Yesterday I got a link sent to me by a good friend and coffee enthusiast in San Francisco. The link is to an Internet forum called Home Barista that is basically a discussion forum for coffee enthusiasts from around the world. I was a bit surprised to read this post on a forum created by and for coffee lovers, so I felt I had to reply in order to educate our customers and also to try to explain that not all coffee companies are the same.

Transparency

A lot of high quality driven roasters, including ourselves, preach that transparency is the most important part of our trade, but rarely do we actually get to see the numbers in the coffee industry. Sustainable Harvest is one of the few companies that are trying to do something about this through their Relationship Information Tracking System.

Cup of Excellence is also a great example of where consumers can get full traceability of the coffee trade.

I have been trying to establish a traceability system of our own and also to develop a contract that shows what the farmer gets when we pay USD 3 pr. lb (453g) FOB for coffee. We do have the contracts in Kenya as this is cooperative coffees created by hundreds of farmers. For all the other coffees we have bought this year we feel we don’t need it as we are communicating directly with the farmers anyway. We are still far away from being 100% transparent but hopefully in the future we will be able to get a system for it that enables our customers to get all the info they need.

As a temporary solution I have started to systemize all the information about our coffee purchases from the end of last year, and to my surprise we are actually paying a higher average price for our coffee than I thought we were.

Coffee prices

For the past months we have read that the C market price for coffee is at it’s highest in over 10 years at about USD 1,6 pr. lb. (453 g) of green coffee.

Although this is not a very high price for coffee it is still very positive that it is going up, as the price has been way too low for the last 10 years, forcing a lot of producers to start growing other cash crops in order to survive.

As you all probably know, we do not trade coffee based on the C market price and we do not sign future contracts based upon today’s prices like most of the bigger roasteries do. We buy the coffee direct from exporters or farmers and negotiate the price based on taste and quality. We negotiate with the farmer and the exporter. Not with a broker. We also have gentlemen’s agreements with farmers that if they continue their work with quality, we will be there to support them by buying their coffees.

As promised, I will try to do an effort for transparency, so here are the prices in USD pr. lb that we have payed for our coffees FOB  (free on board) in 2010:

Panama, Hacienda la Esmeralda:______ 26,50 $ + packing

Honduras, Cielito Lindo 2010 COE:_____  8,10 + packing

El Salvador, Las Palmas 2010 COE:_____ 5,31 + packing

Honduras, Naciemento:______________  3,50

Honduras, Finca El Pantanal:___________3,00

Guatemala, Santa Ana:_______________ 3,50

Kenya, Mugaga:_____________________ 4,77

Kenya, Tekangu:____________________  5,23

Of course these lots are not the same size. The Esmeralda was only about 120kg for instance. So the average price per lb. so far this year is actually USD 5,06.

Adding to the cost

As you may know, this is just for the green coffee. We also need to  pay for the shipping and handling of the coffee before it gets to our roastery. Shipping cost can vary greatly depending on the origin of the coffee. The price of the coffee gets about 25 to 30 % higher for the coffee when we include these costs. On average this means the price for the coffee when it has arrived to Norway is about USD 6,58 pr.lb.

We also need to cover our travel expenses that we spend when we travel around the world to find these coffees and visit the producers.

So far this year I have been to Kenya and Honduras, and I am going to Brazil next week, to Colombia in October and visiting Kenya again in November. That adds up to 60 days of traveling and a cost around NOK 120.000,- or about USD 20.200,- only for 2010.

My accountant may think I am crazy spending so much on traveling, but I think it is totally necessary and a good investment for the future. We are building relationships with serious farmers and we are trying to secure a good supply of great coffees in the future. We want to develop long term relationships with the farmers, not have one night stands with them.

After the coffee has arrived to Norway we still need to roast it, so you have to add the  cost of production, rent needs to be payed as well as salaries, delivery truck, electricity, maintenance, etc, etc. Of course the cost of living is higher in Norway than in Colombia and therefore we need to add a bigger margin to the coffee than a farmer in a producing country needs in order to make a living. For example, a beer in Colombia is about 1 USD. In Norway a beer in a bar is about 10 USD.

Is coffee expensive?

