K U M A O N T E A | M A N H AT TA N T E A R O O M S | B A LT I M O R E C A F É S | S P R I N G C L E A N I N G T I P S
#TRENDING
March 2018 » freshcup.com
Barrel-Aged Coffee PAGE 18
Sales show no signs of slowing for this fast-pouring drink category PAGE 46
T H E M AG A Z I N E F O R S P E C I A LT Y CO F F E E & T E A P RO F E S S I O N A L S S I N C E 1 9 9 2
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FEATURES MARCH 2018 | VOL. 27, NO. 3 | FRESH CUP MAGAZINE
32
38
Tearooms Take Manhattan
Charm City Café Crawl
New York City cafés take tasters on a journey
Youth movement and charming enthusiasm fuel
around the world of specialty tea.
Baltimore, Maryland’s growing café scene.
BY KATHY YL CHAN
BY SUZANNE LOUDERMILK
46
52
Stay Flush in a Cold Brew Rush
The Nitty-gritty of Spring Cleaning
Café owners need to consider the pros and
Make sure your café’s gear is grime-free—now and
cons of all their cold brew options.
all year long—with these pro maintenance tips.
BY MICHAEL BUTTERWORTH
BY S. MICHAL BENNETT
8 | MARCH 2018 » freshcup.com
DEPARTMENTS MARCH 2018 | VOL. 27, NO. 3 | FRESH CUP MAGAZINE
18
22
#TRENDING
COUNTER INTELLIGENCE
Barrel-Aged Coffees
The Freshest Goods, Gadgets & Gizmos
BY RACHEL SANDSTROM MORRISON
26
28
THE FILTER
THE WHOLE LEAF
People, News & Café Openings
The Catalysts Behind Kumaon’s Comeback BY INGRID REMAK
FROM THE EDITOR , Page 12 | CONTRIBUTORS, Page 16 | C ALENDAR , Page 56 | AD INDE X , Page 58
10 | MARCH 2018 » freshcup.com
FROM THE EDITOR NO LAPTOPS ALLOWED
CONNECT WITH US
/FreshCupMagazine
@freshcupmag
@freshcupmag
PETER SZYMCZAK, EDITOR editor@freshcup.com
ON THE COVER: Cold Brew Nitro at Arbor Lodge Coffee in Portland, Oregon.
“What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?” By Karen Stabiner. New York Times Feb. 13, 2018. 1
2
“The Wi-Fi Conundrum” By Cory Eldridge. Fresh Cup Magazine April 2014.
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Photo by Cynthia Meadors
EDITOR P HOTO BY CHAR L ES GU LLUNG PH OTOG R AP H Y; TOP R IG HT P HOTO COUR TESY OF I NG R ID RE MA K
Business was good; his 70-seat café was near capacity with customers. But for Kyle Glanville, co-owner of Go Get Em Tiger in Los Angeles, something was missing—namely, SOUND. Wi-Fi had made his café into a “silent office of remote workers,” he says in a recent New York Times article.1 Everyone had headphones on and was logged into the Internet. People were barely interacting with one another in the same room, engaged instead in conversations with others elsewhere. The café had become the office space that some had sought to escape … So Glanville got rid of the router. If people wanted Wi-Fi, they could hotspot on their mobile devices, he figured. A year and a half later, the wireless-less café still does good business—and now there’s conversation in the air. The café as third space, not office space, was back. Likewise, other cafés are proactively discouraging laptop users from camping out too long at tables, if at all. It’s more common now to find wall outlets in absentia. Countertops are being designed too narrow so as to discourage folks from setting up shop. Coffee bars are built specifically to foster conversation and break down the barrier between customer and the person facing. Back in 2014, Fresh Cup first covered the wireless debate.2 Back then, patrons were fearful of hackers lurking in the midst who might steal their personal info while accessing the free Wi-Fi network provided by the café. This shows the debate has moved on, but the question still persists: What role does Wi-Fi play in today’s café? We’re analog people living in an ever-increasingly digital world. As café culture spreads across the USA, this is an opportunity for café owners to lead this discussion. How are you are addressing connectivity in your café? Email me at peter@freshcup.com and I’ll share your comments in an upcoming issue.
FRESH CUP MAGAZINE | 13
FRESH CUP MAGAZINE FRESH CUP FOUNDER WARD BARBEE 1938-2006 FRESH CUP PUBLISHING Publisher and President JAN WEIGEL jan@freshcup.com EDITORIAL Editor PETER SZYMCZAK editor@freshcup.com Associate Editor JORDAN JOHNSON freshed@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
Phillips Syrups & Sauces
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 S. MICHAL BENNETT is a freelance writer, editor, poet, and blogger who is dedicated to creative storytelling, exploring the world around her, and creating community. She and her husband live in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where they often succumb to the allure of the outdoors, local living, and food and drink adventures. They also own and operate Coffee Roboto, a mobile coffee business serving coffee from a trike at weekly locations, and at private and community events. Read Michal’s article on the importance of spring—and all-season—café maintenance, “The Nitty-gritty of Spring Cleaning” on page 52.
Providing the lowdown on cold brew is MICHAEL BUTTERWORTH, a coffee educator and consultant living in Istanbul, Turkey. He co-founded thecoffeecompass.com mostly as an excuse to visit more cafés. He’s also a licensed Q grader and a two-time USBC competitor. Get his insights into the all-encompassing options for cold brew in today’s cafés in “Staying Flush in a Cold Brew Rush” on page 46.
KATHY YL CHAN is a New York City-based consultant for hotels, resorts, restaurants, and beverage companies on how to work with tea and boost sales. Her projects include creating specialized tea programs, sourcing, staff training, and menu development. When not speaking about industry trends at conferences, on television or radio, chances are you’ll find her at one of her favorite tea cafés—see “Tearooms Take Manhattan” on page 32. You can also find her on Instagram at @kathyylchan.
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Just in time for Coffee Fest Baltimore, “Charm City Café Crawl” (see page 38) takes us on a local’s tour of Baltimore’s specialty coffee and tea scene. Author SUZANNE LOUDERMILK is a freelance writer based in Baltimore, Maryland. For the past 10 years, she has reviewed restaurants for The Baltimore Sun and Baltimore magazine, where she was the food and travel editor. She is a former executive editor of Delaware Today magazine in Wilmington, Delaware. She also teaches a journalism writing class at Towson University in Maryland and is writing a book, “The Lost Restaurants of Baltimore,” which will be published in 2019 by The History Press.
Barrel-aging coffee is an emerging trend that has evolved out of the constant curiosity of coffee roasters. In this month’s #Trending column (see page 18), RACHEL SANDSTROM MORRISON talks with roasters who have added these booze-soaked coffees to their lineups. Sandstrom Morrison is a former barista and café manager, and a current freelance writer, brand strategist/marketer, and yoga instructor based in Portland, Oregon. Her work can be found at rachelsandstrom.com, or find her on Instagram at @RachelDSMorrison.
INGRID REMAK had been a tea drinker her whole life before joining Young Mountain Tea fresh off of several seasons of farming. Stumbling across the company at a farmer’s market in 2013, she remarked that this was “the cup of tea I always wanted to drink”—one that brought transparency to the supply chain and connected American consumers with growers and producers abroad. Since then, she continues to share the significance of Kumaon teas with the community, has traveled as a guide on Young Mountain Tea’s annual trips to origin, and begins every day with a cup of Kumaon White. Read her article “The Catalysts behind Kumaon’s Comeback” on page 28.
FRESH CUP MAGAZINE | 17
TRENDING
#barrel-agedcoffee
C
ombining alcohol and coffee in one delicious drink is an age-old pastime. Over the last few years, the combination has become more and more popular. Today, baristas and bartenders everywhere are playing with the potent pairing. The newest trend for mixing coffee and alcohol is barrel aging—putting fresh, green coffee in barrels previously used to make whiskey, gin, rum, wine, and other varieties of liquor. Barrel-aged coffee beans can be brewed hot or cold and sipped as is, or
18 | MARCH 2018 » freshcup.com
blended into fresh new cocktails that explore new depths of distilled flavors. ROASTY TOASTY Adding barrel-aged coffee to a roastery’s lineup not only increases customer interest, it also gives roasters a creative challenge. Which coffee will do best in the barrel? How long should the coffee age in the barrel? Where is the balance between barrel influence and roasting process? Coffee roasters have started barrelaged programs out of curiosity or convenience. For others, it is a strategic collaboration with a distillery.
