15th Ave Coffee & Tea

We live for new coffee.  While we have a fairly consistent lineup of favorites that we can offer year-round, single origin and single varietal coffees that are seasonally relevant and have limited availability intrigue our senses in different and exciting ways.  So without further ado, I present… 

 Organic Timor-Leste

• Description:  roasted figs, balsamic vinegar, dark chocolate
• Processing Type:  Washed 
• Elevation:  4593-5249 feet (1400-1600 meters) 
• Coffee Variety:  Hybrido de Timor

CCT's washed beans (left) vs. rough farmer-processed parchment

The Organic Timor-Leste is produced by Cooperativa Cafe Timor (CCT), which is one of the largest Fair Trade Certified cooperatives in the world.  CCT formed in 1995, and has been directly responsible for a tremendous increase in the quality of coffee produced within Timor-Leste.  For centuries, Timorese farmers had utilized rudimentary processing equipment, resulting in over-fermented, poorly washed and under-dried parchment.  CCT centralized milling factories and drying processes, leading to a higher quality product that better represented the unique Hybrido de Timor bean. 

CCT buyers inspect, weigh and pay farmers at roadside the same day they harvest

While organic agricultural products have received steadily increasing attention over the past two decades, CCT was a leader in their field when they began offering organic coffee in 1995.  In it’s first season, CCT, then called the National Cooperative Business Association, purchased raw cherry from 800 farm families with cash payment on the spot, at prices five times higher than they used to receive for their far more labor-intensive parchment.  Sam Filiaci (the director of CCT) also found a silver lining in the centuries of benign neglect of the Timorese coffee fields: The overgrown shade canopy and lack of funds for agrochemicals produced a naturally organic bean, just as that label was becoming hip in Western cafes.  

NCBA and CCT director Sam Filiaci

Since that initial purchase in 1995/1996, Starbucks has continued to buy half or more of CCT’s production.  The market support that Starbucks provided fueled expansion that included four wet processing mills serving some 20,000 families.  In addition, donations of medical supplies and grants provided through Starbucks C.A.F.E. practices program (a program that measures the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of farms and coops) have helped improve quality of life thousands of people living in East Timor. 

- Jesse, January 9th

***All the information and pictures in this post about CCT and the NCBA came from a piece written by Jonathan B. Levine titled “Coffee in the Crossfire” ***

Nothing stays cutting edge forever.  Early adopters of new technology know this better than anyone, and those who work in specialty coffee know it better still.  Technology can enhance the experience of the guest on many levels, from how coffee tastes, to the ‘wow’ factor and theatre of watching it prepared on a cutting edge machine.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we’re blessed to have access both to great coffee, and to equipment that is at the leading edge of both design and functionality, from the Clover brewers, to the Hario v60’s, to Roy Street Coffee and Tea’s Synesso Hydra.  Next week, we’re thrilled to be able to upgrage the four-group La Marzocco Linea that we’ve been using at 15th Ave to a three-group, mechanical paddle GB/5.  We’ll post again next week with more details about the machine and the modifications that have been made to it, but in the meantime here are some pics snapped today as we dialed in some of our coffees, set temperatures on the boilers, and enjoyed the company of Joe Monaghan and Roger Wittmann of La Marzocco USA (now settling into their new digs in Ballard!)

