Here's Kevin, rocking a hat while hard at work.
Kevin Carillo of Think Broadway fame was voted Employee of the Month for April 2012. Here’s a word from Kevin:
“It goes to show that hard work pays off. It’s awesome to finally work at a place where the employees’ hard work is noted. Even more so when it’s acknowledged by your peers. I’m shooting for two months in a row, this time without the death threats.”
*Photo taken by Valerie Seckler, posted via FourSquare.
Some tasting-goers check out coffee beans
Here's how our tasting on Friday the 13th went:
We started with Think's house blend and then tried five coffees blindly:
Marking our maps to guess where each coffee is from!
Happy tasters!
Think Coffee at the NYU Bookstore (730 Broadway) was “liked” enough on Facebook to be given the prestigious title of Top Campus Cash Merchant!
A big thanks to all friends and coffee-lovers who “liked” us– we like you, too! Be sure to stop by an high-five the bookstore staff on their victory, and keep “liking” us on Facebook!
Sophie pulls an early morning shot before the masses arrive at Think Coffee Mercer
I work as a Barista and Store Manager at our Mercer Street location, and my alarm goes off at 4 am every morning. Prior to the mug of Think Coffee house blend I like to start each shift with, my daily flow of calm arises from a 60 minute run through the barely lit and barely awake, Park Slope.The calm before the storm? Taking in 60 minutes of inhaling and exhaling, bird chirps, and the rising sky-line, is this one barista’s chosen response to the colossal rowdiness that escalates over the course of each day at Think Mercer. To share a secret with you– one that I am timidly cautious in sharing, as I find it to be a hidden jewel– of Think Mercer, those hours before our first rush around 9:15 AM, are really, very enjoyable. They’re quiet. Serene. Even studious. They’re by far my favorite; prior to the NYU student and staff take-overs at Think Mercer, this is the time of day when our baristas have opportunity to extend Think Coffee to its regulars by giving insight as to what they’re drinking, and by attaining feedback as to what we’re serving.
Here Sophie pours some freshly steamed milk into her shot, making a latte for a very lucky customer
And for all of those who don’t truly believe we actually ever sell bagels, you’ll find that not only do we sell bagels, but we sell 6 different kinds, with lox, too, if you’d like it. These are the hours in which Think Mercer is rife with bagels, before that rush consumes our stock for the day. Think Coffee isn’t just a coffee bar, per se; we make sandwiches and salads fresh daily, which we care enough about to keep interesting, healthy, and comprised increasingly with local ingredients. I don’t care to elaborate on the food any more than that though; the food is hardly what we’re about. We as a café are just as much about the bean and its transformation into various forms of drinkable caffeine as any coffee bar you’ll find. So take your pick: espresso, macchiato, latte, cappuccino, a Specialty from the La Marzocco and the day’s barista, a Single-Origin brewed single-cup through a clever coffee dripper, or our Blend brewed by the Fetco and calibrated to extract the perfect cup of morning, afternoon, and evening joe.
Here’s a little glimpse into the espresso-tinted world of Erik, a barista at Think Coffee Bleecker:
Here's Erik, at home behind the espresso machine
I cannot open up a fresh 5 lb bag of espresso without taking a good sniff. The aroma of that much sealed up coffee escaping into the atmosphere is one of the best parts of being a barista. After said sniff, I fill up the hopper and watch the beans avalanche out of the bag. If this is the very beginning of the day, that means it’s time to “dial-in.” The grind must be set to the proper fineness for my personal tamping pressure, the sharpness of the grinder burrs, the temperature of the machine’s boilers, and various other day-to-day variables. I pull a few test shots, until they start looking good to me: creamy orange-brown, with shades of darker brown swirled in. If it’s too blonde, I make the grind a bit finer and try again. Eventually, I decide to try a shot myself. I pick out my ceramic for the day, and pull a double into it. Immediately after pulling, I sip at the espresso, once, twice, and then it’s gone. I put a little tally-mark on my shift-checklist to keep track of the number of shots I consume everyday. Then I take three gulps of cold water, and walk over to the front door to open the gate for our first customer.
