First Crack Media

Previously, I discussed why I see CPAS as an event which presents value for anyone working on the retail end of coffee, and how we can think of that value in a meaningful way. That post is here.

My personal experience with Camp Pull-a-Shot (and BGA programming more generally) in the past has been largely one of skepticism; Living in the northeast, I was a dues-paying member, I personally bought into the mission and future of the BGA, but it was mostly through a desire to invest in the long vision of the Guild – after all, the programming was predominantly offered in places that your workaday barista would find geographically or financially inaccessible, and while the Certifications and educational programs were visible and exciting, it was hard to find a value in them outside of personal satisfaction.

That being said, spending time at CPAS, along with the discussions I had there and elsewhere, I think I am starting to get it. The Barista Guild is an organization truly in its infancy, and any apparent regional shortfalls are due not to intentional favoritism, but rather simply to scarce resources; there are only so many instructors, there are only so many regional representatives. The idea which I had failed to grasp before seems now as plain as the nose on my face; the BGA exists to serve its members. There are very, very few members working in the northeast, so why would a young organization spend its limited resources holding events there? Far better to fulfill and grow areas where there already exists a dedicated base of dues-paying members.

This creates a sort of recruitment Catch-22: we must try to recruit using the equation that more members leads to more programming, avoiding the troublesome fact that there is not yet much of that programming available. We in this region are lucky in that the SCAA Event will be in Boston this year, which is an easy, immediate, and visible example of a way in which BGA membership can be beneficial.

This all ties into the single suggestion I would offer for future organizers of the Camp Pull-a-Shot events. In a very real sense, the folks attending these excellent weeklong retreats are the future leaders of our industry, and likely at the forefront of the coffee scene in their respective hometowns. In recognition of this fact, I would love to see some programming directed toward helping these enthusiasts become organizers.

We could do much both to grow the Guild and grow pockets of progressive coffee passion by creating a toolbox that can be taken home, a guide to putting together throwdowns and hang sessions. This is already happening in Providence and Boston and elsewhere; if we can take the passion that already exists in CPAS attendees and offer them ways to direct it into building a community at home, then we plant the seeds for true leadership. As we grow our memberships ability to organize at home, the better we will be able to extend the reach and resources of the Guild at large. If we could offer a session or two of organizer training alongside the trainings on coffee preparation and production, it would go a long way to invest in our future leaders.

Camp Pull-a-Shot had its first East Coast incarnation earlier this year, and I was lucky enough to be in attendance. It was a valuable experience, and I think it is the kind of experience whose value can be different for different folks in attendance. I want to talk a little about what makes the Camp experience so awesome, I want to talk a little about how it manages to present a diverse array of value, and I want to talk about ways in which it could maybe even be improved.

First, the best thing about Camp Pull-a-Shot, and what I also find to be the crowning achievement of the vast majority of coffee events, be it local throwdowns or the USBC, is the immediate access and admission into the community, and the huge excitement boost that provides. It is easy to lose enthusiasm when you feel like progressive coffee is something you’re experiencing through blogs and Instagram; something someone else is doing, something that is happening somewhere out there. Going to CPAS is a game-changer in this way; you come to see that not only are you not on your own, but it becomes clear that the vast majority of coffee people are living in that same state, pushing the envelope in suburbs and small towns across the country. Working to prove our legitimacy is the norm, not the exception, and that realization for me was invaluable. Having that fire of enthusiasm reignited is a big deal, and is a little surprising, having been doing this for a while now.

Second, the educational opportunities are out of control. Regardless of your current situation w/r/t BGA certification, there is so much for you to learn. The schedule is packed to the gills with Level 1 & 2 programming, and you really can take huge, huge steps toward your Guild Goals in this chunk of time. For the souls willing to brave the West Virginia backcountry a day early, they were able to go from zero to IDP-and-BGA-Proctor Certified within two days. This is a good thing!

If you are considering CPAS for yourself or your employees, there are two major ways in which CPAS can offer value; Education and Access.

Education at CPAS goes far beyond the actual certification, though one should certainly not discount the value of a Level One or Level Two award; they count, and they will only increase in value as time goes on. As a Station Instructor at CPAS, while I did not learn much more about the topics at hand, I did learn a lot about teaching those topics. Station Instructing the Milk Science & Latte Art class (with Lorenzo Perkins Lead Instructing) was a standout in my mind; LP is so informed and excited about getting concepts across, I was taking as many mental notes about his presentation as I was about the material itself. As an educator, watching other educators teach the same material really helped me to broaden my own perspectives on that material, as well as adding numerous tools to my barista trainer toolbox.

There is something for everyone in terms of education at CPAS: beginning baristi can advance through the Level One Coursework. More advanced folks can engage in Level Two programming. Educators can take the IDP and become proctor certified, they can pick the brains of other educators. Roasters can learn from the folks slanging their bean. Shop owners can train their staff, or get an edge in training their staff themselves.

Access is a bit tougher to valuate. In an industry the size of ours (tiny), and the ways in which we are able to connect with one another (which are numerous and growing), means that events like these are excellent opportunities to put faces to names, to reconnect with folks from previous events, and to make yourself part of the network that is specialty coffee. Ours is an industry that is still small enough that you can approach the people whose work you admire, because they come to these events!  Unlike the breakneck pace of the regional competitions or the vast busyness that is CoffeeFest, CPAS has plenty of down time, which means you really can sit and have a beer with that same dude whose blog you’ve been reading, or that young lady with the killer Flickr. There is a value there!

