Haven't yet gotten a taste of the limited edition Colombia Finca San Luis? Tasted it and want to try more Good Food Award winners? Join us this weekend in Ithaca and Brooklyn, where we'll be tasting Good Food Award winning coffees from Counter Culture Coffee, Broadway Cafe & Roasting, Klatch Coffee, Noble Coffee Roasting, and (of course) Gimme!
The tastings are free and open to the public -- bring your friends!
Ithaca Tasting (Facebook invite & directions) SATURDAY 2/4, 12pm-1pm Gimme Training Lab, 506 W. State St, Ithaca NY 14850
Brooklyn Tasting (Facebook invite & directions) SUNDAY 2/5, 12pm-1pm
Gimme Training Lab, 107 Roebling St, Brooklyn NY 11211
The much-anticipated Weekly Free Coffee Cuppings at our Roebling Street Training Lab, Saturdays at 12pm, start this Saturday, January 7th! Learn more about coffee, seed to cup, and participate in a guided tasting with our expert trainers.
We've been hosting free cuppings for over a year at our Ithaca training lab - we are super excited to be opening our NYC lab to you and continuing our mission of coffee education. It's a big deal. Trust.
Try new and exciting coffees every Saturday at 12pm - no experience necessary. Remember, the classes are limited to the first 12 participants - so come early!
On November 12th we participated in a tasting workshop for the Good Food Awards Roadshow.
We received a Good Food Award in 2011 for our Colombia Finca San Luis, and our commitment to producing delicious, transparent and responsibly grown food. This year we are (again) honored to be considered a finalist in the 2012 competition! Fingers crossed!
During a trip to NYC this past weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting Continental Terminals, the warehouse where the majority of our coffee is stored after it comes off the boat and before it's trucked to Ithaca for roasting. The logistics involved in running this place are amazing, but they are pros and have been doing this since 1958.
About 6 months ago we tweeted about a big Probat roaster that was listed on Craigslist in Montana. Last month it was still available, so we decided to get serious and go have a look.
For the past many months, we've been working hard to form new relationships with growers in Central America, and this month we are releasing 2 new beautiful relationship coffees from Guatemala. These coffees come to us from our ongoing work with Virmax Café, our exporting partners in Colombia, who have recently expanded their work north to Guatemala. One important bit of information to note about these coffees is that they come from farms with the same name, though are completely different! The farms are in different regions, owned by different producers and have different flavor profiles.
Ken David's Coffee Review is, as their web header indicates, "The world's leading coffee buying guide." Ken, and his employees, solicit samples from various roasters around the world and offer both quantitative and qualitative data for consumers looking to get a sense of what to buy and from whom.
Honduras Las Peñitas is back! In fact, we have 2 small lots from this farm that we will be releasing consecutively, both of which have slight differences, but nonetheless exemplify the silky bodied and clean fruit characteristics that took 3rd place in the United States Barista Competition Brewer's Cup (by the skilled hand of NYC Regional Trainer, Erin McCarthy) in May. This year we were able to work more directly with Jorge Benitez, the 22-year-old farmer of Las Peñitas, and Beneficio San Vicente, the mill that is responsible for over 60% of the 2011 Honduras Cup of Excellence winners, to bring in this coffee at fair price, and establish a long-term partnership.
"How can I get the coffee I brew at home to taste as good as it does in the store?" If I had a dime for every time I heard that question while working in a Gimme cafe, I'd be on my way to a Dollywood vacation right now.
Boy is it hot! With the weather reaching record highs we are keeping cool with cold brewed iced coffee. What is this cold brew coffee you may ask? It's sometimes called Toddy which references the most popular brand of cold brewing device. It's a slow extraction process using room temperature water. How slow? 12-14 hours. Heat is really important in extracting coffee so without any it takes a long time to get those good flavors into the cup. We brew gallons every night for you sweltering New Yorkers with fresh coarse ground coffee, similar to french press grind, and filtered water.
In Edinburgh, Scotland an event called
TEDGlobal was held over the past few days. TEDGlobal is a branch of
TED, which is a gathering of some of the greatest minds in science,
marketing, art, education among other fields. TED takes place over
the course of a few days and thousands of attendees get to listen to
eighteen minute speeches by presenters over eight hour days. They are
immersed in astounding rhetoric that is simply inspiring. These
people need great coffee to go along with the inspirational thoughts
that are being presented. Enter Coffee Common.
La Primavera is the new name of our new crop decaf
from Colombia and the DESCAFECOL plant in Manizales, Colombia. If you've
been enjoying the La Serrania Decaf for the past year, then you can
expect to be just as satisfied by the Colombia La Primavera Decaf,
which is very similar in flavor profile to La Serrania. In fact, almost everything about the Colombia La
Primavera Decaf is the same as La Serrania, except for the raw green
coffee. This means that we went through the same sourcing and approval
process, using stringent grading protocols, and the coffee went through
the same decaffeination process. The green coffee that we approved was
sweet and clean, and carefully selected to undergo decaffeination at the
DESCAFECOL plant. If you aren't familiar with the process, here's how
it works...
Congratulations to Erin McCarthy for taking 1st Place in the NorthEast Regional Barista Competition Brewers Cup! Erin is our NYC Regional Trainer, though you might remember him from years back boppin' around Ithaca as our Upstate Regional Trainer, as well as Cayuga St. barista.
March saw a handful of our favorite coffees go out-of-stock. While I always feel a certain amount of sadness from saying good-bye to coffees that I have spent the past many months roasting, cupping, and enjoying, I like to approach the reality of out-of-stock coffees with one eye crying and one eye smiling.
2010 brought sad news to specialty coffee producers in Bolivia. At the end of July, the announcement came that Bolivia would have to withdraw from the Cup of Excellence program. The news came as Bolivia was quickly approaching peak harvest time, and specialty coffee producers had already known which selections from their crop they would set aside for the international competition. The cancellation was heartbreaking to say the least, as the Cup of Excellence program was instrumental in creating a stable and financially rewarding specialty coffee sector, and coffee quality had been steadily improving since its implementation. CoE provided a global market for the production of unique, beautiful coffees. As such, the fear now is that as the country determines the priorities of its coffee sector, the opportunity cost is the degradation of years worth of advancement, development and international aid.
Our first ever public roastery tour was a smashing success! We had over two hundred people attend and we all crowded into the roasting room at krums corners.
It is widely accepted that Specialty coffee has no single definition, though there is one explanation that I believe truly represents and captures the concept. In 2009, the Commercial Director of the Colombian Coffee Federation (FNC) defined a Specialty coffee as one that is "perceived and valued by consumers, one that is of character that people are willing to pay for, one that has potential." Though this definition may be broad, it also needs to be broad, as it has to satisfy the concept of something as dynamic as the global markets in which it is sold. Specialty coffees themselves are complex, and the value chain even more so. What we have to do, then, is simplify the product without underplaying this complexity. In other words, we want to highlight the various reasons that make a coffee valuable, but ultimately revel in the simplistic pleasures of taste and aroma perception.
Until now we've been running our roastery with the secrecy of Willy Wonkas factory, letting no one in or out. This Saturday that is all changing, and you don't need to find a golden ticket to attend! We are opening the doors to our roastery this Saturday from 2:30-4, and you are invited. This event is the end to our celebration of good food month, and we will be hosting a beer and coffee tasting. We have teamed up with Smuttynose brewery, a good food award winner, as well as Brewery Ommegang and Ithaca Beer company, our local favorites. The beer tasting will be happening on our roasting room floor, so you will be able to see and ask questions about the different roasting machines we use at gimme. You will also get to taste our award winning coffee, Finca San Luis, brewed several ways, and talk with the team responsible for sourcing and roasting all our coffee. It's going to be a great time and I hope you all can make it.
It's Good Food Month, and we are getting ready for our third tasting: Pickles and Charcuterie!
The Good Food Awards recognize
food that is delicious, respectful of
the environment, and connected to communities and cultural traditions.
We have been hosting tastings of finalists from all seven categories all month long,
culminating in a beer and coffee tasting at our roastery next week. Each Friday,
at every gimme coffee espresso bar, and on Saturdays in the lab at State
Street, you can try outstanding food from around the country. Last weeks' cheese and preserves tasting was a delicious success, the sweet and spicy Raspberry Habanero Jelly from HeathGlen Organic Farm was the crowd favorite! This week we have four types of pickled foods for you to try: we have Peppered Okra from Sour Puss Pickles, Purple Suerkraut from Spirit Creek, Asparagus from Tillen Farms and Dills from Real Pickles. For those of you looking forward to the meaty part of this meal we have Sweet Potato Liverwurst from Weeping Radish Farm Brewery. We will also be brewing and sampling our Good Food Award winning Finca San Luis. If you haven't tried this coffee yet, be sure to come by! It is always clean and sweet, just as fine coffee should be.