Inspired by barrel-aged beers, Modern Times founder Jacob McKean and original director of coffee Amy Krone began to experiment with barrel-aged coffees. Since developing their coffee roasting program in 2015, they have found that barrel aging coffee develops uniquely interesting and enjoyable flavors. “We source coffee explicitly for barrel aging,” said current director of coffee Bartleby Bloss. “We search for coffees that will be able to stand up to the, at times, intense flavors of the barrels. We look for outstanding
P HOTO COURTESY OF M ODER N TI M ES
By Rachel Sandstrom Morrison
barrel-aged coffee
coffees, something that will be immensely complex with the added layer of barrel aging. Whether it is a barrel-aged bourbon natural Ethiopia espresso shot served in our café, or a freshly roasted bag of Pinot-noir-aged Guatemala Huehuetenango, customers get excited over our releases,” says Bloss. According to Simon Johnston of Ireland’s Root & Branch, starting with the right coffee is the most important piece of the equation: “Choosing the right coffee in the first instance is more important than what you do with the coffee when you’ve chosen it.” Adding a unique product such as barrel-aged coffees to café menus encourages customers to veer a little away from their usual order, increases engagement with your brand, and gives your baristas something interesting to sell—or upsell. When Pacific Northwest-based Caffè Umbria started their barrelaged program as an experiment last August, the roasters had no idea if it would sell, or if it would even do well. They started with some end runs of their single-origin coffees and aged them for a month and a half in a tiny 10-gallon barrel. “The flavors were exceptionally pronounced, almost overwhelming,” says Pete Maskiell, Umbria’s main roaster and production manager. It took some trial and error, but their first 100-pound batch of coffee aged in a whiskey barrel was a sales success. “The uniqueness is a big allure for customers. It’s such a nice oddity, especially because it’s available in super-limited quantities,” Maskiell says. Novelty is a big selling point, especially this early in the trend. Customers may have heard of, and even stood in line for barrel-aged beers, but a coffee that has been aged in whiskey or rum barrels is still a new idea, and for many customers, that’s enough to get them to try it.
Add all ingredients in a warmed mug and mix
ROLL OUT THE BARREL
well. Top with a dollop of vanilla-scented
Barrels can be expensive—$150–$300 on average—and their quality is hard to control. The cost of a barrel may seem a bit expensive, but it takes about a week on average to make one by hand by a skilled cooper. After the barrel is constructed, it is charred, then sent to a distillery or winery. After a barrel is used to impart its flavors and aromatic compounds—those dreamy vanilla or caramel notes—on an alcohol, the spirit maker usually discards it in favor of a fresh barrel before making the next batch of hooch. But for a brewery or a coffee roastery, these barrels are full of spirited goodness and are a hot commodity. How do roasters get their hands on booze-soaked barrels? In the case of Portland, Oregon-based McMenamin’s, they have their own in-house distillery, which makes for an endless supply of fresh barrels. But for other coffee companies, strategic partnerships are the most common way they get into the barrel business. Late last year, Root & Branch teamed up with Bushmills Irish Whiskey. The two companies worked together to find the right coffee to age in the perfect barrel, in pursuit of the best Irish Coffee. Bushmills gave the Belfast-based roaster special access to its distillery to see how the two might marry coffee and an iconic whiskey. With the efforts of Natasha David of New York City’s Nitecap cocktail bar, they developed a recipe for a warming cocktail sure to get your customers in the St. Patrick’s Day spirit. FC
BARREL-AGED IRISH COFFEE Recipe courtesy of Bushmills Irish Whiskey
2 ounces Bushmills Irish Whiskey ½ ounce brown sugar almond syrup 6 ounces freshly brewed whiskey
whipped cream. Garnish with freshly grated orange zest. Brown Sugar Almond Syrup 2 cups raw sugar 1 cup water 1 teaspoon almond extract In a blender, combine sugar and water, and blend until sugar is dissolved. Add extract and blend until incorporated.
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BAR R EL PH OTO COUR TESY OF C A FF È UM BR IA ; I RI SH COF FEE PH OTO COUR TES Y OF BUSH MIL L S IRI SH WH ISK E Y; CO FFEE B AGS PH OTO CO URT E SY O F MCME N A MIN ’ S
#TRENDING
FRESH CUP MAGAZINE | 21
COUNTER INTELLIGENCE
fresh businesses & products
META COFFEE CUP
MINI MAGICAL MARVEL
The minimally designed, maximally effective HuskeeCup is made with coffee husks that
The Flair Espresso Maker is a manual
would otherwise be tossed out during harvest. Not only is it sustainable, HuskeeCup is also
lever espresso machine with a minimal
more durable than traditional ceramic, holds heat better, and is gorgeous to boot. Handless
footprint and some assembly required.
cups stack for easy storage and are designed with a functional ribbing that keeps the heat
Boiling water is poured into a brewing
near your coffee, not your hands. huskee.co
cylinder loaded with espresso and pulled through a portafilter with a manual lever at an optimal 45-second extraction—et voilà! The ristretto appears before your
THE MACCA OF NUT MILKS
very eyes. The new Flair Signature up-
Indigenous to the Land Down Under, the macadamia
dates the original red and black design
trees that produce this dairy-free plant-based milk
with chrome and copper finishes for
hail from Jindilli Family Farms on Australia’s idyllic
extra flair. flairespresso.com
eastern coast. Milkadamia comes in original, vanilla, unsweetened, or “Latte Da” barista series, all of which feature the renowned “neutral fattiness” and silky texture of cold-pressed macadamia nuts. Awarded “Best New Product” and “People’s Choice” at last year’s Coffee Fest Chicago. milkadamia.com
FLIPPING OUR LIDS The innocuous marvel that is a disposable coffee cup lid has become a ubiquitous object around the world, but how well do you really know that little piece of plastic? We demand that lids protect us from all kinds of spills, leaks, splashes, dribbles, and drops while simultaneously allowing free-flowing coffee at will. Louise Harpman and Scott Specht—collectors of the world’s
largest
coffee
lid collection—have photographed
and
curated
their collection into a taxonomy of the world’s most simple, ingenious, avant garde,
and
failed
ver-
K-TEAS BRINGS THE TLC
sions of the product over
Founded in 2014 by newlyweds Dustin and
the last century. Reading
Katie Watts in Atlanta, Georgia, K-Teas
“Coffee Lids: Peel, Pinch,
shows its love for loose leaf teas, boba kits,
Pucker, Puncture” is a
and mulling spices that brew into a waterfall
deeply satisfying investi-
of flavor worth chasing after. Choose from a
gation into how a plastic
wide selection of black, chai, green, herbal,
disposable object can ac-
oolong, pu-erh, and white teas, and cocktail-
tually be a feat of design
inspired tea blends. k-teas.com
genius. papress.com
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COUNTER INTELLIGENCE
ALL-IN-ONE WONDER The Cafflano Klassic is an all-in-one thermos featuring a hand grinder, steel filter, doublewalled cup, and serving-sized kettle in one handy package for brewing on the go. Simply fill with 20–30 grams of whole beans and hot water, and your joe is good to go. S’wonderful! cafflano.com
MVP ESPRESSO MACHINE The new Dalla Corte DC Pro XT may be the Steph Curry of espresso machines. With digital flow regulation and temperature probe, the DC Pro XT electronically manages the flow of water to the coffee cake at every stage and total volume dispensed, while regulating water speed and volume at the group inlet. Determine the exact amount of energy needed by each unit to precisely reach and maintain the set temperature. A new ergonomic steamer design and connective capabilities will have your café sinking threes all day. dallacorte.com
CRÈME OF THE CROP “Indulgent vegan” is a bit of an oxymoron, however, Rich’s Culinary Solutions Plant Based Cooking Crème could allow you to actually realize truly crave-able plant-based food items. Its silky, rich texture can stand in for dairy in any recipe, without altering flavor. Vegan bakers can now create luxurious cakes, icings, custards, and cookies. For baristas, diluting the crème creates a velvety latte. Ooh la la! richsfoodservice.com
NEW LOOK FOR LONE STAR COLD BREW To go along with its new 11,000-square-foot production facility deep in the heart of Austin, Texas, Cuveé Coffee changed the look of its nitro cold brew in the blue can. Adorned with a starburst in a giant letter C on a powder blue background amid a field of blue stars, the can contains the same signature cold brew, infused with a blast of nitrogen. Taste the stars! cuveecoffee.com
MOVING ON UP Block Bottom Bags combine the benefits of a traditional side-gusseted bag and stand-up pouch to create a package that sits narrow on the shelf, doesn’t tip over, and squares up like a box. Available in matte black, matte white, and clear, these bags are set to move. pacificbag.com
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FRESH CUP MAGAZINE | 25
THE FILTER Erin Wang + Cup of Excellence Erin Wang joined Cup of Excellence, the global cupping competition and coffee auction program overseen by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence nonprofit organization. In her new role as senior manager, Wang will oversee 12 Cup of Excellence competitions in 11 different countries planned for 2018, and she will manage the organization’s SCA-certified cupper training lab in Portland, Oregon. Wang’s previous experience includes tenures with Volcafe Specialty Coffee, Molinos de Honduras, and Olam Specialty Coffee.
