@nickcho

[thebagofdicks]

Happy international women’s day.

I know in my many years in the coffee industry that I’ve been working beside and managed by some pretty sexist dudes. And a handful of sexist women for that matter. I’ve seen really talented ladies linger in the bar whilst less qualified guys get the promotions. At one time I was one of the only women working in coffee in my whole city. It was weird and I’m glad thats not the case anymore.

Either way, the idea for Bag of Dicks was born after viewing a conversation on Twitter where Anne Lunell asked, “Why are we still discussing gender?”

I think we are still discussing gender because even if it might not be a problem for you, it may be a problem for someone else. Especially since we work in coffee and there is a very real gender divide in producing countries.

We are discussing it because an old boyfriend, who happened to also be a barista, thought it was funny when his boss sent foul texts about jerking off to the thought of me.

We are discussing it because when I was finally granted a skilled worker visa in the country I currently live in; instead of celebrating, my boss asked, “Who’s dick did you have to suck to get that, then?”

Douchey Dude Baristas got the ball rolling, now I want to hear from women working in the field themselves. What are your stories from behind the bar, working the roaster, navigating the purchasing world or working on a farm? 

I want to get to the bottom of it, start the conversation and fix the problem.

Use the anonymous feature to submit your stories about your shitty sexist experiences at work. Together we aren’t alone.

[nickcho]

The only “How to make good coffee at my relative’s house” tip you need

If you’re reading this, you probably already know how to make good coffee. If not, nobody can help you. God have mercy on your soul. Also, I’m assuming you or someone at least brought some good quality whole bean coffee, cuz otherwise, drink tea.

To make good coffee, you need: a coffee “maker” (pourover dripper + filter or french press), hot water, and a decent grinder.

Worst case scenario, you could make cowboy coffee: Grind coarse and just boil hot water in a pot, let it cool for a minute or two, then add the coffee. Stir gently, and then pour off the liquid (the grinds should have sunk to the bottom) gently through a fine sieve or through a clean cloth (a paper towel will choke off and stall).

A few years ago, I used a Mr. Coffee type machine, but instead of brewing coffee in it, I used the funnel like a pourover dripper. In this case, you can maybe even use a paper towel as a filter if your stupid relative is out of the crappy brown filters they usually buy.

Here’s the real tip: The problem with coffee at your relative’s is usually gonna be that they don’t have a good (burr) grinder. All is not lost! Best case: if you can, grind it in advance and bring it. It’s the best alternative. Worst case: If they don’t at least have a blade grinder, they’ll at least have a food processor. Here’s what you do.

Working backwards, your end result will be coffee grinds that are mostly of the desired size you want, plus a bunch of grinds that are too big. You’re going to sift out the too-small fines with a sieve. Warning: I did this when I did the Mr.-Coffee-as-a-pourover-cone trick, and I was sifting for a solid 15 minutes. Twice.

So deciding (from your experience) what your target grind size looks like, your goal is to make as much of that as possible. You should start with about twice the amount of beans as you actually want. It’s gonna look like a shit show, but do your best and just imagine the confused looks on everyone’s faces when the coffee actually tastes good!

You need to up your eyeballed dose by at least 25-40%, because you’re going to pretend that the ‘boulders’ (too-big grinds) aren’t there. Since they’re too big to brew well, you can just treat them as filler, but that means you’re gonna have to waste coffee by dosing up to have the right amount of “good size” grinds. Don’t worry too much about waste, because at this point, you’ve already sifted out almost half the coffee anyway. Anyway, it’s between that and the three-year-old Yuban in the cupboard.

You’ve got it from here, right? Good luck!

[nickcho]

If You Understand These Abbreviations, This Post Is For You

My first taste of the USBC/WBC competitions was in 2004 as a competitor in Atlanta. I showed up full of arrogance, and got destroyed by the experience. From there I helped emcee (along with my friend Peter Giuliano) and coached two competitors (Ryan Jensen and Katie Carguilo) at the second SERBC (early 2005).

From there, I judged and emceed at the 2005 USBC in Seattle, emceed at the 2005 WBC, and… let’s do this once just for fun: Emceed many regionals from 2006 to 2009, emceed the 2006, 2007, and 2008 USBC, emceed the 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 WBC, was USBC Committee Chair in 2008-2009 where we developed the first USBC Head Judges certification program, judged multiple regional competitions and the USBC, served on the Board of Directors of WBC in 2008-2009, and developed the US Brewers Cup (later adopted as the WBrC). I also competed at the 2007 SERBC (where I won), the 2007 USBC, and the 2010 SWRBC. I’ve coached dozens of competitors, some who were my employees, some who weren’t.

Most relevant to this topic, I hosted three regional barista competitions, developing the very first Mid-Atlantic RBC in 2006. “Hosted” at that time meant that your company had to be sanctioned by the then US Barista Championship Committee, and your company bore the financial responsibility for the event. I’m not one to flaunt my “financial responsibility” skills, but the point is, I know what these things can cost, what they HAVE to cost, and what they do cost.

The SCAA news today that they are pulling the plug on the regional competition events is simply a big mistake. It’s not a mistake because we’re gonna miss them, it’s a mistake because they should not go away, and they can absolutely occur without SCAA needing to lose money.

