Daniel of Arabica
brew, drink, repeat
Posts Tagged ‘oakland’
De La Paz + Farley’s
Great news travels fast in the Twitter-sphere (OK, any news travels fast in the Twitter-sphere) and I just received word (hat tip to @jo and @matthew_machine) that Farley’s is going to be a wholesale customer of De La Paz Coffee Roasters. Great news indeed.
Farley’s was started in 1989 in the Potrero Hill neighborhood in San Francisco. Two more locations in the East Bay, — one in Emeryville and another in The Uptown district in Oakland — have since been added to the collection.
De La Paz sprang to life in 2006 in the Mission district of San Francisco and recently, they’ve expanded by adding a retail espresso bar in San Francisco as well1. It’s not completely finished but you can enjoy coffee and espresso out front, from their cart Fridays from 8am-1pm2.
I love Farley’s despite it’s historically sub-standard coffee. Now I can love them without hesitation. I’ve always been impressed with what the staff at the Oakland Farley’s could do with what they had. Now, it should be stellar.
Congrats to both De La Paz and Farley’s.
Highwire…delivered
This is getting fun. Another installment of the #CCCP has brought to my Southern California door the very same coffee canonized by Jo (my first guest poster!), in Oakland, just days ago.
And that’s not all. That box? The very same box that started it all. On its third trip across the longitude of California, a different fine coffee filling its paper belly each time. Tonx Coffee need not worry. We’re making good use of their shipping materials.
I can’t wait to dig in.
Mugs up! To the next shipment! And to sharing fine coffee with friends, no matter where those friends may be.
The Shape of Things to Come
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Ed. Note… I am pleased as punch to introduce you to my very first guest poster: Joanne Wong.
I met Joanne while frequenting Oakland’s “Original coffee taproom”, Modern Coffee and I’ve enjoyed and greatly appreciated her take on the coffees she’s tasted. It’s always instructive, enlightening and a ton of fun tasting and waxing prosaic about coffee with her.
When she tweeted out that she was able to score samples of some new coffees from one of Oakland’s newest roasting endeavors, Highwire, I had to get her on here to get her take on them and give you, dear reader(s), the benefit of her no-bullshit style of coffee connoisseurship.
Without further ado…
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It’s taken me four days to get this coffee right. FOUR DAYS. But my patience has been rewarded.
I’m not known for exacting coffee preparation — quite the opposite, given my lackadaisical tendency to scoop beans vaguely by volume and pour however the hell much water I feel like down the gullet of my V60 (pictured above), sometimes just barely escaping overflow out of an opaque container below. Thanks to the recent acquisition of a Hario glass decanter with 100 mL markings, I can now vaguely and lackadaisically measure water volume, much to the delight of one Tom Baker.
Back to the coffee. The beasts to be tamed are depicted above, and they are from the very first batch of coffees released by Oakland, CA’s Highwire Coffee Roasters, formerly known as Peaberry’s Coffee and Tea. I could go into the history, acquisition, and new directions of the companies in question, but I am less investigative reporter and more Let Me Google That For You, and I’m pretty sure Dan asked me to write this more for my tastebuds than my journalistic skills.
In a vast lagoon of lightly-roasted “third wave” coffee with descriptors like lemon curd and grape Jolly Ranchers (which are disgusting and belong nowhere near coffee), Highwire’s Coffee may seem startlingly dark. The coffees are probably closer to a medium roast, geared less to showcase novel adjectives and and more to adaptively display the depth and beauty of each coffee’s origin.
The Kenya Kamuthanga, which I first tasted Day 2 after roast, is affable and juicy, as Kenyas are, but with a darker edge which reminds me of Korean roasted corn tea. While the Kenya is lovely, it’s the El Salvador Santa Adelaida that has a more interesting story to tell.
After making many perplexing carafes of coffee that were akin to drinking effervescent liquid charcoal, I gave the El Salvador some air, literally and figuratively. I left it to contemplate its own untamed existence in an open jar for a few days. Today, Day 5 after roast, I made a V60 with a coarser grind and slightly cooler water. The El Salvador shone with jewel-like facets of fire-roasted sweet-tart stone fruits and well-caramelized brown sugar; it amazes me how much the juxtaposition of delicate acidity with the darker roast profile rings on the palate (and how many hyphenated terms I can fit in one sentence). Suddenly, there is balance in the world, and all is right. Or… maybe that is the caffeine speaking.
