CoffeeCON 2013 is in the books, and I was proud to be an Official Media Blogger for the event.

CoffeeCON is a one of a kind show, geared entirely towards the coffee lover, as opposed to people in the coffee industry talking to other people in the coffee industry.  I’ve attended two other coffee shows before this one, and both were geared towards the coffee professional as opposed to the coffee consumer.  And there’s nothing with trade shows, but that’s how CoffeeCON is different – it’s education and fun for the coffee lover.

     The show was started by Kevin Sinnott, renowned coffee expert, author, and creator of the Coffee Brewing Secrets DVD.  Kevin had attended many coffee shows, and saw that what was missing was greater awareness for the everyday consumer, both of quality and of conditions at coffee’s origin.  Kevin did something about it.  He started CoffeeCON, taking place just outside of Chicago.

Stay tuned over the days and weeks to come as I share some of the show’s highlights with you, so that you can start planning your own attendance next year.  Some highlights in a nutshell:

- Amazing presentations to raise awareness of key issues and educate the everyday consumer, including an intense 2.5 hour workshop lead by George Howell, founder of Terroir Coffee.  George covered everything from how to select coffee, to the job of a good roaster, to conditions in the growing countries.  The presentation was broken up at intervals for coffee tastings that brought George’s presentation to life, and made evident just how rich the world of coffee is.  Also stay tuned for my interview with George, obviously a knowledgeable coffee giant, but also a class act to speak with.

- Different brewing workshops, so that attendees could learn about brewing beyond the drip brewer.  Even for attendees like myself who already have a French Press, Aeropress, and Chemex, tips and tricks on using these brewing techniques.

- Specialized workshops such as Olfactory Development, how the sense of smell can be trained to help identify unique traits in coffee.  Coffee on the Road, a great presentation on how to make great coffee even when you’re traveling.  If you follow me on Twitter, then you know how many hotels I stay in, and how personally beneficial this workshop was.

- Exhibitors from across the coffee world, giving an appreciation for all steps in the chain.  These ranged from coffee farmers to coffee roasters to coffee gear manufacturers.  From bean to cup, some of everybody.

- A chance for me to meet greats from the world of coffee blogging.  In this picture, myself and Coffee Nate, a fellow coffee lover and blogger.

Stay tuned!  I have many pages of scribbled notes and countless minutes of audio recordings that I’ll transcribe in the days and weeks to come, to share with you.  I want to take this opportunity to thank Kevin, his wife Pat, and organizer Jennifer Stinnett for including me in this unique, exciting, and informative event.  I have memories and new friends from the weekend that I know will last a lifetime.

Learn more about Kevin Sinnott’s CoffeeCON.

I was fortunate to be living in Portland, OR last year when it hosted the Specialty Coffee Association of America‘s annual summit.

Dave Cook, owner of the Fire Roasted Coffee Company and Habitual Chocolate, was travelling to Portland for the show, and planning to travel on to Hawaii from there to meet coffee and cacao farmers.  Despite some resistance that almost got in the way, I jumped at the chance to join him.  It was no choice at all.  Origin trips are an amazing way to gain an even deeper appreciation for coffee, by meeting the people that make it possible and learning about it at its source.

Around the same time, I had interviewed Connie Blumhardt, founder and publisher of Roast Magazine.  It was Dave that had first introduced me to the magazine.  Although it is written primarily for the professional roasters of the world, even as a coffee lover, I found it a fascinating read.

Read: Profile Roast Magazine

The two events just kind of came together…in the latest issue of Roast Magazine, you’ll find an article written by myself and David, talking about our origin trip to Hawaii, and what we discovered while we were there.  Specifically, an infestation that has hit Hawaii and its coveted coffee in the form of a tiny beetle that is decimating coffee crops.

Click on the image above or click here to see a preview of the article.  And if you come across this issue of Roast, pick it up and give it a read.  The article is full of lots of great shots that Dave took while we were there, and the information itself will be of interest to coffee roaster and coffee lover alike.