Looking Good
I work at Think Coffee, at the Bleecker Street location and sometimes while behind the espresso machine, as the drinks pile up and the morning rush enters full swing, I turn to whichever co-worker is closest and say, “you know, I really like being a barista,” and they smile and I continue on coffee slinging. It’s true. I do really like being a barista. I like the physical motions my body has to make. I like the way it makes my shoulders sore. I feel like a well-oiled machine every time I pour rosetta after rosetta after rosetta into espresso shots without making any mistakes. I calculate my speed, I ease into a routine, my muscle memory takes over.
Several months ago, over the summer, I decided that I wanted to compete in the 2012 Northeast Regional Barista Competition, and two weeks ago I did just that. Let me take a minute to explain what the Northeast Regional Barista Competition (hereafter NERBC) entails: twenty-eight baristas from all over the North East prepare a fifteen minute presentation in which they must pull four single shots of espresso, four single shot cappuccinos, and 4 of a signature beverage of their own creation in front of four judges. The competitors must talk at length about their espresso, its flavors and its synergy with milk and the specialty drink. There are two score sheets, a technical and a sensory. The Sensory judges taste the drinks and give scores based on flavor. The technical judges observe every move the barista makes and gives scores based on how well a competitor works in their area, taking into consideration cleanliness, pacing and ability to repeat motions.
This description doesn’t even do justice as to how scary and stressful preparing for the competition actually was, but hold on: I’m getting there.
I decided to compete because I drank an horchata for the first time at a Salvadoran restaurant in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was different than any flavor I had ever tasted, full of earthy, rich, nutty sweetness. I knew it would go really well with espresso and I immediately became determined to compete in the barista competition, this thing that I knew very little about, just so that I could create espresso horchata and share it with someone, anyone, for the love of God, I NEEDED TO TRY THIS.It would be another few months—not until the middle of November—before I made the first trek out to Dallis Brother’s Coffee Roasters in Ozone Park, Queens for competition training. Myself and three other talented baristas trained for several hours a week at Dallis with seasoned competition professionals who showed us the ins, the outs, the do’s and the don’ts of competing. We made ourselves sick and delirious tasting espresso shots for hours. We did countless fifteen minute run-throughs of our presentations. We learned how to say the names of the farms our coffees came from. It was stressful, and frustrating and fun. Everyone had at least one emotional melt down. This was so amazing, and from November until February 25th—competition day—Dallis Brothers was our guiding light, our support and did everything in their power to prepare us for the big day. And then ready or not, the big day came.
The funniest part about the Northeast Regional Barista Competition (after my turn was over, of course, and I stood watching my fellow competitors) was the audience. This year’s NERBC was held in conjunction with the Coffee and Tea Festival, which attracts people who know little-to-nothing about specialty coffee and, it seemed, came only to wait in long lines for free samples from various vendors. But they were entertained, and simultaneously befuddled by the NERBC, which took place amidst all the free-sample glory. One woman asked her friend, “What do baristas do?” and received a shrug as an answer. Another woman attempted to sit at the judges’ table while a competitor was setting up, hoping—I can only assume—to score more free samples.
Even in the days before and after the competition when I would mention the NERBC to PEOPLE IN THE COFFEE INDUSTRY, most of the responses were “oh so what kind of latte art will you do?” and trying to explain that this competition was something much bigger, and way more complicated than “latte art” suddenly seemed hardly worth the effort.
This was funny. It was so funny because those of us who were competing, or who were in the audience and DID know what was going on, took the NERBC so seriously. Some of us had trained for months; most of us didn’t sleep the night before from nerves. Nothing else mattered to us on that day except our grinders, and espresso flavor profiles, technical score sheets and whether or not I will be able to say Apaneca Llamatapec in front of everyone.
So the fact that more than half the people watching didn’t understand a majority of the words or phrases that came out of our mouths was comical and alarming at the same time. It added a new perspective: what was I doing there in the first place? Why is this so important? Who cares?