Speaking of that, I am very sympathetic to SCAA’s struggle here. The events were indeed costing a lot, and there were multiple SCAA staff members who were focused on producing these events, for a large total expenditure. This shouldn’t have to continue. That’s where I agree. Where I disagree is what to do about it.

The RBC’s used to happen with budgets between $15K and $50K, not counting sponsor in-kind support (equipment, smallwares, etc). SCAA would send one (count ‘em: ONE) staff member, SCAA would collect the registration fees (which helped cover staff and administrative costs), and the host company was responsible for the rest. Judges would volunteer, stage volunteers would sign up, competitors would register, and we were off to the races! There was one more relevant rule: host companies were not allowed to hold the event at their own facility. This was to minimize “unfair advantage” claims, as well as to keep the branding of the event from being too much of a marketing coup for the host.

So here’s what I think should happen now:

- SCAA and an ad hoc (TEMPORARY) committee develops USBC Regional Competition Sanctioning rules & regulations, along with a relevant strategy and structure.

- The sanctioning regulations would involve all of the technical requirements (electrical, space, ventilation, etc.), marketing guidelines, sponsorship requirements, etc.

- SCAA would collect all participant fees (which can be lowered now), and retain national USBC sponsorship funds. There would be requirements to honor those sponsorship agreements at each regional, in terms of equipment usage as well as marketing acknowledgement. Event hosts would be tasked with producing the event and bearing all relevant costs, except those provided in-kind by USBC sponsors. The event host could have their own sponsors. If SCAA still bears significant administrative costs, a sanctioning fee ($5000?) would be collected as well. The event host is responsible for flight and accommodation costs for the regional champion to travel to USBC.

- A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL is sent out to all SCAA member companies, that they may submit an application and proposal for the regional event. (The prior rule of “no hosting at your own facility” should go. No need for it today, and it will help reduce event costs.).

- SCAA event staff (with that ad hoc committee, if SCAA so chooses) reviews applications and determines which should be approved.

- In the event the number and geographic locations of applicant companies supports it, there could be more regionals designated than just the six from the past few years.

- USBC RBC’s return to Round One then 6 Finalists structure.

- USBC holds one spot for each of those regional champions in the semi’s of USBC.

That’s a new and improved version of the pre-2010 USBC regional structure. They could be big events, or they could be small intimate events. In either case, we’re talking a mathematically infinite improvement over having NO event.

Respectfully submitted, Nick

[nickcho]

10 different temperatures your coffee sometimes is that you're not going to believe

1. Like the fire from hell's bunghole, it's so hot it's radioactive. I could feel the heat from 5 feet away.

2. Motherfucker! I waited for what felt like an hour and I swear it was way cooler but I brought it to my lips and took a sip and now it feels like a piranha took a chunk of my face.

3. Why is it still so hot? It's not even in a thermos. Is it even possible for coffee to get hotter on its own?

4. Okay, now that's way better. Instead of intense, searing, immolation pain, it's only giving me stabbing, agonizing, crucifixion pain.

5. I think that's actually for-realsies better, but I can't tell anymore because my tongue has been reduced to looking like a medium-sized piece of Pemmican beef jerky.

6. Oh that's really good.

7. Now it's fucking ice cold.

8. This tastes like if you took a quart of used motor oil, mixed it with ceiling fan dust, took it to Antarctica, buried it underneath 5 feet of snow and ice, left it for 532 years, dug it up, and took it to a museum where scientists had it cryogenically frozen to help maintain its natural state. But I'm still drinking it. 

9. Why "witch's tit?" Wouldn't the tip of her nose be colder? Is she topless? Also, when you say "tit," do you mean the whole tit or just the nipple because if you mean nipple, just say nipple. I know that when people say "witch's tit," my mind pictures a little brownish-greenish nipple, but does that make me more a female objectifier or a racist?

10. Frappuccino.

[nickcho]

The Barista Doctrine

Since starting my first cafe in 2002, I’ve been able to observe a few major trends in the specialty coffee industry both here in the US, and worldwide. None, however, seems more significant than the focus on green (raw) coffee quality as the single most important factor in specialty coffee. Frankly, I believe this has been a problem.

Don’t get me wrong, green coffee is really important. Before the specialty coffee movement, coffee was indeed primarily a commodity good until industry pioneers (starting as early as the 60’s and 70’s) started to really push the idea of a quality-focused specialty product. Standing on the shoulders of those giants, specialty coffee roasters in the 2000’s and onward have been able to, together with enterprising coffee producers, exporters, and importers, pull back the shroud of commodification to reveal a deep and rich kaleidoscope of dimensions in coffee. 

For me, the green-coffee-centric paradigm is really capsulated by this idea: One cannot increase the quality of a coffee, one can only diminish or preserve the quality of coffee, and we can only hope to preserve the quality through the chain, all the way to the cup.

Image from GeorgeHowellCoffee.com. George is a champion (if not the author) of this doctrine.

