What the heck’s Information Architecture?

My Graduate Student girlfriend is always registering us for events (she’s a data viz junkie). Last time it was TEDx Rainier and now it’s World IA Day Seattle. IA stands for Information Architecture. It was my first time hearing the term too. Wiki provides five definitions for IA, my favorite is #3; “An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape”. I’m a year into my role as Social Media & Community Coordinator  at Espresso Parts and if there is one thing I have learned it’s that there are always things to learn! So what I have no idea what IA is! I’m super stoked to learn about it! I’m also super stoked to meet new people and share knowledge. If you’re attending World IA Day in Seattle hit me up with your Twitter handle in the comments field! #WIADsea15

 

Sunday Lab Session

This Sunday I will be hosting an open lab at Espresso Parts from 10-3.  The lab will be strictly slow brew, no espresso.  In the near future I will hold an espresso lab session but for now we will focus on manual brewing.  Batdorf & Bronson has donated three pounds of Guatemala Antigua for us to play with.  Huge thanks to them for helping out and being an active member of the coffee community!  Feel free to bring any coffee you have that you might want me to help you brew better.  I look forward to seeing you there!

_Panda

Level one BGA certification

This post is for any PNW Baristas that would like to continue their coffee education.  I am planning to hold certifications here in Olympia before Camp Pull-A-Shot.  If you are interested please contact me at panda@espressoparts.com.  Let’s get together and learn!

http://www.baristaguildofamerica.net/CERTIFICATION%20PROGRAM/BGA%20Level%201%20Cert.pdf

_Panda

Seattle cafe crawl

Last Saturday I spent the day in Seattle visiting a few cafes with friends.  We met up at Arabica Lounge on Capitol Hill.  This was my first visit and it kind of blew me out of the water.  I arrived first so I had time to scope out the space and I liked what I saw.  None of the furniture matches the hardwood floor looks had and the walls could use paint but all of this adds up to why I love this place.  My Macchiato was everything one should be, sweet and balanced.  I had a little much to drink the night before so I had the hangover omelette.  To be honest I wasn’t really thinking the food would be that great luckily for me  I was wrong, it was perfectly cooked and seasoned

When my friends showed up we talked a little about educating coffee consumers, I feel the more we educate the customers as to what good coffee is the more accountable we are to make it for them.  Dooley introduced me to Brian who is organizing  a really rad coffee event.  The gist of it is to bring the Barista closer to the customer in a role of education and not just service.  Brian and I have similar viewpoints on coffee/brewing, especially making it more accessible. We (specialty coffee)  are very serious about training staff why not train customers the same way?

Our next stop was the SBUX on Olive Way.  I was very surprised by what I found inside, there was a double fire-place, semi-private indoor seating as well as open seating areas.  It was interesting to see the square brewing station like the one at InlelliVenice reinterpreted in this space.  This cafe is very warm and inviting, I could definitely spend an afternoon there.

We hit up the Vivace sidewalk cafe and had drinks at the Brix cafe.  The cafe is very open with lots of seating as well as a “study” section separated from general seating by a glass door. Since this was my first time I ordered a macchiato and straight shot of espresso.  The macchiato super sweet and full of caramel was made with Vita and the espresso was balanced and chocolaty.  One of my favorite things when visiting new cafe is interacting with Baristas.  Brian our barista has been with Vivace since 1995 and is currently the head trainer, we talked a lot about espresso, the foam knife and misc cafe stuff.  The coffee coupled with a fantastic Barista made this an experience that will keep me coming back to Vivace.

Fully caffeinated and ready for more we headed to Stumptown on 12th.  This is also the location of their Seattle roasting facility.  We all ordered espresso, mine was sugar sweet had a slight floral quality and made my mouth happy.  Luckily we happened to stop by while the 3 o’clock cupping was going on.  The cuppings are held downstairs in the roastery/production area.  There is a cupping table with a window running along it that lets you see into the training lab.  The Costa Rica Helsar Reserva was amazing, it had nice raspberry and floral qualities, the body was syrupy and the finish sweet and clean.  When you walk through this roastery you can really tell they know what’s up, the facility was clean the lab tidy and production area well organised.

Our Seattle coffee crawl was a success!  We got together spoke of world domination and drank some really great coffee.  I thoroughly enjoyed every stop on our list and can’t wait till the next crawl.  Thank you Seattle!

If you cant read just look at the pictures.

Sunday lab 4/3/11

I have been going to the lab on Sunday’s to keep sharp, especially now that I don’t work in a cafe.  After the first few times I decided I needed to have at least one other person to try the coffee I was making, before my next lab session I tweeted an open invitation to whoever was in the area.  My really good friend Larissa who roasts for Seattle Coffee Works was my first visitor for my Trifecta blog.  We had a lot of fun and the extra company was nice to have.  Last week I had three people visit but I really want to talk about this weekend.