I think I have already answered these: I was there in the first place because I love being a barista and I wanted to become a better machine. I was there because I felt I had something unique to offer, and it was important because if I became a better machine then I could teach the people I work with to become better machines, too. I find myself on a quest now, a quest to become the best possible barista machine my hardware will permit, and to share my skills and my passion for coffee with anyone in earshot. And of course, I will continue to compete. I am in it for the long haul.
Our barista supervisor “Pipes” Piper went to Peru to make sure we were happy selling the decaf we sell. It’s delicious, but it also has to be traceable, sustainable, and fair. This is her report to you:
What do we look for from our direct trade or “relationship coffee?” What does it give us, as consumers? What do we hope this kind of relationship provides for its producers, distant from New York City in miles and in lifestyle?
I traveled to Peru to meet with CENFROCAFE, the cooperative from which Think Coffee purchases its Single Source decaf coffee. Samuel and Lenin from CENFROCAFE accompanied me on visits to two producing communities near the city of Jaén—Corazón of Chirinos and Brillante Perla Andina of Huabal. Producers from these communities generously led me around their parceles, patchwork swaths of green land covering impossibly steep mountain faces where coffee plants and other trees grew. Think plantains, passion fruit, cocoa.
We tried to learn a bit about each other. They asked me how big my coffee shop was, I asked them how long they had been growing coffee. They told me about cutting back branches every few years to improve productivity and about building special barriers to protect soil from the huaycos, or avalanches, common in the sierras of the Andes. I played games with their children and they fed me fried guinea pig and lentils.
Here's Pipes cupping coffee!
Wilson of Brillante Perla Andina assured me repeatedly that Huabal’s rainy, foggy February was the perfect climate for growing coffee, and that the washed-out road we traveled in a rattly Toyota dried up and was more easily traversable in the warm, dry summer months of May through June, when red coffee cherries were harvested and transported on trucks or burros back down to CENFROCAFE’s warehouse in Jaén. Huabal is prime real estate, and Wilson and his compañeros feel privileged to grow here. Wasn’t I impressed with their climate? Their pristine plants? I certainly was, but I was even more impressed with the knowledge, stewardship and pride with which they cultivated their land. Sipping coffee around a full lunch table later that day, enjoying flavors of citrus and flower petals, I wondered if pride was something one could taste.
Both communities told me to share the message with my customers that their producers worked tirelessly for the highest quality beans. Corazón and Brillante Perla were unabashedly proud of their Organic and Fair Trade certifications, but prouder still of the excellent cups of coffee their work resulted in. Straight from a pot on a wooden stove, that coffee was delicious.
So, Think drinkers, your producers are sharp, generous, happy Peruvians. But now I’ll pose you the question Vicente of Corazon asked me: What can we do for them?
CENFROCAFE didn’t need my validation, it is a strong, socially sound cooperative, a collection of skilled producers that know their careful cultivation makes award-winning coffee, coffee I serve in half-cup portions or espresso baskets each day. What is my role as a barista, and what is our role as consumers, in this producing cycle?
Perhaps it is to consider and appreciate what it takes for us to get a good cup of coffee. Or to demand that each cup we drink, no matter where we buy it, be just as tasty and responsibly grown. Or maybe we should demand of ourselves the same kind of consideration of conservation, equity and quality we demand of producers when we pay $2.49 for a cup of coffee.
Pipes at Cenfrocafe with coffee plants
I answered Vicente that I could tell people about him, and hang his picture in my café, and write “Produced by the Corazon community of Chirinos” on bags of coffee sold to customers. He smiled, big.
We’ve made a commitment to sell in our blends only coffee from farms and farmers we know and visit. Because availability, weather, political and economical factors often change, we have to update our blends to maintain the same flavor profiles while using different coffees. This happens several times per year. If you would ever like more information or if you would like to visit our farmers, email furythinkcoffee@gmail.com to arrange it.
