Contents M AY 2 0 1 9 | VO L . 2 8 . N O. 5 | F R E S H C U P M AG A Z I N E
Departments
12
16
20
44
COLD BREW TEA
CHAD TREWICK & PETER W. ROBERTS
COFFEE FEST NYC
Trending
PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE
By Jessica Natale Woollard
Café Crawl
Do You Know? Part Two
By Fresh Cup Staff
By Ryan Cashman
By Caitlin Peterkin
Show Shots
Features
28
38
A growing number of coffee producers are experimenting with new fermentation techniques to modulate the flavor profile of their coffee and add value to their product—just don’t call it a trend.
From mason jar meals to mug lending, a surge of new takeaway programs prove zero-waste to-go is possible.
Fermentation at Origin
By Michael Butterworth
Takeaway Without the Trash By Robin Roenker
EDITOR’S LETTER, PAGE 9 | CONTRIBUTORS, PAGE 10 COUNTER INTELLIGENCE, PAGE 46 | CALENDAR, PAGE 48 | AD INDEX, PAGE 50
On the Cover: CRÈME Design’s prototype coffee cup that’s grown from gourds. Photo by Chris Collie 8 ] MAY 2019 » freshcup.com
FRESH CUP MAGAZINE FRESH CUP PUBLISHING Publisher and President JAN WEIGEL jan@freshcup.com
Information can cause tension, but hopefully at the end, tension generates change.
EDITORIAL Editor CAITLIN PETERKIN editor@freshcup.com
–Chad Trewick, Reciprocafé
A
Associate Editor JORDAN JOHNSON freshed@freshcup.com ART Art Director CYNTHIA MEADORS cynthia@freshcup.com ADVERTISING Sales JAN WEIGEL sales@freshcup.com Ad Coordinator DIANE HOWARD adtraffic@freshcup.com ACCOUNTING Accounting Manager DIANE HOWARD diane@freshcup.com FRESH CUP FOUNDER WARD BARBEE 1938-2006 EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD PHILLIP DI BELLA
BRAD PRICE
Di Bella Group
Phillips Syrups & Sauces
DAVID GRISWOLD Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers
CHUCK JONES Jones Coffee Roasters
BRUCE RICHARDSON Elmwood Inn Fine Teas
MANISH SHAH
BRUCE MILLETTO
Maya Tea Co.
Bellissimo Coffee Advisors
ANUPA MUELLER
LARRY WINKLER
Eco-Prima
EDITOR’S LETTER
Torani
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s I write this, it’s only been three days since touching down in Portland after an illuminating experience at my first Specialty Coffee Expo. My bag is still unpacked, follow-up emails are still unsent, and coffee samples (so many coffee samples) have yet to be enjoyed. It’s been three days of trying to process all that I learned and all the conversations I had, all while trying to get this issue to press. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t let any of my Expo experience color this letter. One highlight of the weekend was attending a cupping held by Fincas Mierisch, where we tasted some exquisite Nicaraguan coffees, sampling first-hand the results of their innovative processing techniques as featured in Michael Butterworth’s piece on “Fermentation at Origin” (p. 28). Speaking to Erwin, the youngest member of the Mierisch clan, I also learned more about the resiliency of these farmers. In light of the cancellation of the Nicaragua Cup of Excellence competition and auction, the country’s producers held their own CoE of sorts, bringing their top lots to Boston for attendees to sample at the Cafés de Nicaragua booth. Regardless of what’s happening in the country, says Erwin, it is still important to educate consumers and share Nicaraguan coffee with the world—and those who did stop by their booth reaped the rewards of the farmers’ adaptability. It is stories like this that remind us how much passion and perseverance our industry holds; whatever challenges and roadblocks we face, we will innovate and overcome. I look to the businesses around the world who are implementing programs to shift our industry towards sustainability (p. 38). I look to the trendsetters who set the pace for the Next Big Thing to excite consumers and help cafés increase their bottom line (p. 12). I look to the café owners, locals and transplants alike, who bring their city to life through coffee and tea (p. 16). And I look to the dedicated minds addressing and seeking solutions to an industry in crisis (p. 20). While Expo was not without setbacks—industry leaders not allowed in because they had children, miscommunicated logistics, identity crises for the future of specialty coffee organizations—it celebrated our global community, made headways towards a brighter future, and reaffirmed our collective belief in the power of specialty coffee.
CAITLIN PETERKIN, EDITOR
editor@freshcup.com FR E SH CU P.COM FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 9
Our Contributors
Based in Istanbul, Turkey, coffee educator, consultant, and writer Michael Butterworth is a licensed Q grader and a two-time United States Barista Championship competitor. In this issue, he dives into the rise of fermentation at origin (p. 28).
Ryan Cashman is a Central Massachusetts-based freelance writer, playwright, and actor. He often loses track of the amount of coffee he drinks in a day. In this issue, he crawled his way through Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in search of some of the city’s top cafés. Read more on p.16.
Lexington, Kentucky-based freelance writer Robin Roenker has extensive experience reporting on business trends, from cybersecurity to real estate, personal finance, and green living. For Fresh Cup, she covers sustainable and eco-friendly trends in cafés and the coffee industry in her regular column, The Last Plastic Straw, as well as in this month’s feature on sustainable takeaway programs on p. 38.
Jessica Natale Woollard writes stories about people, places, and things deserving of a wider audience. Based in Victoria, British Columbia, she specializes in writing about business, which she undertakes while sipping her favorite brew, mango and bergamot green tea by Whittard of Chelsea. In this issue, she explores the rise of cold brew tea (p. 12).
10 ] MAY 2019 » freshcup.com
Trending: COLD BREW TEA
On the heels of cold brew coffee, cold brew tea takes its place in the market By Jessica Natale Woollard
EVY CHEN launched Evy Tea in 2014. Her company specializes in bottled, organic cold brew tea in four flavors, including black tea strawberry (below, right).
E
nrolled in an entrepreneurship class at Emerson College in Massachusetts in 2010, Evy Chen was challenged to come up with an idea for a new company. Cold brew coffee, just entering the mainstream, intrigued her—the flavor profile, the clean, smooth taste. She wondered: Could tea be cold brewed? A Google search for “cold brew tea” brought up next to nothing, remembers Chen, who emigrated to the United States from China when she was 14 years old. She purchased the domain coldbrewtea.com and registered the related social media handles. “I was like, okay, I guess I’m going into business with a cold brew tea company,” laughs Chen.
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Her company, Evy Tea, specializes in bottled, organic cold brew tea, available in four flavors: unsweetened green tea lemongrass, chamomile lavender, black tea strawberry, and hibiscus. The teas are sold in 500 grocery stores, cafés, offices, and restaurants throughout the Boston area, and she offers an “on tap” program. A single Evy Tea location in Boston is a tea bar, where Chen interacts with customers, tests flavors, and holds education programs. Chen calls it her “inspiration place.” In 2018, Evy Tea produced 35,000 gallons of cold brew tea using her sixstage filtration system and custom-built equipment at her production facility. Chen says that volume will more than double in 2019; by the end of the year,
PHOTO OF EVY CHEN: COURTESY OF EVY TEA; COLD BREW TEA BOTTLE PHOTO: INSTAGRAM @COLDBREWTEA
Evy Tea will be on shelves in an additional 750 locations in the Northeast. “Hopefully in a year or two, cold brew tea can be available in every single café in North America,” says Chen.
