I’d love to start this post off in some clever way, leaving all of you thinking, that Chris is a clever bastard – but instead I’m just going to cut to the chase.

Serve your drinks with pride

Too many times I’ve walked into a cafe, ordered an espresso, and had the barista behind the bar completely re-calibrate.  I don’t want to watch you waste shot after shot and stress out let alone wait five to ten minutes for my espresso.  Then after all is said and done the espresso is served with one of the following disclaimers:

“It’s pulling a little tight.”

“It’s a little over extracted.”

“The weather is messing with my machine”

“Might be a little under, let me know I’ll remake it..”

“The espresso sucks today.”

“I can’t find my lucky unicorn tamper”

When you say things like that,  this is what goes through my head: “Why are you serving something you KNOW isn’t good!?”

I don’t care.  I’m sorry,  but I don’t.  I just want you to make my coffee with no disclaimers that way I have a fair chance of enjoying it.  Sure, we’ll chew the fat for a bit, but don’t tell me that the espresso you gave me is not as good as it could be.

Before we go on, let me be the first to admit I have done this myself.  Chances are you have too.   Now let’s all take a moment of silence to acknowledge our shame, and bid it good riddance.

Disclaimers are bad.

They tell the person receiving your beverage that something is wrong with it before they get it.  Even if there isn’t, they will perceive it as wrong because you planted that in there head.  You are the barista.  Take ownership and don’t blame it on something else.

Why so much hostility?

This is a bigger issue than appears to be.  It stems from lack of proper training, misunderstanding of extraction, and lack of confidence – more importantly though, it’s disrespectful to your customers; What you’re implying is that all day before I walked in and ordered an espresso, it wasn’t good enough. If it was, you’d have served it to me without fuss.

Let me paint this out for you.

Say your experience starts at 10/10.

You walk in the door, say hello, and order your coffee. Still 10.  You then see the barista start re dialling in the espresso. 9/10.  You then watch as he throws out shot after shot in an effort to redial the espresso (which should have been done in the morning). 8/10.  You wait. And wait. And wait for your espresso (which is meant to be fast, hence the name). 7/10.  Finally, he/she hands it to you, but that’s not it.  As you grab it, the barista adds a disclaimer, taking the onus off of them.. 6/10.  Sorry, but in the words of Murky, “that’s really, really, not okay.”

I don’t order a steak at a restaurant and have the chef come out and say, “Sorry, we over cooked that steak.. Let us know if you don’t like it and we’ll make it again.”

In an effort to make it perfect you’ve compromised the entire operation, making me awkward, wishing I’d just got drip.

My whole experience before I even tasted my shot is at best a 6/10.  Not only did I wait longer than was necessary, you also told me it might not be good.

Come on.

I would have been happier had you just pulled a shot and served it to me with a smile.  I’d say thanks. You’d be happy. I’d be happy.  We’d all win.

Maybe I’m making too big a deal of this, but it doesn’t just happen every once in awhile – it happens all the time.  And it frustrates the hell out of me.

Why do we do this?

Because espresso is seldom treated as what it is – another brew method.

There are variables that need to be (and can be) controlled, just as you would with any method.

Here are 4:

1. Dry dose weight - Amount of coffee in the portafilter. Without the proper tools, this will vary slightly every shot – it varies drastically barista to barista.

2. End weight of beverage – Unless you’re weighing every shot this is very difficult to eyeball and will be inconsistant shot to shot.

3. Time during extraction – How many seconds.  Just, use a timer.

4. Grind.

When you make a french press, you weigh the coffee.  You weigh the water.  You time it.  It’s the same, every time.  If you dialed it in properly – it should taste good, every time.

Do you see what I’m getting at here?

Here are 3 things that will help control those variables and give you more consistant results – resulting in more confidence behind the bar.

1. Volumetric: It’s consistent (and that’s what this is about). This allows you to program the amount of water you want to go through every shot, every time.

2. Dosing tools: Also consistent. (that’s what this is about, remember?).  More importantly, it provides consistency between barista to barista. I use Scotty Callaghans tools, they are expensive but they get the job done.

3. Brew Ratios: It makes no difference to me what ratio you use. Just make sure that whatever it is, you can replicate it.

Should you need some guidance, this is where I start.

