Coffee Canon

You are reading Episode Ten: Warfare and Coffee Part One – The Civil War from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

When I say the words, “Civil War” what are the first things that pop into your mind? If you’re from the United States, it’s probably things like slavery, Abraham Lincoln, or Gettysburg. But, in fact, the thing Civil War Soldiers journaled about more than anything else was coffee. War has a way of making people appreciate the small pleasures in life. Coffee, as it turns out, is one of the biggest small pleasures that exists.

Over the next several episodes we’ll be exploring the intersection of warfare and coffee, beginning this week with the American Civil War.

Episode Ten Sources:

Episode Ten Transcript:

Over the course of United States’ history, nothing has had a bigger impact on its economy and culture than the wars that its fought in. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise – war has a way of stripping away all the superfluous extras in a culture. Things like celebrity gossip and trendy clothes pale in comparison to having to consider the value of human life.

For many Americans, wars are deeply personal. Whether it’s a grandfather who served in World War II, an uncle that served in the Gulf War, or a friend that deployed to Afghanistan, war is something that reaches us all. And for those who have served or serve in the United States Military, war can be a perspective-altering, life-changing experience.

Over the next several episodes, I’ll be exploring the intersection of warfare and coffee, beginning with the American Civil War. While this may seem like a niche aspect of coffee’s history, nothing could be further from the truth. War has a way of making people appreciate the small pleasures in life, and coffee, as it turns out, is one of the biggest small pleasures that exists.

I’m Colin Mansfield, and welcome to Coffee Canon.

When I say the words, “Civil War” what are the first things that pop into your mind? If you’re from America, it’s probably things like slavery, Abraham Lincoln, or Gettysburg.

When Jon Grinspan, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, began digging through journals written by Civil War Soldiers, those are exactly the types of things he thought Soldiers would be talking about. “I went looking for the big stories,” he said, “And all they kept talking about was the coffee they had for breakfast, or the coffee they wanted to have for breakfast.”

He found that the word “coffee” was used in Civil War journals more often than the words “war,” “bullet,” “cannon,” “slavery,” “mother,” or even “Lincoln.” Grinspan said, “You can only ignore what they’re talking about for so long before you realize that’s the story.”

On September 17th, 1862 the North and South clashed at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The fighting had begun before daybreak, and by that afternoon Soldiers were hungry, worn out, and just plain tired. A 19 year-old commissary sergeant who served with Company E of the 23rd Ohio Infantry decided he could make a difference. He organized a mobile field kitchen and, under fire, distributed hot coffee and warm food to tired troops. The young sergeant was promoted to second lieutenant for his act of valor, and later was memorialized on a monument that stands to today.  This man survived the war, getting promoted to Brevet Major along the way. After the war, his political aspirations led him to run for President of the United States in 1869. His name was William McKinley, and of course, he won. His early act of coffee heroism earned him not just gratitude from Soldiers and a promotion, but it also got the attention of someone who would become a political mentor for young McKinley: Rutherford B. Hayes, who was in command of McKinley’s unit. 

Civil War Soldiers were emphatic about coffee. On July 5th, 1863, Civil War General Reub Williams wrote in his diary, “Even at that early period of the war, and before it was over I came to the conclusion that coffee was the most sustaining article of all the rations issued by the government. When worn out with an all day march and constant skirmishing, more than all else, a tin of good strong coffee did more to enliven a collapsed soldier. It put him in a condition to resume his march to sustain more of his laborious work than all else he consumed …”

During his research, Jon Grinspan, that curator we heard from earlier, found that Union Soldiers made coffee drinking a ritual, and would go to great lengths to enjoy it daily. They made it everywhere, and with everything: water from canteens, puddles, brackish bays, and even Mississippi mud. The North gave Union Soldiers about 36 pounds of coffee per person, per year. “Soldiers would drink it before marches, after marches, on patrol, during combat,” Grinspan said.

Where the North had coffee, the South had tobacco and a wider selection of food from Southern crops. According to Andrew F. Smith, a professor of food studies at the New School in New York, when they weren’t fighting a battle, Union and Confederate troops would meet in the middle of fields to exchange goods. Not only that, but Southern Soldiers wanted coffee so badly that they invented knock-off beverages to try and make up for their lack of beans. They roasted rye, rice, sweet potatoes or beets until they were a similar consistency to ground coffee – dark and carmelized. Of course, these alternative brews contained no caffeine, but at the very least they were something warm and consoling to drink.

Over 3 million Soldiers fought in the American Civil War, with the Union outnumbering the Confederates about 2 to 1. But perhaps the most striking number related to this war is the death count. Between 600,000 and 800,000 people died during the Civil War from combat, accident, starvation, and disease. By comparison, World War II had about 400,000 casualties. The Civil War is far and away the bloodiest war in American history. 

While disease and lack of infection-fighting medicine was one of the biggest causes for this high casualty count, another contributing factor was the disparity between Civil War tactics, and technology. 

Take, for example, the musket. Prior to the Civil War, infantry Soldiers typically relied on muskets that fired just one bullet at a time. The maximum range for these weapons was about 250 yards, but they were really inaccurate. To account for this, Soldiers were forced to stand much closer to their target – 80 yards was the actual effective range. This meant that battles were fought at relatively close proximity, with each side trading firing volleys.