Adding Cold Brew Tea to the Menu Cold brew coffee has become standard fare at cafés and restaurants; its ubiquity has helped pave the way for cold brew tea. People understand the differences in flavor produced by cold brewing and are willing to pay for it. Like cold brew coffee, cold brew tea is prepared without any hot water involved in the process. It produces a clean, mild taste, without the bitterness or acidity frequently released from tea leaves when they are brewed with hot water. Businesses considering adding cold brew tea to the menu have to do their research: Bottled or fresh-made? Is there enough kitchen/shelf space to introduce another product? Are the resources in place to develop the recipes? Is shelf life an issue? Can cold brew tea be produced in quantities that are viable for operations? For shops and cafés that already specialize in tea, cold brew tea is easier to implement and offers another way to attract customers and gain market share, particularly in the hotter months. With tea experts already on staff, the resident tea master or specialist employees can develop recipes to prepare fresh cold brew tea in-house. Bird & Blend Tea Co. started sampling and selling cold brew tea out of their eight stores in England in the summer of 2018. As a loose-leaf tea purveyor, the company focused its marketing on how to make cold brew tea at home with blends from the shop. While cold brew tea generally has just two ingredients—tea and cold water—Bird & Blend has taken the trend in a new direction. “We do cold brew with crazy things,” says Rhea Brown, who looks after the company’s wholesale division, explaining that staff prepare cold brew tea in
liquids like coconut milk, lemonade, and tonic water. The idea came from a staff member looking for a way to use up excess lemonade; the news of the successful experiment was passed to head office, and “it spiralled from there,” says Brown.
with flavor extracted from tea leaves in cold water. Mizu is water, Nyberg explains, dashi is extract. In addition to one tea bar location, Nyberg wholesales matcha and loose teas imported from Japan. He developed a process for creating a cold brew tea concentrate that he shares with wholesale tea clients, 40 percent of which are serving cold brew tea. Through experimentation, Nyberg also discovered that tea’s acidity—the release of which is stalled by using the cold brew method—can be activated if you heat the cold brew concentrate. This discovery has led some of his clients, Monogram Coffee in Calgary, Alberta, and Picnic Coffee in Victoria, to make batches of cold brew tea concentrate that are used for both cold and hot tea service.
BIRD & BLEND TEA CO.’S Bears Like Marmalade: a fruity concoction of orange blossom, rose, and lemon, cold brewed with lemonade to make the perfect summer sipper.
One of their most popular recipes uses a black tea blend with marshmallows and coconut: The tea is cold brewed in coconut milk overnight, resulting in a “thick, creamy cold brew tea, which is a nice alternative to a tea latté,” she adds. For cafés, shops, and restaurants that don’t have the resources to make cold brew tea in-house, but wish to offer it, there are options. One is to sell RTD cold brew teas like Evy Tea or Fogdog, based in Berkeley, California. With the right equipment and space, cold brew tea on tap is an alternative. Joyride Coffee in New York offers cold brew tea kegs with five different flavors, sold direct to offices and cafés or through distribution partners. Another option is working with a cold brew tea concentrate. Jared Nyberg of JagaSilk in Victoria, British Columbia, has been selling cold brew tea since around 2011. He took inspiration from Japan’s cold barley tea and mizudashi teas—Japanese cold brew
BIRD & BLEND PHOTO: INSTAGRAM @BIRDANDBLENDTEA; JAGASILK PHOTOS BY JESSICA WOOLLARD
JAGASILK produces a lightly carbonated cold brew tea made with a golden oolong from China with notes of vanilla, chestnut, and osmanthus. Jared Nyberg (above) samples a glass.
“They wanted to speed up their service, and we said you don’t have to sacrifice the quality of your product and go
FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 13
Trending
into a tea bag,” explains Nyberg. “I said, ‘Why don’t you just make a cold brew concentrate and cut it with hot water?’ That’s worked out really well. That’s what we’re working on, cold brew concentrates that don’t have to be cut with cold water but could be cut with hot.” For operations without the resources to make their own cold brew tea concentrate, Colorado-based Cooper Tea Company has an organic black cold brew tea concentrate sold in a “mini jug.” At 32 ounces, the jug fits in the palm of your hand but will make three gallons of cold brew tea, a high yield that helps with busy operations. The mini jug was a strategic choice and the result of client feedback, explains Colleen Norwine, Cooper Tea’s executive director of sales and marketing. “We hear from our food service customers all the time that, in their kitchens, they have a serious lack of space, and every little inch is important to them,” she says.
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF COOPER TEA COMPANY
Cooper Tea was the first company to launch a cold brew tea concentrate for high-yield operations; within a few months of its launch in August 2018, Sysco signed on to distribute the product. Shelf-stable, the concentrate does not need to be refrigerated until it’s opened. Once mixed with water, the cold brew tea can be served on tap or used as a base for custom blends with flavor syrups, crushed herbs, or fruit, suggests Norwine. And, she adds, restaurant and café owners can “charge a premium of anywhere from 60 cents to a dollar more a cup, which helps their overall profitability.”
The Future of Cold Brew Tea
COOPER TEA COMPANY produces a cold brew black tea concentrate for high-yield operatons like restaurants (opposite page) and busy cafés (above).
When Evy Chen reflects on her business, she wonders if it would have been “smarter for me to start a [cold brew tea] company in Texas or California…hotter places that have that all-year-round climate for people to consume more iced beverages.” She considers whether cold brew tea will gain market share, and if tea culture will become mainstream in the United States. She looks to data for answers: Evy Tea’s massive expansion in 2019, the rise of other cold brew tea companies, the thousands of search results on Google, and customer demand. “I believe in the market,” says Chen. “There is a place for a company focused just on this craft. To me, cold brew tea is no doubt the next big thing.” FC
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Café Crawl PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE Story and photos by Ryan Cashman
T
he coast of New England stretches north from Long Island Sound to the Gulf of Maine, offering some of the most scenic waterfronts in the United States. Sitting at the mouth of the Piscataqua, the tidal river that separates Maine from New Hampshire, is the small, lively city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Considered one of New England’s hidden gems, Portsmouth is a walkable city brimming with historic architecture, trendy restaurants, festive evenings, and a loyal locale who’ve designated these four unique cafés as landmarks for every visitor to try.
White Heron Tea & Coffee Community 601 Islington Street (603) 294-0270 www.whiteherontea.com Mon–Fri, 7 a.m.–6 p.m. / Sat, 7 a.m.–5 p.m. Sun, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.
After Jonathan Blakeslee graduated from high school in Portsmouth, he enlisted in the Coast Guard, which took him to Hokkaido, Japan, where his fledgling interest in tea blossomed into obsession. “I’d always been into tea, but before Japan I’d never really tasted tea,” says Blakeslee. White Heron hatched in 2005, when Blakeslee, after a stint on the West Coast, saw a gap in the market. There was no place strictly for tea in Portsmouth, just coffee shops that offered tea as an afterthought. Starting as a beverage stand at local farmers markets, White Heron’s reputation and popularity grew steadily. “I took each week as an opportunity to meet and share with new people,” says Blakeslee. A regular favorite is American Breakfast, a patriotic take on English breakfast tea and one of White Heron’s original 24 blends; it’s an Assam and Darjeeling black tea with a strong but not overwhelming flavor. In 2013, the company moved into its permanent space on Islington Street in Portsmouth’s developing West End. “This is our farmers market. We don’t have to move it,” says Blakeslee. “We’ve got a lot more options for people.” One of those options is coffee, something Blakeslee was initially opposed to. “More than anything we are a tea company,” he says. Like his teas, Blakeslee ensures that all coffee is sourced from organic certified locations, a practice that has made White Heron New Hampshire’s first all-organic café. “Knowing that most teas aren’t organic and sprayed with chemicals, I feel better offering organic out the gate,” says Blakeslee. “We know where we get things and why.”
