RoastMonkey

That was fast. Let the vultures descend.

This is happening later this month. You can get more info and purchase tickets here. I will be brewing coffee to accompany all the great food. Come out and support this wonderful effort. Here's a blurb: "Hosted in our nation's capital, an epicenter of world cuisine, over 20 of our nation's best chefs will team up to prepare ethnically inspired small bites for over 200 guests onThursday, April 24th. Chefs use Common Threads' core after-school program, Cooking Skills & World Cuisine, as their inspiration. Each week in the program, our students "travel" with their imaginations to a different country far outside their neighborhoods, by learning about and preparing healthy recipes indigenous to that specific country."

Anyone attended a Whiskey Guild tasting event before? Anyone attending this one in October? Whisky Tasting and Dinner Event Join The Whisky Guild as we gather to sample, celebrate and showcase the world's finest whiskies. Distillers, brand ambassadors, and masters of whisky will be in attendance to guide you through sampling from close to 100 different spirits. With your ticket purchase, you will receive admittance to the event, a world-renown Glencairn tasting glass, gourmet buffet dinner and the opportunity to attend a special Master Class hosted by the most gifted people in the whisky industry. Come sample new whiskies, or rediscover an old favorite, all while enjoying breathtaking views of the Potomac River! New whisky enthusiasts and connoisseurs alike will enjoy this fantastic event!

I'm confused how this got posted as a separate thread (and where the title came from). I originally posted it in the thread labeled Independent Coffee Houses.

Just in case anyone was under the impression that running a cafe is easy or straightforward, an interesting behind-the-scenes look at Big Chair in Anacostia: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/2014/02/16/eedd1496-9022-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html Also note that Nurish, the new cafe from Kera Carpenter (Domku) recently opened in the Anacostia Arts Center. https://www.facebook.com/NURISHDC

I recently spent a few days in Seattle and with the help of a relatively functional bus system, managed to get to a dozen coffee shops while there. My preference is for brewed coffee and will always pick from brewed-to-order options when available. My experience in Seattle was not that different from what I have grown accustomed to in DC, which is that most places offer a very limited menu of single-origin brews and focus most of their energy on espresso based drinks. I also find that a lot of specialty roasters hue to a profile that highlights acidity at the expense of complexity. The thing I find especially problematic about these roasts is the lack of body in the cup. That said, I did find a few good cups in Seattle. Here is a rundown of the places I visited: Lighthouse Roasters. Roasts own on site. Besides espresso drinks, they only offered a house coffee that appeared to be brewed in French presses than poured into an airpot. It was fairly stale and flavorless. Fremont Coffee Roasters, roasts own off site. Again only bulk brews available in two varieties House Blend and a single-origin French roast. Got an espresso, which was overly tart. Milstead & Co, sources from a revolving menu of roasters, brewed to order on Aeropresses Bows&Arrows, Rwanda. Average, lots of acidity with mild floral notes, little else Heart, Colombia, Average, lots of woody acidity, mild florals Wrecking Ball, Sulawesi, more robust, a tad too roasted, but some pleasant chocolate, earth notes Caffe Vita, roasts own off site House coffee, no brewed-to-order options, which is a shame since they had some interesting beans. The house coffee was a dark roast (though not super dark) Congo It was bitter and lacked any of the fruit complexity I am accustomed to in this origin. Slate Coffee Roasters, roasts own off site Beehive, Brazil, super light, mild florals, some misleading aromatics Ethiopia Indido, modest fruit at temperature, quickly faded as cooled Vif, (a wine bar really), Olympia Roasters, Kalita brewer, Rwanda, lots of acidity, muted florals Neptune Coffee, multi-roaster Hand pour, Ecuador Taza Dorado 2012, lot 9, Velton Roasters, great body and balance w/lots of choc and berry notes House, Mexico Nyarita dry process, big jammy fruit at temperature which turned sour on cooling. Broadcast Coffee, multi-roaster, sort of, Slate for brewed & others for espresso Kenya, lots of acidity, tinged with bitterness. Vivace, roasts own off site. Espresso only. Smooth, nicely presented, but oversized and uninteresting macchiato. Analog Coffee, Herkimer Roasters Colombia, poorly roasted and stale. Spot is hip in the worst way possible. Think vinyl-based audio set-up and too cool for u 'tude. If there was one place I would actively discourage people from wasting their time visiting, it is this one. Trabant, Kumi Roasters Clover brewer (looked ancient and produced a very muddy cup of coffee) Ethiopia Natural, big acidity with distinct berry, turning sour on cooling Guatemala, roast-imparted brightness, but some cocoa and spice notes too. Victrola Roasters, roasts own on site Hand pour, Kenya, uninspiring, little flavor or body