This
Friday from 5-7, stop by any of our cafes. If that time doesn't work
for you, come to the presentation and tasting in the lab at the back of
State Street on Saturday from 12-1. See you there!
Last weeks cupping and chocolate tasting was a great time. There was a good group of attendees; sampling four different chocolates, drinking Finca San Luis, and learning about the good food awards from Colleen Anunu. This week Colleen will present again! She will tell us about what it means to us to gimme and the farmers that we work with to have won a good food award. We will also learn a little bit about how coffee is usually bought and sold in Colombia, and how we found this award winning coffee. We will also be treated to some cheese and preserves that were good food finalists.
If you haven't been to a talk by Colleen, it is not an opportunity to miss. Colleen buys all of our coffee, and travels to several farms a year. She is a great resource for all things coffee and all things gimme. This talk and tasting will be held in the lab at the back of state street gimme, this Saturday the 29th, from 12-1 pm. The event is free, open to everyone, and part of our celebration of good food month. I hope you can make it.
It's Good Food Month, and we are getting ready for our second tasting: Cheese and Preserves!
The Good Food Awards recognize food that is delicious, respectful of
the environment, and connected to communities and cultural traditions. We are hosting tastings of finalists from all seven categories all month long, culminating in a beer and coffee tasting at our roastery. Each Friday, at every gimme coffee espresso bar, and on Saturdays in the lab at State Street, you can try outstanding food from around the country. Last week's chocolate tasting was a delicious success, featuring four superb chocolates. Some were salty, some were fruity and one was spicy, which kept everyone on their toes. It was easy to taste why these were award wining products. For this weeks tasting we have cheese from Fiscalini Farmstead Cheese, and preserves from HeathGlen Organic Farm and Elllelle Kitchen. We will also be brewing and sampling out our Good Food Award winning Finca San Luis. If you haven't tried this coffee yet, be sure to come by! It is always clean and sweet, just as fine coffee should be.
This Friday from 5-7, stop by any of our cafes. If that time doesn't work for you, come to the presentation and tasting in the lab at the back of State Street on Saturday from 12-1. See you there!
At tomorrow's open cupping we have a special treat planned: Colleen Anunu, gimme coffee's director of coffee, will be talking about her trip to the Good Food award ceremony in San Franciso, and about her various trips to Colombia sourcing coffee. This presentation will happen in the lab at State Street during the normal open cupping time, from 12-1. This will be a great time to learn a little more about the process of buying coffee, what goes into sourcing excellent coffee and what it means to be a Good Food Award winner. We will be brewing our award winningFinca San Luis, and also have chocolates for tasting that are Good Food Award Finalists.
See you tomorrow, Saturday January 22nd, at the lab in the back of State Street at noon!
Months of anticipation finally came to a close this past weekend, as Gimme! Coffee was announced a 2011 Good Food Award winner! Our Colombia Finca San Luis was given this top honor among 70 other food and beverage products on January 14th at the renowned Ferry Building in San Francisco, CA. Stay tuned for a full digest of the award ceremony and Good Food Marketplace. In the meantime, feel free to take part in our month long celebration of Good Food Month.
Congratulations to all winners! And congratulations to those in our Colombia Finca San Luis supply chain: producer Omar Arango, exporter Virmax Café, importer Caravela Coffee, and all of you who support Relationship Coffee at its finest. Cheers!
To kick off Good Food Month all Gimme! Coffee locations will be hosting a Chocolate and Coffee tasting. We will be showcasing our Good Food Award winning coffee, Finca San Luis, and chocolate samples from several Good Food Award finalists. The Good Food Awards recognize food that is delicious, respectful of the environment, and connected to communities and cultural traditions. The tastings will be happening at every Gimme Coffee location this Friday, January 21st, from 5-7pm. We will be brewing Clever Cups of Finca San Luis for you to try, a very nice coffee from Colombia, that has nice sweet floral and fruity notes that are very well balanced by a rich full body. We also be sharing chocolate samples from Good Food Finalists from around the country with you. This is a great chance to try some outstanding chocolate that might not be available at the local grocery store. We have samples from Vice Chocolates in Oakland, Poco Dolce in San Francisco, Olive and Sinclair Chocolate Co in Nashville, and Mindo Chocolate Makers in Ann Arbor. These are considered some of the best chocolates in the country and we are very excited to share them with you.
All month long we are doing tastings at all of our espresso bars from 5-7 on Fridays. I hope you can come to all or some of our events celebrating good food.
Congratulations and welcome to 2011. I hope you had a lovely time ringing in the new year with style. It is the one night of the year where people are practically required by law to stay up past their bedtime. Do you know what brightens up a sleepy hungover Saturday? Espresso. Lots of espresso. Lucky for you, smiling baristas will be happy to serve you a free shot of espresso at all gimme coffee locations on New Years Day. Upstate will be open from 9-3 and our New York City area espresso bars will be open from 11-5. This special offer is for one shot per person (no hanging out all day) and for stand alone espresso (no you may not add the shot to your cappuccino). If you love espresso, then this will be a great day for you. If you are not a usual espresso drinker, then there is no better way to start of the year than by trying something new.
Also, as an added bonus for State Street customers, the open cupping tomorrow will be replaced by open shot pulling. I will be back in the Lab from 12-1 pulling shots of Piccolo Mondo, our organic espresso blend. Come try both shots, or just the one you don't get every day if too much caffeine worries you. This will also be a great time to answer any espresso extraction questions you may have if you are a home barista. If you are a regular but have no idea what we baristas "are doin back there" this will be a chance for you to see all the tiny steps that go into a perfect shot of espresso.
We're pleased to announce that we've been selected as a Finalist for the inaugural Good Food Awards, a pioneering initiative that grants awards to outstanding American food producers and the farmers that provide the ingredients. We were selected as a Finalist in the Coffee category for our Colombia Finca San Luis, a coffee project that we have been involved with over the course of the past 12 months with producer Omar Arango and exporters Virmax Café.
This weekend at the open cupping we will be looking at ways to brew great coffee at home. It's amazing how little changes (like grinding fresh) can make an huge improvement on your morning cup. We will be focusing on how to get awesome results with the Skerton Grinder and Clever Dripper. We are offering a bundle deal on these if you buy them in our stores: the grinder, dripper and filters for just sixty bucks. So if you have been thinking about upgrading your home morning routine, or need a holiday gift, now is the time to get this set. If you are on the fence about changing how you brew, or have any trouble shooting questions, then this is a great lab to come to!
We will brew a lot with the clever, but I have many different ways to brew available in the lab, and I sure drink a lot of coffee at home. So, if you have any questions about brewing with a press pot or stove top espresso maker we can certainly make coffee that way too. We will be brewing the Las Peñitas, my current favorite coffee. Hope to see you Saturday at noon in the lab in the back of State St. Gimme Coffee.
After 3 years of working with the coffee from Fazenda Santo André, it was time to make the trek out to western Minas Gerais, on the cusp of Cerrado, to meet the skilled hands that grow and process the coffee.
It’s 2:00 pm on a Wednesday afternoon in lower Manhattan, and Erin K. is getting ready for his closing shift. His first task is to “dial in”, which means adjusting the grind particle size so that his shots have the correct visual parameters, and of course, taste awesome.
This past Monday marked the beginning of the National Coffee Association's Fall Education Conference. For me, it began with an instructional cupping at one of the most important locations for coffee in the world: the Coffee and Cocoa Grading Room of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). It is in this room where coffee is evaluated based on Exchange grade standards, where it can either become certified stock against C contracts, or fall short of expectation, diminishing world supply. Ironically, the course for which I was assistant instructing was a tutorial on evaluating Specialty grade coffee.
You all know the game we played in the lab last last month and the song that goes with it: it's the simple act of picking the one item in a group that is different. In the coffee world we call this type of tasting challenge "Triangulation" and there are both national and world wide competitions to determine who can best identify the odd one out.
I spent this past weekend at the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Artisan Coffee Conference in Rhode Island, and came back inspired and excited. If you work in coffee anywhere from Maine to DC, look up this event next year - it's completely worth it.
Finca San Luis has been breaking hearts and taking names all over the Gimme family. Organic and shade grown, it's also one of our Relationship coffees. Our Director of Coffee, Colleen met with producer Omar Arango in late 2009 - read about her trip here.
When it comes to coffee purchasing,
there exists a horrible affliction called Roast
Profiling, a mental disease that leads to wrongful assumptions about cup
character based on 'roast level'. If your buying decisions have ever been
swayed by the words light, dark, or medium, before even learning what the flavor profile of a coffee is...
well, then I'm afraid you've been diagnosed positive. We're in this together
though, as we have paired our coffees with roast level in such a way, and for so long, that even
our own purchasing behavior has been located deeply within its paradigmatic
grasp... and we never even knew it.
You've been asking for a smaller sized bag, and now we've got it! Starting today, all our coffees are available in a new 12oz size. Besides being awfully cute, these bags are smarter in a few ways. With these new bags, it's easier for you to ...
