The father of Audenar Guzman, the owner of La Viña farms in Colombia, passed away last week. La Vina is part of our Single Origins program, and one of our baristas visited the farm and family just a couple of days after his death. It was amazing that Audenar could give us his time. We would like to offer our condolences to Audenar and his wonderful family.
Jan 17. Crowder, a barista from our Mercer Street store, who is hanging out with some of our farmer friends in Colombia, reports that he is slowly making his way around Huila, where many of our Colombian single origin coffees grow. He is traveling with the head of the coffee growers group in Huila to the town of Plata. We don’t know a lot about these places yet, so we are looking forward to Crowder’s presentation in February. One thing we’ve learned is that what others have reported is often inaccurate, drastically changed to match what people want to hear or just copied and pasted from one website to the next. We’re fortunate to have Crowder looking out for our customers, coworkers, roasters, and farmers.
Jan 18. EZ, a barista at our NYU Bookstore location, has been researching El Salvador. El Salvador was very advanced in coffee agronomy, production, and distribution before their civil war. The industry is now burgeoning as a newcomer on the international coffee scene, but through our travels and research we know that these are some of the most advanced and knowledgeable farmers anywhere. So, we are trying to become involved more with this small country. EZ has been researching some of the families that were influential and grounded in both the coffee industry and civil war. He is doing this to help us understand the context within which we are attempting to form closer relationships. Some of these families have transformed into powerful corporations. Ready Redner, our super smart and helpful intern, is working with EZ to compile his data into a useful and intelligible information base. With the help of friends like EZ and Ready, Think Coffee can be very respectful and respected as we form partnerships, increase transparency and integrity, and learn about those who touch our coffee first. Please try our StictAltura example of Peaberry Salvadoran coffee on the Single Origin menu.
Jan 19. We’ve welcomed Seung Hee! She is and will continue to observe us and train with us as part of an international partnership with interests in Korea. It is a pleasure to be around and work with her.
Jan 20. We hope you’re enjoying our Think Blend. If you’ve been following, you know we’ve spent a lot of time with it lately. We are striving to make it taste exactly right, meet cost constraints, and fall within our guidelines of acceptable social and corporate practices. There are currently six countries used in our blend: Ethiopia, Tanzania, Indonesia, India, Guatemala, Mexico. Detailed information is available to anyone by appointment.
There was a BrewDown at RBC Coffee in Tribeca. The turn-out was big. Our man Bill McAllister tore it up! This dude is seriously and frustratingly uncompromising in his pursuit of providing people with perfect coffee. He totally showed and represented. Bill made Think Coffee look good, he made our brew methods look good, he made Solomon Worka and the farmers who grew the Ethiopian coffee look good. Damn, everybody looked good. Thank you Bill and congratulations!!
This week’s coffee tasting is Friday Jan. 28 at 1pm in the Cupping Room, downstairs at our Mercer Street store. It will consist of one coffee brewed one way, but roasted several different ways. This is by special request from our French Culinary Liaison. ”Liaison” is a French word and we are fancy people, so we used it.
