Call my name, El Bosque de Parramos

On the Ground: barismo's Jaime VanSchyndel reports from El Bosque in Guatemala for the 2014 crop. This is barismo's fifth year working with El Bosque de Parramos, and we are excited to share developments of this 100% exclusive Direct Trade partnership. Stay tuned for more info as we build up to the arrival of this years various lots.

El Bosque de Parramos

On my most recent trip to Guatemala, I had lunch and toured El Bosque with owners Miriam and son Avelino.  We chatted at length about how much the farm had changed from that 'forest of coffee' we were introduced to years ago.  They asked many questions about how the coffee was received by customers and displayed intense curiosity in our relationships with cafes and customers.  The discussion then turned towards how much Bosque was beginning to look like an estate these days with it's clean rows and well kept trees.  Given the multiple lots coming out of the farm this year, we talked about how we would brand these for them.  They insisted barismo begin to identify the farm more as 'de Parramos' to make it distinct among other farms in Guatemala that carry a similar name.  Having secured their entire harvest the last 4 years, they wanted to know what coffees/crops were my personal favorite.  I let them know the Yellow Bourbon lot we did in 2012 was a personal favorite and really spoke to me about the potential of their coffees.  In turn, they committed on the spot to keeping a nursery of Yellow and would slowly replace the older red Bourbon trees with the seedlings in this 'Amarillo' nursery. Their sincerity in the discussions left me feeling real pressure to represent them well this year.  While it's clear Miriam is a humble person who cringes at the attention of having her name on a bag of coffee, she was willing to consider making a trip to Somerville/Cambridge/Arlington to see what we do and meet the people at the cafes that have served their coffee.
- Jaime | Stay tuned for more updates here on the blog and on twitter @barismo and @jaime_vans


Canonical, Coffee Education and Tech Tips: Practical tips and advice to give you the tools to brew better coffee. Brought to you by Pete Cannon, who handles barismo's in house training, education, and technical services.

Since opening dwelltime (our Cambridge cafe) in 2011, water has become a significant focus as we began to encounter differences between how our coffees tasted at the roastery versus the cafe. When brewing, you are using water as a solvent to wash away solubles from ground coffee. How much or how little “stuff” is already in your water has a major effect on how well you can extract desirable compounds from your coffee.

Water that is good for brewing coffee falls into a much narrower range than what is considered safe to drink. Municipal water authorities are focused on delivering safe drinking water, unfortunately coffee brewing is not on their priority list. Here are the 4 basic elements to look for in water brewing:

• Odorless. Off-smells in water are the most noticeable quality issues. This can be as simple as chlorine from treatment, or they can come from plumbing issues. Fortunately, this is usually very easy to fix (more on this later).

• Some, but not a lot, of minerals. We have two measurements for this: Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and Total Hardness. TDS is a basic snapshot of how much “stuff” is in your water, but it doesn’t tell you what that “stuff” is. The range we are looking for is generally between 75 - 150 TDS. Total Hardness measures just calcium & magnesium (the minerals that are best known for causing scale buildup). Some of this is good, but we don’t want too much (above 5 grains per gallon total hardness).

• Near-neutral pH & moderate alkalinity. Ideally, your pH is close to 7.0. Alkalinity is best understood as how resistant a solution is to change its pH. If your alkalinity is too high, coffees taste flat and lack in acidity. Our alkalinity target is around 40 mg/L.

• Very few "other contaminants". There are a handful of other contaminants that can cause bad things to happen; in our area, the biggest issue will be chlorides. Chlorides are different from chlorine — in the northeast, our most common source of this in water is road salt, and creates some unique problems. Having a lot of chlorides can make water a much more aggressive solvent, to the point where it will begin to dissolve metals and other nasty things.

The good news for most people in the Boston area is that water here is relatively good for coffee brewing. There will be some big exceptions for folks in Cambridge. Next week we'll follow up with our test results & special considerations.- Pete Cannon | barismo's training, education and technical services. Follow his updates here on the barismo blog.


Stay Fresh Updates: Upcoming events, classes and education, new coffees, and much more... Sign up to receive updates.