I look forward to future offerings from this newly reborn roastery. Check them out.
Twitter: @HighwireCoffee Facebook: Highwire Coffee Roasters Website: forthcoming
’til next time, @jo
n.b. – It is intended that this post have a soundtrack.
Rogue
Last week brought news that a pillar of this still nascent North American specialty coffee industry of the aughts has possibly forsaken ownership, independence and a sustainable business model for growth potential. Possibly. All of the details of whatever financial deal was made are, publicly, fuzzy at best.
End of an era?
For me, in the face of all of the information swirling around the event, as well as because of the lack of it, a bit of the romance that once was a part of the image surrounding the company in question has been lost. In my experience quantity and quality do not mix well in the food industry but I’ve adopted a wait-and-see attitude. End of an era? In a way, definitely. There’s no avoiding it, regardless of how things turn out. A small, local institution, in a very short period of time, has gotten bigger, increased its reach and wants even more. That’s going to put some people off. It’s going to change the way many people perceive them and their brand. They might loose some customers. I’m sure they are betting they will gain many more.
For my part, my skepticism is piqued when tales of money and secrecy are allowed to flourish in the type of vacuum that is created in the absence of quality PR. But all of this is no matter. The fact that today’s cup of coffee was produced using a stringent eye for quality by any one entity does not mean it will be so tomorrow.
A moving target
I refuse to attend reunion tour concerts put on by the bands of my youth. Those bands had their day and I’ve no need or desire to dwell in some gilded past that only looks so golden through the hijacking of all of the benefits of hindsight and the desire to acquire the meager contents of my wallet. I’ve no intention of clinging to the past of the coffee industry either. I’m not so under that spell, such that you’ll hear pass through my lips, laudings of the past or that the best days of coffee are behind us. “The best days” are a moving target, as are quality and passion and craft.
And so, imagine my joy in being made privy to someone just starting a new journey in the coffee industry, and my excitement at being furnished the opportunity to witness another industry birth, first-hand, and of having the chance to partake of the fruits of someones nascent passion, one-on-one, to take that journey with them, in some small way, as a grateful recipient of their work.
And the serendipity… two different “friend-streams” converging into one: one revealing to me the presence of the micro-roaster himself, and the other highlighting the presence of the pop-up café with which this roaster and these housemates, with both entrepreneurial and philanthropic spirit, are able to present themselves to the world1.
OneNinetySeven & the Rogue Café
Eric Thoreson is the coffee roaster, OneNinetySeven is the roasting operation. Rogue is the pop-up café. On Saturdays, from 9am until 1pm Eric Thoreson and the house residents of 654 60th Street (AKA “The Green House”), here in Oakland, California, open up their garden-like backyard to neighbors and friends, both new and old and serve up small, edible goodies and coffee.
Pastries have been made by both Emma Sullivan (a local baker) and Ciara (a member of the Green House household) at various times and the baked offerings are different every week. Two weeks ago it was a mushroom & asparagus frittata and an olive oil, hazelnut, cherry muffin. This last, it was candied bacon with a touch of cayenne and a berry tart with a buckwheat crust.
Coffee preparations are determined by Eric with the backbone being pour-over, using ceramic Beehouse drippers. Last week, on the Beehouses, it was a Guatemala Finca La Providencia Dos from the San Pedro Necta, Huehuetenango region. This last Saturday was a treat, with Eric busting out, as promised, a Mypressi Twist and a commercial-grade espresso grinder in order to pull shots of his wonderfully balanced and sweet Faux Pas seasonal espresso blend. On the drippers was the delicate but tangy fruit of his Tanzania Mbinga.
Beginning of an era
A door closes, another opens. It can’t be helped and I’m not going to continue to trumpet any particular coffee purveyor’s dedication to quality when that dedication is patently absent. In the grand scheme of things coffee quality and producer integrity certainly doesn’t rank with other, more pressing matters like the sorry state of American politics or the belief in false prophets but blind faith is blind faith. I’m not saying that scion of recent Pacific Northwestern coffee fame has taken its eye off the prize. I just don’t hold any illusions that it won’t. But I prefer not to focus on the steady target of brand and image. Instead, I try to fix my gaze on the moving target that is quality, integrity and passion for craft. That’s where you’ll always find the good stuff.
See you next Saturday, in the garden, espresso or drip coffee in hand.