1/1.75 coffee to water

18g dry

31g end weight

24-28 seconds

I know it’s been said many times before: Get your coffee the way you want it to taste.  Log those parameters.  Dial it in. Repeat.  I know most cafes don’t have a volumetric machine, but you can use time as your handle.  Time every shot. It’s so much better than not using anything.

If you apply these 3 things, your espresso will be consistent.  Any one  on shift will be able to walk on and pull a shot of the same quality.

Dialling in without Volumetric.

Set your dose weight with a dosing tool.  If you don’t have one, use something like a butter knife or the top of your grinder cap, etc. Just keep trying items till you get the weight you want.

Place scale on drip tray, start the shot (and timer) and stop it at desired weight.

You now know what time to stop it at.  Of course in a busy cafe, you can’t weigh every shot – but every once in awhile weigh it to see where you are at.

Over all, this will boost your confidence behind the bar, knowing that everything is controlled as much as it can be.  It will in turn let you be more confident serving a great espresso to everyone who walks in the door – without a disclaimer

Authors Note:  I do not mean to sound aggressive.  Take it with a grain of salt if you will.  We are all on the same mission of serving great coffee and espresso to every customer that walks through our doors.  Thank you for reading, I look forward to your comments.

- Chris.

I have found a simple, subtle move that results in a safer flip, and also a more consistent and full extraction for your aeropress.

This developed due to the frustration I was having when I would flip the aeropress, and while plunging down would sometimes notice that in the air pocket some of the wet grounds of the coffee had stuck to the rubber part of the plunger.  When this happened that meant the coffee was OUT of the water, and therefore no longer extracting with the rest of the coffee during the plunge down.  Sometimes there would be none, but other times it would be up to a few grams worth.  This would result in a weaker cup than you had intended as the coffee stuck to the top would only be partially extracted.

So, without further ado, here’s what you do.

After you have prepared your aeropress and gotten to the point where you have screwed the cap on, stop.  Don’t flip it just yet.  While it is still in the upright position, literally pull the top chamber of the aeropress down, as if you are going to push coffee through it upwards.  Don’t stop until there is resistance.  This will feel awkward at first (and look awkward forever) and you will probably feel like you might push too hard and have coffee come through, but you won’t.  You’d have to be pushing down extremely hard and be very absent minded for that to happen, and it will be obvious when to stop.  The goal of this move is to get rid of that half inch or so air pocket that occurs at variant levels depending on how high you connected the bottom plunger to the top chamber at the start.

Now when you do the flip it will be extremely tight and secure, and almost impossible for the plunger to fall off (goodbye burns!).  And most importantly of all, it will ensure that all the coffee is in the water (steeping) the entire time during the plunge down, and not stuck to the rubber.

One effect it will have on your brew method is it will be harder (and therefore take longer) to plunge down without any air between the plunger and the coffee, so you may have to adjust your brew times accordingly.  Or experiment with leaving the smallest gap possible while pushing down.  You’ll figure it out.

It’s a small detail but then so is everything in coffee.

This is what we’ve been up to.

Yes:
mirage triplette
3 grinders. 1 for decaf, 2 for rotating espresso menu
made to order coffee via the Kone.
various alternate brew methods
espresso to go
cream&sugar
vinyl
multi-roaster system that we curate
alley-side service
nuts and candy
baking
loose leaf tea (that we actually drink)
standing bar
Craig Stanghetta
15,000+ nails
hand signals
brothers

No:
soups or sandwiches
ceramic
pretension
Sundays
guns

Crema finally has a little brother.
We can’t wait to open.  Expect us to do so extremely soon.

325 Cambie St.
Vancouver, Canada

For updates follow @revolver_coffee or visit revolvercoffee.ca

Pronounced “foo-ku-oh-ka”, not how you said it the first time.

As I said months back, I had another post worth of photos of the other main coffee city in Japan:  Fukuoka.  It’s a much smaller city than Tokyo (still massive though, compared to Vancouver) but they completely held their own on the coffee side of things.  The two cities have latte art contests against each other online, so I gather there is some kind of friendly rivalry between them.

And without further ado, I present to you:

Honey Coffee
Honey roasted their own coffee, which they get from being part of the Maruyama coffee group.  What that translates to is a lot of access to award winning green through the cup of excellence and other sources.  They were the only place we came across to have a clover, and they were sporting a synesso for bar drinks.  A few pictures down you’ll see a map written out in only Japanese. It’s a map of other cafes to go visit in Fukuoka.  I really appreciate that sort of camaraderie.

