The municipality of Tarrazu is a large valley high in the Talamanca mountains located in southwestern Costa Rica. Known for their cleansing acidity and well-balanced neutrality, Costa Rican coffees exhibit a range of exciting flavors. Our two featured Costa Ricans showcase two of many dynamic flavor profiles. Visit us on 15th Avenue and experience the bright, crisp, citrusy flavors of the Costa Rica San Diego or the juicy, berry undertones in the Costa Rica La Candelilla Estate poured through one of our Hario V60’s or in one of our daily coffee cuppings!

-Amanda

Costa Rica San Diego Tarrazu

Description: Crisp acidity, medium body, subtle flavors of
sweet citrus with notes of brown spice and maple syrup.
Processing Method: Washed
Elevation: 3,937-5,249 feet (1,200-1,600 meters)

Costa Rica La Candelilla Estate

Description: Juicy acidity, round body with complex,
sweet, tropical fruit and berry flavors.
Processing Method: Washed
Elevation: 4,921-5,249 feet (1,500-1,600 meters)
Coffee Variety: Caturra, Catuai

Owned by the Sanchez family, the Candelilla estate spans 90 acres and lies between the raging Pirris river and a small stream. The name “La Candelilla” is Spanish for “little candle and was named for the fireflies that light up the nearby stream at night.

Of the 90 acre estate, 70 acres (28 hectares) are devoted to coffee production and includes two main houses, a warehouse, a coffee mill and drying patios. All members of the Sanchez family participate in production operations. After the ripe fruit is picked it is transported via narrow internal roads to the mill where it is moved through the depulper and sorted into the fermentation tanks. After the soaking process the green coffee is transported to drying patios where it is to be 100% sun-dried (without the use of mechanical dryers). Throughout the drying process, members of the Sanchez family constantly turn over the drying coffee beans with wooden paddles or their bare hands. After drying, the coffee is carefully sorted to remove defects. Only the highest quality coffee produced is labeled “La Candelilla Tarrazu”.

]]> http://www.streetlevelcoffee.com/2010/07/19/a-3/feed/ 0 http://www.streetlevelcoffee.com/2010/06/28/a/ http://www.streetlevelcoffee.com/2010/06/28/a/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 06:44:46 +0000 amanda_juris http://www.streetlevelcoffee.com/2010/06/28/a/ Hey Everybody,

I hope the beginnings of your summers haven’t been without their fair share of fun, memories and cold brewed coffee. There will be a few changes happening to our menu over the course of the next week and one that I’m particularly excited to share with you is the introduction of several new ice cream offerings to our menu! In addition to the Starbucks ice cream flavors we’ve featured to date, we will be starting a partnership with another local favorite, Bluebird Homemade Ice Cream!

Our ice cream, like our beverages, provide for the opportunity to customize according to personal tastes and preferences. We invite you to add, to your ice cream, some of our locally sourced chocolate baking ganache, caramel sauce or a shot of our Henry’s or Single Origin espresso for an affogato.

So when the sun finally decides to grace the Pacific Northwest, be sure to stop in and try out some of these new and exciting menu items for yourself!

-Amanda

Featured Bluebird Homemade Ice Creams:

Theo Chocolate Chunk
Made with chunks of Seattle-based Theo Chocolate,
the worlds only certified organic and fair trade
chocolate maker.

Snickerdoodle
A best-seller combining
cinnamon and brown sugar

Featured Starbucks Ice Creams:

Coffee
A balanced swirl of coffee
and espresso flavored ice cream.

Java Chip
Coffee flavored ice cream
with chunks of rich, dark chocolate.

Vanilla Bean
Vanilla ice cream with real
madagascar vanilla beans.

Strawberries & Cream
A swirl of strawberry and vanilla
ice creams blended with real strawberries

• Description: Smooth, Citrus, Cocoa
• Processing Method: Washed
• Elevation: approx. 2,000-5,000ft (914-1,524m)
• Coffee Variety: Blue Mountain

Cold brew.