Let's call this "The Green Coffee Doctrine." Another way to say this is that the inherent qualities to the coffee fruit will either be preserved through each step of the value chain (picking, processing, freight, roasting, brewing, etc.), or they will diminish in quality by flaws or mistakes at each and any step in the chain. What you cannot do, no matter where you are in the value chain, is make the coffee better than the quality was when you received it. Preserving quality is the best we can do, and it’s the best we can strive for. In fact, preserving that green coffee quality is our mission.

In case there’s any confusion, I believe that this is a great thought! I also think it’s highly problematic.

In any case, it’s become a very popular idea throughout the specialty coffee industry worldwide, and for very good reason. We need to approach coffee with humility, and with the heart of a steward. Coffee is not ours to mold to our whims, instead there are flavor and aroma experiences inherent to each coffee that the roaster and barista must be caretakers of, carefully coaxing the best of what the coffee has to offer. It’s the qualities when it is green, when it was fresh green, that are our duty to protect and reveal, never ruin with roasting mistakes or poor brewing.

In response to this call to action, roasting has gotten lighter and lighter as roasters appear to be afraid of ruining the coffee with the slightest hint of ‘roastiness’ (whatever that means), which in turn has affected brewing and extraction as baristas work to produce the best beverage they can out of the beans they’re given. So the focus is ultimately on the green coffee, and the qualities within. Everything else at times seems like a necessary evil.

Yes, this has become a very, very popular idea. But for a moment, set that idea aside, and let me present a different doctrine. Let’s call it “The Barista Doctrine,” and let me start with this idea: Green coffee is worthless.

Yes, even the finest, rarest green coffee. "Sacrilege!" you may think. But really, why is it worth anything? Is it a piece of art that you put on the wall? Is it valuable as a trophy, to carry around and show off to your friends? Do you swallow it and enjoy medicinal effects? Do you put it in storage and enjoy an increase in value over the course of many years? Of course not. Why is it of value? Because you or someone else has tasted the coffee and decided it was special enough to be of high monetary value.

But how did they taste it? Or more specifically, what form of the coffee did they taste? The green beans? The roasted beans? The ground coffee beans? Obviously the answer is: the extracted beverage from the ground, whole-bean roasted coffee beans. That beverage, is the thing that is of value.

"But with poor quality green coffee, you can never have a good beverage!" the apologists have argued. Yes, that’s true. That does not make green coffee quality a superior factor than brewing. It merely comes before.

And before it’s brewed, the practical value of that coffee exists in the form of potential value, and potential alone. Without brewing, that coffee is effectively worthless. Brewing is the point of transformation, when all of the potential is actualized. Brewing is where the value of any coffee is realized.

So who cares? Is this just a pedantic splitting of hairs? Green Coffee Doctrine vs. Barista Doctrine–I believe that which doctrine you subscribe to can have a significant impact on how you approach your particular role as a coffee professional, and how a roasting company approaches its work.

By the Green Coffee Doctrine, each step downstream from the newly dry-milled green coffee bean comes with the directive, "Don't ruin it." In roasting, roasters seek to exert as little of their own influence as possible. In brewing, baristas work to honor the work of everyone upstream by revealing the quality conveyed through that work. 

In my perspective, the perspective of the Barista Doctrine, every step in the value chain is about supporting the brewing in producing the most delicious beverage possible. Roasting is not about the green coffee, the roasting is about preparing the coffee for brewing, to maximize the potential for quality brewing. In fact, you could look at roasting as not actually being a separate process, rather the first stage of transformation into the beverage.

The green coffee too, does not enjoy value in its current form. A quality coffee beverage comes from green coffee that is best suited for transformation into a quality beverage. That is, best for roasting and brewing. The green coffee has no value until it's brewed, therefore the most valuable green coffee should be that which can be best transformed into a delicious beverage.

In more practical terms, coffee professionals have been mostly focused on the idea of transforming solubles, when thinking about coffee flavor and quality. Roasting is about developing and transforming solubles in the green coffee. Brewing is about extracting those solubles from the roasted coffee. But as we know, about two-thirds of roasted coffee is insoluble cellulose, comprising the cell wall structure of the coffee (and the chaff). When we brew, efficient penetration of the cell structure by water is directly correlated with extraction rates. When we're focused on protecting the green coffee's qualities, we lean towards light roasting, to minimize too much caramelization and Maillardization, and preventing any carbonization. When we're focused on the brewing, we realize that efficient brewing means a cell structure that promotes efficient diffusion and osmosis. 

In fact, when you pull that idea apart, the idea that a roaster does not and can not add value to the coffee is false humility. Roasting does more than change the solubles, it establishes the reality of the structure and chemistry that greets the water during brewing. The Green Coffee Doctrine adherents will argue, "But the roaster cannot add value... they cannot make the coffee more delicious than it is." Really? More delicious than what? Than inedible, unbrewable green coffee? Can one roaster roast the coffee to a higher quality than another roaster can? Yes. Emphatically, yes. It's not just about roast degree, it's about temperature profiles over time, airflow, heat application, etc. It's not that roasters don't add value, it's some people are choosing not to acknowledge the added value. I believe that this is counterproductive and is holding the craft of roasting back.

