Seattle Coffee Works

Still buzzing from the caffeine and the high of such a beautiful array of coffees–the first unofficial cupping of 2010 was a success! With a variety of Indonesian coffees and a few excellent Peruvians, a small group gathered in the roastery to schlurp and sip our way through 13 coffees from seven countries and two growing regions.

Highlights?

Bali. 

The Bali Organic Kintamani Natural definitely stole the show. The roasted beans looked like the color of light milk chocolate and showed such outstanding fruitiness. The Bali began with notes of deep, wild berry and that blossomed into a natural pungent sweetness. An instant hit.

Schlurp. “Woah!”

Schlurp. “Holy cow!”

Schlurp. “Wow! It’s SO sweet!”

The Balinese coffee definitely presented the most interesting fruit-forward profile and didn’t digress into an acidic tang after it cooled a little.

Of the three Sumatras, the Mandheling DP “Rona Bkahti”  pleased quite a few palates with rich malty body, notes of maple and sweet tobacco. Just complex enough and not aggressively earthy.

The Flores Organic Bajawa A/WP-1 gave us a velvet mouthfeel with light floral notes and a hint of melon and citrus.

The two from Papua New Guinea offered deep floral and herbal tones.

The FTO Peru Cepicafe offered the most complexity of the three Peruvians. Enough high notes with some light peppery spice, but not so much as to overpower the smooth, earthy body.

What a treat to sample a variety of under-explored Asia-Pacific coffees that offer more than the usual lineup of smoky, dark and rich flavors.

More coffee cuppings coming soon, so keep your palates ready for more schlurping!

Photo Credit: http://media.news.com.au/travel/lp/images/BN2140_2.jpg

Katie and I will be at the Burke Museum this Saturday 11-2 for a sampling of three of our favorite origins.

Come on by if you have time.

The wonderful folks at the Museum even made a flier to announce the occasion. 

I hope no one is surprised to read that we think that our coffee is the finest there is. We’re constantly cupping new green coffees and trying out new blends; we’re also continuing to tweak our roast profiles to bring out the best in each of the coffees. If you disagree let’s at least state that we’re trying REALLY hard.

But does it matter?

We’ve long found that our ability to sell a coffee has a lot to do with what the label says. For instance, our variation of the Mocha Java, the Obama Blend, has been one of our best-sellers ever since we introduced it last November; when we renamed our Atlantic Blend into Seattle Sunrise, we immediately saw a significant up tick in sales of the very same coffee. 

The big packaged-good companies know the drill much better than we do: a can of cola consists mostly of very expensive aluminum packaging filled with water and sugar and trace amounts of flavor, color and caffeine. Most shelves in a regular supermarket are full of this kind of stuff: it’s all about the art of selling an inferior product with the help of expensive and good-looking packaging. Wall Street types, immune to immoralities such as endangering half the nation with obesity, have made great money with this deceptive practice. It also comes as no surprise that our corporate competition in the coffee business, the one with the green logo, has a number of consumer-good veterans on its board.

Even though we’ve smelled the success potential of good packaging, we’ve concentrated most of our efforts on the stuff that’s inside the bag. Turns out, there is a chance we might be working in vain. In an experiment at MIT, participants were asked to describe the smell of rose pedals concealed in two separate paper bags. One bag had a positive label on it, along the lines of “deliciously fragrant roses;” the other said something about lawn clippings. To everyone involved the first bag smelled much better than the second. What gives?

Is possibly Katie’s artful description the real reason why we have a hard time keeping our delicious Sulawesi Toraja in stock?

Photo Credit: Shabby Chic 

Cupping events are one of the many highlights of working in our café. There’s so much suspense and anticipation in our search for new single origins. There’s a primal excitement as everyone gathers around the tall glasses, preparing their lips for some serious schlurping work. There’s the crumbly coffee crust and the first inhale of the aroma as you scoop sopping coarse grounds from the cup. There’s the auditory satisfaction of the brisk schlurp as cuppers suck the murky brew from the wide spoons. And of course there’s the orchestra of flavors—sweet citrus, floral and herbal, soft and smoky—revealing themselves after each spoonful.