“What is this cold brew you speak of?” you may ask.  I am your barista, Alex, here to tell you. Be warned that by the end of my humble blog, you will probably be in a state of shock, a mere feeble specter of that which you once were.  Ready?  Inhale!  Ok, here we go.

Cold brew is a very simple, yet ridiculously delicious brewing method.  Traditional, mundane iced coffee usually consists of regular, hot drip coffee from an automatic brewer, brewed double-strength and then carelessly poured over lots of ice.  This is also known officially as your grandma’s iced coffee (nothing against your grandma…),  or to be more specific, Great Depression iced coffee.  Even worse, some people who will remain unnamed (you know who you are…) will take a cup of coffee, or perhaps a latte that has cooled down and pour ice over it.  And then call it iced coffee.

Here at 15^th, we take our coffee very seriously, and you can rest assured that none of the above abominations to humankind occur within the walls of our coffee sanctuary.   Our iced coffee starts with pristine African coffee beans,  roasted to deliciousness.  They are coarsely ground, slightly finer than for a coffee press.  Next, the grounds are immersed in cold water, left overnight to steep, and voila!  In the morning, remove the cottony filter containing the grounds  and you have coffee so tasty it’s practically supernatural.  Since the coffee never comes into contact with heat, it is refused the chance to develop acidity, a characteristic described frequently as “bitter”.  This lack of  acidity means that the coffee is in turn sweet and nuanced.  The coffee drinker that adds sugar will be pleasantly surprised to find that this toddy-style coffee is so naturally sweet, that sugar is not needed at all.  The coffee-with-cream drinker will notice that the cold brew marries gracefully with milk; the coffee’s flavors do not disperse with its addition.

So, how badly is your mouth salivating?  Don’t fear.  We will be serving cold brew all through the summer, day in and day out.

Cheers!

Alex

So maybe I’m slightly obsessed,  but let it be excused… coffee is my job, after all.  And as a coffee evangelist, I feel it is my duty (bestowed by the coffee gods, of course) to educate as many minds and palates as are humanly possible. I am your barista Alex and today I am inspired to simply break down the staple espresso-based beverages so as to make them more accessible to the coffee novice.

#1: The Latte
The latte.  Approachable; familiar; a milk lover’s paradise.  The standard latte contains two shots (or roughly 2 ounces) of espresso and anywhere from 6 to 18 ounces of delicious, frothy milk.  Technically, a latte should have around ¼ of an inch of dense foam on top, but never scooped, always free poured.  Lattes are great for slowly sipping as you sift through a newspaper or nose through a novel.  They are also perfect if you are looking for a sweet pick-me-up, as adding vanilla or almond flavoring is best done with a latte.

#2: The Macchiato
One the other side of the drink spectrum is the macchiato.  Where the latte is milk based, the macchiato is espresso based.  Served in a 4-ounce demitasse, the macchiato consists of 2 espresso shots pulled “ristretto” topped off with rich, velvet-frothed milk. The makeup and temperature of this handsome beverage allows the drinker to best experience the flavors of the espresso and interplay of texture with the milk.  As an espresso-forward beverage, you are able to taste all the flavor nuances of the shots, which can range from lemon zest to pink peppercorn to buttered toast.  The temperature the milk is steamed to lends itself to quick consumption and optimum flavor.  As with food, the flavors in coffee become more pronounced the closer it comes to room temperature.  A macchiato is served around 140 degrees, just warm enough to still be considered a “hot drink” and cool enough to extract the maximum flavor.

#3: The Cappuccino
In between the latte and the macchiato can be found a beautiful harmony of deliciousness that is, ahem, the cappuccino.  Many people are unaware, but a true cappuccino is served in a 6-ounce ceramic demitasse.  Two ounces of espresso, two ounces of steamed milk, and two ounces of foam: the holy trinity.  This drink is perfect for those coffee drinkers wanting to expand their palate or try a different type of drink.  Cappuccinos are also a wonderful for a caffeinated pick-me-up with fewer calories, so as not to fill you up before dinner.

