2012 On the road - Portland Oregon - Coffee food and drink · Tuesday April 24, 2012 by colin newell
There are few American cities more friendly than Portland Oregon. We have been there twice in the last ten years and this April 2012 we returned for the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s big wing-ding – the SCAA 2012 convention. And what a show it was. Even better was the fact that it was being held in one of the most progressive, beautiful, accessible and liberal cities in America.
Portland, Oregon (for Canadians and Canadian lovers) feels more Canadian than many Canadian cities; super friendly and chill people, liberal, free thinking and socially progressive communities – art, culture, amazing food and drink…
And coffee? Enough great java to drown in.
And for a resident of the North West (up here on Vancouver Island) a very easy weekend get-away destination.
Getting there: Yea, you could drive, but why? Time is money. From Vancouver Island, the 2 hour Ferry ride, hour to the border and 3 – 4 hours South on the crowded I5 to Portland… not my idea of good times. Better yet: Alaska Airlines daily service from Victoria via Seattle – total of 55 minutes in the air (if that) and you are there. From the airport, light rail downtown $2.40 – or a 35$ 35 minute cab fare. The train takes a whopping 40 minutes worse case scenario. So, 32 dollars more gets you there 5 minutes sooner.
Staying: There are lots and lots and lots of great hotels – of every stripe and price point. We stayed at the Coast Paramount Hotel. 3 star luxury at a 2 star price. Moderately opulent, spotless, full service, free wi-fi, great bar and Asian themed restaurant, walking distance from all the main downtown shopping and a brief stroll to some of the best food carts in North America. Sadly, we did not sample any of the cart food but the plan is to head back in August (if we don’t go to Chicago… – another story). Anyway, top marks to the Paramount Hotel! If you are feeling hip by all means stay at the ACE (they have a Stumptown Coffee place off of the lobby…) Here is the thing: I am not that hip.
Eating: Portland has more restaurants and more culinary genres than any other city or town in North America. Fact. The food cart scene is like no other. Portland and Oregon is a tax free place – and for whatever reason, eating and drinking out is way cheaper than it is in Canada (and a few other American places) I could not get over the quality of the grub and the absurdly low prices; burgers and beers: $7 and $6 for buns and beers. $6 to 9$ for great pasta entrees at a local Italian place. Great breakfast items at the ritzy “Mother’s” a 10 minute walk away. The Paramount Hotel did a great all morning standard bacon and egg kind of breakfast for around $8. Loved it.
Getting around: Light rail, street cars, buses – all free in the downtown area. All zone travel to the airport: $2.40. That is crazy. If you are ready to explore (a GPS or iPhone or Android or B.B. with some Apps are handy and freely available) there is lots to see; galleries, art, music, industrial areas, cafes and brew pubs scattered hither and thither.
Summary: If you want to explore beer, food, coffee, great people watching, arts and culture, there are few places more eager to please and cooler than Portland Oregon. Give it a whirl. It will not let you down!
Colin and Andrea write and edit the coffeecrew.com blog and travel whenever and where ever possible…
2012 explosion of coffee flower power · Tuesday April 24, 2012 by colin newell
I cannot be happier for my little coffee “farm” in my living room in Rockland, Victoria B.C. Canada – one of my plants is on its second bloom this year – which is wild.
This is not Hawaii. This is not Costa Rica.
This is Victoria.
I guess I still have a green thumb.
Click on any photo for the bigger view.
Coffee plant background: Many folks who love coffee would like to have a coffee plant to admire – here is the skinny on coffee plants. They are not dramatic. They are not colorful. They are largely green and, if you are lucky and treat them right, they will bloom once a year and produce a few “cherries” – these cherries you can pop in your mouth and chew the fruit off – and then spit them out and dry them.
Most people I talk to say, “Hey, do you roast your beans?”
Well no. I have had some pretty good harvests but roasting coffee is way more complicated than picking the beans and tossing them in the oven or in a frying pan or popcorn maker.
Coffee is a very labor intensive crop – from the ground up – and if you have any inclination to grow some plants and create your own steady supply of java…
Well, you might be better off moving to Hawaii.
Coffee plants require special care – they are moderately fragile. They like a certain amount of light and the right amount of “food” and water – and soil with really good drainage.
Cultivation: Abbreviated explanation A coffee plant from a seedling, if raised in your home can take 5 years before it blooms. I speak from experience. And when it blooms, the flowers appear for around 1 – 5 days. There is a lot of waiting for a brief explosion of color. The flower are white, small and moderately fragrant.
When the flowers fall off, the small seed buds soon appear – the Cherry.
They start green, become yellow and then Red over a period of weeks or a month or so. When they are ready you can gently pull them from the stem.
Coffee fruit: Every coffee cherry contains 2 “beans” covered in slimy mucilage after you remove the fruit. OK, so you can clean that off in cold water. Then they need to be dried until there is a certain percentage of moisture in the bean. How do you do that? You could use a low oven – but you also need a method of measuring moisture content – fairly accurately. We won’t go into those tools here because I am sure that I have almost lost you.
