Meow.

Sauce’d out Black Cat Espressocraft tamper courtesy of the amazing Terry Z. at Espressoparts.  I think I remember seeing daddy Glanville with one of these at the Slow Food event and I of course was immediately jealous.  Espressocraft has been my weapon of choice for over a year now and this thing is the sex.  Sick etching around the barrel, turned/swirly paint scheme, b.c. logo, damn son what it is!  I think the only way it could be better is if it sported a gnarly 58.3-58.6 diameter.  58.3 for those ridged LM’s, 58.6 for the ridgless bad boys.  Maybe a kit?  One custom handle plus two custom made to order bases in a sweet espressoparts carrying case?  I’d drop chips for that.  Anyway, big knucks to T.Z. for this one…cant wait to pull rippers on it.  Oh, for the haters: yes it’s an Intelly branded tamper and no I don’t give a fuck.  Wheee!

Video Blogging?

Since it’s become apparent that I’m to lazy to type anything at all on a regular basis AND my awesome co-worker Dillon just gave me this sweet tiny fisheye camera that fits in the palm of my hand I’ve decided I’ll just post videos up here instead of actually writing. Consider this a test. Video quality isn’t superb but should be ok for small format and internet type use. I’ve been toying with the idea of dusting off the vx-1000 and doing some real shit but I’m lazy, work is taking up alot of time, and this format is just way to convinient. So test number one: a vid of S.M. at a smackdown (I know, I know…I’m fucking sick of them too) in Tacoma. If this works, I’ll just start popping off video clips…some coffee related, some not. Ok lets try it:

Pressure Profiling and Getting Fit…part 1

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.

New Year…

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.

S.O.S. C.O.E.

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!

Quict Jockin’

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:

The Man Behind the Curtain…

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.

Espresso madness and Panamania

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! 

USBC Ranking Order

Here ya go…three rounds of fun stats:

2007_-usbc_ranking_order.pdf

Ritual gets Dangerous…new jobs

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.