Hi Friends,
OK, I am back in town again, and happy to serve your coffee needs this weekend. I’ll be roasting on Sunday the 21st, then shipping and delivering on Monday.
Royal Bean Anniversary Celebration this Saturday
This Saturday, The Royal Bean celebrates a year of bringing great coffee and a great café experience to Yarmouth. Its been fun watching them grow, and we congratulate Jim and his great team of crack baristas on their success.
You are all cordially invited to join the anniversary party this Saturday (June 20) at the café. The festivities kick off at 10:00 with a kid’s art program (crafts and face painting), a customer appreciation cookout at 11:00 and music by Strause and Co. at 1:00. There will be raffles and giveaways all day.
And, Tanji and I will be doing a show and tell featuring our strange collection of brewing devices, a roasting demonstration, a tasting of some really nasty robusta (every coffee drinking has to try this just once) and answers to any and all questions you’d like to throw our way. We’ll be there all morning starting at 9:00.
A Coffee Geek on the Streets of San Francisco
En route to the airport the other day, I decided to check out the explosive San Francisco coffee scene. Some great new cafes had sprung up since I moved from there 12 years ago, and I wanted to experience three of these that are getting a lot of attention for their devotion to quality coffee:
Four Barrel Coffee
Four Barrel, located at one end of Valencia Street in the trying so hard not to be trendy Mission District, exudes warm elegance and a dedication to great coffee and little else. It is nearly a precondition that cool restaurant spaces in San Francisco be old warehouse space, and this is no exception. This deep, wide room, with high ceilings and floor to ceiling windows at the front and back, showcases a roasting operation in the back (a funky old Probat with an afterburner) and the front seating area is comfortable and airy. Over an original shiny concrete floor with worn shades of red paint from the previous tenant, chairs seeming from a Gulag era Soviet gradeschool sit against angular tables of old wood. A low wraparound counter of wide planks houses their two three-group La Marzocco Mistral espresso machines, a cash register and a small pastry counter that offers a choice of two different croissants.
That’s it. No mints. No cookies or preprepared salads. Certainly no blender. I didn’t see decaf. No smoothies, bottled beverages, t-shirts, travel mugs, brewing equipment or cookies. Shelves on a wall offer eight very high-end coffees for sale in austere paper bags, and there is the impression that when those are sold that will be it for the day. Like a bakery in a way.
I said I was from Maine and leaving today so unfortunately I couldn’t come to the cupping event they hold each Wednesday. The awesome counter guy said he used to live in Portland and work for Coffee by Design. I told him I was a roaster and he gave me a shot of espresso gratis. The espresso was very nice. I had some of their Costa Rica, which I felt was a bit on the bright side, but then that’s how Costas are.
Ritual Roasters
I started smiling the moment I entered Ritual. Their shop is deeper still into the Mission, down where the character of the neighborhood is still preserved. Many people on the street speak Spanish, the block is shared with an Indian restaurant, an auto repair place, some mystery storefronts and a used bookstore or two.
Just inside the front door is a long, Last Supper style communal table, some seen better days palm trees and some comfy couches. Suspended from the high painted ceiling are some old fans, diner type lighting fixtures and some cool bare lightbulbs at the end of long black tentacles. Jimi playing Voodoo Chile.
Three espressos are available from the four group Syneso. They have a Clover, the exciting $10K single cup brewing technology whose lifebreath was severed when Starbucks bought it. The Clover just brewed my now cooling cup of Sumatra Sidikalang (Jim, this one is for you).
I am not overwhelmed by this coffee, but it is a nice cup and unique for a Sumatra.
I am enjoying a nice gingerbread from the generous pastry case (note to Four Barrel – man doth not live on coffee alone).
A dog barks outside, wanting its master to stop drinking coffee and come play. Laptops adorn tables. Yet another old Probat lives in the back, ministered to by a tattooed roaster. Hey Joe comes on. Shops like this are so tied to their neighborhoods, they could be set up in the middle of the street and no one would notice.
It makes me happy every time I come back here that it is still possible to find experiences that feel like San Francisco.
Before leaving, I ordered a shot of their Hopscotch espresso. Much more interesting than the Four Barrel shot – better as a single shot and very unique. Long line at the counter now as the city wakes up.
Now heading back to Blue Barrel. I went there earlier, but the person who knows how to run the $20K Japanese four-station siphon brewer wasn’t in yet.
Blue Bottle
I had some trouble finding Blue Bottle the first time through. Its tucked into a short alley behind the old SF mint building on the fringe the South of Market district, and the only marker for the business was an iconic blue bottle on the corner of the building.
The interior is austere – all gray and fifties hospital green and old government building white. And they too are mostly about the coffee. They offer espresso two ways, their house blend in shots and milk drinks via a three group La Marzocco machine, and a single origin espresso of the day pulled on an old Bosco lever machine.
The centerpiece of the operation is a long counter anchored at one end by a tall “Kyoto Style” cold coffee drip brewer, a nearly four foot tall array of beakers that would seem at home in a college chem. lab, and at the other, a five station halogen siphon station.
For food, they offer just a few brioche, and other drinks include some teas, a gourmet hot chocolate, somebody’s signature apple juice and a variety of other coffee preparations. A coffee of the day (in this case a Mesa de los Santos Colombia) is made at a pourover station.
I ordered a small wet process Ethiopia Koratie ($6) from the siphon, and sat sushi bar style on the other side of the glass as the barista prepared my pot. Preheated water is added to a perfectly round flask sitting on a stand above a halogen heating element. The coffee (35g for about ten ounces of coffee) is ground to order, then added to another flask placed above the first, this one with a rubber sealing gasket. As the water boiled, the top flask is snugged onto the lower to seal the connection, then the steam pressure pushes the water up a spout into the top chamber, where it is stirred and left to steep for 30 seconds. The heating element is then turned off and a siphon action pulls the brewed coffee back into the lower chamber. Coffee Theatre at its finest.
The cup was good, but I was paying more for the experience than the coffee. I thought they had used a bit more coffee than necessary and the strength overwhelmed the sweetness of the Ethiopia.
Then to complete my round of intense caffeination, a shot of their espresso. I didn’t care for this one, as the flavor was too far away from what I expect in espresso and there was an almost soapy character at play.
In conclusion, after visiting all these hallowed reputations, the best cup I had was the Sumatra at Ritual, and I liked their espresso best of the bunch too. And really, I like our coffee, and I like the way the prepare coffee at The Royal Bean. This comparison makes me feel like we are doing many things right.
Coffee Cinema
If you have been wondering which is better coffee among Greek, Israeli (with cucumbers!) or made on a cheap plastic espresso machine, you won’t want to miss this short:
http://www.howcast.com/videos/81494-How-To-Brew-the-Best-Coffee
Or not.
See you soon – enjoy your weekend!
Kent