But by the time the Civil War broke out, the rifle had been invented. Because of the way they’re designed, these early rifles were accurate out to about 1,000 yards. And as the technology wheel continued to turn, repeating rifles were the next major innovation in warfare. While muskets and early rifles could only load one bullet at a time, repeating rifles held multiple. The most famous of these – the Spencer carbine – could fire 7 shots in 30 seconds.

At the same time, tactics had not changed much since the late 1700s. Lining men up and marching them towards each other in combat was still a tried-and-true tactic, but with the rifle and repeating rifle now at play, this meant faster, more accurate shots, and more casualties. Much, much more. According to one source, rifles accounted for around 90% of Civil War casualties.

Tactics were slow to change, but that didn’t keep Generals from looking for a leg up against the competition in other ways. Union General Benjamin Butler saw coffee as a potential strategic advantage. He ordered his men to carry coffee in canteens with them into battle, and even planned attacks when his men would be most wired. His advice to fellow Generals was, “If your men get coffee early in the morning, you can hold.” Other letters from Union troops talk about coffee as a “nerve tonic,” saying it contained a “wonderful stimulant.” One Soldier wrote home, surprised that he was still living. He reasoned, “what keeps me alive must be coffee.”

In 1859 Sharps Rifle Company started manufacturing a rifle with a hand-cranked coffee grinder built into the butt stock. Troops from the North would fill the stock with beans, grind them up, and start brewing.

As the war went on, Union camps turned into makeshift cities that housed hundreds of thousands of men. Their coffee addiction was on display every morning. In one Soldier’s diary, he writes, “little campfires rapidly increasing to hundreds in numbers that would shoot up along the hills and plains.” Thousands of coffee grinders could be heard across the camp, all simultaneously crushing beans. Soon, everyone would have a mucket – or coffee pot – ready for their morning ritual.

In an editorial Jon Grinspan wrote for the New York Times, he tells the story of a Union Soldier who was freed from a prisoner of war camp at the end of the Civil War. The Soldier started thinking of everything he missed during his imprisonment. He wrote that, more than anything, he could never forgive “those Confederate thieves for robbing me of so many precious doses…Just think of it, in three hundred days there was lost to me, forever, so many hundred pots of good old Government Java.”

The Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in United States history. It pitted brother against brother – literally, in some cases, and was a major turning point in America. Looking back, it can be easy to see huge historical events like the Civil War as flat, 2-dimensional narratives that exist in books and movies. They can almost seem disconnected from our modern lives. That’s why, when we hear that Civil War Soldiers journaled about coffee more often than Abraham Lincoln or bullets, it can be jarring. It reminds us that these were real people, with real lives, who were longing for something completely and utterly ordinary: a cup of hot coffee. 

Both Union and Confederate troops went to incredible lengths to get their daily cup including using puddle water and roasted beets. But about 50 years later,  there was a new way to make coffee – instantly. It was also the start of another major war not just in American history, but in global history. World War I, next time on Coffee Canon.

I’m Colin Mansfield and thanks for listening to Coffee Canon. If you enjoyed this episode, shoot me a note on Twitter or Instagram: my handle is @BoiseCoffee. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and I’ll love you forever. Have a great week, and please, be careful with your rifle coffee grinder. 

The post Episode Ten: Warfare and Coffee Part One – The Civil War appeared first on Boise Coffee.

You are reading Episode Nine: The Double R Coffee House from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

Coffee’s history includes examples of shops and cafes that didn’t fit their historical context.  On this episode of Coffee Canon, we deep-dive into one of these; a shop that was opened in 1919, but bears a striking resemblance to modern artisan coffee shops. The Double R Coffee House was ahead of its time, and its owners bear a familiar, American name – Roosevelt.

This episode contains references to a wealth of sources and articles, which I’ve linked to below. Most notably, I ordered scans of the Library of Congress file titled “Double R Coffee House.”  You can download the PDF here.

Below are a couple of images from The Double R Coffee House, some of which are discussed in this episode (click for full resolution versions):

Final note: Coffee Canon is now available on Spotify! Click here to listen, and make sure to click the “Follow” button!

Episode Nine Sources:

Episode Nine Transcript:

Last episode, we talked about modern coffee culture, including what have become known as the “three waves” of coffee. While a rough construct, it does give a fairly good frame of reference when we talk about coffee’s history. It’s been a while since that episode aired, so here’s a quick recap: the first wave is associated with World War I and World War II, which brought coffee to the masses in pre-ground, airtight containers. The second wave was popularized with Starbucks and similar coffeehouses, which focused on quality above commodity, putting a larger emphasis on where coffee is grown and how it’s roasted. The third wave is associated with modern, artisan coffeehouses that are able to deal directly with farmers, care deeply about taste, and eagerly look for ways to push the craft of coffee forward. With all that said, it’s also important to realize that, like any aspect of culture, there are some people and stories that just don’t fit into their ‘wave.’ 

There are lots of modern examples of coffee companies that look and taste more like they belong in the first or second wave. One of these is Keurig – mass-produced, pre-ground coffee for everyone, even if that comes at the expense of quality, taste, or ecological sustainability. While fewer in number, there are also examples of people and coffee companies that were ahead of their time; they lived during the first or second wave, but acted like a modern, third wave company. On today’s show we’re going to deep-dive into one of these examples. The coffee shop we’re looking at today was opened in New York City in 1919. Its founders bear a familiar, American name – Roosevelt, and its origins start in the jungles of Brazil.

