Origin Week: following from seed to cup

Do not miss out on the final leg of our journey as we feature the following folks on Thursday and Friday at Dwelltime. Be sure to pick up your tickets for these events to reserve your spot!

Thursday 3-5pm
Cupping and talk with Fransico Mena of Exclusive coffees Costa Rica

Thursday 5-7pm
Meet and Greet with Badi Bradley and Alejandro Cadena Colombia

Friday 6-8pm
Matt Hodges of GeoCertify and Anteneh Assefa of the ECX Ethiopia

Sunday 3-5pm
Encoure meet and greet with Gustavo Alfaro at Clover Food Lab in Harvard Sq.

For those of you who had a chance to make it to the first two events of Origin Week, you had the rare opportunity to literally shake the hands that planted your coffee. This is the first step in a long chain of actors who work to bring you the coffee you enjoy each day.

On Tuesday, we heard from Gustavo Alfaro owner of Hacienda Santa Rosa talking about his long term approach to raising the level of quality as a way to sustain the farm economically. Adding value he argues is the only way to stay ahead of rising wages and other changing social factors. Gustavo says he was lucky enough to come into managing the farm at a time when specialty coffee was offering him this window of opportunity, a market for higher quality coffee sold at higher prices.

On Wednesday we had a chance to hear from Luis Pedro from Bella Vista Mill. Luis operates a quality mill in Guatemala which give him the opportunity to interact with hundreds of small farmers from the local area. With his background in Agronomy and his interest in the specialty market, Luis has the ability to impart to other farmers the great opportunity that they have with the specialty coffee market when there is a focus on improving quality. Luis happens to manage one of the farms that barismo customers have really come to love, El Bosque. Luis was able to share with those who made it to the event the improvements in quality that have taken place over the last few years at El Bosque and some of the changes to come.

One of our attendees said she has been telling all of her friends that this is Coffee University week! Another attendee on Tuesday noted the linear line up of events as well. We started Origin Week with a farm owner (Gustavo), then moved on to a mill owner / farm manager (Luis), the next events feature exporters from Costa Rica and Colombia as well as an Importer. Finally on Friday we take on the big picture event: the intersection of specialty coffee and large markets with our guests from GeoCertify and the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange.

Don't miss your change to catch the rest of the highly educational and engaging Origin Week with barismo! Get your free tickets now: originweek.eventbrite.com

Guatemala Producers, Tuesday and Wednesday

The first guests that we will have for Origin Week are from Guatemala. Gustavo Alfaro will be at dwelltime on Tuesday, and Luis Pedro will be at Simon's Too on Wednesday. Reserve your free tickets now!

When I first met Gustavo Alfaro I remember that he was very engaging and soon we had arranged a visit to his farm Hacienda Santa Rosa Alfaro. I spent a good amount of time walking the farm and hiking up to the highest lot where the Buena Esperanza grows at 1,900 meters elevation. I learned quickly that Gustavo was interested in making long term investments into the farm to improve coffee quality, quality of life for workers, and over all presentation of Hacienda Santa Rosa Alfaro. During that visit, I was able to meet the artist Rudy Cotton who was visiting the farm to find inspiration for the mural that he is commissioned to complete in one of the main buildings at HSA for Gustavo. Rudy and Gustavo met as students at the University of Guatemala and have stayed friends over the years. This collaboration is an example of the vision that Gustavo has for his farm. Other farmers ask him why he would spend any effort putting art on his farm, Gustavo wants to inspire pride into his workers and make a good impression on those who visit his farm. You will hear from Gustavo about this mural project and about this year's HSA coffees when you attend the first Origin Week event this Tuesday, April 9th, 6-8pm at Voltage Coffee & Art. Reserve your free ticket here.

Barismo has worked with Luis Pedro for about as long as we have been roasting. I had the opportunity to Visit Bella Vista Mill in Guatemala last year and see the shear amount of hard work that goes into the many farms and lots that Luis handles. Luis Pedro has been working tirelessly for years to impart to other producers in Guatemala that there is a market that puts a premium on quality grown, picked, and processed coffees. Luis now has an opportunity to connect a bit more with you the end customer to give you first hand information about these efforts. This is also a chance for so many of the baristas who work with coffees from Bella Vista to share their appreciation and give their feed back to Luis in this Direct Trade conversation. We like to explain Direct Trade as a transparent conversation about quality, it doesn't get any more transparent than this. Mark your calendars Wednesday April 10th, 5-7pm at Simon's Too. Reserve your free ticket here.

