I was struck the other day that I truly love what we are doing here at BFC&T. It has been a long time since I could say that: we've been racuously busy, in both the positive and negative sense, and I've just had a hard time sustaining a level of acceptable humanness. But the other day I was struck by a couple of things. Coffee, well grown, picked, processed, stored, roasted, and brewed is a wonderful beverage. Tea is the same way. I just did a cupping of Silk Road Teas and they were, by far, the best teas I've ever tasted. Seeing customer expressions after trying them confirmed in my mind why we do this day in and day out. Add to that the fact that Waffles Incaffeinated is making some sweet, culinarily adventurous waffles for us on Saturdays and Mondays.
Then, we've also moved the roaster. (Yes, that would be the third time in one year). It's new residence is a mere three doors down, on ground level, in the old Blue Room Billiards Hall here on College Hill. Compared to the space it was in, there is no comparison (but here's one anyway--100 sq ft v. 1100 sq ft). Now the roaster looks truly diminuitive, but its new digs herald a new age. Beleza Community Coffeehouse, in the Mexican War Streets of Pittsburgh, will soon be carrying our 3219 espresso, a specially created Beleza house blend, and our drip coffees. Yay! So, if you need a BFC&T, but cannot make the drive, try us in the city itself. I'm chasing down other possible wholesale accounts as a new part of my duties here.
Also, I learned about Terry Davis' Demitasse Poetry Contest. Few know it, but I am a published--and fairly prolific--poet, so I'm excited about this contest.
Lastly, competition is a-comin'! We are excited to have Jake and Meg compete, with Bethany judging, and myself volunteering at the event. If you have a chance, this is a great way to learn more about coffee and to support your favorite shops in our area. We'll be organizing trips down there for BF natives and Geneva College students, so be on the lookout for that in the store.
Coffee is great. Life is great.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thanksgiving
A couple of notes:
First, sorry I haven't posted much here as of late. A combination of insane business and the ease of Facebook have taken my attention. Expect more from here in the near future, especially as our new website is finished up by Jake. Also, if you are on Facebook, please consider joining our "fan page". Just search for Beaver Falls Coffee under the "pages" search section. We send out copious updates about concerts, new coffees and teas, and other items of interest.
Second, I just received a shipment of Sumatra and Timor coffees. They will be available for consumption and purchase on Monday. Coffee makes a great gift, as do coffee club subscriptions, brewing equipment...you get the idea.
Lastly, we will be closed Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and (as usual) Sunday this week to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. Please have a safe and wonderful week and we'll hope to see you right after.
First, sorry I haven't posted much here as of late. A combination of insane business and the ease of Facebook have taken my attention. Expect more from here in the near future, especially as our new website is finished up by Jake. Also, if you are on Facebook, please consider joining our "fan page". Just search for Beaver Falls Coffee under the "pages" search section. We send out copious updates about concerts, new coffees and teas, and other items of interest.
Second, I just received a shipment of Sumatra and Timor coffees. They will be available for consumption and purchase on Monday. Coffee makes a great gift, as do coffee club subscriptions, brewing equipment...you get the idea.
Lastly, we will be closed Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and (as usual) Sunday this week to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. Please have a safe and wonderful week and we'll hope to see you right after.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Things Are Happening
I haven't written in awhile. Lots of stuff going on and I feel so tightly-stretched that I cannot write what I want to or need to. I want to go on and on about La Vega, our direct trade with Finca Vista Hermosa in Guatemala. But I need to save that for another day. I want to speak about the development of Espresso 3219, our signature blend, but that also will have to wait. There is just too much to say about them now.
I will say that things at the margins are happening. We aren't in a big city, we don't have a lot of wholesale accounts. None of us have been in this business for very long and have had to struggle with some less than standardized equiptment (especially in the kitchen). But we love the margins. This is where we thrive and can make great stuff happen: especially when the margins connect with the center.
Cryptic, eh?
I will say that things at the margins are happening. We aren't in a big city, we don't have a lot of wholesale accounts. None of us have been in this business for very long and have had to struggle with some less than standardized equiptment (especially in the kitchen). But we love the margins. This is where we thrive and can make great stuff happen: especially when the margins connect with the center.
Cryptic, eh?
Friday, August 1, 2008
What Should We Call Ourselves?