We have recently changed one component of our 8th Avenue, 4th Avenue, Broadway, and Mercer Street blends to an Ethiopian coffee called “Ardi.” Ardi refers to coffee processed in a special way and produced in a village called Kalenso, east of Hagare Maryam in Southwestern Ethiopia.
Aklilu Kasse is a third generation farmer and producer. He is the producer of Ardi coffee. That means he collects and processes the coffee to the point of being ready for export. He doesn’t grow the coffee. The coffees for Ardi are collected from small farmers around Kalenso at purchasing stations. They are paid cash upon delivery at a rate of approximately $1.75 / lb.
But it’s really not as simple as saying they are paid a flat rate in U.S. dollars per pound. First of all, they are actually paid 16 Birr per kilogram of cherries, and a kilogram of coffee cherries results in roughly one sixth of that amount in green exportable coffee. On top of that, the exchange rate of Ethiopian Birr to $ changes often.
The “farms” range in size from a few trees to a few acres. Saying the farmer receives a certain price per pound is misleading because what they actually get is a certain amount of money for the year based on what their farm yielded.
Coffee doesn’t put food on the table for most farmers. They live primarily through subsistence farming. But coffee often is the only crop that generates revenue, making it possible for them to buy school supplies, medical services, and clothing.
These payments for coffee are made to the farmers at a rate set by the Ethiopian government. In order for them to have more, Aklilu has developed a system for them under which they are not required to labor extra to deliver only ripe, highest-quality fruit. They can pick whatever they want from their trees. Then Aklilu pays farmers to sort the coffee. This allows for less labor during the growing season and more steady income during the harvesting and processing season. In addition, the lower quality coffees which have been sorted out are consumed and sold again within the local community, allowing farmers to often be paid three times for the same coffee: they sell their coffee to Aklilu, then they’re paid to sort it, then they’re paid again for the non-exportable coffee.
Ardi is organically and sustainably grown in clean and safe working environments. Education is available to all children of Ardi farmer coffee. Ardi is one of three ingredients in the Think Blend at the locations mentioned above. Currently, the other components for those coffees come from Brasil and El Salvador. Look for specific information at each store for each of its farms.
Again, please ask questions. Feel free to ask for Matt Fury, he will spend any amount of time you wish discussing our coffee. Email furythinkcoffee@gmail.com to meet or visit one of our farms. PICTURES !
Stirring drying coffee every 15 minutes
Fury gets schooled by Dawit
Aklilu checks the sorting of red coffee cherries
We buy our coffee responsibly. Sometimes it’s clear we should support a coffee producer and sometimes it’s not. We currently offer on our Single Source menu Ixil A’achimbal, a community-grown coffee from the state of Huehuetenango in Guatemala. The coffee is farmed, harvested, and processed by native Ixil Mayans.
This is the third year in which this coffee was able to be exported as high quality coffee on the international market. It has taken about twenty years for the Ixil Mayans to gain back enough land to grow and export coffee. In 1989, Guatemala’s 36-year civil war ended. After many years spent hiding in the mountains of west-central Guatemala, a group of Mayan Ixil ndigenas returned to their village to find that their ownership of the land was not recognized by the new government. After five years, a collective of 80 families was able to purchase a meager 25 acres of land–not enough to sustain them, but enough to sustain hope. In 2000, The Ixil population, with the help Agros International (www.agros.org), was able to purchase a 635 acre tract of land to grow bananas trees, citrus trees, and coffee plants.
“The goal of Ixil A’achimbal’s coffee project is to produce coffee of the highest quality in order to earn a reasonable return. The natural environment of the Ixil A’achimbal area makes this a possibility, since the community (and its coffee plantings) sit above 4,600 ft.; the people of the Ixil A’achimbal communities make it a reality by planting only Bourbon and Typica coffee trees, and meticulously caring for the coffee from seedling to mill. The coffee is passive organic, hand-picked, hand sorted for defect, and sun dried on raised wooden racks. After the villagers have done the initial sorting (without the benefit of any machinery), the coffee is loaded onto burros, taken down to trucks, and whisked off to a cooperative mill in Guatemala City for final processing and export. The bourbon beans are meticulously processed and sorted, and the resulting cup is beautifully nuanced, with a delicate smoky tone and medium to light body. The price for the coffee was set by the coffee growers themselves, and is paid to them directly.” (Taken from the Atlas Coffee website, http://www.atlascoffee.com/products.html).