Once everything's handed off to the barista, it's indeed their job to tune the variables at their disposal to take the water and coffee and transform them into a delicious beverage. The better suited for brewing the roasting and green coffee are, the better the result can be. But put the focus on something else, like the idea that you should roast it as lightly as possible, leaving that barista to do what they can to eke something good out of those beans, and you've set everyone up for something less than you're probably capable of. 

Green Coffee Doctrine vs. Barista Doctrine. Obviously neither of these doctrines is mutually exclusive, but I think it's useful to contemplate a counterpoint to the prevailing paradigm. I love to say that so much of coffee is reflective of the human condition, and there are few absolute truths for either. Finding balance, wrestling with seemingly contradictory factors, and questioning everything, is how you get closer to truth.  

[trishry]

“Why does it really matter that Coffee Kids has folded?”

I’ve heard this sentiment over the past 24 hours or so…interspersed with the other side that expresses sadness with a tinge of hopelessness thrown in.

I represent the latter of the two responses, and not because I was ever intimately...

[chickensaladasian]

“Napa and red cabbage, lettuce, chicken and wontons tossed with scallions, cilantro, sesame seeds and hoisin ginger vinaigrette.”

I can’t exactly explain why. Maybe it’s because I’ve had them so often for so many years, but there are two Asian Chicken Salads that are the definitive...

[nickcho]

If you didn't know, I started a new Tumblr. 

[nickcho]

Dave Chappelle, Bicyclists, and Baristas: On Unrealistic Expectations

Trish and I had tickets to the Dave Chappelle "Oddball Comedy Festival" a couple weeks ago. Damn it, I got us some pretty good seats! Unfortunately, there was a scheduling conflict that drew us to Seattle on that weekend, so the spoils of my speedy mouse-clicks and page refresh timing skills ended up first-served to the first-come Craigslist respondent for a blow-softening $50 premium. Good outcome, but still a bummer.

Coincidentally that same day, news spread about a Chappelle "meltdown" in Connecticut. There's been no video released of that show, but reports say that he took the stage, started his act, got "heckled," and finished out his contractually-obligated time with what amounted to a comedian's filibuster. Instead of delaying a vote on a bill, Chappelle was out to punish and to protest.

Now stand-up has been an occasional fancy for me. While I've never gotten it together and taken a stage, I like to think about it in the way we all fantasize about doing something as good if not better than those you see doing it professionally without having done anything to deserve that dickish attitude. Still, I think I've paid above-average attention to the stand-up comedy scene. Maybe I'll get a routine together someday but probably not don't be ridiculous though you never know nevermind.

When a stand-up routine is going well, it's a fluid comic call and answer with laughter as punctuation. A long, protracted crowd-laughter is like a period. A comma is a light laughter from a smattering of giggly people. A new paragraph comes with a thunderous roar. The one thing about the Chappelle melt-down story that sticks out to me is the fact that there was a clear disconnect between the audience and the comic. Simply put, the audience wasn't following the rules.

Calling out to the comic, shouting out catchphrases and lines from old bits. Beseeching and adulating. Whooping and hollerin'. I mean really, what's wrong with these people?

But it begs the question, rules? What rules? Who makes the rules? Are they written rules? Why are there these rules? 

Lastly, how is anyone supposed to learn the rules?

To Chappelle, the audience was engaged in bad behavior. Logically, nobody in that audience paid money for the opportunity to get Chappelle to stop performing. What they (or specifically, the so-called "hecklers") were attempting was to engage in the experience in an enjoyable way, influenced by what was going on around them, based on prior experience and their conception of what's okay to do in that setting. We've all seen clips of comics responding to individuals yelling stuff out from the crowd. We've even seen comics directly engaging people in the audience, even to the now clichéd take-their-cell-phone bit. But my above-average stand-up interest has taught me that it's really only 'allowed' when the comic is inviting, initiating, or at least clearly consenting it. Outside of that, no means no, and no-engagement means no.

But how is everyone really supposed to know this?

Coffee has changed a lot over the past three decades. Perhaps in a Moore's Law-type acceleration of development, cycles in trends and such in specialty coffee seem to come more often and more intensely. During the recent decade as the third-wave of coffee has started taking real shape, the dialogue between the industry and the consumer base has been mostly defined by identified problems and frictions, even as our leading-edge segment slowly grows in market-share and rapidly in awareness.

We talk about customers that "get it," and those who don't. We scoff at customers who request more second-wave stalwarts like hazelnut flavor or Sweet'N Low. We tire of having to explain again and again our coffee selections and defend again and again our service decisions. The constant coffee apologist mantle can indeed be a wearisome one, and some people are simply better suited for it than others. 

But when our fatigue turns to hubris and we demand in subtle and less-subtle ways that those who walk into our coffee shops come with certain preconditions: that they "get it," or are completely wide open for it, or at the very least come without inconvenient predilections, we're embedded in unrealistic expectations. We want what we want, without really having done anything to deserve the right to demand such.

There are certain requirements to earning a drivers' license, not the least of which is proof that you understand the relevant traffic laws. This is less about keeping the drivers' club exclusive, more about public safety. If a driver doesn't know that a red traffic light means STOP, it puts real lives at risk. But bicyclists have no such requirement. 