Stock Up and Home Brew! 12oz bags make about 25 cups of coffee. That means you can get exactly the right amount to feed your daily habit.
Try New Coffees! If you've been wanting to shake up your routine, here's your chance! 12oz bags are an affordable way to try the newest from all our favorite farms, like Panama Hartmann Honey (not to mention the Honduras Cup of Excellence winner coming soon)!
Drink Fresher Longer! Coffee beans lose their flavor and sparkle about ten days after the roast. Smaller bags mean fresher beans, and more flavor for you. Check out the roast date on the top of the bag!
Find Your Flavor, Not Your Dots! We don't roast by color; instead, we develop individual roast profiles for each coffee. Along with these new bags, we're phasing out roast dots in favor of flavor notes, so you can pick a coffee you'll love.
Got questions? Love the new bags? Miss the old ones? Drop us a line at gimmecoffee.com/feedback, and we'll get back to you!
Ah, the Rosetta. That beautiful, balanced, delicate and complex design that you often see on the top of your Latte. We call it a Rosetta, not a Christmas tree or fern, and it is done with just a flick of the wrist. There are no tools, stamps, or tricks involved. Just a learned method and lots of practice. Now that you have mastered perfect milk, I'll show you how to pour it.
If you've browsed our offering list in any capacity, you've no doubt noticed the emblems that we assign to different coffee. Some of these icons, such as Rainforest Alliance and Organic, are general third party certifications for commodity products, such as coffee, cocoa, etc. Some others, such as Relationship Coffee and Microlots, are representative of specific purchasing practices at Gimme that add value to the coffee you're buying.
If you're in New York City in mid-October, you should be attending the National Coffee Association's Fall Education Conference. Compared to their larger annual Spring conference, the NCA's Fall Education Conference (FEC) is specifically focused on... well, education. Spread over three days, the FEC "serves the educational and business needs of coffee professionals in all industry segments and functions". The program will take you through a variety of panel discussions, guided tours, networking opportunities and, for the first time, an Introduction to Cupping class. Just read the brochure... there's hardly an issue left undiscussed.
Our Panama Hartmann Honey has been a favorite coffee of many for the last three years. It is silky and sweet, has very subtle fruit notes, and mellow acidity. Baristas and regulars all look forward to each year's crop from the Hartmanns. We have never been disappointed by this coffee. The Harmanns pay careful attention to each step of coffee farming and processing, and the consistent quality is a result of their careful attention.
At this Saturday's cupping we will learn a bit more about the Hartmann Farm's coffee and history. We will also try this coffee brewed a few different ways that you may brew at home; Clever,French Press and Pour Over. This will be a great lab to come to if you want some tips to make your home brewing better, and you will be amazed by the range of taste one coffee can produce. You will also be able to tell all your friends what puts the honey in Hartmann Honey. Hint: there are no bees involved. See you this Saturday, September 18th, at State Street at noon!
El Salvador is nestled just south of Guatemala and west of Honduras. It is the smallest country in Central America. You could take an afternoon drive from the western most municipality of Ahuachapán to the eastern most of La Unión in 4 hours, or visit the Pacific Coast from San Salvador in just about 45 minutes.
At this week's open cupping we will be only tasting coffee from Indonesia. Indonesian coffees tend to be very heavy and earthly so it's nice to try a group of them all together. When you put an Indonesian coffee next to the sweeter, milder, coffees they can come across as being too intense in comparison. Also, trying many similar coffees together is a great way to start refining your palate. This week will be a great cupping to come to, especially if you have already attended one.
Latte art is one of the fun parts of being a barista. We get to show off a little and beautiful drinks always make people smile. Latte art takes a while to learn, but once you get the basics down it doesn't take long to master the different designs.
On Sunday in Ithaca we here at Gimme had an internal latte art throwdown. It was time to show off new tricks and old favorites that we can pour into lattes and cappuccinos. This competition was not only for fun, we were competing for an Aeropress. Aeropress is a fun, fast way to brew a cup of coffee that not many of us own, so the competition was fierce. We ran this competition head-to-head style, with two baristas steaming and pouring at once, with the better pour moving ahead to the next level. Think college sports brackets, but with milk, and you have the right idea.
State State veteran barista Benn Bartishevich took home the grand prize. He's always pushing the limit to learn new latte art tricks, and it was his creativity that won him the competition. Congratulations Benn! Keep an eve out for stunning art from this guy next time you are in our state street store. He keeps turning out beautiful drinks.
Guatemalan coffees have long been some of the most favored offerings in our Upstate, NY retail stores. Maybe this is because our environmentally conscious consumers know that an estimated 98% of all Guatemalan coffee is shade grown, making the country a refuge for biodiversity. Or, perhaps, customers just know that they can find exceptional value in a strictly high grown, washed Arabica from Central America's leading coffee export country. Whatever the rationale, there is no wrong reason to love a Guatemalan coffee.
We've had Clever Coffee Dippers in our stores for quite a while now, and I've had one at my house for just as long. It's a great little brewer that I've come to take completely for granted. It's not the only way I brew at home, but it's become my go-to method most mornings. I've gotten so used to it that I've forgotten how truly great the design is. I recently had a lot of family in town and my father started calling my Clever the "Magic Coffee Cone." I thought this was very cute and fitting.
Here at Gimme we recently had the pleasure of inviting local yoga teacher Rachel Bush into our lab to teach us how to better protect and use our bodies while on bar. It was a very helpful hour and a half session and I am eager to share a bit of what we learned. Retail managers Liz Clark and Emily Thompson are the gracious models for these pictures.
Brazil is the world leader in coffee production, and Minas
Gerais is the largest producing region in Brazil. Coffee grown in this region
is typically known for mild fruit acidity, chocolate, nut and brown sugar flavors,
and big body. That is just what you get from our two new Brazil offerings: Brazil Santo Andre and Brazil Santa Clara (organic).Each coffee produces a cup that stays
true to the regional character, but they also hold their own ground
as distinct and unique specialty coffees. This is our second year offering both coffees, and
I anticipate they will be as popular this year as they were in 2009.
Guatemala has been in the news a lot these past few weeks. First there
was the continuous eruption of Volcán de Pacaya to the south west of
Guatamala City that covered the streets in up to 8 inches of ash. Then
Tropical Storm Agatha bombarded the western coast
of the country, causing vast devastation to properties, infrastructure,
and even caused a sinkhole in the middle of the city. Meanwhile, an
international jury
of about 25 professional coffee cuppers withstood the environmental
conditions to classify the top 28 coffees of this year's Guatemalan Cup
of Excellence. Ok, so the Guatemalan Cup of Excellence may not have been
the most
interesting story to come out of Central America in May, but let me
tell you more about it anyway.
The coffee that we all love and drink daily is the end product of a long process. One crucial stage of this process is how the coffee seed is removed from it's fruit. We are lucky to have on our shelves coffees that reflect a few different ways this can be done. In particular, we have coffee from the Amaro mill in Ethiopia processed in two different ways: Sundried and Washed. We have come very close the end of our lot of Sundried Amaro and will only have it in stock for a few more weeks. To send off this coffee that many of us have grown very fond of i would like to cup it in the lab with you this Saturday next to the Washed version. We can talk about, and taste, the difference that processing can make. We will also taste a washed and a pulped natural South American coffee.
So, if you are interested in learning a bit more about coffee and coffee processing, come to the open cupping this Saturday, July 3rd, at noon. Open cuppings happen every Saturday at noon in the lab at the back of the State Street Gimme. I hope to see you there!
Omar Arango is the owner of Finca San Luis,
a 42-hectare farm in El Libano, in the department of Tolima, Colombia.
Finca San Luis is organic and Rainforest Alliance certified, and
located at an altitude of 1600 meters. Predominantly producing coffee
of the caturra varietal, Omar creates a cup profile that has well
structured acidity, and rich flavors that range from ripe stone fruit
to mild, sweet tobacco. While Omar often sells this coffee with the
producer group Cafinorté Orgánico, this year we are working with him to
separate some of his higher quality coffee in order to sell directly to
us as Finca San Luis.
It's been a little over one month that I've been hosting open cuppings in the lab in the back of the Gimme! Coffee on State Street and things couldn't be going any better. Each week there has been a different, small, very interested group of people showing up to talk about and taste coffee. We have had a diverse group of folks attend; roasters from other coffee companies, students from the universities in town and many regulars from our cafes. It's great to see how information is shared, and misinformation dispelled, when you get a good mix of people together. For many people this tasting was the first time they realized coffee can be sweet without sugar. So don't worry if you don't know anything about coffee or feel like a pro taster. If you've got a tongue you are welcome to join us.
The rumors are true!
Not every coffee drinker enjoys the physiological effects of caffeine. The good news : modern decaffeination methods allow for a complete and pleasant coffee drinking experience without the added energy. The even better news : this month we are releasing a brand new decaffeinated coffee that just might leave you asking, "La Serrania, where have you been all my life?!"