Atlas coffee has purchased all of their coffee for the third year. We are purchasing as much as we can through our roasting partner Plowshares Coffee (www.plowsharescoffee.com), who trades with Atlas.
Guatemalans recently elected Perez Molina as president. Perez Molina was a General in the Guatemalan Army of the 80’s and ran on a platform of two major components. The first was “Mano Duro,” a stance on gangs and drugs. The second was to increase the country’s income through aggressive national export control efforts. We don’t want to be too controversial, but feel free to research what these things have historically meant in Guatemala.
WE HAVE TAKEN SIDES. We support the Ixil of A’achimbal and are open to assisting them against aggressors. This entire blog entry consists of individual opinions. None of the information or opinions here came from Agros International, Atlas Coffee Imports, or Plowshares Coffee. For more information, or to visit any coffee farm, please contact furythinkcoffee@gmail.com.
We went to Brasil. In our Think Blends, two of the component coffees in our blends are from farms called Fazenda Lacador Sementes and Fazenda Nossa Senhora Aparecida. Lacador in the the Cerrado region of the state of Minas Gerais and Nossa Senhora is on the northern border of the state of Sao Paulo.
The Cerrado, meaning “closed,” is an expansive region of farmland stretching flat and deplete forever and in all directions. Not really, but that was the impression. Crops do seem to have been planted in endless rows in an unnatural and sterile environment. But, we learned that that is what the Cerrado looks like. And it is anything but sterile.
Jose Orlando is the General Manager of Lacador Sementes Café. He is in responsible for the land, flora, and fauna and he loves his job. The farm didn’t match the romantic idea of the steep tropical farms of Central America or Africa, but Jose, like any small Finca owner considers his job a sacred responsibility and the land an extension of him. Jose spent hours showing me how the environment of the Cerrado works and how the farm fit into the environment. Because the Cerrado is a vast enclosed area, they farm in an enclosed way. Nothing from the farm ever leaves the farm into the neighboring farms or into the watershed. The farm is certified by a variety of social and environmental watch-groups, but it’s not necessary. It’s a responsible farm and with Jose Orlando in charge, it will stay that way. Fazenda Lacador Sementes Café is owned by Airyon Jose Magne. It is one of three components in our Bleecker Think Blend.
The General Manager of Nossa Senhora Aparecida is Serrafin. He is so cool, we love this guy so much. Serrafin has the same job as Jose Orlando. He exudes joy and peace. Unless you mess with the farm. We watched him “interact” with coworkers. It’s best to do things his way. He keeps Nossa Senhora clean, sound, responsible and BEAUTIFUL. It really is lovely, like wine country and with the same water issues. The Quercia family, who owns Nossa Senhora, is funding a huge reservoir project. It holds over 25 million gallons of water and will significantly reduce the farm’s draw on the already overworked river and aquifer. It’s a very expensive and responsible project that should be internationally commended and probably will be. Adriano Reis Da Silva is the farms coffee quality control manager. He was incredibly accommodating. He spent hours teaching us about the farm’s finished product. We cupped coffees and prepared for the arrival of this year’s crop.
For questions about our environmental or social responsibility efforts, or to visit a farm, contact our Director of Coffee furythinkcoffee@gmail.com.
Fazenda Nossa Senhora Aparecida
Serrafin, Nossa Senhora Aparecida Manager
Lacador, they really grow coffee here.