I’m Colin Mansfield, and welcome to Coffee Canon.

Four years after leaving office, the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, and his son Kermit went on an expedition to the Amazon Basin Brazilian jungle. The year was 1913, and the journey came to be known as the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition. Together with explorer Colonel Cândido Rondon, the group would go on to map the River of Doubt, a completely uncharted river over 1000km long. Later, as a result of the expedition, it was renamed Rio Roosevelt. Kermit accompanied his father at the behest of his mother Edith – he was reluctant, because it meant delaying his marriage, but his mother’s concerns about Teddy Roosevelt’s health and the difficulties of a new expedition won him over.

Originally, the scope of the expedition was small. It quickly expanded beyond the group’s original plans, leaving them inadequately prepared to face the dangers of the jungle. Of the 19 men who departed on the expedition, 16 returned home. One died by accidentally drowning in river rapids, and one was murdered by another member of the group. The murderer was left in the jungle, where he presumably died. Teddy Roosevelt was nearly a fatality himself – he contracted malaria and a serious infection from a small leg wound. The former president was weakened to the point of considering to take a fatal dose of morphine rather than be a burden to his son and companions. Kermit told his father that he was bringing him back dead or alive – and if he died, he would be an even bigger burden to the expedition. Kermit contracted malaria as well, but he saved medicine for his father and downplayed his own sickness. This nearly killed him – he lived only because a physician took action and directly injected quinine into Kermit.

Kermit’s outdoorsmen skills and determination saved his and his father’s lives. The expedition concluded in 1914, after which the group returned home. Kermit married his wife Belle, and he started his next job: assistant manager of the National City Bank in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He worked in that position from 1914-1916. By that time Kermit was very familiar with the culture of South America, and he became intrigued by the region’s coffeehouses. Where, in the United States, coffee was served quickly and drunk with haste, in South America it was made with freshly ground beans, and consumed leisurely, in a relaxed environment. Kermit Roosevelt saw a business opportunity. He conceived an idea to start a coffee house in the United States modeled after those he experienced in South America, and he pitched the idea to his brothers. But then, in 1917, the US entered World War I. Kermit’s idea was put on hold until after the war, at which point he brought it up again.

On January 29, 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution was certified and ratified, prohibiting the production, transport, and sale of alcohol nation-wide. The National Prohibition Act, also known as the Volstead Act, was passed in the the US Congress over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto on October 28, 1919. One month later, almost to the day, the New York Times ran an article: “Roosevelts Start Coffee House Chain. Houses Similar to the Ancient Institutions of London to be Established. Six relatives in the firm. Not restaurants, but similar to Paris Coffee Houses – first one is now open.”

Philip Roosevelt, a cousin of Teddy Roosevelt, was the president of the venture. He shared ownership equally with the Roosevelt children: Kermit, Archie, Ted, and Ethel, along with her husband Richard Derby. Together, their goal was to combine Kermit’s vision of a relaxed South American coffee house with the class and professionalism of a Parisian cafe. Their first store was named the “Brazilian Coffee House.”  Their mission is perhaps best summed up by Philip Roosevelt. “What we desire to do,” he told a reporter, “is to provide a place for people to come, where they can talk write letters, eat sandwiches and cake, and above all, drink real coffee.”

While the Roosevelts knew how to start a business, they knew next to nothing about running the daily operations of a coffee shop. To help with this, they hired a Brazilian man named Alfredo M. Salazar who was well-versed in coffee house operations, having previously managed a shop. His attitude and approach to running the coffee shop is best characterized in the following quotes, taken from the New York Times announcement of the Brazilian Coffee House’s grand opening:

Salazar said, “We are not a restaurant; please make that clear. The law required that we incorporate as a restaurant, but we are a coffee house, a real coffee house, like those in London several centuries ago, and similar to the ones at present in Paris and cities in Brazil. We do not serve food enough to be classed as a restaurant, only a little pastry and sandwiches with our coffee. Every day, also, we have on the menu a Brazilian dish for such persons as want a light lunch.” He goes on to say, “But it is coffee in which we are mainly interested, and we will sell it to drink or to carry home. In the first place, the American people don’t really know how to appreciate good coffee. They prepare it either in the percolator or by boiling. We make it like tea, by pouring boiling water over coffee through a specially prepared strainer. We are willing to show any one who desires to learn how to roast and prepare the coffee in the real Brazilian manner. In this connection I would say that in America the tendency is not to roast the coffee sufficiently. To serve poorly roasted coffee is injurious to the health, as only by roasting can the poison – caffeine – be eradicated.”

Calling Alfredo Salazar passionate is a massive understatement – the man was emphatic about his opinions on coffee. I think he would feel quite at home with modern bohemians, discussing what *real* coffee tastes like. The last sentence regarding caffeine is interesting – especially given a sign that hung outside the coffeehouse. It read “If Postum disagrees with you, try a cup of our coffee.” Postum is a roasted grain-based beverage which was a popular coffee substitute in early 20th century. It was considered safe to those who feared the effects of caffeine. Caffeine fear-mongering aside, it’s easy to draw connections between present-day coffee fanatics and The Brazilian Coffee House’s manager. 