If you were to assume that most automobile drivers are aware of most typical traffic laws, I think it's similarly safe to assume that a fewer number of drivers are aware of the laws that pertain to driving and bicycles. An even smaller percentage of bicyclists, at least by my limited observation, experience, and logic, appear to understand or care to abide by bicycling laws. Why would they, when there's no legal requirement to prove you understand them?

Short of such a law, the next best thing would be for basic sociological forces to put pressure on drivers and bicyclists to learn, understand, and abide by the rules of the road, both the legal and casual ones. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a strong movement of that sort. So what options are left?

Simply, bicyclists need to be more careful for their own safety, and automobile drivers need to be extra-cautious around the less-protected bicyclists out there. That too, would be great, but the onus on the automobile driver would be one of benevolence, less about self-interest. Only the bicyclist can really take care of her or him self. Demanding that drivers of cars have learned, understand, and demonstrate how to share the road with bicyclists is perhaps a worthwhile political issue. Expecting such, however, can get you killed.

There are a number of factors that these examples, stand-up comics, bicyclists, and baristas, having in common. There are not, despite our best wishes, well-established, well-communicated, and well-understood rules or even societal norms guiding relevant behaviors. There are, however and apparently, certain expectations that the corresponding sides on each bring to the table (comics and audiences, bicyclists and drivers, baristas and coffee consumers), and associated risks and rewards to those expectations. However, as in most human conflict, while there is shared responsibility on both sides, the keys to real solutions lie solely in the hands of one party. 

Bicyclists need to do their best to follow the typical rules of the road, that help others predict behaviors. Stand-up comics need to either get over themselves, or actually work harder to inform the public of their rules. Baristas need to abandon our expectations about what customers should know, or get to work on a worldwide publicity campaign about whatever the hell it is that we think people need to know about coffee. 

But ultimately, it's doubtful Chappelle will put out his rules, because it would be admitting he indeed expected unrealistically. Similarly, it's doubtful that specialty coffee would be able to collaborate in a way that might result in such a campaign. We're too diverse, competitive, and paranoid to engage in that high a level of coordination. That leaves abandonment. Abandon your expectations. Allow our customers to be who they are. Meet them where they are, and give them the best we can. Unless you saw them on a bicycle, blowing through a stop sign. Then eff 'em.

Then if the collective efforts of all involved push us past the tipping point and over to being something the public generally understands, we might enjoy a more frequently easy experience serving, and our customers might have a more frequently enjoyable service experience. We've got a long way to go though, and there's no fake-it-til-you-make-it for this. 

[nickcho]

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"Questions For An Old Lady" starring Penelope Cho (at Ferry Building)

[nickcho]

My Twitter @'s were suddenly blowing up. I think I figured out why.

[nickcho]

Vine dump!

Today we made some really great Vines. Enjoy! (click the speaker-icon for sound for each)

[nickcho]

Mortgaging our values

(Response to Stephen Wade, by request)

Great blog post from Stephen, with a lot of good thoughts and points.

I don't have a ton to say about this… well, I guess that's bullshit. I do have a ton to say about this, but I don't have a lot of time to write too much right now. I'll write this much though:

Capitalism is a great thing, except when it's not so great. Obviously this is a meaningless statement, and you could say that about anything really. Point is, capitalism is a great economic model that can resolve a great many issues. But there are limits, and we struggle with those limits when we try to reconcile capitalistic forces with things that it's not very well suited for.

Quality is relatively easy. Higher quality can attract higher demand which will attract higher prices. But for many of us living in more developed economies, we might have the apparent luxury of additional considerations in our markets, like supply chain or manufacturing issues regarding ethics or sustainability. The problem is that these are less suited for letting capitalistic market forces rule. In fact, one might say that you're trying to apply capitalistic market forces to something fundamentally socialist in nature.

When it comes to the marketing of ethics or sustainability, we're staring this awkward amalgamation in the face. When we as businesses try to explain our ethics or sustainability, we're taking values that (perhaps by definition) we should be guided by regardless of whether anyone's paying attention or not, and we're asking for attention. By asking for attention, we've taken some of the value of actually adhering to our ethics, and mortgaged it in for the value that comes from declaring that we do so.

Then comes our competition, who see us marketing our values and ethics, so they feel the need to market their values and ethics. Now the market has increased the incentive for people to be deceptive or misleading about what their practices actually are, relative to their stated values and ethics.

This all points to a final thought. What's more important in our specialty coffee industry marketplace, the quality of coffee, or the messaging around coffee quality? What's more important: our ethics, or the marketing of our ethics? The fact is that former is more important… but the latter is more valuable to businesses. That's the conundrum we all face.

[nickcho]

A little request

When we talk about a certain coffee shop, can we please stop referring to them as some company’s wholesale account?

“Have you been to that shop, ‘XYZ Coffee?’ They’re a Wrecking Ball account.”

People don’t appreciate always being referred to as someone’s son, someone’s daughter, someone’s wife or husband… because if it happens often enough, it starts to seem that being someone’s something is their most defining characteristic. It's a lot like referring to people by their race ("You know Nick Cho, that Asian guy"), some feature ("You know Nick Cho? That guy with the grotesquely large head.") or any other such thing. People deserve the freedom from that, and the freedom to have their own identities. I think coffee shops deserve the same.

