Second Best: We’re not (just) in Burger King anymore…

Starbucks plans to increase the number of it’s second-tier Seattle’s Best  locations to about 30,000 by the end of the year.

The Seattle Times reports that a year ago, there were just 550 Seattle’s Best locations, and 480 of them were inside Borders bookstores.

David Mitchell interviews Big City Coffee CEO, Stephan Iscoe

My interest in the coffee business goes back to the early 1980’s. A friend was a distributor of organic foods and had just signed a deal to distribute Cafe Altura – a shade-grown organic coffee from Chiapas, Mexico. He came by my house with a batch of fresh-roasted beans and a little electric grinder. Five minutes later I was sipping the best coffee I’d ever had. Up to then, I was a tea drinker…

read the whole Saving Advice interview: Big City Coffee Stephan Iscoe Interview on Entrepreneurship

Tim Leary and Richard Alpert’s former employer, Harvard University, moves from psychedelics to caffeine.

Through a process called particle engineering, Harvard professor David Edwards and a student team have developed a new way for coffee drinkers to get their fix: inhalation.

Yes! Coffee you just inhale.

According to Edward’s company, Le Whif, the breathable coffee powder delivers the jolt of caffeine without the cup.

And – you’ll love this – Le Whif also makes inhalable chocolates….perfect accompaniment to a line of caffeine.

Thanks to Earth911 for alerting me to this green initiative (no cup waste!)

Artisan Roasting

At Big City Coffee, we hand-select the green coffee beans to order, blending the required varieties or choosing the best single origin gourmet beans. Then we artisan roast the beans in small batches using a 5 kilo drum roaster.

It’s an intimate craft process; you hear the beans tumble, feel the heat transfer, smell the coffee as it roasts, then you thrill to the snap and crackle of the beans as they reach the peak of their roast cycle.

The perfect results cascade from the drum into the cooling tray before being inspected again to assure the roast quality.

Your order is then weighed, bagged, and packed by hand, insuring that many of our coffee experts have agreed to put their names on the quality testament for every customer order.

Green Mountain Coffee Helps The Community And Takes Part In Fair Trade Business

Green Mountain Coffee, producer of specialty coffee and manufacturer of coffee makers, is trying to set an example in the field by taking part in environmental and community improvement programs and exemplary business practices. Green Mountain takes part in the National River Cleanup event by encouraging workers to volunteer their time and efforts during paid work days. The program has been very successful in helping to keep rivers and streams clean for everyone to enjoy them. Employees are encouraged to do many other types of volunteer work on company time as part of a Community Action For Employees program. Green Mountain also works to directly counteract it’s own carbon footprint through evironmentalism. Green Mountain is also involved in a fair trade coffee program that guarantees the growers who supply their coffee are fairly compensated for their labor and well supplied with the tools they need to produce an excellent product.

They strive to illustrate ways that companies can maintain profits while still advancing social and environmental concerns. By openly contributing to good business behavior Green Mountain hopes to set a prime example and stimulate other companies in the coffee business to take similar action.

Maintaining Coffee Consistancy And Roast Quality

A customer recently emailed us that they liked our Big City Coffee blend and wanted to know about our consistancy and quality control.

That’s a great question for any small artisan coffee roaster commited to delivering every order to high standards. The great artisan roasters are fanatics about repeatable processes to achieve predictable results. It’s the variables that will drive the Roastmaster nuts; and the biggest variable is – (drum roll (it’s a pun!), please…) – The Bean.

The following is from my reply; it’s also posted here so you can add your comments, too.

We’re roasting all of the Big City Coffee brands 2-3 times a week and deliver it fresh
And quality is excellent and consistent…the beans are hand-selected and every roast is done on a small batch roaster and monitored by one our expert roastmasters.

We do a tasting several times a week, too, just for fun

An issue with small estate coffees is getting enough high-quality beans that are consistent from season to season. It’s more of a problem with ’single origin’ bean, like PanAltura, or all from one farm…even though the cup quality may be high from season to season, the taste may vary a little – like wine vintages – because of weather, soil, and other seasonal growing conditions.

With the blends, like Big City, or HiFi, it’s easier to find substitute high quality beans that still maintain the same great taste.

Megabucks and other large-scale roasters keep the taste the same by:

1) warehousing tons of product for 3-4 years (green beans do not improve with age)

2) using up to 30%+ lower-quality ‘filler’ bean

3) and over-roasting to add caramelized sugars to cover the underlying taste

But, if that’s what you like, and it fits your budget, you should probably stick with it…

More Coffee Facts

Panama is one of the smallest coffee growing regions but its unique coffees have become a necessity to all specialty coffee roasters of the world.
A coffee roaster seeking certain coffee beans to enhance his signature blends enjoys one of the best perks of purchasing green coffee beans. It is ‘direct farm relations’. Roasters who really want to know their coffees journey, travel the world to find certain beans with certain nuances. Earthy Naturals from Brazil and Africa, Crisp and Clean Acidity from Central America, a mild salty start and full body from Indonesia and the floral sweetness from Panama. Then like a chemist they work to make the perfect cup of coffee.
The world’s top coffee today – Boquete Gesha – has her noble lineage from seeds acquired by Don Pachi Serracin from the Center for Tropical Crops in Costa Rica back in the late 20 century. Clusters of Gesha trees are now climbing the highest hills all over Panama’s diverse microclimates – with a pleasant surprise! The abundant flavors that are exhibited produce an outstanding cup yet no one is as unique as Jaramillo Especial, the winners of this year Best of Panama.

[read Kristina Lea Miller's full article in The Bajareque Times]

After a tour of several farms in Boquete, Japanese businessmen acquired 600 quintals of coffee.
Laestrella.com.pa reports: “The representatives of the Japanese stores and roasters that visited the Boquete area for three days, expressed their admiration for the dedication and care with which the Panamanians cultivate and process the coffee. After visiting the plantations and greenhouses, they saw the various ways of drying, depulping and keeping the level of freshness in the grain, at the following farms: Casa Ruiz, Finca Beneficio, Finca Peterson, all producers of Keisha Coffee, which won various international prizes, in addition to the Callejon Seco Farm.”
[read original post from laestrella.com.pa in Spanish]

Several of the world’s most distinctive fine coffees come from the Guatemala highlands…
you can learn more about these, and many other, great coffees at The Coffee Review, Enjoy!

I’m just now winding down after full day at the new roasting facility & had fun inventing new organic gourmet blends: get more info on availablility – subscribe to our RSS feed or join our newsletter!