State of SF Coffee (round 2)

And so... our second round of cupping coffees from some of the top Bay Area roasters is now complete.

For more information on the idea - the process - and the roasters, please read Part One.

We assembled the same cuppers as in Round One - but this time we (the cuppers) chose the coffees. These coffees were from the same five roasters (Blue Bottle, Ritual, 4 Barrel, Ecco Caffe and Equator). As with Round One - we chose 2 coffees from each roaster. We did, however, run into a snag with one of the roasters. We had hoped to cup Equator's Sumatra Golden Pawani but were unable to lay our hands on any (despite a frantic trek all over San Francisco). This turned out to be a somewhat significant issue as the replacement coffee had some very real issues.

Update: As it turns out, it seems highly probable that the coffee sourced as the replacement for the Equator Sumatra was NOT (as advertised) from Equator. As such, this piece has been re-written to reflect this.

The coffees selected for this round consisted of:

Four Barrel:

El Salvador Siberia Estate Bourbon

Guatemala Finca El Injerto Bourbon

Ritual:

Honduras Finca Fernandez

Kenya Kanyoni

Ecco:

Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Dama Co-op (top ranked coffee from Round One)

Peru Tingo-Maria

Equator:

Ethiopia Harar

Blue Bottle:

Colombia Cauca Tierradentro

Papua New Guinea "Tribal Aromas"

Unknown Roaster:

Peru Organic (replacement for the Sumatra) (SEE UPDATE)

This combination gave us an interesting table - with coffees representing a wide range of cultivars, growing regions, processing methods and roast styles.

It turned out to be both intriguing and challenging. Comparing coffees of such diverse styles forced us to really get away from simply evaluating the green beans and get into the details of the roast in addition to the beans and created amazing conversations about the holistic appeal of each coffee.

In the end we, again, learned a couple interesting things. These can be summed up in (again) three statements.

You cannot always rely upon the staff selling you coffee.

Across the board we agreed that the coffees we had picked out were better than the coffees picked out for us by staff of the various coffee retailers (Round One). In part we can assume this is because we kind of know what we like - and buy what we like. But given that there were four of us making these decisions, personal tastes should have balanced out. None the less... this time we (with one exception) preferred the coffees over what we'd received in Round One. Obviously, this point is heavily influenced by the (poor) suggestions in Round One for Blue Bottle -- and by the "Mystery" coffee from Round Two.

San Francisco has some fantastic green coffee.

The top six coffees on the table were exceptional. They were unique, enjoyable, lovely, intriguing and represented a wide range of taste experiences. All of the top 6 coffees were clearly exceptionally high quality green coffee - something that really pleased us. It is very clear that San Francisco is seeing some green coffee that is on par with what any top roaster anywhere is getting.

San Francisco roasters have to improve.

While the top 6 coffees were all exceptional, we could really only say that 3 of the coffees were (in our opinions) optimally roasted. Out of the ten coffees, in fact, 3 were egregiously poorly roasted. In the case of 2 of the coffees, this went from merely sloppy roasting to truly unprofessional roasting. Compared to top roasters in the established roasting centers, SF roasters still have a long way to go.

From this cupping the results were as follows...

As noted, we had a group of 6 coffees that were all exceptional. We had to resort, in many cases, to using 1/4 points in order to break some of the ties (individually) and still ended up with one (aggregate) tie.

The top ranked coffee was the Ecco Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Dama Co-op -- a repeat from last week. This is a lovely coffee, with notes of lime blossom and grapefruit rind and marmalade with the only critique being that it was a bit thin in the body and lacked some mouthfeel.

Following behind this (in tight formation and in order) were:

Four Barrel Guatemala Finca El Injerto Bourbon (wonderfully balanced, plum, berry, super sweet chocolate, dried fruit)

Ritual Kenya Kanyoni (dried blackberry, tomato broth, wonderful pomegranate / citrus / berry acidity as it cools)

Four Barrel El Salvador Siberia Estate Bourbon (tons of juicy stone fruit, lovely balance, classic profile, dark chocolate bon-bon)

Ecco Peru Tingo-Maria (super juicy, watermelon jolly rancher, white pepper, drying finish)

Ritual Honduras Finca Fernandez (subtle, delicate floral and soft fruit notes, tightly knotted fruit acidity, milk chocolate and caramel, orange pith finish)

All of these coffees were very good - showcasing both the palates and in some cases the roasting skills of the coffee companies in SF.