- Jesse, December 15th

Hi!  My name is Alex, and I am a recent addition to the already amazing team here at 15th.  As most of you probably already know, we host cuppings every day, without fail, at 11 am; most of the time we cup coffee, but every so often we mix it up and cup our fantastic full-leaf teas.   Always a coffee lover, I have been developing my palate and expanding my knowledge through attending (and hosting!) our daily cuppings.  The first tasting I did this week was a hybrid tasting with coffee and tea.  I decided to do a comparison of floral, citrus and earthy flavors to taste the differences and similarities between coffee and tea.  First was floral:  I chose Panama la Esmeralda Diamond Mountain for the coffee and our First Flush Darjeeling tea.  The Panama had light, fruity notes with sweet lime acidity and a perfumey, floral aroma.  The Darjeeling, since it was a first flush, was beautifully delicate with a soft floral aroma, slightly nutty flavor and the perfect amount of astringency to finish it off.  Next was citrus: the Kenyan coffee was fuller bodied, with intense grapefruit and orange flavors and a deeper acidity to balance it all out – beautiful, and one of my all-time favorites.  Paired with it was our Earl Grey, a blend of Indian teas with bergamot oil from Italy.  I was blown away by the balmy body the bergamot helped produce, and of course the delightful punch of citrus!  Last came earthy: Sumatra was the coffee, from a region of the world known for its earthy, spicy, herbal coffees with thick, syrupy bodies.  Our Sumatra has really been fabulous lately, exhibiting an intense buttery sweetness like crème brulee along with rich and savory herbs.  I paired the Sumatra with our stoutest of teas, Yunnan Pu-Erh.  It has a deep amber color along with the heaviest body of any tea I have ever tasted – it holds its own even against coffee.  An aged Chinese tea, it has a more musty-earthy flavor, rather than a mushroom-earthy flavor, with a saccharine finish that lingers on the tongue.  Amazing. 

At 15th, we are constantly discussing coffee.  What brewing method is better, what amount of coffee to use, what grind is best, and the list goes on.  This is important because we are constantly striving to make the best possible cup of coffee for you, our customer.  Through scheduled cuppings and spontaneous daily tastings, we are able to learn why we do things, and more importantly, how to improve even more.  Yesterday I chose to cup Ethiopia sun-dried Yirgacheffe, and to use the cupping as on opportunity to experiment with both grind and dose, thus ensuring that we would taste the coffee at a variety of stages in the brew process.  Generally for our cuppings we use 14 grams of coffee with a grind setting that equates to a tight paper filter grind (a 14 on the Mahlkonig Guatemala Lab that we use in the shop).  In seven cups I measured out 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 grams of the Yirg, all ground on 14.  Then, in seven other cups I put our standard 14 grams of coffee and used grind settings 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.   This is my inner scientist coming out now!  Typically, it is understood that with a finer grind, a more intense favor is the result.  From what I found in our lab, the cup with a grind setting of 10 (the finest in this experiment) was seriously muddy and over extracted, with the cups ground on 16 (the coarsest) being far too under extracted, with watery body and little flavor.  The range with the best flavor was 13-15, with differing opinions on which was best.  In the dose lab, 10 grams obviously didn’t cut it before we even broke the almost non-existent crust.  16 grams was far too much coffee, and tasted not too dissimilar from the coffee ground on the finest grind setting.  Again, the range we easily agreed on was 13, 14, and 15 grams.  Are these numbers making your head spin yet?  When comparatively tasting coffee, people’s palates and hence their preferences tend to differ, so how to we decide on a ‘recipe’ for cupping that we use across the board?  We think about all the levels of body and flavors that the coffee displayed in each cup, ranging across dose and grind setting, and then we pick the dose and grind and best represents the broadest range of these flavors and bodies.

In closing, I want to invite you to join us to one of our fabulous daily cuppings!  Whether you just want to try different coffees to help you pick which ones to buy, or develop your coffee knowledge so you can rival the pros, there is always room at our cupping table for one more palate!  See you at the cupping table…

- Alex, December 5th

This coming Sunday, December 6th, from 4p-6p, we’re excited to welcome the Michel Navedo Quartet!  Michel has been playing at the 15th ave cafe for several weeks now with a rotating cast of musicians (notably Ben Obee, of Wood and Brass), but this Sunday marks the first date in a monthlong run of Sunday performances from his new quartet.  I’ve had the pleasure of listening to this group play, and you owe it to yourself to come out and hear them, too.  Also, we have a hard time finishing the New York Times crossword puzzle on Sunday, so you can help us with that as well.

On Saturday, December 5th, from 4p-6p, Ed Zincavage returns with blues, rock, folk, and special guests.  We’ve loved having Ed play in the past – his music is a perfect compliment to the shop – and hope that you’ll be able to join us for his show this weekend.

A full menu of coffee, tea, beer, wine, small plates, and pastry is available at all shows.