According to the January 1920 issue of Simmons’ Spice Mill – a periodical that discussed the spice, tea, and coffee trades – the Brazilian Coffee House was located in the geographical center of the theatrical district of New York City. This helped the business get off to a great start – even better than the Roosevelts had hoped for. The article goes on to say “In planning the decorations, one of the partners chanced to remember that Voltaire has been credited by historians with drinking no less than seventy-five small cups of coffee each day, and that Shakespeare wrote: ‘Coffee, thou art all the comfort the gods will diet with me.’ As an effort is to be made to draw no small proportion of the establishment’s patronage from the literati of the city, portraits in color of Shakespeare and Voltaire have been placed conpicuously upon the walls, together with a work of art depicting the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the country from which the greater part of the coffee comes.”

According to Janesville Daily Gazette, Ethel Roosevelt – one of the Roosevelt children – was responsible for interior decorating at the coffee house. The shop was long and narrow; when patrons first entered, they were greeted by the portraits of Voltaire and Shakespeare on opposite sides of the room. Green and gold wallpaper covered each wall, featuring a Brazilian bamboo plant design. The room itself was adorned with 30 small oak tables and matching chairs. These were no ordinary tables – each had a compartment containing ink, envelopes, and paper inscribed with “Brazilian Coffee House.” Dictionaries and encyclopedias were available for patrons’ use as well. In effect, the Roosevelts had created a pre-technology internet cafe. Visitors could read, write, study, or draw – all while sipping on craft coffee.

Clearly the business was off to a great financial start. About $10,000 was invested in the outset. And if you think that sounds impressive, taking inflation into account, that’s about $125,000 in today’s money.

Shortly after the New York Times published their initial introductory article about the Roosevelts’ Brazilian Coffee House, a columnist wrote a follow-up editorial. They said, “The idea was hardly as original…as the originators seem to think…there have long been more than a few places on the east side…However, these older coffee houses have appealed chiefly to what is called the foreign element.” They went on to say, regarding Prohibition, “the time is favorable for the starting of something that will or may bring men together in the sort of sociability which was for many not the least attraction of the vanishing saloon.” Many of the sources I read indicated a similar sentiment: the Roosevelts’ coffee house came at the right time – a sort of flagship coffee shop experience beckoning to those who previously found their social home in bars. That same Janesville Daily Gazette article I mentioned earlier put it bluntly: “New York has to thank Prohibition for one blessing, and that is the establishment of a modern coffee house, where it is possible to obtain a cup of coffee that is coffee and not tannic acid soup. It also has to thank the Roosevelt family…[for its] new and picturesque enterprise.”

In 1921 the Brazilian Coffee House had to change its name. Our passionate friend Alfredo Salazar, as it turned out, had once owned a coffee house by the same name (you would’ve thought he could have brought that up sooner). When he sold it, the new owners retained the rights to the name. After the positive press and fanfare that the Roosevelts’ Brazilian Coffee House received, these owners served legal notice and demanded a name change. Wanting to avoid litigation, the Roosevelts landed on a new name: The Double R Coffee House. The two Rs stood for Roosevelt and Robinson – for Monroe Douglas Robinson, a nephew of Teddy Roosevelt who had joined the venture as well.

When I begin researching for these podcast episodes, usually I start where most people would: Google searches, and Wikipedia. More than anything, I’ve found Wikipedia to be a great place to discover primary source documents and articles. My research for this episode brought me back to one familiar source – William Ukers’ book “All About Coffee,” which I’ve referenced on previous episodes of the show. Another huge source was a Smithsonian Magazine article written in 2014 titled, “The Roosevelt Family Built a New York Coffee Chain 50 Years Before Starbucks.” Much of the historical narrative I’m exploring in this episode came from the timeline laid out in that article, but it also pointed me to another key source of information: Mr. Joshua Reyes. Josh is a National Park Service ranger at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site – the home of Theodore Roosevelt. Not only did he provide the Smithsonian Magazine with an interview for their piece, but he also was kind enough to respond to my emails and send me additional sources. 

In March of 2007 Josh Reyes wrote a piece about the Double R in a newsletter to the volunteers at Sagamore Hill called “The Rough Writer.” The write-up gives some great information that I’ve already covered in this episode, specifically in regards to the layout of the Double R and what it looked like. At the end of the article, Josh wrote, “The coffee house was reportedly part of a chain, however, no supporting evidence for this has been found. The Kermit and Belle Roosevelt papers, located at the Library of Congress, have a file labeled the Double “R” Coffee (Box 118). It is quite possible this may contain the missing pieces to this story.” 

This piqued my interest – the Library of Congress, after all, is accessible to the public and has an online presence. Using this information, I started searching the Library of Congress database for this file. I was able to find the specific location of the file, but as it turns out, the Library of Congress doesn’t keep digital scans of everything on their website. Instead, I had to fill out a series of forms and pay a fee to request a scan of the file be made and sent to me. I sent in the required documentation last October, I received confirmation that there was a researcher assigned to my order in November, and finally – on December 20th – I was sent a link to the file. I’ve included it as a download in this episode’s show notes in case you want to take a look, but I’m going to cover it in detail over the remainder of the episode as well. 

