June 2018 Newsletter

Apart from coffee machine related queries, the next most common questions I'm asked concern one or more health or allergy aspects of coffee. The most recent one concerned the presence of Mycotoxins in our coffees. Mycotoxins are produced by various fungi, and are more or less ubiquitous in our food. Dried fruits, nuts and nut butters, milk and cheese products, oatmeal and other cereals all contain mycotoxins in trace amounts. Fermented drinks like wine, beer and kombucha and foods like salami and dark chocolate also have detectable quantities.

Some lower quality coffees can have mycotoxins too, which has led to (yet another) coffee related diet scam which advocates mycotoxin-free coffee, purchased from the scammers of course. The reality is that the modern specialty coffee supply chain, from producer to roaster, is set up specifically to avoid introducing any sort of contamination, including fungi. As far as I've been able to determine specialty grade arabica coffees are virtually all mycotoxin free.

Note that this doesn't apply to robusta coffees and robusta containing blends. Low cost robustas are notorious for poor processing and shipping conditions. Much of the world's robusta production is shipped to Hamburg for decontamination by washing and steaming. The cleaned coffee ends up in Italian high-crema blends, USA canned coffees and as instant coffee. So if you're worried about mycotoxin, stick to specialty and you'll be fine.

Another common query is from people concerned about nut allergies. There appears to be somewhat of an urban myth that coffee and nuts are roasted using the same equipment, allowing for cross-contamination. I'm not going to state absolutely that it doesn't happen somewhere in the world, but in my 33 years in the coffee industry I have NEVER seen coffee and nuts being processed on the same equipment. Again, a specialty coffee roaster specialises in coffee, so you should never see "may contain traces of nuts" on the bag.

The question that still surprises me is the gluten content (or not) of coffee. I wrote about this in the August 2011 newsletter, but I suppose I should repeat it again:

No part of the coffee plant, branch, leaf, fruit or seed, contains gluten. Green coffee beans are therefore gluten-free, and roasting them doesn't change this status. I have also never seen any sort of starch or flour used to process coffee, whether roasting, grinding, transporting or packing.

Obviously all of the above may not be true when it comes to pre-packed coffee beverages or coffee flavoured drinks, so close checking of the ingredients lists is a must.

This month's special is from an origin that ordinarily produces good but not great coffees, Mexico. Every now and then a great one pops up though, so I jumped on this one quickly.

Mexican San Cristobal
$50.00/kg

This coffee isn't fruity, nutty or acidy, it's just a superbly balanced pure coffee flavour and body from front palate to back of throat. What stands out most is the intensity of the flavour and the long, rich finish.

Customers are reminded that Monday 11th June is a Victorian public holiday, so no roasting and shipping until Tuesday.

Until next month
Alan

May 2018 Newsletter

Fundamentals are an often overlooked aspect of brewing coffee. I get a fair bit of correspondence from non-customers, usually from overseas, asking for solutions to brewing problems. In most cases the problems come down to mechanical failures in coffee brewers or ignorance of some fundamental aspect of brewing.

I thought it would be worthwhile to go over some of the simpler things that can cause problems, starting with good quality fresh roasted beans (of course). You can store beans in a sealed container for about 2 weeks, in a normal fridge freezer (-4°C) for 4 to 6 weeks, chest freezer (-18°C) for 3 months and dry ice temperature (-78°C) for up to a year.

Then comes grinding, and I'd say about half of all the problems I see are grind based. One of the most common espresso problems is simply not adjusting the grinder when the beans change, either by type, season or roast level. A slightly lighter roast needs a finer grind; slightly darker a coarser grind. Filter brewers can be more forgiving, but some of the latest models require precision grinding, as does the Aeropress.

The least grind sensitive brewing methods are plunger and syphon, because it's easy to adjust the brewing time to accommodate grind variations. That's another fundamental rule, the finer the grind the shorter the brewing time, with the exception being middle eastern coffee brewed in an Ibrik.

Finer grind equals greater surface area equals faster extraction. Of course, with filter brewing a finer grind may slow down the passage of coffee through the filter, lengthening the extraction time, which is why precision is needed. Overextraction leads to undesirable bitterness.

