Matt’s Wood Roasted Organic Coffee

We’ll be roasting some special coffees this coming week, and have a sample pack listed on the website. A half pound each of four different coffees from farms that have placed in the top ten numerous times in El Salvador’s Cup of Excellence competition. One farm–Ilusion–provided the coffee for the 2011 Word Barista champion. We have extremely limited quantities of a couple of these coffees, so order your sampler today. They are a bit pricey, and they are not organic–a change for us–but the coffees are very good, and the farmers take very good care of their land. Check it out.

. . . of Bird Dog.

I’ve had quite a few folks thank me for the relatively detailed tasting notes I provide on the website for the coffees I purchase and roast. It’s always nice to get such feedback. But the bottom line is that I don’t know what most of you think about the notes themselves. One worry is that people buy a coffee based on the notes, and then are bummed (or annoyed) when the coffee doesn’t actually taste like the description, and so don’t come back. I wonder how many customers I’ve lost out of such disappointment.

I think this is particularly tricky because the main flavor of coffee is . . . well, coffee. The flavors and aromas that I note are a means to sort and make sense of what are often relatively nuanced characteristics. Sometimes certain qualities jump out of the cup—the ferment or berry in a big, fresh Ethiopian natural—but others are harder to find, or identify. And to a certain degree, their identification is the product of expertise, or interest. As with most things, the more experience you have with or in something, the better you become in figuring out what it is you are tasting, or hearing, or watching. For instance: if you’re a baseball fan, like me, you know that Manny Ramirez’s swing is (or was) perfect. But if you don’t know (or care) all that much about baseball, his swing might as well be that of Dustin Pedroia. Or consider Mixed Martial Arts. Where you see a person’s mastery of a Jiu Jitsu “Kimura lock from the guard position”–I just Googled that–I see two guys rolliing on the ground, humping and bear hugging.

There are tools that coffee cuppers use to develop their own palates in order to make better sense of what they taste and smell. Here’s one of them: the coffee cupper’s flavor wheel.

coffee tasting flavor wheel

It acts as a guide for categorizing what it is we encounter when we sip and sniff. It might seem kind of over-the-top and geeky (I mean, garden pea and cucumber? seriously?), but if you were getting your checkbook out and deciding whether to spend five or ten grand on Coffee Lot X, you’d get geeky in a hurry.

And take note: even though it’s a “flavor” wheel, it’s smell that’s where the action really is. Why? Because our nose and throat, smell and taste, are physiologically connected, and because coffee is extremely complex on an aromatic level. Aside from breaking your caffeine fast, one of the reasons that first sip of coffee in the morning is the best (assuming it’s not too hot) is that 1. your palate is probably relatively clean (yah, morning mouth—I know. Still . . .) and 2. your mug is full, so when you take that first sip, you are aerating the coffee over the lip of the mug, and so getting those aromatics to open up. You’re smelling it and tasting it, and at the same time.

I also have something called “Le Nez du Café.” It’s thirty six bottled scents that correspond in some way to the flavor wheel. Everything from lemon to cooked beef. The point is to create a kind of aroma memory bank in your brain, so that when you smell or taste something in a coffee, you can classify and identify it. Get a bag of Skittles or Jelly Bellies the next time you’re at the store, and conduct a blind taste test with a buddy. See how many flavors (or colors: “that was red!”) you can identify by taste/smell alone. It’s the same concept.)

A different potential issue with my notes is that they might actually work too well on occasion. That is, I tell you what you are going to smell and taste, and that’s what you smell and taste. This may not sound like a problem at all, but in such cases the notes become prescriptive, and eclipse surprise or discovery. It’s like reading the Cliffs notes for a Hemingway novel, and then finding yourself unable to notice anything except that clipped, sparse sentence structure.

The truth is that there is no one description for a coffee that is correct, and different people have different palates and olfactory systems that allow them to pick up all sorts of stuff. Consider the following descriptions, from some high-powered coffee cuppers, buyers and roasters for a particular coffee in the Best of Panama 2010 auction:

89.00  Some floral.

Blackberry, cherry, floral, wine . . . no description is exactly alike, and the range of scores themselves show that there was not consensus on the overall quality of the coffee itself. Eighty nine is a really good score, but seventy nine would only put it on the threshold of what’s acceptable for specialty coffee. (I’d never purchase a coffee that I scored a 79 myself.)

