First off, happy new year, I hope you've all had a restful time lately, it's been great, getting to put my feet up and take a break from computers for a few days.

Some of you may have noticed, my reviews of coffee shops have been a little thin on the ground of late. I haven't been slacking, however, as I have whole list of new reviews, instead I've decided to take a small hiatus until the new collaborative review site is finished. I've been told I can be quite negative and critical sometimes, if not downright nasty and as passionate as I am about coffee, that's not me. So while I work on the new site I'm also restructuring my reviews to be more informative and helpful. The end goal? A one-stop-shop where everything, from the espresso to the environment where it is served can be rated not only by me, but by the general public too. Need to know where you can get a 6oz cappuccino, a free wifi connection and is kid friendly? Well so do I, so when I find it, it'll be on the map :-) You get the idea.

I'm still wrestling with the idea to set the reviews site up as a separate website, so if anyone has any good ideas for a name, they'd be greatly appreciated and your genius will of course be credited. There really isn't any reason to limit something like this to Northern Ireland, so anyone with speciality coffee experience, in other regions, who would like to volunteer should look no further than the comments box below, or contact me on andrew [at] exilecoffee.com

I like Starbucks. There, I said it. I'm sure Steve will be spiking my next coffee order and I'll have to start sleeping with my eyes open, but there is no denying the truth. In my defense, however, it is not for the reasons you may think. I'm not a slave to the corporate machine, I'm not a caffeine junkie, I don't like huge sizes and I certainly don't want a shot of vanilla and whipped cream in my cappuccino. The many faults of Starbucks, which have been flogged to death all over the web, are superfluous to my reasons. I want to focus on a few changes over the last year and whether or not they are nothing more than marketing ploys; the introduction of the 'Pike Place Roast' in the USA and the switching to Fair Trade in the UK.

Fact, here are over 15000 Starbucks in the world! - WikiAnswers
They may have gone off message since opening their doors, but Starbucks is the largest coffee chain in the world. That may be a negative to some people, but try to consider what the world of coffee was without Starbucks. Have a look in any 'greasy spoon' cafe in the UK and you will see the remnants of the old way of doing things, filter pots left on the hotplate all day, Nescafe instant in bulk quantities, espresso, if it can be called that, from dirty machines and oily beans. The sort of thing we see in the very worst of coffee shops, where coffee is not considered a culinary product, but just another commodity to sell. With the spread of Starbucks has come the spread of coffee shop and most importantly, espresso culture. It's very unlikely that you favourite coffee house today would exist without the legitimacy given to gourmet coffee by Starbucks. You can't buy marketing like that, well you can, they did...

Howard Schultz, taking a leaf from Steve Jobs' book, has returned to the company and earlier this year, announced a series of changes, bringing back manual machines, shorter times keeping brewed coffee and the Pike Place Blend, roasted and delivered to stores within two weeks of brewing. Recognising and attempting to fix mistakes is a quality which in business these days, is avoided like the plague. Pike Place Roast which for anyone unaware and/or leaving outside the US, is a new house blend with a much more palatable roast profile. Whereas the older 'House Blend' was infamous for being darkly roasted and tasting "charred," Pike Place (named after Starbucks original location in Seattle) is a little lighter roasted and from my own experiences this summer, a bit sweeter and more balanced. Along with the new blend comes the obligatory rebrand of cups and store cards bearing the original logo (more or less) and a reemphasis on freshness, which is when I started taking notice.

I bought a 1lb of Pike place back in August and even after a week or two it was still enjoyable. During that time I grabbed a bag of House Blend from my local Starbucks, in Belfast and brewed it up using the same method as the Pike Place. For some reason which I have yet to understand, I didn't actually make any hard notes during this time, not very scientific I know, but I can say with certainty that even 'freshly' out of the bag, the House Blend already tasted like "burnt tarmac."

It left me hoping that Starbucks Europe would make a similar move, but the logistics of roasting and transport within Europe would be more challenging than in the US. That said, if The Coffee Collective can do it, why can't Starbucks?

Speaking of Europe, that brings me back to their other big change, switching to Fairtrade, across their range, in the UK. There has been plenty written about Fairtrade and its branding, how it's not actually as fair as it makes out; the speciality industry has touted the direct trade and relationship coffee as viable alternatives, that give more, financially and technically, back to the producers. You can find articles on fair trade here, here and here, to name a few.

Unlike the Pike Place Roast and improvements in quality and freshness, the Fairtrade switch seems to be more marketing genius, than helping farmers. However that is only my speculation and in turn, my dilemma. The real effect of both these changes remain unseen. The important thing is, that no matter where we stand on the Fairtrade issue, we need to make sure that ethical buying is not to salve our own conscience, but is because we care about our fellow man.