- Jesse, December 2nd

The more I read (and write) about pour over, the more I am reminded of the machine that revolutionized cup-at-a-time brewing: the Clover.  Our two streetlevelcafes are lucky to have access to this technology, and while it remains slightly mysterious (and occasionally confusing) to many customers, those that have taken the leap to ordering Clover-brewed coffees rarely go back to having coffee brewed any other way.  As I’ve previously mentioned, one of the great benefits to pour over brewing is its transparency and its ability to be easily recreated at home.  While most of us won’t ever have Clovers on our kitchen counters, we don’t need to.  The machine is designed for the volume environment, and as a business operator that utilizes both a Clover and a pour over bar in daily production, I can tell you that nothing makes me long for a run of Clover brewed coffees like spending the morning on the pour over bar.  The Clover is a dream to use, and allows for controlled variation between each cup.  This controlled variation is the magic bullet, and while pour over brewing technically allows for this, it requires an attentiveness that is a challenge in even a low volume cafe environment.

If you’ve never made the Clover’s acquaintance, allow me to introduce you.  The Clover is a machine that combines the very best in immersion brewing with the added benefit of vacuum extraction.  If that sounds like more technology then you want in your coffee, allow me to convince you otherwise.  While your old Mr. Coffee uses good old-fashioned gravity along with immersion to steep and extract your coffee, the Clover gets to full immersion, steeps for an amount of time that can be preset for each individual coffee, and then extracts using natural vacuum pressure.  The vacuum that is created within the machine is powerful enough to draw 6-16oz of water through saturated ground coffee in a few seconds, but gentle enough that the undesirabledissolved solids stay where they are – on top of the filter screen, and not in your cup.  There are a number of benefits, but when the Clover first hit the open market a few years ago, the coffee world was abuzz with excitement about being able to customize by-the-cup brewing for each coffee, and about the remarkable cup clarity that this brew method provided, and these remain two of the machines biggest benefits today.

Okay, so enough about brewing technology.  These methods of brewing are relevant for one reason and one reason only – they are a vehicle for coffee.  So why the subtle intimation that the Clover is losing relevancy?  Since Starbucks’ acquisition of the Coffee Equipment Company (the company that created the Clover), Clover’s have disappeared from some coffee shops (partially due to lack of availability), and been replaced by manual pour over.  Without broad spectrum usership, the volume of conversation in the specialty coffee industry about the Clover has softened and been replaced by chatter about pour over.  I want to bring some of that chatter back.  If you haven’t had the chance to try coffee brewed in the Clover, stop in to either the 15th Ave cafe or the Roy St cafe.  You won’t be disappointed, and you may never go back to drinking coffee brewed any other way.  Here’s my final thought: coffee is ever changing, and different brew methods bring out different characteristics in each coffee.  The only way to know what you like is to try everything, and we’re excited to be able to offer such a wide variety of brew methods at our cafes.

- Jesse, November 27th

With Thanksgiving pies in the oven, I finally have a break in the action long enough to knock out a quick post about what’s going on the 15th ave cafe this weekend.  We’ve got live music on both Saturday and Sunday this week, and both artists are returning favorites.

Saturday, Nov 28th, 8pm – C3 bring their folk, rock & pop sounds back to the cafe.  We’ve had a great time with this group in the past, and we hope you can come and join us.

Sunday, Nov 29th, 4pm – Our regular Sunday matinee jazz band Wood and Brass returns.  I know I keep saying this, but there literally is nothing better than the Sunday afternoon vibe when these guys are playing.  An afternoon coffee, live jazz – it’s just the perfect end to the weekend. 

We all look forward to seeing you there.

- Jesse, November 25th

It’s time to chat for a bit about our awesome new dripper cones on the pour over bar.  We made the decision about two weeks ago to switch from melitta drippers to the hario’s, and we haven’t looked back.  While the melitta gave us decent saturation, we were getting a good deal of inconsistency in our pours, and were a little troubled by the variation in the cup.  We had experimented with different pour techniques, but were finding an all around muddiness in the cup, and no amount of altering dose or grind seemed to solve the problem.  We set the hario’s up, and immediately felt the difference.  Similar to a chemex, the V60 filters come to a single tip, keeping the water flowing uniformly, and the ribbing along the inside of the dripper cones prevents the filter from sticking the side of the cone (unlike other pourover drippers), which can have the tendency to result in channeling and uneven extraction. 

