Roastmasters Blog

Coffee’s modern time line started sometime in the mid 1500s, which was probably when someone figured out how to roast the seeds of a coffee tree and mix them with water. From that point, coffee consumption grew in fits and starts. Political and religious leaders didn’t know what to do with it. Was it the devil’s drink, inciting dissention, or was it heaven sent to keep the drowsy masses alert and receptive? Sometimes condemned, sometimes lauded, coffee was almost always a hot topic of conversation.

Even though coffee has been around for several hundred years, it is still a relatively young product as compared to other staples in our lives. Take milk for example. Milk has been around since the very first day, whenever that was, by design. We’ve had milk at our disposal for millennia. At some point in milk’s journey from teat to cup, some enterprising soul managed to figure out that if stirred for a really long time, butter is the resulting product. And then there’s yogurt, sour cream, curds, whey, cheeses, and everything that uses those byproducts ad infinitum, etc, etc…

Then we go back to coffee. What we’ve figured out with coffee is that we can roast it and mix it with water. Granted, some of the vehicles used to introduce water are pretty innovative, but it still feels like there’s something more amazing about itself that coffee will reveal once we finally perfect the addition of water.

Maybe I’m imagining too much of this little bean that I love so much, but maybe not. Tinkerers in the coffee world have been busy figuring out golden ratios of extraction, mastering the perfect grind, controlling temperature, time and pressure; in short, perfecting what we already know how to do. Once that perfection is achieved, we’ll be back at the bottom of a long learning curve, making coffee into something else beautiful and good. The future is out there, we just have to wait for it to come around again.

Much of the coffee sourcing we do around here is deliberate, well-thought-out and intentional. But there is a bit of luck in bringing great coffee to you fine folks. Once upon a time, an early Roastmaster had the foresight, vision, courage and, well maybe it was just dumb luck, but I digress, to begin a relationship with the fine La Minita farm. The result has been a yearly delivery of some of the finest, hand-tended coffee grown in the world. And the latest delivery is here.

For the uninitiated, La Minita’s peaberries are special indeed. Grown in the lush Tarrazu valley in Costa Rica is coffee with a rich, winy body accented by a milk-chocolaty sweetness. While the typical coffee berry has two seeds (known as beans, why? Perhaps a topic for another post), occasionally the fruit has a single seed inside (about 7% of the time, not exactly sure-bet odds). This seed absorbs all of the nutrients and flavor from the fruit making for a potent, football-shaped ball of deliciousness.

Since you can’t grow peaberries explicitly, and it’s rather difficult to tell whether a coffee cherry has 1 seed inside, or 2, these precious (can anyone say that word and not hear Gollum’s raspy, urgent, coddling utterance?) beans must be sorted out after the fruity exterior is removed and they’ve completely dried. How are they sorted out? The first stage involves density (as in “You’re my…). Peaberries, being denser than their flat cousins, are heavier. Through the use of a fascinating vibrating table, involving principles I’m not intimately familiar with, peaberries and flats bounce their way into separate channels that ferry them away to storage silos, where they’ll be rested until their moisture level reaches about 12-14% water, by volume. But it’s not over yet.

Before those peaberries get a well-earned rest there is a further sorting. And this time, it’s personal. In a room filled with what would appear to be adult-sized elementary school desks with raised barriers along the edges preventing coffee from rolling off, are workers employed for the express purpose of hand-sorting out the precious (surely you hear it now) peaberries. Sorted beans are carried up to a chief inspector, making sure that what ends up in our roastery, and eventually your cup, is 100% La Minita peaberry.

How much difference does it make? I could extol the virtues of these peaberries but instead I invite you to test on your own. Head to a competitor and purchase a quarter pound of a peaberry coffee offering. Chances are great that it will be a mix of flats and peaberries. Hand sort out the flats from the peaberries and brew each, then compare side by side. You might need more than a quarter pound, depending on your preferred brewing method, but a single cup #1 or #2 sized pour over cone will work nicely. The taste should provide the validation you seek. And hopefully this small-scale simulation of the effort it takes to bring La Minita’s peaberries from the plants to your cup proves as satisfying as just enjoying the limited offering we make every year to the fans of this delightful, lucky defect of nature.

On Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen…these sentiments seem strangely out of place as we bridge from a showery spring to the promise of warm humid days and luxurious evenings of breezy delight. Almost as out of place as a Central American coffee in December. Confused? Read on.

You ever notice how popular pumpkins are in the fall? Ever wonder why the only pumpkin you can find in March comes in a can? Pumpkins reach their full ripeness as the air begins to chill, the leaves turn Technicolor from their uniform green and outdoor fires increase in popularity. As such fresh pumpkins are sold seasonally, taking full advantage of their innate deliciousness at the peak of ripeness. This is coming around to the point.

