Fresh Cup Magazine | July 2017

THIRD-WAVE CHAI | NEXT-LEVEL MENUS | PURE EIRE DAIRY | VEGAN CAFÉS | ANATOMY OF THE BREAKFAST SANDWICH

BEHIND THE BAR at the Rose Establishment.

P. 34

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The

FOOD ISSUE

T H E M AGA Z I N E FO R S P E C I A LT Y C O F F E E & T E A P R O F E S S I O N A L S S I N C E 1 9 9 2

FEATURES JULY 2017 Fresh Cup Magazine » Vol. 26 » No. 7

28 THE FOOD ISSUE: Boosting profits with creatively curated food menus. P. 28 NEXT-LEVEL FOOD MENUS: Developing a food menu that works. By Rachel Sandstrom Morrison P. 30 BEHIND THE BAR » KITCHEN EDITION: The Rose Establishment in Salt Lake City, Utah. By Ellie Bradley P. 34 CRUCIAL CLEANING DUTIES: Keep these tips handy, and go forth and clean! P. 38 CAFÉ OUTFITTER: Coffee-infused brews for summer. P. 40 RETAILER SPOTLIGHT: Joe Bean in Rochester, New York. By Rachel Sandstrom Morrison P. 42 DO YOU KNOW? Pure Eire Dairy in Othello, Washington. By Ellie Bradley P. 44 MENUS FOR ALL: Vegan, paleo, and plant-based cafés. By Kerry Politzer P. 46 BEFORE YOU BUILD: What you should know about designing prep areas and retail displays. P. 50 TOAST: Ten tips for your toast (to try today!). P. 52 ANATOMY OF THE BREAKFAST SANDWICH: Breaking down the essentials of the morning standard. P. 54

CONNECTED TO ORIGIN Technology’s role in a sustainable supply chain. P. 56

BY KEVIN CHEN, PH.D.

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DEPARTMENTS JULY 2017 Fresh Cup Magazine » Vol. 26 » No. 7

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FROM THE EDITOR The Power of Resourcefulness

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THE FILTER Canada’s cross-country coffee swap; coffee art; Bobo’s stuff’d; New York City Coffee; SheBrews Symposium; Mad Priest helps refugees

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IN HOUSE

THE WHOLE LEAF

Giving Back with Coffee

by Carla Passino

Third-Wave Chai

by Amy Rothstein

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CONTRIBUTORS 62

COUNTER INTELLIGENCE People and products

64

CALENDAR Trade shows and events

66

ADVERTISER INDEX

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FC

FROM THE EDITOR The Power of Resourcefulness

FOR MANY CAFÉS, IT’S NOT FINANCIALLY FEASIBLE

CONNECT WITH US

/FreshCupMagazine

@freshcupmag

@freshcupmag

ON THE COVER: THE ROSE ESTABLISHMENT Alicia Pacheco and Cori Norton are the chefs at Salt Lake City’s the Rose Establishment.

ELLIE BRADLEY, EDITOR ellie@freshcup.com

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Photo by Michael Kunde

EDITOR P HOTO BY CYNTHIA MEA DO RS; C HEDDAR BISC UIT SANDWIC H FRO M LO O SIE’ S BY JARE D ZU CKE RMAN

to launch with a full-fledged kitchen; the equipment is too expensive, staffing costs are too high, and the logistics of designing a layout to accommodate both food and beverage prep are mind boggling. But there’s good news: developing a food program can happen over time.

In compiling this issue, a common thread stood out among the food-savvy cafés with whom we spoke: resourcefulness. Ingenuity with equipment, ingredients, layout, and staffing opens pathways to creating all sorts of tasty, creative dishes without a complete kitchen renovation.

This month’s cover features Cori Norton and Alicia Pacheco, head chef and pastry chef at the Rose Establishment in Salt Lake City, Utah (page 34). The Rose is a poster child for food program evolution. Starting with only coffee and outsourced pastries, the café has slowly added staff, equipment, and menu items, gradually elevating its menu to be competitive with high-end restaurants in the area.

The Rose represents an evolution that’s attainable for many business owners and affirms that successful food programs are not made by any one piece of culinary equipment. If you have the desire to offer better food to your customers, there’s a way to make it happen. (I can’t help but reflect on my college dorm days—you’d be amazed at what I was able to create with a microwave and a George Foreman.)

As you read this issue, keep in mind that almost every featured café has grown into having the small selection of equipment they use creatively to produce their menu. Many of them began with only coffee, slowly adding food as their budgets would allow, building relationships with local vendors, and reaffirming company values throughout the process.

We’re excited to continue incorporating more food content into Fresh Cup, and will be introducing a column dedicated to food-related topics this fall. This month, we’ve done our best to provide a crash course in the basics, from breakfast sandwich combinations, to toast tips, to recommendations for keeping your prep areas clean. Go on, dig in.

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FRESH CUP MAGAZINE ~~~FRESH CUP FOUNDER~~~ WARD BARBEE 1938-2006 ~~~FRESH CUP PUBLISHING~~~ Publisher and President JAN WEIGEL jan@freshcup.com ~~~EDITORIAL~~~ Editor ELLIE BRADLEY ellie@freshcup.com Associate Editor RACHEL SANDSTROM MORRISON rachel@freshcup.com ~~~ART~~~ Art Director CYNTHIA MEADORS cynthia@freshcup.com ~~~ADVERTISING~~~ Sales Manager MICHAEL HARRIS michael@freshcup.com Ad Coordinator DIANE HOWARD adtraffic@freshcup.com Marketing Coordinator ANNA SHELTON anna@freshcup.com ~~~CIRCULATION~~~ Circulation Director ANNA SHELTON anna@freshcup.com ~~~ACCOUNTING~~~ Accounting Manager DIANE HOWARD diane@freshcup.com ~~~EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD~~~ DAVID GRISWOLD

ANUPA MUELLER

Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers

Eco-Prima

CHUCK JONES

BRAD PRICE

Jones Coffee Roasters

Monin Gourmet Flavorings

JULIA LEACH

BRUCE RICHARDSON

Toddy

Elmwood Inn Fine Teas

COSIMO LIBARDO

MANISH SHAH

Toby’s Estate Coffee

Maya Tea Co.

BRUCE MILLETTO

LARRY WINKLER

Bellissimo Coffee Advisors

Torani

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CONTRIBUTORS KEVIN CHEN Kevin Chen, Ph.D, is CEO of Crop Enhancement, a venture-backed agriculture technology corporation based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In “Connected to Origin: Technology’s Role in a Sustainable Supply Chain” on page 56, Chen shows us how big data, improvements to plant genetics, and CropCoat, a biodegradable cropprotector, can transform small coffee farms in the developing world.

CHELSEA FRANCIS In an industry that has long been dominated by males, SheBrews is making it clear that women have always had their place at the table. In the Filter (page 18), Chelsea Francis gives us a rundown of the group’s recent symposium in Austin, Texas, where she photographed the day’s events.

Francis is a photographer in Austin.

AMY ROTHSTEIN Chai is often regarded as an afterthought for coffee-focused cafés, relegated to the world of syrups and powders amidst a menu of artisanal sodas and expertly pulled espresso shots. Amy Rothstein got fed up with the available chai options and decided to take action. In the Whole Leaf (page 26), Rothstein shares how her foray into homemade chai led to the founding of her company, Dona Chai.

KERRY POLITZER Kerry Politzer is a Portland, Oregon–based journalist and food columnist. She is currently studying sustainable food systems and her favorite subjects are coffee and dessert. In “Menus for All: Vegan, Paleo, and Plant-based Cafés,” (page 46) Politzer highlights a collection of cafés catering to the wellness-oriented crowd.

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RACHEL NORTHROP Building a coffee community is no easy task, but a coffee swap across Canada brought Toronto and Vancouver a little closer. In the Filter (page 18), Rachel Northrop shows us how these kinds of events develop community—not competition—between industry professionals. Northrop is a regular contributor and sales rep with Ally Coffee’s specialty importing division. She authored the book When Coffee Speaks: Stories from and of Latin American Coffeepeople.

AM Y ROTHSTEIN PHOTO BY ISSY C RO K ER

CARLA PASSINO Community service and philanthropic efforts are a priority shared by many coffee businesses, but starting a pay-it-forward program can be difficult. In this month’s In House column (page 24), Carla Passino explores the myriad ways a café can give back.

Passino is a UK-based freelance writer specializing in the world of food and drink.

The FILTER A Fine Blend of News and Notes

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he concept is simple: swap coffees with a different city so people in both areas can taste new coffees and connect with the other community through concurrent events.

The idea came to life in the recent Cross Canada Coffee Swap between Toronto and Vancouver. The swap provided a more meaningful connection than social media scrolling— without requiring investment in a flight across time zones to attend a trade show.

Vania Ling of Vancouver’s Coffee Potluck says the recent Cross Country Coffee Swap began to take shape during this year’s SCA Expo in Seattle, Washington. “The inspiration for the event sparked from a conver-

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sation I had with Ashley Tomlinson of the Little Black Coffee Cup,” Ling says. “This year at SCA, we hosted a discussion panel of independent coffee media called Coffee ON:line.

Ashley and I thought it would be great to share coffees from our respective cities to increase inclusivity and exposure for the lesser known local roasters. The event was a collaboration between Coffee Potluck and the newly formed Toronto Coffee Community.”

Roasters were invited by Tomlinson and Coffee Potluck to include both “unsung heroes” and core representative roasters of each city. Coffee Potluck had already been hosting monthly tastings, but the swap was a way to experience coffee on a national scale—both cities tasted the

same eight coffees on the same day, four from each city.

In Toronto, the tasting took place at Boxcar Social’s Temperance location; local featured coffees were from Reunion Island, Pilot Coffee Roasters, Hatch, and De Mello Palheta. In Vancouver, the tasting was held at Nemesis Coffee, with local representation from Moving Coffee, 32 Lakes Coffee Roasters, Groundswell Roasters, and Regard Coffee Roasters.

“In Vancouver, we hosted an open tasting and a triangulation competition as a way to create an understanding of the National Cup Tasters Competition, which took place on May 21 in Calgary,” Ling says.

The swap focused on bridging the distance between the two cities, and growing education around Canadian

PH OTO BY AS HLEY TOM LINSO N

CROSS CANADA COFFEE SWAP

coffee. The Toronto Coffee Community hosted the tasting as a cupping, and openly walked newbies through the process.

For Alfonso Tupaz, head of Hatch Coffee, a roaster and cold-brew bottler in Markham (outside Toronto), the concept made good on its promise to breed community, not competition. “Coffee is about bringing people together, but it’s a bit strange that in Canada, coffee roasters and those in the industry rarely get together,” he says. “An event like this helps to bring us together and highlights the coffee community in Toronto.”

PH OTO S BY LAWRENCE LEE

Tomlinson says they’d like to host similar events in the future. “We’d love to do more Canadian coffee swaps, maybe with more than two cities tasting at the same time,” she says. “We’d also like to swap with other local coffee communities in the United States and around the world.”