There were a few adjustments that we had to make upon the initial switch.  First, we loosened our grind a bit, recognizing that the grounds would now all be sitting over a single drip point, rather than spread along the bottom crease of the filter.  This required some changes to our pouring technique.  We needed to be more focused on our pours, ensuring that we didn’t pour too quickly or alter our pour speed significantly. With the melitta filters, we were pouring steadily into the center of the cone, using a controlled slow/medium stream to ensure saturation.  With the V60’s, we found the best technique involved a short (3oz-4oz) pour to wet the grounds and start the bloom. and then, once the bloom had settled and started to drain, either a circular pour moving the water around the cone steadily, or a continued straight pour into the center of the coffee bed.  Honestly our barista team was split on which tasted better, but the variation in style has provided us with plenty of conversation with each other and customers alike.

In all of these experiements we used the natural process Yirgacheffe as our control coffee, recognizing that once we settled on a dose and pour, that we would likely have to adjust a bit for some of the significantly different coffees we have in the shop.  After a couple of days of playing around, we still weren’t getting the clarity that we were looking for.  The Yirg, when extracted properly, yields a tremendous rich berry flavor and jammy mouthfeel, and finishes long and sweet.  Our cups were rich up front, if a bit muddled, and had less finish and complexity than we knew the coffee had to it.  At this point, we were dosing about 21g of coffee for a 12oz pour (about 355ml for those of you keeping score in Canada…).  We started increasing the dose steadily, and found that around 28g gave us the best flavor for this particular coffee. 

What does all this mean?  It means that we are more and more confident everyday that the coffee we’re serving tastes as fantastic as possible, and that we are tireless in our pursuit of that elusive perfect cup.  One of the coolest things about pourover brewing is that it’s accessible to almost everyone.  The cones are fairly inexpensive, as are the filters; add some ground coffee and hot water, and you’re good to go.  The biggest investment you’d have to make to ensure consistently great pourover coffee at home would be a high quality burr grinder.  Lots of pieces are being written about pourover right now (and about Hario in particular – check out this post at barismo.com), as the movement around single-cup brewing gains momentum.  We’re lucky to have the opportunity to offer both pourover and Clover brewed coffees to our customers, and I hope you have the chance to stop by and taste a flight of these beautiful, individually brewed cups for yourself.  You will taste a difference.

- Jesse, November 22nd

Before I get to the fantastic artists that are performing at the 15th Ave cafe this weekend, I need to throw a shout-out to my streetlevelcoffee partner in crime, Jacob.  Today was opening day at our newest cafe, Roy Street Coffee & Tea, and Jacob has been working diligently over the past couple of months to ensure that everything at the new cafe was perfect.  I’m proud to say that today was a rousing success!  Pictures will be posted soon, but in the meantime head over the corner of East Roy and Broadway on Capitol Hill and have a shot of SO ’spro.  You’ll be glad you did…

Ok, on to the music! 

Friday, November 20th, 8p – Gayle Cloud

Gayle Cloud is an award-winning singer/songwriter based in Seattle.  Working with a mélange of genres and international influences, Gayle’s lush melodies, sensual “world” rhythms and rich vocals create a fresh sound with an emotional appeal. As a prolific songwriter, she is always introducing new andcompelling music at her live shows.  Gayle debuted as a performing artist in Paris where she attracted a devoted audience over the five years she lived in Europe. She then moved to New York for several years where she played with some of city’s finest musicians. She recently returned to her beautiful hometown of Seattle a couple of years ago.

Saturday, November 21st, 4p – Ed Zincavage

We welcome back one of our favorite performers, Ed Zincavage, at a special Saturday afternoon matinee time.

Edward Zincavage is an artist who’s music has garnered critical acclaim and radio airplay in Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York. He has appeared on television, radio and in the BroadjamTop Ten.  Besides involvement in his electronic art-pop music work, he is a seasoned solo acoustic blues performer with a great live blues and originals show that includes his wonderful vocals, and the added variety of 6 & 12-string guitars, a Dobro resonator, harmonicas and kazoo.

