We’re back in YVR after an amazing week with the Coffee Common Crew at TED 2012. Thank you to all of the Coffee Common organizers for allowing Chris and I to be a part of this beautiful event, and to all the great baristas, it was a privilege to work along-side you guys this week. For best results, view this in HD on vimeo.

Back to our roots.

This December we celebrated our 5th year in business and we felt it the right time to give Crema the new hair cut it was begging for. We are really happy with the results so far and I wanted to share a few of the highlights to perhaps entice you to make the journey over the bridge.

These tops and our 9 foot communal table are made entirely of salvaged material from the Opsal steel building and the Pantages theatre in Vancouver built in 1900.

The globes are handmade fixtures and handblown glass shades from Portland, Oregon’s Schoolhouse Electric. If you’re in Portland you’re definitely going to want to pay them a visit, they’ve just relocated into a new share space with Ristretto Roasters and some other boutique businesses.

This old barn wood, from 1840 originates from a building just outside of Lancaster, Ontario right on the Quebec Border. It gets its unique silver like colour as a result of being exposed to the sun year after year.

This is a 1920’s Authentic Wedding Cake Style Chandelier from Chicago. You’ve got to see it in person to see the way the steel in the fixture has beautifully aged.

We sourced many of the items (chandelier, table tops, barn wood) through Scott Landon Antiques on South Granville. If you’ve never been to his store before definitely go check it out when you’re in the area, it’s full of beautiful things with great stories.

There is more to see, but I’ll leave that for when you visit. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Crema, it’s where it all began for us 5 years ago. We do coffee (Phil & Sebastian and jjBean at the moment), fresh baking & pastries on site and we’re located right next to the water. For best results, pick a sunny day and visit us by bike.

Crema (@cremawestvan)
1495 Bellevue Avenue
West Vancouver, BC
V7T 1C3  |  Map

It’s a way of life.

Annie, Spencer, and Aaron have opened up their darling cafe – and soon to be roaster – Matchstick Coffee.  It hasn’t even been a week since the paper was ripped off the windows and the doors opened, and their shop has already solidified itself in Vancouver’s coffee scene.  At the moment they are offering coffee from Calgary’s Phil & Sebastian, but as you can guess from the name and the pictures, the plan is to roast their coffee in house, something only done in a handful of shops ’round these parts.  The cafe defines the word “spacious” and has plenty of natural light, places to sit, vinyl to listen to, and a communal table you won’t forget.  Coffee is brewed to order via the Kone/Chemex duo, and espresso runs through a forest green Linea before it gets in your cup.  Latte art is included free with every milk drink.

As friends and teachers and former co-employees, I wish these 3 much success and a huge congratulations.

Where: 639 East 15th Avenue (Basically Fraser and Kingsway)
When: 8am-4pm every day.  (If you’re reading this a few weeks after publication – I’d check their website to see if they’ve shortened or extended hours)
Who:  @matchstickyvr
Why:  matchstickcoffee.com

Can you remember the last 33 coffees you drank?

Me neither.

Sure, you may remember which country it was from — but the specific region?  The varietal? Farm? Roast Date?  Brew method?

Solution:

33 Coffees.

It’s a little book from Portland that acts as a log for all the coffees you are drinking.  That way you can know which ones you liked and, maybe more importantly, the ones you didn’t.

It makes for a good idea not just for customers, but staff as well.  We’ve started to use them at crema for our weekly tastings of our own offerings to keep track of what we’re lovin’/hatin’.

So yes, you could bust out your Moleskin like you’ve been doing and keep track of your coffee that way, but trust me, this is way more fun and purposeful, and at the end of it all you can look back and perhaps figure out something about your taste preferences.  Or someone else’s.

We have a healthy supply of these little guys over at crema on the shelves for anyone interested, and they only cost $4 a pop.  So basically for the price of 1.5 coffees, you can enjoy 33 coffees.  Good math, good deal.

And remember when I said this book comes from Portland?  I meant it.  This is a direct passage from their site:

“33 Coffees is made with 100% recycled papers sourced in the Pacific Northwest. Interior pages are 100% post-consumer recycled content and covers are 85% post-consumer recycled content and 15% recycled content. The booklets are printed using US-grown soy-based inks in sunny Portland, Oregon.”

That’s cool.

For those of whom are not located in Vancouver, or are based in Vancouver but are too unambitious to come to crema, you can order this online from their website at 33coffees.com

In the deepest darkest depths of Norway, lies a cafe owned by a half man half dragon.

No, it’s not Trogdor. He goes by the name of Wendelboe, Tim Wendelboe. I may have lied about the half dragon part as well… But he is the World Barista Champion of ‘04!