The skinny
Rogue is a pop-up. That means it’s best to check and make sure it’s going to be where you think it’s going to be before you head out on your coffee journey. The best places to look for information are 1) at the OneNinetySeven website, 2) on the Rogue Café Facebook page and 3) on Twitter.
Footnotes
- There may be other journeys beginning here as well, but that’s probably for another site. [↩]
Verve’s Burundi Bwayi
What if a Yirg & a Kenya ...?
I made a pilgrimage of sorts this week to Santa Cruz, CA for an opportunity to soak in the aura of a roaster who’s coffee I have been enjoying locally for some time now. I’ll leave my experience at their café for another post – that’s what the Café tramp series of posts are for – but Verve coffee roasters’ beans have left me impressed.
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area there are three cafés – each of which I have great respect for – that feature the coffees of Verve: Modern Coffee in Oakland, Sightglass in San Francisco and farm:table, also in San Francisco.
At each location the espresso blends, the single-origins are all just … well … well, hell, they’re just scrumptious. Flavor, flavor, flavor. Packed with it. Impressed.
They’ve all been interesting as well. “Interesting?”, you say? “What on earth are you talking about?”. I’m talking about individuality in flavor. Each Verve coffee I have had carries some unique flavor profile. Walnuts in one, sweet cane in something else, leather, cocoa and cardamom in another. So far, everything I’ve tasted from Verve has it.
But what about the Burundi ?..
Verve’s Burundi Bwayi – The short version …
if a Yirgacheffe and a Kenyan coffee had a love-child, well, this – Verve’s Burundi Bwayi – is what it would taste like.
… and a little bit longer one
On one hand, like a fine Yirgacheffe from Ethiopia, Verve’s Burundi Bwayi has aromas of delicate oolong tea and fragrant flowers. On the other, there are traces of Kenya’s concentrated, molasses-like sugars and dark berry-like sweetness.
Where the Burundi Bwayi distinguishes itself, where it makes itself unique – like any good child should – is in it’s creamy mouthfeel, the slightly sweeter fruit-punch-like berry flavors that also make themselves known and it’s distinctively – for an African coffee – woody, earthy palate (almost Sumatra-like) that carries over into the long, dry finish. Top it all off with a sharp but pleasant, sort-of tart apple-like acidity and you’ve got another unique entry in the Verve lineup.
A little more info … for the truly geeky
Of interest to me was the fact that this was a wet processed African coffee. Wet processed – as opposed to dry processed – coffees are known for their clean, un-muddied flavors and crisp acidity. The tart-apple-like acidity of the Bwayi was not of particular surprise then. What was surprising was the almost Sumatra-like woody, earthy component.
If you look at the photo above (click it to make it larger) you’ll notice three terms at the very bottom of the bag: Bourbon, Jackson, Mibitzi. I was already aware that Bourbon referred to a particular coffea arabica variety. Bourbon is a popular and highly productive variety of coffea arabica that was planted by the French on the island of Bourbon (now Réunion) around 1708, mutated and was then planted throughout Brazil in the late 1800s (Wikipedia). Jackson and Mibitzi I was not familiar with. A little research revealed that both Jackson and Mibitzi are both Bourbon cultivars native to Rwanda and Burundi. Now you know.
Just the facts
Who: Verve Coffee Roasters What: Burundi Bwayi Wet Process When: Roasted on January 7th, 2010 Where: Santa Cruz, CA Why: I ♥ coffee How: Chemex
Subrosa Panoramas
Subrosa exterior panorama (click for the big'n)
Subrosa interior panorama (click to supersize)
Oakland, CA. Four Barrel. Clever dripper. Espresso. Good coffee. Hipster magnet. It’s becoming a regular stop.
Remedy
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Remedy:
Taken on Telegraph Ave. in Oakland.
Remedy is a new café opening, according to its owner, in “around six or seven weeks”. They are serving coffees from Ritual.
Currently, the café consists of this little cart out front (à la Four Barrel and Sightglass both of whom kept or keep a cart as an ad hoc pre-café before the opening of their proper cafés) of their space containing an espresso and a Clover machine. In the window of the building is a distinctive and quite large question mark that, as I can attest, does a great job of attracting interest from passers by.
“On tap”, as it were, at the Remedy cart are a small selection of Ritual coffees, all of which are available on the Clover and one of which (currently, I beleive, Ritual’s High Striker seasonal espresso blend) is available on the espresso machine.