Events like the swap highlight the united community behind specialty coffee and introduce consumers to the idea of coffee as a differentiated product. Says Hatch’s Tupaz: “The swap helps to adopt the view that we’re all in this together, to promote the entire value chain to more people. It’s hard to do in an industry where there’s a lot of ego and ideas about how coffee should be. Sharing experience and knowledge strengthens the industry as a whole.”

—RACHEL NORTHROP

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COFFEE ON CANVAS

J

on Norquist is a civil engineer by trade, but a desire to find a creative outlet—combined with a poorly engineered coffee carafe—led to a second career as an artist, and the development of a collection of coffee-splashed canvases.

“I had always wanted to dive into my creative side, but it was difficult to find time to develop a craft with four kids and my engineering career,” Norquist says.

One morning, an aptly placed coffee spill captured his attention. “I thought, ‘If I spread that out on paper, it would probably be an interesting visual effect,’” he says. Norquist began to collect spills over time, placing butcher paper on his kitchen counter and taping out geometric patterns with masking tape. “I liked the crazy lines of the spill with the hard lines of the rectangles.”

Paper wrinkled too much, so eventually Norquist began to capture the same combination of chaotic spill patterns and smooth geometric lines on canvas. He plugged away at his projects for years, creating pieces for the house, and giving them as gifts to friends. Last summer, Norquist started displaying his art in public and making it available for sale.

Collections of work now hang in Tacoma’s Corina Bakery and Caffe Fiore in Seattle. coffeeoncanvas.com

C

alling all nut butter enthusiasts: Bobo’s just released a line of bars filled with nutty spreads. And we’re not talking about spreads made from synthetic ingredients like you find in other filled bars—Stuff ’d bars are the real deal. Filled with peanut butter, almond butter, or chocolate almond butter (yum!), each bar packs an extra protein punch, complementing the baked oat flavor of Bobo’s classic bars.

The Boulder, Colorado–based company was inspired to create the Stuff ’d line after noticing they were spending a lot of time spreading peanut and almond butter on their classic oat bars. Bobo’s launched the Stuff ’d line locally this spring in Whole Foods stores, and the bars are available nationwide this month. Choose from four flavors: Peanut Butter Filled, Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Chip, Coconut Almond Butter Filled, or Chocolate Almond Butter Filled. eatbobos.com

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PH OTO S C OURTESY O F JO N NO RQ UIST (ABOVE) AND BOBO ’S (LEFT)

STUFF’D WITH GOODNESS

NEW YORK CITY COFFEE: A CAFFEINATED HISTORY

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PH OTO C OURTESY O F H ISTO RY P RESS

t’s a narrative many of us can relate to: living in a city without fully understanding its history; working in an industry without realizing the extent of its roots. Until you commit to delving deeper into the backstory of a place or an industry, it’s difficult to discern what you don’t know.

Erin Meister (known by most coffee folks as just Meister), discovered that industry and place were inextricably linked while researching the history of coffee in New York City. A long-time New Yorker and coffee-industry veteran, Meister admits that she assumed there wasn’t much to uncover about New York’s contribution to the industry’s growth— but she quickly learned she was wrong.

New York City Coffee: A Caffeinated History examines the impact the coffee industry has had on New York, and the city’s contribution to the industry.

The book explores four major aspects of coffee once it’s reached its country of consumption: green, roasted, café culture, and coffee drinking habits.

Through interviews and profiles of luminaries past and present, trivia tidbits, anecdotes, and an abundance of photos, Meister takes readers on her journey of discovery, introducing people and places that have helped weave New York’s colorful tapestry, in turn shaping the coffee industry of present day.

New York City Coffee: A Caffeinated History is due July 31 through the History Press. Pre-orders are available through powells.com.

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L

ast month, SheBrews hosted its first ever symposium at the Lemon Lounge in Austin, Texas.

The group arose to serve as a platform for education, networking, and empowerment in the craft beverage industry.

SheBrews was organized by women from five coffee and beer powerhouses in the Austin community: Raechel Hurd (coffee educator at Epoch Coffee), Emily Jackson (A Better Cup Consulting), Allison Kissell (general manager at Caffe Medici), Britt Allen (coffee educator at Wright Bros. Brew & Brew), and Randi Hensley (director of operations at Epoch Coffee).

In an industry that has long been dominated by male influence, groups like SheBrews are making it clear that women have always had their place at the table—and they’ve got loads of knowledge to offer. The symposium was organized by a cast of the community’s brightest craftswomen and was well attended by many people in the community (admission was open to all).

The symposium started with a brief introduction to SheBrews, followed by a call for anyone and everyone in attendance to educate themselves further about their industries. To help with this task, organizers provided three separate development experiences. A beer sensory workshop, led by cicerones Lindsay Compton of Uchiko and Brandy Compton of Barley Swine, walked participants through the history of beer as well as a tasting experience. A coffee sensory workshop led by Raechel Hurd and Emily Jackson asked participants with varying degrees of coffee knowledge to step into a full sensory tasting experience, sampling various elements of the flavor wheel.

These workshops were followed by a social hour with beer and coffee tastings from local Austin brewers and roasters.

The day ended with the panel discussion focusing on the craft community at large and addressing a variety of challenges faced by industry professionals.

—CHELSEA FRANCIS

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SHEBREWS ORGANIZERS (from left) Emily Jackson, Raechel Hurd, Allison Kissell, Britt Allen, and Randi Hensley

PH OTO S BY C HELSEA FRANC IS

SHEBREWS SYMPOSIUM

FOR PROFIT, FOR REFUGEES

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PH OTO S C OURTESY O F MA D PRIEST C O FFEE

irst and foremost, Mad Priest Coffee is a roastery dedicated to creating an excellent product. They focus on educating customers on the art and science of coffee—and on the humanitarian crises around the world.

Based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the roaster partners with Bridge Refugee Services to employ refugees who are resettling in the area. Mad Priest founder Michael Rice and his wife, Cherita, lived in India for several years where they taught English, befriended many Syrian refugees, and worked in the country’s burgeoning coffee scene. Upon returning to the States, Rice knew he wanted to connect with the local refugee community, but through a for-profit business model.

“Patagonia was a big inspiration,” Rice says. “Here’s a normal, for-profit company that’s doing a ton of stuff to invest in the environment. I want to become the Patagonia for refugees in the coffee industry.”

Rice says it was important to have a product-driven company that started from the ground up. “Refugees need an opportunity to have a good job and maybe even start their own business. Small business is a big part of what makes American democracy great,” he says. Mad Priest is designed to welcome refugees with skills and goals well matched with the coffee industry, offering them a place to grow with the company, even inspiring them to start their own business at some point.

Rice works with Bridge to identify local refugees who are good candidates to build careers in specialty coffee. He began with one full-time employee and is in the process of adding another. Mad Priest also offers catering and event planning, focusing on bringing new cultural experiences to Chattanooga, and connecting refugees with new business opportunities. FC

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In HOUSE Giving Back with Coffee » By Carla Passino

FOOD DONATIONS When budgets are a concern, donating leftover food is a cost-sensible way to support community members in need. Surplus pastries

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and sandwiches can be donated through companies like F o o d C o w b o y, which have been created to mitigate business owners’ concerns around food donation. “When donors are enrolled in Food Cowboy, they agree to donate in accordance with the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act [which protects them from liability],” says Food Cowboy cofounder Barbara Cohen.

An app connects food companies to local nonprofits that meet Food Cowboy’s charity standards for food safety, responsiveness, timeliness, and receipting. “The donor lets the charity know exactly what and how much is available, if it is fresh, frozen, or shelf-stable, and when it can be retrieved,” Cohen explains. “The charity arranges the pick up or rejects it. Too many rejections of offered donations get flagged.”

A GIVING STATE OF MIND A budgeted approach to giving has proven successful for companies looking to donate revenue. Blue State Coffee began trading in Providence, Rhode Island, in July 2007 with the goal of helping people in need.

“Our company was started so that we’d give to local nonprofits,” says Carolyn Greenspan, CEO of Blue State Coffee. The company donates 2 percent of sales, regardless of whether it makes any profit. Greenspan says donation is treated the same as any other line item on the budget: “We buy milk, we buy coffee, we pay our employees, we pay our rent—and we give away money.”

PH OTO BY NAT HAN DUMLAO

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offee weaves a thread of connection among cultures and people around the world, so it’s not surprising that community service and philanthropic efforts are a priority shared by many coffee businesses. From donating leftover food to holding fundraisers for nonprofit organizations, there are endless opportunities to use your businesses as a conduit to support positive change. But what does it look like to give back? Is there a right way to pay it forward?

For many people, the biggest stumbling block on the path of giving back is juggling a philanthropic initiative alongside the many pressing commitments of running a store on tight margins.

The first step is to find something that’s easily manageable for you and your business. Kathy Santoro of Good Day Café in North Andover, Massachusetts, introduced suspended coffee at her store earlier this year. The concept empowers customers to cover the cost of a coffee, sandwich, or pastry, which can then be redeemed by a customer who needs the financial assistance.

But Santoro found the coffees and food items weren’t being claimed at the rate they were being purchased.

“We are not in a community where people come in and ask for suspended coffee on a regular basis,” Santoro says. In response, Good Day Café is adjusting their program to better serve their community. “We were going to send coffee to [a nonprofit] but since we have [money], we are looking at translating it into food,” Santoro says. “We are going to be delivering forty pounds of chicken to a homeless shelter.”

As a result, Blue State Coffee—which now has eight stores across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut—has contributed almost $700,000 to more than 250 local nonprofits in the ten years since its founding.

A flat percentage model might not be realistic for all businesses; those retailing roasted coffee can also take a per-bag approach.

After returning from overseas mission work, Jeff and Emily Brooks thought that coffee would be the perfect conduit to raise funds for charitable projects, and engage customers in the experience. The Brookses launched Giv Coffee in the fall of 2011. Located in Canton, Connecticut, the philanthropic roasting company and café donates one dollar for every twelve-ounce retail bag of coffee it sells online, through its own café, or through wholesale partners. Funds go to the Hartford City Mission in Connecticut and to three overseas nonprofit organizations.

Philanthropy is a core mission for both Greenspan and the Brookses and they shaped their business models around it. However, you don’t have to give up a huge chunk of your potential income or sign on to a large-scale program to make a difference.

“I talk to a lot of coffee shop owners and what I usually just say is: ‘Do something,’” Greenspan says. “Can you donate coffee to one event? That’s great. But you can’t do nothing.”

INVITE PARTICIPATION Conveying your mission to customers is key to generating enthusiasm for your initiatives. Blue State Coffee has put a simple system in place to

ensure everyone can support causes that are valuable to them. Customers are encouraged to nominate nonprofits the company can donate to—four are chosen every six months, based on customer suggestions.

“They come here, have their awesome cup of coffee, then take a little voting token that we have at the register and they get to vote for whichever of the four nonprofits is going to get the 2 percent of their sale,” Greenspan says. “Who doesn’t like the idea that you are doing exactly what you were going to do anyway but somebody is going to benefit from that?”

Giving-back initiatives have also proven popular with staff. At Giv Coffee, Jeff Brooks says they see lower turnover as a result of involving staff in their efforts. “Our staff is really committed to [our] goal and really understands this is something beyond just an awesome cup of coffee.”