The silver skin: Coffee beans have a flak jacket type coat called the silver skin. You need to remove this before you roast. You can do this by hand.
But wait, there is more! Coffee beans have one more coating – called chaff – yet another layer that comes off when you roast – and it floats in the air landing where you cannot get to it. Cool huh? In bigger roasters, there are chaff collection gizmos that handle this.
Roasting: Coffee roasting is smokey, fussy, messy and maddening. I know, I have done my fair share. There are lots of online resources and You-Tube tutorials about coffee roasting. Go look.
A better idea: Grow the coffee plants. Feel good about them. You are better off raising a coffee plant than having a pet or getting a rabbit or kitten for your children. Coffee plants are kind of like teenagers. They need care and feeding and do not seem to do anything – and you need to wait an eternity for anything interesting to happen. They seem to be at their most productive and fecund when they are teenagers – which for coffee plants can be a good thing. For teens, not so much.
Still interested?
Portland Oregon SCAA 2012 quick look · Sunday April 22, 2012 by colin newell
Portland Oregon – a small city and a great big town with a much bigger heart – resting near the junction of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, this North west gem hosted the SCAA 2012 convention.
Photo upper right – the calm before the storm. And the benefit of the press pass!
And by all accounts it was one of the best. For me, it was my first. I have been to my fair share of Seattle coffee fests and Canadian coffee expo’s but this was definitely the bigs.
Portland Oregon is a great place to get acquainted with coffee culture – and to meet up with all the movers and shakers in the coffee biz – because everyone was here.
Photo – Deidrich was king of the roasters at SCAA 2012. Lots of eye candy – lots of interested buyers!
And the city and its coffee brewing folks are a natural back drop to an event this size and of this caliber.
Talking to Matt Milletto of the American Barista School he noted, “Portland is my hometown and we are bursting with pride to be hosting the SCAA…” I have met Matt a few times at various events – and it is always a delight to get “re caught up.”
Andrea and I spent a lot of time walking the trade floor before opening time on Friday morning (Thank you SCAA media/press passes!). It is interesting behind the camera and on the floor prior to opening to feel the palpable energy and to see everyone ready to roll a solid hour in advance of door crashing.
Photo – The newer, bigger, better ESPRO brewer!
In the opening salvos of the SCAA I was busy looking for a comprehensive theme or buzz phrase that would describe what I was seeing and hearing.
“Innovation, evolution and optimism…” came to mind. Times have been tough with the economy the last few years but to be honest, there is nothing wrong with the coffee economy. Nothing at all. There are reasons for this – not really going into that too much here.
There is (or has been a lot of) innovation in the coffee industry the last couple of years and it was all on display here. Some things surprised me. Most everything pleased me. Every kiosk had something going on. There were no duds or lackluster displays. In fact, some of the displays and presenters had some things going on that utterly blew my mind. That will be revealed in my photo mosaic of what I saw.
Rancilio U.S.A. were preaching the virtues of the programmable brew profiling using a kind of old school technology called “Pulse width modulation…” PW Modulation goes back decades but I have never heard it applied to espresso making… so bravo for that!
Bonavita! I talked to Todd of Bonavita and his engineer/inventor associate (I will key in his name later) and the big buzz was about the constant/programmable temperature kettle with non-volatile memory. A snippet about that on the audio piece I will key in. Photo of this lovely device below!
Evolution – Some items that caught my eye:
Alan Adler of Aerobie Industries and the legendary Aeropress. I could not have been happier to see Alan – and I arrived just in time to follow him sprinting to an Aeropress competition on the floor. At 72 years of age, Alan Adler has more energy than the average teenager – and it was delightful to talk to a living legend and to a man who has made such a huge contribution to coffee culture.
Alan and his beautiful grand daughter Constance (who works in marketing for Aerobie) and the rest of the team were always busy at their little booth.
Kyra, Joyce and Kyle (and the rest of the Baratza team) continue to take some great coffee grinding ideas to new heights with better gear boxes, better burrs, getting the bugs out of the old machines and delivering a much more reliable product as a result.
Optimism – From Kyle of Baratza: “Sales have never been better…” Reg James of EspressoTec.com “This has been a very good year so far…”
Here is the thing about coffee: You cannot eat pizza every day, but when you get hooked up to a great cup of coffee, you have to have it every day… without exception.
In our next installment, we will get down to some of the meat and potatoes of the Portland coffee, food and beer scene — and more on 2012 SCAA!
2012 Easter Tofino return to food coffee life and love · Monday April 9, 2012 by colin newell
Andrea and I have been popping into Tofino since the 90’s – we were married there – at the Middle Beach Lodge… and have been eating and drinking everything ever since.