Have you ever looked into the back lab at state st and seen a group of Gimme folk standing around the table totally focused on small cups of coffee? You may have. We are back there several times a week cupping. Cupping is a specific kind of coffee tasting, a standardized way to evaluate coffee which is practiced all over the world. It's the way green buyers decide which coffee to buy. It's the way roasters decide on their profiles, and it's the way we baristas get to know the coffees on our shelves so that we can better describe the taste to you. Starting this Saturday we would like you to come cup with us!
Bright and early on a Saturday morning, dozens of people gathered at the State Street training lab to taste the new Las Mingas harvest. Our crew of awesome baristas served up Las Mingas Huila and Las Mingas Cauca in three ways: pourover, French press, and espresso shots.
Rise and shine, everybody! Winter is no more and the time to hibernate is over! The sun is back and there are flowers to smell, gardens to grow, and picnics to be enjoyed! Spring is most certainly in the air and to me, that means one thing... ICED COFFEE! All winter long I wait and long for the first batch of cold brewed iced coffee for the season. There is something about its heavy bodied, chocolaty sweetness that sends me to the moon and leaves me with a craving that no other coffee drink can satisfy! So velvety, yet still so crisp! Mmm! Heaven in a cup! What makes cold brewed iced coffee so good? Unlike iced coffees which are brewed hot then cooled and often end up being sour, the cold brew method is well, cold brewed! Brewing coffee using cold water to extract all those yummy oils and gases from the ground coffee requires a much longer extraction time that with hot water; say, 12 hours longer! But good things come to those who wait! With this a slow and gentle extraction, you're left with the smoothest and richest cup of iced coffee you're going to find! Stop by a Gimme store and give it a try, and if that isn't an option, try making up a batch at home! Enjoy!
You may have noticed our pour over menu for the month is all Colombian coffee. Specifically, Colombian coffee purchased through the Las Mingas Program. Las Mingas is a quality based program for sourcing coffee created by Virmax, a Colombian specialty coffee exporter. The Las Mingas program connects specialty roasters like gimme with a multitude of high quality samples that we are able to blend into regional offerings. The samples are from farms as small as two hectares, a size too small for Gimme to purchase, market and sell. Through the Las Mingas program we are able to create specific macro lots, from several small farms, that represent a specific flavor profile of a region. This is the third year that Gimme has participated in the Las Mingas Program and the coffee keeps getting better. We have two Las Mingas macro lots on our shelves and offered as pour over this month. The lot from Cauca, a department in Colombia right on the pacific coast, is very floral and full of light sweet citrus notes. The lot from Huila, directly east of Cauca but separated by mountains, is very creamy and rich. The third option on the pour over menu this month is also a Las Mingas coffee, but it is so unique and beautiful we couldn't stand to blend it with anything else. The name of the farm this coffee comes from is Bella Vista.
It's true, I love Kenyan coffees best. Perhaps it's because it was a Kenyan coffee that first convinced me to fall in love with coffee, or maybe it's just the taste. Whatever the case may be, I have always been a Kenyan coffee girl, through and through. So you can imagine my excitement when our current Kenyan coffee, the Gatomboya, first arrived on our shelves late last year, popping with a bright and sassy, citrus boom! I was instantly won over by the subtle hint of savory-syrup-yum behind all that sparkle and zing! But over time the excitement wore off and the honeymoon was over. My heart began to wander to other coffees (Oh, Remera!) that would occupy my attention and my dear Gatomboya, was slowly replaced as my favorite coffee.
Perhaps it was an attempt to win back my undivided affection or maybe things just do get better with age, but a recent change in its roasting process has the Gatomboya back to being a coffee that is simply impossible to ignore!
As working baristas, we are often asked, "So, how many coffees do you drink in a day?" However, this is actually a surprisingly difficult question for us and we are likely to answer with an anticlimactic 1 or 2. A better question to as is, "How much coffee do you drink a day?" to which we answer with a predictable, "A lot!"
This is starting to sound like a riddle, right? But there is a simple explanation:
Unlike most other brewing methods, when making espresso there is no set "recipe" to follow.
You see, in brewing methods such as French Press or PourOver, ground coffee simply sits and soaks in hot water, exposing each particle (and thus extracting) for the same amount of time, and then is gently separated using some form of filter. Because these brewing methods are so gentle, it's pretty easy to achieve the same outcome every time, enabling you to set and follow standard measurements.
But it's a little different with espresso where highly pressurized water is forced through finely ground and tightly packed coffee, pushing out the oils and gasses. And with such a forced extraction, coffee particles become volatile, exaggerating the smallest of variables into major factors; such as roast date, weather conditions (humidity and temperature), equipment temperature, and the list goes on.
We are proud to offer two Las Mingas lots this year, one from the Department of Cauca and the other from the Department of Huila. Las Mingas Cauca is an organic lot that has bright citrus in the aroma and flavor, and is balanced by a juicy but mellow acidity. Think of it as vibrant yet easy. Las Mingas Huila is incredibly creamy and comforting, like a sweet milk candy that has some ripe cherry smack in the middle.
Ladies and gentlemen! For your entertainment, with us today are two coffee grinders rivaling for the Title: Best Home-use Coffee Grinder! (Not an actual event.)
Being judged on overall performance as well as taste, these two grinders must out-do each other in every way. But before the competing begins, let's take a moment and get to know the two contestants: a blade grinder and the Hario Grinder.
When a building-wide, freak power outage struck 228 Mott St yesterday just after sunset, panic broke out amongst the coffee-seeking, snow-storm-refugees at Gimme! "No Coffee?!"
But there was hope..
Almost too perfect to be real, this latte sporting the classic Gimme exclamation point was poured by Mott Street's own barista-in-training, Sarah! One might think that Sarah has been practicing this neat trick and has finally reached perfection, however this is not the case! What you see here is Sarah's very first latte! Although this untraditional latte art may have been unintentional, it's no mistake! So Sarah, if you have been unsure thus far, I think this is a pretty clear sign that you are meant to be a part of the Gimme Family!
Water is a very important part of brewing coffee. It's important; to use water that is hot enough, to use the right ratio of coffee to water, to only boil your water once, and to use water with the right mineral content. That means use filtered water. Many people have a water filter at home for drinking, yet use water out of the tap for their morning coffee. As baristas, we hear many reasons for this; from the idea that boiling water purifies it, to the thinking that the taste of the coffee will mask the off flavors in tap water. This week in the lab we set up an experiment to see if we could, in fact, tell the difference between coffee brewed with different waters.
A coffee's quality is threatened at any stage in its life cycle, but processing is the first crucial step in conserving the quality post harvest. Processing refers to the stage after the coffee cherries have been harvested and before the dry parchment coffee is sent to the dry mill. Many physical and chemical defects have the ability to form during processing based on the hygiene and calibration of equipment, environmental conditions, and a general understanding how a given action translates into overall cup quality and flavor profile.
What is "mouthfeel", and why is it so important?
Mouthfeel is a term used to discuss the physical and chemical interaction of a food or liquid with the mouth. What makes mouthfeel important is how dramatically it can cause a person to react to a food or drink, despite the taste. To explore this concept and how it relates to being a Barista, we put ourselves to the test!
I recently took a bus trip to New York City to visit our cafes
and baristas down there. While the trip is always totally worth it, I couldn't help but grumble at the necessity of being ON the bus at 5:30am. No time for breakfast. No time to make coffee. Good thing I packed my trusty picnic basket...
You don't understand Japanese? Are you are feeling intimidated by the Skerton Grinder instructions? No problem! I'm here to talk you through setting up this lovely grinder.
Hello All! This last week in our NYC Lab, we took one coffee and brewed it using several different methods. Our goal in this experiment was a) get to know this coffee in a few different ways, and b) to explore the differences/similarities between different brewing methods.
Let talk about brewing with the Clever Dripper! Maybe you were lucky enough to receive one as a holiday present, or maybe you had a cup from the Clever in stores and couldn't resist bringing one home. Either way, making excellent coffee at home can be super easy. You will need: the Clever Dripper, paper filters (size 4), a timer (or clock), a spoon, a small plate to cover the Clever while brewing, freshly ground coffee, and I highly recommend a scale.
This month we will release the new crop from the Rwanda Buf Coffee washing stations. This is our third year support Buf Coffee and its proprietor, Epiphanie Mukashyaka, and I believe this may be the finest lot we have received from her yet. In the past we have purchased coffee from Epiphanie's Gkongoro Mill, though this year we are providing coffee from her Remera Mill, which took 7th place in the 2008 Cup of Excellence competition. The coffee has exceptional sweet, purple fruit character with warming allspice and is both juicy and dense.
When baking my holiday pumpkin pie I assembled the usual roster of spices: cloves, cassia, nutmeg, and allspice. I also added, you guessed it, ground coffee!