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Kaffee Vonsolln Coffee Roasters & Cafe 79 Daniel Street (603) 373-0570 www.kaffeevonsolln.com Mon–Fri, 7:30 a.m.–6 p.m. / Sat–Sun, 8 a.m.–6 p.m.
Caffe Kilim & Market 163 Islington Street (603) 436-7330 www.caffekilim.com Mon–Thu, 6:30 a.m.–6 p.m. / Fri–Sat, 6:30 a.m.–7 p.m. Sun, 7:30 a.m.–5 p.m.
“If I’m going to be working in coffee, I may as well work at my own,” says Emma Nelson. At 23, Nelson is one of the youngest café owners in Portsmouth. She worked at Kaffee Vonsolln in high school, then at La Maison Navarre, before buying the kaffeehaus with her parents in 2016. Though not German herself, Nelson continues Vonsolln’s tradition of offering selections of favorite German pastries like Bienenstich, “bee sting cake,” with a vanilla honey frosting. Locals have developed a devoted following to Vonsolln. Nelson sometimes refers to her shop as a “police substation,” as it has become a favorite spot among local law enforcement. All of Vonsolln’s coffee is roasted on-site by Nelson in small batches to ensure quality. The Guatemalan is a rich medium roast with a chocolatey finish, while the Ethiopian roast used for espresso is bright and floral. Soft light illuminates the aged brick walls, filling the café with a warm glow. The space is intimate, which allows for something unique to the café industry: a bond with customers. “We’ve had people send their dry cleaning here,” laughs Nelson. “It’s a lot of fun.”
According to Caffe Kilim lore, no one in Portsmouth knew what a latte was in 1993. A beloved institution, Kilim was the vanguard of Portsmouth’s café scene. Caffe Kilim introduced Portsmouth to espresso, created its own blend, Dancing Goats, and cloaked drinks with a legendary velvet foam. “What we did back then was not mainstream, but now it’s mainstream,” says Janice Schenker, who co-owns the café with her husband, Yalçin Yazgan. Yazgan is the dominating personality of Kilim. A broad smile beams permanently behind his thick, gray mustache. Born in Turkey, he worked at his grandfather’s coffee shop in Istanbul before immigrating to the United States as a young man. The café walls are filled with memorabilia from over 25 years of business: postcards, customer art, kilims (traditional Turkish rugs), soccer scarves hanging from the rafters, and shelves stocked with Turkish delight, coffee pots, and apparel. Kilim is all about family. Loyal customers sometimes spend all day refilling their coffee cups, stepping outside for a cigarette, and playfully debating with Yazgan and other regulars. Ahmet and Leyla, Schenker and Yazgan’s children, represent Kilim’s future. “I really love this place,” says Ahmet. “I’ve been working behind that counter since I was 12. I want to keep this place going the way it is. The locals deserve Caffe Kilim.”
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Café Crawl
La Maison Navarre 121 Congress Street (603) 373-8401 www.mnpastry.com Sun–Tue, 8 a.m.–6 p.m. / Wed–Sat, 8 a.m.–9 p.m.
Entering La Maison Navarre is like walking into the glittering Parisian metro of yesteryear. White tile and mirrors line the walls to give the illusion of space, and a long, black bar stretches the length of the café. Colorful, handmade macarons are on full display, and the smell of fresh crepes create an atmosphere of coziness where one could easily imagine spending an entire day. Owners Victor Navarre and Charlotte Reymond, both from France, saw that Portsmouth was lacking a bit of Paris, and so created it themselves. George Howell Alchemy Espresso beans are used for all the coffee drinks at La Maison, which range from simple espresso to affogato. Baristas train in the French tradition, ensuring a continuity of quality in every drink. La Maison also serves a full line of Palais de Thés tea. “We try to give the full French experience of quality,” says Navarre. “Everything not imported from France is made here in the shop.” That includes croissants (traditional or made to order), crepes, croque monsieur, quiche Lorraine, and 15 flavors of macarons. At the back of the café is a set of stairs, which lead up to the evening wine bar. “You can have a crepe, a pastry, and good coffee and tea, then come back at a different time of day and experience something completely different,” says Navarre. The bar is stocked with wine, cheese, and charcuterie, all imported from France. “We like it here,” says Navarre. “There is great community here and people get rewarded for what they do.” FC
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Do You Know? Part 2
Chad Trewick & Peter W. Roberts: Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide By Caitlin Peterkin
BRINGING IT TOGETHER: Chad Trewick (left) and Peter Roberts in Boston for the Re:co Symposium and SCA Expo.
O
f the multi-billion-dollar industry that is specialty coffee, only 10 percent directly reaches producing countries. In 2018, the United States alone received more money than all 25 million coffee producers in the world.
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While the facts may be startling, the industry is waking up to the realities of the current supply value chain. As we move more towards transparency and a sustainable future, academics and coffee professionals alike are working together to address the coffee price crisis.
Last month, Fresh Cup introduced you to Chad Trewick and Peter W. Roberts, project leaders for the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide. Following a successful workshop with producers in Guatemala and speaking appearances at the 2019 Specialty Coffee Expo in
PHOTO BY JORDAN JOHNSON
Do You Know, Part 2
Boston, Trewick and Roberts continue to share their thoughts on the Guide and the future of specialty coffee pricing. This interview has been edited for clarity.
Why is anonymity so important to this project as it stands, and how have you ensured it with the data donors? Chad Trewick: What we ask for is all purchasing data that would be the ‘specialty coffee range,’ and for lack of a better way of demarking that we say 80 points and above….It’s really important to us that people aren’t cherry picking the prices they’re proud of—what we want is all of their data related to all of their coffee purchases for the last two seasons. We do have a minimum data requirement [of around 30 contracts]. And that is just to ensure the integrity of the data and the validity of it. We’re super intentional, and I think cautious, about any one data donor being identifiable in the data set. We’re strategic in the way we will onboard different data donors, all with the priority being no one data donor should be recognizable. We’ve had people say they don’t care if they’re anonymous, they want their name next to their prices. [But we tell them] maybe someday we’ll get to that point where people who want to can broadcast their prices, but that’s not what this project is about right now. Peter Roberts: I think [what] stops individuals from contributing to a public good is this idea that [they] need to keep certain things behind the curtain. But if [they] can contribute to larger pools so that tables become more accurate and more representative, that’s our sweet spot.
Chad, you are very upfront about acknowledging your own part in this issue throughout your career. Do you find people don’t want to acknowledge that they too are part of the problem? CT: I think that their contributing data speaks to what they recognize. It speaks to the appetite for some kind of alternative pricing mechanism, which is what we’re really trying for here. A super personal story is the first time my husband joined me on a trip to Kenya, he re-opened my eyes to all of the remnants of colonialism, and racism, and servant culture, and all these things that you stop seeing, as gross as that sounds….I don’t want to say you turn off to it or you become blind to it, but it becomes a part of your periphery, and you lose some kind of a sensitivity to it. I think that’s a self-preservation instinct. If you are a buyer and you know you have to confront the realities in coffee-producing communities all the time, you have to have some kind of defenses, I think, as a human being. If we were to have intimate, quiet conversations with a lot of these people, they’d say, ‘F*ck man, it’s real hard, I am really, really exhausted from the living conditions I just saw on that farm in Honduras,’ [for example]. [I was having a conversation with a big company buyer] about all these things, and at the end of the day, he says, ‘You know, I know these things, but I have a job and I have a family that depends on that job, so while I know these things, I’m fulfilling company priorities because they’re providing for my own existence.’ So it’s kind of sticky stuff [for] people to feel comfortable talking about. PR: I also think too there’s another piece that comes into this: there’s a sort of generic fear of change and of the unknown….That’s why I love this first 21, because they went through all that with us. They did it in the context of, ‘Well,
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Do You Know, Part 2
what happens if these guys do this work, they produce something, it’s a big ole thud, now I did all that work and there’s nothing.’ I think that next wave coming in is going to be a little more straightforward simply because people have seen [the first results]. Negotiations hopefully are going to be a little more challenging for some, because someone’s going to not just look at the C price.