A shop is much, much more than just an outlet for a certain coffee roasting company (or companies). They deserve their own identity, character, culture, and tastes. Obviously, we mean no harm when mentioning whose coffee a particular shop is serving, but maybe if we stopped automatically adding the name of the roasting company as if it was their last name, it would help us all both appreciate the shops for who they are, and show a little respect in the process.

[nickcho]

Strada EP Pressure Loop Modification

DISCLAIMER: WHAT FOLLOWS IS MY PERSONAL ASSESSMENT AND ANALYSIS. THIS IS NOT SUPPORTED OR AUTHORIZED BY LA MARZOCCO OR LA MARZOCCO USA. MODIFICATIONS SUCH AS THIS MAY VOID YOUR WARRANTY. ADDITIONALLY, IF YOU CHOOSE TO ATTEMPT THIS MODIFICATION, DAMAGE MAY OCCUR TO YOUR MACHINE AND ANY SUCH DAMAGE OR THE RESULTS OF SUCH MODIFICATIONS TO YOUR MACHINE ARE AT YOUR PERIL ALONE. IN OTHER WORDS, DON'T SUE ME, I HAVE ENOUGH SHIT TO DEAL WITH IN MY LIFE. ALSO, CALL YOUR MOTHER AND TELL HER YOU LOVE HER.

There's no doubt: the La Marzocco Strada EP is a fantastic espresso machine. Aside from the beautiful design (particularly the exposed groups) and standard Strada features, the EP version includes a few extra bells and whistles that justifies the premium price.

The steam wands are regulated by a special solenoid valve, rather than a mechanical valve, which for reasons I'm not 100% clear about, seems to result in a "drier" steam that adds less water weight to the milk. Rather than the paddle-controlled mechanical valve of the standard MP version, the EP features an analog electronic paddle. Each of the groups is driven by an internal gear pump, and you can program in four different pressure profiles. This allows for unprecedented control over the brew water pressure as each shot progresses.

That said, there's one little thing about the Strada EP that I don't really love, and I'm thankful that I've come across a modification that resolves the issue. Before explaining it, some background is in order.

When talking about coffee-making equipment factors like "brew water temperature" or "brew pressure," need to know exactly what we're talking about, and exactly what information the machines and accessories are providing us. 

When we have a thermostat in our homes, it's important to know that the thermostat is measuring the temperature of wherever the thermostat is mounted. Sometimes it's mounted in a good spot that is a good representation of the temperature that is most relevant to you. Sometimes, it isn't, and your heating or cooling is a constant source of discomfort and annoyance.

Similarly, "brew water temperature" could be measured in a number of different spots in the machine, with each spot being a different specific temperature at any given moment, with a wide range of temperatures that would surprise many people. The best and most relevant spot to mount a thermocouple (a certain type of digital thermometer) would be right at or above the portafilter basket somewhere. However, that's a physically difficult place to mount such a thing. So instead, they'll mount the thermocouple in a more convenient spot, and program in an offset to make up for the typical discrepancy between the point of use (shower screen) and the thermocouple point. That offset can be as much as 10°F (5.5°F) or more.

Pressure is a little easier. If the water pressure is at 123 psi (8.5 bar) in one part of the open system, it's going to be 123 psi in a different spot in the same system. Bends and tubes and narrowing and such can change that a bit, but in general, pressure is distributed evenly. For an espresso machine, this is pretty much true everywhere in a brew group between the pump and the coffee in the portafilter. But what about that coffee in the portafilter?

In that coffee "puck," there's a pressure gradient. Below the portafilter basket, (at sea level) the pressure is 1 bar (14.5 psi), since it's in "normal" atmospheric pressure at that point. Above the coffee puck, let's say it's 8.5 bar. Within the puck, there's a gradient that transitions from the 8.5 bar to 1 bar. It's not evenly distributed downward through the puck, instead the majority of the transition happens mostly at the very bottom of the puck. But that's all with coffee in a portafilter.

If you had, instead, a blind filter (basket with no holes) in the portafilter, and you turned on the group, the resulting pressure would be a little higher than 8.5 bar. Because there's no pressure drop out of the portafilter, your net pressure would be higher. Not a LOT higher, because of the way the pumps work.

On the Strada EP, rather than a vane pump like every other La Marzocco on the market, each group has a gear pump, and a pressure transducer (pressure measurement sensor). When you program in a pressure profile, the software takes the data from the pressure sensor, and saves it into memory. When you playback a pressure profile, the software works to replicate that same pressure sensor data by controlling the pump, which in turn it controls by adjusting the voltage sent to that pump. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

There's a different way that the machine could work. Instead of having the software replicate the same pressure data, it could just replicate the pump voltage.

Let's go back to the normal EP setting, where it works to replicate the pressure data. You dial in the pressure with a particular coffee, roasted a particular way, ground on a particular grind setting, a particular dose (amount of coffee grounds), and a specific lateral distribution. As you replicate that pressure profile throughout the work day, you've very often changed one or more of those coffee variables. 

