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.

The state of the local coffee scene

Boston metro is what we always get tagged with. We are in East Arlington. That's right on the border with Cambridge... which is across the river from what is really Boston. Now if you live in Cambridge, you probably don't cross the river much and head into Boston unless you work there.

It doesn't really irk us, just a bit misleading as is the cafe culture in Boston/Cambridge. It's incredibly confusing, convoluted, and a bit of scramble. I can say without a doubt, the better cafes are still in Cambridge right now. After the recent opening of Voltage in Kendall and a few shudders of movement from old Cambridge establishments, things are looking better. Crema got notably better with the addition of Sal (ex Pavement mgr). Toscaninis has put up the money to buy new gear and is moving towards a better coffee program. 1369 got new gear also and doubled down with their coffee program. Simon's recently had two barista place 1st and 3rd after the White Chrome event (local comp hosted by Flat Black) and the shop seems to really have some energy after that. It seems like prepping for the competition and doing well really sparked them (congrats to Nathaniel and Jason). Hi Rise on Brattle St. in Harvard Sq. continues to put out some of the most progressive coffee in the area though the main store on Concord St. has nothing in common coffee-wise (though better sandwiches). That's the roundup of Cambridge shops for now but look for an update to that in a few months.

As for Boston, there are unconfirmed rumors of the coffee MGR of a small chain wanting to a open a barismo style roasting operation on that side of the river very soon, possibly in January (again unconfirmed). We know him and wish him good luck, but it's a lot more hard work than most people expect looking at it from the outside. You run into a lot of walls until you find your customers and if you desire to do quality, the battle is even more uphill around here. Dylan is back working at Sip but we haven't been there recently to check in. Other than that, there is not legitimate motion over there I'd like to note as the rest seems either the same or worse.

Taste in Newton is now owned by GHH/Terroir. I think it's worth a visit to see what they are doing out there. Most of our staff and myself have visited all of these spaces in the last month and you should too. I think visiting all of these cafes is good if you are curious about the Boston/Cambridge coffee scene... as long as you start at barismo... and end there too!

Events: Syphon Brewing and $3 espresso day

Simon Hsieh will be traveling to the US this month as our guest and we plan on having two Barismo sponsored events while he is in Cambridge:

Saturday Feb. 2:
Simon Yu of Simon's coffee in Porter Sq. [where: 1736 Mass Ave, Cambridge 02138] will have an espresso centric day to celebrate his new La Marzocco FB80. Barismo is proud to feature roasts centered around unique coffees presented for maximum expression all roasted by Simon Hsieh. Prices will vary based on offerings.
Straight shots will be served in limited runs from 10am until we run out of coffees... Prices on the shots will vary and the selection will change throughout the afternoon. Please help support this ambitious venture by joining us for an afternoon of progressive coffee experiences.

Sunday Feb. 3:
A Syphon bar demo and presentation of Zero Defect Coffees roasted by master roaster Simon Hsieh will be held at an open space in Arlington TBA. The Barismo hosted event will be held from 2-4pm and will feature some fantastic coffees we won't name online. There will be a surprise coffee or two that are air freighted from origin (Kenya no less) to go with a selection of top tier coffees.

The Syphon Bar will feature multiple vac pots running simultaneously as well as a demo on brewing vac pot, and a presentation on defects in coffee followed by a meet and greet with Simon Hsieh. The possibility of a sorting competition for education purposes and other items to be decided. This event will cost $15.00 and due to the price of these coffees we have a space limit which may fill up quickly so please register in advance.

To register, email events @ barismo . com

Cambridge Coffee Notes

-Google maps now has street view for Cambridge which isn't all it's cracked up to be. I almost expect to see Miguel out front of Simon's on his cell phone... but it isn't that realistic!

-I saw Nick Cho and Trish at Simon's. No idea if Simon is going to send people to the North East Regional Barista competition. It's in Ithaca NY which seems closer to Chicago than it is to us here in Cambridge. Simon's or Diesel really should send someone to compete but the reward vs cost is still mostly intangible for those who don't know if they could actually win some prize money. It's likely I won't even be in the country during the event anyway so I'm not making plans.

-A friend is about to take charge of the coffee program at a local cafe that promises to be the new hot spot for coffee in town. I wish I could say more but it looks like a fantastic fit for an old coffee place with a new direction. Details will follow when he is comfy breaking the news. Maybe we'll get him blogging about the changes as they happen!

-Simon Hsieh will be stateside for a week in January, we plan on having an event to discuss some of his ground breaking philosophies and taste a lot of great coffees. Expect some vac pot wizardry as he demos a syphon coffee bar...

-I spent a lot of time lately with Simon (the one in Cambridge) on his fetco(drip brewer) and adjusting his bulk grinder. The rewards have been immediate and have showed a better cup overall. The Costa Rica, La Minita from Atomic Cafe was coming out like maple syrup.

