Muertos Coffee

I may have to partially drink my words. I have previously written that "coffee machines" almost invariably produce a poor cup of coffee. I will be clinging to the "almost" part of that statement to feel better about my reputation... Coffee shops, including the giant, use commercial coffee machines routinely. They produce drip coffee that can be rich, full bodied, and flavorful. The differences between a home coffee brewer (think Mr. Coffee, Cuisinart, etc.) and the commercial brewers are mainly temperature, agitation, and brew time. That means that a home coffee machine CAN produce good coffee, but has to fix those problems. In fact, there are a few that fit that bill.

"I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." I approached this test with the mind set of proving the coffee roasting world wrong. Here is my exact thought: Ethiopians have been pan roasting for 400 years, surely it can’t be that bad.” I was right, but I was mostly wrong.

Anyone who journeys towards the perfect cup of hand-crafted coffee has to find a way to bring water to the perfect temperature. Ideally, we would heat only the perfect amount of water to just below boiling, brew some amazing coffee, and be done. Ah… but life rarely allows for simplicity. The coffee gods like to toy with our technique!

I have not made it to Death Wish's shop, but I hope to one day. They seem to have a very loyal following and should be a great down-to-earth kind of shop. My partner and I were discussing caffeine in coffee and I pointed out that Death Wish claims to have an “irresponsible” amount of caffeine in their coffee. We had no idea how they could claim that so we started looking into it. There is not a lot of information on their website regarding the coffee ( http://deathwishcoffee.com ). So we emailed them.

Pour over brewing is one of the most common and simple, yet often misunderstood brewing techniques. At its essence, pour over brewing is as simple as it sounds. Hot water is poured over, then runs through, coffee grounds. And that is where the simplicity ends. Every coffee drinker has had pour over coffee. The most common form is from a home or commercial coffee machine. From your good ol’ Mr. Coffee machine to a large commercial BUNN brewer, machines typically heat water, then pour it over a basket or cone filled with ground coffee. The idea is that the machine will take all of the guesswork out of brewing, and unfortunately, it often replaces guesses with bad decisions. To explore that statement, and to understand where heavenly coffee can come from, let’s review some of the variables in pour over coffee brewing.

Giant Coffee ( http://giantcoffeeaz.com/ ) is one of the shops that pops-up at the top of my Google machine when I search for coffee shops in AZ. I was in the area this weekend and decided I would give it a whirl. My first impression of the shop is that it is both a great location and a terrible location at the same time. It is a great location because it is right across the street from the Art Museum and that just felt very right. The problem is that it is kind of hard to find. It is on a very small side street with no signage on the main road. I also think I got lucky with parking. I’m still not sure where everyone inside was parked (so it may not be as bad as I think).

The AeroPress is currently my favorite method of brewing. That does not mean that the AeroPress is without flaws, but we will go over my list of Pros and Cons later in this entry. The AeroPress is an inexpensive option for brewing coffee, costing under $30 from most sources. A quick Google search will find a unit near you, or one that can be shipped quickly. Its operation is simple, and similar in many ways to a press-pot, but crossed with a giant syringe and using a filter. There are dozens of variations and schools of thought on how to use it, but a fantastic cup can be produced using the simple inverted technique: Place the plunger in the body just a bit, add coffee in the other end, add hot water, stir, wait, add filter, and plunge. The resulting coffee can be diluted much like an Americano. On top of that simplicity, the AeroPress cleans easily. All you need to do is take the filter cap off the front, and push the coffee puck and filter into a trash can, toilet, of compost b...

We have officially started researching for our business plan and we noticed that one of the best sources of information is customer reviews. Maybe this isn’t as non-traditional as I think it is, but it seems fairly new to me. We have our concept for a coffee shop. We know what we want to create. The question is, will the customer buy it? That is always the hardest part about starting a business. Without customers paying you for what you do, you don’t have a business. So how do you get to know what customers are buying? You ask them.

A great cup of coffee takes a whole series of perfect steps. One mistake is often what separates a good cup from a premium cup. The coffee seed must be grown between the right latitude and longitude, grown at the right altitude, provided shade and fertile soil, with enough water to support growth but not so much that fungi can get a foothold. Once grown, the fruit must be picked by hand to ensure every single berry is fully ripe and without major defects. The seeds must be separated from the fruit and mucilage, then quickly dried. At this point, even a light rain shower can ruin an entire batch.

I was in San Diego for a get away from the Arizona heat and decided to visit a coffee shop. I went to my trusty Yelp app for recommendations. Downtown San Diego has a ton of restaurants that do coffee and breakfast, but not a lot of just coffee shops.   The coffee shop that I chose was called Lion Coffee ( http://www.lioncoffee.com/ ).   I looked at pics on Yelp and loved their phrase, “Lion coffee is king of coffees.” We walked to the store and there were more pictures on the windows that looked like adds from early 1900’s. When I got to the front door I was suddenly confused. It was a Hawaiian theme. I have no idea what lions have to do with Hawaii. From what I can gather from the website, the company moved to Hawaii and they began focusing on Hawaiian coffees at that time.

I have expressed before that I am a value based individual. This is often times assessed as cheap. At times there really isn’t much of a difference. Sometimes it helps me keep from doing silly things and sometimes it hinders my enjoyment of good things. Now that I am moving into the specialty coffee world, I find that it is hard to be cheap because everything is so freak’n expensive.