Brits Ponder ‘Latte Levy,’ Plastic-free Teabags Once touted as the future, plastic was recently called “one of the great environmental scourges of our time” by British Prime Minister Theresa May. In her New Year’s address, May announced a war on plastic waste by proposing measures, such as plastics-free aisles in supermarkets and taxes on takeaway containers, that aim to ween England off plastic entirely by 2042. In response, the United Kingdom’s Environmental Audit Committee recommended a tax on single-use hot beverage cups. The socalled “latte levy” of 25 pence (approximately US$0.34) would be similar in nature to another recently enacted tax on plastic bags, which has succeeded in reducing their use by 85 percent since the tariff was imposed. Revenue from the new tax on to-go cups would be invested in recycling infrastructure, including collection, processing, and redistribution. According to the committee’s estimate, approximately 2.5 billion coffee cups wind up in landfills and incinerators every year in England. (In America, the number of trashed cups is projected as high as 60 billion.) The committee recommended that all disposable cups should be recycled by 2023; if that target date is not met, non-recyclable cups should be banned outright. Although many cups are labeled as recyclable or compostable, only a small percentage of them actually make it to a proper processing facility. Many cups do not get recycled because they are lined with a plastic material that makes the cups impermeable to liquid, but cannot be broken down efficiently and can clog paper recycling equipment. Mike Turner, managing director of Graphic Packaging International’s European Foodservice business and spokesperson for the Paper 26 | MARCH 2018 » freshcup.com
Cup Alliance, disputed that paper cups cannot be recycled. “Let’s be clear, paper cups are recyclable, and they are being recycled,” he said. Turner pointed out that there are four recycling facilities in the UK that are able to separate the plastic coating from the paper, enabling both paper and plastic to be fully recycled. The challenge, Turner says, is to improve the infrastructure to collect these cups and get them to a facility that can process them properly. Another solution is to adopt a plastic barrier that can be processed at every one of the UK’s 120 “materials recovery facilities.” EarthCoating, for instance, is a technology touted by Smart Planet Technologies of Newport Beach, California. According to Todd Gasparik, director of business development, EarthCoating is a 50/50 blend of plastic and minerals that can be easily processed through existing paper recycling equipment. Cups lined with EarthCoating, called “Vericups,” are now commercially available throughout most of the world. “Expecting consumers on-the-go to rely on a reusable cup may not be as pragmatic as some might think,” Gasparik says. “The reality is, billions of paper cups each year will continue to be used globally, so it’s important for the industry to adopt innovative solutions.” Since the latte levy was announced, sales of reusable coffee cups have surged. Discount retailer Argos reported sales growth of 537 percent in December 2017, a five-fold increase compared to the same month the previous year. The increase in travel mug sales was also attributed to the fact that several of the UK’s big coffee chains have started offering discounts to customers bringing in their own cup. Costa Coffee and Starbucks, the top two coffee chains in the UK, both offer a 25-pence
Brad Price + Phillips Syrup Gourmet syrup and sauce manufacturer Phillips Syrup named Brad Price as vice president of sales and marketing. Price brings over 25 years of experience in the specialty coffee industry, most recently with Monin Syrups. He has participated in several SCAA committees, presented multiple seminars at Coffee Fest trade shows, and he serves on the Fresh Cup editorial advisory board.
Gina Dazzo + Cult Coffee Roaster Cult Coffee Roaster in Phoenix, Arizona, hired Gina Dazzo as director of customer development. The newly created position will oversee in-store training for existing clientele and assist with sales development. Dazzo began her coffee career in 1998 as a barista at Starbucks and rose through the ranks to district manager of northern Arizona. She also managed Bookmans Café in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Helpings Café in Phoenix.
discount to customers who use reusable cups for their purchased drinks. Meanwhile, disposable teabags are also getting set for an overhaul. The Co-operative, the UK-based fair-trade food supplier, has enlisted tea retailer Typhoo and Ahlstrom-Munksjö, specialists in sustainable fiber solutions, to develop a method of heat-sealing bags that will eliminate the more widely used plastic seal. “Many tea drinkers are blissfully unaware that the teabag from their daily cuppa is sealed using plastic,” says Jo Whitfield, chief executive of Co-op Food. “Even though it’s a relatively small amount, when you consider the six billion cups of tea that are brewed up every year in the UK, we are looking at around 150 tons of polypropylene—that’s an enormous amount of accumulated plastic waste that is either contaminating food waste compost collections or simply going to landfill.” MORE INFO >> www.vericup.com/www.co-operativefood.co.uk
Industry News, Café Openings + People on the Move
BALZAC’S POWERHOUSE
Canadian coffee chain Balzac’s Coffee Roasters opened its 14th location in Toronto’s up-and-coming Davenport Village neighborhood. Named the “Powerhouse,” the café was built in what was once a General Electric Factory and features an industrial motif with soaring ceilings and exposed brick. 29 Powerhouse St., Toronto, Canada | www.balzacs.com
BORIS & HORTON
New York’s first Department of Health approved dog-friendly café welcomes canines and their people. In addition to espresso from City of Saints Coffee Roasters, the menu has vegetarian avocado toasts, cheese plates, and pastries for its human patrons. 195 Ave. A, New York City, New York | www.borisandhorton.com
LANDWER CAFE
Art of Tea Creates New Look, Collections After almost a decade and a half in business, the Art of Tea has refreshed its image with a bold, modern new look. Gone is the old “apothecary” design with muted colors. In its place is a suite of brightly colored patterns, all-caps sans serif typography, and an updated logo comprised by four Camellia sinensis leaves. “In a café atmosphere, the Instagram factor is huge,” says Madison Way, marketing coordinator. “We wanted to help our clients hit that aesthetic level.”
The first American outpost by an Israeli chain of coffee shops, Landwer Cafe settled in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. Mediterranean-inspired plates are served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and kosher options are also available. 900 Beacon St., Boston, Massachusetts | www.landwer.ca
FICTION COFFEE
Co-working company Common Desk purchased Method Coffee in an effort to differentiate itself and reopened the café as Fiction Coffee in the Bryan Place neighborhood east of downtown. The revamped café still features house-made syrups and specialty lattes, but will now serve Counter Culture Coffee and a “Fictional Menu” of secret menu items. 1623 North Hall St., Dallas, Texas | fictioncoffee.business.site
HOUNDSTOOTH COFFEE
East Austin is now home to the sixth Houndstooth Coffee café. The 2,200-square-foot space features an expansive Ushaped counter, custom bar seating, built-in benches, leather armchairs, and traditional café seating. This will be the first Houndstooth location to offer a full bar and craft cocktails in addition to its signature menu of coffee, teas, espresso, beer, and wine. Houndstooth Coffee has three locations in Dallas, Texas, and two others in Austin. 2823 East Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Austin, Texas www.houndstoothcoffee.com
JOE & THE JUICE
Copenhagen-based chain Joe & the Juice opened its first location in Chicago’s Near North Side, with two other Chicago locations also in the works. The Danish chain is known for only hiring “hunky” men and serving a variety of juices, smoothies, and smoothie bowls prepared with fresh ingredients, healthconscious sandwiches, and specialty coffees. 10 East Delaware Pl., Chicago, Illinois / www.joejuice.com
KŌHI COFFEE
Kōhi Coffee Co. opened the doors to a new café in the fledgling Boston neighborhood of Brighton. The local chain, which takes its name from the Japanese word for coffee, operates two other locations in Provincetown. The 1,300-square-foot Brighton café serves a limited menu of light breakfast and lunch fare to complement the coffee program, which features beans from Tandem Coffee Roasters in Portland, Maine. 130 Guest St., Brighton, Massachusetts | www.kohicoffee.com
The transformation took over two years. An outside design team was first contracted to create preliminary concepts, then an in-house designer was brought onboard to finalize the designs. Based in Los Angeles, California, the Art of Tea was started 14 years ago by Steve Schwartz in his New Mexico home. While studying Ayurvedic medicine, Schwartz discovered a talent for blending medicinal teas. “His artistry is now translated into our brand,” Way says.