Following these top 6 came a group of 3 coffees that were mediocre and flawed but still acceptable. These were (in order):

Equator Ethiopia Harar (tons of blueberry, nice kirsch notes, hints of earth, medicinal NyQuil note in the finish, obvious ferment)

Blue Bottle Colombia Cauca Tierradentro (brazil nut, maple butter, dried fruit, hints of vanilla, a little ashy, slightly baggy with wet straw notes)

Blue Bottle Papua New Guinea (earth, mushroom, dried fruit, semi-sweet chocolate, smoke, mold, ash)

Finally, there was one coffee that was simply not acceptable. It was hard to know if this coffee (in green form) was of speciality coffee grade, but our guess is that it was not. In addition, it was catastrophically misroasted.

Unknown Roaster Peru Organic (trash fire, diapers, moldy charcoal briquettes)

Unlike in Round One, we did not have any "controversial" coffees this time. While there were slight differences of opinion on rankings of some coffees there were mostly differences of one place in the ranking ("I have numbers 4 and 5 swapped from where you have them") or differences of less than 1 point in scoring.

We are starting to see some segmentation among the roasters as well. As of right now, we seem to have a group of 3 roasters who are producing consistently excellent coffee, and 2 roasters who are not.

While Blue Bottle's coffees showed far better in this cupping than they did in Round One, they are clearly still underperforming. I'm hoping that they can up their results in the third part of this evaluation. Given that they are considered by many foodies in SF (and outside of SF) to be the "top" coffee company in the Bay Area - their poor performance to date (1 marginal coffee, 1 poor coffee, 2 unacceptable coffees) is both shocking and simply not okay.

I'm a bit disappointed with Equator's coffees as well at this point. I'd like to see them move up into contention with the top three in the final round. They are the reigning "Roaster of the Year" from Roast Magazine -- and as a result a lot more is expected of them from what we've seen so far (1 decent coffee and 2 marginal coffees).

While Ecco has had the top coffee both weeks, over-all they are effectively in a dead heat with Four Barrel and Ritual. Four Barrel's coffees have been as consistent as Ecco's, while Ritual has been hurt first by the "controversial" Honduras La Pinona and this week by the underperformance of their COE Honduras Finca Fernandez (expected by many of us to at least challenge the Ecco Yirgacheffe for top spot).

As an interesting aside - the shock inclusion of this "mystery" unknown roaster coffee has enabled us to compare these "top" roasters against what we could describe as a "generic" roaster. In this comparison - any and all of these roasters come out clearly on top. At the same time, the idea that ANY coffee bars are serving coffee of the quality of that Peru is simply shocking.

In our next (and final) round of cupping we will be soliciting 2 coffees from each of these 5 roaster directly -- allowing them to choose the coffees they would expect to do best under these circumstances. I'm expecting that this will be the strongest showing of all three rounds.

And, again... my thanks to the cuppers working on this. You all rock.

Important Update: In talking with the folks from Equator, it seems HIGHLY likely the Peru that was provided to us was in fact not from Equator. While I'd love to blame the coffee company that sold us this coffee - I have to take at least part of the responsibility myself. I absolutely should have double checked to make sure that this was a coffee on Equator's current roster and accept the blame for not doing so. My apologies to Equator - and to the poor cuppers who had to taste that coffee.

State of SF Coffee

Well.... step one is now complete. The first of three such cuppings has concluded and results have been tallied. There were some surprises, and some lessons learned.

First... a little set up.

Goal - evaluate the state of high end quality coffee in San Francisco.
Process - three different cupping sessions each with a different selection approach (today was the first of the three).
Protocol - blind cupping with cuppers selected who are independent of any of the roasters and who each represent a different perspective, background and palate.