The financial side of any philanthropic project needs to add up, too, but both Greenspan and Brooks have found that committing a significant portion of their proceeds to nonprofits has sharpened their accounting skills. Brooks says he always has to be sure the numbers are in line. “There’s not a lot of room for error,” he says.

“You have to be on the edge, constantly pushing quality.”

Ultimately, the rewards make the effort more than worthwhile.

Greenspan, the Brookses, and Santoro have all been deeply touched by the people they have been able to support. Says Good Day’s Santoro, “I manage a staff of fifteen and pay bills and all that, but this is the best part of my job. I’m in business to try to do better and this has got to be what it’s all about.” FC Carla Passino is a freelance writer based in the United Kingdom.

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The WHOLE LEAF Third-Wave Chai » By Amy Rothstein This month we’re examining the interplay of food and beverage: how the two can be used together to strengthen brand identity, curate a customer experience, elevate quality in the café, and provide opportunities for education. But tea— chai in particular—is often overshadowed by talk of coffee and brunch menus, sometimes forgotten entirely. Amy Rothstein noticed the dearth of quality chai available around her and decided to do something about it. Rothstein’s special attention to ingredients and quality products was a perfect complement to this month’s special food issue. We asked her

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moved to New York City in 2012 to pursue a graduate degree in food studies at NYU. With an interest in food and a Brooklyn address, I quickly developed an interest in craft coffee, popping into cafés around my neighborhood and taking in the third-wave scene.

But the more I visited coffee shops, the more I grew frustrated. The neighborhood roasters featured local dairy farmers alongside high-end pastries and baked goods from around New York City. Why wasn’t there any artisanal-quality chai available in

of my mother—an Indian chef—and she gave me a 101-level class on chai.

I learned about the history of the beverage, Indian culture, and how chai is consumed in the country. I even learned there is no set recipe for the tea.

Chai is the most common drink in India and a symbol of Indian culture.

The beverage is more of a category than a recipe; it varies by region because of the local spices used. The development of chai was influenced

by British colonization in India. The British introduced the concept of tea

When I began experimenting with chai recipes, I wanted to help consumers reconnect with the roots of chai, offering a tea blended with fresh spices, each detectable as its own flavor. these shops? The concentrates I came across were less than impressive and none were made locally. Chai was even difficult to find in many places; shop owners didn’t like the commercial options available and without a local purveyor as an alternative, they opted not to offer chai at all. It was a confusing gap in the market.

My frustration pushed me to start developing my own chai recipe. I wanted to start a company focused on good ingredients, a simple recipe, and a pure process, mirroring the attention to detail shown to other products sold in cafés.

I hadn’t ever made chai before, so I started learning. I met with a friend

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time to their plantation workers in an effort to increase domestic sales of black tea. But much of the tea that was introduced was low quality and very bitter. As a result, workers would add milk and sugar, along with spices that were pleasing to the Indian palate.

Many American chai products have drifted far from the tea’s roots. The chai found on many store shelves— and in many coffee shops—has skewed consumers’ perceptions of the drink. Boxed concentrates are often very sweet and made with spice extracts and natural colorings rather than real ingredients. It’s difficult to distinguish individual spices, and the sweetness is often overpowering.

When I began experimenting with chai recipes, I wanted to help consumers reconnect with the roots of chai, offering a tea blended with fresh spices, each detectable as its own flavor. I started with a long list of spices—including fennel, anise, allspice, and nutmeg—then narrowed it down based on my taste. I knew I wanted to include fresh ginger to enhance the freshness of the beverage. After countless trials, I finalized my recipe and launched Dona Chai in March 2014.

We use a recipe of fresh ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and black pepper, steeped with pure black tea, then sweetened just enough to honor the flavors of the spices. The source of our tea and spices rotates based on seasonal availability; like coffee roasters, we source and cup each of our ingredients before they’re used. This attention to detail has led to partnerships with hundreds of third-wave coffee shops and specialty stores around the country who share values of good quality and good ingredients.

Chai is an exciting addition to any café menu, and can highlight a business’s commitment to thoughtfully sourced ingredients, enticing flavors, and careful attention to detail. Depending on the country of origin and variety of a spice, the tea can take on many different flavors. With a full palate of spices to work with, the options for chai-and-food pairings are vast.

This variability makes for an explorative tasting experience that encourages curiosity and attentiveness, both for you and your customer. FC Amy Rothstein is the founder of Dona Chai, a Brooklyn-based tea concentrate company.

P HOTO BY ISSY C RO KER

to share her story.

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR VALUABLE INPUT! We couldn’t have put this issue together without the help of these food-savvy individuals.

Ellory Abels, Alpine Modern Christopher Alspach and Katherine Harris, Upper Left Roasters Tom Palm, Design & Layout Services Rich Troche, Everybody’s Coffee Charlie Wicker, Trailhead Coffee Roasters Erica Teodoro, Harbor Greens EAT Marketplace Devoción Loosie’s Café Groundwork Coffee

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SAY HELLO TO YOUR NEXT MENU.

P HOTO BY CYNTHIA MEA DO RS

Introduce your customers to a mouthwatering menu that’s creatively curated and masterfully executed.

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THIS PAGE (C LO CK WISE FRO M TO P RIGHT): P HOTO BY JA RED Z UC K ERM AN; C O URT ESY O F HERO C OF F E E B AR; COU RTE SY OF OTL ; COU RTE SY OF B RE AD & B ON E ; COU RTE SY OF GROU N DWORK COF F E E

FOOD ISSUE

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NEXT-LEVEL FOOD MENUS

July 2017 » Fresh Cup Magazine

BY RACHEL SANDSTROM MORRISON

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t’s easy to make the argument for developing a food menu: even the simplest offerings can raise ticket averages, encourage customers to linger longer—perhaps spending a few more dollars—and help draw in crowds during otherwise slow lunchtime hours. Food menus are also a means of developing branding and strengthening company core values, through methods like highlighting sustainable ingredients, community partnerships, wacky names for dishes—the list goes on.

But the steps between brainstorming and executing a menu are rarely simple. From square-footage limitations to budget restrictions, there are many barriers to overcome on the road to a successful food program.

However, it doesn’t take a full kitchen or a culinary degree to get the job done. With some ingenuity and a mind for collaboration, the next level of café dining is easily within reach.

THIS PAG E: TO P RIGHT P HOTO CO URTESY O F BREAD & BONE ; TOA ST PHOTO CO URTESY O F HAWT HORN COF F E E

BIG DREAMS, SMALL SPACE If you’re working with a convection oven and zero square footage, you have a couple options: (1) stick with only coffee, (2) get creative with your space and ingredient repurposing, or (3) partner with a local vendor. For tiny spaces without the option of expansion, an easy way to add food offerings is by partnering with a vendor to bring in prepared items already packaged for sale, or ready to be served with minimal preparation (e.g. heating in a convection oven).

Seattle’s Bread & Bone is a specialty catering company helping cafés serve excellent food. They believe the same amount of effort and attention should be paid to both coffee and food—craft is craft. Co-owners Nick and Andi Springer are food and beverage industry veterans—Nick has a background in fine dining, and Andi managed coffee shops. The Springers mobilized Bread & Bone after noticing the cold cases at some of their local cafés were seriously lacking. For the last year, they have been supplying

BREAD & BONE’S Caprese sandwich.

sandwiches, wraps, and custom items to local cafés—Anchorhead Coffee, Fika House Kafe, and Victrola Coffee, to name a few.

Most of their products highlight local ingredients and are made in-house—including slow-cooked tomato jam and mustards. Goat cheese comes directly from Yarmuth Farm in Darrington, Washington, and beef comes from Niman Ranch, an eleven-acre ranch in a small coastal town north of San Francisco that raises beef using humane and sustainable husbandry methods.

Jake Paulson. “And Bread & Bone has a great program where they donate what we don’t sell. It’s a win-win.”

San Diego’s Hawthorn Coffee also decided to pursue the route of a vendor partnership. Examining their 800-square-foot space, owner Dylan Redmond says they knew a modest menu incorporating dishes prepped outside the café was their best bet.

Hawthorn partners with Paraná Empanadas, a local favorite that delivers fresh empanadas three times a week (Paraná sets a schedule based on HAWTHORN COFFEE has five toast options on the menu, including the GOAT (left).

Anchorhead Coffee chose to partner with Bread & Bone after realizing an expansion into lunch was going to be too difficult to accommodate in-house.

“We were looking for quality lunch items but we didn’t have the ability to make them ourselves,” says co-owner

the needs of their partners). The rest of Hawthorn’s menu is simple enough to be prepped with minimal cooking and storage requirements: a toast menu with five options (including the mouthwatering GOAT—goat cheese, olive oil, and apricot preserves on

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local Bread & Cie sourdough), and a couple of granola and yogurt options.

“Doing food this way makes sense for us,” Redmond says. “We want to provide food options, but we have no room for a big kitchen expansions.”

Good candidates for ready-made food vendors: cafés with under 500 square feet of space, shops without any equipment for food prep (and no budget to add any), or staff who want to keep hands on coffee and not food.

HIRE AN EXPERT If you have the space and budget to accommodate a robust array of kitchen equipment (think commercial-adjacent), your options for menu development are essentially endless, including bringing in a chef to create your menu. Miami’s OTL (an abbreviation for Out to Lunch) is a café and restaurant collaboration between Miami’s David Grutman and New York’s the Smile. To develop an approachable menu that would resonate with its Miami customer base, OTL brought in Rachel Nichols and Rosanne Smith, head chef and pastry

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chef, respectively, at the Smile. Nichols and Smith developed a menu for OTL that could then be executed by a local Miami chef.

The original plan was for OTL to be specialty coffee forward, with some food, but positive customer response to the food menu shifted their intentions.

OTL still offers specialty coffee, but the café is becoming more known for its food. “People love the food so much, it became a key element of the restaurant.

It was a good surprise,” Smith says.

The menu includes items that are expertly crafted without being overly fussy. The chefs’ pick? The super seed butter toast. Nichols says they developed the dish as an homage to their love of food that’s healthy, yet balanced. “It’s purposefully on a decadent piece of locally made brioche toast that is lathered with butter,” she says.

Call in reinforcements if you have a robust kitchen space, connections with an established chef, or the budget to support a consult.

COLLABORATE If hiring a chef isn’t right for your business, try partnering with a chef

interested in the coffee industry.

Chicago’s Hero Coffee Bar opened with the intention of being a place where food and coffee were both executed well, and given equal precedence.

The concept came to life when owner Craig Alexander partnered with Brian Tubolino, founder of Dining Consultants International, who has over a decade of experience in the food industry. Alexander’s experience and obsession with coffee was the perfect complement to Tubolino’s culinary experience and expertise, and plans took off. Hero opened boasting a kitchen equipped with a refrigerated prep table (think Subway), conveyor toaster, and a tabletop griddle, in addition to a coffee bar complete with a three-group La Marzocco Linea and Hario V60 drippers.

Three years later, Hero has three locations around the city, with more planned to open over the next year.