I recently met with the roaster from Pearl Coffee. She is starting her coffee business as a home roaster and looking to expand. I was excited to meet with someone else in a similar stage of business development. She had some very good points regarding her coffee, many of which I agreed with and some I did not. One of the topics was how dark to roast. The coffee shop where we met had roasted their coffee to the dark side of medium. It was a blend though, so that made sense to me (roast helps consistency in the cup). She thought it was roasted slightly too dark, making it bitter. This made me think about the different roasts out there. Starbucks vs. specialty light roasts and all the spectrums in between.

I had scheduled a meeting with a local roaster because I wanted to tour her roasting facility for my blog. Her facility was her home, and since we were strangers we decided to meet at a coffee shop. Sweet! 2 birds, 1 stone (no actual birds were injured in the writing of this blog). I would get info for 2 blogs: one for the coffee shop and one for the conversation with the roaster. We decided to meet at Lola Coffee ( www. lolacoffee bar.com ). It is on our Roosevelt row. Roosevelt is a street just north of our down town area here in Phoenix. It is basically the artsy/hipster part of town. I love the area. It is a mixture of re-purposed homes and new buildings. The down side to anything in this area is parking. There is some free parking, but it is limited. I was lucky and found a spot not too far down the street.

I have decided to actually invest in my coffee knowledge. It seems to help solidify something within me. It is strange how paying money helps make things real. I have decided to participate in “A Closer Look Into Coffee” presented by Press Coffee ( http://www.presscoffeeaz.com/press/blog.php ). I looked over the schedule and it is pretty well rounded. I also have the ability to get Barista Guild Level 1 Certified at the end. I’m not sure I want to invest into the BGA yet. I don’t see the value at this stage.

This is something that I have been dealing with for a while. I thought I would lay out my thoughts on business partners and see if it helps me figure anything out. I hope some comments will help too. I would like to go into business with partners. I believe there is strength in numbers. My experience has shown me that you have to gather a lot of talent around you to succeed. If you try to do anything on your own, you will fail. I have to depend on others for ideas and inspiration as well as accountability. I also need others to fill gaps in my knowledge base. I’m an operations person, so I don’t understand marketing and sales and taxes and such.

I am developing my concept, my vision. I have written a short story of what I want the customer experience to be like. Here is a small excerpt. "I got up to the kiosk and it was pretty self-explanatory . It didn’t take me long at all to get my coffee ordered. I moved into the line that reminded me of a Disney queue line. I had to wait there for my coffee, but at least it was interesting. On my right I could see the barista’s making coffee through a small glass wall that went from the table top to about 7ft high. Their operation was a well-oiled machine. I could hear them talking on the other side of the wall and there was no doubt that these people knew how to make good coffee. The bar looked extremely clean and organized, which always makes me feel better about a place. On the other side of the line I could see through a window where they were roasting the coffee. The lady making coffee wore a bright red bandanna around her head to match that matched her poke-a-dot dress. Sh...

Mythos has nearly, if not completely, died out of coffee houses. My good friend Google defines mythos as a myth or mythology (reoccurring themes); a set of beliefs or assumptions about something. It is my position that people want, maybe even need, mythos to bring value into their lives. For example: religion, political parties, and fraternities/sororities. These groups all have a reoccurring theme or established assumptions. What is the first step? The name. Christian, Muslim, Republican, Democrat, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. When we read those names, we all pull certain assumptions and beliefs about those groups.

 I have been looking for a great coffee shop in the Phoenix, Az area for quite a while. I have been given some recommendations and they haven't quite panned out. Maybe my expectations are too high... No, I don' think that's it. All I want is a good barista and a good cup of coffee. I don't think that's too much to ask for, do you? My wife and I had tickets for a show downtown Saturday night . I knew there were quite a few shops in the downtown area because I asked the city about tax breaks. He said they already had enough coffee shops, so they weren't helping start anymore. (Can you really have enough though?) I Googled coffee shops and there were a few that I put on my list to try. Songbird was one of them ( http://www.songbirdcoffeehouse.com/ ). I had high expectations based on the location. It's in an artsy area where they have converted some historical houses into wine bars and such. This shop was across the street. I loved the outside. It stuck ou...

I posted on Twitter that I was going to try my hand at roasting again over the long weekend but focused on building my pour over station instead. It wasn't hard, but did end up costing me a little more than anticipated. Here is what it took to make it:

I have been reading the book Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast. This book is packed full of information as it follows coffee through the ages. I am currently reading about coffee in the era after WWII. There is a theme that seems to run through a lot of these pages and it is that coffee has played a major role in all the American wars. So, as it is Memorial Day here in the US, I thought I would share some of that info and ponder to consequences of coffee for our troops. So first, let me redefine "major role." Coffee did not ever win a battle. No coffee bean jumped up and resolved the civil war. The role that it played was on the human level, with the individual. Revolutionary and Civil war soldiers would save their fire starting materials for coffee. It was their one refuge. Marching long days through freezing conditions, the only thing they had to look forward to was coffee. In the more modern wars, coffee remained the drink that helped get troops through their time. Th...