Stay Fresh: Bicycles & Coffee

FRESHLY DELIVERED
Jackie, our bike delivery person is excited about the weather finally warming up, and kudos to her for doing an awesome job through the winter! The other reason Jackie has to be excited is the new hot pink paint job on the bike, this makes it easier for everyone out there on the road to spot the barismo bike as it makes it way around town. This week the bags that have a cute bike.barismo.com sticker on them were roasted and delivered in the same day via the Barismo Bike. As always, you will find the roast date written prominently on the front of the retail bag. Where exactly did those coffees end up? Well, you can follow the freshness here on twitter to find out: @BarismoBike

The Coffee Trike in Dewey Sq.

FRESHLY BREWED
In other exciting bike and coffee news, I had a chance to connect with San from The Coffee Trike . He has a nice setup brewing coffee from local roasters. His main coffee is Alchemy from George Howell and this week for Origin Week he will be guesting barismo's Peña Blanca single origin Espresso. The Peña Blanca is from Hacienda Santa Rosa Alfaro and you can meet Gustavo Alfaro owner of the farm twice this week. Tuesday at Voltage or Sunday at Clover. San is set up right in Dewey Square in downtown Boston along side the other food trucks just in front of the Red Line South Station T-stop. You will find The Coffee Trike in Boston on the Greenway Monday through Friday. Follow the coffee trike on twitter for any service and location updates: @TheCoffeeTrike

FRESH AIR
And some other bicycle news to get you ready for the spring (finally). Around Cambridge and Somerville it looks like they are putting the big community bicycle racks back in place, time to put away your winter coats and tune up your bicycle! If you do not have your own bike or you happen to be in town visiting for the SCAA conference, don't worry, you can explore the town with a Hubway Bike. If you are not familiar with how this works, it is an easy point-to-point bicycle rental. The bicycles have begun to show up in their familiar spots around the Greater Boston area (Cambridge/Somerville included). You can check out their website for more info and complete map of where the bicycle docking stations are located. www.thehubway.com

STAY FRESH
Being such a big part of the Cambridge coffee community as a local roaster we know that sustainability is important to our customers. We also know that sustainability requires dedication at every step along the entire life cycle (no pun intended) of a product, coffee is no exception. At barismo, 90% of the coffees we sell are delivered to local cafes via bicycle. The final step in a process is just as crucial as the first step and every step in between. Origin Week shows customers the first step, local roasting and local bicycle delivery is about taking that same sense of responsibility all the way through to the last step.

If your neighborhood coffee shop serves quality local milk and fresh baked goods but fails to find a quality local roaster then maybe your community needs more quality micro roasters. We love serving an authentic product to our community, that is one of the biggest reasons we are sharing Origin Week with the people who enjoy these coffees 365 days a year. If you are visiting this week we welcome you and hope you have a chance to sample what the areas local coffee scene is all about. Whatever community you are apart of take a look around you and ask yourself how can your coffee scene be more authentic. The simple answer is to try harder, find a quality local roaster that you really enjoy, and maybe it means starting your own.

Stay local

This week is where we emphasize what local can do.  The bike delivery crew and the production team are getting sympatico. Now it's time to show it since the weather is supposed to be getting nicer.

This week we will be checking in at every stop along the way delivering coffees that have been roasted the same day by bike.  We might even check in at a few shops that don't stay local or fresh to show what it's like.  It's not an easy logistical feat but we can do it because so many shops who support us are local.

This is what local can do.

To mark this, every single bag that goes out this week will have a sticker with the same pink bike.barismo.com icon on it.  That is the home of our foursquare check-in page that allows you to track the freshest local deliveries.  Take a peak and don't forget to share the road!

  

Origin Week: I'd like to introduce...

The SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) is organizing an event in Boston that gives us an opportunity to pull in many of the people we work with.  With a continuing desire for transparency and giving credit where it's due, we have arranged for a list of speakers and small events outside the trade show and competitions that regular people who love coffee can attend for free.

