Good times, cook-outs, sparklers, and staring up at the night sky in anticipation of explosive visual stimulation.

What could be more American?  How about a cup of coffee? 

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

The Case for Single Origin and Guest Espresso

My SO (not Single Origin) and I dropped into our local gem of a shop: Sugar Brown’s Coffee to grab a cup, play some cards, enjoy the live music and atmosphere, and to just have a good time.

Being past students of mine, they are always excited to tell me of news going on.  There is much to tell about their journey, but this is not about their shop, so much as of their latest step forward.

They acquired a third espresso grinder.

Most shops are content with a Decaf grinder and a Non-Decaf grinder for their espresso bar.  That’s all you really need, they say, and they are right.  You don’t need more than that to run a successful retail store.

Let’s back up a bit, and remember why we got into this whole coffee business to begin with.

It’s About The Coffee

I can’t speak for everyone, but there are many people who started into the coffee business because they love coffee.  Sure, there is profit to be made, and yes, we love our customers.  But before those factors were a reality, the coffee was there, and we learned to love it.

If, as retailers, our roll is to represent the coffee in such a way as to “let it speak for itself”, and if our love for coffee included the excitement of the exploration of flavors and new taste experiences, shouldn’t we offer these experiences to our customers?

Enter the case for the Third Grinder.

Having a third espresso grinder opens up possibilities for short-run single origin espresso offerings, and room for a limited time guest espresso from one of your favorite roasters.

Keeping things like these on a regular schedule can give your regular customers something to look forward to.  Just like in the blog world, regular scheduled updates does more for harboring visits than anything else.  (that, and high quality content.. or high quality products, in this case)

Is it expensive?  It can be.  But so is your espresso machine, and so are your other two grinders.  Would you say you get your money’s worth out of your decaf grinder?  I bet most would answer “no” or “barely” if they were to crunch the numbers of average decaf sales matched to the purchase price of their decaf grinder when it was new.  So why do it?  It’s a service to your customers.

The third grinder is a service to not only your customers, but to the coffee itself, and those who grow it.  It increases awareness of the diversity and journey of coffee into your customers’ cups.  This increased awareness focuses demand, which, in turn, helps to promote the quality driven people in this fine industry, from baristas, to roasters, to green coffee buyers, to processing mill workers, to those who grow and harvest the coffee.  The end result is a higher standard across the board.

All this from buying a third grinder?  Not exactly, but it is another way to help work towards these goals.

I understand that there are folks out there who consider single origin espresso to be a non-worthwhile endeavor.  While I disagree, this is a discussion for another post.

Kudos to Sugar Brown’s Coffee for another step in the right direction.  Kudos to others who have done the same.  And Kudos to those of you who now have plans to implement such a program into your retail plan.

Michael Popovici (Forums member name: tricky ) requested that Murray Street Coffee Shop be added to our list of Retailers.  I had a poke around their website a bit and discovered some things about them.

They are located in the Deep Ellum area of Dallas.  This leaves them with much opportunity to host music acts such as Calexico, who have performed there before.

The space is out of this world.  They advertise a “Scandinavia meets Mid-Century Modern interior”, and I’d say they deliver pretty well.

(click to view larger images)

I was a little disappointed to discover that they are pulling shots of Illy espresso.  Don’t get me wrong, the Illy family has done massive amounts of work and have taught us much about the science of our beloved coffee.  However, I hesitate to consider that coffee roasted more than 2 weeks ago, much less months ago, to be of a quality I would personally be comfortable serving.  Then again, they do have a lot of fans as one of, if not the largest coffee company on the globe.

It seems worth visiting just to see the space or to catch a live music performance.

www.murraystreetcoffee.com

I’ll be in Canada from the 25th to the 30th, but I have some good stuff cued up for your reading pleasure while I’m gone.

So to everyone out there in Texas Coffee Land.. Have a great week, and a wonderful weekend!