Note: All opinions expressed on this blog are the thoughts of the writers and do not necessarily reflect BFC&T policy or official opinion, although you can be sure that we go back and forth about them constantly.
Jake has been in an interesting conversation over at Barista Exchange which can be found here, concerning coffeeshops and "working class" culture. Some parts of the discussion, from the perspective of a coffeeshop owner in a largely working class area, are disturbing--especially Jake's comment about McD's having a better shot at establishing an "Italian" coffee presence precisely because they aren't a coffeeshop and don't pretend to be (see the "Fratalian" Dunkin Donuts ads). That discussion informs this post/rant, but I don't want to post it there--I'm already involved in more forums than I should be.
If some of the problems associated with all of this revolve around language, then I think we should rethink our terms. I agree with Luke at 21st Street Coffee & Tea that our language should have concrete referents--in other words, a cappucino should refer to an Italian capp, just as a croissant always refers to a croissant, never to a scone. Within that linguistic space, though, there is considerable room for interpretation: good capps and undrinkable capps, croissants light and flaky, pan chocolate, etc. This, of course, is not easy and we still offer (and will for the foreseeable future) a 12oz capp. However, that doesn't mean we don't think about it and haven't encouraged some customers to try a 6oz for here capp. This argument, though, has been ably rehearsed elsewhere and isn't my main concern tonight. My main concern is what we call ourselves: barista.
For the record, I like the term. It is elegant and sets our industry apart from others. However, it is a lot like opera: for the Italians opera is in the vernacular, for us it is high-brow and unintelligble without an interpreter (and even that is no guarantee). When opera is done in English, historically at least, it hasn't been regarded as nearly as high an art form--the irony is terrible, but such is life. For this reason, I don't think barista is a good term for all coffeeshop employees to use, especially in areas where that sort of linguistic boundary marker is off-putting. Not to mention that if McD personnel are going to be calling themselves barista, then the word is so cheapened as to have lost meaning altogether, so why use it?
Instead, may I propose that we gravitate towards the term 'craftsman' (or craftsperson, if you like). In the specialty coffee industry, we often emphasize that the better shops do treat the position of barista as a craft: respect for tools, for materials, a constant betterment of product, presentation, and service. However, we rarely, if ever, look at the other crafts to see how they handle themselves and what they do. There are master carpenters, plumbers, electricians, bakers, chefs, and the list could go on. Rarely, at least with the construction trades, do we see the level of bravado and snobbery that we see with many so-called barista. The folks that I have worked with in these trades (for that is my work background--food and construction) are humble about what they do, letting the product speak for itself as a showcase of work, talent, and the pursuit of beauty (and a paycheck). Certainly, there are characters, there are cads, and there are pricks, but the level of self-overestimation is lower on the radar.
If a coffeeshop is to find itself reaching a working class clientele (and I find no reason to assume that the working class wouldn't appreciate good coffee, good surroundings, and good food expertly prepared), then it must embrace something along these 'craftsman' lines. This doesn't mean, by the way, a cheapening of quality: a shoddy building is despised, good tools are looked upon with pride by the user and envy by others--so there is plenty of room for excellent coffee prepared on excellent equipment. The problem is that, as one of the posters on the BX states, "quality is overrated". The coffee industry operates with most coffee, regardless of origin or preparation, tasting basically the same--the differences are "nuances" or "shades", hardly a convincing argument to ask people to shell over $4 more for a similar product to what they are used to. I don't think this problem is intractable, though. I've talked to many people here who can't drink coffee anywhere else anymore, because we've "ruined" them. I know I certainly cannot drink the local gas station coffee anymore, it just tastes disgusting (and they have the same equipment as us).
Which brings me to the idea of "just" coffee. We hear it all the time, "I just want a coffee". It is almost like good coffee carries the stigma of hubris, of transcending one's boundaries in a sinful way, so that anything associated with the "latte lappers" (as one local radio personality puts it) is trying to be better than your roots, as if it is a cultural slap in the face to tradition and propriety. We rob ourselves if we think anything is "just" anything. Humankind wasn't meant to live with substandard things, whether food or tools or dwellings. That doesn't mean we should all be elitist or aim for hubris, but we shouldn't lock ourselves into thinking that because something is quality, is good, is tasty without cream and sugar but still tasty with, that is necessary "above us". It isn't. Good coffee comes from humble origins and only through hard work, attention to detail, and a lot of sweat and tears can it reach a level fit for human consumption. Whether you are working class or a Brahmin, you should fight to have coffee treated so well.
