Moscow Cafe Crawl

The Moscow Food Co-op had a tasting day that I happened upon yesterday. I almost passed it by since I don’t personally have a lot of use for what I saw at the first table (gluten-free muffins), but then I spotted several tables sporting French presses…

I got to meet Jon Binninger there. He and his wife Hannah have a roasting operation in Troy (which for you non-locals is a small town about 15 miles east into the forest from Moscow). Their company, Landgrove Coffee supplies beans to One World Cafe. He had some of his main product, an Ethiopian medium-dark there for tasting. It has a very interesting flavor with some bright notes and a lot of other things going on in it. He mentions that he is using a Diedrich roaster. I hope to track him down sometime for an interview soon. (No website, sorry)

Also, while I was there I ran into the two roasters for Doma, out of Coeur d’ Alene (about 75 miles north). I’ve seen their coffee in a lot of shops and grocery stores both far and wide lately. They seem to be doing pretty good business. They were offering samples of their Ürth Organic Blend. It was really quite smooth for a dark roast, but much less nuanced than what Landgrove was offering that day. They had a recent newspaper clipping from the Spokane Spokesman Review there discussing their new $100,000 roaster that uses 80% less fuel by recycling vented heat. Wow. They must burn through a lot of natural gas if they hope to recoup that investment any time soon!

Both of these roaster’s wares have beans available in the co-op’s bulk coffee aisle.

Filed under: Moscow Food Coop, Roasting on March 3rd, 2008