Some people think our coffees are expensive, and I understand that they believe so, especially if they compare us to a coffee sold in a supermarket. But if you taste the difference and understand how much work and effort is behind these coffees, I still believe that our coffees are cheap. It all boils down to about NOK 5,- or about USD 0,9 pr. cup. Compare that to what you pay for a bottle of water here in Norway (USD 5) where we have plenty of super clean water free from the tap, I think there is no need to discuss whether coffee is expensive or not.

Why is some coffees worth more than others?

Because quality of the coffee varies. Not only from farm to farm but within the same farm we can sometimes find a huge range of different qualities and varietals.

Take Cielito Lindo and Naciemento for instance. These 2 farms are neighbouring farms run by father and son. They grow coffee from 1500 to 1800 masl. in 2 very different types of soil. They grow 5 different Arabica varietals (Pacas, Catuai, Catimor, Geisha and Bourbon) These trees produce (like all other fruit trees) both very mature coffee cherries and also unripe and cherries that fall to the ground and get mouldy and rotten. Of course this will produce coffee of different quality.

Next year we will be there during their harvest in order to help them separate the different varietals. We are going to taste the coffees blind and  score them according to the COE cupping form. We will pay more for the better tasting lots and less for the lots that get lower scores. Would we do this if there wasn’t a difference? I think not. So, why do we do this? Because we want to encourage the farmers (above: Jobneel and Extreberto) to grow more of the qualities we like so that we can get more of this coffee in future years.

Simple and easy.

Why pay more for coffee?

Well, I see it as an investment. The farmers are able to invest in necessary equipment in order to raise the quality and they are able to save a little money and make a decent living. If we treat them well today, they will treat us well tomorrow.

I  believe that we cannot continue to exploit the coffee producers. Sooner or later they will stop producing coffee and that is a scenario I would not like to see. So, if you love coffee and would like to continue to be able to appreciate its wonderful flavours and diversity, then choose quality coffee before cheap quantity coffee.

I also think all roasters need to practice transparency in a greater way. It is time we practice what we preach so that more people understand what we are all about.

Hopefully this post was of some help to clarify what we are doing and trying to do in the coffee world. I could go on and on writing about this, but instead I encourage you to leave comments in our comments section and I will make sure I reply as soon as I can.

I know I have been writing about the La Marzocco Strada before, but back then I did not have a lot of experience using the machine.

Not that I have a lot of experience now either, after only playing and working with it for some weeks. To be honest, I haven’t had the time to use the machine as much as I would have liked, but I did get to use it during our 3 year anniversary and I was the only one using it for the whole day, profile-pumping out about 300 espressos from the 3 groups. I have also managed to make some terrible shots on the machine as well as some super delicate and sweet shots. (More about that later.)

Since this La Marzocco EP3 is a prototype, there are a lot of details that needs to be changed. I am not going to bore you with all that stuff, but I did send a 3 page long document to Paola and Roberto, the engineers at La Marzocco, and I got a great reply from them telling me that they are on the case in most of my comments.

So, what are my thoughts after using the machine in a more realistic environment?

• Working with pressure profiles, when it comes to taste,  is very difficult. It changes the taste of the espresso so much that you can get anything from syrupy sweet espressos to more elegant and transparent shots. It is also very easy to make really bad tasting shots. I no longer know what I want my espressos to taste like. It is very frustrating! Therefore I think one needs to have a clear vision of what the espresso should taste like before one starts playing with profiles.

• Playing with the electronic paddle is very easy. The paddle is super responsive and allows you to change the pressure with great accuracy, once you get the hang of it.

• When experimenting with different pressure profiles, I always record them, meaning I am always programming the pressure profile when I experiment, as it is extremely difficult to make the exact same profile manually from shot to shot. When programming / recording, you are able to reproduce the profile you just made as many times as you want. But does it work when it comes to taste? See next point..

• When using a pre-programmed profile, one has to be super consistent in dosing in order to get the same results. I struggled a lot more getting consistent results with my blend than I did with the Single Origin coffee. Probably because the blend consists of different coffees and you will always get different beans in the filter from shot to shot. It is definitely more noticeable on the Strada as opposed to the FB80, probably because the coffees respond to pressure profiles differently.

• A profile programmed for one coffee on a Wednesday does not necessarily work with the same coffee on Saturday. The coffee degasses and this changes the taste a lot. I had to totally change the pressure profile from Wednesday to Saturday even if I was using the same coffee from the same roasted batch.