Many things can be said about Tofino: Wild west coast getaway for storm watching… food lovers paradise (largely true)… Rainforest enclave resistant to over development (most definitely)…
What cannot be said about Tofino and the neighboring area is this: It is a coffee destination. And yes, I know, one cannot say that about many places in Canada – One does not expect leading edge coffee in places like Hinton, Alberta or Gravelhurst, Saskatchewan, but one is always pleased when great coffee appears in out of the way places. My supposition is this: Tofino should have great coffee. It needs to have great coffee. Great coffee belongs here.
But on some level, it seems, the community resists change and it rejects trends that, on the outside, would not appear to potentially harm the spirit of the community.
The food marketplace of Tofino is on an upwards spiral in terms of ingenuity and creativity as outlined here in an earlier blog.
How is the coffee doing circa 2012 first quarter?
Well. It has not changed much. There are no Discovery Coffee’s, Habit’s or Cafe Fantastico’s in Tofino. There is no Stick in the Mud in Tofino. There could be and the potential is so great, the opportunity so palpable and right now. If I did not have a day job and I was a little braver, I would drop what I was doing and dive right in.
Few communities are more ripe for a “great cafe” – like the ones we take for granted in Victoria, Sooke, Cobble Hill, Nanaimo, Vancouver, Seattle, etc… than Tofino, British Columbia.
Now do not get me wrong – I have a soft spot for the present and the future – and the future is somewhere where great Tofino coffee exists – because it is not in the here and now. At present, there are cafes and kiosks that attempt to break that greatness barrier – it just has not happened yet. Sure, by all means call out your favorite places and claim that they are dope. I have been there… and they are not.
This weekend it was at the advice of Anya of Discovery Coffee that I swoop into The Tofitian to check out their espresso shots from the Cimbali espresso machine. Out of the gate I ordered a single. It was served at the bottom of a 8 fluid ounce cup… in the form of a 3 1/2 fluid ounce shot. Observation: If you have espresso on the menu (and you are charging $2 for a single shot, serve a single in a 2 fluid ounce espresso cup.)
The shot was fairly balanced but not brewed at the ideal temperature – and, at it turns out was Lavazza espresso – containing around 15% Robusta. Cool shot. Easy to drink but dull as a butter knife. But wait, The Tofitian serves Discovery Coffee – or so I thought – looking around, I did not see it mentioned anywhere.
I asked “Do you serve Discovery Coffee?”
Barista reply: “It’s an option…” (A very pleasant and informed barista BTW)
I ordered a shot of DISCO, a single… because that is why I was there.
This time, another 2+ fluid ounce shot into a 8 fluid ounce cup. Brewed cool and served tepid. Drat.
Here is the thing: I did not see the words “Discovery Coffee” anywhere in the Tofitian – or “Lavazza served here…” I guess I must have missed the secret handshake or something.
Verdict: The espresso machine at the Tofitian needs to be tweaked, calibrated or moderized. Espresso cups need to be purchased. Labeling needs to be fine tuned.
The Tofitian feels a bit like a shack – it is associated with a Surf wear store that is in a different building in a cluster of rag tag buildings that feel somewhat itinerant. Kind of harsh but that is the deal. The parking lot is rough pot filled gravel – would it be outrageous to pave it to level it some?
Once again, I leave Tofino after an awesome weekend confused, befuddled and frustrated. I ask: Can one deploy a great cafe in a place like Tofino? Yes – but it is not going to be a kiosk or cart. It is going to be a newer building with some environmental controls. There is so much going on here – so much potential – so little of it realized. But there is the future.
Do not take my word for it – jump in with your voice. Hey – people are hitting Tofino constantly – I would love to hear their opinion – and your opinion.
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One Spring day in 1995 coffee site is born... · Wednesday March 21, 2012 by colin newell
It was on a warm Spring day in 1995 that I was fooling around with an IBM PS/2 running Windows for Workgroups. On other boxes I would soon install and play with early versions of Slackware Linux, Windows and OS/2 (WARP). And on those boxes I would start out with a gopher server server playing with something that would soon turn the World on its ear — The World Wide Web HTTP protocol.
Working in what is now called “Systems” at UVic, I was lucky enough to be at ground zero when the World Wide Web was first flashed up. I tested GOPHER on several machines before running an HTTPD server on a ethernet enabled PC workstation – that would have been as early as the Spring of 1991.
The original domain name, espresso.ts.uvic.ca (which I used for some work related stuff, electronics, radio and so on…) would briefly be the platform for the first version of “The Coffee Experts Group…” (on or about 1994) and this would soon depart for an ISP downtown called Octonet as well as a relative newcomer to Victoria, Islandnet.com
The coffee themed pages become so popular so quickly that I hastily moved it all onto Octonet.com and mirrored it at Islandnet.com where it lives to this very day.
The coffee websites first official domain name was coffee.bc.ca (which is this blog you see today!) The coffeecrew.com (Coffeecrew) [a more modest moniker than “Experts”] was adopted in the late nineties.
17 years on. Happy Birthday to us! Click on the photo below for the bigger view.
Thanks to our our readers for hanging in all these years…