You know we are passionate, but these people are involved in much of what we do at varying levels.  Meet farm owners, mill managers, quality operations that represent small farmers and organize relationships, and others. Origin week highlights the people we work with to bring you coffee. These events give you, our local customers, a chance to interact and hear their story.

Wihout further ado, here is an introduction to all of the amazing people who will be at the Origin Week events, take a look and then go reserve your free tickets for each event over here: originweek.eventbrite.com

April 9th and April 14th

Gustavo Alfaro is a fourth generation coffee farmer, but he is not your typical producer. After graduating from the University of Guatemala, Gustavo went on to pursue a career in biochemistry which led him from Chile to South Africa. Eventually when the time came for him to take on the operation of Hacienda Santa Rosa, Gustavo brought great new ideas to investing in the future of the farm. One of his first goals was to find a partnership with a roaster who would have a focus on quality and long term growth with HSA. Barismo was amazed with the Buena Esperanza when they first cupped it and became the very first specialty micro roaster to work with HSA. Buena Esperanza went on to place 4th in the 2012 Cup of Excellence with promise of an improved 2013 crop. Gustavo pushes for improvements for the farm at every level, from microlots and agricultural projects to quality of life for workers. 

April 10th

Luis Pedro runs Bella Vista Mill in Guatemala and is also a manager of many quality farms in Guatemala. We have worked with Luis for over four years on various coffees, notably the El Bosque, Bosque Red and Yellow Bourbon microlots from 2011. Luis has implemented continued quality improvements on the farm level at El Bosque. We recently began working with him on an extensive varietal project. Luis has a background in agronomy and a passion for quality.

April 11th

Francisco Mena and Exclusive Coffees are big supporters of the Micromill Revolution in Costa Rica. The so called revolution focuses on specialty quality coffees and lot separation, and has continued to grow with the rise of direct trade efforts by specialty roasters. Barismo has worked with Francisco and Exclusive Coffees on the Don Mayo lot La Loma, Jardin De Aromas mircrolots, and various other excellent coffees.

April 11th

Alejandro Cadena has a degree in Economics from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. He joined Virmax in 2001 and in 2002 he set up Virmax Colombia. Alejandro is the managing director of Virmax, but still visits with coffee growers and continues to seek out new relationships with producers to bring in exciting coffees.

April 11th

Badi Bradley is a specialty coffee importer for Caravela Coffee located in North Carolina. Barismo has worked with Badi for many years to sustainably bring in coffees from Colombia. Caravela, though mainly dealing with Colombian coffees, brings in excellent lots from Honduras, Nicaragua and other Central American countries. 

April 12th

Matthew Hodges founded GeoCertify in 2007, while working with the government of Rwanda to restructure the coffee sector from commodity to specialty grade. He is currently serving as President and CEO of GeoCertify, implementing tracability efforts of microlots through the Ethiopia Commodity Echange.  He spent 5 years as a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and currently lectures at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology. He holds degrees from Pennsylvania State University and Harvard University. - from geocertify website

April 12th

Anteneh Assafa is the new CEO of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, succeeding founder of the ECX Eleni Gabre-Medhin PhD. Mr. Assafa holds a degree in managment from Addis Ababa University and a degree in finance from the University of Sorbonne. Mr. Assafa has 15 years experience in the banking sector most recently as the Vice-President of the Bank of Abyssinia.

Reserve your free ticket for these events at:

Signup now:   originweek.eventbrite.com

Origin Week Events

barismo coffee roaster presents
 Origin Week Full Event List 
April 9-14, 2013  Free registration for all events at www.originweek.eventbrite.com
they grow it, we roast it, you love it. shake the hands that planted your coffee.
Barismo is a local coffee roaster who has dedicated years to sourcing the freshest quality coffee. We work tirelessly to foster transparent and sustainable Direct Trade relationships with the top growers, exporters, and importers in the world. This April, join us for Origin Week and seize the opportunity to shake the hands that planted your coffee.