As always, never forget that the best way to drink coffee is to drink it how you like it.  With that in mind, however, don’t be afraid to try a new beverage; your next “new drink” may turn into your new favorite!

-Alex

• Description: Lively acidity, herbal, bell pepper, tomato plant
• Processing Method: Washed
• Elevation: 5,200 feet (1,585 meters)
• Coffee Variety: Mondo Novo, Blue Mountain, Typica, Arusha, Caturra, Catimor

Cultivated at an elevation of 1,585 meters, our Papua New Guinea Peaberry offering is produced by the Kimel Estate in the Wahgi Valley near Banz, Papua New Guinea. Previous offerings we have featured from the Asia/Pacific growing region such as those from Sumatra and Sulawesi can be characterized by their heavy body, minimal acidity and an earthy, herbal flavor, which can be attributed to their semi-washed processing method, typical of Indonesian coffees. Unlike the nearby-cultivated Indonesian coffees, the majority of coffee from Papua New Guinea is processed using the wet-processing method (check out Luke’s post below for a more detailed description of this method) to which it can accredit its bright, acidic profile not unlike a Central or Southern American coffee. Coffees from the Kimel Estate are unique among other coffees originating in Papua New Guinea. While many of the plantations in Papua New Guinea control every variable of the production due to their large-scale wet-processing facilities, the Kimel Estate, owned by the Opais Tribe, encompasses a group of individual farms scattered about the 600 hectare estate. Coffee throughout the Kimel estate is made up of a wide variety of cultivars including Mondo Novo, Blue Mountain, Typica, Arusha, Caturra and Catimor. Like a private cooperative, the Kimel Estate processes and enforces quality control at a central wet-mill.

Also unique about this small-batch offering is its classification as a peaberry coffee (click on to enlarge the photo above to compare Papua New Guinea Peaberry, on the right, with 100% Kona, on the left). While typically the fruit of the coffee plant develops as two halves of a bean within a single cherry, peaberries form as one single round bean. A common botanical occurrence in coffee, Peaberries form in 5-10% of Arabica coffee but often go unsorted from the remainder of the crop. While many batches of coffee contain peaberries within them, coffee offerings are only classified as peaberry coffees when they are majorly comprised of peaberry beans.

All around, our Papua New Guinea Peaberry offering is a vibrant coffee teaming herbal flavors of bell pepper and tomato plant with a crisp acidity and a syrupy mouthfeel. Try this coffee Clover-brewed over ice or, for a cleaner cup highlighting the Papua New Guinea Peaberry’s herbal and bright flavors, as a pour-over through one of our Hario V60’s.

If you have any questions about our Papua New Guinea Peaberry offering, or any of the other coffees in our spring line-up, please comment below!

-Amanda

Read on to learn more about the care and keeping of your own household coffee plant.

Coffea Arabica, the name of the species cultivated to produce all of the Starbucks coffees sold in our cafe (not to be confused with the lesser cultivated variety, Coffea Robusta, which only accounts for about 25% of coffee sold in the coffee industry) is a plant native to tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Cultivated at altitudes of 600 to 1,800 meters above sea level, Arabica coffee grows under somewhat particular growing conditions. I remember learning, at one of the coffee farms I visited on the Big Island of Hawaii, that in the 30-mile expanse of land at the base of the Mauna Loa volcano known as the “Kona Coffee Belt”, coffee plants lead a very regimented day-to-day life. “It’s sunny every day,” one coffee farmer said, “and every day at 4 o’clock, the clouds roll in, we cover our drying patios with roofs and it rains. Every day.” Though not every coffee growing region is characterized by such specific conditions, it’s important that the habitat in which coffee is cultivated is not too wet, nor too dry, that the coffee is subject to direct sunlight for a part of every day and that the weather never reaches extreme hot or cold temperatures.

