RoastMonkey

I offer twice monthly coffee tastings the second and fourth Sunday of every month starting promptly at 2pm. Just to clarify, these are not cuppings, which are a more specialized procedure used within the industry. Although we apply some of the techniques of a cupping to our tastings, what we offer is more akin to a wine tasting in which you are trying several different coffees at the same time, giving you an opportunity to compare and contrast them. It's also an opportunity to ask any questions you might have about the origin, processing, roasting and brewing of coffee. There are a few more details on our web site here: http://goo.gl/Mqhfei Joel

Give me a shout if you would be interested in having some locally roasted coffee represented. Joel

This listing is also available on our web site. I have updated to clarify some confusion about what the internship involved and the paid position we are looking to fill. Here is the updated listing: At Qualia, we adhere to the philosophy that coffee should be treated like fresh produce. When roasted properly, coffee peaks in flavor between three and five days after being roasted. After nine or ten days, the coffee’s natural flavors begin to rapidly dissipate. Due to these factors, we sell all our coffee directly to the end-user to ensure they get it within this short freshness window. Unlike other coffee roasters, we are not forced to compromise the roasting process to extend the shelf life or impose artificial consistency on our coffee. We seek only to bring out the natural complexity and richness of each of our carefully sourced single-origin coffees. We are currently seeking roasting interns to train under our owner and roastmaster. This is an unpaid internship, but not free labor. You will receive a comprehensive coffee education, including lectures and tasting sessions in addition to an hour or two of roaster training. The coffee you roast will not be sold to customers. You will also have access to a copious amount of free coffee. The purpose of the internship is to both educate participants as well as to serve as a talent search. At the end of the internship, which will last approximately eight hours spread over several sessions, one or two interns will be offered paid part-time roasting positions to start. Because interns will be eligible for a paid position, applicants should: Have a deep and abiding interest in coffee as a natural product. Be available to work at least 3 days a week. including some weekends. Be willing to commit at least one year to working for the company (PT or FT) Be diligent, patient, focused and have an eye for detail. Please email us at QualiaCoffee@gmail.com to arrange an interview. In your message, let us know how you meet the above criteria.

Qualia Coffee is home to Fresh Off the Roast, a small-batch coffee roaster with a unique philosophy: that coffee should be treated like fresh produce. When roasted properly, coffee peaks in flavor between three and five days after being roasted. After nine or ten days, the coffee's natural flavors begin to rapidly dissipate. Due to these factors, we sell all our coffee directly to customers to ensure they get it within this short freshness window. Unlike other coffee roasters, we are not forced to compromise the roasting process to extend the shelf life or impose artificial consistency on our coffee. We seek only to bring out the natural complexity and richness of each of our carefully sourced single-origin coffees. We are currently seeking roasting interns to train under our owner and roastmaster. This is an unpaid internship, but not free labor. The coffee you roast will not be sold customers. You will also have access to a copious amount of free coffee, as well. The purpose of the internship is to both educate participants as well as to serve as a talent search. One or two interns will be offered a part-time roasting position. Applicants should: Have a deep and abiding interest in coffee as a natural product. Be available to work at least 3 days a week. including some weekends. Be willing to commit at least one year to working for the company. Be diligent, patient, focused and have an eye for detail. Please direct message us through DR.com to arrange an interview.

We keep a sample and detailed roast log of every batches, so I can state with some certainty that the beans weren't over roasted. It's much likely that the shot was over extracted, which would make it taste very bitter and sour. This can happen pretty easily if the barista is distracted for even a few seconds. If someone has a bad experience at Qualia, I would love to hear about it then and there, when we have the opportunity to fix it. We do make mistakes and coffee is a fickle mistress. Joel

We get all our coffee from importers, although some of our importers are the growers themselves. There are wholesalers, but that would just add another layer of middlemen. We do lean on our importers to develop good relationships in the countries. The logistics of importing coffee are enormously cumbersome and not something I would look to wade into any time soon. Joel

I actually have two very different answers to this. If you want a coffee that will be commonly available across different roasters, your best bet is an Ethiopian, a Yirgacheffe or Sidamo, or a Brazil Mogiana or Cerrado. Those would offer a nice generic basis for comparison and are often available year round. But, if I want to really know how good a roasters is, I would probably look for the coffee they offer with the most biographic information. The more specific details you have about where the beans come from and how it is processed, the more origin character or unique terrior it should have. If they offer a coffee from a specific small farm that has been lovingly cultivated by a dedicated and experienced grower, the coffee should be bursting with flavor and complexity. Joel

Strictly speaking, espresso is a brewing method and does not refer to any specific bean or roast. Any coffee can be brewed on an espresso machine, whether it works palate wise is another matter. My preferred brewing method for judging coffee is the hand-poured drip method. I think there is a strong argument as well for French press. A vacpot is absolutely the best, but even I have a hard time pulling that one off on a regular basis. I know a lot of people like a dark roast, but for me, you lose too much of the natural flavor of the coffee. I think a good roast is invisible, that is to say you taste the coffee not the roasting process. I roast as light as a bean will allow. Unfortunately I think some people may have been turned off by light roasts that were handled poorly and ended up tasting overly woody, astringent or sour.