When you received all the data initially, did you reveal them to the first batch of donors before publishing the results? PR: We had two rounds of feedback, because we wanted to make sure that everybody was comfortable with what they were buying into. I think it’s one thing for a university professor who spends his entire life looking at medians and mins and maxes and tables, [but] it’s possible that one or two of [the donors] might have said, ‘Oh, I didn’t expect this to look like this at all.’ So once we got enough donors in that we could still have anonymity, we wanted to show everybody roughly what the report might look like, and also get feedback that says, ‘Is this the sort of impact that you wanted to create?’ Before we went live, we had the same sort of idea, because we didn’t want any one of our data donors to be the ones that found a horrible mistake and want to [leave the project], we want to do all that sort of cleaning in advance. That’s the kind of inside piece that folks got. We’re trying to be fully transparent...I do think that idea of saying our donors are going to be our advisers moving forward in this project, and that everybody can be on board and make sure things look right before it goes public, is an important part of the process.
Have you heard from any of the original data donors now the results are published? Are they updating their practices, and if they have, will the next two years of their data look different? CT: I have heard from people anecdotally that they are excited to look at the Guide and see how their own behaviors stack up. They’re not necessarily those data donors themselves, but they’re other downloaders [who] say, ‘Wow, this is really illuminating, I can look and see how my own pricing behaviors stack up to the data donors.’ For me, that’s usership right there, that’s the thing doing what it’s supposed to do. In terms of what we expect from existent data donors forward and whether we’ll see their numbers go up, I don’t know. I think time will tell how the pricing that is included in the Guide evolves, and that will be influenced by the number of contracts that are in there, who the data donors are, external market conditions,
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all manner of things are going to influence this a little bit. I hadn’t thought about it that way, will we see this [change]? I don’t know, I love it! PR: The idea of users…the data donors are one group, but we sort of tend to talk about Guide recipients as from the top: you’re a producer, you’re a supporting organization, cooperative, exporter, importer, roaster. We’re very interested in terms of how the Guide is picked up, so we track downloads by category to make sure that the information is indeed getting in all spots up and down the value chain. It’s one thing to download the data, but can you tell us about how you used it? So we just reached out and got a hundred responses to a very quick survey [asking things like], ‘Were you able to use the information in the Guide in any conversations of negotiations? If yes, how did it go?’ There are some that express a certain amount of frustration, but there’s an interesting sort of positivity on both the buying and selling side. It’s going to be really, really important working at origin so that people who maybe have always been on the wrong side of those negotiation biases…[can] actually talk about techniques that relate to relationship building, that relate to effective negotiations, all that kind of stuff. I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens to these numbers over time, because there are so many different dynamics…There are two different ways that 2018 to ‘19 is going to change: one is change among the existing cohort, and the second is change in the cohort. We don’t want to report year over year change as, ‘Oh, coffee prices fell,’ when what happened was you expanded your sample into a lower paying segment. I would imagine when we do 2019 we will…have a quick overview of if you would have restricted the sample to just the people that were there this year and next, and it gives you a cleaner look year to year….It would be really nice to see changes that were not so correlated in C price, because that’s what we’re trying to do.
I was inspired by the ‘world café’ open discussion at the Ask Me About Cost of Production event in Portland in November, and wanted to follow up about whether, and how, we should start this conversation with consumers? CT: One consumer at that event came up to me afterwards, and what she said was, ‘You know what you need to keep telling people? Is that unless stated otherwise, it needs to be assumed that coffee comes from conditions analogous to modern-day slavery and environmental exploitation. Period.’ She said that would get so many people’s attention.
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Do You Know, Part 2
In my humble opinion, that is our reality. Unless somebody says otherwise, I know what coffee production value chains look like. I see this Guide as a really good sort of launching pad for other conversations that are maybe ready to digest for consumers. So if you start to fast-forward a number of years when we have a significant enough amount of data that we can go and partner with institutions in producing countries to say, ‘Okay, here’s this price that the market says they’re paying— how can you contextualize that in your local economy so that we understand what that means?’ Does that mean somebody cannot meet even the poverty line? Does that mean somebody can pay themselves and their workers minimum wage? Or does it mean that they have a thriving environment and can reinvest in their farm? You can start to think of breaking [down] the way that pricing communicated in the Guide is translated into local economies and what it means so that it becomes more of a consumer-facing proposition to say, ‘Well I don’t know man, does this coffee shop pay the median Guide prices or not? Because I know if it doesn’t then this is bad news.’ We’re not there [yet], but we definitely think that we could get there. [We] need to build it up a little bit and make sure that it’s a useful, relied upon, and trusted tool with a lot of integrity for the industry before we broach that conversation with consumers. PR: One of the things that something like this and its correlated efforts have to figure out is the idea of making the conversations positive and not negative….One thing when you think about what coffee needs in general is an idea of people with a higher willingness to pay, and it’s really hard to be arguing, ‘I want to pay 35 dollars for this bag of coffee and you’re going to tell me about all the horrible exploitation of poverty and stuff like this.’ The second thing is this idea of translating the kind of conversations we’re having here, the kind of producer
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DATA WAY: Chad Trewick (left) and Peter Roberts in Guatemala for a workshop with stakeholders.
conversations…so people do not want, as they’re trying to pick their coffee or bag of coffee as a consumer, to basically have like a 35-minute lecture on all the nuances of cost. CT: [And] how do we empower farmers? It kind of goes back to the beginning, this is information that allows them to think about and consider all manner of things that until now, they haven’t really had access to. And make no mistake, it’s going to raise interesting questions, not just of the thing in general, but of their own trading partners. Information can cause tension, but hopefully at the end, tension generates change. I think that the biggest benefit we have here to offer producers in terms of empowering them is this information.
How can café owners address the conversation more? PR: The question [owners should be asking their importer is if the coffee is] above or below the median….I’m hoping we’re going to cultivate something along the lines where you can put a little more credibility into those conversations, but I think that they’re the first wave because they’re going to want to communicate to their folks that [they] do their very best to buy from places [where] the farmer and farmer’s land should enjoy that cup of coffee as much as you do, [the idea] that says
are we compensating farmers, are we allowing for best farm practices, or are we saying ‘Mmm, this coffee is built on the back of slavery!’—doesn’t taste as good. Hopefully shop owners can be on the frontline of that storytelling. CT: I would also say that they can start applying pressures, [for example] not only asking are these prices above or below, but sort of steering their purchases toward people who are contributing to the Guide, people who are helping to make this tool viable and useful to the industry.
What’s next for the project? CT: We are in the process of recruiting and onboarding, we have a goal of 20 more donors this year. I think we’re probably halfway there—we’ve got good, lively conversations with the next batch of donors. We will publish a mid-year revision of the 2018 version of the Guide that is going to include at least 10 new data donors…We feel like June is our line in the sand for when this becomes a more formal tool. That’s the point at which we will start talking about governance and verification protocol and an advisory board and how many meetings are there quarterly, and all these things that we feel like we need to do to lend credibility to and sort of formalization of the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide.