MERIT COFFEE
Local Coffee launched in San Antonio, Texas, in 2009. Since then, the brand has grown into nine cafés and an in-house roastery called Merit Roasting Company. However, a name such as “Local Coffee” provided challenges for a growing chain in a Google-powered world. Therefore, founder Robby Grubbs decided to rebrand under the name Merit Coffee when expanding to the Austin market. 222 West Ave #120, Austin, Texas | www.meritcoffee.com
PORTLAND ROASTING COFFEE
After 22 years in business, Portland Roasting Coffee opened its flagship café. Located just a block away from the company’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon’s Central East Side, the new café will serve as a community space and laboratory for prototyping new products and recipes with customers, such as single-origin cold brew, house-made sodas, and cocktails. 815 SE Oak St., Portland, Oregon www.portlandroastingcoffee.com
SONS OF LIBERTY COFFEE
Inspired by the rabble-rousers behind the Boston Tea Party—which ironically turned America into a coffee-drinking nation—husband-and-wife team Eder Teixeira and Dorotei Moreira opened Sons of Liberty Coffee. The 2,500-squarefoot café has a minimalist design and open floor plan with additional outdoor seating. 250 W Lancaster #140, Fort Worth, Texas | www.solcoffee.com
TRINITI
Headed by Noma veteran Joseph Geiskopf, this shoeboxsized café manages to serve a full menu of composed dishes and grain bowls for breakfast and lunch, as well as a full menu of espresso-based drinks. The shop’s minimalist aesthetic and European feel has quickly attracted Los Angeles’ creative class for food and coffee alike. 1814 W. Sunset Blvd. Echo Park, California | www.triniti.la
To go with the new look, Schwartz and his team categorized their tea offerings into seven “collections”—Location, Dessert, Time, Classic, Iced Tea, Single Origin, and Wellness—each with its own visual identity. “People see the new packaging and they order it without trying it,” Way says. “Finally, we have a product that adds to the sensory experience.” FC MORE INFO >> www.artoftea.com FRESH CUP MAGAZINE | 27
The WHOLE LEAF
The Catalysts Behind Kumaon’s Comeback By Ingrid Remak
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for places to grow tea on the Indian subcontinent to circumvent trade with China. Drawn to Kumaon’s acidic, well-drained soils, they brought in Chinese seeds to set up initial test plots on the mountainous landscape. Camellia sinensis took well to Kumaon soils, and the plant thrived there—more than 15 years before Robert Fortune’s legendary saplings reached Indian shores. While Kumaon tea was well received in Europe, the region was challenged by its distance from the ports. Kumaon was located hundreds of miles from the coastal British capital in Calcutta. Getting the tea out of the mountains and to the ports required roads, infrastructure, and a supply
chain network that did not exist and was seen as a logistical nightmare. Strong lobbies of growers kept the focus and flow of resources toward developing tea plantations in Assam and Darjeeling. By the 1920s, the experimental plots in Kumaon had been abandoned. Over the next few decades, the hardy tea bushes grew largely untended. THE ROAD BACK In the 1930s, a group of six British families living in Sri Lanka moved to Kumaon to revitalize the gardens. Enticed by the prospect of owning land and developing their own tea plantations, they immigrated sight unseen to become stewards of these old trees.
PH OTOS COU RTESY OF INGR ID R EM AK
N
estled in the foothills of the mighty Himalayas, 200 miles west of Nepal’s border, lies a little-known tea region called Kumaon. One of the most remote regions in all of India, Kumaon (pronounced “koo-maw-in”) was originally settled in the 1400s by Indians fleeing religious persecution as invaders entered the subcontinent. This independent, self-reliant population settled the mountains, far from the cities in the plains, carving out terraces from the mountainsides to support subsistence lifestyles. The first records of tea cultivation in Kumaon date back to the 1830s, a time when the British and East India Company were searching
KUMAON is located close to the Nepali border in Northern India.
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THE WHOLE LEAF
DESMOND BIRKBECK (above, left) negotiates with Raj Vable (above right, wearing yellow shirt). The Panchachuli peaks (below) are a group of five snow-capped Himalayan peaks lying at the end of the eastern Kumaon region.
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One of these families, the Birkbecks, remains today in Kumaon. For three generations, the Birkbecks have tirelessly worked to revive local tea cultivation, despite facing the same challenges that plagued the initial Kumaon growers, namely extreme isolation and an overall industry focus on the regions nearest to Calcutta. In the 1990s, the Birkbecks received encouragement in the form of a state government project designed to create rural livelihoods. After considering several other crops, the government settled on tea because of its hardy and resilient nature. (Rumor also has it that the decision was based, in part, on the fact that monkeys don’t steal tea.) The program initially focused on cultivation, covering all costs to set up a farmer with tea plants. The government continued to lease the land under cultivation for the first seven years to guarantee farmers an income until the plants were fully productive. But despite these incentives, Kumaon’s potential remained far from fully realized. Kumaon lacked critical mass to be taken seriously by the tea world at-large.
Vable wondered, “What if tea could be used as a means for establishing sustainable rural livelihoods?” Vable moved to Oregon and set up Young Mountain Tea to introduce Kumaon teas to the world. Two years later, the team at Young Mountain Tea began organizing trips for tea drinkers to visit Kumaon homes, so they can experience the rebirth of Kumaon tea firsthand. Drawing on the commitment of growers like Desmond Birkbeck, in conjunction with international trade partnerships, Kumaon tea farmers are creating the next generation of Indian teas. FC
BUILDING ON A LEGACY Today, Kumaon remains largely devoid of the large plantations that otherwise dominate the Indian tea landscape. More than 2,000 Kumaon households produce 120,000 pounds of tea annually. Among them is Desmond Birkbeck, grandson of the British immigrants who moved to the region during the 1930s. Today, Desmond continues to run his family’s organic tea garden with many plants from the original Kumaon experiments, which are now more than 150 years old. But the tea world has remained largely ignorant of the Birkbecks’ legacy—until now, thanks to the efforts of an ambitious young man named Raj Vable. While pursuing a Fulbright Fellowship in the rural Kumaon hills, Vable noticed that tea was grown there on a small scale, but he also noted a large number of fields lying fallow. With young Indians leaving rural villages in pursuit of economic prospects in India’s urban centers,
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T
he Big Apple is a beacon for the world, providing innovative concepts in fashion, architecture, fine dining, finance—and tea. Over the past few years, tea in the city has taken on new forms, from standalone retail shops to back-alley tearooms providing specialized experiences. With tea consumption in the United States strongly on the rise, these cafés are fueling international interest by helping consumers taste the world of specialty tea in a contemporary light. Manhattan’s tearooms are very different from one another, but what they all share in common are three key factors: First and foremost, they focus on “pure” teas—no blends. Second, the café owners make it a point to personally source the teas. Third, the cafés specialize in the service and presentation of tea in ways that satisfy the expectation of a serious tea drinker, while also making tea accessible to those intrigued by tea’s charms. It’s not easy to strike this balance, but these cafés excel at it.
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TÉ COMPANY is a curator of fine Taiwanese teas located in the West Village of NYC. Pictured is an Oolong served with their signature pineapple linzer cookie.
