RoastMonkey

There has been an amazing effort in the specialty coffee community to avoid publicly criticizing coffee roasters or shops. I can't exactly say why, although clearly the community has taken a very cooperative approach to raise the level of discussion around coffee, but in the coffee world no one ever wants to public criticize anyone's coffee (there is plenty of backstabbing behind closed doors, of course). You will find extensive reviews of individual beans from roasters on coffeereview.com, but they only publish reviews of the coffee they like. The only recognized authority in the field I have ever heard critically review individual roasters is Willem Boot, but only on his web site which is accessible to paying members. I think tastings are a great way to suss out the roast profile of individual roasters. Having the ability to try multiple coffees side-by-side from an individual roaster can help appreciate that particular roasters pallet. Eater DC just published a list, including Qualia, where you can attend tastings: http://dc.eater.com/maps/spots-for-coffee-tasting-cupping I think this should be an ongoing discussion and we have been looking for ways to encourage our customers to provide us with more feedback on the beans. Our mail-order website has the option of leaving reviews for individual offerings. No one has so far.

I haven't made it to Grace Street yet, but my roaster tried it and liked their coffee. All due respect, but the phrase "over roasted" represents a misunderstanding of the roasting process. Roasting coffee for brewing is the process of heating the beans until the majority of the moisture content is released and they become friable (easily broken apart or crumbled). So, coffee is either roasted or it's not. Calling a coffee over roasted suggest there is only one right way to roast coffee. How coffee is roasted is really a matter of personal taste. The way I have come to think of it is that each roaster (referring to both machine and man or woman) has a signature profile which is largely seen in the broad strokes of the flavor palette, namely the balance of acidity and body. If the roaster is sophisticated, within that palette they will also paint a more detail portrait of the delicate aromatic and other flavor compounds. In terms of signatures, I personally find a lot of third wave roasters, such as Counter Culture and Ceremony, focus on the organic acids almost to the exclusion of other types of flavor compounds such as sugar, protein, glutemate and fat. This makes sense because there are dozens of organic acids that form in the roasting process and highlighting them offers a lot of distinction in good quality beans. However, my personal preference is for a roast profile that balances these organic acids with the other flavor compounds that form in the roasting process. I see this as something of a middle road between the dark roasting that used to be so prevalent, necessitated by the combination of low-quality beans and extended production chains, and third wave roasting, a knee-jerk reaction to those burnt beans and enabled by huge advances on the agricutlural side. In my more cynical moments, I tend to believe that these latter two approaches are less about flavor and more about shelf life. While obviously I find our approach to roasting the most appealing from a flavor perspective, the logistics of Qualia were built entirely around delivering our beans within three days of roasting so customers can use them at their peak, between three to eight days of roasting. We can do this because we sell our coffee retail only. If we were selling our coffee for wholesale, I cannot imagine how we would continue to approach the roasting process the way we do. Once shelf-life enters the equations, you have to make adjustments to the roasting process that necessarily sacrifices compexity for consistency, just as is true for any form of fresh produce.

Happy to announce that I am deep in the planning stages for our second location. It has been a long road to get here, having just celebrated our 7th anniversary in Petworth, but the time has given me a lot of opportunity to think about the design and approach to the coffee shop. We will continue to do all of our roasting at the current location. The second location will operate purely as a coffee shop, serving coffee in all forms along with a menu of locally sourced baked goods. We won't be doing any food prep on site. However, we will be challenge some of the traditional coffee shop conventions with a more open, more customer service-focused counter design and innovative offerings that highlight the depth and breath of our single-origin coffee sourcing. The new location will be housed at the Gale, a residential complex in Eckington, NE DC. The neighborhood offers a healthy balance of both commercial and residential buildings which should keep the shop relatively busy throughout the day without ever being packed. Given that we won't be preparing food on site, seating will be minimal and wifi won't be offered (I can't imagine any new coffee shop opening with free wifi in the future). Joel

I just noticed that Drift was listed as "Permanently Closed" on Google listing. I reported it to Google that this is incorrect, but Ferhat, you might want to claim listing to speed up the correction. Joel <--- This is wrong

All the prices are posted on our web site here. The subscription is $50.50 a month and includes a shipment of two 10 oz bags every two weeks (12 payments/yr for 26 shipments/yr). We chose the 10 oz size (20 oz per shipment) with the hope that people wouldn't end up with a backlog of coffee, finding themselves in the situation of trying to finish their previous shipment while the new one gets less fresh. For the subscriptions, we ship the same day it is roasted, but it a roasters selection of beans and there is not currently an espresso-specific option. All of our current offerings are also available by mail order a la cart, mostly at $12 or $13 per 12oz bag. We ship everything within one day of roast. We can ship two bags for $5.70. Ordering more doesn't bring the shipping cost down. In terms of espresso options, are inventory changes constantly. If you want recommendations please just PM me when you are ready to order. I should note that our roast style is different than Blue Bottle. We don't roast darker, but we roast longer. Like other specialty roasters, our goal is to bring out as much of the complexity and individuality of each coffee we source, but to my taste, other roasters emphasize acidity at the cost of body and we have tried to find a different balance of flavors.