I could draw a similar analogy between the pumpkin and coffee. You can easily pick up coffee in a shelf-stable format year-round. What you’d get is still coffee, brown and mild in the cup, delivering that ever-so-popular psychoactive stimulant. Missing would be the traits we value and cherish so. Flavors, wondrous and complex, as diverse as the treats of a certain candy maker’s secret factory.

Hoping to maximize your enjoyment of these flavors we chose to offer our Guatemala El Paraiso and Costa Rica Sombra del Poro when these coffees are fresh off the boat. Brimming with intense floral, sweet citrus and vanilla richness or vibrant cherry acidity, rich body and lovely milk chocolaty finish respectively, these coffee are at their best right now. Pick up a can of coffee off the shelf and a pound of one of these coffees and taste them side-by-side at home. Something tells me you’ll get it.

ALL of us at Caribou Coffee Company are proud to announce that 100% of our coffees will be 100% Rainforest Alliance Certified by the end of 2011! As the traveling fool who makes his living ensuring healthy supply relationships are how we source our coffees, I am especially proud of this because it has been my life’s work for the past 7 years. When I started buying coffee more than a decade ago it was an altogether different endeavor. You didn’t’ ask questions about the environment, worker welfare, or prices paid to farmers; or, more accurately, these weren’t well-received questions if one did ask them.

Well, we’ve been asking them for all of these years as we have worked to minimize anonymity in our supply chain, and we are thankful that our company culture and mission align with the sustainable principles of the Rainforest Alliance.

Working toward this certification for our supply chain has been an overwhelming task, but it has revolutionized the way our fine coffees are produced, and processed so that the environment is protected. Further, the Rainforest Alliance certification ensures coffee production has a positive impact on the communities who depend on it.

Why Rainforest Alliance? Simple: we think it is the most comprehensive certification program out there; it addresses environmental, social and economic criteria in one well-balanced program.

From me to you: enjoy your cup of sustainable coffee; we really can have a positive impact one cup at a time!

Every year Seasonal Affective Disorder (whose meaning is summed up in its acronym: SAD) reasserts itself on my psyche. As winter wears on, simultaneously wearing on everyone’s nerves, with the exception of the unique group of people who engage in outdoor wintertime activities, It seems as though the world will never be warm again.

On a positive note, along with the weather-related funk, mid to late winter also brings some great coffees. Coffee, like any other agricultural product, has peaks and valleys in its harvest, and subsequently, its quality and freshness. We’re finally working our way through last year’s crop of coffee, which is starting to seem a tad lackluster. At the same time, we’re starting to receive newly harvested coffee that practically sings with nice fresh notes; clean and sparkling – just like the spring that is sure to arrive any day now.

This bright note in an otherwise windy and cold reality has become one of my life’s little pleasures. I hope you enjoy some of the bright and juicy coffee flavors that will be finding their way onto our shelves now, and in the coming months.

Just came from a meeting with some of our managers in the downtown St. Paul, MN area and gave them a sneak peak on this year's Perennial Blend. You may know that every year we try to convince you that spring is upon us by offering a blend of coffees that embody the spirit of the season. This is a thinly veiled ploy to distract you from the heaps of snow along the roadways (admittedly this is a Minnesota perspective on the state of the weather, but play along with me, won't you?) but within every lie is a nugget of truth.

We made Perennial out of desire to feature what's best about new crop arrivals, full of fresh flavors of flowers and sweetness mixed against a rich, velvety background that reminds you this is still coffee. Sounds pretty Spring-like, wouldn't you say? Well, as i was spilling out this story to our managers while the Chemex i brewed dripped slowly down through the filter, quizzing them about the origins that make up this blend, Ethiopia, Guatemala and Papua New Guinea, i sprung a bit of a surprise on them. We've decided to boost the freshness of the blend by adding an addition. Kenya! Winy and rich, with hints of burgundy and spice. I was somewhat unprepared for their reaction as they began sipping.

They loved it. Missing was the rush of acidity and replacing it was an immediate sweetness that wrapped itself around your tongue while gently tickling your cheeks and finishing with a pleasing bittersweet chocolate deliciousness. Seldom have i offered a coffee to a group that was so universally appreciated. You'll see this coffee soon enough here online and in stores. If you've been a long time fan of Perennial you may be surprised, much like having a 60 degree day in the middle of March (again, Minnesota perspective) and if you've never tried or tried and found it too intense, come back and soak up the sun, we've put some SPF 30 on this coffee and it's safe!