I had only had Tim Wendelboe’s coffee once at Seattle CoffeeFest ‘09. It was a Kenyan coffee (I can’t remember the farm) it was one of the best Kenyan’s I’ve had to date. Visiting Norway for the first time, I got the chance to visit the Tim Wendelboe cafe.

Meet Tim Varney, Wendelboe’s Head Roaster. He gave us a quick tour of the cafe, the 12k Probat, and the cupping lab.

The Probat is right in the middle of the cafe, where they roast 3 days per week.

The cupping lab has 2 single group espresso machines: a GS3 and a FB-70 (the only FB-70 single group ever made).

He gave us a taste of their new crop Esmeralda – need I say more?

It’s very low-key surrounded by some very interesting architecture.

Time for  Wendelspro.

One of the baristas at the TW cafe, Chris Kolbu (Norwegian Barista Champion of 2008) served up a delicious shot of a SOE Honduras and some weird drink I have never had. It was a double espresso and a double espresso blended with a tiny bit of cream, really nice texture.

…He had a little misfire…

The space was a lot smaller than I imagined with very comfortable, but limited seating.

Brent says it’s BA. You figure it out.

Introducing: brewmethods.com

The premise is simple:  To provide anyone and everyone with access to the best coffee brewing guides in the entire universe.

Home brewing is an interesting subject in the industry.  People have all this great coffee, they have the proper equipment, but how do they learn to brew it?  If you have never worked in coffee, where can you properly learn from?  I’m often asked by friends and customers all sorts of home brewing questions and this is a way to answer them.

So with those thoughts in mind, and while I’m sure baristas and cafes will get plenty of value out of the site, we have geared it towards customers and people who are not in the industry.  The idea is to make a place where you can send a customer or friend or family member to find proper brewing guides fast and easy.

Think online cook book.

A link can be added in literally 5 seconds, so our goal is to make it the most up to date and wide source of coffee brewing guides on the net.  There are only so many guides online right now, but the hope is that, in light of this website and more people brewing at home, more bloggers and coffee shops will post brewing guides of their own.  To all the roasters/cafes/and others who already have posted videos – you’re ahead of the game, thank you!  It’s a bit embarrassing at how little resources there are online, especially for some methods in particular.

Of course the site is just being launched, so expect it to adapt and evolve with time. If you are on the site and know of other links, there is a “suggest a brew method” button on the top right where you can do just that.

If a customer learns more about coffee and how to make it, not only will this lead to a greater appreciation for the art and the industry as a whole, but they will start to take a certain pride and joy in making coffee themselves, just like all of us do.  Oh, and their coffee will taste better, which is always a good.

It may seem obvious, but the only way this site will help people is if they know about it – so check it out, spread the word, and let’s get people excited to brew coffee the right way.

behold:  brewmethods.com

Tonight (July 2nd), 7pm, at Crema.

Guatemalan El Injerto CoE – Stumptown
Guatemalan La Maravilla* – Intelligentsia
Ethiopia Konga – Ecco Caffe
Ethiopia Sidamo Guji – Coava
Ethiopia Adado – Verve
Ethiopia Wondo Worka* – Verve
Ethiopia Beloya* – Ecco Caffe
Kenya Karindundu* – Coava
Kenya Kagumoini – Stumptown
Panama Carmen Estate* – Stumptown
Black Cat (Brazil/Bolivia)* – Intelligentsia

Coffees with an * can and will be brewed as espresso as well.

The event will be co-hosted by special out of town guest Brent Fortune and is a great opportunity to try some amazing coffees from 4 different roasters in America.

It costs 0 dollars, and is open to anyone who reads this.

Once again:  Tonight, July 2nd, 7pm, at crema.

Some coffee news from ’round the world.

Square Mile Coffee Roasters in London is hosting their “Taste of …”  espresso event June 24th and this time they will be tasting Canada!

Every so often they bring in beans from different countries and host a public espresso tasting event.  So far they’ve done Sweden, Australia, West Coast USA, and New Zealand, and Norway.  (Did I miss any?)

From Canada it should be as follows:

Vancouver:
JJ Bean
49th Parallel
Hines/Origin

Victoria:
Discovery

Calgary:
Phil & Sebastian

Edmonton:
Transcend Coffee

If you live in London, don’t miss it.  You can view more about the event on their blog by clicking here.

If don’t live in London, you’ll have to click here first, then click the link above.

Also please note that both of the graphics in the title picture are 100% Square Mile’s, not mine.

