While enjoying an excellent Bourgogne, Tim and I noticed the simple, elegant label. It was uncluttered, modern and timeless, and without any gimmicky design elements. Conversation erupted over our own coffee bag labels and those of others. Over the 3 years, we haven’t developed or changed the bag labels much at all, and while they have had plenty of information, we thought perhaps there was too much. Altitude information for instance now seems a little irrelevant and meaningless, however harvest dates and roast dates are essential. We don’t want the labels to appear cryptic like some French wine labels, and we also don’t want an overload of pointless information, keeping them clean and easy on the eye.

So here are our new coffee bag labels which we will start introducing over the next couple of weeks. To make it easy to understand and interpret, here is the label broken down.

1. The name of the coffee

Fairly self explanatory, could refer to the name of the farm, the locality, the mill or the cooperative.

2. The name of the producer

This is often the owner of the farm or estate, it may also refer to the cooperative or the collective of farms or small holders.

3. The origin

Basically, town, region and country.

4. The varietal

The type of coffee plant, or subspecies of the Arabica varietal. This is just like the grape varietal in wine.

5. Taste description

The tasting notes have been derived from several cuppings, they are flavours and aromas we have found and are a broad evaluation of the characteristics of the coffee. Aroma, acidity, mouthfeel, aftertaste, etc are some of the criteria for the taste description. You will, however, find varying aromas and flavours.

6. Harvest date/degassing time

On our regular roasted coffees designed for filter style brewing, we have included the harvest date on the coffee, this will tell you the month and year the coffee was picked and processed. However, on the espresso roasted coffee bags, the degassing time is included. This is very important to take into account when brewing espresso, as espresso roasted needs time to rest and leave behind any flavours and aromas from the roast process. We would normally let espresso rest for a week, however this may change from coffee to coffee.

7. Roast and batch date

One of the most important indictors on a coffee bag, as we recommend to use the coffee within 3 weeks of the roast date. The batch number is for our reference, to ensure we can source all the information from that particular roast.

More in depth information will still be available here, in the Resources section of the website.

As head of the educational programme I am proud to announce that the preliminary programme for the 2010 Nordic Barista Cup in Oslo is published. For more info go here.

If you are considering attending I recommend signing up as soon as possible as there is only a limited 150 available tickets.

I am finally back home again after a fantastic week in Kenya.

It looks like we will be buying a lot from the Karogoto factory which is part of the Tekangu coop and a lot from the Kiamabara factory which is part of the Mugaga coop. More info on these coffees will come when the coffees are ready for sale in our store. First it needs to be processed, sorted, packed and shipped to Norway. It will probably take about 2 months before we have it in house.

I have made a slideshow with some comments for every picture. Watch it in full screen and click “show info” to see the comments.
I Hope you like it:

We are glad to announce that we now have 2 Best of Panama lots and a Christmas espressoblend for sale:

The Christmas espresso blend consists of:

50% Badnekhan Estate, washed coffee from India
50% Suaza, washed coffee from Huila Colombia

Flavour profile: Rich, nutty, chocolaty, dried fruit, oak and spice.

The Panamacoffees are:

Lot no. 14: Panacoffee, espresso roast
Lot size: 220 kg
Producer: Finca la Milagrosa, Mr. Héctor Vargas
Harvest: January 2009
Origin: Alto Jaramillo, Boquete, Panama.
Growing conditions: 1600 m.a.s.
Botanical variety: 50% Caturra & 50% Typica
Processing: Washed.
Flavour profile: Fruity, light, sweet and refreshing.

Lot no. 7: Café Ole
Lot size: 150 kg
Producer: Café Olé S.A.
Harvest: January 2009.
Origin: Barriles, Volcan, Panama.
Growing conditions: 1380 m.a.s.
Botanical variety: Geisha.
Process: Washed.
Flavour profile: Floral, fruity, citric and sweet.

Please note, these offers are only available in store.

My new book is now for sale in our web shop or in a bookstore near you. It is a book mainly written for consumers that have an interest in coffee and that are interested in learning more about coffee and how to make their coffee taste better. I also hope that a lot of baristas and coffee professionals will read the book and hopefully get inspiration and new ideas in order to push our industry forward.

The book is about what affects the quality of the coffee from pruduction to roasting, brewing and serving. It is pretty much a sum up of what I know about coffee, but I have tried to write it quite simple so that it is easier for non- coffee professionals to understand what coffee is all about.

My publisher, Schibsted, is publishing the first edition, but it is only written in Norwegian. That is why I need all the help I can get in order to convince my publisher to translate the book into English, so that my friends that don’t know how to read Norwegian can read it too.

So, if you would consider buying my book if it was written in English, please vote “yes” in the poll below.

After spending a long day in Piata, Bahia, I am too exhausted to write a long report about it. I have visited several farms today and had a great dinner yesterday with over 40 farmers from around Piata.
Tomorrow I will be tasting samples of a lot of their coffees and I am really looking forward to it. It looks like the producers in Piata are very committed to quality and there is a lot of potential in their coffees.

I believe it is a little bit easier to write about this after tasting the coffees, so in the meanwhile you can see some pictures from my first day in Brazil.

Sabona is arranging a great event this weekend at Kadettangen in Sandvika.

If you go there to see the artists or just to have fun and you feel like a cup of coffee, we are happy to announce that we will be sponsoring the event with coffee in their official chill-out area.

To read more about the event go here.

We are delighted to finally be able to sell the no. 8 lot in this years Costa Rica Cup of Excellence.

The coffee will be roasted on Tuesday 11th of August and will be available for sale from 3 o’clock.

To read more about the coffee go here.

We recieved some more coffee from Kenya today. 3 tonns had to be carried down to the basement. We will start test roasting the coffee next week and the coffee will be for sale from tuesday the 4th of August.