said, there are even more underdeveloped coffees coming out of roasters who only think in terms of roast degree and have a black and white simplistic view of coffee (light roast degree == good; darker == bad). These roasters do not seem to have "development" on their list of things to care about.
3. There is a large segment of the coffee industry that follows short-term trends. These folks seem to be following the over-simplified "light roast degree == good" roasters without really thinking about the implications.
4. A huge challenge is that there is a somewhat large (and vocal) group who are unquestioning cheerleaders of the "light == good" school. I've had folks defend severely underdeveloped coffees with statements like "grassy can be good - like fresh cut lawns" and "well that coffee just tastes like lemon and artificial sweetener."
5. And of course - perhaps the largest challenge is the (never-ending) culture in speciality coffee of not airing dirty laundry in public (and never speaking ill of your competitors). This lack of honesty continues to do immeasurable damage to the entire industry.

I'm really glad that Vince wrote this piece.

Given the credibility he has in the industry - I honestly believe that the simple "that's just your opinion" knee jerk response can now be dispensed with.

It's time for us to address this issue.

It's a real, legitimate, problem.

And we need to be honest about it.

Sweet Shop

James from Square Mile sent me some coffee last week.

Now... he's sent coffee before. And I've always liked it. In some cases a lot.

And the coffees of theirs I had in London were excellent.

But seriously. Nothing prepared me for this.

It was called Sweet Shop.

And it was amazing.

Sadly, this was a single batch. From a single day. And there is no more.

Sadly, because it was one of my favorite espressos ever.

It was one of the most heavily fruited espressos I've ever had - and not fruit in the thin sharp green way that you get some times. And not one massive single fruit flavor. No... this was a deep and rich and heavy and ridiculously sweet coffee with layers upon layers of different fruit. From blackberry molasses to cassis jellies. From pear hard candy to butterscotch toffee. From kumquat to raspberry to apricot to melon. It was all there. And all anchored by a spine of red wine and leather with a semi-sweet cocoa finish.

Absolutely stunning.

Not a coffee I'll soon forget.

Portland - Coffee

While I'm sure that some folks (especially those in Seattle and in Chicago) would argue, I think most of us would agree that Portland has had a special role in the high end of (what I'd call artisan) coffee in the US.

Many of us would argue that Portland was the driving force for artisan coffee over the past 5 or more years.

I've always wondered, "why Portland?"

I mean.... it's kind of weird for such an obscure town to have such an out-of-scale impact.

I've run through all sorts of theories - but in retrospect I think I was simply too close to the situation to see the realities.

Now that I've been gone from Portland and gone from coffee for a while - I think I have more perspective. And a recent trip up there (I think) has kind of proven the point.

I think I'm starting to figure it out.

So... why Portland.

To explain I'm going to tell a couple of stories first.

The first night I was there we were wrapping up late dinner at Biwa and it was suggest we go check out Tommy Habetz' new place Bunk Bar. Tommy is a bad-ass cook and chef who's run a couple of my favorite kitchens in Portland. He's the kind of guy who pretty much could be cooking anywhere and doing anything. When I asked a little more about Bunk Bar I was told that it's a bar where they have a walk up window that sells sandwiches. A little confused but intrigued I said this sounded good and off we went. Late night, bar, waterfront, packed with a mix of hipsters and folks just out drinking... you can imagine the scene. And sure enough, walk up window with a sandwich menu. But OMFG the sandwich. Pork Belly Lettuce and Tomato. The sort of BLT that the gods eat when they're hanging out on Mt Olympus. A sort of Elizabethan ideal of the BLT.

The second day I was there we decided to grab a beer after lunch and went by Apex. Apex is a beer bar. And that's all. It's clean and airy and open. Their beer menu is insane - some sort of madman is curating that list because it's just not normal. Your average person (someone who is not a beer fanatic) would be entirely confused and might not even realize that the place was serving beer. There were beers from everywhere - including a beer from the Bay Area that I can't find on tap here. In San Francisco. The lines were clean, the bartender knowledgable - and the beer was about 2/3 or 1/2 what I'd pay for it here.

These are both successful businesses.

As are other places in Portland like Pok Pok (incredible thai food without the usual standards like Pad Thai and with half the seating outside in a shed) and Le Pigeon (where they're likely to play Ramones in the dining room and serve the best beef bourguignon in the US).

These are places that do things that seem crazy at a business level. That make no sense. That violate some of the things we assume are business rules. And yet they're successful.

It's clear there is a pattern here.

Things are working in Portland that we all think shouldn't work.

So the question becomes... is Portland just different? Do the rules not apply to Portland? Or are we wrong about the rules?

This last trip made me realize something.

Some of these crazy ideas fail - even in Portland.

But Portland is the kind of safe place where you can still try the crazy ideas. Portland is the place that says "rules are bullshit - do what you want to."

The people in Portland don't judge if the idea is crazy - they just try it and see if they like it. They've got a sort of indy / DIY thing going on that's deeply embedded in the culture there.

So there is a kind of "why the fuck not" attitude there that allows (and even encourages) people to try crazy shit.

Plus... it's cheap there so there isn't so much financial risk.

But... none of this says that the rules simply don't apply to Portland.

It's simply that Portland is a really great petri dish.

So from this - it's hard not to conclude that, in fact, the rules do apply to Portland and Portland is where we're figuring out that some of what we think are rules are lies.