On the other hand, if you compile all of the descriptions you can get a pretty good sense of the flavor profile, and there is some commonality there. It doesn’t seem to be particularly acidic or bright, and has flavors and aromatics that tend toward the “sugar browning” portion of the coffee flavor wheel: chocolate, nut, brown sugar. (Hey—this coffee sounds sort of like our Bolivia ASOCAFE.) And you can also see how different cuppers value different characteristics: one person’s pleasant “brothy tannins” are another’s “dry toast.”

So: I know that it’s helpful to have some kind of info on a purchase before you make it, especially when it’s expensive. I probably wouldn’t buy an album if the cover just said “Colombian music.” I’d want a little more info before I plunked down thirteen bucks. Why should it be any different for coffee.

But don’t let my descriptions boss you around.

Went to New York earlier in the month for an overnight to the Northeast Regional Barista Competition. It had been a long, long time–I’m not much of a city guy. Still, it was kind of cool to stay in a room thirty seven stories above the ground. (It was not cool to pay for it. Priceline helps, but still . . . .)

This was the competition itself. Baristas make twelve drinks (espresso, cappuccino, and a signature drink) in fifteen minutes. This was Mike Jones, who I met in Somerville last year. I was rooting for him, and he came in second. Really stellar job, and his first year competing, to boot.

There were other things happening at the event, like a dessert and coffee pairing put together by Dallis Brothers coffee (the event’s sponsor) and the chef of a local Argentinian restaurant. Above: poached pear with creme fresh and a vinegar/espresso reduction, if I remember correctly. The coffee was a nice Colombian. My favorite dessert was an espresso panna cotta. Not quite as good as Chef Kern’s panna cotta at Bresca in Portland, but tasty nonetheless.

On Saturday night there was a loft party with a latte art competition. A jumbo NCAA-like  bracket was set up, and the competition was head to head. The bracket and the table on which the lattes were judged were projected onto the wall for all to see. There were three fancy-pants judges (a couple were TV folks–had some connection to Top Chef? I don’t know–I don’t have cable television) who would point to the winning pour in each pairing, with the winner advancing to the next round. The prize? A trip to Brazil. Pretty cool. I didn’t make it that far, though. Way past my bedtime. And honestly, I didn’t get the whole “loft party” thing. I was told that the concept itself was very cool. If so, then I live a pretty cool life, because I roast coffee in what is essentially a loft, i.e. old warehouse space. In fact, I’m having a loft party this coming Wednesday. The hours will be a little different, though. Probably 7:30 AM until 8 PM or so. And instead of techno, the soundtrack will feature a combination of NPR,  the Dan Patrick Show and Willie’s Place.

Sunday morning, before the final round of the competition started, I made a quick trip to a few cafes in town.

Had a tasty shot of Intelligentsia’s Black Cat at Third Rail in Greenwich Village. Tiny shop. 

Also went to RBC in Tribeca to check our their Slayer machine. They weren’t open for the day yet, but being a roaster has its perks. I had a shot of 49th Parallel’s Epic. It was good. A little brighter than Bird Dog, but similar foundation, I think.

I ended up leaving a few minutes before the winner was announced, as I had a bus to catch. (Note: there are lots of inexpensive busses that run from Boston to NYC all day long. Staying in the city isn’t cheap, but getting there is, or can be.) The winner was Phillip Search from Dallis Bros. What was most impressive about his presentation was that he made his own grinder out of Bunn parts and a big old industrial electric motor. Most espresso grinders have a rather major technical flaw: there is a pathway/chute between the burrs and the doser that fills with coffee, so that when coffee is ground for a shot, most of the coffee that is actually dosed into the portafilter is from the previous grind. The newly-ground coffee pushes the older stuff out. There’s a volume lag, if you will. But Phillip’s grinder operated on the principle of coffee in, coffee out.  

Anyhow, interesting trip. Also went to Half King–a bar owned by Sebastian Junger (of The Perfect Storm fame)–for dinner and had a Kobe beef burger. It was good, but most cheesburgers are, in my experience.  NYC is a nice place to visit–kind of cool to be able to step into an open-air pizza place and get a slice on the way back to the hotel room at 11:30 PM–but after 24 hours I was ready to leave.

flamed maple

At Matt’s, we are very picky when it comes to wood. We select only sticks that have pleasing figure and balance: flamed and curly maple for Central and South American coffees, cherry burl for coffees from the Pacific and Africa. There must always be aesthetic harmony between fuel and bean. 

