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'.

A Sustainable Pace

This turned into quite an eventful weekend for all of us at barismo as well as the entire dwelltime staff. Six pallets of coffees were delivered (Just about five TONS of green coffee) for the first time to our dwelltime location in Cambridge MA. We are now able to store many pallets of green coffee in our spacious basement. This will be an interesting logistical challenge for us as we figure out how often green coffee will need to be transported over to our roasting facility four miles down the road in East Arlington.

The dwelltime staff, including our baker, had a chance to pitch in hauling 160 pound bags of green coffee from pallet to basement. One of our bar staff was a little gung ho with hauling bags, jute sack versus bare knuckles, jute wins. This however is not a new activity for all of us lightweights down at the roastery. For almost four years now, as of (September 17!) barismo has been in the business of  hauling bags of coffee into our cool basement and then carrying them back up small batch at a time to carefully roast and send out our front door.

As if that was not enough of a work out, we have just started sending out our local deliveries all along the Mass Ave corridor in Cambridge via our very own bicycle delivery cart. We made an appearance this past Saturday at the Somerville SPOKES bicycle festival to serve up Union Square's most sustainable and most meticulously handled coffee. Some might call us crazy, we like to call it sustainable.

As a four year old company we are out of the brand-new phase and into the growing years. We just opened up our beautiful cafe and lunch spot in Cambridge to an overwhelming reception from our friends and new neighbors. At the roastery we are on the verge of  moving into a bigger, newer production/cafe/training space. Through all of these years we have successfully been able to grow in a very organic and responsible manner.

Our commitment to fostering a genuine connection to the product we handle has come full circle as one of our Direct Trade partner producers from Guatemala is visiting us in just a couple of weeks. I would encourage you to read up on story of how we connected with Gustavo Alfaro, and the leaps and bounds we have made with new micro lot projects at his farm, Hacienda Santa Rosa.

Sustainability for us is not some far away concept happening just at the farm level, it is apart of everything we do as a local business. Responsible direct sourcing, micro batch roasting, brewing and training resources, local sustainable delivery, and genuine community involvement. So, join us at one of our many community events to get involved! In specialty coffee, slow and steady is a sustainable pace.

Events:

Thursdays - Free public coffee cupping at dwelltime
barismo's green buyer, Silas Moulton, leads a very informative tasting each Thursday at 3pm at dwelltime.

Sundays through October - barismo at The Davis Flea
Serving up fresh hot coffee and cold brew each Sunday in Davis Square.

Monday, September 17th - Barismo Four Year Anniversary Celebration and Customer Appreciation Day. Free shots of Clockwork espresso at barismo all day long!

End of September - Producer Gustavo Alfaro of Hacienda Santa Rosa/Buena Esperanza Visits Cambridge
Stay tuned for details

Sunday, October 7th - Boston Local Food Festival
barismo your favorite Local Roaster will be serving up fresh hot coffee and cold brew (we will take a break from the davis flea that sunday)

La Fatima, Producer Carmen Duch Martinez

If you have had a chance to buy a retail bag of barismo coffee, you may have noticed that we fit quite a bit of information onto a small amount of real estate. The reasoning behind this is two fold: first of all we think that all of these small details contribute to the final product, secondly, we believe that transparency is the only path to improving any of these variables. We in effect are making ourselves accountable to you, the recipient of that cup of drip coffee, or shot of single origin espresso, or cup of cold brew. Below is a bit of information from our green buyer Silas Moulton talking about one of our Direct Trade buys this year from El Salvador, La Fatima.

La Fatima is located along the Santa Ana volcano known as Ilamatepec in one of the premier coffee growing regions of El Salvador

Carmen Duch Martinez is a third generation coffee farmer who owns and manages the beautiful coffee estate, La Fatima, located in the Santa Ana mountain range in eastern El Salvador. Working together with her brothers Rafael and Juan (whose farms have also won cup of excellence) she has produced spectacular coffee for many years and placed in the Cup of Excellence competition four times earning third in 2009.

La Fatima is located along the Santa Ana volcano, which is also known as Ilamatepec. In Nahuatl, a dialect of Aztec, Ilamatepec means “father hill” and is believed to watch over the crops grown on the hillsides. This is one of the premier coffee growing regions in El Salvador and certainly the most well known region. The weather conditions here are ideal for growing coffee with an average temperature of 21°C, 2.4 meters of annual rainfall, and a dry season with little rain which promotes even flowering and drying of the coffee.


Fatima is made up of mature bourbon trees covered by plenty of shade which is mostly ingas. There is also a small amount of Typica grown on the farm. Carmen prefers to aim for quality of growth instead of yield and avoids the use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides. The shade, older coffee trees, and infrequent use of chemical fertilizer leads to slower growth and does in fact cut yields quite a bit, but increases the concentration of the flavor as the tree puts more energy into fewer offspring.

I first cupped La Fatima at the Cuzcachapa Co-op mill in March of 2011. This large co-op dry mills and exports coffee for more than 1,400 member farms in the Santa Ana area. It was my favorite coffee I tasted that trip. After some shipping issues and a sharp drop in quality because of this, we were not able to offer this coffee last year. I went back to Cuzcachapa again this year and again it was my favorite coffee. I pushed for earlier ship dates and we are able to add this coffee to our menu unharmed.


-Silas Moulton, barismo green buyer
See more photos from La Fatima on our Flickr
Purchase La Fatima online and in person

2012 Costa Rica tasting at RJ Gourmet

Come check out our fresh crop Costa Rica coffees at RJ Gourmet on Thursday, July 5th from 6-8pm. This will be a good chance to taste the costas and hang out with Mike and Steve at RJ Gourmet, one of our favorite new shops! You'll see some of your old favorites like El Reposo, Los Lobos and La Loma, as well as Finca El Quizarra which we are excited to carry for the first time. Barismo's Coffee Buyer, Silas Moulton, will be on hand to talk about these coffees and answer questions.

RJ Gourmet Coffeeshop:

441 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA

Hope to see you there!