Gustavo Alfaro of HSA at Voltage, Guatemalan Coffees
Tuesday, April 9, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (PDT)
Voltage Coffee & Art, 295 3rd St, Cambridge, MA 02142

Luis Pedro from Bella Vista Mill / El Bosque in Guatemala
Wednesday, April 10, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (PDT)
Simon's Too, 983 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

Francisco Mena of Exclusive Coffees in Costa Rica
Thursday, April 11, 2013 from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM (PDT)
Dwelltime Coffeebar and Bakeshop, 364 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Badi Bradley and Aljandro Cadena Colombian Coffees
Thursday, April 11, 2013 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM (PDT)
Dwelltime Coffeebar and Bakeshop, 364 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Boston TNT
Thursday, April 11, 2013 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
Voltage Coffee & Art, 295 3rd St, Cambridge, MA 02142

Matt Hodges of GeoCertify and Anteneh Assefa of ECX Ethiopia
Friday, April 12, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (PDT)
Dwelltime Coffeebar and Bakeshop, 364 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Gustavo Alfaro of HSA at Clover HSQ Guatemalan Coffees
Sunday, April 14, 2013 from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM (PDT)
Clover HSQ in Harvard Square, 7 Holyoke St, Cambridge, MA 02141


Featured guest : Gustavo Alfaro of Hacienda Santa Rosa

Direct tradiness, an update

This year, we went early to get a lot of things done with the farms we work with.  We completed our visits to Costa Rica and El Salvador, but we'll report on those coffees later.  Right now, we just got back from Guatemala and have a few updates to report.

"Elite" Bourbon at El Bosque 2013

The one everyone is interested in is El Bosque, the farm with the heirloom Bourbon outside of Antigua, Guatemala.  Bosque started out as a wild farm, a beautiful and untouched place with great potential.  After four years of care and reworking, we are starting to see some great new changes.

First off, new plantings from the cherry of those 70-90 year old trees are coming to fruit soon.  That means, the production will increase but it also means the preservation of these trees.  They were referring to these in El Salvador as 'Elite' Bourbon so we are going to adopt that nomenclature in this post to distinguish it.  It's defined by the much taller tree with more space between branches, the distinct angle of the branches, and that these are the older heirloom trees we associate with El Bosque and it's resulting flavor profile.  The really old trees (70-90 years) always had issues of low yield and high rates of defects (higher attrition when sorting).  Seeing younger plantings come to fruit soon should help out with that and hopefully retain the characters we like about the coffee.

Villa Sarchi at Guatemala El Bosque

It's not just the 'Elite' Bourbon that's there, they have the local Bourbon planted at many farms Luis Pedro Zelaya works with called Bourbon 300 (Bourbon Trescientos).  That's a more disease resistant, shorter height, and higher yield Bourbon that Luis selected for planting.  Bosque also has plantings of the more common Yellow Caturra and Pacamara.

What excites us is the new Villa Sarchi planted on the farm that's coming to fruit and maybe next year we can bring some in.  The first harvest of it probably won't cup out well enough to be anything notable.  Along with that, we have some Orange Bourbon (from El Salvador) and Yellow Bourbon (from the original Yellow Bourbon trees on Bosque)  planted and a little mix of Ethiopian varieties that need more time to evaluate before planting more.  The farm manager and also the owner of the mill that handles this and many other coffees will be in town soon to present more about the mighty progression of El Bosque.

Buena Esperanza is the other main farm we work with in Guatemala up in the mountains of Huehuetenango.  This year, that farm is blowing up after placing well in the Cup of Excellence.  Gustavo has been quite busy with all the for traffic of new coffee buyers trying to bend his ear, but the Esperanza has scored well and continues to build an international following.  We see the coffee cupping well and expect things to move forward in our relationship.  Since Gustavo will be in town shortly and many of you can meet him locally, we'll hold more of the details for him to personally pass them along.

More information to follow soon.

Don't worry, it's just a seasonal thing

Every year, we have a gap where we just run out of a coffee until the next harvest arrives.  The seasonal nature of the coffee harvest means it's often a good thing to run out of it for a little while and move to other coffees that are fresher.  While it's sound from a quality perspective, it doesn't make us feel better when our favorite coffees disappear from the shelf for a while.