This first of the three cuppings was of coffees selected as follows:
 - an employee of the vendor was asked for recommendations for two coffees to buy. The only constraint was that no blends would be selected and that this was not for espresso. They were not told this would be for cupping or for analysis of any sort. Coffees were paid for and there was no reveal of my role in any of this.

The cuppers were selected to be representative of:
 1 - professional coffee cuppers / roasters
 2 - serious home (semi-pro) coffee roasters
 3 - serious food and wine professional (passionate about coffee)

I cupped as well (mostly for the fun of it).

The hardest part of the process was selecting which roasters to buy from. In the end I made an executive decision and chose what I thought were likely to be the top five roasters in the area (as calculated by average opinions of passionate coffee buyers and professionals). As a result, I left out two roasters who probably deserved to be on the list - which I feel bad about. But I think this is a good representative sampling none the less, and I do feel it's a good "average opinion" list.

The roasters were:

Four Barrel Coffee - San Francisco based roaster and coffee bar. The "newest" of the roasters on this list, Four Barrel has a lot of buzz amongst coffee professionals.

Ritual Coffee Roasters - San Francisco based roaster with three coffee bars. Ritual has a strong presence in San Francisco and has expanded into the Napa region as well.

Ecco Caffe - Santa Rosa based roaster, wholesale only. The smallest of the roasters on this list, Ecco is known for its espresso and its organic coffees.

Equator Estate Coffees - San Rafael based roaster, wholesale only. A well-known coffee brand, Equator won Roast Magazine's 'Roaster of the Year' award for 2010 and is served at The French Laundry.

Blue Bottle Coffee Company - Oakland based roaster with four cafes. One of the hottest coffee brands in the US right now, Blue Bottle is loved by SF foodies and is expanding nationally.


The coffees sourced were as follows:

Four Barrel:
 - Costa Rica Cafetin 1900
 - El Salvador Kilimanjaro

(It was no shock to me that the coffees selected were both from central america given Four Barrel's focus and their style of roasting.)

Ritual:
 - Guatemala Xeucalvitz
 - Honduras La Pinona

(Again, these selections were not a shock given the style of coffee that Ritual focuses on.)

Ecco:
 - Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Dama Co-op
 - Kenya Gichathaini

(While Ecco is well-known for their espresso, I'd ruled espresso out. And the new crop Brazils have not arrived for US roasters yet, so this selection made sense to me.)

Equator:
 - Nicaragua Aldea Global
 - Costa Rica Montes de Oro

(I was a little surprised that both coffees were from central america given Equator's offering list, but both coffees seemed well chosen none the less.)

Blue Bottle:
 - Mexico Chiapas
 - Mexico Nayarita

(I was quite surprised by this selection. Suggesting two coffees from Mexico seems a little odd to me. The Nayarita was quite enthusiastically praised and the Chiapas was suggested as a way to compare the Nayarita to a more traditional coffee from Mexico.)



The cupping went very well.
It was informative and fun.
The mix of backgrounds and perspectives created a really interesting dialogue - and in the end there were only 2 coffees that provoked any dispute. And in some ways this dispute was the single most valuable take away from the day.

What we learned can be summed up by three statements.

The very best coffees from San Francisco are very good indeed.

The top four coffees were nearly unanimous, and when scores were averaged the gap between these four and the remaining coffees was quite large. In addition, there was almost no gap between the 2nd, 3rd and 4th coffees (they were effectively a three way tie).

Beyond this, however, these top four coffees were all of exceptional quality. We felt these four coffees could hold their own on nearly any cupping table in the US.

Coffee people like sour coffees - consumers with educated palates do not.

The most controversial coffee was one which was alternately described as "sparkly, tart, with lovely bright acidity" and "sour, painful, harsh and thin."

Our wine and food professional commented of this coffee, "this is the kind of coffee that you coffee people love - but the rest of us hate."