And that is why Portland is so important to coffee in the US. Because 10 years ago all of us in coffee were following the rules. And the rules were 75% lies. But we didn't know that. We were blind. But there were some crazy people in Portland who either didn't know the rules or didn't care about the rules. And now we all know that most of those rules were bullshit. And freed from those rules - coffee in the US has exploded.

It's no shock that the paid shills for traditional coffee are out in force saying that what we're all doing is wrong (and evil). Just as it's no shock that we're angry at them for lying to us for so long.

And for that... we own a debt of gratitude not just for all the people who've ignored these rules - but also to that crazy petri dish that we call Portland for allowing us to experiment and discover.

Personally... I can't wait to see what Portland spits out next!!!

Portland (intro)

I'm just back from Portland OR and it's clear I need to post about it.

Less about the coffee, however, and more about the place / people / culture / market.

I need to formulate my thoughts and then will write something up.

I will - however - say this much (as a teaser)...

Apex is one of my favorite beer bars in the world.

The Pork Belly Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich at Bunk Bar is sick.

To understand why coffee in Portland is what it is, you need to understand the weird mix of DiY/indy and taste/flavor and passion/craziness that drives people who create places like Apex and Bunk Bar (and Pok Pok and Le Pigeon and and and). And you need to understand the people in Portland and why the support these lovely lunatics.

Let me ponder and expect something odd soon.

Anfim (at home - v Robur)

So... as if it were not absurd enough for me to have done a review of the Robur grinder at home (see here for final conclusions) now I'm going to spend some time sharing thoughts on the Anfim Super Caimano (modified).

This is the new v2.0 modified Super Caimano (digital timer, cooling fan, some changes to things like the number of adjustments available for the grind, slower speed motor, purge button).

I've been using it for about a week now, and have some initial conclusions. I'll break these down into three sections. First - the grinder. Second - the grinder at home. Third - the grinder vs the Robur.

The Grinder

For someone (like me) used to Mazzer grinders, the Anfim takes some getting used to. It's a stepped adjustment grinder. It's much smaller than the Robur. The doser feels "weird" at first. Figuring out the whole digital timer thing seemed fiddly and tweedly at first.

Once you get used to it - you start to see the strong points of the grinder (and the weaknesses start to emerge as well).

The primary weakness of this grinder is stability on the counter. The grinder "walks" across the counter when dosing (and no joke we're talking about something like 6 to 8 inches of travel). This is obviously a major issue. You can work around it by wedging the grinder in place or by extending a finger from the hand holding the portafilter to brace against the fork. Now... all this being said, I'm told that there is a retrofit for the grinder that adds different feet to it and makes it very stable and fixed in place.

The secondary weakness is the stepped adjustment. While there are now a ton of steps, changing from one step to the other is still an est 3s change in a shot. Again, you can work around this by changing dose when you change grind - but I'd love a worm-drive non-stepped adjustment!

The final weakness is the throat from the burrs to the doser. A lot of coffee gets trapped in here. The grinder ships with a small brush to help clean this - and the new purge button allows you to purge stale coffee - but it's still a PITA. Out of curiosity I measured total grinds trapped in the Anfim and compared to the Robur. What is interesting is that they're roughly equal. It's just that you don't see all the grinds with the Robur (whereas you do with the Anfim).

In terms of the strengths of this grinder...

First (and foremost) is the quality of the grind. The Anfim produces a fantastic output. Shots were incredibly transparent and lacked any muddiness. Shots were sweet and very aromatic. The Anfim's grind quality is at least on par with if not better than the Alinox (IMHO).

Second, the Anfim doser is massively superior to other dosers I've used. Drop is clean and centered. Combined with the quality of the grind, this makes distribution ridiculously easy.

Third, once you get the timer dialed in your waste goes down dramatically. I set it to give me a tiny bit more coffee than I need, but that's largely 'cause I'm a control freak. I could see wasting only a tiny amount of coffee if I didn't do this.

The Grinder at Home

It's just a silly idea.

Really.

Between the amount of coffee trapped in the grinder and the challenges of dialing in the dose timer and grind (and their interaction) and the fact that you really cannot use it in a single dose manner this grinder is arguably as poorly suited (if not more poorly suited) for home use than the Robur.

The Grinder vs the Robur

First... this is kind of an unfair comparison as the Robur costs a lot more than the Anfim. And it's kind of a silly comparison because they have such different approaches to solving the problem.

That said... my thoughts...

1. If I were running a high volume coffee bar I'd use the Robur as my workhorse grinder.

2. If I were running a high volume coffee bar with a blend and a single origin espresso, however, I'd use the Anfim for the single origin espresso.

3. The shots from the Anfim to me had better clarity, better sweetness and better aromatics than from the Robur. I'd never really noticed the muddy stuff going on with shots from the Robur before - but now I taste them consistently. The Robur produced shots that had more low end body than the shots from the Anfim showed.

4. If I were running a lower volume, high touch ("luxury") coffee bar - especially if I were serving expensive coffees - I'd use the Anfim.

At the end of the day... I like the taste of the shots from the Anfim more than the shots from the Robur.

Time... perspective

I should have done this earlier, but before it's too late (I hope) I'm going to take a little time off from participation in the various coffee websites etc.

My frustrations have recently spilled over and been communicated in manners that were not productive and I need to step away to gain some perspective. My hope is this will allow me to re-engage in a manner that is more productive and respectful (for all involved).