What's been amazing to watch over the last few years is the attachment that people have as we bring back the producers who have excelled or that we have a strong relationship with.  Last year, it was the El Bosque from Guatemala.  We organized a pick of red and yellow bourbon, which we ran through very quickly after it arrived.  There were many people looking for it on what seemed like a daily basis after it was gone.  One dedicated person in particular called us every few weeks to get an update on when that coffee would be back in season... until it arrived.  Next year will be our fourth year working with El Bosque and we get the attachment people have to that farm.

This year, the La Loma from Costa Rica seems to have converted quite a few people to become loyal fans.  The next crop of La Loma will be our third year bringing this lot in and fourth working with the folks at Don Mayo. Our customers and cafes have had time to become attached to this particular lot and the quality produced at Don Mayo.  The other day, our green buyer was covering in a pinch and helped close the coffee bar.  Within minutes of each other, two customers came in and were both seeking out Loma and seemed pretty devastated at it's absence.  The comments 'now what do I get, that was my favorite' and the more humorous advice 'tell Don Mayo they need to plant more coffee trees' were left with us.  Both left with another good coffee but truth is, we get it.  That's what makes a lot of this worth while.

The good thing is that the new coffees are just around the corner.  Miralvalle is shipping early and looks great, the Loma is fantastic and always ships on time, and of course Bosque is a bit late with picking but won't be far behind.  While these farms have become beloved in our lineup (among other well liked coffees), we are looking forward to bridging the gap and finally putting some faces and people in front of customers to go with the names of coffees they like.  Stay tuned as we are planning to arrange something special soon as a way to make the conversation more complete.

Ecosystem of Good Coffee and Good Food

Good Food and Good Coffee

It is not an uncommon experience to go out for a great meal at a restaurant only to end with a bitter shot of espresso or poor cup of drip coffee. The biggest challenge for restaurants is time. It takes time to make a pour over the way you might see it done at a place like dwelltime.  On top of that, a dedicated cafe takes a considerable amount of time to train staff to make consistently great tasting coffee. There are too many arguments made for having a coffee experience that is not in line with the food. The question we have is why not accept the challenge and make better coffee?

Fortunately there are some great examples locally of establishments we partner with who are taking up the challenge and finding ways to offer coffee that is in line with the rest of their values: fresh product, quality, locally sourced. We hope you have a chance to try them all!

Four Burgers

704 Mass Ave., Cambridge, MA  @fourburgers

That is right, a burger joint doing good coffee. Four Burgers is a local burger restaurant that focuses on well sourced ingredients from local New England farmers, cooked fresh to order. They just launched their new breakfast hours and menu (see menu on right) this month at their Central Square location.  If you haven't been, you should check it out. They are using ceramic beehouse drippers to offer per cup servings of barismo coffee. The bar has just been raised.

Puritan & Co.

1166 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA www.puritancambridge.com

This newly opened restaurant has quickly become a popular dining spot in Inman Square and for good reason. The sourcing of the food they serve is an important aspect of what they do. In addition to well prepared, well sourced food, their Wine and Coffee buyer chose to find a coffee roaster that fit in with their two-fold goals of great tasting and locally sourced. Coffee service at Puritan & Co. is in the process of switching from french press to a stylish filtered Chemex brew. Despite the challenges all restaurants face, they have invested in a creative time saving water dispersion system that will allow them to execute a programmed Chemex recipe that's freshly ground and freshly brewed. Go for great food, but don't miss the great coffee.

Casa B

253 Washington St, Somerville, MA @casabrestaurant

The beautiful space at Casa B is just the first layer of an amazing dining experience focused on small plates and excellent ingredients. After your meal, ask for the coffee, Casa B is perhaps the only restaurant locally doing, not just fresh drip coffee, but cloth filtered woodnecks. You get the rich, clean concentrated flavors of the coffees in a way that is even hard to find from a dedicated coffee shop. Each cup is prepared fresh upon ordering. This is a restaurant that has really taken coffee to the next level and the rewards are very delicious.

Oleana

134 Hampshire St, Cambridge, MA www.oleanarestaurant.com

This Inman Square favorite has excellent food. They asked themselves the question, why not? Why would a restaurant who can talk about their food, not offer a coffee that they can talk about. They came to barismo for two reasons, locally roasted is fresher, and we identify coffees by the producer. Instead of generic regions or fanciful Italian sounding pseudo names, they liked that we give the name of the producer, the varietal, the elevation and processing. Servers who are adept at explaining food, easily transition to coffee expert with the information provided. Coffee service at Oleana is traditional french press prepared fresh by the cup.