Wood that we reject as being unsuitable for roasting is donated to local furniture craftsmen, wood turners and and luthiers . . .

ready for packing

As you’ve probably noticed, coffee prices are going up. Way up. Way, way up. It’s remarkable, and unsettling. After a decade or so of stagnancy or relatively pokey climbing, the New York “C” (commodity coffee) price has almost doubled in the last seven months. While specialty coffee has always been priced well in excess of the “C,” many contracts are set using it as a baseline, or starting point. So, for example, an importer might agree to purchase 50K lbs of coffee from a cooperative at the “C” price at the time of delivery, plus a two dollar quality differential, plus a thirty cent organic differential, plus a thirty cent fair trade differential, etc. So the NY price directly affects what a roaster pays, and so what you pay.

current commodities prices (from bloomberg.com)

Many people have asked me why prices are climbing so much. Here is my attempt at an explanation.

There are a number of factors involved, the first of which is the world and US economy–and in particular, crappy interest rates. I’m not an expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but money managers need to put their cash somewhere to get returns for their investors, and when interest rates are low and the stock market doesn’t look very good, commodities become attractive. It’s the reason gold is so high right now. So that’s one factor: market speculation. It’s a factor that has nothing to do with coffee itself, and (I think) is the biggest driver in the market increase.

The second is basic supply and demand. While Brazil (the world’s biggest producer) had a good year, other crops (Colombia in particular) have been down, and word on the street is that the Central American crop is going to be down this spring as well, so there is and will be less coffee available. This is doubly so for “specialty” grade coffee, which is a relatively small percentage of coffee produced (like, less than one percent). And while overall global coffee consumption is increasing slowly, the demand for specialty coffee is increasing at a much higher rate.

The third reason–and this is one that you need to know a little about the industry to understand–is that specialty coffee quality is down overall, making the truly excellent coffee that much more rare, and so that much more expensive. Why is overall quality down? It’s actually pretty simple. Whereas in the past farmers had to put in extra time and care (for instance, picking only ripe coffee cherries, which meant re-visiting a coffee plant three or so separate times over the course of the harvest) to their process, in order to produce coffee that was high enough in quality to command higher specialty coffee prices, there are now buyers on the ground–cash in hand–who are giving farmers good money on the spot for coffee of most any quality (because the market price is so high). Essentially, there is no incentive for quality. And if a farmer can now get fifty percent more cash for fifty percent less effort, good for him or her, no?

The good news is that coffee farmers across the board are earning more money for their produce. (Ironic that it’s  the dopes on Wall St. who have created this reality.) The bad news–though that’s probably the wrong term–is that you and I are footing the bill. This is as it should be, of course, but when change comes, and does so not incrementally, but drastically, it’s a little nerve-wracking. Roasters are not sure if their customers will be willing to pony up twelve or thirteen dollars for a bag of coffee that cost ten dollars last year. And we’ll be having to make quicker decisions in our purchasing, because there is going to be less really good coffee, and the best green beans will disappear quickly when they show up in the US. (And, actually, a lot of this coffee will be purchased on approval, even before it arrives here.) For example, the Ethiopia Amaro Gayo that I purchased last year was, at the time, very expensive. The new crop will most assuredly be even more pricey. Will you all be willing to pay thirteen or fourteen dollars for twelve ounces this coming year? I know that these days I have to be really careful with how I spend my pocket money. I’m sure it’s the same for you. So is spending more $ for your morning cup of Ethiopian deliciousness going to be worth it to you? Maybe you value something else more than your coffee, and so you’ll start drinking Green Mountain. Or Eight O’clock. But I hope not. (Insert smiley face emoticon here. I don’t do emoticons, on principle. Geez, I can barely tolerate exclamation points. Oddly enough, I will occasionally give in to an “LOL,” though. LOL.)

Still, consider the price of coffee at its current level. By brewing according to the SCAA’s Gold Cup standard, a pound of coffee beans will yield approximately 256 ounces of brewed coffee. Even at 16 dollars per pound–a dollar an ounce–brewed coffee comes in at about fifty cents per eight ounce cup–about the size of a diner mug. The equivalent pour at home from a ten dollar bottle of wine would cost you $3.25. Yet there is just as much work that goes into producing quality coffee as there is in producing quality wine. Honestly, even at today’s high prices, coffee is still very much undervalued.

If you haven’t yet invested in a decent grinder and a french press, or a single cup brewer, like an aeropress, or a Melitta filter, or a Clever coffee dripper (K-cups don’t count. Talk about overpriced,  mediocre coffee!), this is as good a time as any to consider it. Don’t automatically brew a full pot and end up throwing out half of it. Brew your coffee a cup at a time, and savor what it offers. If all you’re looking for is caffeine, pop an Excedrin.