While, typically, coffee thrives within 25 degrees north and south of the equator, given the right amount of care, you can raise a coffee plant right here in the Pacific Northwest (indoors, of course). Coffee plants are generally easy and low-maintenance to own but knowing a few things about the species can help assure a healthy plant that one day will blossom and produce coffee beans.

Water
For best results I recommend watering no more than twice a week. Aim to keep the soil barely moist in the fall and winter and thoroughly moist in the spring and summer. Be sure that the plant is kept in a pot with a hole on the bottom for drainage.

Humidity
One thing that has a large influence on the growth of a coffee plant is the atmospheric humidity present in growing regions. In regions where Arabica coffee flourishes, the humidity remains consistently around 60% (and never higher than 85%). Though coffee will grow just fine in a household environment, the presence of humidity is helpful to aid water retention. Additionally, if the humidity is consistently too low you may begin to notice browning at the tips of the leaves. I recommend misting your coffee plant, with a spray bottle, once or twice a day. Another option is to place your plant on a tray of pebbles that’s about an inch deep and twice the diameter of the pot in width. Fill the tray with water to no higher than the tops of the pebbles. The pebbles will absorb the water and release humidity into the air as the water evaporates out of the pebbles. Do be sure that the plant or its pot does not come into direct contact with the water causing it to absorb the water. This practice is only a way to generate humidity, not to water the plant.

Long-term
An indoor coffee plant will prosper in temperatures above 65 degrees. Give the plant a locale perhaps near a window with medium light and try to avoid exposing the plant to direct sunlight for more than one-hour per day. Artificial indoor plant lighting can provide a good environment for a coffee plant as well. Finally, the coffee plant will outgrow its pot once a year and failing to re-pot the plant may inhibit its growth. Aim to re-pot the plant in the next size larger pot (with a hole in the bottom) once yearly in the spring to provide for optimal growth.

A coffee plant is a rewarding and aesthetically attractive plant to own that, after a year or two of proper care and attention, will blossom with sweet, fragrant flowers followed by coffee cherries fit to be harvested, processed, roasted and consumed (though it may take awhile for your coffee plant’s yield to fill your favorite coffee mug). I’ve owned my own coffee plant for nearly nine-months and by following the proper care protocol, enjoy an attractive desk-top decoration that I can watch grow and develop. You can too!

Have a great Mother’s Day week,

-Amanda

There are several steps that take place between the time the coffee cherry is harvested and when it is brewed to your liking in the cafe. The most noteworthy of which are (in sequence) harvesting, processing, buying and roasting/blending. If you’d like to learn a bit more about how coffee is processed on a coffee farm, be sure to check out Luke’s post below. My name is Amanda, one of your 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea supervisors, and today I’m going to tell you a little bit about green coffee buying practices based on the wonderful day I was able to spend with our coffee buyers and tasters in Lausanne.

When the green coffee samples arrive at the SCTC, they are roasted to a sample roast profile for the following day’s cupping. Given that the coffee has yet to be tasted, for sampling purposes, the coffee is roasted to a constant sample roast profile based on its growing region. Unlike coffee sold in the cafe that is roasted for the purpose of showcasing the coffee’s specific attributes, having a constant roast profile allows for coffee to be compared side-by-side without having its roast define the flavor characteristics of the coffee and/or perhaps mask the subtleties that are products of the geographic regions and processing methods. Once the coffee is roasted, it is left overnight to de-gas (approximately 16 hours). De-gassing is an important step in this process. When the green coffee bean is roasted, not only does the water evaporate causing the bean to both dry out and expand in size, but some of the natural sugars in the bean transform into CO2 gas. The de-gassing step allows for the bean to emit the majority of the CO2 helping protect and stabilize the flavor.