I’ve never been so excited for a coffee show!  Just three days away.

This May 4th, I will be attending the 2013 CoffeeCON in Chicago, IL, both as a coffee lover and as an official blogger.  I’m excited to share everything I learn with fellow coffee lovers.

My day’s schedule and workshops are shaping up as follows:

9:10 – 11:40 AM: For the Love of Coffee
George Howell, founder of the famous Coffee Connection in Cambridge, MA, and owner of Terroir Coffee, leads an intensive 2.5 hour coffee tasting workshop.  This is a huge hole in my coffee game, being able to pick up and describe flavor accents.

12:15 – 12:45 PM: Chemex Lab
I have two different size Chemex pitchers at home.  I have the official instructions on how to use them, but it’s no comparison to a professional display of do’s and don’t's.  I will come home a Chemex master (right now, I’m more of a Chemex journeyman).

1:00 – 1:50 PM: Coffee Sustainability
Christy Thorns, Director of Sourcing and Quality Control for Colorado based Allegro Coffee Company, a subsidiary of Whole Foods Markets, leads a discussion on coffee quality and sustainability.  Christy presents an overview of the variables and conditions that lead to great coffee, and the importance of supporting long-term economic and environmental sustainability in coffee growing.  I am very pumped for this presentation.

2:00 – 2:30 PM: French Press Lab
Just like the prior Chemex Lab, I get a professional presentation of the do’s and don’t's of my personal favorite brewing method, the press pot.

3:00 – 3:40 PM: Coffee on the Road
Oh heck yeah!  A presentation on how to enjoy great coffee when you’re on the road away from home.  I am away from home much of the time.  As I type this, I’m staring at a cup of hotel room no-brand decaf coffee.  I can’t wait to share with you, the lessons I learn on how to enjoy great coffee while traveling.

4:00 – 4:40 PM: Olfactory Development
As if the prior For the Love of Coffee segment won’t already be a quantum leap for my coffee tasting skills, this workshop will focus on using the sense of smell to identify and appreciate flavor characteristics in coffee.

I’m pumped!  A day of coffee education and being surrounded by coffee professionals from each step in the supply chain.  Just three days away!

I’m happy to be an Official Blogger, invited to this year’s CoffeeCON in Warrenville, Illinois on May 4th.  I couldn’t be more excited for the event, and my opportunity to connect with coffee farmers, roasters, tasters, gear manufacturers, etc., etc.

Read: Official Blogger for CoffeeCON 2013

And here’s what’s even more exciting!

The organizers of CoffeeCON have given me five pairs of tickets to get into this year’s show.  Do you live in the greater Chicago area?  Do you have plans to be in the greater Chicago area on the weekend of May 4th?

It’s as easy as this!

Send me an e-mail at marc@makegoodcoffee.com, confirming your e-mail address and confirming that you will be in the area on May 4th.  By the end of this week, I’ll draw five lucky names and notify you by e-mail that you’re going to CoffeeCON.

Exhibitors from across the coffee world.
Classrooms on tasting, sustainability, and different brewing methods.
Lots of coffee, and the best around.
Best of all, the chance to meet me in person!   I’m happy to make myself available to meet with you and talk coffee while we’re there.

Learn more about CoffeeCON.

     I hear a lot of coffee purists looking down on decaf coffee.  I argue that you must really be a coffee lover if you drink decaf.  After all, if you need a coffee fix so badly but are concerned about it keeping you up late, you must really love the stuff to make a cup of decaf to get you through.

Often, I find myself working late in a hotel room, and it just seems natural to me to have a coffee while I work.  When it happens, I make myself a cup of decaf.  Wow, by my own logic, I must really be a coffee lover if I’m not drinking decaf, but I’m drinking hotel room decaf!