I think this is something that coffee professionals need to be concerned about. I've heard this sort of critique before and it's usually written off as coming from an uneducated consumer palate. In this case, the consumer in question had a palate FAR more educated than any of the coffee palates - so I think we have to pay attention.

The top Bay Area roasters still produce some bad coffee.

While the top coffees would stand on their own on any cupping table, the bottom coffees in our opinion were not of speciality coffee grade.

This is where SF coffee needs to improve the most. As compared to coffee in, for example, Portland - our good is good, but our bad is unacceptable. We need to raise the bar for what minimum quality is - and not sell or serve coffee that doesn't meet this minimal grade. Obviously, if the coffee is not of speciality coffee grade then it should not be used.


From this first cupping... the results were as follows.

The top rated coffee was the Ecco Caffe Yirgacheffe Dama Co-op. This was an absolutely lovely coffee with gorgeous grapefruit zest and a lovely hoppy flavour that reminded us of a pine-less Russian River Pliny the Elder. Wonderfully elegant and sophisticated, we all felt that this coffee was a true stand-out.

Following this were three coffees in a virtual dead heat. These were:
 - Four Barrel Costa Rica Cafetin 1900 (wonderful sweet acidity, pluot and cherry notes)
 - Ecco Caffe Kenya Gichathaini (juicy jolly rancher sweet fruit leading to robust, savory and fleshy barnyard and broth)
 - Ritual Guatemala Xeucelvitz (super crisp lime acidity, mellowing over time to a rounded and full sweet blackberry)

These top four coffees were all considered to be exceptional.

After the top four, there came the controversial, "sour" coffee. This coffee was rated quite highly by two cuppers and very poorly by a third. In this case, we can conclude that the results have more to do with the style of coffee than the coffee itself.
 - Ritual Honduras La Pinona (super bright with apricot and green apple and white grape skin in some ways hiding a bottom of cane syrup)

Below this coffee there was a reasonable gap before another group of three coffees. These three were less closely clustered than the top four and ranged in our opinion from good to servicable to acceptable in quality. They were:
 - Four Barrel El Salvador Kilimanjaro (tons of midrange with dried fruit, spice and stonefruit and lovely aromatics but diminished acidity)
 - Equator Nicaragua Aldea Global (some nice crisp tangerine acidity and hints of milk chocolate and spice but a little flat and slightly toasty tasting)
 - Equator Costa Rica Montes de Oro micro-lot (smoky and flat with some decent sweet caramel but also noticeable ash and little to no acidity)

At the very bottom were the two coffees that in our opinion failed to make the speciality coffee grade. We were unanimous with our opinion on these. They were:
 - Blue Bottle Chiapas (dirty with strong cardboard and mushroom notes; noticeable ash and hints of fish)
 - Blue Bottle Nayarita (severe defect. heavy ferment. very dirty. rotting berries and diapers)


In looking at these coffees, I think that one thing we learned is that a significant part of the results have to do with the selection. I was a bit surprised by the selection from Blue Bottle - especially as there was a Yirgacheffe on the list. And the surprising selection obviously hurt them. I'm looking forward to the next two cupping sessions (where selection will be handled differently) as I'm expecting that Blue Bottle's coffees perform far better than this.

I was also shocked by the Equator Costa Rica. This is a micro-lot coffee that I would have expected to have had far more character and to be honest would have thought would finish ahead of the other Equator coffee. I think this shows just how much variance there is in coffee, and how much of your experience is going to be luck (was the roaster "in the groove" that day, are the beans at or near the end of their lifetime, etc).

But overall - I'm quite proud of these coffees and I think San Francisco has a lot to be proud of.




Thanks to my guest cuppers - you all are the best.

the state of SF coffee

I'm very excited that this is going to happen!

I think SF is finally to the point where we can really evaluate the state of our coffee.
So... tomorrow I'm going to be facilitating a little cupping experience.

I've recruited some fantastic representative tasters, and have sourced what I hope is a representative sampling of the best coffees being produced from the Bay Area.

Tomorrow - we are going to find out just where Bay Area coffee is at -- and along the way we're going to find out how these coffees (and roasters) stack up against each other.