Temperature is the next fundamental variable. My personal preference is a water temperature between 88°C and 92°C, regardless of process, but again dependant on roast level. In my experience, very dark roasts extract best around 88°C, but very light "Scandinavian" roasts can require up to 96°C to get a drinkable result. Remember, this is the temperature of the water as it first contacts the ground coffee, and things will immediately get cooler. This is why I like Coffee Syphons so much, and all my "final" cupping for the specials is done with syphon brewed coffee.

Once you've standardized the grind, the temperature takes care of itself, allowing you to adjust the brewing time as necessary.

The final fundamental is origin, i.e. where is the coffee grown, and where did it originate. There is a new book, The Coffee Atlas of Ethiopia, by Dr. Aaron Davis and his Kew Gardens UK team which gets down to the DNA level of the origins of coffee. In his words, "Ethiopian Arabica DNA diversity has a distinct geographical pattern, which, in combination with the diverse local climates of each origin, yields a cornucopia of flavour profiles.. It became clear that there are many unique and interesting flavour experiences that are hardly known outside Ethiopia, and that there are several origins barely touched upon, if at all, by specialty coffee providers."

I'm incredibly envious. This month's special helps a bit, it's the stunning
Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Gedeb
$55.00
Relatively low acid, blueberries and stone fruit front palate with a long, rich cocoa finish.

Until next month
Alan

April 2018 Newsletter

Topics for the newsletter can sometimes be hard to come by, but this month's was a no brainer. A California judge has decided that all coffee sold in the state should come with a "May cause cancer" warning on the packaging. The basis for the decision was a civil lawsuit brought by a local non-profit foundation, alleging that since roasted coffee contains a chemical called acrylamide, and acrylamides are known carcinogens, roasted and brewed coffee may be a cancer risk.

The judge decided that since the defendants (several large coffee companies, including Starbucks, and a lot of smaller ones) could not prove that coffee wasn't harmful, such a warning was justified, and damages were to be awarded to the non-profit foundation. It all sounds pretty logical and straightforward.

Except, starting with the "non-profit foundation", it's actually a front for the lawyer who instigated the lawsuit. The "other concerned parties" to the suit are paid expert witnesses used by the lawyer in a variety of other cases, including suing McDonalds for the acrylamide content of their chips (alright, fries!) Then there's the judgement itself.

"While plaintiff offered evidence that consumption of coffee increases the risk of harm to the fetus, to infants, to children and to adults, defendants' medical and epidemiology experts testified that they had no opinion on causation." "Defendants failed to satisfy their burden of proving ... that consumption of coffee confers a benefit to human health."

This isn't the sort of stuff that can be decided in a court of law, it requires heaps of hard evidence. To the best of my knowledge there is NO reliable medical or scientific research proving that coffee causes either great harm or great health. Nor is their any proof that acrylamides cause cancer in humans, particularly at the miniscule dosage levels in both coffee and chips. And it's literally impossible to prove that coffee does no harm, as anyone who remained awake in their first year Philosophy lecture on "Proving the Negative" should know. (If you were asleep, the answer is "you can't prove the negative.")

The only "proven fact" in the whole lawsuit is that massive doses of pure acrylamide can cause cancer in rats and mice. Which is another problem with letting lawyers decide this sort of stuff, the judgement takes no account of species and dosage amounts. There are many substances which are benign or beneficial in small amounts but toxic in large quantities, and which are also species specific. Think chocolate and dogs.

Sunlight, the iron in our blood, most of the fat soluble vitamins, lithium ... all necessary for life but fatal in excess. A bit like too many lawyers. Evolution seems to have gifted humans with the ability to ignore low acrylamide concentrations, common in starchy food which is baked, roasted or fried. Such as bread, chips, tempura, schnitzel, coffee, and even Chiko Rolls. Which may kill you, but not from an acrylamide cancer.

That these lawsuits, which are at heart the attempted and actual legalised extortion of money from large companies, can go ahead and even succeed says a lot about the state of the USA these days.