If you are reading this, if you are a BGA member, if you’re thinking about being a BGA member: if you have the financial capacity to go to CPAS, you should go. That’s a blanket statement, and I feel comfortable saying it. I put the whole trip on my Buffalo Bills Mastercard, and I will probably do the same thing next year. Now is the time; sock away $20 a week and you’ll have enough to go. It is an investment in yourself, and money spent on travel or education is never wasted.

Next time: Personal reflection re: CPAS & Ways CPAS can Move Forward

First Eater LA talks with CB & KG, now Eater SF follows around a Blue Bottle barista – could it be that Eater is getting more stoked on progressive coffee?

Tim Wendelboe has posted what I hope is the first of many blog posts regarding his new venture in Colombia; this level of roaster/farmer interaction is bleeding-edge, and frankly, awfully exciting. I definitely think that this has a place in the future of Specialty Coffee, at least for folks like Tim and Counter Culture. That is, folks with the access and the budget – and those of us who do not have access or budget will still benefit, on the long view, as best practices at origin will continue to improve, and we  can free-ride these advances all the way to a delicious cup.

Here’s the link.

If you’re reading this you’ve probably seen this already. I’ve watched it twice, I think a third viewing is called for. 

Initial thoughts: 

- 207F seems hot! I’m curious about slurry temp. 

- I’m surprised to see NC filling the brewer so high; my approach (admittedly using V60, Chemex, not Kalita) has been to keep the coffee bed about the same size as the final bloom, pour slowly and carefully, and allow internal water currents to wet the full bed. This is to reduce the pour agitation. It looks like NC has taken the opposite approach; rather than reduce agitation to combat its effect, he tries to create it in an intentional way. 

- A coarser grind does not alone usually yield a much deeper bed; is NC suggesting that a coarser grind and a higher dose is generally preferable to a finer grind and a smaller dose, at least with the Kalita? Could the increased agitation of the pour shown work better with a coarser grind? 

- At what point does the quality of the grinder come into play when thinking about quantity of fines? I’m especially curious about conical vs. flat burr grinders, especially given the double-bump of some grinders. 

This post is a response to this post on manual brewing , which links to the most recent issue of Barista Mag, which you can read here!

I have been thinking about manual brew for a while, spurred on mostly by assertions by some in the industry that manual brew is the only responsible way to present specialty coffees.

To keep things straight, when I refer here to a manually brewed coffee, I’m taking for given that it is a cup that is well executed and properly served. The grind is attended to, the barista cares, all of the pieces of the puzzle are in place. I think we can all agree that a manual brew program done poorly is, frankly, no better than snake oil, and probably is setting the industry back by building a distrust into the exact early adopters we would normally seek to impress.

I think that for some special coffees, especially 90+ coffees that come at significant expense to the roaster, and then to the retailer, do deserve to be brewed and served by the cup. I would agree that it would be irresponsible to serve a 92 Kenyan in a one-gallon batch, regardless of how good that batch brewer is. That is, I do not think it is irresponsible to the farmer – they have already received the higher cost of their higher-quality coffee (maybe, hopefully) – but rather it is irresponsible to your customer. If a customer is paying a premium for an excellent coffee, they deserve to get that coffee ground, prepared, and served exclusively to them. They deserve to have that cup at the very best that you can offer it to them, especially since they are willing to pay a premium for it. This is mostly due to the rapid decline brewed coffee (especially excellent brewed coffee) experiences stored in an airpot – stored in any pot. I acknowledge that airpot technology could improve! But right now, there are many top-flight coffees that it would be incredibly difficult to serve well and profitably using a batch brewer.

That being said, I believe that the vast majority of coffee, including an awful lot of coffee that is getting by-the-cup treatment today, would be just as well served using a batch brewing system. A well-tuned, properly-cleaned batch brewer with low (very low) hold times, can allow customers to enjoy good-to-great coffees at a reasonable price point. I think that if you have an 82-scoring coffee that does not diminish in a huge way by batch brewing, if you serve that coffee by-the-cup and charge $4 for it, you are doing a disservice to your customer. You could serve an excellent product at a lower but still profitable price point, serve more customers in less time, and split tips with at least one fewer co-worker.

I think that there are 3 ideal set ups (which are being done by many!):

1.) Pure Manual: All coffee is made manually. This type of cafe will only bring in the kind of coffee that deserves to be brewed manually. Bringing in lower-scoring coffees is simply not in the business plan. Slightly slower service and higher labor costs are accepted and expected. Their customers will leave home 5 minutes earlier, because the coffee is that good. (ie: SPRO, Intelly, MadCap)

2.) Pure Batch Brew: This cafe understands its context and customers will not allow for a manual program – they are in-and-out, and make this clear with their spending habits. Or, perhaps the ownership is simply not interested in the training and QC that goes along with an all-manual set-up – or whatever. This cafe brings in only coffees that they can make sing using a batch brewer – and these coffees exist! It is a bit tougher to distinguish these cafes from their less-specialty cousins, but they’re out there. They recognize that for whatever reason, they cannot responsibly serve high-quality coffees using their batch brewer, and as such leave that to their more maniacal brethren. (ie Seven Stars, Handsome (sort of))

3.) The Hybrid: This cafe works to bring in both coffees that can do well in a batch program, and sells them at an appropriately lower price point compared to the smaller by-the-cup menu. Their customers can include both the in-and-out crowd and the hang-and-sip coffee nerds who really are interested in what elevation their coffee is grown at. This straddling of the fence is complicated, but could pay off. (I don’t have a good example)

I think if I were to open a shop, #3 would be my choice. A tiered pricing structure, allowing for the morning just-a-coffee crowd to do their thing, and a higher price-point menu of next-level brews for those who are into it.

- SAO