Control

Drew and I got together with John aka Jepy to play with one version of his pressure profiling pump setup as seen in this box beside me here:http://flickr.com/photos/82921813@N00/2688624278/  We met up in Redwood city at Sportivo, a cafe owned by a close friend of John’s who was nice enogh to let us play in the off hours.  Of course behind every good coffee shop is a full gym to get the blood flowing so…here’s what happens when a few peeps get together to play with high-tech espresso brewing equipment:

On the coffee end…my favorite shot of the day was a shot of sweet tooth that I profiled on the fly with the hand controller.  Grind was pretty fine with a hefty dose, started at line level, then ever so slowly and steadily (really, really, slowly) climbed up the pressure range untill I was at about 145-150psi by about 30ish seconds; the shot just barely started to roll…like rolly-drip.  I eased it back down to line level a bit faster that I climbed and ended up with about a .75 ounce double at about 41-43 seconds (the ultimate melter?  Jared what you know?!).  That shit was NUTS.  It tasted like sugar, really crazy…not really a reflection of the coffees used but just thick as hell and probably the sweetest (in a sugary way) shot I’ve ever had.

The whole time there blew us away…Drew and I left feeling like we didn’t know shit (we don’t, but this made it more obvious).  There’s so much to explore with this stuff.  I’m baffled right now, it requires a whole different state of mind.  Hopefully when round two hits we’ll make some legit brewing progress and actually have something usefull to say.  Much thanks to John for letting us play with his gadgets!  Peace.

So I hope everyone had a ballin’ ass new year and whatnot, ya know drank, had fun, and made resolutions etc, etc…

So Mr. Ben Kaminskys visits have been getting to me and I’ve been inspired to buy a vac-pot.  Every time this cat comes to the Sucka Free he kind of lives in the Ritual basement making vac-pots and talkin’ trash like any good coffee geek would.  So I had some good vac-pot and decided I need to try and handle this shit myself.  So if anyone has a Hario TCA-2 that they want to sell…hit me up.  Other than that we’ve been spending a lot of time revamping and playing with the Spro.  It’s at three components right now, which I think is good for several reasons.  We also switched out the single origin offering to another COE coffee:  Honduras La Pinona; caramel apple, almond rocca, and toasted hazelnuts come to mind.  A bit more balanced than the Yalu (which is probably why I like the Yalu more…most of the time for me, balanced=boring) and as an espresso tastes very much the same as it would on the cupping table.  That’s all I got.  Happy new year ganstas.

Today at Ritual we’re rolling out a single origin spro for the first time! We fired up Robert the Robot Robur this morning and will be offering our Guatemala San Jose el Yalu, COE #3 to the tune of four bucks a double. This coffee is bad to the fucking bone as a single origin shot. The best way for me to describe it is a sour apple candy, with a bit of deep berries, all wrapped in a big milk chocolate blanket. That’s how it’s been so far on the floor this morning…in the lab some days we’ll get a bit of pineapple and grape kool-aid steez goin’ on. Bright, clean, and complex; not for the faint (read: boring) at heart. Lovin’ it. I’ve been trying to push a singe origin offering for as long as I can remember and it’s one of those things that everyone wanted to do but just never got put into action, so after much anticipation we have our S.O.S.

I couldn’t be happier with the coffee we chose to do this with, I suppose it’s all been worth the wait. Peace!

I just have to share this pic with everyone…Latte art BYOV smackdown at Stumptowns new beautiful roastery in Seattle.  We had a ridicuoluus time and of course, I took my pants off.  Jock strap lattes for everyone!  Triple rosseta in a jockstrap, roseta in a pigs leg, late bong, Clover ($12,000 latte)?!  Fuck yeah!  I stole this photo from Rita’s flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/20597074@N04/ hope you don’t mid Kaminsky).  Stoked.  Congrats To Bill Will and Kevin Fuller from the press for their two-peat and Maki for her second place finish.  Everyone rocked and well…thats it.  Gotta open in the morning so I guess some sleep is in order.  Peace!

Oh yeah…da bong:

Flickr!   http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisbaca/

Ryan is the shit…sweet and sexy with a heart of gold that shines for all to see. We love you Ryan.

Just got back from a nice little vacation with Jenni full of nothing but relaxation and now I’m geting back into the swing of things at Ritual.  Total insanity (in a good way). 

Lots of things going on right now!  This was my first week as the official Ritual barista trainer…holly shit it’s going to be a fun but extremely challenging job!  One day or so a week on bar and three days in the dungeon and I’m a slave driver for sure.  I mean, I’m not an asshole but I expect people to work hard.  Gabe and Ryan are working on espressos now and are working on what is to be the first of our seasonal blends as well as a year round blend.  Soon we will always have two spros in the mix:  waffle cone, for milk based drinks, and a rotating seasonal espresso, for straight shots and americanos.  This is exciting because we are in total control of this stuff - any ideas we have we can totally run with.  Full frontal barista/roaster control!  What What?!  We can get all the lab time we need and play with coffee as much as we want…this my friends is a party. 

We also secured the #4 coffee in the Best of Panama auction!  We buddied up with local Bay Area powerhouse Barefoot as well as Victrola and Paradise Roasters to capture this jem.  Our first very own auction coffee.  Nice. 