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Tearooms Take Manhattan
Té Company 163 West 10th Street 929-335-3168 www.te-nyc.com
ELENA LIAO
P H OTOS COUR TESY OF TÉ COMPANY
Opened in the fall of 2015 by the husband-and-wife team of Frederico Ribeiro and Elena Liao—he makes the food, she sources the tea—Té Company’s flagship tearoom is located on the ground floor of a small apartment building in the West Village. On any given afternoon, Té attracts people from Manhattan’s top industries—fashion, real estate, food, and finance. Some are here to catch up with friends, while others hold business meetings or just enjoy time alone to read. But the real reason everyone is here is to drink the exceptionally rare Taiwanese teas. Taiwan makes up less than one-half of one percent of the world’s tea production, and most is consumed domestically. According to Liao, Taiwan’s first tea makers came from China’s Fujian province, renowned to this day for its oolong teas. “By establishing personal connections with farmers and families in Taiwan, we seek to bring their stories and teas alive,” Liao says. Té succeeds in doing so by complementing tea with an intricate and ever-changing food menu of colorful salads, tasty snacks, and sweet treats. Ribeiro, whose fine-dining background includes stints at El Bulli and Per Se, is perhaps best-known for his delicate pineapple linzer cookies, inspired by Taiwanese pineapple cakes. Pineapple jam is sandwiched between two discs of hazelnut shortbread then finished with lime zest and sea salt.
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T Shop
P HOTOS COURTES Y OF T S HOP
247 Elizabeth St. tshopny@gmail.com www.tshopny.com Over in Soho, Theresa Liao runs T Shop, a hidden tea café tucked behind a psychic. Because the tea room is hidden from street view, with just slips of natural light here and there, the space feels like a cozy embrace. . . Although you won’t find comfort food on the menu here, as Liao doesn’t want different scents and smells interfering with the teas. She sources a wide range of black, green, oolong, pu-erh, and white teas from Taiwan, China, and Korea, and the occasional herb or flower that she finds on sourcing travels. T Shop is unique with hours of operation extending to 9 p.m. “It’s difficult to find an evening spot, even in a city as varied as New York City, where one can simply sit and drink tea in the company of friends or a good book. Most late-night spots focus on alcoholic drinking, and to have a space where you can linger with a pot of tea is something quite special,” Liao says. Another twist is the different tea experiences T Shop offers, depending on your mood and company. T Shop is separated into two sections: tables for small groups of two to four, and a bar area, ideal for visitors who want the focus of their visit to be about the tea itself. Most days Liao can be found sitting behind the bar offering steep after steep of gaiwan. She is always happy to discuss and chat about tea and educate guests. As a way to build community, T Shops hosts “Tea Experiences” throughout the week. Monday nights are “Tea Making Mondays” where attendees all brew the same tea with their own equipment. This is so that people can learn how tea taste varies greatly depending on the brewing vessel. It also allows people to taste the same tea brewed in different ways, something you wouldn’t have the opportunity to easily do at home. T Shop is also known for “Cha Chat” nights where a member of the tea community (either someone also in the tea business, or a passionate tea lover/ loyal customer) leads an evening of tea drinking and conversation.
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Tearooms Take Manhattan
Tea Drunk 123 East 7th Street (917) 573-9936 tea-drunk.com Located in the East Village, Tea Drunk is owned by Shunan Teng, who prides herself on sourcing the world’s most prized loose leaf teas—and all teas come strictly from China. Every spring, Teng heads to the deepest mountains in China to eat, sleep, and work alongside heritage farmers. “Every tea in our selection is harvested for only 10 to 15 days a year from renowned tea mountains that were hailed by emperors and artists alike,” Teng says. In Chinese culture, the term “drunk” doesn’t have a negative connotation. Instead, it is a romantic expression used to describe one’s indulgence in true passion. “For example, a poet would describe himself as being ‘drunk’ on starlight, the gaze of a lover, or the intense beauty of the sun setting over a mountain range,” Teng notes. Center stage in the Tea Drunk tea room is a large bar where guests can pull up a seat and taste for hours on end. The menu is wide and extensive, diving deep into each tea category, making Tea Drunk a fun place for tea novices to learn, and also a place where aficionados can have a field day. Take, for example, Biluochun—the renowned green tea from the Dongting mountain region near Lake Tai, Jiangsu, China. Also known as Pi Lo Chun, Biluochun has a fruity taste and floral aroma. Its name literally means “Green Snail Spring.” Most tea shops won’t have even one Biluochun on the menu, and yet Tea Drunk has four different kinds! They vary by year harvested (2015 through 2017) and season (early spring or late spring). Teng has also made a big push with tea education by collaborating with highprofile businesses not typically associated with tea. In the summer of 2017, for instance, she ran a tea pop-up at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which opened tea to a completely new audience.
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Setsugekka by Tea-Whisk
TE A DRUNK P HOTOS (OPP OSITE PAG E) BY YUXI LI U; SETSUG EKK A P H OTOS BY JUNYA M ORI
74 East 7th Street 646-895-9586 www.tea-whisk.com One block west of Tea Drunk is Setsugekka by Tea-Whisk, owned by teamaster Souheki Mori and her husband. Created primarily as a space to host tea education classes, Setsugekka offers seating for five around a tiny tea bar, and they also serve a good number of drinks to go. Drop-in visitors will feel as if they’ve stumbled upon a rare gem. This Japanese teahouse is authentic in quality and preparation, and yet it makes the act of ordering and drinking modern and approachable for people passing through on their way to or from the East Village. Matcha serves as the base for every drink on the menu, whether served in house or to go, ranging from almond milk matcha lattes, “matcha-ppuchino,” and their popular matcha affogatos made with koicha (thick matcha). If time permits, visitors are encouraged to opt for the matcha tasting flight. Finding a balance between having a full kitchen and offering no food, Setsugekka settles on a middle ground by outsourcing tea sweets from Rin, who is well-known for producing mochi desserts for Japanese restaurants around the city. FC
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A RTI FAC T PH OTO COUR TES Y OF FOODSHED
ARTIFACT COFFEE takes reclaimed wood to the next level.
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Charm City Café Crawl
B
ARGOSY CAFE It’s easy to chill out at Argosy Cafe, even while sipping a hot brew. Soul, rock, and funk play on the sound system, the staff is friendly, and the former bank space in a once-bustling Baltimore office building is retro and stylish. In one corner the roaster hums along as a batch of Ethiopian coffee is overseen by Sarah Walker, the founder of Vent Coffee Roasters and Argosy’s manager. The Baltimore native brings devotion to her craft, having lived on the West Coast to learn about coffee. She began her training as a barista at Temple Coffee in Sacramento,
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P HOTOS COURTES Y OF CH AR M KIT T Y C AF E
altimore’s coffee scene is the cat’s meow—literally. One of the city’s newest java joints is Charm Kitty Cafe, which serves coffee and adorable, adoptable felines. Even without the cute kittens, locally owned coffee shops are popping up all over the city to meet the community’s caffeine cravings. Norman Loverde, executive vice president of Baltimore Coffee and Tea Co., remembers a lack of coffee shops when his company started in 1992 with partner and president Stanley Constantine. “There was not really anyone else,” he says. Aside from Loverde in the ’90s, there was just Vaccaro’s in Baltimore’s Little Italy neighborhood offering freshly brewed coffee with its pastries, and Donna’s Coffee Bar in Mount Vernon, which opened with an espresso menu that was ahead of its time back then. Flash forward to today, coffee is being taken as seriously as Baltimore’s beloved steamed crabs. And Loverde, whose own business has grown with additional retail locations over the years, welcomes the competition. “Everybody has a niche,” he says. “They do a lot of different things—and they’re a lot younger.”
P HOTOS COURTES Y OF A RGOSY C AF E
SARAH WALKER is Argosy’s manager and founder of Vent Coffee Roasters.