PHOTO COURTESY OF GISELLE CARIAS
Any final thoughts? PR: People will focus on one thing being revealed with the Transaction Guide, which is the actual numbers. The one thing it revealed to me is that there are actually parts of the specialty coffee market that aren’t as broken as others, but also…people want a market context that produces better outcomes—there’s more of those folks in coffee than I would have thought. The individuals and organizations that are revealing parts of themselves to me, that is every bit as exciting and enthusiastic. I think when we have those conversations moving forward, instead of, ‘Oh, we’re all at the mercy of this awful thing called the C price,’ we’re at the collective mercy of a bunch of folks that seem a little more interested. If all that we end up doing is we’re stimulating the ability of this group to come together and do something, it’s really, really nice to know that a group exists. CT: I would just hope that with as many alarm bells that have been ringing lately that a tool like this that really aims to be an alternative price discovery tool is appropriately leveraged because it exists. I think it’s important to recognize that it is a relatively small slice of our industry now, but that our goal is to grow it, and the more that we grow it the more representative and informative the tool will become. As a former coffee buyer, if I had had a tool like this and I would have had to spend so much less time justifying paying prices in excessive commodity pricing, it would have been a different role, it would have been a more positive experience. I think that there are a lot of people in that situation, and I think that there are a lot of people who want to continue to enjoy drinking good coffee, and they’re recognizing increasingly that if we don’t change our behavior, it’s going to go away. That’s a big bummer! Look at the industry that’s built around connoisseurship of coffee—all of us! It’s a big deal. When the first buyers who articulated to me said, ‘Oh I need a tool like this,’ I felt immediately those same pressures from the financial departments that they were feeling, because I can remember sitting in a quarterly business review meeting and going, ‘Well, yeah the market’s down, but I gotta pay this higher price!’ I very much feel like if I had had this kind of a tool, I think we would have been able to move things forward. I think if this tool had existed for the industry before, we would already see the sort of stratification of specialty coffees paying up here. FC To read Part 1 of this interview, head to www.FreshCup.com. For more information on the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide, visit www.transactionguide.coffee.
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KEITH PECH of Damarli Estate in Boquete, Panama.
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W
hether it’s sourdough bread, yogurt, or chocolate, fermentation is essential in creating many of our staple foods and beverages, and coffee is no exception. Different coffee-producing regions have different fermentation traditions, which, for the most part, have been handed down from generation to generation. But a growing number of coffee producers are experimenting with new fermentation techniques to modulate the flavor profile of their coffee and add value to their product—just don’t call it a trend. “Calling fermentation a trend is a really silly way to talk about it. It’s the oldest method of food preservation,” says Lucia Solis, a fermentation expert who consults with coffee producers. “The trend is that people are paying attention. To say that fermentation is a trend is disingenuous. To say that people care about their coffee, that’s the trend.” Fermentation is a metabolic process in which organic material is broken down by yeasts and bacteria. In the case of beer or wine, the fermentation process converts sugar into alcohol. But according to Solis, there’s less similarities to coffee fermentation than one might think. “In coffee, we don’t drink the fermentation, we drink a byproduct of the fermentation,” says Solis. “We drink the coffee seed, not the fermented water.” After a decade in the wine industry, Solis was recruited by Scott Labs (no association with the namesake of the SL-28 coffee variety) to experiment with using different yeast strains in coffee fermentation. What started as a temporary project turned into a full-time job, and Solis decided to leave the wine industry and focus entirely on coffee. “Coffee was a completely new frontier,” she says. Part of the confusion surrounding fermentation has to do with the way the coffee industry talks about it. Solis observes fermentation is usually referred to as a mechanical step in pro-
cessing, not a biological process. “The biggest misconception is that fermentation only happens in the tank, instead of it happening all the time,” she says. “As soon as the cherry is plucked from the tree, that is an opportunity for it to start fermenting. Now you have an orifice where the cherry was picked that has cherry juice available and the yeast and the bacteria that are in the air can start fermenting.”
their existing infrastructure and design a fermentation protocol for them to help them have a consistent flavor profile and differentiate their product.”
Panama One producer who was inspired by Solis to start experimenting with different fermentation techniques is Keith Pech of Damarli Estate in Boquete, Panama. Pech, along with his father, David,
LUCIA SOLIS is an independent coffee processing consultant who studied viticulture and enology at UC Davis.
According to Solis, it’s not a question of whether coffee experiences fermentation—it does. Contrary to popular belief, even natural processed coffees experience fermentation while drying. Instead, the issue is whether coffee producers can control or manipulate the fermentation. This is where Solis comes in. “These are private clients that hire me to come to their mill. Some are fourth or fifth generation coffee farmers and they’re looking to compete in today’s market,” she says. “I work with
PHOTO OF KEITH PECH BY MICHAEL BUTTERWORTH; PHOTO OF LUCIA SOLIS COURTESY OF LUCIA SOLIS
developed a processing technique they have dubbed “Noble process.” “We put the cherries in tanks. They’re very ripe. We float them beforehand. We clean them,” says Pech. “It’s in there about a week. There’s no oxygen, we use a one-way valve.” Pech admits the process is similar to what other coffee producers are calling “carbonic maceration,” a term borrowed from the winemaking technique popular in Beaujolais, France. “The actual skill of it has a lot more to do with the monitoring of it,” says
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Pech. “We found certain things start happening under certain conditions based on our climate.” After a few years of experimenting, Pech is starting to see Damarli Estate’s Noble process become one of their highest-scoring coffee. “It’s more tropical. When I’m breaking, there’s a lot more fruit in the cup. It’s a lot more expressive,” says Pech. “It’s a lot bigger punch out of what would traditionally be a natural. Last year was the first year we submitted a Noble to the Best of Panama.” The Best of Panama, famously, crowns some of the most expensive auction lots on record. For producers, it’s also an opportunity to receive critical feedback from an esteemed jury of judges from around the world. “From the national side you have about ten cuppers grading it and from the international side you have another ten. It scored one-and-a-half points higher than our normal naturals we submitted,” says Pech. “Same varietal. Same plot. Simply that process. It brought more to the cup.”
Colombia Perhaps the best-known experiments with fermentation have come from La Palma y El Tucan in Zipacón, Colombia. La Palma’s lactic acid and acetic acid processed coffees have become a fixture of barista competitions around the world, particularly paired with more exotic coffee varieties, like Sidra or Gesha. “When we first started processing coffee cherries at the wet mill, we instantly fell in love with the complexity of the entire process, and saw a huge potential to innovate and experiment,” says Felipe Sardi, co-founder of La Palma y El Tucan. “We slowly started to understand that through fermentation, we were in fact triggering a process of acidification and disintegration of sugars; the breakup of the pectin molecules found in the mucilage,” he says. “As microorganisms feed on the sugars to produce ethanol, organic acids and carbon dioxide, there is a decrease in the Brix levels of the coffee mucilage, which is eventually removed.” The process of developing their fermentation techniques included a fair amount of trial and error. “Temperature and humidity levels also accelerated the process and eventually ruined many batches, by increasing the chance of fungus, which spoiled the fruit and left undesirable flavors as a result,” says Sardi. Eventually, the team at La Palma cemented two different techniques, which they’ve dubbed lactic acid process and acetic acid process. The two techniques produce very different cup profiles. In the lactic acid process, Sardi noticed a significant difference in mouthfeel. “The intended profile is an intense, very sweet, chocolatey and buttery coffee with lactic acidity and
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a velvety body that results from the higher lactic acid content present in the cup,” says Sardi. La Palma’s acetic fermentation is similar to what’s often called a “dry fermentation.” After depulping, the coffee is placed in concrete tanks, but instead of being soaked in water, it’s regularly stirred. The presence of oxygen leads to an increased amount of acetic acid—an acid normally associated with natural process coffees. “Our acetic processing aims to encourage a low to medium bodied coffee with a wine to citrus like acidity, and a very sweet aftertaste,” says Sardi. La Palma has approached all of their fermentation techniques as open source, and helped process other producers’ cherries as part of their Neighbors and Crops program. “We have identified more than 200 coffee-growing families located within a ten kilometer radius of our farm. It is through these neighbors that we are able to buy and process exceptional coffee cherries, while controlling every step of the production line,” says Sardi. “The program is designed to offer our neighboring coffee-growing families various benefits— monetary and non-monetary—that help us incentivize them to become an active part of this industry. Together we can commit to the highest-quality standards possible, while focusing on innovative practices that protect our ecosystem, our land, our home.”