Regular customers love what Alexander calls “feel-good food,” breakfast sandwiches like the Usual Suspects—a bacon, egg, cheese, and cream cheese sandwich on a bagel—and lunch combinations, all served on house-made bagels and breads. “Our philosophy

THIS PAGE: PHOTO C O URTESY OF OTL; C O UR TESY O F HERO CO FFEE BAR

A BREAKFAST SANDWICH is always a good option. Miami’s OTL (left) fancies it up, while Chicago’s Hero Coffee Bar (right) keeps it simple.

is easy: keep it simple, keep it tasty,” Alexander says.

As Hero Coffee Bar grows, it’s adapting a hybrid model. The newest location, in the Bucktown neighborhood, features a full-scale commercial kitchen, which makes the food for that location and serves as a commissary kitchen for the two Hero locations operating with only simple tools—a six-foot stainless steel table, refrigerator, conveyor toaster, countertop griddle, and sandwich press.

FRIED EGG SANDWICH from Groundwork Coffee.

Bring on a partner if you’re just getting started or gearing up for a serious build-out, you can make the numbers work, and you share a vision with your prospective partner.

THIS PAGE, C LOC K WIS E FRO M TO P: PHOTO C O URTESY OF GRO UNDWO RK C OFFEE; HOT FAT DO NUT PH OTOS B Y SKAN D I A SHAF E R; LOOSI E ’S CAF É GRAI N B OW L PHOTO B Y JARE D ZU CKE RMAN

RENT-A-KITCHEN When you have the know-how to prepare quality food, but space is an issue, consider a shared kitchen space.

Commissary kitchens are a good way to save money—many kitchens rent by the hour—while offering your customers a wide range of sandwiches, wraps, salads, sweet treats, and more.

Los Angeles’s Nice Coffee rents GRAIN BOWLS are popular menu space at a nearby commissary kitchen items, like this one (above) from to supply its daily sandwiches, donuts, Loosie’s Café in Brooklyn, New York. and popular Friday breakfast burritos. The inspiration for these burritos came from the breakfast taco scene in Austin, Texas. According to owner Tyler Wells (also of Hot Fat Donuts and previously of Handsome Coffee), breakfast tacos “are really good fresh, but much better warmed.” And that’s how they do it at Nice. Burritos are held in a warming tray, “like an old-school street vendor.” The success of these burritos is leading to more opportunities—Nice is in the beta-testing phase of wholesaling to local cafés, supplying donuts and sandwiches to ten spots in town. “It’s hard to find a good grab-and-go sandwich in LA. We could reasonably be a food supplier for the LA coffee scene,” Wells says.

NICE COFFEE serves Hot Fat Donuts (above right, and below).

Utilize your friendly neighborhood commissary kitchen if you have culinary skills to spare, but no means to expand your kitchen. FC

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BEHIND THE BAR: Kitchen Edition

FOOD ISSUE

THE ROSE ESTABLISHMENT

Salt Lake City, Utah

BY ELLIE BRADLEY, PHOTOS BY MICHAEL KUNDE

W

hen the Rose Establishment opened in Salt Lake City in 2010, it served only coffee and tea, brewed to order, with a selection of baked goods sourced from a local bakery. Manager Cody Kirkland says the brew-to-order concept was foreign to the Salt Lake community: “Customers were like, ‘What the hell do you mean you brew coffee to order? You don’t have it ready for me?’”

It was clear the café needed more than pour-overs to survive, so the Rose began its foray into food by offering toast—either cinnamon sugar or avocado—made by baristas between drink orders.

Eventually the toast menu evolved into salads and quinoa bowls, still prepared by the baristas between drink orders. “We kept growing and growing with what we were doing with food,” Kirkland says. This evolution included adding a convection oven and hiring someone to bake in-house; then, buying a decent commercial oven and hiring a bona fide pastry chef; and finally, bringing on Cori Norton, the café’s first food manager.

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Though Norton didn’t have a lot of training, she was confident she could improve the food prep workflow.

“When I came on, it was taking them a week just to prep chili. Each task was assigned to a different day of the week, since baristas were still doing all the prep work,” Norton says.

Norton managed the food and pastry programs at the Rose for a year and a half, eventually leaving to gain more experience in other professional kitchens around Salt Lake. While working at Rye, she met Alicia Pacheco, a professionally trained pastry chef. Long story short: the two hit it off, Norton made her way back to the Rose, then Pacheco joined the staff in January of this year.

Norton now works as the Rose’s chef and Pacheco runs the pastry program.

In addition to an evolution of staff to position the right people with the right training, the Rose has also undergone several equipment and layout transitions. The most transformative of these was the addition of wooden, modular shelving. The adjustable shelves create a division between the kitchen work space and customer seating (a division that was not previously

clear), and provide storage for both the front and back of house.

Norton says getting the layout just right was important for efficiency.

“We lost kitchen space by putting the boxes in, so we had to rearrange storage and add shelves above the prep tables,” she says. “We did a lot of measuring to see if staff could fit back there, to make sure two people could be standing in the pathway and actually walk by each other.”

Behind the wall of shelving, the bakery and food teams each have designated prep areas. The tight quarters can make it tough to find work space, so communication is key to ensuring everyone has the space and time to complete prep tasks. The tight quarters also have benefits, like encouraging cross-utilization of equipment and ingredients.

Pacheco says the cross-utilization of equipment is tough for baking, but great for challenging her creative side: “We all want to do really creative things, and since we don’t have certain aspects of a normal kitchen, we have to be creative to come up with the dishes.”

P HOTO S BY MIC HAEL KUNDE

THE CHEFS: Cori Norton (left) and Alicia Pacheco.

Baristas Up Front : Customers order and pick up at the bar, where baristas are stationed to prepare drinks, answer questions about the menu, and act as runners for the kitchen.

Everything in Modulation: A formation of wooden cube shelves serves as a wall between the kitchen and café seating area, doubling as storage for the front and back of house (boxes have been oriented to face both ways). Spaces were intentionally left open in the wall of shelves to let in natural light from overhead skylights. “That’s important for the whole space at the Rose,” says Cody Kirkland, manager at the Rose Establishment. “To keep it feeling open.”

Cordoned Condiments: A bench and condiment station create a wall between two support beams, helping traffic flow toward the register. Positioning the condiments away from the pick-up area keeps customers from creating a bottleneck.

Super Crock: Just out of view is one of the Rose’s soup crocks, used to hot-hold gravy and hollandaise for brunch specials. (Soup crocks are also used for soups, naturally.) Pacheco and Norton teamed up to bring items like Biscuits & Gravy to the menu; Pacheco already had a cheddar-and-herb biscuit in the bakery, so Norton made a gravy to pair.

Mise en Place: Most of the ingredients needed for the menu are portioned out in the flip-top refrigerated table. Norton cross-utilizes many ingredients—housemade pickled vegetables, roasted potatoes, soft-boiled turmeric-brined eggs—to make the most of limited fridge space.

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Two-Faced Storage: Another look at the Rose’s modular shelf units. Back-ofhouse shelves near the line store plates, dry ingredients, and to-go boxes.

Line Logistics: Nate works on the line, where all brunch and lunch dishes are assembled to order.

Sweetly Sequestered: Shelves in the bakery prep area house some of Pacheco’s secret bakery ingredients, including cocktail bitters, extracts, and candied flowers.

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Pea Shoots, Pea Scores: In addition to letting in light, the open shelves allow for easy communication with baristas and food runners, and prevent claustrophobia in the tight workspace. They also make a great space to house the plants Norton grows as ingredients and garnishes, including pea shoots, spouts, and microgreens.

PH OTO S BY M ICH AEL K UND E

Beets Me: Casey holds a beet-covered sheet pan (beets are marinated in the shops leftover batch brew).

The Rose lacks a commercial stove, so much of the shop’s roasting is done using the oven, while simmering is accomplished with portable induction burners.

Local Flavor: The blue shelves seem to hold everything, including local chocolate from Amano and Solstice, used in baked goods and mochas.

Roll with It: Butcher block–topped prep tables roll where they’re needed and provide additional options for storage.

Innovative Ingredients: Beverage prep remains the most visible behind-bar activity at the Rose.

An ever-changing list of signature drinks features house-made bitters, sodas, and syrups—many of which have been crafted by repurposing food menu ingredients.

Duck, Duck, Gooseneck: A digital Bonavita variable temperature kettle is used on the manual brew bar alongside a pair of Kalita Wave drippers. The electric kettle frees up induction burners for use in the kitchen.

FC

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CRUCIAL CLEANING DUTIES FOOD ISSUE

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A clean house (front and back) is essential, especially when preparing food. We pulled this list of day-to-day cleaning duties from our trusty How-to Handbook. Keep these tips handy, and go forth and clean!

BATHROOMS

FRIDGES

GLASS

Don’t be one of those businesses that ignores the state of their restrooms—nothing loses a customer faster. Hourly checks and wipe downs should suffice.

Fridges get messy quickly. Every night, they should be cleaned thoroughly, inside and out. They may need some attention during the day, too.

Windows stay fairly clean, but doors and door handles get smudged quickly. Assign someone to touch up your café’s glass each shift. First appearances matter.

DISHES

GARBAGE

PASTRY CASE

Ceramics are important to your customers. Patrons don’t want their espresso in paper, so make sure dishes are done as often as possible.

There is nothing appetizing about an overflowing trash can. Empty trash regularly. If you offer recycling or compost (kudos!), empty those, too.

Clean the outside of your pastry case regularly. Consolidate offerings as the day goes on, always maximizing space so it doesn’t look empty. (Until it is empty, then clean it out.)

July 2017 » Fresh Cup Magazine

RECYCLING

SURFACES

Empty milk containers, syrup bottles, and other accumulated packaging from behind the bar. You’ll probably have to do this a few times a day.

Counters, tables, and any other surface your customers see should be free of spills and crumbs.

Behind the bar and back of house, keep it tidy, but do what you can the moment you can.

TO-GO BAR STEAM PITCHERS

SWEEPING

These should be rinsed after every use, and scrubbed as soon as they need it. Have enough pitchers on hand to switch to a clean set periodically.

Sweeping and mopping should be a daily duty behind the bar, and happen throughout the day in the café. Don’t neglect outside spaces, especially if you have seating there.

A customer adding cream to their coffee or grabbing a lid doesn’t want to maneuver around spilled sugar and coffee. Wipe down the to-go bar as often as possible, keep it stocked, and rotate out milk regularly—it shouldn’t have a chance to warm up. FC

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CAFE OUTFITTER Summer of '17 As temperatures rise, so do cravings for crisp, refreshing beverages. This summer we’re hopping on the trend train, indulging in refreshing coffee-infused beers. From cascara-infused farmhouse ales, to coffee pale ales, to coffee IPAs, coffee beers are no longer confined to dark stouts and porters. If these hoppy creations aren’t available in your area, reach out to your distributors to see what other coffee-infused summer beers they’re stocking, or reach out to your favorite brewery and see if they’re open to a creative collaboration.