Interesting cupping today. Noted the difference in Papua New Guinea coffee residing in our warehouse here in Mpls for just the past few weeks. The coffee that is 'fresher' and due to deliver from NJ/NYC cups with a slightly more tart and sharp note, while the current has turned more milky, herby, and almost hint of rhubarb. Reminder of this is why we taste every day, and the roasters can adjust accordingly. ~B

Our 2009 coffee offering from Guatemala, El Paraiso, is coming to its depletion. The roasters have roasted their last beloved batch of this coffee, which we began featuring in May. Caribou committed to sourcing and roasting this coffee, despite the fact we knew there wasn’t enough to last until the next crop cycle – and that’s fine by us! You see, coffee is best when it’s fresh – this you know – but did you also know that fresh green (raw) coffee just tastes better also? It’s true. But the trick for roasting is that as coffee resides in our inventory our craftspeople need to continually refine the roasting approach for timing and heat and airflow in order to best coax the flavors unique to each origin. So when one of our skilled technicians, like Anton for instance, approaches a batch roast of El Paraiso on his roasting machine, he has already mapped out a fresh and revised roast profile (a set of directions for machine settings and roast timing) that is perfect for that time in the coffee’s life cycle. For us at Caribou it wouldn’t be acceptable to simply treat this coffee in December that way it was roasted in September. And then that batch is cup tested so we can refine that roast profile again as need be. So enjoy your last chance at this unique offering from Guatemala, take the time to learn more about when the next best Guatemala coffees will be harvested, and savor the fact that Caribou’s roasters are relentless in their pursuit of perfect roasting. Happy Holidays! ~B

It's so cold in this part of the country this time of year that when a colleague of mine living in California asked what the temperature was, I could only respond, "It's like minus below." It's awfully good coffee drinking climate, as most would surmise, but the average coffee drinker wouldn't stop to think about what affect different kinds of weather has on roasting. The answer is, quite a lot! Aspects such as barometric pressure, humidity, and even outdoor temperature drastically change the desired settings for roasting coffee optimally. And one of the most important settings that our roasters adjust daily is what we call loosely, air flow. Air flow is velocity and pressure and volume all rolled up into one notion. But what a coffee connoisseur unknowingly cares about is that being able to adjust air flow in a roaster is the difference between coffee that is just roasted, versus coffee that is roasted to perfection - with nuance and delicacy combined with punch and vigor. Imagine something as simple as toast. You can adjust the toaster time, and sometimes the heat, but that's about it. Most roasters are serving you coffee that is kind of like toast that is made under these restrictive circumstances. Although they can adjust certain settings in their roaster, many cannot adjust air flow, and few try. Caribou's roaster technicians change air flow on a daily basis in order to have a machine that is set up just right and can change the operations of their convection fan with the turn of a switch or touch of a screen pad. And when you're roasting coffee at -20F while 6 months later it's 90F and July humidity, these things matter. And when you're a roaster in Minnesota, there is the added benefit working in one of the toastier places around. ~B

It's the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) and Caribou's coffeehouses are flush with customers tracking down gifts, a cup of their favorite coffee, and perhaps a first-time experience with our delectable new line of mochas -- the heavenly combination of Guittard chocolate and Caribou espresso! And in typical annual fashion, the roastery is operational and busy. Our customers may wonder why shouldn't we just take that extra day off like a lot of other offices or operations would? Answer to that simply stated -- Freshness. Caribou's commitment to fresh coffee in our shops is backed by a guarantee that your cup of coffee comes from beans roasted no more than 21 days ago, and typically your cup is brewed from coffee much fresher than that. With shops all over the United States the roastery can't afford to take a day like today off, lest the stores be serving stale joe. Good news is we take the opportunity to treat ourselves -- Pizza! (What else for the lunch day after Turkey Day?)

Today on the cupping table we had what can best be described as an aged Ethiopian Harrar. As you might know, one of the pieces of the Reindeer Blend puzzle is an aged Sumatra. This coffee helps bring out the spiciness of the blend and deepen the body.

While i had some expectation of what we might find when i heard the term bandied about, it was nothing like i expected. There are coffees best suited to aging, and even then it requires strict monitoring to be sure the process doesn't ruin the beans.

Ruined is the friendliest way i could describe this aged Harrar. Something tells me either an importer sent the sample by mistake or has a pretty twisted sense of humor. The first slurp triggered a physical reaction that made me want to spit it our immediately and left me gasping. Dirty, burning burlap might be the words i'd use to describe it. Nothing like the juicy blueberry, high juniper or jasmine notes, and big bodied sweetness you normally find.

There are good days and bad days in the cupping lab, and while we'd love wine and roses all the time, there are the days that remind us why we must cup every sample, every time. Quality, specialty coffee doesn't happen by accident, and it's our job to be the custodians so you can reap the benefit in your cup.

From time to time you might notice a change in the coffee bearing the Fair Trade label in our stores. It's subtle, just a word change and the movement of a star icon, but the change in the bag is nothing less than amazing.

A couple of years ago we decided our Fair Trade offering would give us the means to bring in origins that aren't part of our regular line up. We're on our third this year, starting with Peru and most recently Mexico. Wanting to dramatically change the flavor, now we have coffee from Rwanda.

Hailing from the Musasa region, near the eastern border, this washed-process Bourbon-varitetal coffee delivers a range of flavors from the spicy tang and big body of a burgandy wine along with the delicate sweetness of raw sugar.

As i said, this coffee will change periodically, though i think we'll have this into the end of the year, so check it out and leave us your thoughts.