California; then manager at Bloom Coffee and Tea in Roseville, California; a roaster at Hub Coffee Roasters in Reno, Nevada; and finally returning to her hometown to share her coffee knowledge. “I missed the grit,” she says about the metropolis known as Charm City. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” Argosy is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a changing menu that includes entrees, burgers, and sandwiches in the afternoon, eggs and pancakes in the morning, all accompanied by single-origin coffees, espresso drinks, nitro cold brew, and teas. Not hungry or thirsty? No problem. Walker encourages passersby to simply stop in for their daily moment of Zen. “I wanted a place where people could come in and let out what was on their nerves and take on something better,” Walker says. “I wanted a place for people to vent.” Walker is moving her roastery this year to Union Collective, a manufacturing and retail complex in Baltimore’s Hampden-Medfield neighborhood. But she is not abandoning Argosy. “They’ll still be serving Vent,” she says. “And I’ll be training the baristas.” ARTIFACT COFFEE For first-timers, finding Artifact Coffee in the refurbished Union Mill complex can be confusing as you approach the light-rail tracks and the underside of a
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Charm City Café Crawl
ARTIFACT COFFEE focuses on local and seasonal sources for its food menu (below).
busy highway. Persevere. The entrance to the parking lot is on your right. Once inside the rustic stone building in HampdenWoodberry, you’re greeted by a pleasant hostess who takes your name if you want to sit at one of the coveted tables. A communal table is an option, too. If you’re in a hurry, belly up to the coffee bar staffed by patient, knowledgeable baristas. A hipster vibe with lots of plaid shirts and laptops abounds in the charming space with reclaimed wood, shelves of pickled vegetables and canned local tomatoes for sale, twinkling lights, and a blackboard with the offerings of the day. The salted caramel latte, presented in a simple white cup with exquisite latte art of a swirling flower, is one of Artifact’s most popular hot beverages, according to general manager Lauren Pavin Jones. In addition to brewed coffee and espresso drinks, the café, which serves Counter Culture Coffee, offers pour-over coffee and Chemex for two. Pavin Jones directs the coffee program at Artifact and another trendy spot, Bird in Hand, in Charles Village. Both cafés are part of the Foodshed restaurant group headed by Spike Gjerde, a James Beard Award-winning chef acclaimed for his farm-to-table restaurant, Woodberry Kitchen, in Baltimore. Artifact Coffee follows Woodberry’s footsteps with a menu targeting homegrown foods. At lunch, offerings include cream of tomato soup dotted with grilled cheese croutons, and a thick, pulled pork sandwich with apple slaw. Breakfast and dinner are also served. “We have a strong commitment to local sources, growers, and watermen,” says Pavin Jones. “What you can’t get local is coffee. Coffee brings the community together.” Artifact also pays attention to tea, using Bellocq blends.
NUBOHEMIA’S owner Jay Rags (above) transformed his shop into a eclectic meeting space for the community.
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Jay Rags’s dream to own a coffee shop took several years, but when NuBohemia opened in 2014, he was prepared. He relied on contacts from a social-events website he developed, as well as coffee tastings and seminars at which he steeped himself in the world of java. “I knew how to create the vibe,” says Rags, who transformed a basement in Midtown-Belvedere that not only serves coffee, tea, munchies, and sandwiches, but also hosts art shows, music, and other community activities. The café’s design aesthetic is eclectic, with mismatched chairs, an inviting settee, colorful art for sale, and a souland-R&B playlist to accompany an outdoor view consisting of legs walking past the below-sidewalk gathering spot. “I take pride in the people I hire behind the counter,” Rags says. “They can relate to any person who comes into the shop.” A chalkboard advertises “fresh locally roasted Arabica beans from Brazil, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, and Colombia,”
A RTI FAC T P HOTOS COURTES Y OF FOODS HED; NUBOHEMI A P HOTOS COUR TESY OF JAY R AGS
NUBOHEMIA
Charm City Café Crawl
BALTIMORE CAFÉS ARGOSY CAFE 7 N. Calvert St. (in the Munsey Building) 443-869-2942 argosycafe.com ARTIFACT COFFEE 1500 Union Ave., Suite 114 410-235-1881 artifactcoffee.com ZEKE’S owner Thomas Rhodes (left) roasts on a fluid bed roaster.
BALTIMORE COFFEE AND TEA CO. Six locations around town 800-823-1408 baltcoffee.com NUBOHEMIA 42 W. Biddle St. 919-408-7723 facebook.com/nubohemia
but Rags is more interested in the final product, whether it’s an iced latte with white-chocolate flavoring, cappuccino, or mocha macchiato. “We want to market good coffee to customers, not roasters,” he says. Teas are also in demand with a choice of 11 different kinds in bags and four loose leaf teas that are steeped to order. Rags has found that, “people are as enthusiastic about getting teas as coffee.” ZEKE’S COFFEE Zeke’s may be the best-known coffee in Baltimore because of its beans christened with city references like Mobtown Espresso, Tell Tale Dark, and Charm City. What started out as one man’s mission to become a modest small-batch roaster has turned into a familyoperated, multi-city business with other locations in Washington D.C., and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Owner Thomas Rhodes got the pot percolating when he sold his first pound of coffee at the Baltimore Farmers’ Market in 2005. Aficionados still fuel up at the seasonal market. Rhodes opened his first café in Baltimore’s Lauraville neighborhood in 2010 and recently relocated to a larger
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space with an in-house roaster. Customers can order custom roasts, says Thomas’s nephew, Brett Rhodes, a sales and special-events manager for the operation. The café—which looks more like a bustling luncheonette than a boutique coffeehouse—draws families, singles, couples, and anyone else looking for a welcoming place to order a cup of joe. “We want to present an unpretentious atmosphere,” Brett Rhodes says. The café serves breakfast items like bagels and pastries and build-your-own sandwiches for lunch. Hot and cold drinks include brewed coffee, French press, lattes, cold brews, and iced espressos. “Drip coffee is as popular as ever,” Rhodes says. “Fancy drinks always have a market.” Customers also wait patiently for preparations that take longer, like pour overs. “Everybody is certainly on the move,” Rhodes says. “The consumer is overwhelmed by new technologies and everything being fast. But they like to step back and take it slow.” Customers are likely to take a Zeke’s product home when they leave. The rack by the front door is tempting with bags of fresh-roasted beans, Z-cups, chocolate-covered coffee beans, and T-shirts. FC
P H OTOS BY BR ET T RH OD ES
ZEKE’S COFFEE 4719 Harford Rd. 410-254-0122 zekescoffee.com
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P HOTO BY BR IAN BEYKE
QUILLS COFFEE’S sales and production team member, Lee Sill, takes a cold brew coffee break.
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To meet consumer demand for cold brew and maximize profit potential, café owners need to consider the pros and cons of all their options—bottled, ready-to-drink, nitro-infused, on draft—or make their own recipe in-house.
L
ove it or hate it, cold brew coffee has never been more popular, and the category shows no signs of slowing down. From an ever-growing number of ready-to-drink beverages to nitroinfused and draft options, it’s an increasingly crowded marketplace. Although there’s no denying the demand, compared to espresso and filter coffee, cold brew presents its own unique challenges. But with the right strategy, cold brew can help drive profits in the notoriously slower
summer months, and even touch on a new customer base. “One of the bigger reasons that cold brew is continuing to grow is that more people are finding out about it,” says Jenny Bonchak, founder of Slingshot Coffee Company, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based company that produces bottled cold brew in readyto-drink and concentrate formats. “It’s not an obscure thing anymore.” “Carbonated soft drinks and energy drinks are on the decline, and cold brew not only tastes great but also
sits at the confluence of so many macro trends,” says Hugh Duffie, cofounder of Sandows, a London-based bottled cold brew company. NAVIGATING THE SEA OF COLD BREW As cold brew continues its move toward peak market saturation, cafés will need to differentiate their offerings. “If you’re going to serve cold brew, you need to make sure it’s as good as your espresso. Like any well-brewed coffee, it doesn’t just magically
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Cold Brew Rush
recommends cafés that make their own cold brew be careful not to keep a batch of cold brew too long. “This isn’t just cold brew that’s past its ‘best before,’ date” he says. “It will be fermenting and will likely take on an acetic, vinegar flavor.”