My brother and I were having this conversation, and he asked me how exactly coffee is decaffeinated.  Here is the layman’s explanation…

Caffeine is a stimulant found in the coffee bean itself, the seed of the coffee cherry.  Decaffeination is the “artificial” process of removing that caffeine from the bean.  Caffeine is removed from the coffee before it is roasted, while in its green stage.  In general, a solvent is used while the coffee beans are being steamed or otherwise heated, to remove the caffeine without removing other essential chemicals.  These other chemicals include anything else natural to coffee, that contributes to its taste and aroma.  To wipe all such chemicals from the coffee could potentially produce a flavorless and scentless coffee bean.  This is the heart of decaffeination: removing the caffeine while allowing the rest of the coffee to still be, well, coffee.  The solvent (along with the caffeine) is rinsed from the coffee beans.  When they’re roasted, you get decaffeinated coffee ready to grind and brew.

This process is repeated up to a dozen times before the coffee bean is considered decaffeinated.

Want to learn more?  Trust in good ole Wikipedia to read about the different individual methods of decaffeination.

For the record, it is virtually impossible to remove 100% of caffeine from coffee.  For this reason, the FDA (and international standards) allows the term “decaffeinated” to be used to describe the best effort to remove all caffeine.  The truth is that 1-2% of the caffeine remains in the coffee after the decaffeination process, but this is so negligible as to be unnoticeable and virtually untraceable.

     As far as I’m concerned, Portland, Oregon is the coffee capitol of North America.  I don’t believe you’ll find more quality coffee roasters per capita anywhere else.

I was fortunate before I moved from Portland to tour the facility of Portland Roasting Coffee, Roast Magazine’s 2012 Macro Roaster of the Year.  PRC’s Andy Davis not only showed me around, but treated me to my first coffee cupping experience, and sat down with me to talk coffee over…well, coffee.

Read: Profile – Portland Roasting Coffee
Read: Profile – Roast Magazine
Read: My First Coffee Cupping

My first question of Andy after we sat down was direct: “How does Andy make good coffee at home?”  I can’t think of better advice for any of us coffee lovers than to hear how coffee professionals make it for themselves.

     Andy’s first tip: Have a good storage system.  Nothing will kill coffee quality and flavor quicker than poor storage.  Airtight, opaque, and away from moisture.  Do not store coffee in your fridge or freezer, as it will absorb from the surrounding odors.  The change in the coffee’s temperature from cold or freezing to room temperature will also sap some of its flavor.  After all, you’ve never seen a roaster pull coffee out of a fridge or freezer before brewing it.

Andy’s second tip: There is no perfect brewing method, and people shouldn’t be misled by those that claim that one is superior to the others.  The one you prefer is the best one.  Don’t be afraid to experiment.  Rather than swear by a certain method as being better than the rest, try as many as you care to try and decide for yourself if one is superior for your tastes, and superior in all instances.  Peronally, I favor the french press, but I don’t claim it’s superior to other methods, and I don’t always like the sediment that it leaves at the bottom of my cup.  Sometimes, I use my Chemex or Aeropress not only to change things up, but because after a long break from either, it makes a refreshing cup of coffee to return to it.

Andy’s third tip: Buy high-quality coffee.  There is so much human dedication that goes into the growing, processing, roasting, and raising awareness, that it is truly important to (quoting Andy) “buy coffee on quality, not on price”.  This doesn’t mean spending an arm and a leg for your coffee.  You can pay $15 for a pound of amazing coffee that will last you 1-3 weeks, rather than buy the five-pound bag from Costco because you’re saving money to buy in bulk.  Even if that was quality coffee, it will go stale before you get through it, all so you could save a few cents per cup.

I am humbled to have been selected by the organizers of CoffeeCON 2013, as an official blogger covering the event and sharing the experience with coffee lovers everywhere.

CoffeeCON was founded by Kevin Sinnott, himself a coffee lover and blogger who reviewed coffee makers online starting in the 90s for his site The Coffee Companion. Kevin envisioned a different kind of coffee trade show from the ones that already existed, one where “the extraneous business context” was stripped away.  In short, an opportunity to take the online discussion that takes place throughout the coffee chain, and bring it to a face-to-face forum, including everybody from coffee farmers, roasters, bloggers, and of course, the coffee lovers themselves.