So... what happens when one (independent) professional coffee roaster, one michelin starred chef, one ex professional barista and one passionate home roaster and barista get their hands on 10 of the "top" coffees in the San Francisco area?

Whose coffee reigns supreme?!?!?!

Learning from Restaurants (and a pet peeve)

Anyone who has worked with or for me has heard me rant about how they need to learn from the way professional kitchens work.

The efficiency - the focus - the attention to detail - the professionalism....

Perhaps most of all, we need to learn from the intolerance of incompetence. When working the line in a restaurant, you have to know you don't even need to think about (much less worry about) them doing their job well. Everyone on the line has to do their job well - and you have to know that everyone is doing their job well. You have to be able to rely upon all of them - 'cause if even one of them is falling down on the job, you're all in the weeds. Realistically, if you're even wondering about them doing their job well, you're probably about to be screwed.

On a functional line, you're a team. Everyone has each other's backs - all the time. Yeah, people fuck up and you cover for them or bail them out. That's different from simply not being able to do the job (or just failing to do the job well).

Everyone knows this.

So when someone isn't cutting it - they're fired. There is no, "let's try and make it work." It's just business. It's not personal.

And everyone knows that.

So everyone works to have each other's backs - and everyone works hard to do their job as well as they possibly can every single shift. Because the rest of the team is relying upon them.

In coffee we don't have that.

We don't have each other's backs.

And we tolerate incompetence.

We're selfish.

And it's hurting the experience customers have. It's hurting our businesses.

It's hurting coffee.

It's gotta stop.

And an (unrelated) pet peeve...

I live in San Francisco. It's a great food city - and it's becoming a very good coffee city.

But visitors to San Francisco often end up being steered to mediocre (over-rated) restaurants. We all know Zuni is coasting - but tourists are always sent there. The tragedy is that they have limited meals, and instead of going somewhere great - they're going somewhere mediocre.

This has always bothered me.

And now it's repeating itself in coffee. These days I constantly read about coffee enthusiasts who visit San Francisco, go to Blue Bottle and return home saying "San Francisco coffee ain't all that."

Wrong.

Blue Bottle ain't all that.

But it's your fault that you only visited the 5th best coffee place in SF.

San Francisco coffee really is all that. Yeah... it's no Portland. But it's getting better every day.

beating up on Coffee Review

So... yeah... it's good that you (finally) provided transparency on preparation of espresso.
And it's good you used a professional barista to pull shots.

But...

Nuova Simonelli barista competition brew baskets, 18-gram dose, 28-second extraction, 2-ounce double split into two 1-ounce singles; water temperature 200F.

See here is the thing....
I can name TONS of truly great espresso that is going to taste like ASS when extracted as described above.
Does that mean it's bad espresso?
No. It means you don't understand espresso.

You need to learn to prepare espresso in an appropriate manner for each coffee - it's a matter of respect (pure and simple).

And the results are freakin' predictable.

Paradise Espresso Classico has a "thin body"? Yeah... that coffee prep (per the roaster) is FAR from what you're using.
Kaldi Competition scores really high? No shock given that your machine set up is WBC spec and the blend was created for USBC competition.
Olympia Big Truck is "astringent"? Uhhh... try the shot as ristretto (1.75oz not 2oz).

Out of curiosity... what about the other 25+ coffees you tasted?
I'd LOVE to see those reviews.
I'm guessing there are a number of famous coffees that are "sour" (brew temp too low) and some that are "thin and bitter" (brew temp to high) and some that are "muddy" (dose too high) and some that are "unbalanced and not sweet" (dose too low) etc etc.

And, beyond that, the fact that Ken uses the descriptor "musty" in several of his high rated coffees disturbs me - especially as I would agree in the cases where I've tasted these coffees, and it's why I think the espresso is bad. It's hard to imagine scoring a "musty" coffee in the 90s.

Finally... Ken... if you want to make this more relevant you need to not do an aggregate score. Taking the score for a straight shot and averaging it with the score for a latte makes no sense.