If you change only one variable: use less coffee, the pump will have to work harder to create a little more pressure to make up for the slightly lower resistance from the coffee. If you grind finer, then the pump will generate slightly less pressure, since the coffee has a higher amount of resistance to the water flow.

So what happens if your distribution develops the fearsome "channeling?" If, with all other things being equal, there's an area of the puck that results in a "channel," or a path of less resistance through which more water flows through than the other parts of the coffee puck, what would happen? Well, on an average espresso machine, the pump being "dumb" and not directly responsive to changing conditions, there will be a bit of overextraction of that part of the coffee mass, and a corresponding underextraction throughout the other areas. But the Strada EP is not an average espresso machine. 

So what does the EP do when it encounters a channel? The pump will generate more pressure to make up for the pressure loss, effectively making the channel worse.

All of this background is to set this up: there's a modification that changes this. MORE DETAIL HERE

If you change these control board jumper settings (you need one extra jumper), it effectively defeats the transducer-pump feedback loop and the pressure profile that you program in controls the voltage of the gear pump only. 

To be clear: because the gear pump does not work to reproduce a specific pressure anymore, differences in your coffee puck will result in different numbers on the pressure LCD display. However, you might choose to relax a bit, since that's the way pretty much every other espresso machine actually works. The group pressure transducer gives us a bit of information that we'd otherwise never have access to, so we really have to manage our expectations about how that information is going to look.

At our Wrecking Ball Coffee bar in San Francisco, we've been running our 2-group Strada EP this way for almost two months now, and the machine is much more user-friendly. We still have unprecedented pressure profiling, but without the additional element of the feedback dynamic. When there's channeling, it's a typical channeling. When we make coffee-related adjustments, the "peak" pressure on the display is often different than before. But, most importantly, the coffee is more consistently delicious.

If you've read this far, you're a freaking nerd and you need to get a life, dude.

Despite the disclaimer that this post started with, thanks to Scott Guglielmino from La Marzocco USA for providing me with the jumper settings. If you choose to do this mod, and you like what the results are, and you'd like to show any appreciation, please do so with a small donation to Food for Farmers. Also, I'd love to hear your results.

[nickcho]

The New Sort-of Coffee Crisis

There's been a problem slowly developing over the past few years, that in my estimation, is about to reach crisis-level: there aren't enough coffee jobs.

Most fast-food employees see their jobs as a temporary gig. Until a few years ago, a Venn diagram of employment opportunities would have placed coffee-shop barista closer to a McDonalds cashier than not. As specialty coffee has been working to pull itself up out of the fast-food zone, we've attracted more ambitious, more engaged, more in-it-for-the-long-term people who are genuinely interested becoming career coffee professionals. While we often hear about how green coffee supply and climate change threaten our industry, the impending over-abundance on the supply-side of the specialty coffee professional workforce is becoming a significant force that will require resolution, one way or another.

The more interesting specialty coffee becomes, the more attractive it is, and the more people are and will be engaged in this industry as a career. But what will they do? Assuming that the widest entry-point to a career in specialty coffee is as a barista, what are the advancement options for Jane or John Q. Barista? 

Often, you'll see people transition to a retail management role. But let's be honest: while this is an advancement in responsibilities, this is not really advancement in a coffee career. Same could be said for production (bagging, packing, and shipping), sales and marketing, or for any number of office-type jobs. If we're being brutally honest, you'd have to put the idea of starting your own coffee company in the "not really a coffee-job" category as well.

So maybe they could become a barista trainer. That's definitely a great option, and there's perhaps no better way to learn than to teach. But where does that lead? What next?

If you're in a shop that doesn't roast, that is the end of the road for you with that particular company. If you're in, or can transition to, a shop that also roasts coffee, then becoming a roaster is a possibility. But when you do the math, the ratio of baristas to roasters within a particular supply chain, depending on the capacity of roasting operation, will be something between 5:1 to 1000:1. As you move up the career ladder, the available positions shrink in number dramatically. To make matters worse, the lack of mobility means that there's low probability that someone would vacate those coveted positions in order for someone else to move into it at all.

Getting back to getting a lay of the land, some companies will have some sort of quality control jobs, involving frequent cupping and evaluation. But you're probably talking about fewer than 100 coffee companies in the U.S. that would have a full-time quality-control position. There's the coveted title of "green coffee buyer," but you're again talking about a rarefied air.

Okay. So what are the potential solutions?

There are really only three possibilities, only two of which are actually solutions: accept the status quo, increase the number of advancement opportunities industry-wide, or recalibrate the existing job opportunities to be themselves more long-term.

The status quo is, in a word, unacceptable. We cannot allow the idea of a coffee career to be, effectively, a bill of goods—a promise of something that doesn't really exist. We as an industry need to either fix this situation, or stop collectively lying to our workforce that there is a viable career to be found in specialty coffee.

We could change the existing jobs in specialty coffee to be more long-term propositions. But reading reports from full-time baristas eliminates that most numerous position, only exacerbating the problem as paying-your-dues in coffee also reduces your efficacy and ongoing prospects in that position. Even then, you've got the challenge of paying meaningful wages for those entry-level positions.

The best way to alleviate the demand-supply imbalance is to increase the number of job opportunities. But that begs its own question of how to accomplish that.