This year, the event takes place on May 4th in Warrenville, IL, just outside of Chicago.  As if I wasn’t already excited about the event, I happen to love the city of Chicago.  A large roaster named Intelligentsia has a number of locations in that city, so I will definitely be stopping in for an awesome coffee.

I look forward to arriving at this event, and sharing the experience with all of you.  I believe it’s a great opportunity to share knowledge with you, and maybe even open up the world of coffee for you.  You love coffee, so whether you’re just starting to dabble in how to make it better, or you’re a full-fledged connoisseur, the CoffeeCON will have something of interest for you, and I look forward to sharing it with you.

Learn more about CoffeeCON here.
See my name in lights on the blogger page here.

         Last year, I had the opportunity to tour the facility of Roast Magazine‘s 2012 Macro Roaster of the Year, Portland Roasting Coffee.  Andy Davis of PRC not only took me on a great tour of the roastery, but educated me on PRC’s award-winning product and international contributions to coffee growing regions.

Read: Profile – Portland Roasting Coffee
Read: Profile – Roast Magazine

One of the most educational portions of the tour and discussion was the coffee cupping that Andy and I did.

What is coffee cupping?  It’s the process of evaluating the flavor and richness of a coffee.  It can be for evaluating a sample of coffee before the roaster commits to a large order.  Or, it can be used by the roaster to help write an insightful description of the coffee for customers.  Cupping allows an appreciation for fine details.  The short explanation is that it’s the process for sniffing coffee to determine its aroma characteristics, and slurping the coffee so it reaches the back of the tongue, allowing a thorough evaluation of the coffee’s taste.

     Samples of coffee are cupped before PRC commits to importing an entire container of it.  A container of coffee contains thousands of pounds of it, so PRC needs to be sure they are confident of its quality.  Cupping is also used by PRC to spot-check coffee from a full container to ensure consistency throughout the container.

Step #1: The form of evaluation.
PRC adheres to the Specialty Coffee Assocation of America’s standard cupping form.  This allows consistency between cuppers at PRC, as well between the company itself and their peers in the industry, most of whom use the same form.

Step #2: Inspect the coffee
Andy looks for bean damage, such as damage caused by insects.  One bad bean will spoil an entire batch of coffee.

Step #3: Three trials
Andy heats enough water for three glasses of the same coffee to ensure three separate and independent trials.  Aside from ensuring multiple tests of the same batch, it’s also possible that bean damage would be missed if cupping only one or two glasses.

Step #4: Smell the dry grinds
This is our first instance of using the cupping form.  While the water is heating, we smelled the dry grinds in each of the three glasses and made note of any aromatic observations.

Step #5: Brew the coffee
Hot water is added to the three glasses, and each is allowed to brew for a standard four minutes.  As this brewing takes place, the ground coffee rises to the surface, forming a barrier at the top of the glass.

Step #6: Smell the wet grinds
While the coffee is brewing, we smelled the wet grinds.  They will release different aromatic qualities, also to be noted on the cupping form.

Step #7: Break the barrier
At the end of the four minute brewing time, we break the grinds that have formed a solid layer at the top of the glass.  We did this using a spoon, and immediately took in the gasses that are released by the coffee into the nose.  Some powerful indicators of the coffee’s quality and flavor will be evident in those first released gasses, so they can’t be missed right after the barrier is broken.

      Step #8: Slurp the coffee
This was the part of coffee cupping that I had seen before on TV, and that had discouraged me from taking part in it.  Slurping and spitting is definitely not appealing if you don’t understand why it’s being done.  With an explanation from Andy of why exactly this is so important to the process of evaluating coffee, I slurped!

This is done by clearing off the crust of grinds from the glass, and slurping spoonfuls of the coffee.  The slurping ensures the coffee reaches the back of your tongue for a thorough evaluation of its taste.  Separately, you are evaluating aftertaste, flavor, body, and acidity, all of which noted on the cupping form.