Qualia is two blocks from Petworth-GA Ave Metro station and on two bus lines. No need to drive. Petworth is also home to the only Scandanavian restaurant in DC, as well as Chez Billy, which has recently received a very favorable review from Tom Siestma.

Arabica and Robusta are different species. Within Arabica, there are dozens of different varietals, including Bourbon, Caturra, Maragogype, SL28, etc. Most farms cultivate several different varietals of coffee trees, although you will find many examples of single-varietal beans which may or may not be from a single farm. This is where things get really interesting. We currently feature two micro-lots from Nicaragua, one is from a small farm that has 12 different varietals of coffee tree growing on it and the other is a single varietal (Java varietal imported from Indonesia) from several different farms. Each is distinctive. In terms of espresso being an indicator of good coffee, that has not been my experience. I have been to plenty of good coffee shops that could make a mean espresso, but couldn't produce a decent cup of coffee. Unfortunately, I have found that much of the barista culture revolves more around the ability to make a pretty latte than knowing much about the beans themselves or about brewing methods than espresso. Joel

Okay...deep breath in....Let me just start off by saying that the vast majority of people have never had fresh roasted coffee. It's simply a fact of the market that most roasters are of a scale that it takes them a week or more before they can get their coffee on the shelf and into consumers' homes. By that point, you have already missed the peak flavor of the coffee. Personally, I don't drink coffee that was roasted more than 9 or 10 days earlier, but coffee can retain some origin character up to three weeks after roasting. Still a lot of coffee sits on the shelf for much longer than that. This is why at Qualia we sell all of our beans within three days of roasting them. If you have truly fresh, expertly roasted coffee, then origin, varietal, harvest are everything. They truly define the flavor of the coffee and it is far more complex and interesting than you can imagine. Coffee beans contain more than 400 hundred flavor compounds, but they are highly volatile and easily destroyed when not properly handled or when allowed to stale. What most people think of as the flavor of coffee is actually imparted by the roasting process, a carbonization of coffee oils and sugars. Many roasters prefer to focus on this roast flavor because it is far more durable than coffee's naturally flavors. Lastly, when I talk about coffee, I'm talking about brewed coffee, not espresso. I am of the opinion that brewed coffee has largely gone unappreciated by the food community. Simply put, espresso is one way to brew coffee, but it is inflexible and doesn't work well with all beans. You cannot really appreciate the wide variety that coffee offers if your baseline is espresso.

On the issue of both restaurant coffee and farmers market roasters I intend to remain an unrepentant pest, but I seem to have little sway on either group. I occasionally head down to Dupont Circle on Sunday mornings and hand out free samples in an effort to encourage the market's customers to avail the management to admit coffee vendors. Ultimately, I think it will be you, the customers, who have to convince industry that it is in their best interest to up their game. Joel

Is it a cupping or a tasting, because they are two very different things. I generally don't encourage folks to cup as a way to learn about new coffee. The technique for cupping is somewhat involved and takes at least several session to master enough to actually start appreciating the coffee itself. However, a tasting in which you have an opportunity to try several different coffees at the same time is much more valuable for those trying to develop their knowledge of coffee.