WHEN FISH FLY Flying Fish brewery’s Exit 15 coffee IPA creates the sensory surprise of a lightcolored beer with big cold-brew coffee aromatics and flavors. The full-bodied beer is perfect for hop heads—it’s hopped multiple times in the kettle then dry-hopped with Cascade, Centennial, and Citra hops. The infused cold-brew adds coffee flavor while letting the hops do their job of adding bitterness. flyingfish.com

SURLY DAY DRINKING For the last ten years, Minneapolis’s Surly Brewing has been brewing their Coffee Bender—a pre-noon staple for day drinkers. Surly adds ground coffee to their malt-forward brown ale to bring the Coffee Bender Brown Ale to life.

Clocking in at forty-five IBUs from Warrior and Willamette hops, the Coffee Bender offers a jolt of flavor any time of day. surlybrewing.com

EVERYTHING’S BOOZIER IN TEXAS The Iron Joe is a collaboration showcasing the best of beverage from two Fort Worth, Texas–based companies: Avoca Coffee Roasters and Rahr & Sons Brewing Company.

American oak—best known for giving whiskey its signature flavors and aromatics—takes the lead on flavor, quickly followed by distinct cold-brew, chocolate, and marshmallow notes. rahrbrewing.com

JAVA THE HOP We didn’t even need to come up with a punny title for this one. Astoria, Oregon’s Fort George Brewing makes their Java the Hop coffee IPA by pairing Costa Rican coffee, roasted by Coava Coffee Roasters, with a single-hop (Mosaic) IPA. Light on malt but heavy on flavor, Java the Hop has bright acidity and a tropical finish. No mind tricks necessary. fortgeorgebrewery.com

POOLSIDE TWO-IN-ONE A crisp and clean pale ale infused with fresh Colorado-roasted coffee, Snowbank’s Cranknbrew is well worth a spot on your summer shelf. A strong dose of coffee aromatics and flavors are complemented by light citrus notes with a smooth and dry finish, making this beer a great choice to sip on the patio, poolside, or while lazily floating down a river. snowbank.beer FC

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FOOD ISSUE

RETAILER SPOTLIGHT JOE BEAN

Rochester, New York

CHEF CHRISTIN ORTIZ

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ustomers walking into Joe Bean are greeted by a barista, then guided to a table where menus await, offering selections ranging from coffee and oatmeal, to cabernet sauvignon and a cheese board. The Rochester, New York, roastery, kitchen, and bar has all the makings of a specialty coffee shop, but takes a page from fine dining when it comes to menu and service style.

“We built our business model to be about the experience,” says Kathy Turiano, a partner at Joe Bean. Customer experience has been the driving force behind every business decision, from starting with a quality specialty coffee program, to adding beer and wine, to developing and building out a full food program. Last year, Joe Bean hired chef Christin Ortiz and focused on savory items and full meals— rather than pastries and bagels—for breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner.

“Two years into having coffee, we started noticing that our customers wanted to explore craft beer and wine as much as they wanted to explore coffee,” Turiano says. They dove into local craft beer, and with that came light exploration into food—Joe Bean would invite a food truck to the café if they were doing an event.

As the beer and food truck program continued its rollout, the landlord approached Joe Bean, offering the space next door at a good price. It wasn’t huge, but it opened access to a warehouse and retail space, doubling the café’s existing square footage.

Turiano says they took the space with plans to expand their food program exponentially, evolving from the occasional food truck to having a commercial kitchen, a chef, and back-ofhouse staff.

The expansion is set to be fully completed in the next year, but the first phase—the kitchen build-out, roaster relocation, and service model shift—was completed last September.

The decision to hire a chef came naturally—it’s how Joe Bean has built their team from the beginning. When they decided to build a beer program, they created an in-house position and hired someone with expertise and a vision. “Our customers come to us for the knowledge we have around coffee, and we wanted to make sure that we had just as strong a team around beer and food as we do around coffee,” Turiano says.

Chef Ortiz’s background is somewhat unorthodox. She’s not a classically trained chef, but comes from a

P HOTOS C O UR TESY OF JO E BEA N

BY RACHEL SANDSTROM MORRISON

huge Cuban and Italian food-centric family and has cooked professionally since her early twenties. Most recently, Ortiz worked for a chef at an Italian restaurant, making pasta day-in and day-out, quickly realizing she’d found her professional calling. “It was the moment when I transitioned from being a cook to being someone who curates and creates experiences,” she says.

Her experience as the creative foodie voice for Joe Bean has been instrumental in the company’s journey to doubling as a community space. And with lunch options like the cured salmon (black peppercured salmon with cream cheese and roasted garlic scapes, served with house-made pickles) and the roasted chicken bowl (Thai-rubbed roasted chicken served over garlic kale greens), it’s easy to see why.

As Joe Bean adds more events— such as Thursday night Jazz and Saturday night family meal—they’re establishing themselves as an integral part of the Rochester food and beverage community. Saturday night family meals are hosted by members of the local food scene, where guests gather around one large table. “Eating together brings people together,” Turiano says. “If you eat with

someone and then see them at the café later, you have a connection.” So far, the hosts have been mostly food bloggers, but there are plans to extend the invitation to host to include chefs, growers, farmers, bartenders, and sommeliers.

A coffee bar first and foremost, and a leader in Rochester’s specialty coffee scene, Joe Bean’s seasonal coffees are roasted in-house, fully traceable to the farm or cooperative, and available in a variety of preparations. The espresso menu is simple, offering a choice of espresso, americano, macchiato, cappuccino, and latte, each available in one size (latte is a twelveounce), made with Ithaca dairy or soy milk, ground on a Mazzer Kony, and prepared on a Victoria Arduino VA388 Black Eagle machine. The robust pour-over menu includes Hario V60, Bonavita dripper, Chemex, french press, and siphon brews. Iced lattes and a shaken cold-brew round out the menu, perfect for New York’s long summer days (and nights).

The vibe in the morning is somewhat typical of a coffee shop—Joe Bean isn’t the go-to place for laptopladen customers, but they don’t discourage it. At night, Joe Bean looks and functions more like a bar.

“The concept translates more obviously at night when people are eating and drinking and enjoying music together,” Ortiz says.

The café has transformed dramatically in the last year and a half, and with the help of careful communication and a cheery attitude, customers are adjusting to the shift. “Most people aren’t used to having the barista coming out from the bar, but overall, the customers have loved it,” Ortiz says. “It’s a fun surprise when the barista or chef comes to their table and takes their order.” FC

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DO YOU KNOW?

FOOD ISSUE

PURE EIRE DAIRY

Othello, Washington

BY ELLIE BRADLEY

JILL AND RICHARD SMITH

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and high-quality milk products a step beyond organic.

Jill walked me through some of the basics of dairy farming, how they came to partner with the specialty coffee industry, and why their milk tastes so damn good.

This interview has been edited for clarity and space.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO DAIRY FARMING? My husband grew up on a dairy and has always been in the dairy industry. We met when I was a livestock rep and called on him as a customer.

Our first venture out on our own was starting a custom feeding heifer lot.

Around 2005, we decided to build an organic dairy in Oregon. We could see there was a need for raw milk, so in 2009 we started a little dairy with just seven cows on my family’s farm ground in Othello.

WHAT SHOULD PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT GRASS-FED DAIRY? By design, that’s what cows are supposed to eat. We have a limit on growth because of our commitment to grass feeding. We have to ensure that we have enough farm ground to: (1) raise the feed for our animals, and (2) have enough pasture for them at

all times. Organic rules say you have to pasture 120 days; we pasture every single day that we possibly can. We might pasture 250-plus days. Even if our cows are being fed in the barn or out on pasture, we’re giving them that grass that we put up all summer long so they never go without grass.

PURE EIRE HAS ALL JERSEY COWS. MANY PEOPLE ASSOCIATE BLACK-AND-WHITE COWS WITH DAIRY. WHY JERSEY? Black-and-white dairy cows have been bred to be large and produce a lot of milk; they’re more commonly used for producers making fluid milk. If you talk to anyone who makes cheese or is making any other product, they’re looking for Jersey milk because it’s naturally higher in butter fat content. With grass feeding on top of that, butter becomes a bright golden yellow. Our milk even has a golden color to it because of the Jersey and because they’re on grass.

I WAS TRULY BLOWN AWAY BY THE MILK I TASTED AT SLATE. WHAT SETS GRASS-FED MILK APART? We’re putting out to consumers what the cows give us. Milk on the shelf has been standardized to a 3.25 percent milk fat; we run easily 5.5–6

P HOTO S C OURTESY OF PURE EIRE

E

arlier this year, I stopped into Slate Coffee Roasters in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. Chelsey Walker-Watson, Slate’s director of retail, served me the bar’s popular deconstructed Espresso + Milk: a single espresso shot, a glass of steamed milk, and a macchiato. The presentation celebrates the unique attributes of each ingredient and the distinct flavors and texture resulting from their marriage.

I was blown away by each element on the tray. Not only was the espresso complex and flavorful, but the milk was unlike anything I’d ever tasted. Walker-Watson explained Slate’s partnership with Pure Eire dairy in Othello, Washington, a dairy farm that partners with other coffee roasters in the Seattle area, even supplying competition milk in 2014 for US Barista Champion Laila Wilbur.

Jill and Richard Smith own and operate Pure Eire. They started the dairy with just seven Jersey cows, and now own more than 200 (still quite small by dairy standards). Pure Eire is the country’s first and only dairy to be certified 100 percent grass-fed, taking its commitment to animal welfare

percent, sometimes a little more.

Our milk is extra rich and creamy and that’s a good thing—all of the good things in the milk are in the fat; all of the nutrients, those grass-fed fats, you want as many of those as you can get. Our consumers really look for the full-fat products.

Something worth noting is that the milk they’re using at Slate is non-homogenized. That’s way more challenging for a barista and for a café because non-homogenized milk doesn’t have the uniformity many baristas are accustomed to. Slate shows a lot of skill in working with our milk because they have to deal with changes in butter fat, seasonality, and the flavor of the milk.

HOW DID YOU COME TO START WORKING WITH THE SPECIALTY COFFEE INDUSTRY? Through the distributor we work with for western Washington. We distribute for the eastern part of the state, but rely on a distributor to help us with the western half. I want to say Chelsey was working with our distributor, getting some brand of milk from him already, then ours came along. It was 100 percent their idea to do a deconstructed presentation, which just blew me away. I had the

opportunity to go over there and talk about the dairy and the milk, then last year we were lucky enough to have a group come over and tour the dairy and have a meal on the farm.

We connected with Laila while she was preparing for the USBC. It was fun to play with the milk when she competed. We had a crate of milk with different expiration dates; we opened every bottle and looked at the fat distribution and we tasted it. We decided one day was sweeter than the previous day. It was fun to explore the flavors of each bottle and determine which one would be best for competition.

WHAT KEEPS CAFE OWNERS FROM PUTTING MORE CONSIDERATION INTO THE MILK THEY SERVE? A lot of roasters work so hard to have a great product on their own, then they use the cheapest milk they can find. That can be 80 percent of somebody’s drink. When I’ve done tastings with the coffee industry [at SCAA and barista camps] the topic of expense commonly comes up. Good milk is a premium product, and that makes it difficult for some cafés to incorporate. And I understand that— it’s business.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS YOU ENCOUNTER? A common one is that grass-fed and organic milk are the same thing.