Saturday, March 1, 2014 from 9:30am-2pm
barismo at the Somerville Winter Farmers Market
Grab a freshly roasted retail bag of barismo coffee from our well stocked weekly selection, as well as a fresh, made-to-order pourover or a delicious cup of cold brew iced coffee. Catch us early cause it gets busy fast! We are there every week through the entire market. More info about the market on their facebook page or on twitter @SomWinterMarket

Sunday, March 2, 2014 from 7pm-10pm
It Takes Two, take two, at Brooklyn Boulders Somerville
Brooklyn Boulders Somverville has rescheduled their "It Takes Two" event and we will be there serving up some samples of cold brew introducing ourselves to new neighbors. If you have not been to this excellent climbing gym in the heart of Somerville and for more info on the event check them out online www.bkbs.brooklynboulders.com and on twitter @BKBSomerville

El Bosque, in Pursuit of Quality

New plot of Villa Sarchi at El Bosque

On the Ground: barismo's (el presidente) Jaime VanSchyndel reports from El Bosque in Guatemala for the 2014 crop. This is barismo's fifth year working with El Bosque, and we are excited to share developments of this 100% exclusive Direct Trade partnership. Stay tuned for more info as we build up to the arrival of this years various lots.

El Bosque is one of our most beloved farms and the huge reinvestment this farm has undergone is getting closer to realization. Located in the state of Chimaltenango near Parramos, I recently dropped by El Bosque to see the new varietals that are growing on the farm. They have the older Bourbon trees still in a few places which are topped, trimmed, and regrowing while producing moderate yields. Along with that plot are new plantings from the seeds of those old trees of heirloom Bourbon next to a plot with a number of newer dwarf Bourbon trees. These dwarf trees grow only three to four feet tall and are often called Bourboncito. While easier to pick and care for, the flavors are not as strong and distinct as the older trees. Beyond the Bourbon lots, there are several other new plantings we are excited about. Bosque now has Villa Sarchi planted, which many of you will associate with our Costa Rican coffees. The Villa Sarchi has always cupped well on other farms in Guatemala so we have big expectations. There is also some Yellow cherry planted on Bosque that needs identification but looks close to Caturra (some people argue if it's yellow it's likely Catuai). There's also some Pacamara and Gesha growing in a small test plots but these all need to be sampled at the end of harvest to see their potential. After five years, this farm is turning the corner on the agricultural side.
- Jaime | follow on twitter @jaime_vans and this blog for continued updates on this years harvest.


Evaluating for Quality: barismo's Roastery Manager, Tim Borrego revisits the reasons behind barismo's commitment to our specific brand of Direct Trade. The details always matter.

As a roastery, barismo is dedicated to what I like to think of as the pursuit of an authentic, quality focused product. Over the past five years as a local coffee roaster we have seen customers respond with overwhelming support for what we are doing, and we are grateful to see an amazingly complex product like coffee given the room to develop into what it is today. We have seen these same customers dive deep into the information that is offered and the stories behind the Direct Trade coffees that we promote. As we continue to introduce ourselves to new neighborhoods and new customers we hope that the message of our pursuit of quality is not boiled down to simply flavor experiences. Yes, we are confident in what we like and we hope to share that with you, but the relationships we develop behind these coffees are crucial to the sustainability of what we do. Direct Trade for us is about: seeking quality product at a sustainable price, working with appropriately sized (small) farms, developing sustainable long-term working relationships with producers based on mutual goals and respect. As we continue to give updates this buying season and as we release new crop coffees this year we want to give you more of that story and remind you that the mission behind our Direct Trade program at barismo is what makes this viable. We do not simply seek viability in the short term, rather, we have a long healthy future in mind, that is real Sustainability.
- Tim | check the blog for updates and contact directly at tim@barismo.com


Stay Fresh Updates: Upcoming events, classes and education, new coffees, and much more... Sign up to receive updates.

Thursday, February 20, 2014 from 7pm-10pm
Third Thursday Event at Brooklyn Boulders Somerville
Meet the roasters and taste some coffee! barismo will be hanging out at Brooklyn Boulders in Somerville serving up some samples of cold brew introducing ourselves to new neighbors. If you have not been to this excellent climbing gym in the heart of Somerville check them out online www.bkbs.brooklynboulders.com and on twitter @BKBSomerville

We will also be at Brooklyn Boulders for the "It takes Two" competition once it is rescheduled, see the BKBS website for more info.