happen,” Bonchak says. “Not every coffee is going to react the same way. You really have to hone that recipe.” In Bonchak’s experience, many cafés struggle to serve a consistent product because they fail to implement the same quality control protocols they might use for other beverages. Making cold brew is often assigned as a closing duty, and hastily executed by a barista trying to get out the door. “It’s our job to make sure we’re providing the best quality that we can,” she says. Bonchak observes that many quality-focused cafés elect to carry a ready-to-drink option rather than make their own. This might be motivated by a lack of infrastructure or the convenience of having a consistent, high-quality product. “To make enough cold brew to service a relatively popular café, you
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need a lot of space to do that,” she says. There’s also the matter of scale. “When you make cold brew, it will take your team members roughly the same amount of time to make a small batch—let’s say, somewhere between three to 10 liters—as it will take a specialist cold brew company to produce 1,000 to 10,000 (liters),” Duffie says. “It’s simple economics that they’re able to invest more in ensuring that it’s consistent and that hygiene standards are upheld.” Sandows utilizes a light pasteurization to ensure sanitation and lengthen shelf life. “In coffee, we often become complacent about food safety because of the sterilizing properties of hot water in most brewing. It’s important to remember that cold brew doesn’t have that same failsafe and needs a different approach,” Duffie says. He
For many cafés, especially roaster/ retailers, selling a bottled cold brew makes less business sense than making their own. “It may very well be a viable option for some multi-roaster model cafés or restaurants,” says Matthew Stevenson, director of retail at Quills Coffee. “But for a roasting/retail company like Quills, buying and distributing another company’s product is less feasible and less profitable.” Stevenson warns that cold brew has long steep times, and underestimating demand can be a costly mistake. As a general rule, it’s better to have some waste than run out during the day. “Cold brew is in such high demand these days and available nearly everywhere, so we don’t want to give our customers a reason to start buying it other places,” Stevenson says. “It doesn’t take more than one or two disappointing experiences to build a reputation with those customers who only purchase cold brew.” Cafés that decide to brew their own cold brew will have to pick a method. Slow drip towers, often called Kyoto brewers, are eye-catching, elegant devices that have a flavor profile preferred by many coffee professionals. With glass beakers and nozzles, the systems require careful handling and take up a lot of counter space. While certainly a conversation-starter, the high price tag makes this cold brew method a luxury for many cafés. There’s nothing glamorous about brewing cold brew in what’s essentially a large bucket, but the affordability and durability of the Toddy system makes it the preferred method for cafés on a budget.
P HOTO BY CR AIG HAR R IS
TO BOTTLE OR NOT TO BOTTLE?
For larger-scale brewing, some cafés have rigged their own systems by modifying fermentation tanks normally used for brewing beer and wine. Immersion cold brew methods usually are used to make a concentrate, which can be cut anywhere between 20–40 percent of the water required. Offering cold brew on draft or infused with nitrogen can be another way to add value for customers and set apart one’s offering, but each café must decide whether it’s worth the equipment costs of installing a keg system. “Nitrogen is flavorless on its own and doesn’t react with the coffee, so it only adds a frothy head to the coffee,” explains Steve Rhinehart of Prima Coffee, which sells keg and refrigera-
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tion units for cold brew. Rhinehart has seen an increase in demand for both cold brew on draft and on nitrogen. “Because of the extra surface area of the bubbles on top of the coffee, it could enhance the aromatic qualities of the cold brew, but I find most people just enjoy having a creamy foam on their coffee,” he says. THE BOTTOM LINE Cafés that want to maximize their cold brew program must not only ensure that their product is excellent, but also appropriately priced. Cold brew is significantly less efficient than other brew methods, with some recipes calling for more than twice the amount of ground coffee than SCA Golden Cup ratios.
The higher cost of goods associated with cold brew might tempt a café to cut costs elsewhere. It’s not uncommon for shops to use stale coffee or source a cheaper blend to use for cold brew. According to Bonchak, café managers might want to rethink these kinds of cost-cutting strategies. “It’s never a good idea to use a stale coffee for cold brew,” she says. Whether they land on ready-todrink bottles, nitro-on-tap, or a classic Toddy, cafés with a thoughtful, wellexecuted program are poised to sell a lot of cold brew in 2018. Cafés would do well to take a page from Sandows’s mission statement: “Our mission is to share the specialty coffee that we love with more people through our cold brew format.” FC
P H OTOS, CLOCK W ISE F ROM L EF T: BY BRI AN BEYKE; ANG ELIK A JOH NS ; CR A IG H AR R IS; AM ER IC A N B E E R EQ UIPMEN T
Cold Brew Rush
MARKETPLACE
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Spring Cleaning
T
REALIZE REGULAR MAINTENANCE Although the technical side of the coffee industry is gaining more awareness than ever before, consistent, scheduled preventative maintenance is still elusive in a lot of coffee businesses. So, let’s start with asking, “Why?”
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Cherry Street Public House opened its doors in Seattle, Washington, in February 2017. Robert Uribe, co-manager at Cherry Street, has some opinions on why scheduled cleanings are so essential. “Regular maintenance,” Uribe says, “will impact your cost of goods, your barista’s experience, and your customer’s experience. If your espresso machine isn’t working properly, it affects how easily you can dial in your coffee, waste becomes a factor, then you affect the end result, which is the taste.” Thom Cooper, equipment and facilities manager at Gimme! Coffee in Ithaca, New York, believes in the value of preventative maintenance, but some of his clients refuse service, because there’s nothing wrong with their equipment. “Then they learn the hard way,” Cooper says, “because they end up paying more for an emergency repair when their equipment goes down because of not sticking to the preventative maintenance schedule.” He also points out that not keeping to maintenance guidelines, especially
those published by the manufacturer, could void your warranty. So, if you want to empower your baristas, provide a good experience and product to your customer, and efficiently and sustainably meet your bottom line, don’t take your equipment for granted. Respect and nurture it. TARGET PRESSURE POINTS The next question then naturally becomes, “What?” If you aren’t sure what exactly is involved in preventative maintenance, ask your roaster, the tech who fixes your broken-down machines, or the company that made your equipment. All the big companies have technical support and online step-by-step guides to caring for their machines and how to perform basic repairs. Many roasters also provide maintenance recommendations, and techs are more than happy to put you on a regular three- or six-month maintenance schedule. If you don’t have people to remind you when it’s time to replace your water filter or change your gaskets, find a way to prompt yourself. Schedule
IL LUS TR R ATION BY C Y NTHIA M E AD ORS
here is an elemental side to brewing coffee that is mechanical, robotic, scientific. It’s the component that takes the arduous process of producing coffee and transforms it into an emotional, sensorial, connective experience. Every day, coffee newbies and veterans alike invest in machines and gadgets that, if correctly used and consciously maintained, will produce a great cup of coffee for themselves, their families, and their customers— day after day after day. As partner in a mobile coffee venture and wife of a former coffee tech, I am consistently reminded how vital it is to clean, repair, and maintain our equipment. For any company (hopefully), cleaning equipment, ceramics, glassware, utensils, and service space is a well-worn daily and weekly habit. Opening and closing task lists are routine and hardly vary from café to cart to coffee lab. But, while it’s important, cleaning isn’t what I’m talking about. “Your daily cleaning is your daily cleaning,” says Shad Baiz, secondgeneration espresso machine technician, Western Regional Support Specialist at La Marzocco, and Working Group Chair of SCA’s Coffee Technicians Guild Executive Council. “Preventative maintenance should be done a minimum of every six months, and up to four times a year in extremely busy environments.” With winter hibernation coming to a close and spring waking up all around us, now is the perfect time to rethink our maintenance practices— or non-practices—and discover how we can proverbially oil our machines.
really need to keep all of that at your shop. When it comes to the big stuff, it’s best to let those trained and skilled do their job. Yet, there are some tools that are great to keep on hand so when it’s time for preventative maintenance, your tech will be a happy tech. • Blind basket for your portafilter. • A firm nylon brush for group heads and screens—try one with a removable and replaceable head. • A firm nylon bottle-cleaning-style brush for inside steam wands. • A soft, not rigid, brush for cleaning grinders. • A foaming glass cleaner for your stainless steel surfaces—never use polish!
reminders with the most obnoxious ringtone into your phone for the next three years. Write down the date of the last service and tape it to the equipment. Work with your staff to keep a written or digital log of service and maintenance performed. Train someone on your staff on how to do the basics, then educate yourself on what needs to be done. Here’s a good checklist to start: Every 3–6 months—bare minimum: • Replace portafilter screens, gaskets, o-rings, and baskets. • Lubricate wear surfaces. • Rebuild steam valves. • Clean auto fill probe. • Clean or rebuild vacuum breaker. • Change grinder burrs (timing depends on volume). • Replace water filter (timing depends on water hardness and sediment present). Annually: • Clean and inspect flow meters.