• Playing with the Strada is definitely very difficult when it comes to taste. Maybe there should be a default pressure profile that is similar to what you would get on a FB80, pre programmed, so that baristas could always use that as a standard reference to go after? I know the La Marzocco team is working on some standard factory default profiles that will help you get started. Realistically I know that time is expensive and also a thing we do not have enough of in our coffee shop. I spent about 2 hours tasting maybe 40 or 50 shots of coffee on the morning of our 3 year anniversary in order to make some decent profiles for the 2 coffees we were serving from the Strada. Of course with some experience you will get better at developing profiles more easily, but in order to make all my employees understand the machines and the effect of pressure profiling, I think we need to train and taste a lot together. It is going to take a lot of time and effort to become a true Strada player, so this machine is definitely not for the lazy barista or the cheap bar owner.

• Would I buy a Strada? YES, I can’t wait to get my hands on one! The possibilities are fascinating and when you nail a profile

the taste

is just absolutely fantastic. It has made me become enthusiastic about espresso again. The shots I have made with our Kenyan Mugaga espresso has been by far the best espresso I have ever tasted made on a Kenyan coffee, Ever!! The brew profile that worked for this coffee and actually has worked for some days now, has been like this:

Parameters:

Brew water temperature: 93,5 C +/- o,5 C

Pressure profile:

1-10 seconds: slowly ramp up from 0 to 7 bars

11 – 13 seconds: brew at 8 bars

14 – 20 seconds: brew steadily at 7 bars (slowly raising the paddle as pressure decreases during brewing due to less resistance in the coffee puck)

20 – 25 seconds: Ramp down to 4 bars and then shut off.

(This was an attempt to replicate on a blog post. I might post some videos later)

I haven’t measured the weight of the shot nor the coffee. The espresso is not short but normal, so I am guessing about 25+ ml per shot and the wight of the ground coffee might be abut 18 to 19 grams as Kenyan grounds tends to be quite dense and heavy.

The flavour profile of this espresso is:

Aroma: Strikingly winy and fruity. Intense!
Acidity: Super balanced and refreshing. Like eating very ripe fruit. Winy like in light red wine.
Mouthfeel: Very delicate. Not heavy but lively and light. The shot is still concentrated in flavour yet texture is somewhat between a french press brew and an espresso.
Flavour: Very intense and winy fruit flavour. Juicy berry aromas. Tropical fruit in the end.
Finish: Sweet and lingering. No harsh bitterness like in a lot of SO Kenyan shots I have had before and that is much more present when pulling this coffee on a FB80.

We will be having a Strada party in our bar tomorrow where some fellow coffee enthusiasts and I will be playing with the machine. The machine is on trial for a couple of more weeks in our bar, before we have to send it back to Italy. Feel free to ask questions in our comments section on this post, and I will be happy to answer. (If I know the answer).

The total amount of money we managed to raise for the Tekangu drying table project is USD 4600,-

Hopefully this will be enough to build 5 tables.

Tim Varney and I will be going to Kenya in November to oversee the harvest and also to document the benefits of using these new drying tables.

A huge thank you to all our customers who contributed. It is much appreciated.

It has been 3 years since we first opened our doors here at Tim Wendelboe, and I have to admit that so far, it has been a magical journey. I really did not expect te business to be such a success after only 3 years. I would like to  send out a huge thank you, to all our customers that have supported us over our first 3 years. We have managed to do a lot of great stuff together, and we are planning for a lot more in the future.

A special thanks to all of you who visited us on Saturday and donated money for our “Tekangu drying table project.”

We had some very generous customers that payed over NOK 1.000,- for a cup of coffee (USD 155,-) . I believe that is the most expensive cup of coffee ever sold in Norway and probably the world. I am sure the farmers at the Tekangu co-op are very greatful for your generosity.

Also a huge thanks to Mette Mortensen for the beautiful flowers, to Anders Valde for his contribution and gift and also to Solberg and Hansen for supplying us with sparkling wine for the celebration.

You are probably wondering how much money we were able to raise on Saturday?

We managed to raise NOK 19.000,- (USD 2.920.) All this money will go to the drying table project. Dormans, our exporter in Kenya has donated USD 500,- so that means we are only about USD 1500,- away from our goal of USD 5000,-

We will also be collecting money for the project through our Kenyan coffee sales this week. 50% of what we get in will go to the project. So, if you need coffee, please buy Kenyan coffee this week.

Thank you all again for your fantastic contribution!

Tim W