The file is fascinating. The first page is a letter dated September 11th, 1922 from Kermit Roosevelt to the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Navigation. It reads:

“Dear Sirs: Chief Yoeman, Joseph P. Hetzler, submitted an application for discharge on September fourth from the Receiving Ship at Philadelphia. He is to enter the employ of the Double R Coffee House, with which I am associated, if his application is granted. If it is entirely in order it would be a great convenience to the Coffee House if this application were acted upon as speedily as circumstances would permit.”

The next dozen pages include correspondence between Kermit Roosevelt, Joseph Hetzler, a U.S. Navy Lietenant Commander named H.C. Gearing, and a Navy Commander named Frank Jack Fletcher regarding this job opportunity.

I’m not sure who Joseph Hetzler is; online searches didn’t turn up anything. I do know, however, what position he was vying for within the Double R. 

In a 1922 letter to Mr. Patterson Way – a man who, based on other letters in the file, was involved with the finances for the Double R – Hetzler writes, “If my [US Navy] discharge does not come along within the next few days (or at least by the early part of next week) as a last resort I shall write a personal letter, enclosing copy of my request for discharge, to an officer in the Department who will follow it up from that end. There is so much “red tape” connected with the Service that one never knows how long such a request will take. I regret very much having to cause you all this trouble but I am sure you understand that it is only a matter of Navy routine and red tape which takes up so much time. I am looking forward to taking over the management of the Double R on Lexington Avenue upon my return and will strive my hardest to please you and Mr. Roosevelt.”

That last sentence is key. Whoever Chief Yeoman Joseph Hetzler is, this letter reveals a valuable piece of information – in 1922 the Double R did, indeed, have multiple branches. Or at least two: the Brazilian Location located on 44th Street, and another location on Lexington Avenue. I found two other sources that talk about this second Lexington Avenue branch. The first was a menu reportedly from the Double R. Both the Smithsonian Magazine article and a New-York Historical Society blog post included a scanned image of this menu within their writings. According to those articles, it comes from the Mildred & Philip Sawyer Papers – a collection of some 75 correspondence, notes, pamphlets, fliers, and other writings of Miss Mildred Sawyer and her father, architect Philip Sawyer of New York City. While I couldn’t view the papers themselves – the New-York Historical Society doesn’t offer digital access – I can verify that the documents were all from the years between 1895-1942. I think it’s safe to say this menu is legit.

The second source that talks about the Lexington Avenue branch is Ukers’ book “All About Coffee,” published in 1922. In it he writes “Members of the family of the late Colonel Roosevelt began to promote a Brazil coffeehouse enterprise in New York in 1919. It was first called Café Paulista, but it is now known as the Double R coffee house, or Club of South America, with a Brazil branch in the 40’s and an Argentine branch on Lexington Avenue.” The reference to the Double R being called “Café Paulista” stems from when the business was first incorporated in 1920. It appears as though the Roosevelt’s hadn’t yet finalized a name, and needed something to get the ball rolling.

According to the Smithsonian Magazine article, the Double R expanded beyond these two locations in the years that followed to four total coffee shops, all named after South American locations: the original Brazilian branch, an Argentine outpost, a Colombian, and an Amazon. Apparently at one point there were plans in the works to take the Double R brand national; Archie Roosevelt reportedly scouted sites in Chicago and planned other trips to Boston and Philadelphia for the same reason. We may never know why the Roosevelt children didn’t move forward with these plans – maybe they didn’t have the money to make it happen, or maybe – like with many projects the Roosevelt family started – they just decided to move on to something new.

Philip Roosevelt’s dream of creating a place for people to sit, write letters, talk, and drink great coffee came true. The placement of their flagship Brazilian location certainly helped – the theater district was exploding with writers and thinkers who wanted to be around like-minded people. Just about every major narrative I found regarding the Double R mention one particular patron who frequented the coffee house, and even wrote a poem about it – H.P. Lovecraft. The poem, titled “On The Double-R Coffee House,” is 7 stanzas long and ripe with descriptions of the shop and its frequenters. Here’s an excerpt:

“Amid the tap-room’s reeking air

Where smoky clouds and candles choke,

The choicest wit is said to flare,

And art to shed its daily cloak.

Here may free souls forget the grind

Of busy hour and bustling crowd,

And sparkling brightly mind to mind

Display their inmost dreams aloud.”

I couldn’t find many primary sources discussing why H.P. Lovecraft so enjoyed the Double R. I did find a well-researched paper, however, titled “Walking with Cthulhu: H.P. Lovecraft as psychogeographer, New York City 1924-26” by David Haden. Haden makes some interesting claims regarding the Double R, particularly regarding why it was so popular in Lovecraft’s literary circle, called the Kalem Club. Side note, the Kalem club got its name because the member’s last names all began with the letters K, L, or M. So, the more you know. One of the members of the Kalem Club, George Kirk, wrote a letter in 1925 mentioning the Double R. “If you had been longer in NYC you’d know that there are many boys and many girls both male and female. My dear Double-R is claimed to be the hangout for these half and halfers.”

Using this letter as a base, David Haden posits that the Double R was a popular discreet meeting place for gay men and women in the mid 1920s. This may have some truth to it – in 1925 police raids of gay clubs were normal, and the Double R would have been a natural meeting place.

According to the Smithsonian Magazine article on the Double R, in the late 20s the Roosevelts were moving on to other ventures. In 1928 Ted Jr. and Kermit were preparing for an expedition of Indochina to collect flora and fauna specimens – the largest of which was apparently a giant panda, which they shot and killed. 