This month's special is

Organic Uganda Bugisu
$48.00/kg

This is a milder coffee, with a fruity strawberry front palate and a creamy milk chocolate finish, perfect for a leisurely breakfast.

Until next month
Alan.

March 2018 Newsletter

Back in October 2016 I wrote about several coffee related Kickstarter projects, most of which appeared to me to be seriously dodgy. I thought that an update on the progress of these projects might be timely. What brought this on was the news that the Decent Espresso machine was almost ready to ship.

The Decent Espresso started life as the ZPM Nocturn and US$1,000,000 of Kickstarter funding back in 2011.The funding is long gone, and all those who pledged money lost it cold, but the design lived on, and was improved and brought to reality by Decent Espresso. So there now exists an espresso machine with really tight computer control of all aspects of brewing.

As an ancient curmudgeon my own opinion of the machine is that if it had arrived in 2012 at the original price point it would have taken over the domestic espresso market. In 2018 that market has reached saturation point and the Decent Espresso machine will struggle to gain traction, especially at a much higher price than originally planned. However, based on specs and brief trade show glimpses of the prototype I believe that the commercial version of the machine might be a success.

It would be cheap enough to allow the installation of 3 or 4 machines side by side, at the same cost as a current high end machine. Just the redundancy (one breaks? move to the next!) would be a huge advantage, plus the shot control is as good or better than anything else currently available.

The rest of the Kickstarter projects I highlighted in 2016 haven't faired nearly as well. The Arist Superautomatic Kickstarter, promoted in 2014 by a couple of Hong Kong "wide boys", has yet to produce a single saleable unit. The boys themselves seem to have made a career out of crowdfunding without actually delivering.

The Invergo drip brewer again never managed a single actual sale, and sorry folks, the money is all gone. Which seems to be a pretty consistent theme with all these "better mousetrap" products. The creators raise the money, spend a little on a rough concept prototype, then all the rest goes to salaries and promotion. Some never even display a prototype, the La Fenice induction brewer being a case in point.

That's not to say there haven't been successful crowdfunding campaigns for coffee equipment. There have been several I know of and probably many more I've missed, but they have all been for coffee accessories, not plug-into-the-powerpoint coffee machines.

Any machine proposal that involves heat, water, electricity and consumers faces a veritable horde of government agencies and regulations across several countries. Even the Decent Espresso machine is still awaiting final UL certification after seven years of development. Note that the actual certifiers are Insurance companies so it's a far easier process for established manufacturers. I guess the best advice for crowdfunded brewing machines is "backers beware!"

This month's special is the tiniest coffee beans we've ever offered. It's

Brazil Catui Peaberry
$48.00/kg

These little peaberries are absolute flavour bombs, with an incredibly intense taste. The best way I can describe the flavour is hazelnut with a chocolate aftertaste and a really creamy body, sort of an unsweetened version of Ferrero Rocher.

Until next month
Alan

February 2018 Newsletter

This month marks exactly 4 years since we decided to stop selling coffee brewing equipment. During this time we've continued to service and repair machines that we once sold, but even this is coming to an end, for the simplest of reasons. We're running out of spare parts, and the main service technician we've been using is retiring.

So, sometime this year, we will have to decline the job of fixing someone's machine, and all machines shortly afterwards. Apologies in advance but it had to happen. There are alternative suppliers, Jetblack Espresso in Sydney for Lelit type machines and Coffee-A-Roma in Melbourne for Rancilio. Fortunately laScala machines can be repaired by any competent espresso machine service technician.

What is interesting is that the majority of the various machines we sold are still in service, a testament to their enduring quality.

Endurance and sustainability are suddenly the buzzwords for the coffee industry as a whole. There are half-a-dozen major coffee conferences this year and all of them feature sustainability as a primary topic. This has been brought about by the effects of climate change on coffee agriculture.

As I've discussed in previous newsletters, one of the effects is a resurgence in coffee plant diseases and insect pests. Note that when it comes to "traditional" coffee varietals like Typica, Bourbon and Maragogype, this problem is only getting worse. The only way to mitigate the effects is to change to more resistant Arabica varietals.

