While our roaster is manually controlled, we use a computer to generate a detailed picture of the roasting process or profile.

As much information as this set up provides, somehow six thermocouples just doesn’t seem like enough. When roasting coffee there are two forms of heat applied to the beans: convection from heated air moving through the roaster, conduction from the gas flame under the drum, and transference which is heat shared among the beans. We can manipulate two of these by adjusting the size of the flame and the speed of air moving through the drum. Up until now, we have been able to get a sense of the balance of conduction and convection by measuring the air temperature before it enters the drum and when it leaves the drum. While helpful, it’s become clear that this proxy strategy doesn’t tell the whole story.  So recently we began our next modification which will allow us to measure the temperature of the metal drum directly. It’s already apparent that with this latest modification, sparks will fly, literally.

Cutting a notch into the drum spindle so that we can pass the thermocouple cable through the gear box.

This is by far the most complicated thermocouple install given the fact that the drum is rotating at roughly 60 RPM. Because of this, we are using a revolving connector that will allow the thermocouple to spin with the drum, but still supply a consistent signal to our computer tracking system. The first step, as seen here, was to cut a channel into the drum spindle so that the thermocouple cable can pass through the motor gearbox. I will add to this post as this modification progresses over the next couple of weeks. Our next step will be to bolt the tip of the thermocouple to the inside face of the drum.

Oddly the package states Peaberry, but the beans inside didn't resemble any peaberry I have ever seen.

I just received a small bag of Kopi Luwak, affectionately known as cat poop coffee based on the fact that the coffee cherries are processed in the guts of Indonesian civet cats. First, I should say, I don’t condone the purchase of Kopi Luwak. In response to recent media-assisted popularity, this grossly over-priced bean has fueled a new industry of civet farms in which the cats are kept under truly deplorable and cruel conditions. That aside, this coffee is really no better than reasonable priced beans processed in more traditional fashion. Don’t believe the hype. Kopi Luwak may have a compelling story, but that is all it is. We tasted this coffee next to our own wash processed Bali beans. Granted we didn’t roast

the Kopi Luwak (and it wasn’t roasted well), but there wasn’t even a hint of the complexity present in our in-house roasted Bali.

However, from a more selfish perspective, Fair-Trade coffee also presents a number of drawbacks, such as lack of information and lower quality beans. Because certification is only available to relatively large cooperatives, specific details about individual lots of coffee are generally sparse. And, while farmers may participate in a fair-trade coop, they may not sell all their coffee through the coop. For high-quality growers, they can often fetch a higher price on the specialty market than the set premium available through the coop. As a result, they will sell their lower-quality beans through the coop and reserve the better stuff for the specialty market. There is also the fact that because coffee from the whole coop is sold together, good and bad quality beans are often mixed together, leading to mediocre quality lots.

Tall Bike Coffee is roasted off site by the owners of Lamplighter Coffee in Richmond VA

The espresso on offer was a single-origin natural process Sidamo and I have to say it was excellent, nicely balanced with good density and distinct, but not overwhelming, cherry notes. The brewed coffee was a different story. Apparently, much of their business is food and so they don’t have space to offer individually brewed cups of coffee. So I tried the house blend, a combination of three beans and three different roasts. It wasn’t really bad, but it wasn’t really good either. It tasted thin with a faint hint of smokiness from the dark roasted bean of the mix. They had half a dozen beans from different origins by the bag, so it seemed a shame not to offer them brewed to order. I picked up a bag of their Costa Rica Fruto de Oro, which according to the bag was roasted four days before. It should have just been hitting its stride, but the beans had virtually no aroma and when brewed up there was just a hint of grassiness and nothing else in the cup. Best guess is this batch was baked. This can happen if the beans are heated too slowly at the end of the roast or if the beans are not actively cooled once the roast is stopped.

Hipster hangout Lamplighter Coffee in Richmond VA

So ends this travelogue. My experience on this trip reaffirms my conviction that most “good” coffee shops focus their attentions on espresso while brewed coffee is treated like an unwanted stepchild.

Our next stop (after some of the mornings caffeine had percolated out of my system) was Scratch, which uses locally roasted (but nationally available) beans from Counter Culture. I hadn’t had much to eat still, so I went for a macchiato this time. In line with my previous CC experiences, the espresso is bright to the point of being lemony. It’s also a little darker a roast than I generally like, but I think they want to ensure that it peeks through a lot of milk. Wasn’t really up for another cup of coffee, but Karen, the coffee program manager, offered up a sampling of the drip coffee they had on hand, a Burundi Kayanza microlot. This was decidedly more flavorful than my morning cups, but didn’t have nearly the sweetness and full bodied mouth appeal that I am accustomed to with beans from the region. Should have checked the roast date, but the lack of body in the cup makes me think the roast was a bit on the fast side.

A little background: over the past few years, the Ethiopian government has implemented new rules meant to ensure that coffee farmers received payments for their coffee in a timely and consistent fashion. This was in part a response to reports that small farmers were not receiving promised payments from exporters and in part due to a concern that the government itself was getting shortchanged by deals being cut in the private market. As a result, the government required all coffee to be sold through an existing national commodities exchange with the idea that it would provide a level playing field between farmers and exporters. However, this had several unintended consequences. While cooperatives were still allowed to export their own coffee lots, private mills (processing facilities that take in raw coffee cherries and turn out green coffee ready for export) were shut down by the regulation changes. Effectively, all coffee growers who weren’t a member of a coop were forced to send their coffee through centralized government-owned mills. Unfortunately these facilities did not have the capacity to process the quantities of coffee they were suddenly facing in a timely manner, which has lead to delays of weeks to months between when buyers pay for their coffee and when the coffee could be shipped out of the country. The mills also were not set up to separate out small lots of coffee so that beans were being pooled, lowering the overall quality of available exports.

Part of the problem was that the government grossly underestimated the portion of the market made up by specialty coffee (as compared with the bulk of the market comprised by large-scale commercial roasters that produce the junk coffee that is sold in tin cans, pregound or freeze dried, and goes into flavored coffee products such as nescafe or McCafe’s). The changes mainly impacted the specialty market which as a result bought less Ethiopian coffee last year. This resulted in a large drop in general revenues generated by green coffee sales. As it turns out, specialty coffee buyers, in fact, make up a substantial chunk of coffee purchases. We pay much, much higher prices per pound of coffee than large commercial roasters. So although specialty coffee is a relatively small part of the market, it makes up a disproportionate share of revenues.

As a consequence, Ethiopian coffee has begun to lose market share as specialty coffee roasters have started looking elsewhere for beans that could replace the quality of coffee they had been getting from the origin. This may also lead to Ethiopian coffee losing some of its prestige which makes it more attractive even to large-scale roasters. In Ethiopia, this has caused some coffee farmers to cut down coffee plants in favor of crops that they can reliably sell.

The significance of this cannot be understated. Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee and is home to many heritage varietals as well as some of the oldest coffee plants in the world. Coffee is also a crop that requires long-term stability to thrive. All of these factors have raised concern within the specialty coffee community (and increasing worry within the Ethiopian government) that Ethiopian coffee will be marginalized.

However, the problem they now face is bigger than just reestablishing these interrupted lines of trade. They must also rebuild the trust of the specialty coffee community, which had spent decades developing direct relationships with growers, much of which disappeared over night. Those in attendance at this week’s meeting offered suggestions and recommendations. The government has strong financial incentives to take heed, but whether they can move rapidly enough to staunch the loss of market share remains very much an open question.