This week we sampled through four Indonesian coffees and three Central and South American single origins. The organic Java estate offered rich smokiness, similar to our lushly bold Sumatra. The Fair Trade, organic Papua New Guinea estate brought a bit of light citrus notes to the sample. An organic Flores Bajawa offered floral and herbal notes amid a light body and the organic RFA certified Sulawesi revealed the biggest range of complexity, with deep, rich bass notes with smooth berry fruitiness.
The Central and South American coffees ranged from pungently sweet to richly smooth. The organic Costa Rica La Amistad danced with bright and sweetly citrus flavors, hinting at a splash of berries. The Fair Trade organic Bolivia Caranavi offered only a lightly sweet earthiness. And lastly the Fair Trade organic Peru Cepicafe delivered a smooth body balancing earthy notes with gentle lemony and berry sweetness.
Each of the coffees we sampled were beautiful in their own right, from heavy in body to citrusy sweet high notes. While we would love to offer the entire gamut, we chose a small handful to complement our growing menu of single origins. You’ll see these new coffees on our online store and in the café very soon. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with suspense and anticipation of the new coffees to come!

Jennifer Cabala of Q13 Fox News swung by yesterday to geek out with us about coffee tasting. We took in press pot, espresso, and real-deal cupping samples. We had a great time, and we believe we were able to sufficiently caffeinate the Q13 team.

Read more about it on the Q13 website. We’ll update this posting with the clip, once it’s out.

UPDATE: Here is the clip…

All of us here at Seattle Coffee Works are such coffee fanatics that we find ourselves talking about coffee almost in terms of an alternate reality.

When we named our Guatemala-East Timor blend Chocolate Truffle we didn’t take into account that to everyone else this sounds like a flavored coffee. To us Chocolate Truffle tastes like pure hot chocolate; most folks in this world would describe it more like a smooth and balanced coffee “with a hint of chocolate.”

Admittedly, we’re a little over the top with our descriptions. With that said I think it’s time for an update on what direction the Seattle Coffee Works roastery has taken in recent months, and what new coffees we have recently received.

Direct-Trade Model

Our long-term goal is to move towards a direct-trade model. That means we’re aiming to directly import coffee from farms with socially and environmentally sustainable practices, partnering with individual farms and coops rather than sourcing our coffee from importers who often give us very little background about the coffees sold. Most coffee today is traded anonymously through a chain of middlemen; the model of “fair-trade” certification seems to be only a partial fix to ensuring basic ethical standards.

Some larger roasters have started promoting a “direct-trade” model; yet most of the coffees they sell continue to lack certification let alone a verifiable pedigree. Check it out at the roaster of your choice next time you’re in their store: their best-selling espresso blend usually has no sticker on it. From this little hill it looks like they are pursuing a smart marketing strategy, no more and no less.

Currently we’re doing no better than those roasters but certainly no worse either. Our long-term goal is to source 100% of our coffees directly.

Our Colombia Huila “Monserrate” is a first step in that direction. This highly rated coffee comes to us directly through Atlas Coffee Importers, one of the several importers we use to find the most outstanding coffees. We wish we could get our hands on more such direct-import coffees with a known pedigree; we’re certainly willing and able to pay a premium for this kind of coffee. While this is the way of the future, it seems at this point the only way to make direct-trade happen is for us to grow large enough to start importing directly ourselves.

Satisfying Taste

Having the most conscientiously sourced coffee can be no substitute for a winning taste. Coffee – just like chocolate, wine, and ice cream – has to be delicious; otherwise it has no place in our lives. We have learned that our preferences in coffee do not necessarily predict what our customers like.

One good example is decaffeinated coffee. While decaf drinkers are in the minority, we have come to respect them as true coffee connoisseurs. Decaf drinkers like coffee for its taste alone. Initially, we paid little attention; with our latest green-coffee buy we have improved a little. Try for instance the water-processed Costa Rica, which has an aroma of sweet candy and a good deep body. Both our Sumatra and Guatemala decafs also display desirable profiles of those origins. And then there is our Decaf Chocolate Truffle – well you have to try it for yourself to go crazy over its deep chocolate notes as we did.

Another good example is our new Harrar Longberry (Grade 4) which we sourced through Walker Coffee Trading company. It’s back to a close-to-optimal taste profile – notes of blueberry, fruit, and simply a tasty coffee.

For whom if not for our customers?

When we started Seattle Coffee Works we were focused almost entirely on espresso drinks. At first we didn’t even carry “drip coffee;” we simply brewed up coffee blended for espresso once it was too old to use in the espresso machine. When our customers wanted to buy coffee by the pound we sold them espresso blends as well. We theorized that espresso blends are superior to any “drip coffee” out there. We were wrong about that.