 On the Mo-town tip my good friend Tony just opened the doors of his magical coffee bar:  Wanderlust.  Supplied by a mash up of roasters including ourselves and Barefoot this is the only place to spro down in the Central Valley.  I had my first Wander-spro yesterday before I hit the City and just got done sippin’ on some natural Yirg Adado Moje right now.  It’s so nice to have a legit option for the magical elixir in my hometown.  This pic is a few weeks befor opening time:

  That’s all pimps…see you soon! 

Here ya go…three rounds of fun stats:

2007_-usbc_ranking_order.pdf

So post USBC we here at Ritual were graced with several visitors from outside the Bay Area coffee world. Billy and Kevin from the Albina Press, Jon Lewis of Bumper crop fame, and Danger Dan from Caffe Collage all popped in for a visit. Jon had to jet right away but it was such a pleasure seeing him in the shop…my only contact with him had been at competitions and we all know how well spoken this cat is on stage. After Jon split Eileen took our guests along with some of our posse to a wonderfull dinner at Blue Plate (the meat loaf is off the hook!). Billy and Kevin hung out the next day and took in the city and we were left with the infamous Danimal as our guest barista for the next week! Having Dan behind the bar is awesome…he definately has his own special style and personality that makes him a really pimp character to work with. We wanted to keep him but alas, he has other obligations. Come back soon playa!

In other news a few things are getting the old switcharoo here at Ritual. Gabe is going to be roasting with Ryan a couple days a week and eventually roasting on his own. I can see from his attitude, work ethic, and complete dedication to coffee that with time he’ll be just as bad ass as a roaster as he is a barista. For me this means picking up slack training. I need to finish a training program for us Ritual-ites and dive into getting the whole store where it needs to be in terms of the bar. With thirty people I think I have my work cut out for me…kinda stressin’ but I’m sure I learn just as much as the people I’ll be training. Thats what it’s all about right? Oh, Battle of the Bay comming soon…keep your eyes peeled.

Well the LBC has treated us well… from failed machines to upsets and let-downs it was a wild ride. Awesome. People are killing it. There’s so much to report so here are some of my favs:

Scott Lucey pan roasts coffee on stage! Smoke and chaff flying everywhere (judges water), grinds it, brews it, and serves it in his sig drink. Gangster.

The middle machine controversy…yum. You heard about it already.

Intelly party and latte art throwdown, 40 or so baristas with one crack at the GB5. Five dollar buy in, winner takes the pot. Go go Glanville…that pimp took everyone’s money, even amongst several Millrock champs. Kid’s got game. Zander participated and he of course leveled his spro with a Clover squeegee. Trash talking and heckling; such fun. Did I mention free all you can eat taco truck?

Backstage. Chillin’ with everyone in the practice area is the shit…that’s where all the good spro and good people are. Highlight shots: Glanville single origin Brazil, Phuong secret “special people” blend, Teisl’s “JT Style” blend, and Kyle Larson aka The Larsonist, aka Grand Theft Larsony with his S.O. Finca el Injerto.

Steve Ford…has anyone ever hung out with this guy? This cat is ridiculous.

On the way back to their homelands Albina Pressers Billy and Kevin stopped in to the Rits along with Jon Lewis and Danger Dan…thanks for stopping in folks, we know it’s a bit out of the way. That evening Eileen took us all out for a wonderful dinner at the Blue Plate where we all had too much wine and shit tons of coffee talk. Oh, and for one week only you can catch a shot of the Danimal working at the Ritual…we finally have a guest barista!

Well, I’m tired from all this competition stuff. One more shout to Gabe and Ryan for taking time out of their lives to help me out with this thing…sorry a 9^th place finish is all I could offer. I appreciate you cats to the fullest. Ummm, and Jenni for not kicking me to the curb for spending more time with my Robur than with her! Until next time…

Overcast, misty, no work…nice breakfast with Jay and Brown at Foreign Cinema; fried eggs deglazed with balsalmic vinegar and sweet sweet bacon. Ritual (Gabe not feeling so good), Blue Bottle (capp via Arno), and back to Ritual. Messy basement/training area…shit. Clean, clean, clean. Set up station: Robur, Supper Jolly, Major. Major! What the fuck?! Water/mold/funk in the burr chamber…don’t leave your shit at work people, it’s bound to get moved from where you left it and put under a leaky pipe. Bummed, sandwich, chips. I need coffee but I gotta get out of here; bike to truck, truck to Santa Clara.

So I’m sitting here at Barefoot lurking on my laptop and lingering over my single origin Sumatra shot staring at its remnants crusted to the side of the cup forming into those wonderfull patterns that the leftovers make and I’m feeling pretty at peace. Sometimes I have so much stuff that I want to get done and so many things running through my head that I need to get to a place where I can’t possibly do anything. I can’t clean here, I can’t experiment here, and I don’t really know anyone here well enough to feel some sort of obligation to them. All I have is myself, my spro, and this here laptop to screw around on. We have much work to do before the USBC…we have a whole slew of new people we need to get trained on bar before then so we can take everyone and not worry about the store caving in on itself. I need to get a little more practice time in myself so I don’t look like a fool in front of everyone in Long Beach. I need to figure out if I can get pulled from the floor enough to help Gabe train the newbies and still find some balance with my home life. I need to find time to change tha gaskets on the Linea downstairs. But not today… today it’s just you and me chillin’. If you’re feeling saucey enough today (are you?), put down your tampers and portafilters, walk outside, smell that air, and don’t do a damn thing. Holla.