Dive into the Craft of Coffee …

Temple Coffee Roasters - Panama Morgan Estate Geisha - Coffee Lovers TV E010

Candied Mangoes – Temple Coffee Roasters Panama Morgan Estate Geisha

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9oYtI2Ynxg

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen down at CoffeeCon LA, end of February, I was fortunate to run across Temple Coffee Roasters. At the end of the show, one of their baristas working the event tossed me a bag of their Panama Morgan Estate Geisha. How exciting! Geisha is one of those varieties of coffee that is tremendously lauded. It has an air of rarity and delicateness and usually comes with a higher price tag.

These days Geisha is frequently sourced from Panama, it originally was discovered near the town of Gesha in Ethiopia.

In my experience, they are often delicate and floral, but showcasing a range of wonderful sweet floral/fruit/herbal aromas and tastes.

One of my top favorite coffees of all time was a Geisha which I prepared as an Aeropress on ice (and the best description I could come up with was ‘Ambrosia of the Gods,’ which is hardly helpful to you, but I was in another dimension enjoying that cup).

Anyhow, this one by Temple Coffee Roasters does indeed showcase smooth delicate enjoyable sweetness. One of the things I liked most about this coffee is how it changed as it cooled. Each time a new layer was uncovered, the previous would disappear or shift. It was like discovering an entirely new cup every few sips. Perhaps this is one of the dominant traits of this sort of coffee – so well grown, processed, roasted, and prepared that it has such a layer of flavors and aromas you’ll constantly discover new complexity.

That’s fun.

You can check out more of Temple at their site here: https://templecoffee.com/

Unfortunately, the coffee I enjoyed on the show is not available anymore (such is the life of ‘rare’-ish coffees). But they do appear to have a fantastic selection of coffees which look delicious.  I am personally particularly drawn to their description of this Costa Rica – http://store.templecoffee.com/coffees/costa-rica-francisca-chacon-golden-honey.html – and their Guatemalan coffees sound quite enticing as well.

Crema Coffee Subscription - Video Review

Crema Coffee Subscription – A Sample Box Review

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https://youtu.be/76MTc2gDFgM

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here are many coffee subscription companies out there, in the first of a new series on Coffee Lovers TV, I’m going to introduce you to a few of my favorites. On the surface, most of these companies have a similar core. They offer you sample boxes, subscriptions, and single offering purchases of a collection of roasters.

Since all these companies are pulling from high-quality roasters, the relative quality of the roasted coffee is going to be equal across each company. What you get is the uniqueness of the roasters themselves, plus the uniqueness of the company providing them.

This episode is all about Crema.co

Crema Coffee Subscription

*click to activate your $10 discount on your first Crema box*

I’ve had coffee via Crema in the past – in fact, I subscribed for a little bit to see what it’s all about.  Crema’s focus is on single offerings of coffee. When you subscribe you get your first chosen bag of coffee, and then ever X days (whatever the frequency is you chose) you get the next coffee you’ve set in your list (kind of like old school Netflix…does physical netflix still exist even?).

Anyways.

One of the fun things with the Crema coffee subscription is that when you begin, you can answer a couple questions to narrow down where to start. This is one of the greatest challenges in coffee. With all the choices to be had, and all the uniqueness to be found – where do you begin as a coffee drinker? And as someone on the other side as well, how are we to recommend something to you?

So, on Crema you get to answer a couple questions and then narrow down your choice a bit – it gives you a better shot of finding something you will enjoy.

I’ll say first off there are two challenges with this. The questions depend on my subjective analysis of my own taste, and the roaster’s subjective analysis of what their coffee tastes like.  I recall the first time I did this, it was a liiitle bit hit and miss – but then again I’m a picky taster.

In the video preview here, Crema sent me a sample box, featuring 4 different roasters.  I’m not 100% sure if this is something they are offering customers, but if they are, I’d say that’s a pretty darn good idea. It’s much easier to figure out what I enjoy if I can taste 4 different things at once.

I’m happy to say that all the coffees in this coffee subscription were quite well done – and the sample box itself presented an excellent range of taste options (perhaps they will be able to narrow down your choices depending on the initial questionnaire?).