Adriano, Quality Control for Nossa Senhora Aparecida
Jose of Lacador Semenetes Teaches Fury about the Land
The children were intrigued by a special visitor today. Matt Fury, a good friend of Arlo Scherr’s family came in to share his coffee expertise with the class! During his time with the class, he shared lots of helpful information about coffee beans, how they grow and where they come from, in addition to answering the children’s thoughtful questions. Most interestingly, the children learned that coffee beans aren’t beans at all! They are really seeds that are found inside a small red berry. Asher: “That’s amazing!” The process of selecting ripe berries, and separating the seed, (the actual coffee bean), from the fruit is an involved process. The children and teachers discovered some helpful videos online that allowed the children to see each step. They were able to apply the information that Matt explained to them. For example, the children now know that the good coffee seeds are inside the red berries, not the green ones. They enjoyed watching the videos and pointing out which ones they would pick and which ones they wouldn’t. Cassidy: “That’s coffee seeds, Kristin!” Henry: “Those pickers are doing hard work!” Alona: “Because they are very strong and they are coffee pickers!”
Sea Turtles Journal Friday, October 21st, 2011
The Sea Turtles are a class of Brooklyn 3 year old learning enthusiasts who kindly invited us to answer their questions about the origin of coffee. Thanks Sea Turtles !!
Looking at photos of coffee
It was our first time in Brasil. Not what we thought. Somebody´s gonna have to learn Portuguese because we´re gong to spend more time here. Check back in a couple days for a full report.
The place was easy to find, up a steep hill. It was beginning to rain. We had to wait a while. We wanted to paint. There were new chairs. Ali and Oscar said we couldn’t join.
We have friends who have a coffee farm in Payacuca, in the mountains south of Matagalpa. The Castellon family farm is ten percent coffee. The rest is food. Both are excellent. The coffee is of the Caturra variety. We found the Castellon farm by looking hard. We wanted to buy coffee directly from them, but we couldn’t. They mixed all of their coffee with that of their cooperative, 8 de Julio. Cooperativa 8 de Julio consisted of about 30 farms, seven organic. We had been selling Castellon coffee, but since it turned out there was no such thing, that it was 8 de Julio coffee, we thought it would be good to buy from the cooperative. Nope, 8 de Julio is part of a larger cooperative, Central de Cooperativas Servicios de Matagalpa de Aroma de Café or CECOSEMAC.
Hmm, cooperatives within cooperatives. It’s not really our thing. See, we discovered when we started travelling that many cooperatives were nothing more than a person or company who bought lots and lots of coffee from anonymous farmers. They would then get various price-hiking certifications (covering their office, not farms) and sell their coffee for a premium. The practice continues. We were unable to really trace any coffee or determine who was getting the high prices for the coffee.
We also learned that we have to travel. We have to see for ourselves what goes on. It is fortunate, because our travels have led us to this cooperative. The smaller cooperatives that make up CECOSEMAC consist of families with farms that are near each other. They don’t have enough coffee to process or export. Combined, they have enough to process, but they don’t have the money or time to try to sell their coffee in the international market. So, they got an office and a name and now they can. CECOSEMAC is completely made of farmers. It’s completely run by farmers. Oscar is the president, Ali is the vice-president.
They said we couldn’t join until we had worked a cosecha. Cosecha is the harvest. They said they like all of our words and phrases like “partner” “working together” “relationship” but were we going to come and work the cosecha and were we going to contribute to the cooperative?
Yes, we do contribute and we will be back for cosecha. The new chairs were ours. They bought them with money from our Farmer Dividend program. We’re on our way to paint with more of that money. We will be there for the harvest, to pick coffee, process coffee, carry bags of coffee, load trucks with coffee. We want to join. They are really nice people and we want to hang out with them. We also want to buy the coffee. We want to really be partners, members.
CECOSEMAC Office in Matagalpa
We were running out of time and it was dark. It was going to be a mistake. We were paying a lot of money to travel 70km by taxi to a coffee processing plant operated by Luis Alberto Balladerez. We sell his coffee by the cup from our Single Source menu.
We call it “Single Source” because we get it from the smallest geographic area possible and then find one person or family responsible for it. Single Origin coffees usually come simply from an individual country, but they are blended from different sources.