Through our Taste-Off 2008 we discovered that our customers much prefer blends with the medium body of the Central and South American origins. About a month ago, our Atlantic Blend was born. While it’s “smooth” we think it also has plenty of personality to please the true coffee connoisseur.

Speaking of coffee connoisseurs. Our new Chocolate Truffle blend is certified organic and shade-grown (Guatemala); did I mention it’s sumptuous?     

Ok, I’ll admit it. We were really excited that our Space Needle was named the winning blend of the 2008 Seattle Coffee Works Taste Off. But we’re equally excited to announce the winner of the Taste Off Sweepstakes.
Yoon Lee of Seattle will be taking home a year’s supply of our coffee…that’s a lot of coffee! Like all of our tasters, Lee cast his vote for the best blend last month and entered to win a free bag of our coffee every month, for twelve months. Lee was randomly chosen from all the contestants who entered.
Last week, Lee came by the café to pick up his first months’ coffee. A wide grin spread across his face as I handed him the bag of our Mellow Seattle blend.  Despite the cold, rainy drizzle outside, Lee’s lighthearted and calm mood seemed to brighten that cloudy, grey afternoon. We sat at the front window and he told me about his journey to Seattle; how his life’s path led him first to a South Korean monastery where he spent a decade learning meditation and yoga. He spoke with a soft, yet determined voice about compassion and peace and how he enjoys teaching yoga to others. He left the monastery in the early 90s, married, and in 2006, he and his wife moved to Seattle. Lee now teaches yoga to employees at area businesses and at Soul Ease in Kirkland.
Before wiggling his hat over his head, preparing to brave the rain again, Lee told me he never expected to win the contest.  Like his path to the monastery, sometimes you’ll never know where life will lead you. Perhaps to a coffeeshop downtown with delicious coffee…

Thank so much, Yoon! We hope you enjoy the coffee.

First: a HUGE thank you to everyone who tasted coffee at our Taste Off event this past month! We had so much fun sharing our coffee and listening to your opinions on the best coffee in town. We’re really excited to announce the favorite blend and the lucky winner of our Sweepstakes, who will be receiving a year’s supply of coffee from us.
Throughout August and September we brewed up a number of our own blends and single origins, tasting them alongside each other and, for good measure, alongside corporate Starbucks to see if we could offer a more flavorful cup of Seattle’s favorite morning brew.
And, drum roll please…
Our Space Needle blend emerged as the contest’s favorite!
We heard quite a chorus of support about our blend’s full-bodied complexity that really satisfied their coffee cravings. It’s rich in body and full on the tongue, but doesn’t leave that bitter aftertaste.
While we’re thrilled about our winner, we also want to share a few things we learned from this incredible experience. Namely we learned about the palate and what people are looking for in a really good cup of coffee. Okay, ready to take some notes?
1. We discovered that medium to big-bodied coffee varietals trumped light and bright coffees. When compared side by side, the coffees from Central and South America were bigger hits than those from East Africa and Indonesia. Let’s rephrase this: Central and South Americans were the favorites; Indonesians were liked by fewer people, and the East Africans appealed the smallest crowd.
2. Although our sweet and fruity Africans appealed to fewer tasters, those who did like Africans, LOVED them. The fabulous fruity notes found in our Tanzanian, Yirgacheffe and Kenyan intrigued many of the taste-off participants and seemed to convince even the staunchest coffee agnostics that there’s more flavor in a cup of coffee than just BLACK. (And we’ll admit, there are some folks out there who just can’t stand those African varietals!)
3. Our blends’ full flavor beat single origins. While our single origins create delicious drinks, people like a full spectrum of citrusy, earthy and fruity flavors.
4. And lastly, everyone’s palate is different. Okay, so it’s not news. But when it comes to everyone’s favorite cup of coffee, it’s a big deal.

So why are we sharing all this? We’d just like everyone to know that we’re so excited about the varied responses we received about their favorites. Sure, we all like to try new coffees, but at the end of the day, everyone just wants a good cup of coffee, something consistent and delicious. All of our coffees have their own brilliant characteristics and appeal to a wide range of palates and the individual preferences of our coffee drinkers lets us do what we do best: serve up that favorite cup. Whether it’s berry Tanzania, smoky Sumatra, nutty Brazil or our light caramelly Mellow Seattle and sultry sweet Space Needle blends, we love to satisfy everyone’s coffee cravings.
So, let’s drink some coffee!
P.S.: Look for another post sometime later this week announcing the winner of the sweepstakes…