Sadly, "more resistant" hardly ever seems to equal "better tasting". I have yet to taste any of the improved varietals that have better flavours than the best heirloom ones, although a couple have been almost as good. The other huge sustainability problem is even more serious, the loss of coffee habitat.

African countries seem to be more affected at present, particularly some areas of Ethiopia where "wild" Arabica varietals have grown for centuries. This is a problem for farmers who see their livelihood dying off and also for the future genetic diversity of coffee. One of the major difficulties is that, yes, those varietals may be able to grow further up the valley or mountainside, but that land already belongs to somebody else and may already have different crops on it.

Another problem is that many African coffee farmers are subsistence farmers, with a perilously narrow margin of survival. A crop that is prone to failure will be replaced by one that may have a better chance of success.

That's why the major topics of this year's conferences are about finding ways to keep these farmers in business, producing quality coffees and feeding their families. Fortunately, although it's now becoming more urgent, it's been a work in progress for several years. A very few farmers can even turn drier conditions to their advantage, as with this month's Red Honey prepped Costa Rican.

It definitely felt like a good way to kick off the year:

Costa Rica Tarrazu Rojo Miel
$55.00/kg

This is NOT a coffee that could be called "delicate", instead it's got a huge coffee flavour, nippy acidity and a long, long aftertaste. Guaranteed to wake you up in the morning!

Until next month
Alan

December 2017 Newsletter

Holiday closing dates will be as follows:

LAST ROAST will be on Monday 18th DECEMBER 2017.
LAST SHIPPING DAY & CLOSE will be Wednesday 20th DECEMBER 2017.
REOPEN on Tuesday 9th JANUARY 2018.

I've been chatting to my couriers and they've been telling me that parcel volumes are up a LOT this year, which is good news for them but not necessarily for you. Goods shipped on the Wednesday may arrive before Christmas, but they wouldn't bet on it. A couple of them suggested that Friday the 15th would be the most practical cut off point, even for Express Post.

As per our usual practice, customers are reminded that we will be running our stocks of roasted coffee down to zero, and late orders may be filled by whatever coffees are available, not what you actually ordered. This means that we cannot guarantee the contents of orders after Monday the 18th. Given the usual shipping chaos that engulfs both the post and couriers, early ordering is advised. Based on past years some of the orders shipped on the Wednesday won't arrive until next year. Also, a reminder that due to the volume of orders we may take a couple of days to roast and ship, instead of our usual next day timeframe.

There won't be a January special coffee but I'll try to organise a brief January newsletter as soon as we're up to speed. As usual at this time of the year, this month's special coffee is something really special, and rates my highest cupping score this year at 92.

Nicaraguan Carlos Ferrey
$60.00/kg

An intense tropical fruit aroma and front palate flavour balanced with cleansing mid palate acidity and a sweet nutty finish. These coffee beans were sun dried in the cherry, i.e. "Natural" processed, and this coffee is the first Nicaraguan natural that I've seen in over 30 years in the trade.

Coffee is Nicaragua's major export item and rigorous industry controls have meant that until recently all of it has been water fermented and washed.

December also marks the return of an old favourite to our list of coffees, the Organic Timor Maubisse. Organic coffees are episodic by nature, crop to crop availability is never guaranteed, so since the Organic Yirgacheffe has run out I was happy to get hold of the Timor.

And, unfortunately, it marks the discontinuation of a coffee that I've been selling for over 30 years, the Swiss Water Processed Colombian Decaff. Sales of decaff have fallen to a point where I'm throwing away more than I'm selling.

I suspect that a lot of this fall is due to the increasing volume of medical evidence that a few cups of coffee a day are in fact good for you. I can remember my doctor in the 90's telling me that I should switch to decaff, advice I obviously ignored. Just as well, since I've outlived him! However, the most up to date medical advice is that regular consumption of ordinary caffeinated coffee causes zero harm and in fact has positive health benefits.

Anyway, with apologies to the half-dozen customers who still order it, decaff is off the list. Have a happy and safe holiday, and I'll be back next year.

