Coffee Processing: Drying & Dry-milling coffee

Great informative video: Good info, nice filming and good music. Thanks Russ

Roast ED (Dutch)

ROAST ED :

Waarom het simpel maken als het ook moeilijk kan? :-)

Anderhalf jaar geleden vonden wij de naam House Blend saai worden en Red Roast een meer geschikte naam voor onze meest krachtige en neutrale Espresso Blend.

Nu we een half jaar geleden al onze koffie(lijnen) nog eens onder de loupe namen en we besloten al onze koffiezakjes te gaan hertekenen - voor een leukere look, meer duidelijkheid naar inhoud en internationaler gebruik - kwamen we er echter achter dat de naam toch niet zo gelukkig gekozen was. 

Onze filterkoffie's worden altijd in rode zakjes verpakt en gezien deze espresso koffie ons minder geschikt lijkt voor filterbereidingen werd het wat verwarrend.

Verder is het zo dat we met een concept wilden komen waarin alle koffie's in een soort van persoonlijkheden zouden verpakt worden en zo komen we tot de voorlopige slotsom :

SPRO JOE : Espresso for Tough Connoisseurs (nu Espresso/SOE vd week)

MISTER LGB : Seasonal Espresso Exceptionally Blended (nu Little Green Bag)

FILTER FIL : Filter Coffee for the Delicate and Refined (Filter vd week)

KENYA KEN : Filter Coffee from Sweet and Fruity Kenya (Kenya vh seizoen)

DECAF .... (moet nog gefinaliseerd worden)

en tenslotte :

ROAST ED : Espresso Blend with a Lot of Character (nu Roast Red)

Eigenlijk hebben we de woorden achterstevoren gezet en een 'R' weg gelaten. De inhoud blijft min of meer hetzelfde. 

Momenteel : 

40% Burundi Kigobe Canika Hill (zeer gebalanceerde en zachte koffie, aankoopprijs ong. €4/kg)

40% Colombia Huila (een kraakverse fruitige koffie met body, aankoopprijs ong. €3,2/kg)

10% Indonesia Lington (heel krachtig en veel body, met earthy toets, aankoopprijs €4,5/kg)

10% Uitlopers van de Spro Joe (cleane specialty coffee, aankoopprijs €5à8/kg)

En een net iets donkerdere branding (City + Roast) dan in 2013.

De reden dat we nog niet de gehele nieuwe verpakking kunnen leveren heeft te maken met een dispuut dat er momenteel loopt tussen de Engelse Whitbread group en ons, over de Europese registratie van de naam Caffenation. Hopelijk komen we binnenkort tot gelijk gestemde violen en komen de Geel-Zwarte zakken snel jullie richting uit. 

Veel plezier alvast met de ROAST ED; benieuwd naar jullie reacties.

Rob en het hele Caffenation Specialty Coffee Roasters Team. 

Mister LGB 1.1.

Mister LGB 1.1

We have never been more proud introducing a new LGB blend.
The main reason is this 6-letter word : GEISHA.

Typica and Bourbon are two coffee varieties widely known. Most other varieties are dwarfs from these two, but not so is the Geisha.
It is known since very long, but only really appreciated since a couple years ago when the Peterson family at the Hacienda La Esmeralda did some very successful experimenting with this very resisting, but low yield variety.
Main change they made was height; grown and processed high in the Panama Bouquete mountains the Geisha left every cupper stunned with fantastic mouthfeel and fruitiness. The coffee became quickly known all over the world and is these days known as the best coffee in the world.
Unfortunately this raised the prices to an insane level! The cheapest Geisha from this farm is sold for plus minus €40/kg. We had a couple years ago 50 kilos in stock and people liked it a lot, but we did not want to buy it again, because it's such an (over)expensive elite product that it did not fit with the Caffenation mentality.

When we had the opportunity to buy an average priced mixed stock lot Geisha from Bouquete, we felt blessed. Of course it's not La Esmeralda level, but still you have the typical overall Geisha elements : Silky mouthfeel, full flavored, fruity and clean.

We blend in the Geisha with two other coffees.

First one is an Ethiopian. We are late in the season, but the Limu grade 2 Doyo seems to be still at its peak and offers great fruitiness and the typical mystic Ethiopian smoothness.

Last part is from the well known Las Mercedes farm in Colombia Antioquia. We start off with the La Florida and probably finish with the La Isla lot in a couple of weeks.
This component helps us a lot in our milk drinks thanks to its refreshing acidity and brightness.

Good luck with the brewing! And don't hesitate to tell us what you think about this unique Seasonal Specialty Coffee Blend.

Super Market Coffee 2014

Three years ago I posted this one already on Super Market Coffee in Belgium and Holland.