Sunday, November 22nd, 4p – Wood and Brass

I can’t say this enough: Come to the cafe on Sunday afternoon to hear Wood and Brass.  Michel Navedo and Ben Obee are amazing musicians, and it is a pleasure to listen to them play each and every week.  If you have not had the chance to enjoy some live jazz on a Sunday afternoon, then my friend, you don’t know what you’re missing.  

Ben grew up on Whidbey Island Washington where he played bass and sang lead vocals in punk and rock bands while studying jazz and classical theory composition and orchestration. Ben later attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston where continued to study andexpand his musical knowledge. Based on his knowledge of jazz and classical music he began composing andconducting his own compositions with small ensembles at the school. Today he lives in Seattle where he still plays and records in rock bands as well as jazz and folk ensembles. Michel Navedo has been playing trumpet for thirty years. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in New Orleans, Michel has a formal education in Jazz and Classical Performance and Music Composition. He has played andstudied music around the world in groups performing Salsa, Flamenco, Samba, and a wide variety of other world music; as well as, Symphonic, Big Band, Hip Hop, Psychedelic Rock, Fusion, and his own original laptop/electronic music. Michel performs regularly, and composes and teaches music out of his home studio in Shoreline, WA.

 - Jesse, November 19th

It’s been an incredibly busy couple of weeks up here on 15^th!  We’ve all been working hard as we prepare to open our second location, Roy St. Coffee and Tea, and I think all of you will be absolutely blown away when you see the theatre that we’ve built for our coffees! 

 At the 15^th Ave café, we’ve been steadily welcoming more and more people to our 11am cuppings – it’s so exciting to gather friends and strangers alike around the cupping table to go through the ritual of tasting coffee in a way that many never have before.  Each morning we choose anywhere from five to ten coffees and line them up on our cupping table in a progression, starting with the most mild mannered, light bodied coffees and continuing through the spectrum to some of our more syrupy, roasty coffees.  For those who have never comparatively tasted coffee before, these cuppings provide a unique opportunity to exercise their palates and see which coffees are more appealing than others and talk about why.  On most occasions, our guests walk away thinking about the coffee differently, recognizing the striking differences between growing regions, process methods, and roast profiles. 

In the coming weeks, we’ll talk more about some of the amazing coffees we have in the shop – currently we’re psyched to have our natural processed Ethiopia Yirgacheffe back as a whole bean offering, as well as a single-origin espresso.  We also just started serving a coffee we’ve never offered before – Hacienda La Esmeralda Diamond Mountain.  This amazing coffee comes from the province of Chiriqui, in western Panama, and features some incredible crisp acidity and florals.  It’s available as whole bean, brewed in our Clover brewer, or offered as a pour-over or French press.

- Jesse, November 17th, 2009

On Thursday, November 12th, from 6pm – 10pm, join author Cherie Priest at 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea for an evening in the Clockwork Century – a steampunk alternate-history event from the author of Boneshaker.

Show up in your Victorian-style finery, or come as you are.  Costumes will be rewarded.  Genre newcomers will be welcomed!  We’ll be reading, signing, answering questions, playing music, and handing out prizes!

Cherie Priest is the author of seven novels, including the steampunk pulp adventure Boneshaker and the Blooker-award winning Four and Twenty Blackbirds, as well as Fathom, Wings to the Kingdom, and the Endeavour-nominated Not Flesh Nor Feathers from Tor. Her novellas Dreadful Skin and Those Who Went Remain There Still are published by Subterranean Press. She has four more books forthcoming — one from Tor (Dreadnought), one from Subterranean (Clementine), and two from Bantam (Bloodshot and Hellbent). Her short stories and nonfiction articles have appeared in such fine publications as Weird Tales, Subterranean Magazine, Publishers Weekly, and the Stoker-nominated anthology Aegri Somnia from Apex. Though she spent most of her life in the southeast, she presently lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband and a fat black cat.

www.theclockworkcentury.com