My wife and I recently returned from a short break to Nice on the Cote D'azur (you have to love those cheap Ryanair flights) and I thought I should mention the copious amounts of coffee, drank on the trip. European, primarily Italian coffee holds a fabled place in the hearts of coffee aficionados, with good reason, with Italy being seen as the birthplace of the espresso and so on. Cafe culture in the south of France has a very similar feel to that of north Italy (random tour bus fact, Nice was the birthplace of the Italian unifier Garibaldi and almost became part of Italy). Walk into any cafe, restaurant, patisserie (of which there were many) and you will find a well used, sometimes quite rustic, espresso machine taking a pride of place on the counter. Asking for a coffee, in most of France or Italy, will get you a single shot espresso as standard (un café sil'vous plait,) which can be quite humorous when you see the looks on the faces of ignorant tourists who are expecting a full mug of filter. In a tourist hotspot like Nice this has the affect of the Barista second guessing your order, if they detect you are from out of town, pale skin and a bad accent being dead giveaways.

The espresso itself changes in taste and quality from shop to shop, as it does in the rest of the world, but overall was surprising good. As I mentioned above, shots are almost always singles, a rarity to find in the UK where most espresso is pulled as a double. Single shots can be tricky and are generally less forgiving than double or even triples and as such are shied away from. A single shot in a milk drink will also be very weak unless in a small (5-6 fl oz) cup, which are also rare to find in UK coffee, mostly because the public feel that a small size is because the shop owner is being tight instead of authentic. Because of the single shots I had expected to get some terrible coffee but it was obvious from the word go that the baristas here knew about coffee, knew how to make it and although relaxed in their nature, cared about what they were making, much as making a good pot of tea is part of a way of life for older generation in Britain.

I've read online, (if you know where please let me know) possibly at coffee geek, that European machines generally run at a different temperature and pressure than our machines, resulting in a difference in the shot. I'd be interested to hear any theories on european coffee and why we don't run our machines this way, as it seems to give a much more pleasant cup.

PS. I've made quite a generalisation above and omitted any details on beans and/or roast profiles, quite frankly because I don't have any. All I can say is that beans weren't as dark or as oily as I would have expected.

After working out I grabbed a cup of coffee from the Peet's stall in the hotel lobby, it wasn't great coffee but I was initially pleasantly surprised to see that the staff were undergoing retraining, right up to the point where I heard the trainer talking to the barista. This wasn't some young college kid, but an older Hispanic lady, who is very pleasant and upbeat, (although in Florida it's uncertain just how real the pleasantries really are). The trainer was a young well dressed White woman, whom I assume is from the local head office; I have ran, participated in and evaesdropped on enough Batista training sessions to know the way she was talking to this lady was in no way appropriate regardless of her competancy in making coffee. Talking down to and criticising someone to colleagues via the phone, infront of both the trainee herself and customers is wrong, there is nothing else to say about it. Hopefully she'll make it through the retraining and may I suggest the head office staff could do with some retraining on manners! Andrew

Coffee on the cheap,
originally uploaded by colonelgrib.

I know the title of this post sounds like a new Starbucks' special, but it's really about saving money (not buying in Starbucks would be a good start) :-) At the moment there seems to be a lot less money to go around. Does that mean a lot less money to spend on "unnecesary luxuries" like a good cup of coffee?

Not so, making good coffee doesn't have to cost the earth, use a lot of electricity on fancy equipment or even create a mess. When we take coffee brewing back to its most simple form, you not only save money but you might actually find it tastes better too!

The photo attached shows you everything you need for a simple cup of "pour over" coffee; standard kitchen funnel, filter paper (or a mesh filter from a home coffee machine), coffee in an air tight container and a mug, all you need to add is hot water.

For one cup of coffee all you need is a desert spoon's worth of coarsely ground coffee (remember to only grind what you need, or use fresh pre-ground), put the paper filter in the funnel, add coffee and pour in your hot water, stir the grounds and add hot water until there is enough in your cup an thats it!

And it doesn't end there, anything left in the filter can be poured down the sink, helping keep your drain clear (yes coffee grounds are actually good for your pipes!) and the filter paper can be added to you compost pile if you have one. So there you go, you get a nice cup of coffee, save money, time and effort and help the environment too, what better way to start the day?

Andrew

Reality is having it tough lately, be it Dalek invasions or backwards temporal ripples from the CERN LHC test next month, but the worst disturbance of all, is the disturbing of my reality caused by another coffee shop closure in Belfast.

According to this blog post Espresso Soul in Belfast, has ceased to trade. I'm not sure of the details but I can say that Espresso Soul offered some of the best coffee in Belfast and the only reason there is no review here is that their coffee was so good I only drank espresso, poured from their beautiful lever machine, they will be missed.

Regardless of Espresso Soul's situation, it is very increasingly hard to operate any sort of business based on quality and passion rather than quantity and making a fast buck.

Andrew

I use Google Alerts like some Batman-esque early warning system, any and every time a news article or blog post mentions the words "Coffee" AND/OR "Espresso" AND "Belfast" AND/OR "Northern Ireland" I get an email sent my way. It not a perfect system, but it does allow me to find random or obscure articles that I would not have found ordinarily. A side effect is that I tend to trigger my own alerts, the sentence above will make sure of that, I also get a lot from Phil :-)

This morning's Alert brought me an interesting article, from Trifter with this hilarious quote:

"I suppose we are taking our place among the sophisticated places of the world much in the same way that a ten year old girl tries out her mother's make-up. Refinement comes with age and experience, and at this stage we still have lipstick smeared from ear to ear."