Good Coffee and Good Food

All of the noise we make about well sourced, freshly roasted, locally delivered coffee, it might be excusable for an excellent coffee shop to offer lackluster baked goods or food options. But why would we? Or to complete the thought, Why Not offer great food too? 

It is not an easy undertaking to run a food program in what is mostly a coffee focused business.  One main reason is that as coffee people we may not have specific kitchen experience to know where to even begin. With a little bit of kitchen help, and dedication to making it work, it is very possible and in fact works well. Here are some coffee places we work with doing just that.

Dwelltime

364 Broadway, Cambridge, MA @dwelltimecoffee

Almost one year ago dwelltime launched as an example of what a high volume coffeebar can do, fresh to order drip coffees, new pressure profile espresso machine, excellent teas, cold brew on tap, great service and a comfortable spacious place to relax. That in itself was a big undertaking, but once we were on our feet that was not the end of the story. Over the first few months we were quietly figuring out our food program. We launched with baked goods which we have pushed to be better and better. Next came lunch service, internally we have kitchen experience and that was invaluable, but it is never easy figuring these things out. Once we had a handle on our weekday lunch service, we tried something really different, Brunch. And guess what... people who love great coffee, love great food too.

Voltage Coffee & Art

295 Third St, Cambridge, MA @voltagecoffee

Voltage Coffee & Art added something exceptional to the Kendall neighborhood in Cambridge when it opened almost two years ago, and like dwelltime it is not content to settle with just good coffee. People are confident in the quality of coffee at Voltage and we expect that to continue, but there is more in the works.  Voltage's owner Lucy Valena has been quietly crafting a lunch program that recently launched as part of an expanding lineup soon to include beer/wine. Voltage is on the verge of installing its beer tap system and putting in a brand new wine selection. We are looking forward to expanded seating as well which will mean patio seats outdoors!  Voltage is one of those spaces where the best is yet to come but knowing the staff and owner, we get that quality, community, fresh, and local are going to be the highlights.

Why Not?

Why would a really great restaurant offer poorly roasted, stale coffee? Or why would a "local" coffeeshop ship roasted coffee in from across the country? We don't have the answers to the various hybids of inconsistency found in the food and beverage industry. For restaurants and cafes that over look one or the other, the question is not why, but why not just get it right? The demand for quality is rising on both ends.

Luckily for customers there are places that understand that quality local food and quality local roasted coffee are part of a mutually sustaining ecosystem. Hopefully there will be more establishments who ask themselves, why not source everything fresh and local?

Snow update

We've mostly dug out and are looking to reopen Sunday morning.  Living right around the corner means we are some of the first to be able to dig out.  Expect normal Sunday hours.  We hope you are able to dig out as well and drop by for a coffee.

The value of transparency

A bag of coffee should answer the 3 W's: Who, what, and when?

Who produced this coffee? The land owner and the mill that had a hand in creating this product should be identified (when known).  There must be as much information as is needed to begin to build a relevant understanding of the production chain in growing/picking/milling a coffee.  Who is the starting point of a long chain of questions to ask about what makes a coffee unique.

What makes this coffee special? Elevation, processing at the farm/wet mill/dry mill, regional location, and special packaging of the unroasted coffee for transport.  Things that can impart or change/preserve the flavor of a coffee add to the knowledge base a consumer builds over time of what they prefer while trying different coffees.  Do I prefer bourbon or caturra more? Am I more interested in higher elevation coffees?  The list goes on but how can you build those preferences without knowledge of them existing as a contributing factor to a coffee.

When was this coffee harvested/roasted?  Knowing the crop year is a nice item but it's often too rare an addition.  Knowing the roast date is one of the most basic and fundamental tenets of good coffee.  The nicest production with the best terroir roasted to perfection will be wasted by staling.  A clearly labeled and recent roast date is the first real indicator you will get your money's worth or have a chance at a better coffee experience.

"If coffee is truly to learn something from the wine model, it is that brand identity for farms (even in a blend) adds value for both the producers and their consumers."