Interestingly, the Library of Congress papers I received include correspondence with coffee giant Maxwell House, dated May 20, 1927. There’s no confusion about the topic of discussion- the note is titled, “Memorandum regarding negotiations with the Maxwell House Coffee Company, concerning their possible purchase of the control of the Double R Coffee House.” The memorandum is interesting, and includes specific dollar amounts the Double R leadership would be willing to offer. 

“I did not talk terms of purchase with Mr. Cheek, but Mr. Robinson, when I was not present, and given them to understand that we would consider selling fifty-one per cent for $15,000. In my opinion the purchase price would not be a matter of negotiation with them. In other words, I would not advocate naming a higher price and then be prepared to come down. I think that we should select a fair price and make them a firm offer, and that they will either take it or leave it. I do not believe that a few thousand dollars, one way or the other, will weigh very much with them. $15,000 seems to me to be a logical proposition, but if $16,000 makes the distribution of the indebtedness, or the transfer of the stock simpler, i think it is entirely feasible to ask it, at the same time explaining why you had picked upon that amount.”

It’s likely that Maxwell House was interested in purchasing the Double R because of the myth surrounding their slogan, “good to the last drop.” Maxwell House claimed that President Teddy Roosevelt declared this while visiting Andrew Jackson’s estate in 1907. There’s really no way to know for sure, and most sources seem to agree that the story is fabricated. But from the tone of the negotiations with Maxwell House, the Double R could have cared less – $15 grand is $15 grand.

For whatever reason, the sale never went through. Maxwell House bowed out. It was another year before the Roosevelt children sold the Double R. The final letters in the Library of Congress file I received include correspondence leading up to this sale – two notes from Mrs. Elizabeth Worth Muller. Mrs. Muller and her two daughters, Alma and Phyllis, were prominent suffragists in the early 1900s – Elizabeth was once arrested for picketing the White House regarding giving women the right to vote. She was an incredibly modern woman for the time, spearheading the Progressive Party in her local Sullivan County while Teddy Roosevelt championed the party nationally. According to one book I found, she was the first woman in her county to procure a big game hunting license. Her husband was a wealthy real estate mogul, and they had residences in Monticello, NY, Long Island, and Manhattan. 

According to the Double R file, in December 1927 she wrote a letter to one of the Roosevelt children, likely Kermit. In the letter she argues to lease the coffee house to two individuals. “I only know their first names, the sister of the woman has been the most faithful housekeeper, and her husband an unusual butler, that I feel one is in luck to do business with them.” Regarding the lease, she writes, “…to my way of thinking is to collect one hundred dollars a month on the lease, to run it on a paying basis…and like all who work in that way, they take their share first, and there wouldn’t be a hundred left for you. That amount would be rather a good revenue on your investment, it will mean hard labor, work, and then work to get that place on a paying basis.”

Based on the context of this letter, it seems as though the Double R had fallen on hard financial times and poor management. This becomes even clearer in the final letter Mrs. Muller wrote to the Roosevelts. “I do so want my people to get the place before it is entirely hopeless. Every time I go there and see those wonderful portraits of your own blessed Father I get fighting mad. That place, to my own way of thinking, is a disgrace to the name of Roosevelt. I am convinced that $1,000 must be spent at once, the side walls all marked by head grease, floors unpolished, those coat chained chairs are 100 years out of date.”

She even gets specific, writing, “I took Virginia Ham and spinach last week. The ham was tainted. I sent it back. The second portion was even worse. If my protégées are to have the place, the sooner the better.” She ends the letter by naming the future owners. “I certainly would be happy to have the Magdichs get the place very soon to convince you that I have good judgement and faith in the right people, just as I did when I gave my very strength and life to the Progressive Party.”

The very last letter in the Double R Coffeehouse Library of Congress file is addressed to Mr. Z Magdich. It’s unsigned, but probably came from Kermit Roosevelt. In part, it reads, “Dear Mr. Magdich: My sister-in-law, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, is taking over the management of the Coffee House. She would like to see Mrs. Magdich and you at eleven o’clock on Monday morning at the house of her mother, Mrs. H. A. Alexander, #167 East 74th Street.” We don’t know what was discussed at this meeting, but it’s likely that it was the first step in transferring ownership to the Magdichs. Mr. Zivko and Mrs. Aneta Magdich bought the Double R in 1928, according to a New York Times article. Apparently one of the reasons the couple was so interested in owning the Coffee House was a romantic attachment  – it was there that they had first met.

Little is known about what became of the Double R after 1928. But I think it’s safe to say that, like many businesses, it fell victim to the stock market crash of 1929 that signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. 

The three waves of coffee are a great construct for discussing coffee’s progression from traded commodity to specialty beverage, but the reality is that coffee’s history is littered with examples like the Double R. It was a coffee house ahead of its time, not conforming to any one wave. And while the coffee house is, for all intents and purposes, forgotten today, it reminds us that there are some elements of human nature that are as true now as they were in the 1920s: people want a place to sit, enjoy a hot beverage, and share ideas. Kermit Roosevelt thought he was bringing a piece of South America back to the New York City, but in reality, he was re-introducing something that resonates with people of all backgrounds: a sense of community and belonging.