Manu
Manu has it going on.  Brick exterior with lots of wood on the inside, perfectly small in size, licensed with Rogue Beer from Portland, OR. and open deathly late.  (3 a.m. every night, except for Friday and Saturday, when they extend to 5 a.m.)  They have 2 locations and a roastery in the works (which you’ll see further on).  One particular night John and I went in at some point past midnight to find the place full, with the Smiths playing on the stereo and everyone smoking.  Cool.

Manly
Going to Manly is a lot like drinking coffee in your friend’s kitchen.  That is if your friend has a roaster in their kitchen.  To this date it’s the only place I’ve ever seen a “donut coffee” maker in, which we had a cup made off it and bought.  We were then shown how to fold the filter proper to fit it in the donut brew method.  Despite the name, as far as I know it’s run by one person, and that person is a woman.  That makes it even more Manly though.

Manu (other location)
Manu has 2 locations, and this was the other one. Both were very similar in style and design but their soul wasn’t compromised like so many independent-gone-multiple-location cafes I’ve been too.  The main different was just that this spot had a slightly earlier closing time than it’s sister (midnight everyday except Sunday).  Oh and also they would like you to know that they do take out coffee.

Manu Roastery
Manu was in the process of beginning to roast their own coffee while we were in town, and the owner invited us over to show me and John their roastery.  It was conveniently located just a few blocks away from the first Manu, so we walked.  The space had a Seattle-Grunge feel to it, and I mean that in a good way.

Adachi Coffee
From what I can remember this was Adachi’s second location, and it just so happened to be located 20 minutes from a very remote country side area we were staying at for a few days.  The interior was largely centered around cement, large windows, and wooden beams.  They roast as far as I know, and it was rather roomy compared to most of the other cafes we visited around Japan.  The staff were pretty excited when we came in and wanted us to make a few drinks for them, which we of course obliged.

A little film about Drew Johnson of Origins Coffee’s approach to his work. Created by April Kum, Yi Luo, and I for our New Media Images class. For best results, watch on Vimeo in HD.

Irashaymasayyyyyyy!

Way back at the end of July John and I took off to Japan for just over 3 weeks and while John already had a more than adequate level of Japanese under his cap I was busy getting my black belt in the phrase “shaseen totte mo-ii desu ka?” (May I take pictures).  The majority of our time was equally split between Tokyo and Fukuoka, but below are just cafes from Tokyo.  There will of course be a continuation of this post to Fukuoka cafes but with the amount of pictures there are having them together would have been a major bandwidth hog and could potentially crash the entire internet.

Potluck

Potluck is on the basement floor of a 6 (or was it 7?) floor Men’s and Woman’s clothing store from the U.S.A. called “Opening Ceremony”.  It was also the home of Japanese celebrity barista Masahiro.  They serve blue bottle from San Francisco.

Streamer

Better known as “streamah” on the streets, this is the cafe of Milrock Champion Hiroshi Sawada and places a heavy emphasis on latte art.

Cafe Elliot Avenue

Cafe Elliot is in Yokohoma and is more or less an homage to Seattle, from the postcards and Ichiro bobble heads straight through to their Vivace coffee.

Bear Pond NO.8

This was the second “Bear Pond” location and had just opened up a few weeks prior to our visit.  If you were blindfolded for 24 hours, spun around for disorientation purposes, put on a plane, and then placed inside the cafe and told to guess where you were, New York would be a very acceptable (albeit wrong) answer.  White on white on gym floor.  No straight shots.

55

5 and 5 stands 3 stories high and doubles as a Manga art cafe.  It’s run by a mother and son duo, both of whom were exceptionally welcoming, and from what I understand they regularly showcase different Manga artists.  It’s also the only cafe we went to that had traditional Japanese seating as well as the standard chair and table combo, and was littered with interesting finds throughout.