My Sunday started normally I had some breakfast and got my things together for the lab.  I jumped on my bike and headed to EP with nothing in particular to work on this week.  First I made a Clever of the Guatemala Finca Santa Isabel and headed over to Oly coffee to chat with the staff (we share the same building as Olympia Coffee Roasting Co. and I used to work there).  Jared and Carson were working and I invited them over if they had extra time to play.  Mr.Elvin was in the cafe so he and I chatted it up for a minute and as I was leaving I noticed my friend Rebeka was there so I invited her over too.  After a while I headed back to the lab to start lab time.

As I was getting everything together Mike from shipping showed up.  Mike just moved here from Mass. and is looking forward to learning more about coffee.  We chose to brew with the clever, which has become my favorite brewing method as of late.  Mike really liked how easy it was to use and was impressed with the quality of the coffee.  Shortly after that Rebeka and her friend Sara showed to make some coffee.  Next up we brewed a syphon using an infrared beam heater and F.S.I from Oly coffee.  Everyone loves the show you get when using the syphon and the IR beam heater really adds to that.  I normally don’t brew with the syphon because it’s not the easiest thing to use and I really don’t like the cloth taste.  A few more people trickled in and before I knew it there were ten people in the lab!  We have a new guy from Oakland, his name is Jeff and he’s pretty cool.  Jeff dialed in the Big Truck blend from Oly coffee, it ended up tasting sweet with some hints of lemon and had a very syrupy body.

It was so much fun sharing great coffee with people who want to learn more about our industry.  This was definitely one of my favorite coffee days I’ve had in a while.  The whole room was filled with people eager to learn share techniques and make coffee better.  It makes me feel great that even in this small town there are people who do care about the craft and embrace specialty coffee.  I want to make it easier for coffee consumers that maybe haven’t worked in a cafe before and lack some basic knowledge that we think of as common sense to join us in celebrating coffee.  Educating our customers is one of the most important things we can do.  The more we educate our customers the more they can enjoy and appreciate the experience we provide with this amazing beverage.  KEEP EDUCATING AND APPRECIATING YOUR CUSTOMERS, without them we wouldn’t have anything to do.

_Panda

1,001 hits!

Whoa I really can’t believe there are so many readers! Thanks to everyone who reads the blog you give me a good push to keep current things up here.

_Panda

Bunn visits EP, magic.

Thursday Rusty from Bunn visited the Espresso Parts lab to demo the Trifecta.  We had coffee from Dillanos as well as Batdorf & Bronson to play with.  To show us the inner workings Rusty removed the cover and back splash panel which was very easy to do.  There is a 20 oz boiler on the bottom right side of the machine as well as pumps for the turbulence/press out air.  The drain is in the cup support, you must make sure to keep the drain tube clear of grounds.  We had a bit of a build-up and had to hit it with some Puro Caff to clear the line.

We adressed my issue about the screen not coming out, the trick is to push a lot harder than you think you should.  Unfortunately the Trifecta does not have the ability to have a hot water rinse, there are ways around this.  What you can do to get a hot rinse is to set your brewing parameters to just fill and press out.  We learned Pre-wet is cold water although the manual says to use it for coffee, it is only for tea preparation. I was really happy with the turnout and I feel like Rusty did a great job showing us the ins and outs of the Trifecta.  After all the technical stuff we started to brew.  I’ve attatched our initial notes from dialing in the Nicaragua Finca Los Milagros.  We brewed around three pounds total, cleaning the machine was a breeze and we were able to brew a lot very fast.  FYI a Coava Disk fits in the Trifecta handle…just sayin’.  The EP lab was full, the coffee was tasty and fun was had.

NWRBC score sheets!

Here are my score sheets from my recent endeavor in the Barista competition world.

Seattle Coffee Society/Cafe Crawl

I heard about The Seattle Coffee Society meeting from Sara Dooley about a week before it happened and decided I would attend.  I got the day off so i could go up to Seattle and do some coffee stuff before the meeting what follows is a summary of where I went and what I had.

First stop Neptune Coffee located in the greenwood neighborhood.  Dan has been coming into our shop(OlympiaCoffeeRoastingCo.) a lot lately so I thought I would show some love and stop by.  As you walk through the door you notice to the right there is a long bench with tables along it and chairs across from it.  In the rear is a ping-pong table that was being used and I liked to hear that in the background.  To the left of the entrance is an over-sized table covered in laptops being analog I opted for the bench.  I ordered a shot of their SOE Panama Boquete Volcancito, Lauren pulled a most excellent shot, it was about one and a half ounces had great flecking and a nice caramel aroma.  I was punched in the mouth with toffee a great chocolate body and caramel finish that left me with a smile on my face.  I picked up some semi washed Sumatra Lintong which turned out to be the most amazing Sumatran coffee I have ever had.  When I got back to my shop on Friday I ran it through the Clover 35g/12oz/40sec, SUPER clean, nice cedar and tobacco undertones and as it cools it gets a really nice berry quality.  I also picked up some El Salvador La Fany that I have yet to try.

