i had an excellent training session today.
in this case, i was not training but being trained.
it was really good - very valuable.
i think all baristas should try to get trained and/or re-trained regularly. it's so worthwhile.

stephen diagnosed a bad habit i've fallen into with my shots (i'd started pulling them a bit short, which was resulting in a truncated and somewhat flat profile). just one more second of patience and the flavour became balanced and complete. nice! better than that, he figured out why i've been struggling so much with my milk texturing on the Mistrals. i had the wand orientation off and i had the pitcher angle wrong as well. finally, i had a compromised grip on the pitcher from trying to use the grip i've always used on La Marzoccos, but with the cross-hand thing i now need due to the placement of the steam knob on the Mistral. and just like that the texture was better, the roll was back and now i'm able to get the latte art back on track.
i just need to rediscover the confidence i used to have now that the milk is working.

very cool.

visitors

have had a whole bunch of visitors of late - which has been super cool.

first, Jay and Linda from Bishop came to visit. they're two of my best friends and among the few things i really really miss from there. both used to work with me, both have great palates and are great people. i turned them on to a whole bunch of the coffees we have, which was really great. it's so cool to see people from outside Portland or the niche industry experience Stumptown coffees for the first time and understand what we're all about and what's going on here and why it's all so exciting.

and then Matthew and Janet (also from Bishop) showed up this morning. two more friends and two regular customers from the past as well. it was really cool and a bit surreal to be serving espresso drinks to them at the counter again - but in a new place.


worked a fun shift this morning subbing for a sick employee. bar shifts are good.

and had a great talk with a friend who's trying to put together a "Horror Stories from Coffee Bars" book. told me some of the horror stories. hysterical and terrible. he's got some that are about customers, some that are about staff, some about equipment, some about natural disasters, some about supplies and vendors... you get the idea.

and we cupped three of the COE coffees today at the employee cupping - very cool. to top it off, we cupped an AMAZING coffee from Rwanda afterwards. incredible raspberry dark chocolate truffle things and some tropical fruit/floral tones. a truly gorgeous coffee!

top 12 coffees of 2004

Ken Davids just announced the top twelve coffees for the last year in Coffee Review.
the Stumptown El Salvador Las Nubitas was #6.
very cool indeed. especially given that it was one of only two Stumptown coffees reviewed by Coffee Review.
"A delicately intense, sweetly acidy cup. In the aroma spicy and floral with milk chocolate undertones. Perfectly balanced and lyric in the cup, with floral notes and a sweet, high-toned temperate fruit, pear or cherry. The chocolate resurfaces in the long, gently astringent finish."

i had a fun bar shift today. pretty busy, great crew.
spent most of my time working bar-back (aka chimp) which is tough work but not exactly super challenging. still had fun, however, and glad i got the chance to work the shift.

i'm feeling so much better. thank god for doctors and drugs! i'm still not 100% but i'm feeling alive, up and about and happy to be feeling human again.

there is a great article by Kyle Larson on Single Origin Espresso in Fresh Cup. having Kyle around is super cool - he's a really good barista and a great guy. one of the best in the business.

i've been spending a lot of time working with some of the baristas here. it's been really rewarding. we've been focusing on bio-mechanics and ergonomics and it's great to see this sort of positive results on a personal and professional level. seeing people getting more comforable and safer and maybe even extending their careers... super cool.

we've been working really hard as a company on continuing to push quality as far as we can take it - perhaps even further! it's so cool to work somewhere where the committment to quality is this intense and this engrained within the culture of the company.

i've been learning so much.
the cuppings, working with baristas of such incredible skill, listening to the roasters and seeing them at work and (perhaps most of all) talking to Duane and to the managers of the business and seeing their committment to what we're all doing here.

today i cupped a couple really amazing coffees in fact. first, a Sumatra with the most incredible herbal-fruit brightness -- creating a coffee that is over the top and yet balanced in its own way. insane, funky, sappy-resin-herbal tones in the aroma and on the palate, gorgeous almost fermented rich fruit and the deep funky chocolate earth in the body and finish. for a Sumatran it's got some actual clarity even. brilliant. and then a Yirgacheffe with a rich buttery chocolate tone in the body - a body that actually was amped up to the point where the coffee was almost heavy, with the body to match the candied lemon peel/zest-floral high tones.
the cool thing is that the other coffees on the table were all so good -- it allowed me to experience these two oddball and unusual coffees for what they were. different and special.
and... of course... the cupping was our usual employee cupping - which made it all the more awesome.
lovin' it.

finally, the other day Les (creator of Thor Tampers) came into the Belmont cafe and sent me an email the next day where he said his drink was "the best ristretto he'd ever had in a commercial place" and "The flavor was deep and complex with no hint of bitterness." he capped it all off with perhaps the best comment of all... "The presentation was good the service was great."

feels so good.

been sick
sorry haven't been able to post
still sick - have not been able to sleep
worked a couple shifts, which were really enjoyable
discovered that you can still pull great shots without sleep in a production environment, but pouring good art is hard if not impossible when your hands are shaking

cupped some great coffees recently including the best Sumatran i've ever had

i'm lovin' the Mistral. lovin' the Hairbender.
can't wait to feel better

there is a thread over at Coffee Geek that has spawned a lot of reflection for me. the question was posed, what is the "definitive moment" in your coffee experience/career/quest?

looking back, i have realized that, for me, there have been a series of defining moments and memories - and i know that this list will continue to grow over time (one of the things i love best about coffee).

1 - as a boy, after a huge amount of begging and pleading, being allowed to go with my father and my uncle and their (all male) friends down to the caffe bar for "the usual" and some impassioned "discussion" (the real reason for the trip). i think it was this experience that made me feel such a strong emotional bond with coffee bars and the social community they represent and could, thus, be responsible for my career.

2 - later, as a young man, having an espresso in the airport in Pisa and realizing that it was better than any coffee i had tasted in the US and understanding that this was why i didn't drink coffee at home. and comprehending that it was not just the coffee that was so good - it was (again) the social structure around that coffee (the balance of seriousness and ordinariness). i then came back to the US and despaired. i figured that a place like San Francisco, with its culture of taste and obsession with food and Italian heritage, would be the optimal place to find good coffee and instead it was all worse than the worst coffee i'd tasted in Italy.

3 - being served a short cappuccino by David Schomer that transported me back to memories of Italy and suddenly realizing that the coffee, at the very least, could be duplicated here in the US after all. perhaps it will never be possible to duplicate the social structure and the social mechanisms that enable coffee in Italy to be what it is. but people are trying to create something that is, at the least, an adaptation that allows those who want a quality coffee experience to get that. and this once cappuccino inspired me to join those quixotic few.

4 - sitting at Toronado with Duane Sorenson, talking about coffee, and realizing that not only was i not too obsessed with coffee - not only was i not too passionate about espresso - i might actually be taking it all too lightly! and suddenly seeing that it could be possible to create the combination of quality coffee and quality experience right now in the US. and thus, i moved to Portland.

happy holidays to all

to all the friends i love, to all the friends i miss...
to all the people who love coffee, and to all the pros who live it...

may your beans be fresh, your shots be honey thick and sweet and your milk like velveteen
may your roasts be on the dot, your customers overtip and your employees out-perform

happy holidays