For a limited time only, you can try our favorite lot from Las Mingas as pourover coffee at any of our espresso bars! Grown by Leonardo Bados as part of the Las Mingas project, the entire lot is a mere 225 pounds of coffee, and we will definitely run out fast. It's a creamy big coffee with multiple layers of deep orange zest, sweet spice, and muscular fruit.
For me, November came and went, as pumpkin pie making season. In one short month I went from making my first pumpkin pie, to my seventeenth! Lucky for me, there was an absolutely spectacular coffee in my cup to keep me fueled!
Finca Trinidad! from Guatemala!
For Thanksgiving dinner I made pumpkin pie. The secret ingredient? Coffee! I used our Honduras Linda Vista because I felt the sweet, spicy notes of this coffee would pair well with the spices typically added to pumpkin pie. To preserve the clean sweetness of this coffee I decided to cold brew it the night before I was planning on baking.
In November, I had the opportunity to travel around the eastern states of Brazil, tasting coffee and learning about the various micro regions of the world's largest coffee producing country. Spending most of my time in the eastern part of Minas Gerais, one of Brazil's largest coffee producing states, I visited the smaller regions of Matas de Minas and Sul de Minas. Although these two growing areas are part of the same state, the differences in topography from one region to the next lend to the production of coffees with very different flavor profiles. What's more, these two areas, though different among themselves, are an even further departure from the coffees grown in Cerrado Mineiro, located in western Minas Gerais.
I love this grinder. Not only is it small and attractive, making it a very fine hat, but it does its primary job of grinding coffee very well. I love the motion of hand grinding my coffee in the morning, what a nice gentle way to wake up. It takes a few more minutes than buzzing beans with an electric grinder, but it never takes longer than the time it takes me to boil water for which ever method of preparation I choose. The ceramic burrs are adjustable and have a good range from large particles for a Press Pot to a fine powder that would work for Turkish Coffee. It's a little bit more work with a super fine grind, I wouldn't pull espresso shots for an entire team grinding solely with this little guy. For me and my sweetie at home? It's perfect!
At the upstate stores, and in the lab, we've been playing the game of swirling foam too. Here's some worth showing off, starting with a rosetta in progress by yours truly.
By November El Salvador is already past bloom, the coffee cherries are a few months shy of peak ripeness and Marco Batres is preparing both his wet and dry mill for production. These mills will process the sizable harvests of Sr. Batres's family of estates; the 15 estates in total can be found scattered around the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range. They are all organic, all Rainforest Alliance certified, and the coffees produced therein are known for having some of the highest quality in all of El Salvador. The quality of the coffee produced by Marco Batres is exemplified by 4 of his lots taking top honors in this year's El Salvador Cup of Excellence competition. We were able to secure a small 5 bag lot of one such winner, the best of group in my opinion, from a 40 hectare estate called Altamira I.
If you are spending some time at Gimme studying, or just enjoying the ambiance of our newly renovated State St. store, I highly recommend giving our new Pour Over Coffee a try.
This past September I joined a group of roasters and green coffee buyers from the United States and attended the 2nd annual Expo Especiales, a national conference funded by the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FNC). It's taken me some time to reflect on the conference, a venue that through discussing the current trends in production and consumption in one of the world's leading coffee exporting countries, essentially sets the stage for determining coffee futures globally. Here are some of my thoughts...
If you've stopped by any Gimme! Coffee location you may recognize the big Bunn brewers pictured above. If you're a regular you may have tried to order a cup of decaf at some time. It's ok, we all drink it; sometimes you need that cup of love, hold the buz. I hope you weren't too shocked to learn that "we don't brew decaf." These bad boys above are good at what they do; brewing a lot of coffee, fast, and doing it relatively well. It's a fine system for brewing a lot of coffee if you are able to sell the coffee when it's hot and fresh. It may not surprise you to learn that here at gimme we serve significantly less cups of decaf coffee than caffeinated. So, rather then brewing a big pot of decaf in the morning and letting it sit until it is sold, we take a slightly different approach.
From time to time some very unique and beautiful coffees slip through the cracks of a competition as large as Cup of Excellence (CoE) because of variance in roast degree or other such factors. Finca Trinidad is one such coffee that did not make the final jury selection for the Guatemalan CoE auction this past July. The first axiom of sensory analysis (taste, smell, etc.) is that it is subjective and highly influenced by environmental conditions. Even as trained and calibrated coffee tasters, there is no certainty that compelling coffees will not be glanced over and forgotten. Luckily, we were able to restore Finca Trinidad from anonymity and, hopefully, create a legacy.
At key moments I've encountered specific coffees that have lined up perfectly with what was happening in my life. Call it fate, call it synchronicity of the universe, call it me liking my job a little too much. I've had coffees comfort me during break ups, inspire me to take a chance to better my self, help me see a city in a whole new way and pull me out of the winter doldrums. The Honduras Linda Vista is one of these coffees.
Hello class, it's been a while since we've done one of these, but I thought it would be nice to get back to giving you helpful hints and guidelines for home brewing. Today I will be presenting Pour Over style coffee made on a Bee House dripper, and using a paper filter.
We support many fund raising events throughout the year and I'd like to begin highlighting them here. Here are some happening this weekend:
Ithaca
Coffee Tasting Expo at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Taste different organic coffees with Smithsonian Bird Friendly certification, such as our Guatemala Asobagri. Learn about the migratory birds that depend on shade-grown coffee farms for their survival. Free. Sunday, September 20, from 11am-3pm.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology Lecture: The Science Behind Bird-Friendly Coffee, by Dr Greenberg, Director, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. Free. Monday, September 21, from 7:30pm-8:45pm.
New York City
The Mia Abides: Fundraiser for the Ocular Melanoma Foundation at the Living Room. An Evening of joyful music in celebration of Mia Jarlov, featuring Adam Levy & the Mint Imperials. $10. Sunday, September 20, doors at 7pm.
The secret to great espresso, in fact the secret to all great coffee, is that there is no secret. No magic formula. No easy answer. The secret to great coffee is in the details and in the hard work applied by everyone involved in every part of the process. As Baristas we know that we are the last step in a long line of people working to bring high quality coffee to consumers.
I'm an old-fashoned type of girl: I read a lot of books, prefer letters to email, and I will not vote electronically. I like paper. I like its tangible, touchable nature and the history that paper provides. However, there is one place that I cannot stand to find paper; in my coffee.
This week in the lab we are deconstructing our leftist blend by pulling single origin shots of its components. The spectrum of flavors in the coffees pulled by themselves as shots was amazing. Boy did we find some gems! The Kenya Gatomboya was by far the favorite!
In celebration and in anticipation of our new Kenyan and Ethiopian coffees a few of us here at Gimme got together and cupped coffee, just African coffees!
Barista jams are the equivalent to business conferences, a place where baristas gather to exchange new techniques, make networking connections, see old friends, and hone their skills under pressure behind the bar. Back in June we were excited to attend the Mid-Atlantic / North-East Jam, hosted by Troy Reynard of The Cosmic Cup.
I meet il Professore at the bar of the Caffe Fiore in the late, starting to heat up, murky Napoli morning. He is speaking of another taste, entirely: "You could make a fairly complicated blend of two of the existing Gimme mantras, the French, and Leftist, equal parts. The shot I am looking for has a certain 'meta-taste', a fantasy of complexes; one I say, that is like first tier bittersweet chocolate, could be Belgian or Italian."
Mid summer marks the arrivals of new crop coffees from Central and
South America and Africa. If you don't see your favorite coffees on our
offering sheet this month, keep in mind that there are plenty more on
their way to the Gimme Roastery - like the Costa Rica Las Lajas
organic, Ethiopia Amaro and Honduras Linda Vista Cup of Excellence
lot! But that's getting ahead of the game... this month we're releasing
two new Colombian coffees, and giving a little extra attention to some
old favorites.
Baristas from every Gimme espresso bar gathered at our State
Street location for a design duel. I snapped
250 pics and slapped them onto an old scrap from my music hobby. It's hyper-kinetic and herky-jerky, so find a friend with a peppy computer and look away if you get dizzy.
Hooray for talented baristas -- such technicians! Stay tuned for official reportage from event impresario Erin.
Outside the Scuola di Espresso, the smell of freshly finished and brick-oven browning baguettes mingles with the smokey, golden morning. A vineyard across the flinty valley is rusty-green. And I am wondering if I can expose my personal confusion about: WHAT IN THE H. . . IS pH, by quizzing il Professore. He is not a morning type guy, ya know, but I stumble onward.
Just outside of Volcan, Panama is Finca Hartmann, a beautiful 90 hectare (220 acre) estate, in which 12 of those hecares are set aside for coffee cultivation, and the remainder are dedicated to old-growth rainforest. Alex Hartmann is one of five Hartmann siblings who work together to run the family estate. Alex is the manager of the coffee nursery, and assists in the management of all coffee harvesting between the months of September and February. When I visited Finca Hartmann in late May, I met with Alex in the nursery and got a glimpse into his philosophy of producing and selling coffee, that is, why it is so important for coffee producers and consumers to communicate with one another.