Cappuccino City

Over the coming weeks I hope to serialise a talk I recently gave at BarCamp Belfast. In this way and without the time constraint I hope to develop each point fully.


The terms startup, venture capital, blog and podcast are familiar to all that are involved in the IT world and the online community that they have created. However to say that these things only apply to IT companies is akin to looking through a telescope. In a world not too far removed from that of IT, young men and women who dare to be different are bringing innovation, energy and ethics to a centuries old industry, the Speciality Coffee Industry.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be lifting the lid on the speciality coffee industry, showing you that its not just caffeine that drives us and how the IT and coffee worlds overlapping has brought innovation.

It's a sleepy Sunday afternoon for me, after BarCamp Belfast yesterday and the media team in Church this morning. Time I think to relax, catch up on some reading and enjoy my new sample roasts.

I've been really enjoying coffee from South America lately, especially from Guatemala and El Salvador. Guatemala Finca San Francisco Tecuamburro is a personal favourite and I've been trying several styles of roast to bring out the natural sweetness in these beans and after the cup (or three) I've just had, I think I'm nearly there

I remember, at least I think I remember, (it could have been on televison), a time when staff in a shop were there to help and assist you, even if they were only after a sale. Fast-forward to the brave new world we live in and you'll find the majority of shop staff are no longer there to help you or their company; take a look around, most shop staff are under enthused, spoilt teenagers, who are only there to fund their weekend binge drinking/smoking/drugs/child support payments and have no interest in what they do because they can easily move another cushy seemingly brainless job with ease.

I'm not knocking all teenagers, nor am I saying the jobs are brainless, but it does seem that there are a lot of them and they really don't care. Whether it was the girl in subway who was disgusted and refused to put mayo on a meatball sub, the staff in Burtons who won't help you find a product, or the cafe worker who refuses to make a cappuccino cooler, because "that's how the machine does it" you all know who you are! If you find yourself reading this, no I am not a grumpy old man, but just think how you'd like to be treated in a shop, that's how you should be treating others. It's an age old ideal, but is as relevant today as ever.

Andrew

AKA - I can’t cup to save my life (Although that would be an interesting situation to be in, all the same)
The weekend has come and gone and as promised I have the results of my “great experiment” which were slightly different than I expected; I discovered a complete inability to distinguish any flavours when cupping! I’m not panickng yet though, I have a very good sense of smell and taste and I find it very unlikely that this would happen, unless the taste was incredibly over/under powering, which would happen if my grind was incorrect.

Not to be defeated and not wanting to waste any more precious coffee, I moved to my espresso maker and set to work over-caffeinating my family. The result being that I ended up pulling drinks WBC style, in batches of four, both espresso and cappuccino and having three members of the family evaluate, based on body, flavour, sweetness, acidity etc. I drank the remaining drinks, so they wouldn’t go to waste

We sampled Coffee Collective’s Espresso Blend, Ristretto Coffee’s Espresso Blend, Has Bean’s El Salvador Finca La Siberia and my “Proletariat Blend.” In hindsight, I wish I’d ordered Has Bean’s Espresso Blend, to make this a fair test; the La Siberia is in a league of its own as far as I’m concerned, it’s a wonderful example of a single-origin espresso and stood out to all the family as something different, although some noted it may actually have been too sweet and bright for cappuccino.

I won’t get into specifics, although I know that’s what you all want, but I was pleased to find my blend could almost hold its own against the pros, even after roasting the Sumatran component too dark. No surprise that The Coffee Collective came out on top, these guys have created a wonderfully balanced and sweet blend that lends itself to milk drinks. Ristretto are locally based and are making serious inroads into the stagnant Northern Ireland coffee industry, their blend itself is very Northern Irish, quite a heavy body with a touch of sweetness, its much closer to the expected “coffee taste” than something like the La Siberia. My blend, needs work, that’s the main point of this test. I feel the proportions are right and the choice to halve the Monsooned Malabar a few months back has allowed the fruity flavours in the other beans to come through, its also quite well balanced as a straight espresso. In the next few weeks, look out for part 3, where I’ll be running the same test on some high end commercial machines to see the difference in taste.

Andrew

Not just confused, but kinda dirty too. Why? Because I’ve just been in Starbucks and I really enjoyed it!

I popped in to the new Victoria Square store to make use of their wifi for wedding planning purposes, ordered my usual small cappuccino, not too hot. I made a point to ask them not to heat the milk too high as opposed to adding cold milk and to my surprised they had no problem sticking it to the man, so to speak. The result? A not half bad cup of coffee! (My Victoria Square review is still a work in progress so this is not a review.) Not only was the coffee good but they were some of the most friendly and talkative (in a good way) coffee shop staff I have met in a long time.

It’s such a good location too, lovely view, plenty if comfy seats, open wifi from somewhere nearby as well as their own t-mobile wifi and late openings. I have to say I really enjoyed myself and I’ve came to a shocking realisation of just how big a snob I am. Which makes it even more pleasing to find such gems in the rough. I for one will be back. (Until Clement’s start opening their York Street store late, that is)