Cafe Myriade in Montreal has a new website, which Anthony says will be updated often.  Perhaps linking to it here will make him keep that promise.

They do lots of tasting events as well, which you can keep in the know by checking their site.

cafemyriade.com

Keeping in theme with “tasting events” (and this one’s for Vancouver) JJ Bean hosts public cuppings every Thursday at 1pm.  The location switches from cafe to cafe, but you can check the current week’s location by clicking here.

Spencer conducts them, and they are both free and educational – just like highschool!

Spencer Conducting.

And lastly, the dates for the Canadian Regional Barista Competitions are set, and are as follows:

Centrals: Toronto – July 19th
Easterns: Montreal, August 23rd
Westerns: Victoria, August 29th
Prairies: Calgary, September 12th.

Canadian Nationals: October 14th & 15th, in Vancouver.

With no particular flow or structure, here’s some of what we’ve been up to lately at and around crema..

As you can see in the title picture, we picked up a chemex.  I had never tried anything from it before buying it but I had heard good things about it.  I haven’t gotten that great cup I have heard about yet, but will keep trying.  Some problems I’ve had include over extraction, paper taste (from the filter of course), too thin, and lack of flavor.  On the pro side, it’s a pretty fun brewing method, and it provides some nice eye candy.

The funnest part of using the chemex so far has been spinning it really fast and creating a mini vortex.

My current thoughts?  It’s not bad, but why use a chemex when I have a press?

I plan to keep playing around with it none the less and see what I can make of it.  Obviously a week of experimenting is not nearly enough.

I finally found 3 minute sands of time/hour glasses for our french press.  Do you know how hard it is to find such an obscure time as 3 minutes?  I don’t even know why the store had them in the first place – the cashier suggested that it might be for an egg…

The stands they came with are pretty cheap looking, so we plan to paint them or just change them completely, but it’s cool to have them for now.  So long digital beepers.  Out with the new, in with the old.

The siphon has been a lot of fun to play with, and we had one of the most memorable cups of coffee on it the other day using the Colombia Huile La Plata.  I haven’t had the time to use it much this week but we’re definitely getting the hang of it.

The color of the coffee it produces is worth the work alone.

In November John went to Japan and brought back some beans from a local roaster which were awesome.  The packaging was cool and the coffee was really really good.

The beans were also super human size.  On the right hand we have the Japanese Godzilla Bean, and on the left a bean from our espresso blend.

John took some pictures of the roaster as well, which we’ll be uploading soon.  It’s super clean and understated, and they use a Probat.

If someone orders a solo espresso/macchiato/trad cap, we switch the double basket with a single one.  This is one of the advantages of using the Mahlkonig Grinder – it has 2 customizable grind times for this very reason.

Pulling shots from a single basket is a completely different animal than pulling doubles, with the most notable difference being in a much lower extraction time (usually around 20 seconds).

John and I are heading to Portland on March 5th for the United States Barista Championships, which is sure to be a riot.

Lastly, we designed our own packaging labels for when people buy beans but I don’t have any pictures of them at the moment.  Will post them soon enough.

I leave you with Sayaka.

Not to sound too redundant, but we’re offering individual press at crema now.  We have JJ’s 3 reserves right now (all tasting better than ever) as well as a bit of Aricha No.34, and of course our usual varietals and blends are also good to go – not to mention any random coffees we may have lying around or brought in.

Over-priced and over-sized ‘drip brewers’ that fill up valuable space on kitchen counters ’round the globe need be gone.  We’re on a mission – and it’s starting over in West Vancouver.

Why isn’t french press more popular than it is at the current?  I think for a few possible reasons.

Maybe the general public think it’s too old and not fancy enough compared to their home brewers?  Maybe it seems too simple to possibly make a good cup?  Too much work?  Do their beakers keep shattering?  Maybe they straight up just don’t know how to use it?

Personally I’m leaning towards a mix of not knowing how to actually use a french press (future post foreshadowing), and simply not realizing how good it actually is.  (yes, it’s better than your home machine, and yes, you’ll be able to taste the difference.)

Whatever the actual reason(s) is(are), it’s time to fix it(them) – for the coffee’s sake and our own.

Hopefully we can get some non-believers to see the light by trying a press at crema and going from there.

For those of you who already drink press and know of it’s glory, don’t read the post above this and just get excited you can have press at crema.

My not-so-secret dream is that in a time not so far from from the current I can walk into crema on any given day and see our tables exploding with bodums and conversation.

An update in regards to the french press shirt, I am still looking at what I can do, so hang on tight!

In addition, incase you don’t already know, everyone’s favorite barista Anthony has a new blog.