But we take it way past the organic standard. When customers buy organic milk, they envision these happy cows out on grass all the time. But organic just means they’re getting organic feed, whatever that feed might be. Taking a step further and being 100 percent grass fed is something we have to educate people about.

Another misconception is how animals are treated. Most dairy farmers are in it because they love the cows.

We were following animal welfare–approved guidelines long before they came along. We believe in respecting the animal from birth to harvest and hope that life will be as long as it possibly can be. The industry has some things it can really improve on, but most dairy farmers aren’t out there using animals; they’re in it for the love or they wouldn’t do this.

There will always be a place for $1.99 milk at the convenience store, and there are going to be farmers that meet that need. I think if people look into their milk and where it’s coming from, they can find sources that align with their values. FC

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FOOD ISSUE

MENUS FOR ALL: Vegan, Paleo, and Plant-Based Cafes

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PH OT O BY SP EC IAL

SA UC E NY C

he options for coffee accompaniments were once limited to dry bagels or day-old croissants. Caffeine was the main draw, food was an afterthought, and health was barely a consideration. While coffee still takes center stage, many café owners are stepping up their ingredients game to ensure the loyalty of health-conscious customers. Cafés like Fox & Fig and Timeless Coffee pair vegan menus with coffee drinks prepared with house-made non-dairy milks. Other cafés, such as Picnik and the Good Sort, are even incorporating superfood elements into their mochas and lattes.

Fox & Fig, the fourth entry in Jennifer Jenkins’ collection of cafés in Savannah, Georgia, is due to open in September. Co-owner and general manager Clayton Ehmke is enthusiastic about the entirely vegan menu. “It’s definitely brunch-centric, like brunch tapas,” he says. “We’ll have an artichoke-walnut burger with grilled pear, dijon, and agave; a potato hash with caramelized onions; and a soaked chia pudding with basically every fruit, nut, and seed you can think of on top. And definitely some vegan tea sandwiches, which is a Southern thing. We have about twelve different dishes planned out.”

Non-dairy coffee beverages at Fox & Fig will incorporate soy, coconut, almond, macadamia, and house-made cashew-hemp milk. “Our coffee is Perc,” remarks Ehmke.

“We’re going to have three tap handles. We plan to have nitro cold-brew, a rotating single-origin coffee, and a draft latte made with almond and coconut milk.”

The donuts of vegan chef Shawn Harrison will round out the menu. Ehmke has some ideas for pairing donut flavors with different Perc blends: “The dark-chocolate blood-orange goes perfectly with the single-origin Brazil Irmas Pereira, which is a real chocolaty, rich coffee.”

Ehmke is equally passionate about veganism and coffee, and he sees Fox & Fig as a way to combine these two passions while developing ties with Savannah’s vegan community. Timeless Coffee in Oakland, California, another vegan café, also arose out of the dual passion of its owners. Explains co-owner RJ Leimpeter, “I had worked in the coffee industry for about seven years and always wanted to have a place of my own. I have been vegan since 1997 and wanted to create something new with my two loves [coffee and vegan food]. To my knowledge, there was no all-vegan coffee roastery and bakery in Oakland. When I met Violett Slocum, our head baker and creator, I knew that together we could make this dream come true.”

Timeless Coffee features three different single-origin pourovers every month. Coffee is sourced from two local importers, Coffee Shrub in Oakland and Red Fox Coffee Merchants in Berkeley. The food menu includes savory items like empanadas and potpies, as well as cookies, scones, and chocolates.

Leimpeter says customer reaction to an all-vegan menu has been positive. “We did not want to push our beliefs on anyone or scare any customers, so we felt it was best not to label ourselves as a ‘vegan’ shop. We wanted to create an environment that was all-inclusive and warm. Because we

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BY KERRY POLITZER

BEET HUMMUS TOAST and a beet latte at the Good Sort in NYC.

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FOOD ISSUE

TIMELESS COFFEE offers vegan menu items including savory dishes like “chicken” and waffles (top left) and breakfast burritos (top right), among sweet treats like donuts and soft-serve “ice cream.”

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restaurant is known for its butter coffee drinks. Says Seifter, “Every coffee on our menu starts with the base of grass-fed butter and MCT oil in order to support cognitive function, aid in digestion, and facilitate a healthy metabolism.” Customers can choose from favorites like house chai or peppermint mocha, or explore adventurous offerings like a golden milk matcha

or a chaga mushroom hot chocolate.

“The majority of our coffees are lightly sweetened with maple syrup and have an added boost of protein from grass-fed collagen or whey protein,” Seifter says. Picnik’s food menu, which includes breakfast tacos with cassava flour tortillas and guacamole with almond flour tortilla chips, is free of soy, gluten, corn, and peanuts.

PICNIK offers paleo and allergy-friendly menu items like these gluten-free breakfast tacos made with cassava flour tortillas.

P HOTOS A BOVE ARE C OURTESY O F TIMELESS CO FFEE; PHOTO TO LEFT C O URT ESY O F P IC NIK

walk people through their options when they come in, the customer reaction is a very positive one. We take great pride in making everyone feel welcome and not judged if they are taken aback by the milk options only being almond or soy.”

Staff members at Timeless aren’t required to be vegan, but they undergo extensive training on ingredients and products, and understand the café’s mission. “Our staff is very prepared to answer any questions that may arise from customers being interested in how we make our products,” Leimpeter says. “We train our employees to be very engaged with every customer, and we always take time with anyone who might need a little assistance or have a lot of questions.”

Austin, Texas–based Picnik, which originated as a paleo-inspired food truck, calls itself a “creative, superfood-focused coffee shop.” Explains founder Naomi Seifter, “We saw that our customers were very passionate about our coffee, so we continued to expand our beverage menu.” Now, the

FOX & FIG P HOTO S C OURTESY O F FOX & FIG; THE G OO D SO RT P HOTO S BY SPEC IA L SAUCE NYC

FOX & FIG offerings include a vegan artichoke-walnut burger with grilled pear, dijon, and agave (above, left); fig and olive scones; and a tomato sandwich (above, right).

THE GOOD SORT is a plant-based café serving rainbow lattes, avocado edamame toast, and congees, like this variation with pears (above).

Seifter’s focus on allergen-free food helps to foster strong customer relationships. “We show people which items are vegan-friendly,” she explains, “and we denote any allergens on our menu so people feel they can order safely. As a result of our attention to educating our guests, we often have customers come to dine with us that have had a hard time dining out in restaurants because of diet or allergy restrictions. It is truly the greatest joy to be able to provide a safe and indulgent experience for them; this is the foundation of our culinary point of view.”

Customers in New York City can enjoy the same attention to ingredients at the Good Sort. Open since January 2016, the café serves layered rainbow lattes made with Australian Vittoria coffee, Chinese tea, and various plant-based ingredients like beet and sesame. Health-conscious customers can pair a blue algae latte with vegan toasts, pastries, and congees. General manager Kate Ross says, “We wanted to create a beverage that was just as good on the eye as it was the body. We played around with the colorful lattes we already offer to create this rainbow-layered beverage.

The trick is the density of the milk.”

The Good Sort’s rainbow lattes have gone viral on Instagram. According to Ross, most guests come in asking for the beverages, but later become fans of the food. “Those looking for what we offer seek us out; those who just pop in are excited to find our café in the center of Chinatown.”

While customers increasingly demand more vegan and healthconscious items, high-quality coffee continues to be as important as ever. New customers to Fox & Fig in September will recognize Ehmke’s work—and Perc’s coffee—from the mini-empire of Foxy Loxy cafés. Says Ehmke, “Though there are differences across the Foxy Loxy cafés, the common thread of coffee ties them all together. The crossover is definitely through our coffee program.” FC

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FOOD ISSUE

BEFORE YOU BUILD . . .

PREPARING TO PREPARE 1. Determine your ideal menu. Do you want a toast bar? Are you hoping to offer an extensive list of sandwiches, soups, and salads? Will you be offering breakfast and lunch? Brunch?

2. Research equipment. What equipment will you need to execute your ideal menu? What do you already have on hand? What can you repurpose?

3. Make it legal. Head over to city hall and make sure your plans are up to code. Find out what permits you need and what inspections will be required once your new toys are installed.

4. Revisit equipment. Did the city tell you you’ll need ventilation? What about a grease trap?

Take another look at your equipment list to make sure you’ve included all those not-so-sexy kitchen items, too.

5. Evaluate your budget. Is your ideal menu realistic? (If not, adjust your menu and repeat.)

Once you’ve got a menu that works with your budget and has a stamp of approval from the city, it’s time to purchase your equipment and get it installed. This might mean a full-on renovation, or having a ceremonious plugging-in of your new TurboChef.

When the new food prep area is set up, make sure you’ve completed any necessary inspections.

Take time to train your staff and practice the new workflow, then open the menu to your customers.

We recommend a soft launch to give staff time to adjust and customers the opportunity to give feedback in the early stages.

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LAYOUT & DESIGN 1. Let workflow guide layout. In an efficient layout, everything an employee needs should be just a pivot away.

2. Looks are important. Nobody wants to take the last, lonely sandwich. Keep grab-and-go cases fully stocked; this applies to pastry cases too.

3. Size matters. Choose display cases based on anticipated volume—a smaller, fully stocked reach-in is more appealing to customers than a large cold case that appears empty.

4. See the finish line. Remember to include space for prep and plating. Know how customers will access cutlery, whether you set up a station, deliver rolled flatware, or have another system in mind.

5. Think through a menu item from start to finish. From ordering, to preparation, to serving, to storage of leftover ingredients, can you accommodate the menu item? For example, soup typically requires frozen storage, cold storage, soup cookers, hotel pans for cooling baths, ladles, bowls, spoons, etc. Yikes.

A note about retail displays: Eliminate barriers between your customers and grab-and-go food. A door on a cold display dissuades customers by adding an unnecessary step to access food items. Placement matters too—if displays are too far from the register, not easily visible, or require navigation of other customers, they’re too much work to get to. FC

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FOOD ISSUE

TEN TIPS FOR TOAST (TO TRY TODAY!) When coffee is the only thing on your menu, the prospect of adding food is daunting. Toast offers an approachable route to building a food menu that’s simple, plates beautifully, and tastes great. Especially for cafés with limited space for prep, equipment, and ingredient storage, toast can be the answer to offering a sophisticated dish without a sophisticated kitchen. We’ve compiled tips from toastmasters around the country to help you get started.

Note: Toast is certainly not the only way to add food to your menu, but it’s a great starting point for those wanting to create something in-house. If your idea of avocado toast is slapping some guacamole on a slice of Wonder bread, you might want to consider some of the other food options, like those we’ve presented on page 30.

1

TAKE TIME TO CHOOSE YOUR BREAD. Bread is, after all, the foundation of toast; choosing the right ingredient platform is crucial. See what’s available through local baking partners and sample each option—plain, toasted, and with ingredients. Just because a bread tastes great on its own doesn’t mean it will complement the ingredients you have in mind.