-Evidently our old buddy Nick Brown is working his coffee magic at Manic in Toronto. Kaminsky had a Rwanda Golden cup that was noteworthy in store. Shocking what a small community it is!

-Post tasting event, we had one roaster complain, one more open minded roaster ask for more events, and a cafe owner show interest in having more events. To that end, we are approaching a few cafes to have a local barista focused event. Not really sure about details or who would be interested but I'm asking around.

Coffee tasting at Hi Rise

Hi Rise Bakery, originally uploaded by browncoffeeco.

October 20th at 5pm
Hi-Rise Bread Company
[where: 208 Concord Ave Cambridge, MA 02138-1335]

Coffee cupping event. Free to the public. Coffees from local roasters, vac pot, pour over, and other brew methods just for fun. Sorry, no espresso planned at this time.

Should be good fun. Hopefully some local roasters will come in to present their own coffees on this stage. Hi Rise has a great community following and really is a solid place to have events like this. I am really looking forward to it.

Date and time subject ot change so keep tabs on us.

This has nothing to do with coffee

No, wait, that's not exactly right...

The best thing about road trips is that final stretch on the road getting back to familiar signs and that cozy strip of road you frequent most. Radio station presets come back in tune and you can shake off the fatigue for a second wind as you know you are close to home.

Now that I'm back in town, a few notes for my fellow Cantabrigians:

- If you are a Cambridge Barista, there's word of a local event. Still looking for sponsors, music shops, bike shops, etc to make it happen and a bar for the after party. I'm supporting as best I can, email me if you want to participate and I will forward you to the organizers. Highlight will be a latte art throwdown and some free swag.

- An event upcoming in one month. This will be a big event. Owner agreed to this as long as we take it very serious and put together a good show. Vac pots and lots of coffee. Interested roasters need only drop me an email. You get the stage with at least two of the areas best shop owners and a crowd of hi flyin consumers with good palates at one of my favorite locales. Details will come up on the site closer to event time.

Gratuitous latte art parting shot...

Baked goods and pastry shops

Kaminsky was pointing me to check out the much lauded Flour Bakery. A quick bit of google research found it was handed many awards and publicity which probably justifed a closer look. We decided to visit the original location and see what they offered.

This morning, we headed over and got a selection of the menu and sampled it. The baked goods are above average but not necessarily the best in town. If Diesel in Davis was a bakery, it would be Flour. The flow is worse than Simon's(yes it's possible) and the dozen people flowing over top of each other behind the counter proved an uncomfortable scene to watch. I'm not inclined to recommend anything except the Raspberry spritzer there unless you live in the neighborhood and it's a convenient walk away. It's solid, but no better than True Grounds and not worth going across town for. Don't ask about the coffee or tea.

When I think of sandwiches, Darwin's or Hi-Rise. Baked goods and a decent macaroon, Hi-Rise again. Good pies and exceptional scones, Petsie Pies. And some of the no doubt best pastries around can be found at Truly Jorg's.


Original photo by *Reese

Truly Jorg's is one place I would get behind and say it's a great place to visit. The pastries are always amazing and in an affordable price range considering how good they are. The selection changes often but the quality and most importantly, the taste is always there. I found out about them in a tiny mention in one of the free papers. It had a photo and I was intrigued. A quick stop by and gorging myself on berry tarts and assorted sweets left an impression. I highly recommend a visit if you are in Boston. Don't waste time at tourist spots like Finale, check this place out.

About a scone

originally uploaded by yehwan.

Scones are something I wasn't really aware of until I moved to Cambridge. Not a big thing in the South, I guess. Finding a great scone though seems to be a harder thing than most give credit. Finding quality baked goods or pastries in a top cafe in general seems to be a difficult proposition. Most of the high end or famous (on the Internet) cafes I have visited carry pretty blase or pitiful food accompaniments to the coffees offered. It's a shame and I would go to great length to have good scones and great coffees in the same shop. Why not?

When I first started working at Simon's, long ago, I was introduced to scones. A lot of scones in fact, but they were like dense bricks whose only saving grace was a slathering of sugary icing on top or heavy amounts of chocolate to sweeten the tasteless lump. Carberries scones, which though once very popular, lacked redeeming character and were not something any of us behind the counter wanted to eat. Those scones were however the most commonly served in town since Icelandic(I think) investors came in and turned Carberries into a factory type deal. Baked at night and delivered in the morning, they were already tasting day old by that point.

I decided to make it a priority as soon as I could get enough influence. Once I convinced Simon to audition new pastries, the problem began to be simply who? There were options but not a lot of good options out there.