He trained James Hoffmann for last year’s WBC.  He trained Kyle Glanville for the USBC, which he went on to win.  He won the Irish Triple Crown of the Irish Latte Art championships, the Irish Cup-Tasting championships, and the Irish Barista Championships.  And now, in his first ever appearance in a World Barista Championship, he was crowned the World Barista Champion.  This man is unstoppable.

It seems all eyes will be on Square Mile Coffee, the company owned and run by James Hoffman, 2007 WBC, Annette Moldvaer, 2007 World Cup-Tasting Champion, and Stephen Morrissey, 2008 WBC.

They may be in need of more trophy space.

The final order of the WBC is as follows:

1st Stephen Morrissey, Ireland 738.5 pts
2nd David Makin, Australia 733 pts
3rd Liesbeth Sleijster, Netherlands 694.5 pts
4th Daniel Remheden, Sweden 693 pts
5th Michael Yung, Canada 702 pts
6th Soren Stiller Markussen, Denmark 671 pts

Congratulations to all competitors, and congratulations to the World Barista Champion, Mr. Stephen Morrissey

So, I’m a bit (a lot?) late on announcing this.  The truth is, I didn’t remember to announce it here at all, so please forgive!

The giant success of the USBC live feed lead to this fantastic service to specialty coffee industry fans.

I do hope you’ll take full advantage of it.  This has never once been available in any earlier WBC, and I hope you’ll encourage its continuation as more competitions come and go.

http://www.worldbaristachampionship.com/

Click there, or click the image at the top.  Enjoy!

June 19-22

I received a very brief email mentioning this coffee company in the DFW area.

It simply said,

specialty coffee roaster, wholesale and retail, Australian to zimbabwe. roastinf for 10 yrs, fair trade, all organic, equal exchange.

Well, I guess that about sums it up!

I did find this little tidbit on their website that I found to be of interest.

We are based in Tx, and offer the finest beans to be had anywhere in the world. All of our products are Certified Organically Grown, purchased only from Fair Trade Growers, and hand selected to insure only the highest grades make it into to your cup.

Mawker Coffee
www.mawkercoffee.com
600 S. Main St.
Grapevine, TX  76051
Ph: 469-569-6718

Mawker Coffee has been added to the lists of  Roasters and Retailers.

Third Coast Coffee Roasting

I received an email the other day from Linda Ryan of Third Coast Coffee Roasting saying,

I am the owner of Third Coast Coffee Roasting Company in Austin Texas. We specialize in Fair Trade Organic coffees, and are the only member of Cooperative Coffees in the Southern US. I would like to be included in your website.  Thank you.

I confess, Cooperative Coffees is new to me, so I did a little searching and found this:  http://www.coopcoffees.com/

Cooperative Coffees is a green coffee importing cooperative, comprised of 23 community based coffee roasters in the USA and Canada, committed to building  and supporting equitable and sustainable trade relationships for the benefit of farmers and their exporting cooperatives, families and communities.

Interesting.

They have a website, but it doesn’t have much information on it.  (nudge, nudge) http://thirdcoastcoffee.com

Third Coast Coffee Roasting has been added to our list of roasters.

Chemex Sale!

We have 30 oz Chemexes in stock with filters (oxybleached white half-moons…least pulp taste).  $38 for both plus FREE SHIPPING for TXCP folks…email me if you’re interested.  That’s like 25% off, folks.

aaron [AT] browncoffeeco [DOT] com

Aaron Blanco posted this in the forums, and I thought it might enjoy a few more eyes.

If you’re not familiar with the Chemex brew method already, you acquire familiarity soon.

Eldon of JavaTaza suggested that we get a jam of some sort going for the DFW area.

A fine idea, I say.

It’s still in the planning stages, and there is no date set, and it seems people are hesitant to pick a date if someone else is unable to make it.

So if YOU would be interested in a DFW jam, JOIN THE DISCUSSION!

Dallas / Ft. Worth NEEDS something like this.  There is a lot of coffee, but very little community.  Help fix this, and push coffee forward, and raise the quality standard in the Metroplex.