THINK ABOUT THICKNESS. There’s nothing worse than limp toast.

How thick does your bread need to be to support your avocado, marinated goat cheese, and olive oil creation? Many bakeries will pre-slice bread, but it may not be as thick as you need. If so, how will you slice the bread in-house to ensure uniform thickness? Pro tip: be sure that whatever size you choose fits in your toaster.

3 KEEP IT SIMPLE. Develop your menu around toasts that are delicious and easy to assemble.

Don’t overcomplicate your combinations for the sake of being overcomplicated. A rye toast topped with cream cheese and black pepper is one of the menu stars at the Mill in San Francisco.

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2

KEEP IT CRISPY. Toast is not toast without crunch. Blue Bottle’s executive chef Scott Boggs shares this insider tip: “Hold the bread for twenty seconds after toasting. This lets the bread release steam, keeping the crispiness.”

4

5

PH OTO C REDITS (1 -1 0 IN ORD ER): NICK WO LF PHOTOG RAP HY, AUBRIE PIC K , RO SE BRIDGES, C OURTESY O F B LU E B OTTL E , COU RTE SY OF B L AN K SL ATE , COU RTE SY OF MAZARI N E COF F E E , D ’AN N B OAL , CY N THI A ME AD ORS, C O U RTE SY O F C U P AN D B AR, C O U RTE SY O F M I N A GRO U P

THINK THROUGH THE STEPS. How long does each toast combo take to make? What can be done ahead of time? Assess ingredients from an operational standpoint to determine if a toast combination makes sense with your staff and kitchen setup.

6

THINK OUTSIDE THE AVOCADO BOX. Toast is a blank canvas begging for creativity, so take license to play with flavor combinations that excite you and your staff. Jason Reed Miller of Mazarine Coffee says, “If it sounds interesting and tasty to the curator of the toppings, it’s a go.”

SOURCE GOOD PRODUCTS. Apply the same principles to food as you do sourcing your green coffee. Develop and maintain good relationships, and seek products that are delicious, well crafted or grown, and sustainable. Quality ingredients pack more flavor, plate better, and share a story about your vendor partnerships.

8

7 CONSIDER EATABILITY. There’s nothing wrong with a thick, hearty toast, but will customers be able to cut through it? You may need to provide a serrated knife alongside the toast.

SET PRICE STRATEGICALLY. Costing food products is not nearly as fun as creating them, but it can make the difference between profit and loss. How many slices of bread can you get from a loaf?

How much more will it cost to use avocado slices rather than a mash? Calculate a toast’s cost before determining price.

10

9

BE FLEXIBLE. You need to be excited about your menu, but so do your customers. Be willing to make adjustments if things aren’t working. If your caramelized onions are creating a bottleneck in daily prep, consider an alternative. If customers aren’t ordering your artisanal cured ham with house-made berry preserves, don’t be offended; create something new. FC

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FOOD ISSUE

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ANATOMY OF THE BREAKFAST SANDWICH

July 2017 » Fresh Cup Magazine

BREAD + SPREAD It’s the little things in life that count. And it’s the betweenthe-bun details of a breakfast sandwich that deliver nuanced flavor and thrill customers with unexpected combinations. In the scheme of breakfast sandwich construction, spreads work to keep ingredients in place while adding a punch of spice, sweetness, or creaminess—the beauty is, it’s totally up to you.

AVOCADO: When you’re an avocado fiend, most sandwiches seem to call for sliced or smashed avocado. If your shop’s POS has easy options for add-ons, this green monster is an easy up-charge for avo-loving customers. We like this add-on with the traditional bacon-egg-and-cheese sammy, or as a spread option for vegan and vegetarian sandwiches.

Pairs well with: multigrain, ciabatta HOT SAUCE: We won’t try to name them all–or agree on a favorite—but we will say that hot sauces vary: in spice attributes, in heat, in sweetness, etc. A spicy sauce can add intrigue to a sweet sandwich, kick up the complexity of veggie combinations, and turn up the heat on an already-spicy sandwich.

Pairs well with: sourdough, classic white buns BUTTER: Why mess with a classic? When you want to keep things simple, butter is the way to go—especially if you’re toasting bread on a grill. Butter provides a creamy mouthfeel without imparting any strong flavors. We like a basic butter base paired with rich meats like fried chicken or brisket.

Pairs well with: texas toast, brioche, english muffin JAM: Jams and jellies can turn an otherwise savory sandwich into a brunch time treat, cool the heat on a spicy combination, or add a sweet surprise to a classic sammy. Sweet can quickly dominate other flavors, so use jams and jellies sparingly, especially when pairing with other sweet ingredients like caramelized onions or honey ham. We like apricot marmalade with arugula, prosciutto, and gruyère.

Pairs well with: sourdough, hearty wheat MAYO: Used as the base of aioli and many other spreads, the flavor combinations with mayo are only confined by the imagination.

Spicy, sweet, herbed, citrus—anything goes.

A mayo-based spread is a great option when you’ve got creative minds in the kitchen and a specific flavor you want to incorporate into your sandwich. We love the brightness of a lime aioli and the boldly creamy effect of a stone-ground mustard aioli.

Pairs well with: multigrain, rye, pumpernickel FC

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P HOTO C OURTESY O F WEFARM

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T

he prevalence of specialty coffee continues to drive consumer interest in both bean quality and ethical sourcing. Many coffee drinkers associate higher-priced beans and upscale retail experiences with greater social and environmental responsibility at the farm level.

However, the growing number of ways in which sustainability is marketed to consumers can create confusion and differences of opinion around what sustainability actually means. Even for specialty roasters who maintain longterm relationships with individual farms, it’s difficult to know how much information to share with consumers about trade relationships or a producer’s agricultural practices.

Mainstream consumers are more receptive than ever to learning about social and environmental issues in coffee production—the expectation for transparency from roasters is high, but the opportunities to become involved in solutions to these issues are increasing. The entire industry has a responsibility to support the development of new strategies helping growers adapt to climate change.

New pest and disease threats, variable weather patterns, and rising temperatures are expected to have a disproportionate impact on smallholder farmers in the years ahead, threatening yields and economic productivity on both large and small farms around

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the globe. Solutions to these challenges will require creative thinking at every stage in the supply chain.

Several new technologies are impacting how coffee is grown, processed, transported, and sold—and hold the potential to link farmers with socially and environmentally minded consumers in completely new ways. Technological innovations are combining the latest in data science and materials science with existing strategies such as integrated pest management (IPM) to help farmers lower their input costs, reduce the risk of crop loss, and bring more financial security to rural communities.

How will emerging technologies change our ideas about sustainability in the twenty-first century?

BIG DATA MEETS SMALLHOLDERS While the “connected farm” is still many years away, several innovations in agricultural technology (ag tech) can help growers monitor field conditions, manage resources more efficiently, and reach new markets.

The most revolutionary tool for economic growth in many coffeegrowing regions could be the cell phone. Since 2013, Facebook has earned headlines (both positive and negative) for its bold attempts to bring broadband access to the developing world. In the meantime,

lower-tech solutions are taking off, bringing critical information about weather, market prices, and pest management strategies to help farmers optimize management decisions with limited resources.

WeFarm uses cell phones to connect smallholders through mobile apps and peer-to-peer networks; users communicate through text messages to share information about farming practices and business development. Texting might seem less influential than broadband; however, it reflects a technological leap for many in the world’s remote coffee-growing regions. WeFarm has found early success because of its community-based approach: technical expertise comes directly from farmers themselves. The startup’s peer-to-peer format has been particularly beneficial for female smallholders who do the majority of physical labor on coffee farms, but whose access to land rights and financial resources has historically been limited in their communities.

Other developments hold promise to help farmers connect with new markets and provide consumers with a more complete window into how much of their dollar goes back to origin. One of the most promising approaches to improving supply chain transparency as well as farmer income comes from blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin.

P HOTO C OURTESY OF WEFARM

WEFARM uses cell phones (above and on previous page) to connect smallholders through mobile apps and peer-topeer networks; users communicate through text messages to share information about farming practices and business development.

WHAT IS BLOCKCHAIN?

Blockchain evolved from bitcoin technology, a network solution devised to increase transparency of online transactions. Instead of requiring a centralized intermediary (e.g. a bank) to approve transactions—which blocks out a user’s access while transactions are being approved—bitcoin works by recording transactions on a public ledger accessible to all computing devices that are part of the network. When a transaction is initiated, a “block” enters the system and is broadcast to the peer-to-peer computer network of users for validation. All users are privy to each transaction, which prevents stealing and double spending (duplicate transactions).

The technology is similar to a Google Doc, which allows multiple users to access a document at the same time. Instead of creating multiple versions of a document in the process of sending revisions back and forth, all users have access to the most updated version of the document and can see changes in real time. This is how distributed ledgers work. Each transaction becomes a block in the chain, resulting in a transparent record (this is kind of like being able to see a list of all revisions made to a Google Doc).

Blockchain uses bitcoin technology for the transfer of data, which is why it’s useful for improving transparency in the coffee industry. Records are stored in a distributed ledger (a public forum instead of the bank-like intermediary), so records are public and easily verifiable. Blockchains are hosted by millions of computers simultaneously, so data is accessible to anyone on the internet. The network reconciles every exchange of data in ten-minute intervals, providing a secure, traceable record of digital information exchange.

At a basic level, a blockchain is a collection of data packages stored in “blocks” that are “chained” together into a distributed ledger (see sidebar for more on blockchain basics). Data entered into the blockchain cannot be changed without approval from all parties. Any changes are recorded, and every participant in the value chain maintains access to the same information. This creates a fully traceable, secure digital passport for any physical object moving around the world. It is an entirely new approach to delivering traceability, provenance, and authenticity.

The potential applications of blockchain are endless and extend throughout the coffee value chain. For smallholder farmers who are named beneficiaries of several different governmental and NGO programs simultaneously, blockchain could reduce the volume of redundant information that is collected about them. Over time, blockchains could help smallholders “own” their economic identity and create a track record of milestones, which could improve their access to credit and farm insurance.

For large commercial buyers of coffee, blockchains could reduce the risk of fraud and exploitation by creating more reliable audit trails, reducing transaction costs, verifying seller identities, and improving consumer confidence in third-party certification procedures. It could also reduce the industry’s reliance on anecdotal information about issues that matter to consumers, such as fair labor practices and living wages.

Buyers of specialty green coffee beans could guarantee the quality and traceability of micro-lots from individual farmers, estates, or cooperatives. On the retail side, blockchain could help marketers reach consumers who are interested in more nuanced certifications—such as Bird Friendly coffee—with 100 percent confidence that producers have followed strict guidelines for the entire lot.

Ag tech startups are paving the way for a dramatic shift in how farmers manage operations and connect with buyers. Once global broadband is available, coffee farms could see a host of new tools including drones, geographic information systems (GIS), hyperspectral imaging, remote sensing, and even artificial intelligence. These technologies are still early in development but could lead to greater social and environmental responsibility throughout the industry in the coming decades.

