Tim Wendelboe

New Guatemala Cup of Excellence for sale

Tim Wendelboe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:49:55 +0000

We have finally started roasting our last 2009 Cup of excellence coffee from Guatemala.

For more info about the coffee go here.

New espresso blend

Tim Wendelboe — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:44:16 +0000

We now have a new espresso blend for sale in the store.

It consists of:

50 % Suaza, Huila, Colombia. Wet processed.
35 % Fazenda Primavera, Brazil. Wet processed.
15 % San Antonio, Guatemala CoE. Wet processed.

Go here to read more about it.

New bag labels

Tim Varney — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:25:37 +0000

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.

Nordic Barista Cup 2010

Tim Wendelboe — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:07:06 +0000

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.

New Barista Course Dates

Tim Varney — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:35:25 +0000

There are 3 new Barista Course dates -

17th March at 17.00
28th April at 17.00
9th June at 17.00

Please go here to read more about the courses or go to our webshop to sign up. We now offer the Barista Course giftcard on the webshop too.

If you have a gift card for a seminar, please send us an e-mail to sign up for a course.

Congratulations to Thomas

Tim Wendelboe — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:49:03 +0000

We would like to congratulate our full time barista Thomas Holme on his victory in the Norwegian Barista Competition, Oslo qualification. Thomas gave us an excellent presentation and served some spectacular cappuccinos and espressos based on a coffee from Badnekhan Estate.

His delicious signature drink consisted of a milk and espresso foam infused with cinnamon and cloves, topped up with a refreshing lavender milk foam.

We would also like to congratulate Jannicke from Mocca and Maria from United Bakeries on their 2nd and 3rd place which gives them a ticket to the semi finals in the 2010 Norwegian barista championships in April. Well done!

More pictures here:

Trial roasts of Fazenda Santa Barbara

Tim Wendelboe — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:07:36 +0000

Friday afternoon we had our 3rd tasting of the 6 trial roasts of Fazenda Santa Barbara, a newly arrived coffee from Bahia, Brazil.
We had 2 favourites, the roasts were 1:30 minutes apart in total roast time, so now we need to do some new trial roasts to see which direction to take. We also need to determine the roast level (colour) and then test it on the big roaster before we start selling the coffee.

This is one of the most exciting times of the year, when new crop coffees start coming in. It is great to get to know these coffees through endless tasting of trial roasts. We also base our flavour descriptors on these tastings, so it is not just based upon one tasting.

The Fazenda Santa Barbara will be for sale in about 3-4 weeks. More info will come once we get it from the farmer.

(The coffee was tasting so nice that we drank it all.)

Drink statistics in January

Tim Wendelboe — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:31:23 +0000

This is the break down of drinks sold in January 2010:

Clover coffees 23,3%
Espresso 21,4%
Caffè Latte 21%
Cappuccino 18,1%
Cortado 12,4%
Piccolino (small cappuccino) 2,3%
Macchiato 1,5%
Americano 0%

Kenya pictures and wrap up

Tim Wendelboe — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:33:32 +0000

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:

Suaza finally for sale

Tim Wendelboe — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:36:49 +0000

We have used a coffee lot from Suaza, Colombia in our espresso for a while. From Tuesday february 2nd, we will start to sell it as a single origin coffee (light roast) too. To read more about the coffee, go here.