Saturday, February 22, 2014 from 9:30am-2pm
barismo at the Somerville Winter Farmers Market
Grab a freshly roasted retail bag of barismo coffee from the well stocked selection, as well as a fresh, made-to-order pourover or a delicious cup of cold brew iced coffee. Catch us early cause it gets busy fast! We are there every week through the entire market. More info about the market from their facebook page or on twitter @SomWinterMarket

Happy Holidays from barismo

If you are looking for that gift idea to really cover all the bases for your coffee aficionado, the sampler pack is the best item on our list.  It gives you a freshly roasted selection of coffees to sample in 8oz amounts.  For those that are local to us in Arlington, schedule pickup in store by choosing the in store pickup option under shipping.  Keep an eye on order timing so that we can provide coffee that's freshly roasted as close to the brewing date as possible.

We also have classes, gift certificates, gear, directly sourced Teas, and T-Shirts that make good gift items as well.

barismo will close early on Christmas Eve and be closed Christmas Day, avoid getting left out when making your coffee orders or last minute retail bag purchases.  Happy Holidays!

Brewing Series

One of the signature styles of brewing with barismo is using cloth filters.  We discovered that depth filtration from cloth filters is better at brewing coffee without imparting 'paper taste' from paper filters and it doesn't have the sediment issues of metal filtration.  Cloth requires immense care and time consuming cleaning but that didn't stop us from seeing its potential.

The 'woodneck' is the throw back method, with its hooped flannel filter, nick-named for the wooden handle on the neck of the carafe.  It was the basis for the v60 design and is a free pour method involving no restriction of how it drains giving full control to the barista to craft the experience.  The cloth needs constant maintenace and care to keep it clean during both storage and normal usage.  This method produces shorter yields of rich but balanced and suprisingly nuanced cups of coffee.  

We highlighted the woodneck brews this weekend on bar at dwelltime and we had a lot of folks come out to try this body forward brew. If you missed the event don't worry we you can always come by the coffeebar at barismo for the same experience. The final brewing device that we are featuring for this series is one of technical precision and it happens to use cloth filtration as well...

When you go back and look at methods that defined us, the Syphon was that method.  While espresso was near and dear to us, our experimenting showed that you could make expressive drip coffee if you could harness the variables.  Enter the Syphon, or balance brewer. Using it in a novel way, we discovered you could get a stable brewing temp and take advantage of full immersion properties in a way that is entirely unique.  It meant being able to control everything in a very precise way. The variable controls we talked about, but were otherwise always chasing, became a reality with Syphon brewing.

The Syphon consists of a lower and upper chamber. When heating the lower chamber, steam builds forcing the water to syphon to the upper chamber. Once the temperature is stable, coffee can be brewed in the upper chamber. When brewing is complete, heat is removed thereby cooling the lower chamber which draws the coffee through the filter and back down.

For this method, we chose an aromatic and intense Panama and juicy Kenya to present. These are served as two 5oz servings per order, so bring a friends.

Dwelltime coffeebar

Tuesday, October 21th, 1pm-3pm

Coffee Shots Menu

Panama Don Pachi Gesha

$16.00

serves 2 (5oz) cups

Kenya Thunguri SL28

$7.50*

serves 2 (5oz) cups

*Those who show their registered ticket get a 2oz taster of Thunguri for free. Register online at www.freshflashback.eventbrite.com

Coffee Shots

Years ago before barismo was roasting coffee, we were busy conducting varied experiments in brewing. One of the early variations in espresso that we liked was nick-named 'the coffee shot'.  It wasn't quite the traditional approach. We were using some odd brew parameters where we were able to get exceptional results that simply couldn't be called espresso.

A 'coffee shot' is a single origin drip (not roasted for espresso)coffee pulled as a shot using a low temperature with a slightly higher yield in volume. The results are similar to what you'd expect from lever espresso machines but with the intensity of the particular coffee shining through.

To be served, it requires a dedicated grinder and five years ago it would have required an entire dedicated espresso machine! With new technology like the La Marzocco Strada that we have at dwelltime, we can operate individual group heads at different temperatures and different pressure profiles.  That means three different coffees at three different temperatures and three different profiles. blog fresh flash back: Coffee Shots

October 15th, 2013

Coffee Shots Menu

Panama Don Pachi Gesha

$7.00

Kenya Thunguri SL28

$3.50*

*Those who show their registered ticket get their first shot of Thunguri for free. Register online at www.freshflashback.eventbrite.com