Ten blocks south of Neptune is Herkimer Coffee.  Heads up: cash only.  I had a double of the espresso blend the barista wasn’t quite sure what it was made up of.  The shot was a little over one ounce very bright and had a sharp finish.  The inside of the cafe was low lit but had a lot of windows for natural light to come through.  Very nice location.

I hit the road to downtown Seattle for Seattle Coffee Works(SCW) and Trabant.  After realising I parked in the most expensive parking garage I possibly could I headed to SCW.  SCW has a great location, it sits where the old johnny rockets was across from Pike Place Market.  When you walk in you instantly feel welcome.  Because they have a lot more space you get more choices for seating, there are benches, chairs and table, couches and a nice area where the slow bar is.  The choices don’t end with seating, you can get a pour over, siphon pot, espresso, or french press.  I opted for a  shot of El Salvador Villa España.  It was around two ounces, milk chocolatey with a wine like body and a great roasted hazelnut finish.  This was one of my favorite stops this trip.

Last but certainly not least Trabant Coffee & Chai.  I have recently fallen in love with this space.  During coffee fest I attended the train wreck party and had a great time.  The shot of 49th Parallel’s Epic espresso was very nice.  Matthew the Barista explained to me that he has been tooling around with long shots all the way up to three ounces.  The shot I had was a little over two ounces, there was a pleasing acidity to it very light body and a burnt sugar finish.  The Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Koke really came out as the espresso cooled and the Honduras added a nice milk chocolate finish.  Like Neptune they have a large bench with tables and chairs along the left side of the cafe with a small area at the entrance that has tables and chairs.  There are really great quilts on the walls which I believe are from the next door gallery…..if I’m wrong please correct me, my favorite of which was a depiction of an ice cream cone with the words “yum factor 10” sewn on.  I picked up some of 49th Parallel’s Costa Rica Helsar micro lot and have yet to brew it at home.  I highly recommend this spot for great conversation with Baristas that like to geek out more than what I have experienced in other shops.

Now that I am fully caffeinated I head back to SCW for the inaugural meeting of the Seattle Coffee Society.  Daniel Humphries put this together to get more open discussion within the Seattle coffee scene.  Daniel had just come back from Puerto Rico doing some research on the soil there.  Being from Puerto Rican descent I found this very interesting.  The main gist is that P.R. has a high market price for their coffee…somewhere around $3.oo so form the producers P.O.V. there is no reason to change practices.  When he asked them to pick ripe cherries for testing he got back a bag of very green and bright red cherries.

What I got from this subject was with enough education and investment into the P.R. coffee industry we can see some really nice high quality coffee coming from here within the next 10 years.  Another thing that interested me was the practice of par roasting coffee to be sent to P.R. due to the fact that the importation of green coffee is forbidden.  So the coffee is roasted for about five minutes and sent to P.R. where they add green beans along with the par roasted beans to their roasters and the product is often inconsistent.  There is most likely going to be another meeting at the end of January if you have any suggestions hit up Dan.

This was one of the most fun and educational coffee days I have had in a long time.  I thank Daniel for putting together the meeting and SCW for hosting.  I also want to thank all the Baristas I interacted with Y’all made my day even better!

Life is good.

I am thoroughly enjoying my coffee life.  I started working in the coffee business only 5 years ago and have come a long way.  I started at Starbucks and learned a lot about coffee and customer service.  I never go there anymore but I can’t deny that without Starbucks I may have never entered this industry.

After two and a half years of  the same shit different day it became evident change was required.  My wife (fiancé at the time) suggested I apply at a local Olympia roaster Batdorf & Bronson, so I did.  My interview went very well, I consider myself a good interviewee and a few days later I got the job.  Thus started my two year relationship with B&B.

Working at B&B was refreshing.  Becoming the best Barista I could became my focus.  While there I learned to pull great shots of espresso, pour rad latte art, and delved deeper into the coffee world.  After almost two and a hlaf years I decided to try something new.  I became a dispatcher for 911, I quickly learned this was not the job for me.  I also learned that coffee has become the thing I am best at.

After resigning from my dispatcher job I applied at Olympia Coffee Roasting Company and a couple of weeks later started working there.  My coffee life has never been better.  I have learned sooooo much from working here in such a short time.  We have such great mentors here: Michael Elvin, Robbie Britt and of course Mrs.Sarah Dooley.  I have also learned a lot about roasting and production work, things I would have never learned at my former jobs.

Basically I LOVE LIFE, I LOVE COFFEE and I LOVE O.C.R.