Alan

November 2017 Newsletter

We're ba-a-ack! The less said about international flying the better, as I appear to have mislaid both my brain and body clock 3 time zones ago, but I've been at least able to start roasting again to re-stock. That said, there will be no special coffee this month, as I simply haven't had the time to look for one.

I'd also ask people to remember that Tuesday 7th of November is a public holiday (Cup Day) when they're placing orders. This always causes delays with interstate Express Post shipping.

The HOST exhibition in Milan far exceeded my expectations, in both size and breadth of coverage of the equipment and marketing sides of the coffee world. The only thing missing (from my viewpoint) was the presence of major green coffee brokers, but this was to be expected in a machinery dominant show.

There were many of the major Italian coffee roasters present, all spruiking their wares in various capsule formats. And yes, capsules were prevalent throughout the stands, but what surprised me was the lack of exclusive capsule machine suppliers. Most of the capsule machines I saw were the standard made-in-China types we see locally.

The reason for this seems to be the competition among the various capsule formats. Based on my observations, Nespresso seems to be the leader of the capsule world, with CaffItaly taking the second spot. Lavazza is a distant third, with a few other formats trailing. All the existing capsule types are still environmentally disastrous, but I saw a supplier of certified compostable capsules at the show. Something that might show up in the near future.

I also spotted a "small" capsule manufacturing form, fill and seal machine. With a size of 3 metres x 2 metres x 1 metre and a price of 300, 000.00 Euro it was a steal! It does explain why small roasters aren't trying to get into the capsule business.

E-61 group machines were everywhere, they now seem to be the machine of choice for makers of home espresso machines. Heat exchanger, double boiler, single boiler, stainless steel boiler, and Lelit even had a particularly kitsch one with a gold plated group. The easy availability of all the bits needed to make one of these machines, with several suppliers for each part, makes it more or less a kit building exercise. There was even a booth displaying an E-61 group from a Chinese metal fabricator.

The sad consequence of this is that the "entry level" point for decent home espresso machines seems to have moved up to $2500.00 or so. The price points below this appear to have been ceded to capsule machines and Chinese made home appliance machines.

In the commercial market, now that computerized control of brewing time, temperature, flow and pressure is becoming commonplace, the leading espresso machine makers appear to have decided that everything old is new again. Every major manufacturer, including La Marzocco, was displaying a "new" spring lever machine.

That's right, the machines you see in old Italian films with the long levers used to manually pull espresso shots are back again. The tech was invented in 1948 by Achille Gaggia, to make "Crema Café". Last time I was at HOST, in 2011, there was ONE machine on display, made by Brasilia who went bust shortly afterwards. Now there are over a dozen, and I would expect more to come. Expect to see them in your local café in the next few years.

Until next month
Alan

September 2017 Newsletter

Being your own boss is a dream for many people, but "livin' the dream" is something else altogether. I've been doing it for over 30 years now, and have no regrets, but I've also had to learn to accept the limitations of the job. As I've aged I've managed to get out from under the 14 hour workdays and seven day workweeks. Holiday time, though, has always been limited to around 18 days maximum, usually at Christmas when the roasters are shut down.

My long suffering spouse has learned to accept this over the last 35 years but this year has put her foot down. We've had an "interesting" year to date, with funerals for relatives, friends and neighbours, so we're probably feeling a bit more mortal than usual. It's also a "special birthday" year, so we've decided to treat ourselves and take a month off together for the first time in over 20 years.

This is because she has her own business, dealing mainly with companies in China, and their holiday dates and ours rarely correspond. We usually get a week here and there among other business related activities. What this means for you, my customers, is that we'll be completely closed from Thursday 28th September to Wednesday 1st November.

The dates include a reminder that Friday 29th September is a public holiday in Melbourne. There will be a November newsletter but I'm not sure about a special yet, a lot depends on shipping schedules and I'll be out of the loop for a month.