Honduras & Nicaragua For the farms of Fincas Mierisch, located in both Honduras and Nicaragua, different fermentation techniques are more than a chance to discover new flavor potential—they provide a sense of security in the midst of political and social unrest. “Each year we always strive to improve on the quality of our coffee. We’re never satisfied and we believe we can always do better,” says Erwin Mierisch, the youngest member of the Mierisch clan and the latest to join the family business. “This coupled with our tendency to get really involved and attached to a subject that sparks our interest is what propelled us to try new fermentation techniques this current harvest.” He continues: “But something else propelled us, me particularly, which was the socio-political unrest occurring in Nicaragua. The uneasiness about the future of our country, and the fear that our clients would stop buying from us due to the risk associated with purchasing coffee from Nicaragua right now. I wanted to process a coffee so good that people would be willing to take that risk.” For Mierisch, this meant taking a deep dive into fermentation research. “We’ve talked to different experts on the subject, such as Lucia Solis, and read countless scientific
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papers, articles, and watched many videos,” says Mierisch. “The internet opened up a sea of information from experts, other producers, and similar techniques used in other industries such as cacao, wine, and beer.” In addition to more conventional fermentation techniques, like a wet aerobic soak, Fincas Mierisch is experimenting with climate-controlled anaerobic barrel fermented coffees and their own controversial perla negra process.
COLD ROOM at Fincas Mierisch.
“We spread out pulped coffee as a thin layer on a plastic tarp inside a dark corner of our warehouse and cover it with another plastic tarp. It will remain covered for 96 hours precisely and then taken to our African beds for drying,” says Mierisch. “Perla Negra is characterized by its lactic body, condensed milk, dark chocolate, and dark fruits. Some people also identify blue cheese as well. This is a controversial coffee, as we noticed that people either love it or hate it, there seems to be no in between. It’s definitely not for everyone.” Between their more conventional lots and these new experimental processes, the Mierisch family feels they are able to give their clients a more diverse offering. “We were so excited, and a bit relieved, that these new techniques were so well received,” says Mierisch. “It really cements the idea that our hard work and passion paid off.”
Potential for Improvement For Solis, however, the real potential in controlled fermentation is not creating competition-winning microlots, but helping producers of commodity grade coffee improve to specialty grade. “The dramatic nature of using selected yeasts to manipulate the fermentation has to do with the baseline the coffee is starting with. I’ve seen it move a coffee ten points, but that’s because it was starting at 70,” says Solis. “But you can’t move an 80 to 100 just using these techniques. An 83, 84, 85, that’s where you get one to two points benefit. “ With C market prices below the cost of production for many producers, improving to specialty grade can have a big impact.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF FINCAS MIERISCH
Fermentation at Origin
“If I can get a producer who most of their coffee is cupping at a 78, and all of a sudden we can move most of their production to an 83,” she says, “that’s a huge earning for them.” For Solis, that doesn’t mean experiments with barrels or stainless steel tanks, but a focus on the fundamentals: picking only ripe cherries, thoroughly sorting, and making sure all equipment is clean. “I work with their existing infrastructure and design a fermentation protocol for them to help them have a consistent flavor profile and different their product,” says Solis.
COLD FERMENTATION at Finca Limoncillo.
To better control the fermentation process, Solis adds a commercial yeast strain to the fermentated coffee, a process known as inoculation in the wine industry. Due to its concentration, the selected yeast strain will consume any other yeast present on the cherries, some of which might add off-putting flavors. Solis admits there’s some irony the coffee industry is embracing inoculation at a time the boutique wine and craft beer industries are expressing a renewed interest in indigenous yeast ferments. But she disagrees with those who are categorically against adding commercial yeast strains. “That’s an arbitrary line. These are natural yeasts. They are found in the environment. They’re just not found in that certain concentration,” she says. “Coffee is not native to most of the places it grows.” For Solis, better controlling fermentation is about empowering coffee producers to have more autonomy. “Green buyers going to producers and saying, ‘Do a carbonic maceration,’ or ‘Use this yeast during fermentation,’ I think they’re very well meaning, but the way this can be communicated is very reminiscent of this colonial structure that makes a lot of people uncomfortable,” she says. “I want to see producers taking ownership of their products and pushing it down the supply chain.” FC
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PHOTO COURTESY OF FINCAS MIERISCH
YES, COFFEE BEANS CAN ACTUALLY BE…TOO FRESH! For quality-focused coffeehouses, product freshness is a key point of emphasis. While day-old bagels and pastries may be too stale to serve, the same standard doesn’t apply to espresso beans. These should always be more than a few days old. Here’s How Espresso Beans Can Be Too Fresh During the roasting process, carbon dioxide becomes trapped in the beans. This later gets released in a process called “degassing” (or “outgassing”). Most degassing occurs during the first few days following a roast and is rapid enough to interfere with espresso extraction. As such, beans will need time to “rest” (typically 3–5 days) before their flavor reaches its full potential. With Malabar Gold Espresso, for instance, we delay using beans until five days after our roast. We wait even longer (10–14 days) when we sample our espresso at Coffee Fest and other trade shows.
The Importance of Managing Your Espresso Bean Inventory With beans needing several days of rest, café owners and managers should order new beans at least four days before they’re needed. This requires owners and managers to have a good grasp of both the café’s daily/weekly consumption of beans and its current inventory level. Ordering from your roaster on a weekly (or twice weekly) schedule—and also getting slightly more than you expect to use—is often the best system. Waiting until beans run out just means you’ll be stuck using beans that are… too fresh. Sponsored by Malabar Gold Espresso FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 37
REUSABLE items for sale at Nossa Familia in Portland, Oregon.
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E
very year, billions of single-use coffee cups and untold tons of paper and plastic waste, from lids and sleeves to napkins, stirrers, and straws, end up in landfills across the country, all so that Americans can enjoy their coffee on the go. To combat the problem, many café owners are deciding to avoid single-use materials altogether. That often means going back to tried-and-true standards, including reusable ceramic mugs, or brand-new options, such as reusable plastic ware. “Single-use coffee cups and all the accoutrements that go with them just end up as waste here, because none of them are recyclable at any of the recycling facilities near us,” says Young Bennett, who co-owns Coffee Roboto, a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, mobile coffee business, with his wife, Michal. “We want to challenge people to think outside the box in terms of their consumption.”
Cup Lending
CUP EXCHANGE at Coffee Roboto.