Petsie Pies is a wonderful bakery about a 10 minute walk from Simon's. Baked goods only, scones and fruit pies that have a home style feel and great texture to them. So, I found the owner, Renee and struck up a proposition. Renee is a smiling boisterous person with a great demeanor and a charm that brightens a room. We wanted those scones. We decided to bake them from the dough and we would even come pick them up if we had to. All they had to do was mix it and have it ready. After some discussion, Renee relented and promised to work something out.

Weeks passed and no call, nothing. We were jilted but the scones were good, so I made another trip over. Renee apologized and we discussed more options ending with a promise that we would get scones.

A month passed and no call, nothing. I was annoyed but the scones were good, so I made another trip over. Renee again apologized and we opened discussions again to get those scones.

Time passed and no call, nothing. I did not wait this time before going back again to check with Simon in tow. We all agreed the scones were good but we needed to commit one way or another if this was going to be a reliable situation. Mind you those scones were good.

The summer was ending and much time passed with no scones, no call, no nothing. I made one more trip, because.... those scones were good. One last trip, I told myself and that would be the end of it. I caught Renee for a chat where I professed my situation and commitment to get something done having spent so much time on this venture. If there was a better choice, I would have been there but this was worth the effort I kept telling myself. Renee professed she wanted to do this. She convinced us this time she was serious. I told her one day I would stop coming to which she replied, one day I would stop coming and she would have missed this chance. Famous last words, I thought.

To my surprise, a few days later she dropped by Simon's for a drink. Not too long afterwards, we finally had those scones. For months, we had these great scones, scones I wanted to eat, scones I would push customers to try. Then one weekend, no more scones.

Turns out Gus 'Stick to Ice Cream' Rancatore (Toscanini's) put in a very large order with Renee for scones. Now Gus already had a binding deal with one of his partners to only use their scones so this came out of left field to us. Evidently, Renee couldn't handle the order and dropped selling us all scones as a result. There would be no follow up trip for me, I was done on this journey for a better scone.

If you drop by one of the locations for Petsie Pies and see Renee, say hello and pass along this story for me. Good scones are hard to find, maybe a bit too hard to keep. Most people will never understand how hard it is to accomplish little feats in quality much less great steps. How easy it is to give up but those who are not content can achieve great things, if only for a moment in time.

Summertime in Cambridge

I think summer may actually be here in Cambridge. It's a good time for reflecting and refocusing. All the students leave and the streets are a bit quiet as only the real residents of the area remain. Kaminsky left for the summer after giving notice at Simon's. Since I quit a long time ago and Kaminsky left also, I would ask not so politely for people to just get off my back about what's being served there! Good or bad, ask Simon or better yet the roaster. While I still go in occasionally, I have very little to do with what is being served, good or bad. I can make suggestions because Simon is a friend and my door is always open if he needs help but that's as far as it goes.

That out of the way, Ben and I have been meticulously plodding along chasing a goal not unlike someone else down south. We have to start from zero though, not just worry about two favored taste descriptors pairing well. Simply getting an ideal interpretation through a lot of experimenting and painful cupping sessions is a hard track but you learn a lot. The truth is that we as a coffee community don't often question the 'experts' and we really should. There's too much hero worship and acceptance that because someone made three thousand posts on a forum, they must be an expert. Try everything, test everything, and draw your own conlcusions. That aside, there is some interesting stuff going on we may never talk about on the blog hence why we are quiet these days.

A byproduct of that is that I really don't drink coffee right now and unless someone says something questionable, I wouldn't bother with the forums. Even when we hit on something really good, I taste it on the cupping table, enjoy it and then go home and de-coffee. I guess I am learning to disconnect more when not 'working' and that will be a good thing going forward as I hope to dig in soon for the long haul in coffee.

As I begin pondering a serious move into coffee, sometimes I sit back and I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed at Simons? What if I had not gone to Guatemala and made the friends I made? What if Chris didn't share the shots of Crescendo? What if I didn't guest Ecco and meet Andrew Barnett? What if Ben and I hadn't paired up more than a year ago at the Saturday Afternoonn Coffee Club? What if I decided not to walk down and check out his home setup? There are dozens of what if in our advancement in coffee. Chance meetings and luck have moved me in many directions and I feel lucky about that. As far as I've come, the hardest parts are still in front of us. Cheers to that!

Top three things Porter Sq. Cambridge doesn't need

1. Starbucks
2. The Gap
3. Abercrombie Fitch/American Eagle Outfitters

Not too long ago there were a series of billboards featuring scantily clad male models peering lustfully down on Porter Sq. We can thank the billboard owner but we could wonder why it was there at all? It was such an out of place advert for an area where people are more inclined to wear clogs, ride bicycles, and bemoan gentrification.

It wasn't too long before vandals (we call them performance artists) took to paint ballooning the billboards. It happened twice before the message was clear that the ads were not targeting the right audience.