Thanks for listening to Coffee Canon. This episode has been a long time coming, and I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new. If you’d like to see pictures of the Double R, or download the Library of Congress file I referenced throughout this episode, check out the post on my website, BoiseCoffee.org. Also, if you haven’t done so already, follow Boise Coffee on Instagram. I post daily coffee humor, memes, and beautiful photos on my story there. Finally, I’m happy to announce that you can now listen to Coffee Canon on Spotify! Just search “Coffee Canon” and click the follow button. I hope to have more episodes up soon, but I also have a baby on the way – so no promises. Thanks again for listening, and have a great rest of your week.

The post Episode Nine: The Double R Coffee House appeared first on Boise Coffee.

You are reading Episode Eight: Modern Coffee Culture from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

The way we drink and experience coffee has changed drastically. To many people, it’s become a specialty beverage where taste not only matters, but is decrypted using a multi-tiered tasters wheel consisting of 73 individual flavors. Cafes today focus not just on profit margins, but on growing standards and fair wages for farmers. Baristas take their craft seriously, competing against each other for trophies shaped like espresso tampers and portafilters. So…how’d we get here?

Episode Eight Sources:

Episode Eight Transcript:

“You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.” This old saying gets tossed around a lot – and interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be any one source for its origin. More than likely, its an amalgamation of several real quotes, like this one from American novelist James Baldwin: “Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.” Or this one, from Irish statesman Edmund Burke, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” Or even, perhaps this one from English fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett, “If you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”

The goal of this podcast is in the name – Coffee Canon. We’re here to discuss the canon – the real events that happened as they’re described – surrounding coffee. We’ve spent a great deal of time focusing on the distant past, going back to as far as the 15th century. Surprisingly though, for as long as coffee has been around, some of the biggest leaps in its production, distribution, roasting, and brewing have happened within the last 70 years or so. Espresso, for example, didn’t even exist until the 1950s.

But even more recently, the way we drink and experience coffee has changed drastically. To many people, it’s become a specialty beverage where taste not only matters, but is decrypted using a multi-tiered tasters wheel consisting of 73 individual flavors. Cafes today focus not just on profit margins, but on growing standards and fair wages for farmers. Baristas take their craft seriously, competing against each other for trophies shaped like espresso tampers and portafilters.

Coffee has changed. And in 2002, Trish Rothgeb from Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters defined this change by coining the term “Third Wave Coffee.”

The canon we’ve looked at so far relates to coffee’s past. On this episode, we’re focusing on modern coffee culture.

I’m Colin Mansfield, and welcome to Coffee Canon.

“November, 2002: The final night of Oslo’s preliminary rounds for the Norwegian Barista Championships. The last competitor steps up to the bar to begin his 10 minutes of prep time. He looks nothing like the others. No trendy hairdo, no expensive jeans or silver-studded eyebrow. As a matter of fact, he is not a working barista at all. Looking more like a shorter, jollier Pappa Hemingway, he is Alf Kramer (among other things: the former chairman and founder of The SCAEurope, past director of The Norwegian Coffee Association, a champion of coffee causes worldwide, and Norway’s father of coffee’s Second Wave). He is competing tonight against kids 30 years his junior. Some weren’t even born when he began working in Specialty Coffee, and many don’t even really know who he is. So why is he here? Could be he knows the Third Wave of coffee is swelling in Norway and he’s here to surf some crema.

First Wave, Second Wave, Third Wave: this is how I think of contemporary coffee. There seem to be three movements influencing what Erna Knutsen, a Norwegian immigrant to America, termed Specialty Coffee. Each approach has its own set of priorities and philosophies; each has contributed to the consumer’s experience—and our livelihoods. Occasionally, the waves overlap; and one inevitably spills over to influence the next. What have we chosen to accept as conventional coffee wisdom? What have we rejected? What does the next wave have to offer?”

These words, written by Trish Rothgeb are the first recorded mention of the term “Third Wave Coffee.” This phrase, and the historical concept it harkens to, are the foundation upon which modern coffee culture is built. There’s an attractive simplicity to distilling coffee’s history into three sections – and while it’s not perfect, it does give an accessible framework to how coffee got to where it is today. To put it simply: it makes modern coffee easier to explain.

So who is Trish Rothgeb and why does her description of coffee’s history matter?

For starters, Trish is the co-founder, co-CEO, director of coffee, and roastmaster at Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters in San Francisco. She has over 30 years of experience as a coffee roaster, green coffee buyer, and teacher of most anything to do with coffee. She teaches cupping to coffee producers and professionals around the world, and she travels often to growing regions worldwide. She served on the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Roasters Guild Executive Council, was a charter member of the World Barista Championship Board of Directors, and a founding member of the Barista Guild of America. And those are just the highlights.

According to an interview she conducted with Fresh Cup Magazine in 2016, Trish got her start in coffee working as a barista during college while studying painting and drawing at San Jose State University in California. In 1990 she learned how to roast coffee on a small roaster. According to her, “This is before it was a cool thing to do. It was just a weird thing to do.” She asked her boss to teach her how to roast. He responded, “I would rather golf in the morning so sure, I’m going to give you this job and I’m going to teach you how to turn this machine on and make this coffee as black as tar and that’s how I want you to roast it.”

Trish never stopped working in coffee – it hooked her. She learned all she could from various jobs in the U.S., but a trip overseas opened her eyes. “…I went to Europe and it was like a whole new world, just so much information. I had already been in coffee for ten years when I went to Norway and when I got there I was like, what the hell is going on? This is a whole different world. Like what are these cappuccinos? They’re perfection. That’s when I got a new flood of interest.”