I was reading up about wet processing on James Hoffman's site, jimseven, and thought I'd share. James, a former World Barista Champion, gave a lecture at a barista jam in Easton, PA a couple of years ago - he was charming and down to earth, and of course extremely knowledgeable about coffee.
. . . and at the Scuola di, he is turning from the E 61, shot in hand: "You have an example of another variation, which will point out yet another surprising twist of blending. Remember the epiphany of Gimme's French Roast and an addition of Rwanda Bufcafe Epiphanie, a marvel of balance, depth, strength, and character. But, first, try this", says il Professore, as I stand in the sun-bathed lab of the Scuola. Lake Cuomo, out of the window, today is azure blue, calm, the temp outside is beehive warm, the air is dripping with volatiles--almond blossoms. I'm ready for anything. . . .
Maybe you've decided to take our advice. You're standing in your kitchen with a bag of sweet Hartmann Honey. Maybe you read Jeremy's (RIP) awesome post about grinding and decided to go ahead and purchase a modest burr grinder for home. You've chosen Moka Pot as your method of extraction, and have the grind size and dose exacted to your taste preference. But what about your water?
... Pulling Shots, Culling Current Chemistry for Clues to Cup By: Better Coffee Through Chemistry?
Today il Professore seems to be in top form as he pulls a shot of another blend: "Here, my young friend is another epiphany, a blend that is a twist on Gimme's Leftist--searching for clues to sweetness. I am about to give you an intense dose, both in the shot and in my notes to follow of the chemistry of coffee to show that inherent and developed chemical constituents can be identified, leading to discovery of sweetness in the cup."
I drink it in; the fruitiness to sweet caramel is ascending, sour and bitter are passed by. I bet on an added slice of an Ethiopianin this version. "In this case, you are right", says the Professore, "and now I continue to show you a path to sweetness through chemistry, in this case identified as supplemental sacharrides, namely fructose, glucose. But read it yourself":
I learned how to make espresso on a Gimme La Marzocco Linea. Unlike any other espresso machine I've used before or since, it had a custom temperature regulator, designed and built by Tomas Reyer and Andy Schecter. The device is called a PID ("Proportional, Integral, Derivative") controller. It's basically a thermostat -- albeit, a thermostat with advanced fuzzy
logic and a Back to the Future display panel. And it works! I still
have vivid memories of the bittersweet chocolate shots it pulled.
I am asking il Professore of Scuola di Espresso about the cause of bitter, over a shot of his latest espresso transfiguration.
"My friend, remember that we have been discussing the role of caffeine in particular. It is relatively the most important toxic substance we know, the most widely consumed psychoactive drug in the world. We find it in over 60 plants. Think also of kola nuts, quarana, besides coffee, tea, and cocoa. Surprisingly, caffeine (much of it from the decaffeination process itself) is part of many pain-killers, called "buffered", or analgesics, from Greek, analgesia, believe me, meaning without pain.
"But just now, I am in the midst of a without-pain-moment, my own epiphany of taste and texture of this particular shot. The aroma is not at all subtle either. You be the judge of the taste."
If you already receive our monthly News & Discounts email, check your inbox for an exclusive coupon: 25% off all coffees. If you're not a subscriber, sign up today and we'll send the coupon to you by email. Don't miss another discount!
Behold the bottomless portafilter. About four years ago, some smart barista decided to cut the spouts off of the traditional portafilter used for brewing espresso, and it caused quite a stir. More gas expansion! More crema! Higher volumes! Better tastes?
I recently read this characterization of the global coffee trade:
"The gigantic extent to which the production and consumption of coffee has been carried of late years, the vast number of hands employed in its cultivation and preparation for market, including the great quantity of shipping necessary for its transportation, and the enormous amount of capital invested in its production and trade, naturally invest the commodity, not only from a commercial but also from a moral and social standpoint, with great importance, creating as it does an industry of almost fabulous proportions and capital, rendering it second to no other article of food or drink in the world."
As true today as the day it was published... in 1894.
Since the druggist was sayin', over a cup of "Coffee of the Year, Las Mingas", that caffeine, that trimethylxanthine, in the pharmacopeia is listed as a chemical that is odorless and tasteless, to be compounded where an increase in metabolism is indicated, I turned to il Professore of Scoula di . . , because all my references say caffeine contributes to the bitter taste of coffee as much as any other component.
Our Professore looks astonished and pulls down Flament, Coffee Flavor Chemistry (2002) to page 14. "No chemist doubts", says the Professore, "that caffeine is bitter, yet it's role in taste is limited to around 10% of total bitterness. It is unaffected by heat itself, decline is modest or stable in relation to overall weight loss in roasting, but increases in solubility by 10 times at least as the temperature comes up to drinkable hot, very soluble.
I've remarked before on how an espresso blend is always subject to transitions and changes. As much as possible, we try to create a certain flavor profile and experience from all the components. Even so, every shot is unique, subject to different specific conditions ranging from the roast age to machine temperature, from coffee dose to the humidity. That's why our baristas spend so much time learning to find the best shot in every situation. And it also makes drinking espresso considerably more interesting, by forcing you to find the nuance within a certain flavor profile. My Leftist shot this morning at our Brooklyn location held a heavy cashew flavor through a soft texture, had a short appearance of grapefruit zest through the middle, and finished with cloves, extra-dark chocolate, and amaretto liqueur.
On Sunday April 19th, Alejandro and Giancarlo (founders of Virmax Cafe in Colombia) were presented with quite possibly one of the highest honors in specialty coffee : Coffee of the Year. We have Virmax to thank for the Las Mingas Program, which brings quality coffee growers together with quality roasters. They work tirelessly to educate growers on how to overcome the many obstacles that get in the way of outstanding quality. It seems like all of their hard work has paid off.
"What it was", says il Professore at Scuola di Espresso, "is the idea that you ought to change the way, the profile, at which you are roasting, depending on what? What idea to pursue, say? Look at Williem Boot's 'Ready to Roast' in September, October issue of 'Roast Magazine', a roast set for hard, for soft, for large."
A new approach, right? Not by roast outcome or cup but by green bean. So we are gonna try what he's up to: roasting a profile to match beans by hardness, by size; we oughta see results.
Colleen Anunu (Roasting Department Manager), Janet Murray (Purchasing Manager), Anne-Marie Robles (Director of Wholesale) and myself (QC Guy) decided to drive down to Atlanta for the annual SCAA trade show. Yeah, real smart guys, 15 hours in a 2001 Hyundai Elantra, with people you work with every single day. DEDICATION folks, DEDICATION.
Good taste isn't born - it's cultivated.
And our Leftist Labs - they're real classy. I mean, check out that
espresso ring on the counter. The sophistication of the scattered grounds. In
our lab sesson today, each of the five baristas had ten minutes to step up to the Mirage espresso machine
and "dial in" the grind - that means adjusting the particle size that
the grinder is set to produce, in order to yield a good extraction.
In Napoli, there is a custom of ordering a caffè sospeso. This espresso is paid for, but not consumed; it remains "in suspension" until redeemed by someone later on, perhaps someone who can't afford it or maybe just someone who forgot their wallet. Either way, the purchaser earns good luck and someone doesn't have to go a day without espresso in their system. Read more about the suspended espresso in the article where I first stumbled on it.
We love history, especially when it has to do with vintage espresso machines. This is a sibling of another machine we had but with one more group. The two group just sold, and if you are interested in this one, please contact us. We just got the body panels powdercoated, descaled the coffee boiler and Tomas is devoting careful attention to reassembly. Be sure to watch this space for more updates! Until then, feast your eyes on this machine.
No, what I mean is I ain't in the roasting loop anymore--my clothes don't give away that I was just roasting beans. So my new role, new myself, is as a Gimme correspondent to be known as r. e. (roaster emeritus). . .
It's no small feat, this brew. From farm to ship to roastery to your kitchen counter, there are many variables at work which can make or break it. Does the prospect of controlling all variables overwhelm you? Does this photo overwhelm you? We're here to help.
On a recent road trip up to Ithaca, the NYC crew took off with a La Marzocco Linea for the downstate training lab. It's still in the first week of residence there, and looking good. This machine will be ideal for preparing baristas to make superlative beverages for your drinking pleasure on the La Marzoccos we use at both NYC locations.
Panama Hartmann Honey beans ship in space-age mylar. The opaque, air-tight, puncture-resistant bags lock in freshness and repel the stray odors of neighboring freight.