Coffee Lovers Radio Episode 69 - On the Syphon and Live

Brewing California Roasters – Coffee Lovers Radio Episode 69 – On the Syphon and Live

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*Visit coffeeloversradio.com for iTunes, Soundcloud, and Stitcher links, as well as to subscribe to the show newsletter* [dropcap]I[/dropcap]n this episode, we did a bit of a tasting with coffee from the LA CoffeeCon Trip, exploring several California Coffee Roasters.  On the show are three coffees from Temple Roasters, Klatch, and Bar …

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A Bunch of New Stuff – Cup of Joe 3-6-17

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17tpINDc2AI

My Cup of Joe episodes lately have been a bit erratic.

For those of you new to these videos, they are my sort of ‘behind the scenes' of what's going on with Coffee Lovers Magazine and other coffee related stuff. Sometimes I talk about just stuff in coffee that's on my mind, other times – like this one – I'm catching y'all up on what's going on with the business.

I was trying to think of a way to show you a bit of how it all goes down. I know many people think the magazine is run by a big ole team, but for the most part it's just me, along with my friend and colleague Michael Mage who handles the designs of the issues.

The end of 2016 and the beginning of this year was all about CoffeeCon. We had the show in Seattle – check out that video – and then another one down in LA.

For these shows we made a bunch of new merchandise, and also took a step forward in expanding the Coffee Lovers brand. For some time now I've wanted this to be more than just a magazine. One of the main goals is helping people like yourself explore the world of coffee, and so it became obvious

One of the main goals is helping people like yourself explore the world of coffee, and so it became obvious that providing coffee had to be part of the equation.

You can now order coffee through the Coffee Lovers online store here. To start off with I am working with Jesse Nelson at Conduit Coffee. Having traveled many places and tried coffee from all over the world, I see him as one of the top roasters anywhere. He has fantastic artistic vision for roasting coffee, and it's a privilege to offer that coffee to you as well. In the future, through The Coffee Explorer (take The Coffee Quiz and learn more about that soon) I'll be able to provide very customized single origin and blend roast offerings based on your specific taste in coffee.

Coffee Lovers - Colombia Finca La Fragua - Roasted Coffee

For the CoffeeCon shows, I also have had some new merchandise made. In the video there you can see our new Mug and Beanie. We also have shirts available through the store.

Check out our new merchandise here.

There's a lot more to come – this is just the beginning and a little preview for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CoffeeCon Seattle 2017 Video Tour with Coffee Lovers Magazine

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnmDI4vjKQQ

CoffeeCon Seattle 2017 (a consumer-focused coffee festival). What an exciting undertaking to help bring them to Seattle! About a year ago, as I write this, I happened to be sitting in with a local non-profit – Northwest Space Agency – as they talked about their plans for the year’s events.

NW Space Agency focuses on helping local businesses in Seattle connect with their customers and the community by giving them agency through space and events (basically finding space to host events to promote local businesses).

Throughout last year NW Space Agency hosted numerous coffee-related events – cup tasting challenges, brewing challenges, etc. They are all aimed at connecting coffee and the people in coffee with everyone else. While the group is new, they have done a great job of bringing the casual coffee drinking just a bit deeper into the world of coffee locally.

So about a year ago, I heard them talking about putting together a larger event at the end of the year. A little festival of coffee where local businesses could show off what they are doing and the people in the community could enjoy all that.

Queue my enthusiasm.

First though, turn back a couple years, where I ran into Kevin Sinnott and his show, CoffeeCon. I think my attention was turned to this via my friend Michael Allen Smith, who runs I Need Coffee, shortly after he attended the CoffeeCon San Francisco show in 2014.

I recall realizing immediately the similarities in the goals Kevin and I had – to bridge the gap between the average coffee drinker and the vast fascinating and exciting world of specialty coffee. I knew I wanted to do some kind of consumer facing coffee event (having attended many industry shows), but I personally lacked the resources necessary to go it alone.