The facility, call Las Segovias, is located somewhere in the town of Ocotal, in Northwestern Nicaragua. We were lost. Our driver stopped at a roadside hangout. Someone asked someone to find someone who knew a guy that works there. His name was Abel Gutierrez.
Abel didn’t work there, but he was adamant that he wished he did. He passionately described why Las Segovias was the best place to work and why it processed the best coffee. He told us the conditions were terrific. The equipment was the best. He told us that Sr. Balladerez grew great coffee and knew how to process it. He knew how to treat people. He was at church and do we want to go and get him from church. We hadn’t asked anything.
No, we didn’t want to go get him from church. This man from a roadside café, with nothing to gain or lose told us everything we needed to know. We sell delicious coffee that comes from a good person. It was worth the last minute expensive trip in the dark to have heard this. We sell NICARAGUAN coffee from the farmer LUIS ALBERTO BALLADEREZ with pride and integrity.
We spend a lot of time messing with coffee. We travel, taste, research, discuss, argue, pay pay and pay. It all costs money. It’s scary how much money we spend trying to purchase our coffee in a socially, environmentally, and fiscally responsible way.
As has been blogged in recent weeks, we will now only offer coffee that we personally know to be socially and environmentally responsible. A Think Coffee representative will have been to every farm represented at our cafes and will have an in-person-human-to- human relationship with those who grow our coffee.
We have been able to work toward this goal because we have loyal customers, a lot of them. We have been able to IMPROVE QUALITY AND RESPONSIBILITY with size. We are proud of how hard we work towards this end.
We just blind tested our latest blend against some of our favorite and some of the most popular blends in New York. Our blend won! I’ll be honest, I was nervous. I LOVE some of the other blends we were trying. We are so happy to provide our customers with the fruits of our labor and their loyalty.
Thank you for being our customers. You have allowed us the resources to improve.
If you have suggestions or questions about our coffee please email me: furythinkcoffee@gmail.com. I will spend whatever time you want discussing our coffee. I can answer a quick question or show you one of the farms on which our coffee grows, whatever you want.
The Competition (not in any order)
I had just returned from a goat farm in southern France and was about three months unemployed when I started cat-sitting. It provided me with a great place to stay in New York, and Little Cat and Monster were quality companions. But then I began to feel like maybe I should get a job. Then Matt Fury said “OK, you’re hired.” I said, “OK, I’ll take it.” And that’s when Think Coffee took me in.
I had an interest in coffee that was definitely more than passing. Despite what some people might tell you, I already had five years of experience as a barista and a roaster at another shop far away. But when I showed up at Think, I realized I would be spending a lot of time around people who took coffee seriously. I thought I had met coffee nerds before (I won’t name names. I will name a café though: Dogwood, Minneapolis. Take that.) At Think I met some people who could go toe to toe with those nerds, and it would be an ugly, espresso-fueled fight – and I’ve learned a lot from them.
I latched on to learning about coffees’ sources. Nobody’s said this to me directly, but here’s what I’ve put together since I started working here: there are three processes that coffee must go through before you get to drink it, and each of those has significant political and/or economic consequences for a lot of people. I’m talking about cultivation, processing, and roasting. The conditions under which the first two are done and the practices of the roaster have enormous impact on the agency, income, and well-being of everybody involved in the coffee.
Of course, without an end customer, none of the people from the farmer to the roaster would be in the business. So Think’s mission to demand transparency in that supply chain means a fourth important point in coffee – its retail sale – is done with an integrity that frees me from the vague squeamish feeling that working in coffee previously left.
Hang on, I've got to think about this
We have coffees from 14 producers in ten countries. We buy those coffees from five or more different roasters. We want to have a relationship with every coffee producer represented in our store. We don’t believe buying coffee from someone who says they have a relationship with a coffee producer counts.
So, we ask lots of questions, demand lots of information from our roasters, and generally become a big pain in the butt for those supplying us with coffee.
When we don’t get clear answers, we travel. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to travel often enough to keep up with the lack of information available. So, we have relied on third-party verification organizations to provide certain certifications like Fair Trade, Rain Forest Alliance, USDA Organic, Shade Grown, etc.