Identity is a powerful thing.  Prominently displaying the producer information gives the farm a brand with a sense of the components that go into creating the flavors of that coffee.  This is so valuable that even larger roasters borrow this identity and sense of place by naming some of their large mill and co-op blends with farm style or estate-like sounding (although slightly misleading) names.  

With single estate coffees, this process of identifying the producer and micro lot name is becoming more main stream every year.  For espresso, it is clearly not the case as we are sliding backwards locally.  (A recent cafe crawl of what are supposed to be top shops in town found that almost all not serving barismo were serving a blend with unknown -to the barista- components.  Seeing great gear with talented barista precisely executing mediocre dark roasted blends was a let down.  That disappointment inspired this post.)  The long known secret with roasters is that you can mix together lesser quality components, roast it darker, and charge a better markup if the mystery inside is not revealed (as long as it says espresso on the bag).  Identifying the constantly changing mix of coffees in a blend and having cafes/consumers look up the components could cause problems by revealing the secrets of the blend.  Those secrets may not be glorious  and the previous perception of a good deal could easily turn around with a little more delving into the ingredients.  High end micro roasters working with estates are more likely to abandon the faceless blends identified with mass produced roasting outfits and more have been opting for complete transparency.  If coffee is truly to learn something from the wine model, it is that brand identity for farms (even in a blend) adds value for both the producers and their consumers.

The basic question: Is the roaster proud enough of the product to show what's in it?  Transparency is that affirmation.  Labeling with confidence speaks to knowledge of the coffee and what makes it special. That, in turn, can infer there is knowledge of how to continue to make it better.

What local can do

Follow this bike to good coffee

You'll see our new and improved bicycle cart touring greater Cambridge loaded up with coffees for locals.  Fresh coffee delivered within hours of roasting has been a fun thing to be a part of.  It just made sense to launch this given how bike friendly Cambridge and Somerville are.  After seeing how supportive the feedback has been as shop owners and more customers take notice of the bike in town, we are glad we did it.

Track it through bike.barismo.com where we are testing out using a foursquare script to locate where the freshest retail shows up.  We are also updating our stops on twitter so that you can get yourself over there for some bags.

Relationship coffee delivered the same day it's roasted or the next morning is kind of a cool thing.  Since fresh roast is such a key component to great coffee, we consider this a bit of a quality assurance project!

We're having fun with it and hope you can support this project by picking up a bag of coffee at one of our stops.

Ethiopian coffees are back!

Some of you may have noticed a decline in our Ethiopian coffee offerings over the last couple of years. Ethiopia is in fact one of the countries in our logo, so you would think we would pay extra attention to those coffees. While Ethiopians tend to be some of our favorite coffees, there are a few reasons why we have chosen to buy very few over the last couple of years.

The first, and biggest reason is the Homogenizing of Ethiopian coffee by the Ethiopian Coffee Exchange. The ECX separated coffee into regions as opposed to farms, and prohibited all direct farm-to-buyer sales (other than coops and ECX lots). What this did was cut off access to the tracking and sale of small excellent unblended lots and commoditize the uniqueness of these small lots into large lots of average specialty quality.

The second reason we avoided buying Ethiopians was the ‘C’ market price jump of 2 years ago. This made coffee that was normally in the mid $3 range cost over $5 in some cases. Coffee that is both more expensive and of lower quality is never a good combination. These factors made us put our resources and time into Central America.  

The good news is both of these things are no longer issues. The quality and availability of farm direct Ethiopian coffee is now better than ever. We are seeing new regions like Western Ethiopia, Jimma, Kaffa, and new varieties (actually very old) like Abyssinia. Abyssinia is an old typica variety that was brought to Indonesia in the 1920’s. Expect to see a great increase in the number of offerings from Ethiopia roasted by us, and a greater range in flavor in those offerings than ever before. We have started you off with a classic Sidama that is bursting with florals, with a nice underlying meyer lemon and touch of berry. The sorting is exceptionally clean on this coffee so for once you shouldn’t have to worry about too many defects.

One interesting thing about this coffee is the fermentation. It is given a 72 hour soak for fermentation then vigorously agitated to remove the mucilage. Finally, the coffee is soaked overnight in clean water, washed, then dried on raised beds. This is the classic method in Sidama and Yirgacheffe but contrary to the way fermentation and drying is done in Central America. For example, at Hacienda Santa Rosa coffee is depulped then dry fermented for 48 hours then washed and dried on a concrete patio.