Given all the above... is it shocking to ANYONE that Intelli, Stumptown and Terroir ALL opted out of this review? And honestly... how relevant is a review of "boutique" American Espresso that leaves out all three of these roasters?

Sorry... epic fail.

Monster Mia (update)

As was pointed out to me... I failed to put a price or a way to contact me on my "Monster Mia for sale" post.

yeah... pretty stupid!!!

After checking around, it looks like it would run you at least $2500 to rebuild the Monster Mia (without the additional little bits of equipment etc).

So I'm going to ask $2k for it. And rather than going "highest bid" I'm simply going to sell it to the first person who comes to me with the money.

Pics here.

Reach me at malachi AT gmail DOT com

Monster Mia is for Sale

Yes... it's true.
I'm selling the infamous "Monster Mia".
It's not an easy decision - but I have the chance to purchase an incredible (dream) machine and I need capital to make it happen.

The Monster Mia has been a great experience for me - and along with the GS3 has convinced me that home espresso doesn't have to be a frustrating battle against arbitrary constraints (or require sacrificing white chickens).

For those of you who don't know the story behind this machine and haven't had the chance to either play with it or taste shots from it....

This machine started off its life as a stock Grimac Mia. It was, in fact, the machine I tested for the Home-Barista.com review. After testing was complete, it went back to Espresso Parts NW and I moved on. The Briccoletta followed it, and then the GS3. After the GS3, Terry Z suggested we take the Bricc and "mod" it into the "Monster Bricc". As those of you who read this blog know - this took a long time and resulted in an explosion in my place in Portland. In the end it was decided that the Bricc was a poor choice for the sort of aggressive modifications we were looking to do. The Espresso Parts NW boyz had already done a bunch of mods to the Mia by this time and were using it as their office machine. Terry suggested that this could become the "Monster" project base - and eventually it came to me.

When I first started using it I referred to it as a "poor man's GS3" for its combination of ease of use and suitability for espresso experimentation. Since then I've both discovered more great things about it as well as discovered some of the things that are not so great (as compared to the GS3 for example). It's a wonderful machine - and under normal circumstanced I'd never be letting it go.

Some details on the machine.
- Grimac Mia case/body
- Reservoir and vibe pump removed (replaced with a nice Procon rotary pump and plumbed in)
- Modified to take a long thermoprobe into the boiler (and the requisite electronics including front mounted PID controller)
- Some tweaks and tricks to the internal plumbing to enable better stability
- All crazy work performed by the guys at Espresso Parts NW under the guidance of madman Terry Z.

The machine is incredibly easy to use.
You basically set the brew temp (calculating temp offset from boiler to group), let it stabilize and then go.
To pull a shot, you don't have to go through any crazy flushing routines. I literally just do a quick "rinsing" flush (like I would on a commercial La Marzocco) to get any grounds off the screen and pull the shot.
Changing temp consists of pushing the button on the PID controller until you get the desired temp.
Inter-shot stability is very high.
Intra-shot profile shows a hybrid map (like a flattened version of the HX hump - with less hump and a similar ramp down).

The machine runs at a lower boiler pressure than normal (of course - and dependent upon brew temp). At brew temps above 200f it's fine to steam even for 12oz lattes. It's fine for capps down to around 198f. Below that it takes some nursing.
It's probably not the machine for someone who wants to make a lot of big milk drinks.
On the other hand - if you want to explore espresso and easily make straight shots and short milk drinks (no muss no fuss) it's a dream.
It really is an easy machine to work with. VERY easy.

I find that the espresso consistently has excellent mouthfeel and great clarity and reproduction of flavours. It holds its own against commercial machines in this area.

The machine will include a whole bunch of portafilters (old style rubber handled LM spouted, new style plastic handled LM bottomless, VBM for backflushing) and a whole bunch of baskets (LM OEM doubles, LM triple, Synesso triple, Faema double, Faema single, LM single, blanks).

If you're in the Bay Area... I'll throw in help with the set up and some training on using it.


You want a famous, easy to use and truly unique espresso machine?