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.)

The Nationals are supposed to be viewable on a live feed tomorrow.  I am scheduled to compete at 8:15am Vancouver time (11:15 Montreal time).  The actual contest starts at 7:30am (10:30 Montreal time), and should go on for about 5 or 6 hours.

You can watch in live by clicking here.

Update: No need to leave, we’ll be streaming it live right here thanks to Ustream.

2nd Update: the feed is broken and I dont know how to fix it… watch it here http://www.ustream.tv/channel/2008-canadian-barista-championship

-Chris

3rd Update I’ve embedded George’s peice of the presentation, finals are tomorrow, it’s going to be very interesting.

Where all heroes go, and espresso shall flow.

this is a clue.  

I moved to Vancouver two years ago, viewing it as a coffee mecca and the “place to be” for any aspiring barista. I still hold that view, and am so proud to live in, work in, and experience this city every day. But if there is another notch that every Vancouver barista yearns to etch in his/her portafilter, it is the one that represents the ever famed “seattle cafe crawl”.

I had the privilege of experiencing this my first summer here, and drove over in a two car posse that included the Inkster brothers, Andrew Friesen (formerly of JJ Bean and later Elysian) and Stephen Morrisey (current WBC champion). Needless to say, I was in the presence of greatness. Doors were shattered, my eyes were opened, and it felt as though my coffee world had been expanded into an entirely new and ethereal realm. We hit all the big players at the time; David Schomer’s Vivace, the source and literal embodiment of the massive coffee theories that fed my coffee passion (via articles on internet) while I was still living in Calgary, Vita, and Victrola. We flew back to Vancouver on a cloud marked # nine; I’ve been waiting to go back ever since.

My wait was very much satisfied over the past two weekends. I went to Seattle two weeks ago as part of my wife Annie’s birthday present to me; and last week was Coffee Fest. I have been spoiled.

Though the plan was to “take it easy on the coffee” during my wife’s and my trip, being that I would be on a specific coffee trip the following weekend, we still managed to hit 10 cafes. Both Stumptowns, two Victrolas, Vivace, Vita, Tougo, Herkimer (though it was closed when we went) and another obscure cafe on our way out. Between that trip and the latter one, I saw a lot of the Seattle scene.

This is the last cafe that my wife and I went to. It brought us back to reality I guess, after being at so many third wave shops. The espresso was about 5 ounces.

This is my confused state of existence after drinking, yes, that\'s an espresso in my hand.

I don’t want this entry to be a cafe review. Let it simply suffice as a thumbs up. Two thumbs up. Way up. I am so refreshed by experiencing other peoples’ passion for the same drink that is the object of my affection. It’s so great to see other people advocating coffee as a precious drink, worthy of appreciation, attention, and (sometimes) a lot of money (like the 45$ half pound of Stumptown’s Geisha…which was delicious). I love seeing daily cuppings. What a wonderful springboard for conversations in coffee. I love that all these guys roast their own coffee. I love that you can order a Belgian beer at the same place you have your morning cappuccino. I love the low-profile, minimalist bar set-ups. I can’t even utter enough praise for the fact that these shops are pressing all of their steeped coffee! No drip brewers. I had to kick myself in shin to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming when I saw this. I also noticed that the Anfim trend has not caught on in Seattle, (or, judging from others’ pictures of Oregon, San francisco, and LA, in the southern west coast either). I must admit that it’s somewhat refreshing. I love that this new “clean dose” trend has resulted in cleaner bars and, more importantly, less hard work (and wonderful coffee) in the garbage. But there will always be something to that inescapably unique signature of the barista dosing by hand. A truly beautiful thing to watch.

My experience of the daily Stumptown cupping.

Though there were thousands of coffees and shots that I’ve experienced between my first trip and these later two, I still love Seattle and all of it’s uber-ristretto glory. I can’t wait till next year.

Blenz is hosting a latte art competition Saturday, September the 6th.  That will probably mean today for most people reading this.  For some, it might have meant yesterday.

Sorry for the late notice, but I just signed up.  2 other crema staff will be competing as well, and they also happen to be my brothers, John and Chris.

There should be a healthy amount of baristas competing because the top 8 from this advance to a tournament at the end of the month where the grand prize is a trip to Tokyo.  Heck yes it is.

Come down and watch what I consider to be the slam dunk contest of coffee.  I believe it starts at 12pm.  

Here is the address I have been given:

1494 old bridge road, on Granville Island.  Close to the public market and railspur alley.

A week after the first round, the second commenced and it became obvious right away that all the performers had taken the week to up the ante. Performances seemed more polished, and everyone (including myself) knew exactly what to look for and do this time. The contenders all seemed a bit more nervous this time round, you could just feel the tension floating aimlessly though the air.

I’m not going to bother going into what happened step by step, Robert Csar already wrote a perfectly good recap on his blog.

The barista who really stood out to me was Mike LaRoy, who was so relaxed during the pre competition – as well as in his routine – that you had to wonder if he was on some kind of tranquilizer. I even took this picture of him just minutes before the competition started.

calm before the storm.

He had a line during his performance that got the whole room laughing: [sic] “When asked the age-old question ‘How do you like your coffee?’, the decades-old answer was ‘I like my coffee crisp.’ He finished in lightning speed (13 minutes) and even re-pulled 2 shots. I guess that’s what working on Main Street does to you.

At the end of the night, however, it was Spencer who would go on to steal the show. He not only dressed the part, but also delivered sans re-shots or going over time, all while keeping the bar in such a way that would make Mr. Clean proud.

With Spencer taking 1st, that left 2 more slots open. Robert was number 2, with Grady coming in 3rd place. Now the 3 will train for the next 2 months together, and one of them will be chosen to represent JJ in the Western Regionals.

The famed Reg Barber was also in house for this one, and as a gift to all the judges and the top 3 baristars, we all got custom tampers. You can see the one I got in the title picture – super pink, super heavy, and a C-Flat curve. I’ve been using it since Tuesday and really like it. It’s gotten plenty of attention from fellow staff and customers alike, naturally.

Congrats guys – much luck to the one who moves on.

Post Edit:  Turns out that Grady has since taken himself out of the post competition training and given his spot to Mike LaRoy.  I guess I wasn’t the only one who saw something special in his coolness that night.