On my initial visit I partook of a Clover’d cup of the Daterra Sweet Blue from Brasil. Beautiful cup: sweet (as you might expect), hints of cola, Red Vines and milk chocolate, full bodied. Very nice.
Brazil…via San Jose
I try to get into San Francisco to pick up a new bag of beans as often as I can but, even given how easy the trip is from Oakland, there are still times I cannot find the time to take the BART ride over. Luckily, I have a few other avenues with which I can acquire quality beans – some are personal connections, others are work-related. Still another option I am lucky enough to have at my disposal is the Whole Foods market that exists practically right down the street from my house and their small selection of beans from third-party roasters. The
Whole Foods, Oakland
selection may be a bit small but for a last-resort coffee source I can’t complain too much about the depth of product on offer, even as shallow as it is. Ritual is represented, although I can’t imagine ever choosing to buy their beans from the Whole Foods shelf. Terrible rotation. I have found beans over a month past their roast date on the shelf and it is incredibly difficult to find a bag that is any younger than a couple of weeks1. Sad, really, and not a good representation of the quality product that Ritual produces.
Represent!
Another roaster represented at my local Whole Foods, and one which apparently has a better rotation program, is Barefoot Roasters. I was peripherally aware of Barefoot for some reason (blog mention? Twitter post? hmmm…) so after a fruitless digging session through my Whole Foods’ collection of aging Ritual beans, seeing the name on the shelf was a welcome relief.
Santa Colombia in the cupboard
Barefoot hails from San Jose. Imagine my surprise when I found a specialty coffee roaster hailing from my hometown. Not exactly the town I think of when I consider the various locations associated with the burgeoning coffee v2.0 scene. Seattle? Check. Portland? Check. Los Angeles? Check. New York? Check. San Francisco? Check. San Jose? Uhhhhhh…no. So, then, a diamond in the rough, that’s what Barefoot Roasters seems to be2. I can deal with that. After all, the proof is in the mug.
Proof
And, indeed, the proof is in a mug of Barefoot Roasters coffee. At least in the case of this, the only coffee I have had the opportunity to try as yet – their Brazil Daterra Santa Colombia – which I found to be, if not spectacularly unique, then at least a solid Brasil offering and a coffee I would be neither embarrassed to recommend or hesitant in picking up again should the desire strike me.
What do I mean by “solid”? Well, I have come to expect certain characteristics from the better coffees of Brasil. A certain nuttiness (indeed, sometimes peanut butter). A certain smoothness. Full body. Some sweetness. Maybe some fruit in there as well. Barefoot’s Brazil Daterra Santa Colombia covers all those bases and covers them well. No surprises. From the notes:
In the Chemex
- nuts
- berries (cherry)
- full bodied w/a dry, almost grainy texture (like peanut butter)
- nice vegetal character (green stalk veggies)
In the Press-pot3
- aroma in the cup is sweet and nutty
- tobacco
- still green and vegetal
- hazelnuts
- cumin
- dark sugar
- a bit of sharpness in the acidity showing its age, I think.
Sum it up, Mr. Arabica…
As you can see the stand-out flavors, over and above the usual Brazilian traits, are the vegetal character out of both the press-pot and Chemex preparations and the cumin spice that came exclusively from the press-pot.
So, like I said, solid. Not “oh-my-god” unique but certainly worth picking up should the desire for a good example of what Brasil has to offer should strike you. I’m glad Barefoot is an option for me as a retail offering that I can pick up without resorting to mail-order and I’m, admittedly, just a little proud that my hometown of San Jose is also home to, what has so far proven to be, a quality specialty coffee roaster.
Where?
Footnotes
- Somebody remind me to check in on when the Ritual supply at my local Whole Foods is replenished. I wonder if Mr. Ford has any idea how old their selection of beans are over here [↩]
- Feel free to correct me in the comments section [↩]
- As a qualifier to my experience of the Brazil Daterra Santa Colombia in the press-pot, I feel I must mention that, due to head cold that knocked out my capacity to smell or taste much of anything for some time, by the time I was able to honestly deduce anything from this coffee it was already ten days past the roast date. Full disclosure. [↩]
New game in town
Welcome to Oakland
Farley’s — a café in San Francisco that I honestly have never been to — is opening a new location in my neighborhood (that neighborhood being the Grand Lake/Downtown area of Oakland). Which means, I guess, that I’d better check it out. The San Francisco location was, after all, voted Best of the Bay or something in some year or other by some local rag in addition to getting a stellar recc. from a trusted source.
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