This time last year our special coffee was an El Salvador Bourbon, and it was by far the most re-ordered special of the year. I've managed to get another, very similar coffee for this month's special:

El Salvador Capulin Bourbon
$54.00/kg

Intense flavour with sweet tropical fruit and hazelnut in the front palate and a smooth cocoa/milk chocolate finish.

Now, while we WILL be on holidays and staying away from too much that's work related, our travels more or less end when we get to Basel in Switzerland, which happens to be just a 4 hour train ride away from Milan in Italy. And when we get to Milan the largest hospitality trade fair in the world will still be on, the HOST fair. HOST includes the largest coffee related trade show in the world, and I'll be attending.

I've been to a few HOST shows and they are a good indicator of future trends. The first one I went to in 2003 was a predictor of the explosion of E-61 group machines, and the last one I attended in 2011 had strong indications of the rise of "convenience coffees", that is, capsules, pods and superautos.

The preliminary material being sent out from HOST seems to be concentrated on environmental damage and worldwide climate change in coffee growing regions. I expect to see a huge growth in recyclable coffee packaging and serving options, with emphasis on biodegradable pods and takeaway cups.

On the machine side, advanced computerization and control of just about every machine function looks to be the coming thing, starting with the ionic composition of the water entering the machine and flowing on from there. Lots of modern sensor and measuring technology is a given. Look for it in the November newsletter.

Until November
Alan

August 2017 Newsletter

Italy is in some ways a deeply conservative country, especially when it comes to social customs, religion, food and drink. The Italians tend to stick with the philosophy of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" which may explain why the Rancilio Silvia, despite a bit of exterior tarting up, is fundamentally the same machine that was first produced 20 years ago.

When Galileo Galilei, 16th century physicist, astronomer, philosopher and mathematician, ran afoul of the Catholic Inquisition and was told to accept that the Earth was the immovable centre of the universe, rather than in orbit around the sun, he was heard to mutter "and yet it moves." And indeed it did, but despite irrefutable scientific proof it took the Church another 200-odd years to admit it.

Innovation in coffee doesn't move at quite that glacial pace, but it hasn't been that fast, either, up until the last couple of years. Commercial espresso machines are a case in point. Coffee hobbyists started talking about modifying domestic machines with PID temperature controls and electronic brew pressure controls in the late 1990's.

It was over 10 years later when the first commercial implementations started appearing in Italian espresso machines. In the modern world, that's a long time to catch up to "state-of-the-art."

A similar situation has applied where Italian roasters, blenders and baristas are concerned. Up until a few years ago they were acknowledged as the best in the world at getting acceptable espresso blends and shots from mediocre beans. They had a huge and stable domestic market and a growing export market. Then specialty coffee and Nespresso capsules came along and ate their lunch.

There is nothing like a bite on the hip-pocket nerve to get someone's attention, and last year sales of coffee within Italy in all forms were down. Except in one area; coffee capsule sales were up 20%! It appears that (as with the rest of the world) Italians were voting with their wallets for capsule convenience. More worrying was a reduction in sales from the myriad espresso bars throughout Italy.

In an effort to turn things around, the Italian coffee industry has finally started to question their current approach to the market. On the consumer side, "acceptable" coffee is seen as a simple commodity, and generates zero excitement. On the industry side, the commodity mentality also prevails, and again "acceptable" quality and low prices rule.

To fix this some of the more progressive companies are looking towards much higher quality specialty coffees, single origin, farm gate, certified and all the other stuff, including the roasting challenges that come with them. And the cafes and bars are looking towards improved food and beverage offerings, and superb rather than average coffees. The "best in the world" model they're starting to copy? Us. Melbourne and Sydney high end cafes are now a model for the Italian industry, as well as the UK and USA.

This month's special is an old favourite I try to acquire every year,

Costa Rica Tarrazu Miel
$54.00/kg

Rich coffee aroma, with sweet acid, smooth fruity mid palate and creamy body, the coffee-est coffee you'll ever taste.

A quick warning (more next month): we'll be closed for the whole of October as I'm heading for Italy and the huge HOST trade show.