This process will allow the evaluator to give the coffee a score out of 100.  I asked Andy how much variance is typical between one evaluator and another, assuming there’s as much art to this as science.  Andy estimated that there could be as much variance as 10 points, but between evaluators accustomed to the same standard, those who cup together often, not nearly as much variance.

It is cool for me to think that it’s possible to have near-objective evaluation of coffee.  As part of my ongoing coffee education, this was a very important and memorable experience for me.  I can’t thank Andy Davis and Portland Roasting Coffee enough!

I’m so excited to post my first video on this blog.

The Good:
It’s a great opportunity to walk you through my coffee bar so you can see livetime what gear I use at home.

The Bad:
It’s the first time I use my new camera, a GoPro Hero3, to post something live.

The Ugly:
It’s the first time I use my new camera, a GoPro Hero3, to post something live.

Let me know what you think before I post any more video.  If you like it, let me know what kinds of topics you’d like me to cover by video.

     I recently moved to San Diego, CA from Portland, OR.  As I search my new city for the local coffee roasters upon whom I’ll be relying for expertly-roasted coffee, it made me think of the e-mails I receive by people looking for a roaster near them.  I thought I would summarize the steps I’ve taken to find the local roasters here in San Diego, in the hopes that you can use the same advice where you live.  If you’re having trouble finding a quality roaster near you, e-mail me and I’ll help you.

Portland, OR is a coffee city.  In fact, some believe that it’s overshadowed in size by Seattle to the north and San Francisco to the south, but that it truly is the coffee mecca of the US.  Long story short, I was very spoiled in Portland, where you can throw a rock in any direction and hit a great roaster.  Now, I live in San Diego, where one prominent roaster even admits of the city’s coffee scene, that “we are admittedly playing catchup with the coffee scenes of cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Minneapolis.”

Read: The Coffee Scene in San Diego

YELP
     This is an easy one.  Yelp is the former Yellow Pages on steroids, not only a business directory, but an interactive one that allows for reviews.  There are a couple setbacks to using Yelp to find a local roaster.  First, it will show you MANY cafes, but you’re looking for companies that roast their own coffee so you can talk with the artists themselves.  While it’s not foolproof, look for company names that contain “roasters” or “roasting”.  Second, you may have to drive to the closest quality roaster near you, whereas Yelp shows you businesses that are in your vicinity.  This last challenge brings us to the next suggestion.

GOOGLE
Google is also a business directory.  Do a search on “coffee roasters [insert your city name]“.  It will show you a whole map of businesses that fit that description.  The results will likely include cafes that serve somebody else’s coffee, as well as roasters, so the same advice as above in finding coffee roasters specifically.

COFFEE REVIEW
For those of you on Twitter, I suggest following @coffeereview, the handle of Kenneth Davids, renowned coffee writer and the architect behind a coffee report card system.  Roasters submit their prize roasted coffee for evaluation, and when a coffee scores in the 90%’s, it gets listed on Twitter.  Now, here is where I’m giving my humble opinion only.  I have never had bad coffee from a good roaster.  Good roasters do much experimenting that I don’t necessarily get subjected to, but when it’s put on the shelf, I’ve found almost invariably that it’s good product.  For this reason, when Coffee Review scores a coffee highly from a roaster that is in my area, I immediately make a point of checking it out.  Not just for the highly rated coffee, but to learn more about the roaster that made the grade.  This is how I found Cafe Virtuoso, a roaster here in San Diego who recently received a great Coffee Review.  Because of the suggestion above to look for “Roast” in the company’s name, I would have otherwise missed this one.

LISTEN TO THE INDUSTRY
Last year, Roast Magazine named San Diego’s Bird Rock Coffee Roasters the 2012 Micro Roaster of the Year.  There’s not too much more I need to know, and it was one of my first stops when I arrived here.  So far, I’ve only had one of their coffees at home, but it’s been phenomenal and I’m looking forward to returning.  Of course, their location in La Jolla also makes it attractive!

Read: Profile Roast Magazine