If you consider dried ground coffee treasure. The area under the drain tray of an espresso machine is often an overlooked area, as evidenced in the image above. The cleanliness of this easily accessible zone of mystery can tell you about the health of your machine. This machine had a clogged drain hose - for an extended period of time. The operator may not have noticed anything but a few drops of water under the machine for the duration of a shift, most of the moisture would be absorbed by the built up solids, and repeated overflows of the drain box only added more solids. To prevent this, always pour about a half gallon of hot water through the drain tray when performing closing tasks.
It's easy to forget that the beverage, grounds and beans that we sling and drink every day come from an agricultural commodity like any other. Well, not exactly like any other - it does hold the distinction of being the second-most traded commodity after oil.
A triple ristretto is the shot type of choice for our Leftist espresso. A "ristretto" refers to how we restrict the extraction range of the shot to maximize its flavor potential.
Gimme customers and staff were treated recently to a meet-and-greet with Alejandro Cadena and Giancarlo Ghiretti, founders of the Las Mingas Relationship Coffee Project, who work directly with the farmers that produce our beautiful Las Mingas beans. Our special guests from Bogotá lectured one night in Ithaca, and the very next night in New York City. That NYC lecture hadn't been scheduled until Jenni, our Manhattan manager, asked Giancarlo and Alejandro if they could do a repeat talk the next night before leaving the States. Very gracious of them to oblige.
A recent entry shared how we purged the bad mojo from our vintage Probat LG5 roaster. Will Golden at Cayuga Powdercoating
played an important role in making that possible. When we received the
roaster it was in rough shape. I think the previous owners used the
same paint my Aunt had on her patio furniture. Institutional green had
to go.
If you already receive our monthly News & Discounts email, check your inbox for an exclusive coupon: 25% off all coffees. If you're not a subscriber, sign up today and we'll send the coupon to you by email. Don't miss another discount!
Brazil is a beautiful country with beautiful people, beautiful food and most importantly: beautiful coffees. We are very happy to bring two new offerings on board from the number one coffee producer in the world, and some of the finest people on earth.
Update: Our newest decaf, Colombia La Serrania, is decaffeinated using a different solvent derived from sugar cane molasses. Learn more!
Our Decaf beans start out in Narino, Colombia, and are processed so
that the outer layers (called the "cherry") are removed.
After this
processing but before being roasted, coffee beans are referred to as
"greens". If coffee is going to be decaffeinated, the caffeine must be
extracted after the beans have been processed. The greens are then
sent to Germany to a decaffeination plant.
You may have alreadyheard about Coffee: The World in Your Cup at the University of Washington's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. We haven't made it out there yet, but they were kind enough to send some photos of the final exhibit. It looks great!
The Aeropress is a durable, compact, and easy to clean brewing device. There are official instructions as well as many online guides, but don't read too much into parameter recommendations. Experiment for yourself, particularly with temperature, grind size, and steep time.
Last night before a crowd of 50 people at our State Street cafe, Gimme Roasting Manager Colleen Anunu gave an introduction to our work with the Las Mingas Relationship Coffee Project. In the audience were Las Mingas founders, Alejandro Cadena and Giancarlo Ghiretti, as well as staff and customers. Gimme Manhattan manager Jenni Bryant and colleagues came all the way from New York City. It was great to rally so many people around a common interest.
This may appear to be a piece of modern sculpture, but it is actually a blown heating element. This is a result of not visually checking the water level in an espresso machine boiler. This should be a habit for all baristas, and it can be incorporated into your shot preparation routine by simply glancing at the sight glass before locking the portafilter into the group.
Colleen and I went to Geneva, NY to pay a visit to the Food Research Lab for Cornell University. She was giving a talk about our involvement with the Las Mingas project. We will be giving our own presentation this coming weekend, check it out!
Brewing for espresso enables one to experience a coffee with a fuller range of dimension - the pressured water can pull out many
more flavors and aromas from the grounds than gravity brewing. This also means that if your grinder is dirty, you will certainly taste it in an extraction.
The Cenaproc Cooperative grows coffee at about 6,000 feet up in the Andes, surrounded by the Yungascloud forest. When they sent us their newest harvest of Bolivia Fair Trade Organic, they also sent this great picture of the clouds hanging right over the forest canopy.
For many coffee roasting companies, there is a need to have a variety of roast levels and a variety of coffees from different coffee growing regions. The regions are Latin America, Indonesia and Africa (the major ones anyway, I am NOT touching the Jamaica Blue Mountain one). The photograph above demonstrates Java at two different roast levels. Our pursuit of perfection is endless, and our obsession with coffee profiling is somewhat, well, obsessive.
Deciding how much ground coffee to use is a key factor in troubleshooting your home brew. Changing variables such as temperature, grind size, or steep time affect how much is extracted, or what percentage of the coffee is removed by the water during brewing. The coffee dose, however, determines the concentration of the flavors in the cup. It is the deciding factor in the strength, or perceptability, of the brew.
Finca Hartmann is the origin of our new Panama Hartmann Honey coffee (famed in song and legend). The farm sits right next door to the Parque Nacional La Amistad, and the park's old-growth forest spills over onto the farmland. The Hartmanns have preserved much of their property for giant old trees like this one, which in turn shelter hundreds of species of bird and animal life.
In a previous entry I detailed what happens when mineral rich water,
left untreated, has the chance to establish residence in a boiler. The
water supplied to this machine was not hard water, but unfiltered.
What you see is mostly sand and dirt. Proper filtration not only
prevents breakdown, but erratic behavior of your espresso machine as
well. A small speck of dirt in the narrow tubing that leads to your
pressure stat can cause it to behave as if it is possessed. I imagine
the shots from this machine had a gritty mouth feel. Read more about
types of filtration here.
The Las Mingas Program is one of the most responsible and direct source models available to specialty coffee roasters throughout the world.
Still, it only represents 0.025% of Colombia's annual coffee production.
Using coffee while its fresh is important to brewing great coffee. Fortunately, the bag it came in is helping you out. After it's roasted, the coffee is put in one of these bags and sealed. The round thing above the label is a valve which allows the gases to escape without blowing the bag up like a balloon. Once out, there's no getting back in. The valve bars access to the outside air and moisture, helping prolong the coffee's freshness.
It dawned on me the other day. Unless you work in the coffee world, you've probably never seen green coffee -- that is, beans before they get roasted. These rather homely jade drops, randomly selected specimens of our Colombia Las Mingas Relationship Coffee, are pebble-hard and seemingly inert. Yet lurking inside are all the brain-stoking bouquets and body-embosoming brios of the Beautiful Beverage, as they call it in the Olde Country. Apply a dose of hot air and let the alchemy begin.
Chris and Kathy Beatty have been coffee hardcore aficionados for years.
So when they heard my wife and I were moving back east for me to work for Gimme! Coffee again, they were stoked. As were we, because Gimme! feels like a family, and I feel at home here on the east coast for sure. Living in the Bay Area taught us an immense amount about the importance of food, beer, wine, and cooking. For my in-laws, these things were always important and played a significant role in their lives, even in a small town in Ohio. For them, knowing where their food comes from, sourcing things as locally as possible and supporting small businesses is something they live their lives by.
Every brewing method has its own set of procedures, but the quality of your cup has a lot to do with more general considerations. The variables that affect how coffee is extracted are so numerous that there isn't one sure answer for how to brew it. The best way to make great coffee is to experiment with some of the variables yourself. In the process, you will explore both your own palate and the potential of your chosen coffee.
This special lady is our newly acquired 1950 Probat LG-5. A beauty found in UP-upstate New York and beautifully restored by our machine techs Thom and Tomas. It's been awesome to watch her come back to life. In new color.
Just got our invitation to Coffee: The World in Your Cup at the University of Washington's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. We can't make it out to Seattle next weekend, but the exhibit will be on display January 24 - June 7, 2009. If you want to deepen your understanding of coffee, and you're in town, don't miss it.
We recently had winning samples of Brazil's Cup of Excellence competition on the cupping table at our downstate training lab. I couldn't help sneaking in our latest Brazilian arrival, Fazenda Sao Joao, which the Roasting Department announced this week and which just hit shelves.
This was a 'blind' cupping, where the coffees' identities were hidden
beneath their numbers, to avoid bringing any preconceptions to bear on
our palates. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Sao Joao held
its own and was a favorite around the table, delivering an incredibly
rich flavor profile of roasted peanuts, butter, and cocoa.
Brazil Fazenda São João has finally come home to roost... I mean roast. Yesterday we received our one and only shipment. Today we will roast it. Tomorrow you can enjoy it as much as we do.
We only have 13 bags of this killer coffee. As a point of reference, we usually purchase between 50 and 250 bags of any given seasonal coffee, so you can guess how darned special the São João is. Available now and for a limited time. Buy online or in line!
The Chemex is a simple pourover brewing device that uses heavy, unbleached filter paper to slow the brewing process and prolong the exposure of the ground coffee to water.
The Moka Pot has been brewing coffee on household stovetops for over 70 years. Using steam pressure, it yields a strong brew with a heavy body, similar to press pot extraction. It even produces a small amount of crema.
