Globe piece on 11 shops in metro

The Boston Globe's Kathleen Pierce covered the specialty drinks of 11 shops in the metro.  An interesting insight into our community through the view of signature beverages.  It was however unfortunately titled '
11 coffee shops that put Boston on the map'.  Probably an editorial decision but not the tact of the article nor accurate.

The article is a nice plug for several spaces in the metro and could constitute a fun cafe crawl.  If we were doing a list of the coffee spots that put Boston on the map, it would be a shorter list for sure starting with Simon's and Diesel (for different reasons) but after that most of the shops we'd mention are definitely in the last three years.

The point I'd love to add to the article or at least express due to the title is that our coffee community has existed for a long time and has been building steam slowly against what had been a lot of resistance from shop owners/roasters.  Our coffee community and this new culture did not suddenly come into existence with the influx of a few national roasters and the posturing they've brought.  It has been viral.  An insistent pushing and prodding from the ground up by those at the front line.  It has been barista driven more than shop owner/roaster driven so far, though we are working as a roaster to support that change as much as possible.  Over the last 4 years as a company, we are proud of the influence we've had but realistic that what has happened is due in large part to our counterparts serving up the coffee.  Humbling to look back and see the  changes that have happened but also exciting to look forward.

NERBC, things to look for

We've been lucky to work with two competitors this year who will be in the mix. Keep an eye out for Calen Robinette of Voltage coffee and Brandon Duff of RBCNYC. Both have high expectations of executing the routines they've been polishing for the NERBC stage.

Calen is doing a coffee cherry theme around fresh crop (literally weeks off the patio) Hacienda Santa Rosa's Buena Esperanza Alfaro. After meeting the owner, Gustavo Alfaro, Calen made Esperanza his coffees of choice.  The espresso is a pairing of a rare Mundo Nuevo lot and a seperately grown Tekisik lot. Both are grown at 1800m which makes the Mundo Nuevo turn out as a bit of an over achiever given common expectations for this varietal based on cuppings of lower elevation plantings. Both coffees are also stellar picks, as Edwin Martinez puts it 'unusually ripe and even cherry'. The same patio day of Mundo Nuevo for Calen was pulped and the remaining fruit was prepped as Cascara.  The freshness and extreme ripeness of the cascara made for a suprisingly pleasant tasting whereas many we've tried have been quite dissappointing (especially in comparison) Calen also plans to use some of Gustavo's coffee flower honey as well in his signature drink.

Brandon is planning on using our Soma espresso, a pairing of two Guatemalan coffees with a Kenya. The Guatemalan coffees are Las Rosas (Huehuetenango) and Miriam de Villanueva's El Bosque (right outside of Antigua) while the Kenya is our Othaya. Brandon bar tends on the side and his approach for sig drink will be that of a cocktail. Current secret version looks tight and brings a clever approach to sig drinks that will be fun and tasty.Brandon placed in the finals last year so keep an eye on him and his trajectory in the competitions.

Coffee community

One of the biggest driving forces locally has been the Boston TNT.  It was definately inspired by the Providence coffee society and the Tulip Tuesdays Providence Throwdown.  It is really not roaster focused and remains really laid back and approachable.

This is a contrast to the heavily roaster driven and branded events in other major cities. Having been to many of these, it often felt like a sales outreach by one aggressive company rather than a true community driven event.  That really kept many of us from having one here until seeing how well the ones in Providence were run.

The key was keeping sales people at bay and making the shop it was being hosted at the focus. This made for a really relaxing event where turnout peaked over a hundred for the first Boston TNT and was solid for the most recent.  The diversity of shops represented as well was most impressive to me and yet no tension or posturing.

A big piece to that has been shops like Voltage and Render which bridged what has been a very tight and active coffee community in Cambridge to the rest of the larger community.  Living on either side of the Charles means you don't visit the other side that much. The TNT changed that and merged the Boston and Cambridge communities for now.

A big thanks to those involved and please keep supporting the TNT.