More recently, a struggling and somewhat misplaced outlet of The Gap closed in the Porter Exchange. Down the street from little unique shops like Joie De Vivre and across from Paper Source, this was long since out of style. Considering all the unique boutiques and the prevailing attitude among many who live in the area, it just wasn't a good fit.

The thing worth noting is that with the open space provided by the Gap left searching for a nice strip mall, there are rumors that a Starbucks is moving on that location. Porter exchange needs a Starbucks like Harvard Sq. needs more banks.

It's not so much that Starbucks is doing anything wrong, it's that by simply moving in, they will be displacing several businesses in the exchange. The bubble tea kiosk is most assuredly gone and the Japonaise bakery kiosk is rumored to be leaving as well. The ice cream place in the back is rumored to leave and I can only assume the coffee kiosk downstairs is gone also. What worries me though is that the culture of Japanese restaurants there will begin to change or be uprooted by this shift. It is one of the things I enjoy most about the neighborhood there. The Udon and the Ramen shops, sushi at Kotubukiya or Blue Fin, curry at Cafe Mami, or simply a bowl of Bibim Bap at the Korean shop and snakcs at Kotubukiya Japanese Grocery. I just don't feel like we need more corporate brands so much as a need to preserve the cultural/community locations. That and there is a Starbucks on Beacon and in both directions on mass ave, making this the fourth in a ten minute walk of my house.

Mark this under rants rather than coffee.

Boston eXpresso

I have been thinking recently about how you don't see espresso that are meant to be enjoyed simply as espresso. A straight shot. Maybe a machiatto and maybe a traditional cappuccino.

You have a lot of either dark roasted or very earthy espresso that are designed to cut through milk leaving a less than desirable taste as a straight shot in most areas of the US.

Sure it's one of those things where business owners have to look at where the money is(big milk drinks), but I have always wondered about that. Seriously, the espresso out there is really quite wretched in most shops. Short of a complete revolution, how does that change?

I live in Cambridge and there are a handful of barista who can pour latte art at different shops. I can name on one hand the number of people who pull me consistently good shots, it's that small. Sure there is some latte art and fascination with the patterns, but truth is there are few really good shots to be had in this town.

This is where it gets weird though, at most every shop here in town you will get an espresso that brims over the top of the demitasse. It's not like these are small demis either, it's like trying to chug three and a half ounces of thin tasteless bilge water.

We call this the all too common Boston eXpresso.


I'm not sure this is an accident either. I typically hear:
A) It's to give you your money's worth by giving more volume(sure you get more volume but it tastes bad, so why bother) B) They think more volume will cut through the milk (a misconception as it simply doesn't) C) They were taught this by the roaster or were not trained at all by he roaster.

The part that bothers me it that it seems they are taught this way or are sold the coffee on some big up sell and then left to fend for themselves. It wouldn't be worth mention but there are some big time so called '3rd wave' roasters behind many of these local accounts that are paying top dollar to sell these coffees. Yet, I do not blame the cafes, I inclined to blame the roaster or companies who over hype their green quality, unrealistically romanticize the farmer, or simply talk about quality as if they are the absolute definition of the term. There are so many expectations that come with quality that I would think training should surely be one of them.

Then again, why pay for a great coffee if it falls flat on the cafe floor?

Really peaks your cynical nature doesn't it?

Searching for a french press...

I forget how hard it is to get good coffee when out traveling. No french press. No coffee(period)

I recently made my way down the East coast.

No stop off in New York this time. Honestly, I won't visit there much anymore. At least until something new opens or there is a reason to go. Too expensive to travel right now.

It got me thinking about this concept of community and how fickle it is in this online forum when compared to our small Boston community. Yeah, there is the weird angry kid we'd rather not be associated with but the rest of us are pretty tight. I started thinking about if it is worth posting on the forums when the focus is flavor.

I'm not sure.

So, I gave up posting in the coffee focused forums and largely unplugged from that medium. It wasn't for negativity or perceived criticism. In fact it happened largely for the reasons brinsky is not posting.

We got tired.

I realized until I can sit down with peers and 'cup things out' then there is little to say in those forums. Arguing my apples to your oranges is nearly futile.

We are not nearly content with the coffee we are drinking but we see hints of some really cool stuff ahead. That's the problem though, it's ahead instead of right now. I had a long talk with Judson and I really want to get back and get things moving again but we are in limbo for now.

I will have updates from the trip to Finca Vista Hermosa at the end of the month.

The North East Regional Barista Competition looks like a wash right now. The combination of several things made me decide it's not worth entering. That means Judson and I will attend with the gang but no competitors. Simon is not sending Ben either so it's a complete wash. We will all go and cheer on Judson's friend Andrew assuming he competes.

Oh and here is an interview I did for a film school project courtesy of Jason via HB.