I find a lot of hope in the working class culture (from which I spring) that I don't see in the "upper crust". But we've let ourselves be deluded into thinking that our way of life shouldn't be beautiful--because we've let others set the terms of debate. It is time for "unsnobby" coffee, but not from an industrial swill factory, whether the largest national chain of coffeeshops or fast food joints. There is too much to lose if coffee isn't looked at as a trade to be enjoyed and appreciated.
Jake has been in an interesting conversation over at Barista Exchange which can be found here, concerning coffeeshops and "working class" culture. Some parts of the discussion, from the perspective of a coffeeshop owner in a largely working class area, are disturbing--especially Jake's comment about McD's having a better shot at establishing an "Italian" coffee presence precisely because they aren't a coffeeshop and don't pretend to be (see the "Fratalian" Dunkin Donuts ads). That discussion informs this post/rant, but I don't want to post it there--I'm already involved in more forums than I should be.
If some of the problems associated with all of this revolve around language, then I think we should rethink our terms. I agree with Luke at 21st Street Coffee & Tea that our language should have concrete referents--in other words, a cappucino should refer to an Italian capp, just as a croissant always refers to a croissant, never to a scone. Within that linguistic space, though, there is considerable room for interpretation: good capps and undrinkable capps, croissants light and flaky, pan chocolate, etc. This, of course, is not easy and we still offer (and will for the foreseeable future) a 12oz capp. However, that doesn't mean we don't think about it and haven't encouraged some customers to try a 6oz for here capp. This argument, though, has been ably rehearsed elsewhere and isn't my main concern tonight. My main concern is what we call ourselves: barista.
For the record, I like the term. It is elegant and sets our industry apart from others. However, it is a lot like opera: for the Italians opera is in the vernacular, for us it is high-brow and unintelligble without an interpreter (and even that is no guarantee). When opera is done in English, historically at least, it hasn't been regarded as nearly as high an art form--the irony is terrible, but such is life. For this reason, I don't think barista is a good term for all coffeeshop employees to use, especially in areas where that sort of linguistic boundary marker is off-putting. Not to mention that if McD personnel are going to be calling themselves barista, then the word is so cheapened as to have lost meaning altogether, so why use it?
Instead, may I propose that we gravitate towards the term 'craftsman' (or craftsperson, if you like). In the specialty coffee industry, we often emphasize that the better shops do treat the position of barista as a craft: respect for tools, for materials, a constant betterment of product, presentation, and service. However, we rarely, if ever, look at the other crafts to see how they handle themselves and what they do. There are master carpenters, plumbers, electricians, bakers, chefs, and the list could go on. Rarely, at least with the construction trades, do we see the level of bravado and snobbery that we see with many so-called barista. The folks that I have worked with in these trades (for that is my work background--food and construction) are humble about what they do, letting the product speak for itself as a showcase of work, talent, and the pursuit of beauty (and a paycheck). Certainly, there are characters, there are cads, and there are pricks, but the level of self-overestimation is lower on the radar.
If a coffeeshop is to find itself reaching a working class clientele (and I find no reason to assume that the working class wouldn't appreciate good coffee, good surroundings, and good food expertly prepared), then it must embrace something along these 'craftsman' lines. This doesn't mean, by the way, a cheapening of quality: a shoddy building is despised, good tools are looked upon with pride by the user and envy by others--so there is plenty of room for excellent coffee prepared on excellent equipment. The problem is that, as one of the posters on the BX states, "quality is overrated". The coffee industry operates with most coffee, regardless of origin or preparation, tasting basically the same--the differences are "nuances" or "shades", hardly a convincing argument to ask people to shell over $4 more for a similar product to what they are used to. I don't think this problem is intractable, though. I've talked to many people here who can't drink coffee anywhere else anymore, because we've "ruined" them. I know I certainly cannot drink the local gas station coffee anymore, it just tastes disgusting (and they have the same equipment as us).