Reading back through this thread, there are a few points worth explaining, especially in reference to some of saf's comments: First of all, one misnomer I would love to quash is that lattes are synonymous with coffee. This is not to imply that lattes are somehow inferior, but saying "coffee" when you mean a "latte" is just inaccurate. I think of lattes as a coffee-based cocktail. To make an analogy, a Manhattan is not bourbon. Secondly, while there is not really a standard size for lattes, most boutique shops weigh in at 6-8oz in an attempt to find the right balance of milk and coffee. We have a "12oz latte" on our menu and generally offer a triple shot to maintain the ratios, but only a handful of folks take us up on that. At 12oz, you have five times as much milk as coffee, so there isn't a whole lot of coffee flavor. In this context, a dark roast makes more sense since the flavor is prominent, if one-dimensional, but as mentioned in one of my earlier post, really what you are tasting is the roasting process and not the natural flavor of the bean, which to me personally is way more interesting. Lastly, milk steaming is a true skill that when done correctly perfectly sweetens and texturizes the milk. There is very narrow temperature range for achieving this result, between 145 and 150 degrees. Above 150 degrees, proteins start to break down diminishing both sweetness and microfoam. Take it much above 160 degrees and you scald the milk. This is why we serve our lattes the way we do, but that's not to say that people can't enjoy their drinks prepared differently. If someone requests an extra hot 12oz latte, that is exactly what we strive to serve them.

Tim Carman has a great series of articles in today's Post about coffee brewing (and the obsession that it can sometimes provoke).

A glass-lined vacuum flask (A.K.A. thermos which is actually a brand name) has better thermal properties and is easier to keep clean, but they are bulkier and much easier to break. The best option I have found are the Zojirushi thermal flasks. They have amazing heat retention, are durable and although steel, have a teflon inner lining that protect against the metallic off-taste of unlined S/S.

Eagle Rare is my cabinet staple. It's a readily available, 10-year, single barrel for under $30. I can't think of any reason I wouldn't have a bottle on hand. I also really like the Evan Williams Single Barrel and Henry McKenna Single Barrel when I can find them. See a trend here? I can enjoy a good blend, but have never found them as satisfying as single barrel whiskeys. In that way whiskey is very much like my other beverage of choice, coffee. Always go for the single-origin over a blend.

Can't disagree more. Traditionally, chocolate makers bought processed cocoa butter and made their bars from that. The amount of complexity you lose in that drawn-out production chain is huge. A bean-to-bar chocolate maker has to roast the cocao, crack it, winnow it, then turn into cocao butter before mixing it with sugar and form it into bars. Try a fresh, bean-to-bar chocolate bar and I defy you not to notice an immediate difference. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO22DScPvTs

Potomac Chocolate is a local (Woodbridge, VA), artisan bean-to-bar chocolate maker that receives national accolades. We sell them through the Winter and the bars are available at most of DC chocolate shops.

The coffee brewing class is set for January 11 and will be at CulinAerie. If interested in attending, you can sign up here: https://www.culinaerie.com/reserve.php?type=m&machid=&start_date=&resid=sc15283c8ac41795&scheduleid=sc14873d577f22a7&is_blackout=0&read_only=&pending=&starttime=&endtime=&showReserve=1&seatsAvail=16 Thanks Joel

Thanks for the info. It really is a great bargain whiskey. I still prefer a bottle of Eagle Rare or Evan Williams Single Barrel, the latter when I can find it, but both of those are twice the price of VOB.

I concur. I was in a week or two ago and got some great whiskey recommendations, including Very Old Barton (a bargain bottle I had stopped looking for after not being able to find it anywhere in the area) and Ouroboros, an American peated single malt whiskey. On previous visits I have also been pointed to great selections like Four Roses single barrel and Henry McKenna single barrel. By far the best selection and most knowledge in DC Metro.

Riffing on the "what is good coffee" notion, it occurs to me how subjective taste really is. For those of who don't already know this, "qualia" is a philosophical concept that, to sum it up as succinctly as possible, refers to the indescribable experience of the senses. I can appreciate a good dark roasted coffee, but generally prefer something lighter due to the fact that you taste more of the coffee and less of the roast. Coffee beans have more than 400 flavor compounds, and in my opinion, a good roast highlights that complexity instead of masking it. Again as a matter of taste, I don't really enjoy much of the light-roasted coffee from specialty wholesale roasters who, in my professional opinion, roast their coffee too fast. While this enhances the acidity or brightness of the coffee, in my experience, it doesn't allow for full flavor development while again imparting a flavor from the roasting process. The cynic in me believes that some roasters have actively cultivated a taste for this flavor profile because it gives the beans more shelf life than coffee roasted to bring out a fuller profile. But ultimately, I just don't enjoy that taste, and it a wholly subjective assessment based on my own palate. I know many other people do like it. I think good coffee is in the taste buds of the drinker, to paraphrase an old saying. But I will happy cede consistency to the chains. When coffee is good, it is really fucking good. If the coffee you are drinking doesn't, even occasionally, blow you away, you need to drink different coffee.

I really want to do another coffee classes, this time focused more on better brewing at home. The last one I did, with Living Social, went fairly well, but LS is laser targeted on a very specific demographic and I was hoping to hit a wider mark with the next one. Does anyone know of a similar service that hosts cooking classes I could approach? I'd like to do it in a demo kitchen to make it as practical as possible.