This past January, the Bennetts switched away from the single-use paper cups they had been using for three years in favor of something different: ceramic mugs donated by customers. Inspired by a cup exchange program they learned about in Australia, the couple launched a spirited campaign through their social media channels asking for donations of used mugs. Customers who brought in mugs earned a drink at half price. They now have roughly 100 mugs in their collection, which customers can cull through and pick from, depending on their mood that day. The couple bike a selection of their mugs, along with their mobile coffee stand, to stops around the city. “It’s a lot of fun for people to look through the mugs and pick one out. We have all sorts of crazy, fun mugs, from destinations like Disneyland and Hawaii to cool handmade ones as well,” says Michal. Clients can return the mugs after use for sanitization and re-entry into
Coffee Roboto’s lending supply, or they can keep them. “We created excitement for the idea by posting videos of our own shelves at home,” says Young. “Everyone has so many mugs already. The idea is, why not clean out your cabinets and make them available to others? We wanted to create some energy and fun around what we were trying to do, rather than presenting it to our customers as, ‘We’re not doing single-use cups anymore. Deal with it.’” For customers who need a travel mug option, Coffee Roboto offers its Blue Card program, which works like a loyalty program to encourage customers to remember to actually bring and use their reusable mug. Customers can purchase a KeepCup travel mug for $16. After 10 uses, they earn back $7.50 in cash, which they can opt to keep or donate to Coffee Kids, a charity that supports the next generation of coffee farmers (the remaining $8.50 covers the Bennetts’ cost on the tumbler).
PHOTO (OPPOSITE) COURTESY OF NOSSA FAMILIA COFFEE; PHOTO (ABOVE) INSTAGRAM @COFFEEROBOTO
Mason Jars A host of cafés are finding that one of the simplest ways to reduce singleuse waste is to return to time-tested reusable containers. Case in point: the mason jar, ideal for serving food to go. At London’s Bean & Wheat, customers who purchase one of the shop’s mason jar foodstuffs—think chicken butter or homemade hummus—and return it for reuse earn a free cup of coffee. In Evergreen, Colorado, Wanderlust Market owner Beki Fiala offers a full line of mason jar meals, including specialties such as Asian Sesame Ginger Chicken Salad, to complement her menu of international coffees and teas. Customers earn $0.50 off their next purchase for every mason jar they return. In Portland, Oregon, customers can snag custom oatmeal breakfast blends served ready-to-eat in mason jars at Nossa Familia Coffee for the cost of the oatmeal, plus a $2 deposit to cover the cost of the jar and lid. When they return the jar, they earn their deposit back.
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Takeaway without the Trash
“We’ve gotten good “We thought we’d give reviews on the program. it a try and not even People like that they’re have disposable cups in avoiding all that waste,” the store.” says Karen Lickteig, Nossa That model lasted for Familia’s marketing and about 20 months, besustainability director. “It fore Ebon had to pivot works because there’s not to single-use disposable a huge pressure to return cups as its main delivthe mason jar necessarily. ery method. Customers can keep it and “There were all these reuse it themselves if they logistical challenges,” want. But they can return says Howes. “It’s hard it, if they do come back. to motivate people to It’s been a great part of our do the right thing and zero-waste approach.” return the jars in a ZERO-WASTE BREAKFAST at Nossa Familia—keep the jar or bring Still, it’s important timely manner. There it back to get a refund. to know your customer were always too many base before trying to go all-in on a mason jar service model, jars out compared to what we had in house. And some people advised Lenny Howes, who owns Ebon Coffee Collective in definitely went elsewhere [for their coffee] because they Billings, Montana, with his wife, Jaxi. didn’t want to handle dealing with a glass jar.” The couple opened their shop in 2016 with a goal of servOn the flip side, Ebon attracted a dedicated band of cusing coffee exclusively in mason jars. tomers passionate about sustainability, who are still bringing “We ordered a whole bunch of different sizes [of jars] and their mason jars for refills, despite the fact that single-use just considered it part of our startup costs,” says Howes. cups are now available in house. Howes feels the mason jar-model could have worked in other regions of the country, where sustainability is more front-of-mind, he said.
Trash is a complex issue. And so our system is designed to encourage that level of awareness— that everyone has a role to play. New Models Back in Portland, a subscription service called GO Box is proving that there is customer demand for sustainable to-go options, especially in large urban areas. The app-based service connects take-out customers with a network of around 90 GO Box vendors who can serve food in reusable plastic food containers. After
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PHOTO COURTESY OF NOSSA FAMILIA COFFEE
use, the customer can then return the boxes at one of roughly 40 drop-off locations around the city, which are also noted in the app, for sanitization and reuse. To incentivize timely returns, customers can only have one box out for use at a time. Customers pay a $21.95 annual fee or a $3.95 monthly subscription in order to have their takeout meals (still at their usual price) provided in a GO Box, which are made by GET Enterprises using BPA-free, polypropylene #5. The boxes can withstand washing in GO Box’s industrial kitchen up to 1,000 times. When the boxes are ready to be retired, they are recycled, so the entire process is waste-free. Restaurant vendors pay a subscription fee to participate as well, to cover the cost and delivery of the GO Boxes. “Trash is a complex issue. And so our system is designed to encourage that level of awareness—that everyone has a role to play,” says GO Box CEO Jocelyn
PHOTO COURTESY OF GO BOX
GO BOX lunch at Groundworks Coffee, Portland, Oregon.
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Takeaway without the Trash
Gaudi Quarrell. “It’s a problem that we’re all going to have to contribute to solving together.” In addition to Portland, GO Box already operates in San Francisco and has plans for rollout in central Oregon and the East Coast later this year. “We’re trying to provide a turnkey solution of hardware and software for food vendors and café managers that is really easy for people both behind the counter and in front of the counter to use,” says Quarrell.
Growing the Next-Gen Coffee Cup The future of sustainable cups may come from the garden. CRÈME Design, an architecture and design firm founded by Jun Aizaki, is working on a prototype coffee cup that’s grown from gourds. The process uses 3D-printed molds to grow the gourds into functional shapes, creating sleek, sustainable cups that are completely biodegradable.
GO BOX CEO Jocelyn Gaudi Quarrell.
This spring, the company also launches its newest product: the GO Box reusable coffee cup, which will roll out for Earth Day in late April. “We spent a lot of time researching cups,” says Quarrell. “We landed on a plastic-free, reusable bamboo and resin fiber cup made by Ecoffee Cup in the United Kingdom.” Participating vendors will be able to choose to offer GO Box’s reusable boxes, its reusable coffee cups, or both. “I’m very excited about the cups because I think they might be an easier avenue to onboard more folks into reuse than even our food containers,” says Quarrell. “It’s going to be a great opportunity to really scale our reuse systems into large-scale public awareness and usage.” FC
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The cups stemmed from CRÈME’s entry in the 2018 NextGen Cup Challenge and have already gained international interest, including even from the MoMA Design Store, thanks to their chic aesthetic, says Tania Kaufmann, CRÈME’s business manager. “The interest has been fantastic, almost overwhelming,” she says. For now, the cups are still in the design phase, but the company eventually hopes to make them available for everyday use. “This product comes from the earth and goes back, and so there’s literally zero leftover waste,” says Kaufmann.
More information is available at www.thegourdproject.com.
PHOTO OF JOCELYN GAUDI QUARRELL COURTESY OF GO BOX; GOURD VESSELS (TOP) BY CHRIS COLLIE, TWO GOURD MOLD PHOTOS COURTESY OF CRÈME
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Show Shots
COFFEE FEST NYC 2019
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Time to Moove Over, Milk Mooala Plant-based milks & coffee creamers www.mooala.com
While Mooala makes a seriously good plant-based milk, the seriousness ends there. From a heifer-spotted koala mascot to tasty bananamilk and a creamy texture that’s perfect for all kinds of exciting recipes, Mooala brings a light-hearted attitude with plenty of fun. Stock your bar with Mooala’s selection of plant-based milks and new coffee creamers to see your customers take traditional dairy options out to pasture. The company offers Original Almondmilk, Vanilla Bean Almondmilk, Original Bananamilk, Chocolate Bananamilk, Strawberry Bananamilk, and Coconut Oatmilk, in addition to three new plant-based coffee creamers: Banana-Nut, Oats ’n’ Crème, and Vanilla Bean.