Fresco

Fresco seems like one of those in-the-know-joints that you only know about because your friend who is cooler than you brought you there.  Thankfully, we had some Japanese barista friends whom were of that variety.  You can see in the picture directly below the side street that Caffe Fresco is situated in. (It’s that wooden board there on the right)

JRBCs

The Japanese Regional Barista Championships happened to take place while we were in town so we went over to watch a bit and cheer on the aforementioned Masahiro who was competing as well.  It was a relatively small room but was jam packed with just as many people who watch the Western Regionals in Vancouver.  I couldn’t understand any of the Emcee or the narration of course but everything seemed to be really efficient and organized (not that I’d expect anything otherwise).  The last 5 pictures in this set were a competitor’s place mats (if anyone reading this knows his name, please let me know so I can give him credit) and it was by far the coolest set I’ve ever seen.  From lego to seed to cup.

Paul Basset

Paul Basset is the name of the 2003 World Barista Champion from Australia and this is obviously his cafe.  He wasn’t working but I hear he stops by from time to time.
They roast inside and have a really nice selection of desserts, and Yuki works here.

Nozy

Nozy had just opened the day we went, or the day before, but either way it was totehmoh/very “atarashi”/new and it was really an interesting lay out in that the bar was downstairs, but when you walk in from street level you are upstairs.  They roast on site and do all their non-espresso drinks in individual multi-coloured french presses.

Hapineko!!!11!1! (Happy Cat)

Hapineko is a nekocafe, or “cat cafe” in english.  There are over a dozen of them in Japan, and each of them have their own set of rules and styles, but the one we went to had about 10 free roaming cats, all named.  We paid 10 Yen for a half an hour free-for-all, where we were allowed to pick up the cats, but only with 2 hands, and not from high places.  The coffee was complimentary.  At the end you get a postcard of one of the cats.  To answer the questions I know you have:  Yes, it is real, and yes, you should go, and yes these should exist in North America, and no, just because you have 15 cats at your house and make a bodum in the morning that does not mean you have experienced this.

We enjoyed such great coffee and hospitality last week while visiting.
If you’re going to Portland, you absolutely have to come here.  If you live in Portland already, then you’re a lucky duck.

1300 SE Grand Ave. Portland, Oregon

This is cool x 10.

http://ethicalbean.com/iphone/

Regardless of whether you buy ethical bean coffee or not, the idea behind this app alone justifies the download.

Just search “ethical bean” in the app store on your phone. It’s free.

It would be amazing if more roasters follow suit, the potential is gigantic.

Just got back from Seattle.

It’s awesome here, full stop. The city is crawling with purists and people who truly love what they do.  As usual we started with Vivace, “Alley 24.” An alright ’spro, better Macchiato, and my favourite sparkling water in all of the nation. Vivace is a great work environment, it has outlets everywhere (without being obnoxious), lots of seating, free wifi, and the hospitality in general is usually great.

All hands on deck

Patiently waiting

Overflowing with love

Stumptown

Stump

Stumptown has really won me over in the last few trips down.  Their whole bean coffee selection was quite impressive – I wanted all of it. We didn’t stay for long, but we did pick up – with the help of one of the front men, Zackery – 4 coffees: Kenya Kagumoini, Ethiopia Wondo, Gautemala Finca El Injerto (2008 cup of excellence winner), and Panama Carmen Estate.

Victrola

Macchiato

My favorite cafe in Seattle; Victrola. I love everything about this cafe, the staff are usually very nice/helpful and most importantly – I had one of the most memorable macchiato’s I have EVER had, the flavors were so defined and I could taste so much blueberry from the Harrar component of the espresso.

I had a pretty good espresso as well, though it didn’t compare to the mac .

We didn’t leave without bringing home a little Victrola: 1lb of streamline espresso, Columbia Huila Monserrate Excelso, and Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Beloya Selection 15 (Organic & dry process).

!!1!!!11!!1!

We like sharing.  Come by this week to crema and have some.

Stumptown:
Kenya Kagumoini
Ethiopia Wondo
Gautemala Finca El Injerto (2008 cup of excellence winner)
Panama Carmen Estate.

Victrola:
Columbia Huila Monserrate Excelso
Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Beloya Selection 15 (Organic & dry process).

Fresh off the press.

I’ve been trying to get this thing printed for over a month, and it finally got done. The image is pretty self explanatory – what it means is up to you to decide. I designed it and had it printed at a t-shirt store (the dog’s ear) right by crema. Printed on a 3/4 Baseball Tee, American Apparel of course.

I wore it during work on Monday and lots of customers commented on it, (more than I thought would have) which was cool – not only because they liked it but also because it doubles as conversation about french press, which is always a good thing.

More designs on the way – and more posts. (I slacked in December, I apologize.)