We have, by traveling, learned that these certifications often don’t represent the principles we thought they did.
WE WANT TO TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE COFFEE WE SELL.
We will now personally visit every farm and cooperative represented at our cafes. We will form a personal relationship with the farmer or cooperative representative. We will share all information we have concerning these efforts with anyone who asks.
Look for more information posted at our cafes and please find our Farmer Relations Manager, Matt Fury, if you have questions or would like to visit with our farmers. furythinkcoffee@gmail.com
We've added Noah "Barquito" Welch to the farmer relationship team.
Many thousands of coffee community members decended upon Houston in April. We were Shops, Roasters, Importers, Farmers, Baristas, and enthusiasts from around the world.
The Specialty Coffee Association of America has a convention each year. I went, first time. There were some really cool competitions highlighting the skills of some of our baristas. Equipment manufacturers were able to show their new stuff. Classes and lectures were offered. Food, lots of food. It was spectacular.
Here’s the thing. Think Coffee doesn’t have a lot of travel money. We want to put our money where our collective mouths are, so we fly to various countries learning about farms and people. Then, when we talk about “relationship coffee” or “direct trade” or any other trendy coffee expression, we will know what we are talking about. If we go see these farms and meet the farmers, we can be responsible members of the coffee community. Oh, the thing. Going to the SCAA convention was really really expensive. It was more expensive than our last trip to Africa.
Going to Africa wasn’t super fun, but it did connect our customer community with our farmer community. Going to Houston was fun, big steak – nice hotel, but we will probably meet our coffee friends at origin from now on.
Join us anytime.
The Castellon family were supposed to be found in the barrio of Payacuca in the town of Tarragona, Colombia. We have been drinking and selling a lot of their coffee lately, and I wanted a chance to thank them for their great efforts and give them money as part of Think Coffee’s Farmer Dividend™ program. I was also looking forward to introducing myself and our company, and to learning about their lifestyle and farming practices.
Ten minutes after landing in Managua, I learned there was no such town as Tarragona. I asked an attendant at the airport if maybe it wasn’t on the map. She thought maybe I meant Terrabona, which she said she thought she remembered she’d heard it was located in the general region I was describing. “Okay,” I said. “How do I get there?” “You can’t,” was her response. “Go to Dario. Ask someone there.”
The Castellons live in Payacuca, which is a large region of mountains and not a barrio of a small town. I am still surprised that I was somehow able to find the Castellon farm. I emerged from the mountains dehydrated and shivering. They gave me water, food and, of course, coffee. They also wondered why a skinny white guy had just crawled up the mountains all day to their front porch and asked for Luis Bojorge Castellon. We spent the rest of the evening discussing it.
Coincidentally, the head of the 8 de Julio Cooperative (of which the Castellons are a member) was there that night. I learned that our “Castellon coffee” was actually 8 de Julio coffee. I also learned that not one member of our supply chain had ever been to this farm. They were incredibly happy someone would bother to come learn about them. In turn they were interested in Think Coffee and our business practices. The head of the family, Don Luis, gathered his children and showed me the farm. Horses, cattle, grass, tomatoes, a really nice out-house. There was also coffee.
The coffee cooperative called 8 de Julio consists of 35 farming families. Five of these families grow organically, and each of their farms are connected on a combined area of only five square kilometers. Together, their coffee almost fills a single shipping container. Each farm grows and processes its coffee separately. It is for business purposes they join forces, in order to be able to get their great coffee on the market. Please try the Nicaraguan coffee from our Single Source menu. It’s thick with sticky tamarind, sensuous vanilla, and Central American spice.
We are working to get a temporary visa for Norvin Castellon, Don Luis’ only son. He wants to come and experience our side of the business and talk about his family’s farm. These are beautiful, friendly people with whom I am very excited to work in the future. I felt like anyone would have been welcome to show up on their porch. If you’re considering it, though, maybe contact me and make sure. I can only think of one person who is not welcome. You know who you are.