Deluxe Delights McCrea’s Candies www.mccreascandies.com
Counter Intelligence
In their quest to make the world’s best caramel, Good Food Award-winning McCrea’s Candies uses the freshest—and fewest—ingredients possible to deliver smooth, unexpected flavor combinations. With 15 flavors to choose from, including Rosemary Truffle, Single Malt Scotch, Tapped Maple, and Classic Vanilla, these luxe, chewy caramels will delight any palate. Containing only butter, sugar, cream, and real food flavorings such as fresh ginger, organic, fair trade coffee, and sprigs of rosemary, the caramels are gluten-, nut-, and soy-free. Beautifully packaged in 100% compostable containers, and in varying sizes, McCrea’s Candies make an ideal present—or can be kept for your own enjoyment.
Fresh businesses & products
Sleek & Slick
Zojirushi Stainless Vacuum Creamer / Dairy Server SH-MAE10 www.zojirushi.com/new_sh-mae The award-winning Zojirushi Stainless Vacuum Creamer / Dairy Server (SH-MAE10) is a one-liter vacuum insulated creamer, made of durable 18/8 stainless steel with superior vacuum insulation. It is easy to clean with its electro-polished SLICKSTEEL stainless steel interior and minimally threaded one-piece lid. Its “always open” insulated lid, easy-pour handle, and spout are designed for a controlled and clean pour while minimizing dribbling. NSF certified.
Bringing Coffee Culture into the Night Mr Black Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur www.mrblack.co
Born out of an affinity for coffee and love for a good drink, the team at Mr Black have introduced this firstof-its-kind liqueur to the specialty beverage community. Made by hand at their distillery and coffee roastery north of Sydney, Australia, Mr Black’s Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur is a bittersweet blend of top-grade Arabica coffees and Australian wheat vodka. Enjoyed neat, over ice, in a cocktail, or over ice cream, this liqueur is perfect for cafés looking to take their beverage program from day to night or for bars seeking to entice coffee lovers with innovative cocktails. Visit mrblack.co for recipes and more information on where to purchase a bottle.
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Trade Show & Events Calendar MAY 2-4
MAY 9-11
MAY 9-13
MAY 18-21
CAFE SHOW VIETNAM
EU’VEND & COFFEENA
CHINA XIAMEN INTL. TEA FAIR
NRA SHOW
Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam
Cologne Germany
Xiamen China
Chicago, IL
cafeshow.com.vn
euvend-coffeena.com
teafair.com.cn/en
MAY 21-22
MAY 25-27
MAY 31-JUNE 2
JUNE 6-8
EUROPEAN COFFEE, TEA & SOFT DRINK EXPO
PARIS COFFEE SHOW
COFFEE FEST
WORLD OF COFFEE
Paris France
Indianapolis, IN
Berlin Germany
London United Kingdom
collectifcafe.fr
coffeefest.com
show.restaurant.org
worldofcoffee.org
europeancoffee expo.com
JUNE 6-8
JUNE 11-13
JUNE 17-21
JULY 25-28
WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP
WORLD TEA EXPO
LET’S TALK COFFEE
MALAYSIA COFFEE FEST
Las Vegas, NV
Rwanda
Berlin Germany
worldteaexpo.com
letstalkcoffee.org
Petaling Jaya Malaysia mycoffeefest.com.my
worldlatteart.org
AUGUST 1-3
AUGUST 25-27
AUGUST 25-27
AUGUST 29-31
LATIN AMERICA COFFEE SUMMIT
COFFEE FEST
EXPO CAFE MEXICO
Mexico City Mexico
Los Angeles, CA
WESTERN FOODSERVICE & HOSPITALITY EXPO Los Angeles, CA
tradex.mx/expocafe
cumbrelatino americanadelcafe.com
48 ] MAY 2019 » freshcup.com
coffeefest.com
westernfoodexpo.com
Mexico City Mexico
AUGUST 30-SEPT. 1
SEPTEMBER 11-14
CAFE SHOW CHINA
GOLDEN BEAN
Beijing China
Nashville, TN
cafeshow.cn/ huagang/hgcoffceen/ index.htm
goldenbean.com
SEPTEMBER 15-16
SEPTEMBER 22-23
FLORIDA RESTAURANT & LODGING SHOW
CANADIAN COFFEE & TEA SHOW
Orlando, FL
Toronto Canada
flrestaurantand lodgingshow.com
coffeeteashow.ca
SEPTEMBER 23-25
OCTOBER 7-10
TEA & COFFEE WORLD CONFERENCE
PIR EXPO
Hong Kong
Moscow Russia
tcworldcup.com
pirexpo.com
OCTOBER 18-22
OCTOBER 28-29
HOST MILANO
CAFFE CULTURE
Milan Italy
London United Kingdom
host.fieramilano.it
caffecultureshow.com
FRESH CUP MAGAZINE [ 49
Advertiser Index
To view our advertiser list and visit the websites listed below, go to freshcup.com/resources/fresh-cup-advertisers
ADVERTISER
CONTACT ONLINE
1883 Maison Routin
800.467.7142
1883.com
ABCD
610.828.6000
abcdusa.com
Barista Pro Shop
866.776.5288
baristaproshop.com/ad/fresh
24
Brewista
888.538.8683
mybrewista.com
32
Café Femenino Foundation
360.901.8322
cffoundation.org
47
Cappuccine
800.511.3127
cappuccine.net
19
The Chai Co.
888.922.2424
chaico.com
Coffee Cherry Co, The
info@coffeecherry.com
coffeecherryco.com
27
Coffee Fest
425.295.3300
coffeefest.com
31
Costellini’s
877.889.1866
costellinis.com
43
Danone Away From Home
888.620.9910
danoneawayfromhome.com
Divinitea
518.347.0689
divinitea.com
43
Dominion Tea
540.999./TEAS (8327)
wholesale.dominiontea.com
32
Dr. Smoothie
888.466.9941
drsmoothie.com
Fresh Cup Magazine
503.236.2587
freshcup.com
Ghirardelli Chocolate
800.877.9338
ghirardelli.com/professional
Golden Bean
503.706.1330
goldenbean.com
33
Gosh That’s Good! Brand
888.848.GOSH (4674)
goshthatsgood.com
11
Host - Fiera Milano
39.02.49971
host.fieramilano.it/en
49
HotShot Coffee Sleeves
800.991.3702
hotshotsleeves.com
43
Java Jacket
800.208.4128
javajacket.com
14
Klean Kanteen
800.767.3173
kleankanteen.com
25
Malabar Gold Espresso
650.366.5453
malabargoldespresso.com
37
Monin Gourmet Flavorings
855.FLAVOR1 (352.8671)
monin.com
OLPR Leather Goods
info@olpr.com
olpr.com
Pacific Foods
503.692.9666
pacificfoods.com/foodservice
Planet Oat
800.242.2423
planetoat.com
52
SelbySoft
800.454.4434
selbysoft.com
30
SerendipiTea
888.TEA.LIFE (832.5433)
serendipitea.com
43
Service Ideas
800.328.4493
serviceideas.com
30
Starburst Power Energy Drinks
206.612.8030
starburstdrinks.com
51
Theta Ridge Coffee
800.745.8738
thetaridgecoffee.com
43
Toddy
970.493.0788
toddycafe.com/business
25
Torani
800.775.1925
torani.com/foodservice
Workbench Coffee Labs
816.419.1904
workbenchcoffeelabs.com
43
World Tea Expo
866.458.4935
worldteaexpo.com
41
Zojirushi America
800.264.6270
zojirushi.com
50 ] MAY 2019 » freshcup.com
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