Hey All, I am just catching up on this thread. My only comment would be that while we believe our espresso program is very competitive with other top coffee shops in the city, our focus is and always has been on brewed coffee. I feel that this is the best way to highlight both the natural product and the wide spectrum of flavors it exhibits. I think I can safely say we are the only shop in the DC Metro area that offers twelve different origins all of which have been roasted within a week of when we serve it (we sell all our beans within three days of roasting them or take them off the shelf). I enjoy a good latte as much as the next guy, but the real joy for me is savoring a good cup of black coffee.

From a professional perspective, I wish more customers would complain when they get a bad cup of coffee rather than just fixing it with lots of cream and sugar. I know that we work really hard to produce a consistently good product, but there are too many variables for us to hit 100%. As nicely as possible, I try to tell other coffee shops when I have a bad experience. If they quality control in place, it can only help them improve. I rarely order coffee at restaurants because I know all the red flags. I am always tempted to order one anyway, but I am usually dining with the GF and she gets a bit upset with me for ordering something I know is going to be bad. BTW, I recently had a cup at the end of my meal at Woodberry Kitchen and found it pretty underwhelming, not bad, just largely flavorless. I don't think it is a problem with the preparation, just that I find Counter Culture's roasting style to emphasize acidity over depth and body. As I have told darkstar before, my belief is that this is more designed to impart consistency and shelf life than to explore the natural flavor of the coffee. I have unfortunately heard too many CC clients tell me they want their coffee to taste "tea like" (I have to wonder what they expect their tea to taste like, maybe water). In my opinion, many of the wholesale specialty roasters lean this way, including Ceremony, which I find a little more palatable than CC, but often with an unevenly balanced flavor profile. This is all, of course, in reference to black coffee. I am guessing WK does a brisk business in espresso based milk drinks (they had an extensive list of latte variants, but only one caffeinated single-origin brewed coffee option) to support their coffee program, but I don't really consider 2ozs of espresso drowned in milk, no matter how pretty the latte art is, the mark of quality coffee (pardon the pun).

I have to disagree with you here. We source our baked goods from some of the city's top talent including Paisley Fig, Whisked and Thunder Pig. We bake it on site, throughout the day as needed for optimum freshness. Don't know when the last time you had a scone here, but I think our baked goods are very competitive and a great complement to our coffee.

We are happy to report that, thanks to this posting, Adam Litchfield has signed on as our new roaster-in-training. Adam comes to us with an impressive list of accomplishments, most recently creating a menu for Cause philanthropub. He also developed a bread program for Green Pig Bistro's launch and flipped pizzas beside Edan MacQuaid. Beyond his clear appreciation for food and cooking, Adam has a voracious curiosity for knowledge and understanding about the elements of flavor. We know that Adam will make a valuable contribution to our roasting program.

Many people know Qualia Coffee as one of the best coffee shops in DC, but it is also the home of Fresh Off the Roast, a boutique-scale roasting label with ambitions of national stature. At Fresh Off the Roast, we have one of the most technically advanced store-front roasting operations in the country with a laser focus on the quality and freshness of our beans. We also source distinctive single-origin coffees from around the world, offering a dozen or more varieties at a time. We sell all of our beans within three days of roast and all our brewed coffee within one week of roast. We are looking for a roasting apprentice who will be able to work 4-5 days a week to learn the art and science of roasting. Candidates should have a passion for their work, the curiosity to learn new things, the malleability to take direction and the attention span to focus on one task at a time. Formal coffee experience is not necessary, but a love of coffee is. The Details: This is a salaried position with room for advancement as our company grows. We roast 7 days a week, 364 days a year, so weekday and weekend shifts will be required. To apply, please email joel-at-freshofftheroast.com, including a brief description of yourself, your experience or background, your availability and any other information you deem relevant. We ask that you make at least a one-year commitment to work for us.

I am actually pretty excited about this. We put in two sessions picking the pairings for this event, and once I came down from the sugar and caffeine high, I was pleasantly surprised by the interplay of flavors we were able to achieve. Here is the event announcement: https://www.facebook.com/events/159594040901626/ Joel

Sunday, August 25th will be a special tasting featuring coffee from Haiti as well as a question and answer session with the young men who have been working with the farmers to bring this excellent coffee to us. Haitian coffee has the potential to be as good as if not better than some of the more popular and expensive island coffee such as Kona or Jamaica Blue Mountain. In fact, the Blue Mountain varietal that Jamaica is so well known for was originally planted in Haiti before being imported to Jamaica. Unfortunately, the lack of investment and infrastructure in Haiti has meant that not much Haitian coffee makes it out of the country and what little does is funneled through the Dominican Republic, where most of the profit on the beans goes to middle men. Our importer, Cafe Kreyol, is working to change this by ensuring the provinence of the coffee as well as a fair wage for the growers.

No need to register. Just show up with your taste buds ready to be tantalized. We do ask that people come promptly between 2 and 2:30 as the flavor of the coffee starts to fade by thirty minutes after brewing.