I remember when you could go to Yelp.com for useful reviews of local businesses and services. Pretty much any business, small or large, had member reviews that were relatively fair and helpful. Even some city services were reviewed. Back then I would have happily given the site my five stars. But then Yelp decided social media was the way to build traffic and set up a system to have their members compete for status. First posting more reviews was enough, but soon folks were encouraged to write more entertaining reviews, funnier reviews and ultimately snarkier reviews. Members who didn't post enough, got dropped from listings (although they couldn't tell that because when they looked at a listing they would still see their own reviews). In this slow, steady slide toward mediocrity, it became less and less useful as a source of local reviews and increasingly fertile soil for trolling. While social media may be a great way to build traffic, generating a revenue stream from it is a lot harder, so Yelp chose to target the small businesses that were the very fabric of their content. Rather than add value for small businesses, Yelp hatched a sort of protection scheme in which businesses were offered "sponsors" status to keep Yelp from placing ads for their competition at the top of their listing. This did little more than piss off business owners (i.e. multiple law suits) and didn't really offer any added value to the advertising effect they were already getting from the web site. Ultimately, Yelp has evolved into a below average social media portal and, in the process, seriously undermined it's credibility as a source of fair and reasoned reviews of local businesses. I used to come to Yelp if I wanted qualitative information about a business, now I might go there if I want to find out what hours they are open. Yelp, get back to basics, Focus on encouraging your members to post reviews that are more helpful and less hurtful. Figure out how to help small businesses thrive independently and not on the backs of their competition; believe it or not, small businesses don't won't to succeed at the cost of other small businesses. For now, I give Yelp.com One Star. Did you find this review helpful?

I'm going to lead several coffee lecture and tasting sessions at LivingSocial's 918 F St facility this month. The intent of the lecture is to give folks a comprehensive overview that will make them more informed consumers. It will cover everything from farming to brewing coffee and will include a guided tasting to introduce people to some of the concepts professionals use to distinguish different coffees. You can sign up here: https://www.livingso...h-qualia-coffee If you are interested in the subject, but won't be able to make it out for the classes, I also have a lot of information and tips on my blog here: http://cuppajoel.wordpress.com Joel

We had to install a new air conditioning system and things have not gone smoothly. We are waiting on a part from the manufacture and with any luck should have it up and running by this weekend. Joel

Rasheed and I are scheduled to be on Kojo Show tomorrow (Wednesday 5/23) from 1 to 2 to discuss wifi policies and coffee-related topics. For broader discussion of coffeehouse wifi policies, Washington City Paper also recently did an article: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2012/05/16/wi-fried/ Joel

These are the best frozen pizzas, end of conversation: http://vicolopizza.com/ When I can find them, which is no easy task, I get the crusts and make my own sauce and toppings.

Actually, I believe 3LP is already in touch with FreshFarms and expects to be selling at one or more of their markets. I went down to Dupont Circle last Sunday to hand our free samples. One of the market managers stopped by to chat and take several samples. While I remain skeptical that they will change their tune any time soon, I feel like maybe there has been some progress in breaking through their resistance a little. Joel

A selection of coffee beans will be available for sale at 3 Little Pigs starting this weekend. Joel

The reporter who wrote that article popped in today to pick up his weekly supply of beans (he has become something of a regular since interviewing me). I asked him about the letter. Apparently, the letters and comments (several of which were really ugly) in response to Post articles tend toward the vitriolic. It seems those are the people who feel compelled to write in, so the editors perhaps feel they reflect the majority view. BTW, I will be at the Dupont Circle Farmers' Market tomorrow morning handing out free samples of beans. It's a bit of guerrilla marketing I like to do ever so often to make their customers aware that the market doesn't allow coffee roasters. So, if you see me there, throw me the DR.com secret handshake (there is a secret handshake, right?) Joel

It has always been my impression that the folks who run these markets have a somewhat rudimentary understanding of the coffee business. From my perspective, there is a significant value in having coffee locally roasted. Coffee is fresh produce and should be treated as perishable. At my shop, we sell all of our beans to the end user within three days of roasting. We don't sell any coffee to grocery stores because we cannot guarantee that the beans won't be sold after their freshness window. I would love to be at more farmers' market because they offer a short window of opportunity. It's like the guy who brings his spinach that was picked that morning, knowing it will wilt within a few days, but also knowing how great it tastes at the peak of freshness. You can always choose to go to the supermarket for the stuff in the bag that magically stays crisp for two weeks, even if it never really tastes like anything. Similarly, the economics of wholesale coffee roasting necessitate convincing people that the beans have a long shelf life. Unfortunately, that myth is pervasive enough that most people have never even had the opportunity to taste really fresh coffee. Anyway, that is the argument I would make to the farmers' markets, if I didn't get shut down almost immediately every time I tried to have a conversation with them about it.

I just spied a bottle of "Shackleton" Whiskey at the local liquor store. I am sorely tempted to buy it, but how do I justify dropping $160 on a rare, but likely overpriced tipple. Seriously, not being rhetorical here, help me justify it.

The thought has crossed my mind, although I generally eschew a retail relationship, where I can't guarantee the coffee won't sit on the shelf more than three days. However, 3LP is about a mile up the street from the shop, but just blocks from my house, so might be manageable.