Which brings me to the idea of "just" coffee. We hear it all the time, "I just want a coffee". It is almost like good coffee carries the stigma of hubris, of transcending one's boundaries in a sinful way, so that anything associated with the "latte lappers" (as one local radio personality puts it) is trying to be better than your roots, as if it is a cultural slap in the face to tradition and propriety. We rob ourselves if we think anything is "just" anything. Humankind wasn't meant to live with substandard things, whether food or tools or dwellings. That doesn't mean we should all be elitist or aim for hubris, but we shouldn't lock ourselves into thinking that because something is quality, is good, is tasty without cream and sugar but still tasty with, that is necessary "above us". It isn't. Good coffee comes from humble origins and only through hard work, attention to detail, and a lot of sweat and tears can it reach a level fit for human consumption. Whether you are working class or a Brahmin, you should fight to have coffee treated so well.
I find a lot of hope in the working class culture (from which I spring) that I don't see in the "upper crust". But we've let ourselves be deluded into thinking that our way of life shouldn't be beautiful--because we've let others set the terms of debate. It is time for "unsnobby" coffee, but not from an industrial swill factory, whether the largest national chain of coffeeshops or fast food joints. There is too much to lose if coffee isn't looked at as a trade to be enjoyed and appreciated.
Shakerato!
Bethany and I were privileged to give an informative look at iced coffee theory and practice at last weekend's Grind Event, hosted by PACA and the Union Project. I usually don't go for iced coffee, it just isn't my thing, but doing the research for the presentation brought a new appreciation for what can be done with ice and espresso (even with the recent Arlington unpleasantness). Our presentation ended up being a little slap-dash, but we have honed since then and are prepared to ice anyone's coffee.
We usually make iced americanos (shaken) for our iced coffee--the shaking seems to cut down the bitterness associated with hot coffee poured over ice, but retains the full flavor and aroma. Today, though, I made a modified Shakerato using a combination of Tim Wendelboe and Rich Westerfield's recipes. Tasty stuff. These are definitely going in my next presentation.
We usually make iced americanos (shaken) for our iced coffee--the shaking seems to cut down the bitterness associated with hot coffee poured over ice, but retains the full flavor and aroma. Today, though, I made a modified Shakerato using a combination of Tim Wendelboe and Rich Westerfield's recipes. Tasty stuff. These are definitely going in my next presentation.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Australian Coffee Scene
I was reading the blog for Barista Magazine and was struck by the coffee scene in Australia, specifically The Aroma Festival. This event, going on its 11th year, links coffee retailers with the general public. The turnout is usually between 60,000-100,000!
In related news, Starbucks announced it will close 75% of its Australian stores. Independent shops often fear Starbucks and feel that the only way to compete with Starbucks is to act like a Starbucks. However, this isn't the answer. As it has been said before, the real way to beat Starbucks is to offer a better product and the consumers will decide. Unfortunately too many independent shops in the States offer a sub-par product and Starbucks wins out. Offering events such as the Aroma Festival showcases the shops that are passionate about their craft. I hope that working through BFCAT and PACA I can partner with others who are excited about developing the coffee scene in the Pittsburgh Region. It's been great so far and I look forward to all the possibilities.
(Photo by Halan)
In related news, Starbucks announced it will close 75% of its Australian stores. Independent shops often fear Starbucks and feel that the only way to compete with Starbucks is to act like a Starbucks. However, this isn't the answer. As it has been said before, the real way to beat Starbucks is to offer a better product and the consumers will decide. Unfortunately too many independent shops in the States offer a sub-par product and Starbucks wins out. Offering events such as the Aroma Festival showcases the shops that are passionate about their craft. I hope that working through BFCAT and PACA I can partner with others who are excited about developing the coffee scene in the Pittsburgh Region. It's been great so far and I look forward to all the possibilities.
(Photo by Halan)
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Clinton Campaigns For Baristi
As a quality third-wave coffeeshop, BFCAT (and many others) have good reason to be proud about our coffee over gas station coffee. Some reasons are the quality training, the care and concern for the farmers, better atmosphere, community commitment, and the coffee doesn't come out of an automatic machine that spews out powdered milk and instant coffee.
In this video, potential 44th President of The United States of America, Hillary Clinton, demonstrates the need for more quality third-wave shops with well trained baristi ready to serve potential commander-in-chiefs anywhere in this expansive nation. Will someone please get her a real cappuccino?
In this video, potential 44th President of The United States of America, Hillary Clinton, demonstrates the need for more quality third-wave shops with well trained baristi ready to serve potential commander-in-chiefs anywhere in this expansive nation. Will someone please get her a real cappuccino?
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