Until next month
Alan

July 2017 Newsletter

This month's newsletter begins with a quote from Jim Schulman, one of my old-time online coffee mates. In a recent post on www.home-barista.com he said "We live in a media age, and media are visual, no smells or tastes; this has greatly intensified with the web, so that now we are getting the bulk of both our information and interactions virtually. This may be leading to a decay in taste, not a growth. Sometimes, when I'm in a bad mood I think this: High end food is now about fancy plating; high end coffee is now about fancy pouring. Both are now about fancy backstories -- green, organic, and with awesomely authentic farming practices."

This really caught my attention because it strongly resonated with my own experience. I recently ordered an espresso at an inner city shop. It was pulled with great attention to detail, by an experienced, competition winning barista, using the latest tools. I mean, an espresso machine with PID and pressure profiling, an automatically weighed coffee dose, scales under the shot, and a first class single origin coffee. What could possibly go wrong?

Visually the shot poured perfectly and looked magnificent, with a rich, firm crema. The taste, though, simply didn't match the appearance. It was very acidic, and after the acidity faded, almost sugary sweet, but lacking in body and with a very short aftertaste.

So what went wrong? I think, in this particular case, the barista was trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, as the saying goes. I had already test roasted and cupped the same coffee and found that it needed a more aggressive roast than its origin would normally indicate. I suspect whoever roasted the coffee simply thought "Oh well, it's from this origin, we'll roast it the same as all the others from that place." And because it looked right...the roast profile graph was followed perfectly, the roast colour was correct...everyone assumed it was right, without ever tasting the final product.

I've seen the same thing in restaurants. Gelled, smeared, foamed presentation that looks fabulous but fails the taste test. Food that appears to be designed to be photographed rather than eaten. Funnily enough, nobody takes photos of their bowl in my local Pho shop, but it's some of the most well balanced and delicious food around.

I suppose that's part of the reason I'm not fond of capsule machines, they give the appearance of espresso without actually matching the taste of the real thing.

Coffee that is both real and tasty is this month's special,

Ethiopian Chelba Yirgacheffe
$54.00/kg

Unlike our dry process Organic Yirgacheffe this is a classic washed Yirgacheffe coffee. It has a jasmine, lime and honey aroma which follows through into some sweet lime acidity on the front palate. A creamy, malty mid palate leads to a rich milk chocolate aftertaste.

Finally, congratulation to us, we've just had our 21st online birthday. In those years we've seen the internet grow from a curiosity to a vital part of everyday life. When we first went online I foresaw the growth of internet commerce and communication. I could see email replacing letters, online banking, and remote control of industrial processes. What I completely missed was the advent of the smart phone and the explosion of social media. Of course, if I'd been that smart I would probably be either rich or bankrupt, and not still roasting coffee!

Until next month
Alan

June 2017 Newsletter

They grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. Many people know this as sort of a background fact or something that can pop up during pub trivia nights, but most people don't realise just how much coffee an "awful lot" represents. In any given year between a quarter and a third of all the coffee produced worldwide comes from Brazil.

This is only possible because Brazil is a modern agribusiness country and the coffee industry is highly mechanised. Beginning with propagating the seeds and planting the coffee bushes in rows which very much resemble modern vineyards, complete with irrigation and suspension wires, even coffee cherry maturation is controlled by technology.

This allows for the mechanical harvesting, processing and sorting of the ripe coffee cherry. The popular image of lowly paid workers and farmers laboriously picking only ripe cherries simply doesn't apply to most of the coffee produced in Brazil. Instead, huge mechanical harvesters track slowly down kilometre long rows of coffee bushes, taking almost every coffee cherry as they go.

When farm sizes are measured in square kilometres rather than hectares this is realistically the only way to do it. Just as processing the sheer volume of coffee involved requires much use of robotics, mechanical engineering, sensors and computers. The results are stunning...this year's finished crop is estimated at around 3,000,000,000 kg (that's 3 billion kg!) which, for comparison, is about the same tonnage as the wheat produced here.

The downside of all this mechanised production is that the flavour of Brazilian coffees tend to be fairly homogenous, with only minor variations between growing areas and crop years, making it a cheap, mass produced item. To overcome this the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association was formed in 1991, with the goal of identifying and improving the quality (and prices) of Brazilian coffees.