We wanted to explain some of the reasoning behind our buying decisions since washed Ethiopias are some of the most interesting coffees you can taste and we had all but phased them out. Enjoy the Deri Kochoha and look forward to even more really great Ethiopian coffees.

barismo is moving

Many of you have seen the 'for rent' sign at our space recently and may have wondered what's going on?  Long answer is we have been growing a lot the last few years and outpaced the size our current space could handle some time ago.  We began looking a few years back into spaces for the roasting operation (which triggered finding the space dwelltime is now in). We decided to pull back given that expansion would have stretched us quite thin at that time.

When our current landlord at 169 Mass Ave came to us recently to tell us that the space a few doors down at 171 Mass Ave was opening up, we took a long hard look at what we could do there.  It seemed like a perfect fit for us but a little more time had to pass for us to figure out how to handle the shift.  A change of pace and a redesign began to seem like the perfect solution to years of cramped growth in our current space.

Recently, we fully committed to the move with a new approach and new floor plan.  The space will be divided into two sections.  A roasting section where all your coffees will be produced and bagged and a small coffee bar with seating (yes, you read it right).

The roasting and production area will have it's own cupping and training setup to work with our wholesale accounts.  Our green buyer will have dedicated office hours to pass along information on coffees and help those working with our coffees get a leg up on new estates as they come in.  We will even have some space free weekly where barista we work with can come by to sample coffees from other roasters on our setup.  The space will allow us to function as a training lab to experiment while simultaneously working on quality control projects, the best of both worlds.

The coffee bar area is going to be a unique design given how much more space we have to work with.  The main focus will be on our 'by the cup' service.  We've been at the forefront of manual brews in our area and have no intention of slowing down.  Expect a cart service for Syphons and a shift towards more cloth filter brews on bar. Our espresso bar will continue to be a simple offering list presented in a traditional format of limited sizes.  We will add a few sweets and food items to the bar once we get fully operational and will function more like a regular cafe with our espresso service.

Expect us to begin moving in later this month and complete the move in November.  We will post interruptions in bar service on the door and on twitter as soon as we know of them.  We are looking forward to the new space and hope to see you there.

Boston Local Food Festival and sustainability

We will be at the Boston Local food fest providing one more reason to get tickets and show up.  We do however need a few extra hands for the event so we are hoping to wrangle a few local barista to collaborate with us for the event.

We have put a lot of thought into the concepts of local, sustainable, and why that matters in an industry that has coffees coming from all over the world.  It makes sense that people lump sustainability solely into terms of anything that happens at the farm level or cafe level in coffee.  Coffees come from all over the world so it seems like then shipping them across the country is not really that big a deal.  Truth is, it really is kind of a big deal.

Here's something for you to think about next time you are in a cafe that talks about zero waste or sustainability, where does the coffee come from?  Though coffees come from all over the world, maritime or cargo freight by sea has an extremely low cost (and carbon footprint) compared to truck and air freight.  The argument can easily be made that coffees delivered by maritime freight to the closest port to a roaster and sold locally are easily the most sustainable model in our industry.  Shipping roasted coffee cross country is one of the least common sense habits our industry has developed and adds a lot of costs to the final product.

What value could be added to ship a coffee across eight (or however many) states?  What quality can be increased by shipping coffee a thousand (or more) miles from roaster to cafe?  Short answer, none.  Anyone who tells you they can't find a good quality coffee roaster in region or their local metro is not giving enough thought or research to it.  There are so many new roasting operations starting up in every part of the country that the argument can be made we are in a renaissance for small batch micro roasters (or the beginning of one).

On a quality level, there are big arguments for local roasters like us to stay hyper local in our business model.  Bags roasted within days (if not hours) showing up on shelves in locations that we can often bike to.  Being able to train, teach, and share with those serving and buying our coffees.  You can even easily meet the green buyer or roaster daily to talk about what is special about that farm or how that roast tastes in different methods.

Nevertheless, it's a complex topic that can ponder as you drop our booth the 7th for the Boston Local Food fest. It's going to be fun.  Think 'local'.