Moscow Coffee Review

Last week I visited the new Starbucks in the University of Idaho’s bookstore. Why? They have an unusually nice selection of baked goods and though overpriced and very small, the “morning buns” are really quite tasty. Nothing like what they used to have an Zume bakery before it became West of Paris before it become Bloom, but I digress.

Anyway, I saw that they were pushing a new “blonde” light roast coffee. I asked the guy behind the counter for a sample and was pleasantly surprised to see him use a pour-over funnel to brew it on demand! No old put of drip and no robo-espresso. That should give it a fighting chance!

How did it taste? Really not too shabby. I wasn’t exploding with flavor but I can say that it didn’t have anything particularly offensive going on – which is a huge improvement.

I remember when they tried to do this a few years ago with the “Pike’s Place” roast. It was advertised as a truly light roast, but as I blogged about back then, it may have been Starbucks lightest roast, but for the whole rest of the world, that still means DARK.

This blonde is a big step in the right direction. Here is a comparison image:

On the right is Starbucks usual stuff – the charcoal special. All the flavor was burned away long ago. It has excellent shelf-life though (!!!) and holds up well in a vat of sweet milk.

In the middle is the Pike’s place Roast. Notice the shiny surface oils though? Despite what the marketers say, this is NOT a light roast. Some coffees do taste really nice at about this level, but only a few. You have to be careful.

On the left is the new “blonde” roast. Now we’re talking. The almost matte-finish means that all kinds of interesting higher and brighter flavors could be lurking in there.

At Bucer’s, virtually everything looks like the beans on the far left, or even lighter. Occasionally we get a variety that might border on looking like the middle stuff when done properly.

Still, it’s nice to see Starbucks responding to this demand – it is aesthetically well founded. Better coffee for everyone!

Filed under: Uncategorized on January 18th, 2012 | No Comments »

If you’re a coffee shop lurker, or espresso snob, this is absolutely hilarious. (Thanks for the link Andrew.)

Filed under: Uncategorized on January 18th, 2012 | No Comments »

Sometimes, while I am in the shop, but not roasting, I hear people comment about the machine as they walk past it.

Last week I heard it described as a “strange giant machine” and another girl told her friend it was “some sort of brewery thing”. Most accurate was a boy of eight who told me it looked like a steam engine.

Much funnier though was a comment my wife overheard while sitting near the coffee mural near the back of Bucer’s. Two girls were talking about the painting and discussing what the fruit was. One girl said, “They look like cherries, but I know they’re really grapes”.

Um, actually, they are coffee beans. No really. That’s what the whole painting is about. There are coffee beans on the tree, some being picked by a lady, then in bags, then roasting, and then in a steaming cup. It’s coffee. It’s a mural in a coffee shop. You’re drinking it right now.

Photo credit

Filed under: Uncategorized on November 24th, 2011 | No Comments »

I had originally posted this on my other blog (which is far more active) but then realized it should have gone here instead.

In which I wax scientific while reading Newton’s biography:

Blending coffee beans does not a homogeneous mixture make. Unlike much cooking and mixing, such as the incorporation of water into flour, the small dosages of coffee used when making espresso actually serve to highlight discrete nature of the mixture. Remember that “discrete” is the opposite of continuous. When you graph it, it moves in stair-steps instead of a smooth curve. The probability of the mixture being dramatically “heavy” on a certain variety of bean increases as the sample size decreases.

Say that your “espresso blend” is a combination of 4 different bean types, 25% of each: a deep dark Sumatra, a couple of medium-bodied central American batches, and one bright and floral African. Assume they are mixed as evenly as possible, but that nothing mechanical enforces this ratio. Say that a shot contains the grounds produced from 32 beans. Ideally, there will be 8 beans of each type in that shot (8+8+8+8=32).

What is the chance that the mixture will be off a bit? Ex:(8+6+10+8) Pretty high, but no big deal. What is the chance that it will be really screwed up? Ex:(15+0+1+16) Pretty unlikely but it’s got to happen every once in a while. Now say your blend is more complicated: (8+8+8+4+4). Now the chance that one of your types will be missing completely skyrockets. You can’t make subtle changes and have them “take” in the real world. The discrete nature of the mixture resists that subtlety. Sure, it will be there across the mean of 1000 doses, but the distribution will be all over the place. This kind of variation can be frequently blamed for inconsistently tasting shots, I am certain.

This is a quality control challenge that, as far as I can tell, nobody is dealing with directly. It seems to me that there are some relatively simple mechanical solutions that could be devised to keep the mixture stable across dosages. An array of single-bean dispensing hoppers feeding into a buffer would be the most obvious solution. This would be versus a traditional single conical hopper feeding directly into the grinder. Is anyone building these? Why not?

Photo credit

Filed under: Uncategorized on September 16th, 2011 | No Comments »

A mostly macro-shot video of myself and Brendan roasting coffee early in the morning at Bucer’s. From Austin Storm and David Hoos over at PalouseLiving.com.

Coffee Roasting at Bucer’s from Austin Storm on Vimeo.

Filed under: Uncategorized on August 10th, 2011 | No Comments »

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Here is mine!

If you find yourself in one of the three downtown coffee shops in Moscow, here is what I recommend you order:

One World Cafe: Their supplier consistently has an Ethiopian coffee they brew in one of the drip carafes. It’s very good. I get the Ethiopian drip nearly every time I’m in there.

Sister’s Brew: Sister’s does a very good job with their milk consistency. If you’re looking for something creamy and sweet, a white chocolate mocha here would definitely deliver.

Bucer’s Coffeehouse Pub: I’m biased of course since I help roast coffee here, but I’ve always believed it to be the best espresso in town. The Cuban-style espresso (which is espresso with a small amount of caramelized sugar so as not to cover up the flavor of the coffee) is definitely what you should get. Ask for a “Cubano con leche“. 12 ounces is about the right concentration.

Filed under: Uncategorized on April 4th, 2011 | 1 Comment »

There’s a new coffee drive-through next to Dominoes Pizza called Retro Espresso (link to Facebook page).

The owner built it out of a remodelled airstream trailer and it looks pretty cool. They appear to be going out of their way to use good ingredients. Worth checking out next time you’re on the road.

The Argonaut newspaper had a piece on it, but I can’t seem to find it on their site anymore.

Filed under: Uncategorized on November 7th, 2010 | 3 Comments »

I should mentioned that I’m now an employee at Bucer’s. I’ve been training as their back-up coffee roaster for the past few months and I had the opportunity to do all the roasting during the past three weeks while the main guy has been out of town. It’s gone OK but I have plenty to learn! If you are a discerning customer, you may have noticed that things are bit brighter than usual. This can be good for drip, but espresso usually does better with some darker, earthier flavors.

I’ll still be posting here occasionally about local coffee. I still frequent many of the other places in town just for variety’s sake too.

Filed under: Uncategorized on October 8th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

This from an old travelogue I read recently. This happened while the author was passing through a village in Switzerland in the early 1900s.

In his shoes, I would have done the same!

I also asked him for coffee, and as he refused it I took him to be a heretic and went down the road making up verses against all such, and singing them loudly through the forest…

-Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome, p.164

Filed under: Uncategorized on July 12th, 2010 | No Comments »

The Moscow Food Co-op newsletter this month contains an interview with Hannah and Jon Binninger, owners of Landgrove, a local roaster just a few miles away in Troy Idaho. One World Cafe uses their beans.

Filed under: Uncategorized on June 16th, 2010 | No Comments »