Crema Wars: Attack of the Lipids

It's been a good week in Oakland researching the coffee scene out here.

Tommorow it's back to L.A.!

We went back to Mr. Espresso today to get some prices on the Faema E-61's he has and ended up talking for a while about... Yes, that's right, coffee.

Mr. E. explained to us his particular philosophy on espresso, along another walk through of the roastery, this time in action.


The roastmaster would periodically grab a sample of beans and get an Agtron scale reading, grind it, then get another reading.
The Agtron scale, for those of you that don't know, is a light refraction measuring system that measures the roast intensity of coffee. The lower the number, the darker the roast. This batch came in at 47, pretty dark, but not yet a "French Roast" (I think!).

The Agtron scale is scientific, whereas other measuring/naming systems are not.

An Espresso's crema, he explained is a suspension of the coffee's flavor oils or lipids. The more lipids, the more flavor.
With an espresso roast of about 47 agtron (I think, about a full city roast) and a brewing temperature of 185 degrees F.
combined with his Oak Roasting technique, Mr. Espresso believes the shots posses greater amounts of lipids.

David Schomer, of Seattle's Espresso Vivace on the other hand advocates a lighter espresso roast and a much higher brewing temperature: 203.5 F.

Neither of these men have any problems extracting ample amounts of crema in their shots.

I must admit though, that Mr. E's espresso's had a crema that didn't seem like it was going anywhere, anytime soon.

Both of these espresso enthusiasts do add Robusta beans to their blends.

Robusta is the often unloved coffee cousin of the fairer Arabica, who gets all the attention.

Robusta is cheaper and generally not as tasty as Arabica, but guarantees a longer lasting crema.

Why then add it to an Arabica espresso? Just to cheaply give it the appearance of a good crema?

The going philosophy is that with the addition of a small amount of a high grown Robusta, that it's long lasting crema will preserve the delicate lipids of the Arabicas and thus preserve it's flavor a little longer.

This is one area where many espresso people are starting to converge.

My take is that the Robusta can still be tasted. But I'll also go on the line to say that a good Robusta doesn't have to taste bad.

In my opinion they taste like wood. Not cedar, but pine.

Wood, of course is typically described as a negative flavor characteristic, but if it's just a hint, it can add to the shot's overall complexity and longevity in milk.

One of the wonderful things about coffee is that so many people love it for so many different reasons.

One man's swill is another man's gold and vice versa.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Polarization to different ideologies in coffee, just like in politics can lead to unpleasant battles and wars.

One thing is for sure though. Everyone in the coffee world is not going to agree anytime soon on how to produce the best results.

I think the most important ingredient any roaster or barista or drinker can add to their coffee is of course passion.

It may seem like, or even be a cliche, but...

You just can't fake the funk.

East Bay Espresso

Today, we finally made it to Blue Bottle Coffee Co., the roastery in Oakland, that is. We met James and Jan and another cool cat, who's name escapes me, who plumbed an Astra one group into his home kitchen.


Coincidently, one of James' friends had just brought him a bag of the "Alphabet City" blend from Ninth Street Espresso, my Alma Mater of sorts.


Ahhh, sweet memories. This stuff rocks. for descriptors, click the photo and read the label.

We drank a few of those lovelies then sampled Blue Bottle's "3 Africans" espresso blend ; a bold, syrupy bodied, well balanced shot that's both fruity and spicy and has a rich, deeply hued crema.

James is obviously an exceptional barista himself but is very humble, praising his baristas over the bridge as being the real experts behind the machine. Nice.

When it comes to drip coffee, the Blue Bottle, and it's Kiosk in Hayes Valley, San Francisco, don't mess around with commercial coffee brewers... Each coffee is ground per request and brewed individually using the chemex / melita pour-over technique on a cool little multi-melita, stainless steel cozy that they had custom made, like the one pictured below...



Afterwards, we still hadn't had enough coffee, so we stopped at Cole Coffee, pictured above... Formerly Royal Grounds, as in Royal, the green bean importers.

Apparently retail wasn't their passion, so they sold it to the former manager and he changed the name, Royal still does the roasting though.

Like Blue Bottle, they grind and brew drip coffee in the coffee cozy or french press per order and offer a wide selection of coffees to choose from.

Mr. Espresso? Damn straight.

I'm in Oakland helping my brothers scout locations and potential roasters for their future East Bay coffee bar. We were on our way to the Blue Bottle Coffee kiosk on Linden St. today when after a quick phone call to the roastery we learned that it's on Linden St. in San Francisco, not Oakland.

Disappointed, we turned to go back home.

Little did we know that our unfortunate detour would lead us to a hidden treasure.

Right in front of me I saw a big warehouse with "MR. ESPRESSO" spelled out on it....

"Mr. Espresso?" I thought to myself apprehensively... "C'mooooon!"

Inside, a worker was closing the gate and peering in, I spied an enormous amount of green beans and a gargantuan set of roasters.

I immediately pulled over and my Brother Jim and I went inside to see what the hell was going on here.

I was highly skeptical of any company with a name that seemed on the surface to knock-off "Mr. Coffee", but there was something about this place compelling enough to warrant further research.

Once inside we were spotted by the owners, Carlo and his wife Marie-Francoise.

Carlo, the boss, we would soon find out, isn't really joking around with the Mr. Espresso moniker.

Carlo, hereby referred to as "Mr. Espresso" led us to a large, modern showroom with a number of Faema, Rancilio, ECM espresso machines and his own line of customized machines based on these manufacturers designs.