IMPROVEMENTS TO PLANT GENETICS The coffee berry borer and coffee leaf rust are persistent threats to farmers around the globe, often resulting in devastating crop losses.

Several technologies are delivering new insights into how pests and plants interact and improving our ability to optimize unique varietals with diverse microclimates.

As a species that accounts for over 70 percent of the world’s coffee production, Coffea arabica holds the key to improving our knowledge of how plants respond to different stressors. Researchers at UC Davis recently sequenced the genome for arabica and released it to the public on Phytozome, an online portal run by the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute. Meanwhile, World Coffee Research, an industry-funded organization, is applying big data to traditional breeding methods to identify and breed new hybrids that can sustain high yields in an increasingly variable climate.

CRISPR-Cas9, the gene editing tool developed in 2012 that has received extensive press for its value to biomedical research, gives plant breeders an additional method to introduce new varietals that can withstand the

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impacts of climate change. Breeders could use CRISPR in many different ways to help reduce the economic damage of the coffee berry borer or coffee leaf rust—and even breed for specific flavor compounds that have high value in specialty markets. Its power comes from speed, precision, and ease of use, allowing breeders a more efficient way to disable genes or add a new patch of DNA to a genome.

Improved knowledge of how coffee plants behave in different environments, combined with the tools to modify them to adapt to a changing climate, will be essential to meet grow-

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ing global demand for coffee in the coming decades. For the coffee industry, these new tools could amount to a significant improvement over standard cross-breeding and open new markets for cultivation beyond the bean belt.

NEW INNOVATIONS IN MATERIALS SCIENCE Like other crops grown in tropical areas, most coffee production currently relies on extensive use of generic, off-patent chemicals to minimize pest and disease damage during a growing season—often with substandard protective measures for field workers.

New approaches to pest and disease control will be necessary as climate change threatens coffee farms and rural livelihoods around the globe.

One strategy comes from Crop Enhancement, a Cambridge, Massachusetts–based startup (where I serve as CEO). In our mission to improve social, environmental, and financial outcomes in the world’s tropical regions, we’ve looked in part to the field of material science for strategies. We asked: how can we help farmers sustain high yields while reducing their pesticide exposure? We’ve developed a nontoxic, biodegradable crop-protection

P HOTO C OURTESY O F WEFARM

FARMERS IN UGANDA utilize WeFarm technologies to improve crop yield.

P HOTO C OURTESY O F CR OP ENH ANCE MENT

CROP ENHANCEMENT has developed a product called CropCoat, which forms a film on plant surfaces to reduce the need for harmful pesticides.

product, called CropCoat, which forms a film that coats plant surfaces such as leaves, stems, and fruit to reduce the need for harmful pesticides. CropCoat can be used on its own or combined with active ingredients including biological controls such as beneficial bacteria, fungi, and viruses to combat pests like the coffee berry borer, which is conservatively estimated to cause $500 million in economic damage to coffee farmers globally each year. In addition, CropCoat can also mitigate coffee leaf rust.

The coffee berry borer presents a unique challenge for farmers: most of its life cycle occurs inside the coffee berry, making it impossible to spray our way out of the problem with conventional pesticides. Once a tree has been infested, the female bores into a host berry and deposits eggs inside the seeds (i.e. the coffee beans), where larvae then mature, resulting in a decline in both coffee quality and yields.

A fungus called Beauveria bassiana is extremely effective at killing the coffee berry borer and is commercially available as a biopesticide.

However, Beauveria bassiana is shortacting and frequently washes off of crops in tropical areas with heavy rains. This is where CropCoat can help maximize the efficacy of biological controls. Early field trials suggest that combining CropCoat with the beetle-killing Beauveria bassiana can

interfere with the pest’s ability to bore into the coffee berry.

CropCoat can be applied on its own as a microlayer to trees, helping farmers improve crop quality and yield while reducing the frequency of pesticide applications throughout a growing season. It can also be used as a delivery vehicle for active ingredients of both organic and synthetic products, including growth regulators and pheromones. CropCoat is one of many cost-effective innovations that can help reduce overall pesticide exposure for smallholding farmers and rural communities—it provides crop protection for up to eight weeks and can be applied with existing backpack sprayers, making it particularly well suited to minimizing excessive spraying in tropical regions with heavy rainfall.

offer. As new technologies, ranging from genome research to CropCoat, achieve meaningful improvements on the ground, both commodity and specialty producers have an opportunity to define sustainability in more concrete terms—and to invite the consumer to take more interest in the coffee’s journey from farm to cup. FC

BRINGING SUSTAINABILITY AND QUALITY TO CONSUMERS As innovations take place throughout the coffee value chain, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the challenges ahead for coffee production, and are eager to put their dollars to work. Interest in transparency is growing: roasters who have traditionally relied on third-party certifications as a stamp of approval are encountering demand for information beyond what a label can

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FC

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in 2.6-gram packets, offering

of a food-grade polymer, and feature a strong galva-

a compact alternative to standard four-gram pack-

nized steel frame and a fully removable lid to sim-

ets. Wholesome Sweet released smaller packets

plify filling and cleaning. Translucent walls allow for

to combat habitual over-consumption and encour-

easy tracking of remaining product. Jacky Bins’ spa-

age moderation. The company also looks to support

cious design can accommodate approximately 1,500

sustainability through ethical farming practices.

pounds of coffee. jackybinsusa.com

wholesomesweet.com

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Trade Show & Events CALENDAR J U LY

OCTOBER JULY 6-9 CAFE SHOW CHINA Beijing, China cafeshow.com.cn/huagang/hgcoffceen/ index.htm

AUGUST AUGUST 27-29 WESTERN FOODSERVICE & HOSPITALITY EXPO Los Angeles, California westernfoodexpo.com AUGUST 29-SEPTEMBER 1 COFFEEXIRAN Tehran, Iran http://en.coffeexiran.com/

SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 10-12 FLORIDA RESTAURANT & LODGING SHOW Orlando, Florida flrestaurantandlodgingshow.com SEPTEMBER 13-16 GOLDEN BEAN NORTH AMERICA Portland, Oregon goldenbean.com SEPTEMBER 21-24 ISTANBUL COFFEE FESTIVAL Istanbul, Turkey istanbulcoffeefestival.com SEPTEMBER 23-24 COFFEE & CHOCOLATE EXPO San Juan, Puerto Rico coffeeandchocolateexpo.com SEPTEMBER 24-25 CANADIAN COFFEE & TEA SHOW Toronto, Canada coffeeteashow.ca SEPTEMBER 26-28 TEA & COFFEE WORLD CUP Singapore tcworldcup.com SEPTEMBER 30-OCTOBER 1 NORTHWEST TEA FESTIVAL Seattle, Washington nwteafestival.com

64

July 2017 » Fresh Cup Magazine

OCTOBER 7-8 COFFEECON Chicago, Illinois coffee-con.com

OCTOBER 9-12 MOSCOW COFFEE & TEA EXPO Moscow, Russia https://pirexpo.com/en

OCTOBER 12-13 ALLEGRA WORLD COFFEE PORTAL CEO FORUM New York, New York allegraceoforum.com

OCTOBER 12-16 CHINA XIAMEN INTERNATIONAL TEA FAIR Xiamen, Fujian Province, China http://teafair.com.cn/en

OCTOBER 13-15 NEW YORK COFFEE FESTIVAL New York, New York newyorkcoffeefestival.com

OCTOBER 13-15 COFFEE FEST Portland, Oregon coffeefest.com

OCTOBER 20-24 HOST Milan, Italy host.fieramilano.it

OCTOBER 25-27 INTERNATIONAL COFFEE WEEK Belo Horizonte, Brazil http://semanainternacionaldocafe.com. br/en/

N OV E M B E R NOVEMBER 3-12 KONA COFFEE CULTURAL FESTIVAL Kona, Hawaii konacoffeefest.com

2017 Coffee & Tea Trade Shows, Classes & Competitions

N OV E M B E R NOVEMBER 7-8 COFFEE & TEA FESTIVAL PHILLY Philadelphia, Pennsylvania coffeeandteafestival.com/philly

NOVEMBER 9-12 CAFE SHOW SEOUL Seoul, Korea cafeshow.com

NOVEMBER 9-12 WORLD BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP Seoul, Korea worldbaristachampionship.org

NOVEMBER 9-12 SINTERCAFE Herradura, Costa Rica www.sintercafe.com

NOVEMBER 12-13 HX: THE HOTEL EXPERIENCE ROOMS TO RESTAURANTS New York, New York thehotelexperience.com

NOVEMBER 16-18 WORLD TEA & COFFEE EXPO Mumbai, India worldteacoffeeexpo.com

DECEMBER DECEMBER 3-6 INTERNATIONAL COFFEE & CHOCOLATE EXHIBITION Riyadh, Saudi Arabia coffeechoco-expo.com

DECEMBER 14-16 INTERNATIONAL COFFEE & TEA FESTIVAL Dubai, United Arab Emirates coffeeteafest.com

Fresh Cup Magazine « freshcup.com

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66

ADVERTISER Index Go to freshcup.com/resources/fresh-cup-advertisers to view the Advertiser Index and the websites listed below.

ADVERTISER

CONTACT

ONLINE

Barista Pro Shop

866.776.5288

baristaproshop.com/ad/fresh

21

Brazil International Coffee Week

55.11.3586.2233

internationalcoffeeweek.com.br

15

Brewista

888.538.8683

mybrewista.com

51

Café Femenino Foundation

360.901.8322

coffeecan.org

17

Cappuccine

800.511.3127

cappuccine.net

Coffee Fest

425.295.3300

coffeefest.com

Fetco

800.338.2699

fetco.com

67

Fresh Cup Magazine

503.236.2587

freshcup.com

41

Golden Bean

310.266.2827

goldenbean.com

4

Gosh That’s Good! Brand

888.848.GOSH (4674)

goshthatsgood.com

5

Grandstand Glassware + Apparel

800.767.8951

egrandstand.com/coffee

19

Holy Kakow

503.484.8316

holykakow.com

13

Huhtamaki

800.244.6382

us.huhtamaki.com

Java Jacket

800.208.4128

javajacket.com

15

Malabar Gold Espresso

650.366.5453

malabargoldespresso.com

23

Micro Matic/JoeTap

866.327.4159

micromatic.com/JoeTap

2

Monin Gourmet Flavorings

855.FLAVOR1 (352.8671)

monin.com

3

Phillips Syrups & Sauces

800.350.8443

phillipssyrup.com

RetailMugs.com

970.222.9559

retailmugs.com

65

SelbySoft

800.454.4434

selbysoft.com

13

Smartfruit

800.801.7330

drinksmartfruit.com

51

TEA House Times , The

973.551.9161

theteahousetimes.com

65

Toddy

888.863.3974

toddycafe.com

21

Vega Mfg.

800.224.8342

vegacases.com

61

Vessel Drinkware

855.883.7735

vesseldrinkware.com

55

Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo

203.242.8124

westernfoodexpo.com

50

Your Brand Café

866.566.0390

yourbrandcafe.com

14

Zojirushi America

800.264.6270

zojirushi.com

July 2017 » Fresh Cup Magazine

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