Increase the number of specialty coffee companies. Invest in higher-level employment to bolster the quality of products and services, which in turn can increase revenues. Invest in coffee education, both in partaking in the education and in providing it. Charge more for coffee to increase the resources available for such positions. Commit to achieve higher quality in all products and practices. 

Perhaps most importantly, deliver on the promise that specialty coffee makes to the people who purchase and consume the beverages and beans we produce. While the legion of aspiring coffee professionals at the entry point is indeed a large and growing issue, greater still is the sustainability of the third-wave specialty coffee paradigm to our consumer base. While we've made some significant improvements over the second-wave stalwarts, an elevated message requires a product and service experience to match, and we're daily failing as much as we're succeeding. 

As always, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

[nickcho]

Top-5 Coffee Trend Predictions for 2013

In the great tradition of top-something lists, and since I missed the opportunity to do a 2012 retrospective, behold my definitive list of the top-5 coffee industry trend predictions for the year 2013! I think you'll agree, these are pretty much 100% guaranteed to come true, so have a read, won't you?

1) Fruit-to-root coffee

Still only drinking a brew of the roasted seeds of coffee fruit? That is SO 2006, brah! Still only drinking the previously-discarded fruit layer of the coffee fruit? No HA-WAY, DOOD! Obviously in the obviously inevitable next step of the obvious Fruit-to-Root coffee trend comes steeping the twigs of the coffee tree branches.

Sweetness, acidity, deliciousness, all completely overrated. You think you actually taste tannins in coffee? Nothing will dry out your mouth and leave it feeling like you french-kissed a bottle of rubbing alcohol like brewed coffee twigs. It tastes disgusting, but since it's part of the coffee plant that nobody had previously thought of making into a beverage, it's automatically more coffee-passiony.

Expect to see this first at a barista competition, followed quickly by small, under-performing coffee shops in 3rd-tier markets looking for a way to differentiate themselves on Instagram.

2) Pico-roasting

Small is beautiful, which makes smaller beautifuler. In the race to the small, you can get no smaller as a coffee roaster than roasting one f*&king bean at a f*&king time. There is, quite simply, no way to be smaller as a coffee roaster than this, aside from grinding the green coffee down to smaller bits before you roast them which would be silly and absurd. As giiiiiant companies like Stumptown and Intelligentsia are busy roasting biiiiillions of pounds a day (which obviously means they're not as good as back when they were only roasting biiillions of pounds a day), being a pico-roaster is as smallishly beautiful as you can get.

Micro-roasters are still huge. Nano-roasters, roasting as little as one pound per batch, are still behemoths compared to artisan single-bean-at-a-time pico-roasters. Not to mention, there's no better way to turn the outside of the bean brown while leaving the inside of the bean completely raw than to roast over a wooden match. Hella-good.

3) Burr-free grinding

Grinders suck. Everyone knows it. Small is beautiful, but manual is awesome. Grinders create uneven particle size distribution, can heat up your coffee, and create the most hated force in the universe: fines. Except when fines are awesome. Sometimes they're evil, sometimes they're really useful, never anything in between. Fines are the thong-underwear of coffee.

So what's the solution? Grinder-free grinders, OBVIOUSLY. Just chop it with an outrageously expensive chefs knife, but make sure you're holding it right. It will take about 30 minutes to grind 25 grams of coffee, but it will be worth it. Because it's hard.

Japanese steel is best, because Japanese stuff is universally awesomer regardless of how well it actually works. Single-edge is best, because "single-edge" reminds us of "single-speed," which reminds us of bicycles, which are the best. Damascus steel knives that you use with your non-dominant hand will be known as "fixies."

4) New WCE Event:

In 2013, World Coffee Events, producer of the World Barista Championship, World Brewers Cup, World Roasting Championship, World Latte Art Championship, World Cup Tasters Championship, World Coffee In Good Spirits Championship, and World Cezvre/Ibrik Championship, will introduce the next new big world championship, in which participants from around the world will compete to see who can write the best tweet expressing annoyance at Todd Carmichael's Travel Channel show, "Dangerous Grounds." Extra points if the competitor has never actually watched the show.

5) Human-free coffee tasting

Continuing the trend from the past few years to its only logical ultimate destination, in 2013 it will be come no longer necessary to have a human being present to taste and enjoy coffee. Human perception is relative and fundamentally flawed because someone might disagree with us, so the only way to taste coffee in the way it was meant to be tasted is to taste it with a machine. Machines are perfect, and by using proprietary algorithms we can finally unlock the mystery that has plagued humanity since that Ethiopian goat-herder kid first slacked-off on the job: is my coffee good?

Just make sure to calibrate it regularly with distilled water or with Tim Wendelboe's tears.

So that's my 2013 coffee prediction list. I'll let you know one year from now just how accurate or how wrong I was. 

Happy New Year, everyone! (sorry so snarky!)

[petergiuliano]

I am proud to be a dedicated proponent of Organic agriculture and food activism, and I’ve worked hard to promote transparency in food supply chains and labeling. I’m a strong proponent of good, sound, strong regulation, and I believe we need increased vigilance in food and agriculture, and we need...