Tag: Costa Rica

Seattle cafe crawl

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Last Saturday I spent the day in Seattle visiting a few cafes with friends.  We met up at Arabica Lounge on Capitol Hill.  This was my first visit and it kind of blew me out of the water.  I arrived first so I had time to scope out the space and I liked what I saw.  None of the furniture matches the hardwood floor looks had and the walls could use paint but all of this adds up to why I love this place.  My Macchiato was everything one should be, sweet and balanced.  I had a little much to drink the night before so I had the hangover omelette.  To be honest I wasn’t really thinking the food would be that great luckily for me  I was wrong, it was perfectly cooked and seasoned

When my friends showed up we talked a little about educating coffee consumers, I feel the more we educate the customers as to what good coffee is the more accountable we are to make it for them.  Dooley introduced me to Brian who is organizing  a really rad coffee event.  The gist of it is to bring the Barista closer to the customer in a role of education and not just service.  Brian and I have similar viewpoints on coffee/brewing, especially making it more accessible. We (specialty coffee)  are very serious about training staff why not train customers the same way?

Our next stop was the SBUX on Olive Way.  I was very surprised by what I found inside, there was a double fire-place, semi-private indoor seating as well as open seating areas.  It was interesting to see the square brewing station like the one at InlelliVenice reinterpreted in this space.  This cafe is very warm and inviting, I could definitely spend an afternoon there.

We hit up the Vivace sidewalk cafe and had drinks at the Brix cafe.  The cafe is very open with lots of seating as well as a “study” section separated from general seating by a glass door. Since this was my first time I ordered a macchiato and straight shot of espresso.  The macchiato super sweet and full of caramel was made with Vita and the espresso was balanced and chocolaty.  One of my favorite things when visiting new cafe is interacting with Baristas.  Brian our barista has been with Vivace since 1995 and is currently the head trainer, we talked a lot about espresso, the foam knife and misc cafe stuff.  The coffee coupled with a fantastic Barista made this an experience that will keep me coming back to Vivace.

Fully caffeinated and ready for more we headed to Stumptown on 12th.  This is also the location of their Seattle roasting facility.  We all ordered espresso, mine was sugar sweet had a slight floral quality and made my mouth happy.  Luckily we happened to stop by while the 3 o’clock cupping was going on.  The cuppings are held downstairs in the roastery/production area.  There is a cupping table with a window running along it that lets you see into the training lab.  The Costa Rica Helsar Reserva was amazing, it had nice raspberry and floral qualities, the body was syrupy and the finish sweet and clean.  When you walk through this roastery you can really tell they know what’s up, the facility was clean the lab tidy and production area well organised.

Our Seattle coffee crawl was a success!  We got together spoke of world domination and drank some really great coffee.  I thoroughly enjoyed every stop on our list and can’t wait till the next crawl.  Thank you Seattle!

If you cant read just look at the pictures.

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My day with the Trifecta.

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The Bunn Trifecta is here to fill the void the Clover has left in cafe’s across the country.  Until today I had only seen it a couple of times once at Coffee Fest and another at Seattle Coffee Works.  Magically a Bunn Trifecta appeared in the EP lab this week.  I decided to put Sunday afternoon aside for some lab time.

First off thanks to @BUNN for sending me a great link to all the Trifecta manuals and tasting sheet.  I read the manual to help in the process.  Changing the settings is fairly easy once you get used to the layout of the controls.  For fun I changed the name for the brew cycle and found it to be easy to do.  A normal 120v outlet will do, connect the brewer to a cold water system capable of 20-90 psi from a 1/2″ or larger line.  The brewer does not have a drain tray standard, you do have the option of installing one on your own.  The Trifecta’s design is rigid and somewhat cold, it’s grey and black.  The handle is all plastic with silver at the end of it, I want it to more substantial it feels a little light also an aluminum cap at the end of the handle would look way better than painted silver over plastic.  I tried to disassemble the handle as instructed from the manual and was unable to get the screen out.  The other components cam out easily the spray-head which is at the top of the brew chamber came out easy but because there isn’t much room it’s hard to get it back on.  The parts are easy to clean when brewing if you have a pitcher rinser from EP it’s a breeze.

Now let’s talk about the brewing.  I used the parameters from the Trifecta site as a start for dialing in the brew.  I used Costa Rica Tarrazu Shb El Indio from Batdorf & Bronson.  My parameters were as followed: 28g water 8oz 203° #8 on a Mahlkonig Guatemala grinder.  The brewing cycle was set to:3 second pre-wet, 10% pre-infusion, 2 second fill pause, 43 second brew time, 8 seconds of turbulence, 10 seconds turbulence off, turbulence was set to 6, press out power was 7, 35 second press out time.  There was a lot of honey sweetness a macadamia nuttiness with a creamy finish.  I burned through half of a pound during my lab time I went from a setting of 4-15 ending up with #8.  To open the brewing chamber you pull the lever at the top of the machine up and the chamber will release from the handle, add your freshly ground coffee to the handle slide it back into the holder and pull lever down.  to initiate the brewing cycle there is a small button with the picture of a cup of coffee.  It’s fun to watch the brewing cycle of the Trifecta, the chamber is filled from the bottom and some from the top, after the pre-wet/infusion the remaining brew water is added and the turbulence starts.  Air is used to agitate the ground coffee which adds a nice touch to the show.  One problem I ran into was after I changed the brew settings the press out time I selected was not long enough and there was water left in the filter handle.  I was not able to figure out how to purge the brewing chamber without starting another cycle.  Last but not least the rinse cycle is cold, I would like to be able to choose between cold and hot.

I really enjoyed my time with the Trifecta it was easy and fun to use, it was able to brew a quality cup in a short amount of time and the clean up is very easy. The Trifecta would definitely be something I would use in my own cafe(hopefully one day).  There is also a grinder that is being marketed with the Trifecta it’s the G2.  I have very limited experience with the grinder from regionals and coffee fest but did find it easy to use.

http://www.trifectaexperience.com/