The BSCA introduced competitive cupping competitions followed by auctions of the coffees involved. This was the origin of the Cup of Excellence auction process now supported by many other coffee producing countries. Over the years we've managed to acquire several COE placegetters, although never a Number One.

The competition idea has become widespread in Brazil, to the point where the three major coffee growing regions hold their own contests. Which brings us to this month's special coffee:

Brazil Sao Silvestre
$50.00/kg

The Fazenda Sao Silvestre Yellow Catuai was the winner of the 2016 "Best Coffee of Cerrado" competition. It has a rich front palate with a hint of fruit acid, cacao and vanilla mid palate and a malty finish, all combining with an intensity rarely seen in Brazilian coffees.

This coffee would normally be unavailable or a lot more expensive, but fortunately we have been able to get it as a "Farm Gate" coffee, purchased direct from the farm. The farming family involved, the Andrade Bros., have been growing coffee in Brazil since 1901. They obviously know a bit about it, and have kept up with the innovation needed to survive and prosper.

And finally, a quick note: Monday 12th June 2017 is a public holiday in Victoria, so orders from Friday morning to Monday evening will be shipped Tuesday 13th. For some reason Queen's Birthday and Melbourne Cup Day get the most delayed shipping complaints.

Until next month
Alan

May 2017 Newsletter

Continuing on from last month's newsletter, this month's effort is about what happens when my coffee finally arrives. The absolute first step is to get a sample of the green coffee out of the actual delivery and roast it. I then cup it against the pre-delivery sample, to make sure that it matches. Very rarely there can be differences, due to damage during shipping or in one case supplying old crop coffee instead of the latest lot.

Presuming everything is OK, it's then off to the roasters. I hire time at a couple of well established roasteries, both of which have 15 kg capacity gas fired Probat roasters. Having worked out the roast profile I want at the sample stage, it's just a matter of matching it on the Probats. I roast in small batches, 10 kg at a time (you only get 8.5 kg out after moisture loss) so there's quite a lot of work involved.

Then when I get the coffee back to the office it's stored in sealed tubs ready to pack. One thing that many of our customers don't think about is that every single order is freshly packed to specification. We simply don't have any coffee pre-packed, it's all out of the tubs, onto the scales and into the bags. Another thing is that we roast more-or-less to order, my schedule for any given day depends on the orders we received the day before.

The filled bags are then packed in the appropriate satchels, with the tracking stickers from the satchel stuck to each order. Couriers then arrive to pick up the day's production and we start the cycle again, as the satchels head safely to their destinations.

That's what used to happen. Since the start of this year the "service" that Australia Post has been providing has slipped quite a bit. In particular Express Post, which is supposedly guaranteed overnight delivery, just hasn't been working. Worse than that, complaints to Australia Post have been met with indifference. The "Guarantee" states that in the event of late delivery a free replacement satchel will be provided; to date, not one has been offered or supplied.

As a result of this I've also complained to my local Federal MP, as I figure action at a political level is the only way things will improve. I urge my customers to do the same if they encounter similar problems.

A couple of my industry peers have twitted me over my coffee tasting descriptions, describing them as a bit terse. When the average tasting notes read "Floral and tea rose upfront. Gentle balanced acidity and a heavy silky body. Spiced apple and cinnamon notes move into a dark chocolate and honeycomb finish." That's for our Nicaraguan coffee.

This month's special is

Sumatra Wahana Rasuna
$54.00/kg

…and my terse description is "very heavy body with dried fruit and spice flavours and a sweet brown sugar finish, more or less a liquid hot cross bun." It makes a fantastic espresso, really sweet and spicy with thick crema.

Finally, some customers have asked why I don't set up an Autofill credit card function on the order form. Put simply, this requires a non-bank server storing your credit card details, and (in my opinion) opens you up to hacking. There have been several high profile examples of this happening.

As long as your card details never appear on our servers there's no chance of them being stolen from us.

Until next month
Alan