Today, after delivering some fresh goodies (Indonesian, Burundi, Colombia and Kenyan coffees) at Inspire Breda, the biggest Food Super Market in the Netherlands crossed my path. Or was it the other way around? :-)

Jumbo Food Market is huge. Never seen something like it. And really impressed by their offer of fresh, factory packed and frozen food. Their offer is endless and more specialized than any competitor in the market.

When arriving at the coffee stand I noticed a plate on which they advertise 'Fresh Coffee' (beans).

Having a closer look at the bags I was disappointed though. They had an indication about flavor profile and the type of roast. No origin reference, even not a country. Not a word about the type of bean variety.
I forgot to look if a roasted date was on it, but why not anything more spectacular than this?

Then arriving back home I found this leaflet in the post box.

Not expecting anything at all, I decided to give it a read.
A lot of talking on coffee in this brochure.
But once you have a look at the coffees you don't read anything about the country, region, estate, harvesting, processing, variety, screen size, bagging, roasting.

Image that the Jumbo and Aldi tomorrow would do the same with their wines.
Just some bottles without any of the information we want to know about when we're buying wine, but only 'White' or 'Red' or 'Strong' or 'Good with fish', and that's it.
Impossible isn't it?

Why aren't they doing it with coffee?
Too difficult? Not at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every roaster knows where the coffee comes from.
I believe there's still a very long way to go.

Jacqmotte launched some coffees a while ago with a bit more information.

This goes into the right direction.
But still not far enough.
And meanwhile they see Specialty Coffee companies and even Nespresso talking over the market by storm.

First Full Automatic Caffenation Machine

Yes, we're progressing.

Although i have mixed feelings by the fact we're asking machines to help us.

This machine should arrive one of the days at our bar, to seal all our coffee bags.

New Antwerp Barista Spotted

New Staff in Town.
No, we're not talking about this 9 year veteran and warrior of many wars on the left, but the cowboy with smart looks and ridiculous hat on the right.
His name is Matt and although he's Canadian, his Dutch is fluent and his Barista skills up to level! Welcome in our team Matt.

Drink (Espresso) Till You Drop

Every day again we're talking, talking, talking about coffee.
And we're measuring, weighting, dosing, counting coffee.

But do we know enough what we're talking about?

Say 'ESPRESSO'.

Since 100 years it's a quick drink. Let's say 2,5cl content, made with a machine that presses hot water through a cake of finely grind coffee.

It seems everybody has a different opinion about how it should taste, and this opinion is changing on and on.

In 2013 we made big progress on Espresso at Caffenation. We used 3 machines, 2 different water filter, different grinders, different cups and different portafilters.

Moving from the mighty Mistral to a Simonelli T3 and now a La Marzocco Linea PB we now have the ideal machine to pull 4cl double shots with naked portafilters.
Does the Linea PB helps? Sure. And it helps working in a consistent matter. It's easy to change the temperature, pre infusion time and resting time. It feels like there's still a lot of testing to be done, and every time we change the beans we need to look at it again. Every day as well.

The water we have now is a Brita system - on test - that neutralizes the water, like osmose, and then adds the necessary stuff to get it at championship level. We came recently down from 200 ppm to 80 ppm, but that seems to be a bit too much. Most important is to change the filters often enough. Once you go wrong there, you may damage the machine seriously.
Did it help a lot?
Yes it did. We have a higher definition. More taste, but also a more shaky coffee. Everything needs to be exact to have an improved cup.
Maybe the biggest advantage of the new filter is that we can brew hotter. For the moment 92,8 degrees in stead of 91 before. This means we get more out of the coffee.
Do we tame the acidity enough? Mostly yes. :-)
We're still in the testing fase. Maybe we need to roast a little bit higher for this technique, what would be a dangerous thing to do, cause all our clients have a different machine, water temp, and so on...

For me the big thing with espresso brewing is that we need to tame the acidity. We need some, mostly at the start, but not too much. It's like a bottle of good red wine. You don't need to taste it all the way through and after.
But once you don't have any acidity at all ; you have a boring, flat drink.

Different grinders. Next week we expect the new Simonelli grinder with heated burrs. For the moment we use a Robur and a Super Caimano. The Robur clumbs a bit more; yes it does, but both grinders are top level and produce great shots.

On cups we noticed that smaller cups with a
round bottom gives best crema and less acidity. Test it.

And naked portafilter gives way better mouth feel and creaminess. Also a darker crema. Nice.

We hope these experiments helps you to get your shots tastier and more consistent.
You're not sure? Of course you can always buy yourself a refractometer, but best is to drink more coffee. Not only from your own machine, but from anywhere. The more you drink the more you know. Certainly if you drink with other Barista's and discuss the flavors.
Good luck.