Like myself and my friend Ken Nye, Senor Espresso also shares a love for the Faema E-61 espresso machine and he had a few gorgeous vintage, original E-61's that he's restored to lustery glory... like this one...




Mr. Espresso, or "Espresso-San", as he is known in Japan is from Salerno Italy, in the Northern part of Southern Italy, or perhaps the Southern part of Northern Italy, one or the other, and his espresso roast reflects that in it's slightly dark nature.

Armed without a proper tamper, Mr. Espresso pulled us a couple of shots one at a time from a single-dose portafilter on his Faema Diplomat...

Already, Mr. E had broken three of my preconceived rules of how espresso should be prepared (roast, tamp and filter basket) and I thought the shots would for sure be bitter and nasty...

They weren't.

In fact they were pretty damn tasty and hit the spot after our Blue Bottle fiasco!

Like his Italian brethren, I suspect he adds a dose of robusta to his blend, but over all, I found the shot to have a good acidity with a medium body, a mild, woody character of the robusta, a little chocolate and a long, yet sweet finish that wasn't unpleasant... Crema was not an issue.

Mr. Espresso gave Jim and I a long tour of his unique roasting facility and we chatted about various topics from world politics to heat exchangers... Monsieur Espresso, to his own admission, loves to talk.

Long story short: everything in the place is Italian designed and machined. He designed the facility largely by himself and the roasters are powered by burning oak logs, reclaimed from forest fires, instead of gas: an art he learned as the boy apprentice of an Italian roastmaster in the 1950's.

Yes, that's right, it's a coffee BBQ up in this joint.

I wouldn't say that Mr. Espresso is at the fore-front of the Third Wave of Coffee exactly, quite the opposite in fact, he's the definition of "Old School". He's been roasting espresso's and selling Faema's and Rancillio's since 1978. That's well before Peet's made the leap to espresso after the Starbucks buyout/sellout.*

An E-61 in human form, Mr. Espresso has a passion and knowledge of espresso that was WAY ahead of his time in our fair country.

He even has an Organic and Fair Trade line.

A couple of shots later, we eventually made it out of there.

I went out for Dinner tonight with my friend Aileen from NYC who has since moved to Oakland.

She took me to an Amazing Tapas restaurant called Cesar in Berkeley's so-called "Gourmet Ghetto" (lot's of Gourmet, zero ghetto, the original Peet's is just around the corner).

Great Tapas with an unforgettable orangey, caramel-creamy bread pudding dessert dish that defies adequate description.

After our meal we wanted a coffee but were less than excited about ruining an otherwise excellent dining experience with bad restaurant coffee.

Biting the bullet, we ordered an americano to share but they served us two by accident. It was a good thing too because they were served promptly to us in that classic brown Italian porcelain that we love so much with a good crema clinging to the top.

It was dark for my taste, but good... and familiar.

I asked the bartender.

"Hey, what kinda coffee do you guys use?"

The answer, of course was a spirited

"Oh, that's Mr. Espresso."


For more fun facts on Mr. Espresso, check this out...

Logo

and for serious info, click on the link on the top right.


*the original founders of Starbucks bought Peet's and sold their SBUX shares to Howard Shultz. They were against the espresso bar concept.

Vivace Nuovo

Congratulations to David Schomer on the grand opening of a new location of Espresso Vivace.
Tonx from Victrola has posted a review here

TONX

Photo by Tonx

Company Man

I've launched my company... Third Wave Coffee, Inc.
I realize this is a fairly generic name and will probably opt to do business under another.
In the meantime, I'm learning any and everything about coffee and the coffee industry that I can.
Recently I've begun to read and discuss the different processes in which coffee cherries are born into green beans.

Mostly they are either "Wet" or "Dry".

coffee cherries are first put in a swimming pool-like tank .The cherries that sink are of course, denser and harder. These are the higher quality of the picked cherries. The cherries that float are separated and used for "other" purposes... Ha ha.

The sinkers can be taken to patios and spread out to dry

or

they can get wet again


Wet processed coffees are dumped into fermentation tanks while the skin softens


Wet or "washed" coffees are said to have improved acidity due to the slight fermentation that takes place in the swimming pool, oops, I mean fermentation tank.

Many or most Central American coffees are wet processed, methinks.

The Brazilian coffee Fazenda Vista Allegre is a natural dry processed coffee that is truly amazing. Many thanks to James at Intelligentsia for turning me on to this great coffee and helping me understand the process. The FVA, by the way is brilliant as a single-origin espresso.

There is WAAAAAY more to this than I've discussed, or even know about for that matter...

If your interested check out:

Coffee Processing

Oh, and by the way... Have you ever eaten a red n' ripe coffee cherry right off the tree?

They're delicious! Like a coffee grape.... Yum Yum.

Thanks for those James!

An Obsessive's Guide To Coffee

In the March 2006 issue of Food and Wine magazine, Ninth Street Espresso, Kenny Nye's shop where I worked back in the day was named as one of the top U.S. Coffee Bars along with Victrola and many other great shops.... here it is:

Food and Wine

http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/an-obsessives-guide-to-coffee

top roasters are listed here:

roasters

Congrats to Doma, Intelligentsia, Barefoot and the rest. Your all very special... in your own way... ( single teardrop rolling down my cheek)

Peta Luma Barista Championship

I'm bummed I didn't have a chance to go

Conratulations to Heather, Gabe and Eton!!!

I now make a resolution to go next year... Better yet there should be one in L.A. (or maybe there is one that I don't even know about)!

Maybe I'll set it up!

Anybody interested?