When I arrived at the SCTC at 8:30am, I was just in time for the daily cupping. Being the industry standard for tasting coffee, the cupping was prepared nearly identically to one of the 11am cuppings you may have attended at 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea. Unlike our meager quantities of 2-3 cups per type of coffee we taste, at the SCTC they cup 6 cups of each single origin coffee. In order for the coffee to be considered for retail, each of the 6 cups must exhibit a consistently exceptional combination of flavor, body and acidity. One of the coffee samples we were tasting was an Indian coffee with a pleasant herbal flavor and medium acidity. As the Manager of Green Coffee Quality tasted the sixth cup of the Indian coffee she validated her analysis with the other Francophone tasters by asking if they too thought it was “moisi”, the French word for “musty”. When the team concluded there was an evident defect in that one cup, the coffee was to be rejected on a basis of inconsistency.

Tasting with our coffee buyers gave me an incredible insight into the care we take in selecting the coffees we serve in our store. Every day, at our daily cuppings, I learn or discover something new about our coffees and the subtleties that hide beneath the surface of this complex product. I encourage you to join us at 11 am one of these days and experience our coffees with me or one of 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea’s other passionate baristas.

Should you have any further questions about the coffee buying or tasting process, I’d love to hear from you in a comment below!

-Amanda

Exactly 1 year ago I was in the municipality of Dipilto, Nicaragua, test running a 10 day intensive coffee course that focused on coffee processes, from the seed all the way to the cup.

Although there is much to discuss about coffee nurseries, adult coffee plants, picking, husking, roasting and tasting, today we will just discuss what is referred to in the industry as the “wet processing method.”

Ripe coffee cherries, roughly the same size and color of a ripe cranberry, (here’s a photo of one with a pest related defect, see if you can spot the hole) arrive fresh-picked from the coffee farm and are dumped into a large tank above a depulping machine.  The coffee is channeled with water through a trough with baffle that prevents low density (bad) coffee cherries from continuing on to the depulper. Coffee from the top falls into a hopper and is then pressed through the textured metal screen of the spinner cylinder.  The pulp gets shot out to a pile, the coffee bean gets channeled to a fermentation tank.

Although the coffee bean is now devoid of its fruit, there is still a tenacious and slippery skin called mucilage that remains.  The fermentation tank– which is very much like a large bathtub- is simply an environment in which the coffee can begin to decompose so that the mucilage can be removed.  In these tubs hundreds of pounds of coffee will sit for 12 to 24 hours (depending on if it was depulped with or without water).

Once the coffee has sat in the tank it is ready to be “washed,” or rinsed out into another trough and agitated with water.  Here I am at the trough with a large paddle to agitate the beans back and forth before being bagged and sent to the drying patio.

Washed coffees are typical of Latin America (though not exclusive) and the process is to which washed coffees owe their bright acidity, chocolate and mildly nutty flavor profiles; the characteristics which make them excellent coffee and especially suited for breakfast and pairing with subtle desserts.  Indeed, one of my favorite coffees at 15th is and has been the Guatemala Medina.  This coffee is from a single farm in the Antigua region of Guatemala and possesses all the hallmarks of a great washed coffee with the subtle and soft flavor notes one finds in an excellent small-batch coffee.

I have a much greater appreciation for coffee after having worked on a farm and seen all of the processes first hand.  When it comes to producing coffee, each step along the way is soberingly labor intensive; from seed to cup.  I love sharing my knowledge, so please, if I have sparked your interest whatsoever today in any step of the process, please comment so I may address whatever questions you may have.  Or, comment, and then come on in and ask me in person!

Until then,

-Luke

]]> http://www.streetlevelcoffee.com/2010/04/05/blog-by-luke-experiences-on-a-coffee-farm/feed/ 2 http://www.streetlevelcoffee.com/2010/02/12/organic-timor-leste/ http://www.streetlevelcoffee.com/2010/02/12/organic-timor-leste/#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:13:33 +0000 amanda_juris http://www.streetlevelcoffee.com/?p=766 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 theNational 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” ***