Maintenance needed on older machines will differ from the needs
of newer machines, and scale buildup is an issue most cafés must continually address. Building a relationship with people and companies who can troubleshoot your equipment and provide quality service is invaluable. Alex Lambert of Black Rabbit Service Co. in Portland, Oregon, puts it this way: “If you have a good relationship with your techs, it will give them regular exposure to your machines, which allows them to build their historical knowledge of each piece they work on and predict issues. Not doing preventative maintenance work is like driving your car for a year or two and not getting the oil changed. It’s gonna cost you a lot more in the long run, and you’ll end up with a lot more surprise breakdowns than you would otherwise.” USE THE RIGHT TOOLS Finally, let’s address the “how.” Coffee equipment technicians, whether independent, part of a service company, or employed by a roaster, show up at your shop with a bag full of tools. But, you don’t
• A short, stubby flathead screwdriver with a broad blade for removing screens (i.e., E61 Brew Group) and Phillips head screwdriver (Saturated Brew Group). • Guitar wire for small ports, steam wand tips, and diffuser screw holes. • Food-safe cleaners for inside and outside your machines. • Water test strips. • A backup.
Andrea Allen, owner of Onyx Coffee Lab in the Arkansas Ozarks, always recommend to her accounts that they have a backup of something, whether it’s a grinder or brewer or even an espresso machine. “As they grow and update their equipment, I encourage them to keep their old equipment, even if they don’t need to sell it,” Allen says. Having a backup not only means that you can swap it out if your newer machine breaks down, but also that you can schedule regular and major maintenance during any time of service and still operate uninterrupted. “Keeping things clean and in good working function means you are setting yourself up for success,” Allen says. Let’s all raise a wrench to success. FC
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TRADE SHOW & EVENTS CALENDAR MARCH
MARCH
MARCH 4–6 INTERNATIONAL RESTAURANT & FOODSERVICE SHOW New York City, New York internationalrestaurantny.com MARCH 9–11 AMSTERDAM COFFEE FESTIVAL Amsterdam, Netherlands amsterdamcoffeefestival.com
MARCH 22–24 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COFFEE EXPO Melbourne, Australia internationalcoffeeexpo.com.au
APRIL APRIL 5–8 COFFEE EXPO SEOUL Seoul, Korea http://coffeeexposeoul.com
MARCH 10–11 COFFEE & CHOCOLATE EXPO San Juan, Puerto Rico coffeeandchocolateexpo.com
APRIL 12–15 LONDON COFFEE FESTIVAL London, United Kingdom londoncoffeefestival.com
MARCH 10–11 COFFEE & TEA FESTIVAL NYC New York City, New York coffeeandteafestival.com
APRIL 18–19 RE:CO SYMPOSIUM Seattle, Washington recosymposium.org
MARCH 15–17 NCA ANNUAL CONVENTION New Orleans, Louisiana ncausa.org
APRIL 19–22 SPECIALTY COFFEE EXPO Seattle, Washington coffeeexpo.org
MARCH 15–17 COFFEE & TEA RUSSIAN EXPO Moscow, Russia https://coffeetearusexpo.ru/en MARCH 16–18 COFFEE FEST Baltimore, Maryland coffeefest.com MARCH 17–18 SOUTHWEST COFFEE & CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL Albuquerque, New Mexico chocolateandcoffeefest.com MARCH 22–24 CAFE ASIA & ICT INDUSTRY EXPO Marina Bay, Singapore www.cafeasia.com.sg
56 | MARCH 2018 » freshcup.com
APRIL 22–23 NW FOOD SHOW Portland, Oregon nwfoodshow.com
MAY MAY 19–22 NRA SHOW Chicago, Illinois show.restaurant.org
JUNE JUNE 8–10 COFFEE FEST Denver, Colorado coffeefest.com
JUNE
SEPTEMBER JUNE 12–14 WORLD TEA EXPO Las Vegas, Nevada worldteaexpo.com
SEPTEMBER 19–22 GOLDEN BEAN Portland, Oregon goldenbean.com
JUNE 19–21 WORLD OF COFFEE Amsterdams, Netherlands worldofcoffee.org
SEPTEMBER 20–24 LET’S TALK COFFEE Huila, Colombia letstalkcoffee.org
AUGUST AUGUST 19–21 COFFEE FEST Los Angeles, California coffeefest.com AUGUST 19–21 WESTERN FOODSERVICE & HOSPITALITY EXPO Los Angeles, California westernfoodexpo.com AUGUST 30–SEPTEMBER 1 EXPO CAFE MEXICO Mexico City, Mexico tradex.mx/expocafe
SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 5 TEA MASTERS CUP Riga, Latvia teamasterscup.com
SEPTEMBER 23–24 CANADIAN COFFEE & TEA SHOW Toronto, Canada coffeeteashow.ca SEPTEMBER 29–OCTOBER 1 ATHENS COFFEE FESTIVAL Athens, Greece athenscoffeefestival.gr/en/
OCTOBER OCTOBER 10–12 COTECA Hamburg, Germany coteca-hamburg.com/en/ OCTOBER 16–17 CAFFÈ CULTURE SHOW London, United Kingdom caffecultureshow.com
SEPTEMBER 6–8 FLORIDA RESTAURANT & LODGING SHOW Orlando, Florida flrestaurantandlodgingshow.com SEPTEMBER 15–17 CAFE SHOW CHINA Beijing, China http://www.cafeshow.cn/huagang/ hgcoffceen/index.htm
FRESH CUP MAGAZINE | 57
ADVERTISER INDEX
Go to freshcup.com/resources/fresh-cup-advertisers to view the Advertiser Index and the websites listed below.
ADVERTISER
CONTACT
ONLINE
Academy of Coffee Excellence
757.565.1400
academyofcoffee.com
Art of Tea
213.493.6518
wholesale.artoftea.com
Barista Pro Shop
866.776.5288
baristaproshop.com/ad/fresh
Brewista
888.538.8683 mybrewista.com
14
The Canadian Coffee & Tea Show
877.687.7321
coffeeteashow.ca
21
The Chai Co.
888.922.2424
chaico.com
23
Coffee Fest
425.295.3300
coffeefest.com
Curtis
800.421.6150
wilburcurtis.com
Custom Cup Sleeves
888-672-4096
customcupsleeves.com
51
DaVinci Gourmet
800.640.6779
davincigourmet.com
49
Descamex
844.472.8429 descamex.com
Ditting
810.367.7125
Divinitea
518.347.0689 divinitea.com
51
Eastsign
sales@eastsign.com eastsign.com
14
Fresh Cup Magazine
503.236.2587
freshcup.com
43
Ghirardelli Chocolate
800.877.9338
ghirardelli.com/professional
60
Golden Bean
310.266.2827
goldenbean.com
25
Gosh That’s Good! Brand
888.848.GOSH (4674)
goshthatsgood.com
11
Grandstand Glassware + Apparel
800.767.8951
egrandstand.com/coffee
4
Java Jacket
800.208.4128
javajacket.com
6
Malabar Gold Espresso
650.366.5453
malabargoldespresso.com
Monin Gourmet Flavorings
855.FLAVOR1 (352.8671)
monin.com
Omaroo Coffee
info@omaroocoffee.com
omaroocoffee.com
Organic Products Trading Co
888.881.4433
optco.com
6
Pacific Foods
503.692.9666
pacificfoods.com/foodservice
5
SelbySoft
800.454.4434 selbysoft.com
13
SerendipiTea
888.TEA.LIFE (832.5433)
serendipitea.com
57
Service Ideas
800.328.4493
serviceideas.com
40
Sonofresco
360.757.2800 sonofresco.com
StixToGo
800.666.6655
royalpaper.com
TEA House Times, The
973.551.9161
theteahousetimes.com
TeaSource
855.320.4832 teasource.com
21
Theta Ridge Coffee
800.745.8738
thetaridgecoffee.com
51
Toddy
888.863.3974
toddycafe.com/wholesale
17
World Tea Expo
866.458.4935
worldteaexpo.com
45
Your Brand Café
866.566.0390
yourbrandcafe.com
9
Zojirushi America
800.264.6270
zojirushi.com
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ditting.com
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