When baristas prepare espresso, they control how long the shot runs in order to achieve a certain extraction range. Ideally, this range is sufficiently long to pull out all the desirable flavors but stops short of bitterness and diluted mouthfeel. The only way to control this is by making the bed of ground coffee, or puck, of completely even density. Because water is lazy and follows the path of least resistance, it will find areas of lesser density and extract that coffee first, forming a channel.
Grinding may well be the most crucial step to brewing coffee. The success of even the simplest brewing methods depends on how freshly and uniformly ground the coffee is. The best way to produce great results is with a burr grinder. This type of grinder uses two burrs, such as the one in the above photo, that can be set closer or farther from each other to achieve different particle sizes.
If you go on over to the Costa Rica La Union page and check out the bag label, you'll read the descriptors snap peas, jasmine and alfalfa flowers. During recent cuppings, I've also perceived cocoa, fresh earth and peaches.
Pouring milk designs in espresso drinks has become a specialty coffee signature. "Latte art" is not only being more widely practiced, but has even gained enough admirers to spawn a whole genre of online photo galleries and videos. What is less well known is that crisp, clear, and creative designs can only be poured under the conditions which create delicious coffee drinks. Heart, rosetta, or tulip... whatever adorned the top of your latte this morning was simply a confident artisanal flourish with which your barista signified the care taken in its preparation.
A finance guy from the Cheese Belt read our bit about coffee coolers. He was inspired to conduct a few hours of followup research -- on the clock, I presume, since finance guys have time to burn these days. This thoughtful reader then submitted intriguing images from an 1896 regimental history.
An espresso blend is a unique creation which unites the distinct qualities of individual coffees. Our Leftist blend combines flavors deriving from such peculiarities of origin as climate, varietal, soil type, or process. Because of the seasonal nature of agricultural products and our desire for better quality, these component coffees change periodically and are under constant evaluation for their contributions to the blend. It is our job to learn them individually before we put it all together. Here, baristas cup single origin blend components in the training lab at our Manhattan location.
Dimes are already thin enough. The repair department discovers foreign objects in equipment once in a while. How these things get there can be a mystery. Grinders incorporate powerful magnets to catch any steel that may find a way into coffee, but they cannot stop copper, brass or aluminium. Thankfully these metals are soft enough to not damage steel burrs, but they will stop your grinder from working until the offending object can be removed. Say the mantra with me: "Keep your grinder lid closed". Or label your grinder "This is not the tip jar".
Drive your Toyota like a jackrabbit. Gun it at the greenlight, catch air off a speedbump, carve donuts in your neighbor's lawn. Do it 15 hours a day, 365 days a year. How's that little Corolla feeling now?
Maybe you think of foofy drinks. Or you geek out like some latter day microscopist. Ooh, I know: you think of plug-n-play gadgets. But me, I think of Bartles & Jaymes. I was programmed in the '80s. My automatic response to the word "coolers" has everything to do with those old guys catching a fruity buzz, and nothing to do with... war.
We had the pleasure of hosting Andy Schecter and his infinite bag of tricks recently. In this episode Andy showed us how to use this state of the art Refractometer (AKA ExtractMojo) in conjuction with computer software, to evaluate total dissolved solids and soluble yields in a cup of brewed coffee. What does this mean, exactly? It means you can quickly compare your brewing parameters with an objective standard, and make adjustments accordingly. Andy writes about this more here, but for an in-depth look, check out George Howell.
Hey, who left this boiler and heating element out in the snow? Water is a key component in the espresso we all enjoy. It makes up a necessary part of the ingredient quality that is often overlooked.
I am the official Gimme! cupping spoon. I am instrumental in the daily decisions that are made at the Gimme! roasting headquarters. Let me take you through my typical routine.
I like to wake nice and early.
In the specialty coffee industry there is a practice that is protocol for any decent, responsible and quality focused roaster called cupping. Coffee cupping is something that is for the most part, well known to specialty coffee professionals from baristas to CEOs of said coffee companies. Cuppings are a method of determining the quality of a particular coffee. When we get a green coffee sample at Krums (our roasting facility/coffee lab) I roast it on our sample roaster for the next days cupping.
I recently plugged Mimi's photos of Mesa de los Santos. Halfway through her gallery, you might trip over this image. I did. On first glance I wondered if Mimi had discovered an exotic rendering of our brand name.
Kees is now offering a needle valve assembly which can be installed in the thermosiphon loop on the Mirage. (If you're unfamiliar with how heat exchanger espresso machines work, here is a primer.) The adjustment screw allows the operator to easily control the water flow-rate between the boiler and the group head, thus controlling the extraction temperature at each group.
Shootin' hoops at an organic coffee finca in Cauca, Colombia. When you are 1,600 ft. above sea level on the cordillera central, you really don't want to be the one to chase the ball down the hill. Hence, the only shot I took... was with this camera.
If you haven't browsed Mimi Wysong's splendid photos from Mesa de los Santos, Colombia, here are the photo gallery and travel report. Mimi has a naturalist's eye to match her knack with a camera. She also manages our Cayuga Street espresso bar — the original Gimme location and a perennial favorite of Ithacans.
We finished dis-assembling this neglected roaster and it still smells like death. Hopefully, sandblasting will disinfect and deodorize it.
Today we dumped 100+ progress photos into an album for posterity (...and to amuse kindred grease-monkeys). I guess we'll cull the out-of-focus and redundant shots later.
All 30 baristas from Gimme's four upstate New York retail stores hit the Upstate Training Lab this past Tuesday and Thursday for a tasting of our Nicaragua Linda Vista Cup of Excellence coffee. They learned about the Linda Vista farm, French Pressed the coffee and talked at length about the Cup of Excellence auction.
Sigri Plantation is located in the Papua New Guinea highlands. Growing conditions here are well-suited for coffee: about 5200 feet above sea level, with a cool climate and plenty of rainfall.
Every fall into winter season means exciting and new opportunities to buy beautiful coffees. I am stoked to be cupping
1 to 2 to sometimes even 3 times a day in order to find that beautiful,
strange or eccentric new coffee to purchase and then roast and share.
Up at Krums Corners,
there is a nice hum that you can hear on a visit up route 96. The hum
of the roaster, the sample roaster, the production team bagging up
coffee, the slicing of tape and the taping up of boxes to get shipped
out to accounts and customers.
It should come as no surprise that Starbucks is making aggressive moves in Pacific rim emerging economies. This particular outlet is about a mile from Peking University, the same general area as Google.cn HQ. The Western-culture loving Beijing capitalists are prime targets for adopting coffee culture and fostering a trickle-down effect, helping to introduce the most populous nation to coffee.
Two intense years have passed since Peter Meehan reported on the arrival of specialty coffee in New York City -- a few decades after the niche industry got its start on the West Coast. Gimme and our peers have been hammering away at "new wave" practices, with special attention to barista craft, artisan roasting, sustainability, and working closer with farmers.
Here's a rare look into the coffee mind of John Gant, Master Roaster at Gimme! Coffee. John's signature style of working with coffee -- roasting, tasting, tweaking, and communicating the nuances -- goes on full display in this cupping report that he penned about our Rwanda Bourbon Bufcafe. It's a joy to read John's expressive, exuberant prose.
Before the Coffeelands presentation at the 2008 Barista Jam in Easton, I wasn't sufficiently aware of the problem of land mines in coffee-producing countries. Upon returning home, I did some searching and found 2 videos on the subject. After watching them, I decided to go one step further and donate to the Landmine Victims' Trust.
Black Gold is a "vivid and galvanizing" documentary (Time Out New York) that explores the international coffee trade and its effect on Ethiopian farmers.
There's precious content inside, but can “Barista Manual 1.0” take the punishment of fieldwork? Before getting our stamp of approval, the “Manual” got a whoopin' in our espresso lab. Here, a 30-second blast from the steamwand.
The Gimme blog is a collaboration that gives voice to people across our company. Opinions expressed by our authors are uncensored, and are not necessarily the opinions of Gimme! Coffee. If you need a company statement, or any other type of response, please contact us.
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Haven't yet gotten a taste of the limited edition Colombia Finca San Luis? Tasted it and want to try more Good Food Award winners? Join us this weekend in Ithaca and Brooklyn, where we'll be tasting Good Food Award winning coffees from Counter Culture Coffee, Broadway Cafe & Roasting, Klatch Coffee, Noble Coffee Roasting, and (of course) Gimme! 
Photos
Maybe you think of 
I recently 
Shootin' hoops at an organic coffee finca in Cauca, Colombia. When you are 1,600 ft. above sea level on the 
Two intense years have passed since Peter Meehan reported on the arrival of specialty coffee in New York City -- a few decades after the niche industry got its start on the West Coast. Gimme and our peers have been hammering away at "new wave" practices, with special attention to barista craft, artisan roasting, sustainability, and working closer with farmers.