Kevin is also an incredibly generous person – from the get go he has strived to help Coffee Lovers Magazine get more exposure through the work he is doing. We did a joint project together, featuring Kevin and CoffeeCon in one of the issues. You can actually view that issue free here – one of the few I have set up to enjoy on any device (tangent: the experience is not as great as the app, but I can do things like embed it in this article).

Ok fast forward, Jan/Feb 2016. It’s been a year + of me encouraging Kevin and CoffeeCon to bring their show to Seattle. The people of Seattle clearly enjoy these kind of events (looking at the many food and culture related events that happen around the city, quite notably The Northwest Chocolate Festival). And NW Space Agency wants to do one themselves.

So, we put two and two together.

The course of 2016 was a great opportunity for all of us – learning how to gather many businesses around this idea, and bring coffee drinkers from around the region to enjoy what the pacific northwest coffee scene has to offer.

And of course, we got to show off what we are doing right smack in the middle of Seattle Center.

Coffee Lovers Magazine, in Seattle Center! Yea that was pretty awesome.

This show is just the beginning. The world is hungry for this kind of connection, where it’s about the people, the connections, and celebrating the best of what we do.

Check out more coffee-related videos at Coffee Lovers TV on Youtube.  Subscribe and join the fun!

brewing on a chemex

Candy Canes and Holiday Blends – Anchorhead Coffee

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJjZhvdemxc

Holiday Blends – I love coffee blends which are created to a particular theme and experience. There's nothing like drinking a cup that reminds you of a pumpkin pie. Before we dive in though … A series of blunders led to the lateness of this particular episode. I had originally planned to record and publish this just before the new year. Then I got sick. It's really hard to make videos on the taste of coffee when I can't taste anything. So that was a bit of a bummer.

Then CoffeeCon came along and I kind of sidelined some of the video production while focusing on the show. Unfortunately, this meant a severe delay in the video showing off Anchorhead's lovely holiday blend, Winter Warmer. They are an excellent roaster and I highly recommend getting any of their coffees. http://www.anchorheadcoffee.com

Back to the holiday blend! I know I know…it's not the holidays anymore. BUT. It will be again. As I explore more of the intricacies of the coffee world I want to keep you apprised. Let's consider this holiday blend by Anchorhead coffee here, and holiday blends in general.

A couple episodes ago on Coffee Lovers Radio, Jesse and I talked about Conduit Coffee's Winterlake blend. We tasted it on the show, talked about his approach to making it, the blends purpose, etc. If you are reading this thinking “the blend's purpose???” just stick with me for a few moments here…

It's a much longer article to write on the topic of a blend's purpose. But, suffice to say that every blend and single origin is roasted with a particular experience in mind. For single origins these are often roasted in order to showcase the origin tastes and aromas (well, the roaster's interpretation anyways). For blends these are often made to create a specific taste experience. This is why you see ‘espresso' blends. There is no special ‘espresso' bean in coffee, these blends are simply made with the precise espresso technique in mind (again, a much longer article, so I won't go into more detail here).

Holiday blends are much the same. They are made to be enjoyed around the spirit of the holidays. The reason I brought up Conduit's Winterlake in this video/article about Anchorhead's Winter Warmer is because they represent two completely different approaches to the purpose of the holiday blend, which is pretty cool. To get the full picture of what I'm talking about, watch the video on Anchorhead's coffee – you can also listen to the podcast episode we did on the Winterlake.

Here's the gist. Anchorhead here has created a delightful experience I described (as they did on the bag) like Candy Canes.  Well, like holiday mint without the mint flavor. It's difficult to express experience, but it made me think of candy canes by an open fire. So they have created an experience that is synonymous (as much as you can be with a taste and aroma) with the holiday spirit. On the flip side Conduit created a blend that goes magnificently well with the rich and satisfying food that you enjoy during the holidays. It's the perfect pairing for your turkey dinner, or your pumpkin pie, adding an extra layer of joy and satisfaction to the whole holiday experience.

Two completely different approaches to the a similar concept. Pretty cool!

Now if only I could figure out how to transfer taste and aroma over the internet…

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