In an interview with Imbibe Magazine, Trish explains where she got the phrase “Third Wave Coffee” from.

“Back around 2000, while I was living in Oslo, Norway, I was reading some random articles about third-wave feminism. In a nutshell, the concept said that you could be whatever you want to be – that we can build on what we had learned from feminism of the past few decades, and then shed some of the ideas that no longer worked. I also saw espresso being served in a few shops in Oslo that aligned with that philosophy…The shops couldn’t care less about how the older more established cafes were doing it, whether they were ‘authentically Italian,’ or even if they had a large and loyal customer base…this dedication to the highest quality possible, in harmony with cafes’ point of view, was entirely new to me. It all of a sudden seemed logical that coffee, much like artisan breads or craft beer and cheese, would want to continue to push for greater heights.”

The other half of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters is Nick Cho. He’s the co-founder, co-CEO, and head barista. In 2002 Nick founded Murky Coffee, which developed into Washington DC’s premier coffee bar, winning barista competitions and recognition around the specialty coffee industry. Nick’s resume is just as impressive as Trish’s: he’s served as a director on the Barista Guild of America’s Executive Council, on the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Board of Directors, on the World Barista Championship Board of Directors, and as the chair of the United States Barista Championship. 

Nick and Trish are two sides of a well-polished coin. Trish is a technical expert. When asked by Fresh Cup magazine whether or not she holds public cuppings at Wrecking Ball, she responded “It’s an occupational hazard for me to talk to the lay person about coffee…if I had the time and space I would train either my head trainer or my lead barista to do those with customers and they would love it and the baristas would love doing it. That’s a better application of my time than to try to do it myself and be nervous because people aren’t rinsing their spoons or not doing something else. I’m so totally focused on the technical that I’m just a fish out of water anymore in that space.”

Nick, on the other hand, is a front-end man, focused on relating to customers, service, and making specialty coffee more approachable. In a 2011 issue of The Specialty Coffee Chronicle Nick wrote an article titled, “I Want Coffee, Not Coffee Or: How I Learned to Appreciate Cream and Sugar Again.” In it, Nick discusses the disconnect between specialty coffee enthusiasts, and the average customers they are trying to serve. The article is a great quick read, but I’ll pull out a couple quotes that best illustrate his point:

“Expecting customers to stop and engage us on our terms because we want to teach them about coffee is beyond unrealistic. It clearly crosses the line into arrogance, if not ignorance.” Also, “Neither the coffee purists nor the populists would, or should, want to see the other side disappear. With the plight of the coffee farmers on all of our minds, diversity in the ways people consume and enjoy coffee is good for everyone. However, what isn’t good for everyone is the polarization and dissension, that has become all too common as our industry grows and develops. If we’re to reach our customers effectively, we need to figure out how to communicate coffee factually, accurately, and in ways that clarifies the truth, rather than promoting more confusion.”

Trish Rothgeb and Nick Cho aren’t the only influential people in the coffee industry by a long shot, but their impact can’t be overstated. They’ve helped shape modern coffee culture into what it is today, and they continue to challenge their peers through strong opinions and thoughtful discussion. You can find a host of articles, interviews, and opinion pieces written by Nick and Trish on the “About Us” page on their website, wreckingballcoffee.com. 

This week from June 20th-23rd, 60 barista champions from around the globe will meet in Amsterdam to compete at the 2018 World Barista Championship. Their challenge is to prepare 4 espressos, 4 milk drinks, and 4 original signature drinks to exacting standards – and they have 15 minutes to accomplish this.

The rules and regulations for the World Barista Championship are laid out in a 25-page document that outlines all kinds of criteria that competitors must follow. For example, in the “Technical Skills Espresso – Part II” section, baristas must abide by the following in order to score maximum points: flush the group head, dry-clean filter basket before dosing, acceptable spill/waste when dosing/grinding, consistent and effective dosing and tamping, cleans portafilters (before insert), insert and immediate brew, and extraction time (within 3 second variance). There are 18 sections in the rules booklet with criteria like these – its nothing if not thorough.

As with any competition, though, the hard part isn’t the 15 minutes on stage – its all the prep work that happens months in advance. 

It’s important to realize that the World Barista Championship doesn’t pick a coffee for competitors to brew. Instead, each competitor must select an excellent coffee that 1) tastes delicious and 2) fits in with a theme they’ve chosen. Ideally, competitors will build their entire 15 minute demonstration around this theme. It could be highlighting new processing techniques, explaining how specific equipment changes their cup, or even simply discussing their personal specialty coffee journey. But whatever that theme is, the coffee needs to be the center piece.

As you know from previous episodes of this podcast, coffee growing, processing, and roasting is a time-consuming process. This means that baristas need to build in plenty of time in their training schedule to account for selecting a coffee, cupping different roasts, and practicing actually brewing that coffee.

At the same time, the competing baristas aren’t brewing their coffee in silence. During their 15 minutes on stage, competitors are explaining every step and how it relates to their theme. This means that not only do they have to be great at making coffee, but they also have to hone their presentation skills to perfection. If you ever watch the World Barista Championship, you’ll notice that competitors have a cadence and rhythm to what they’re discussing – and its all in perfect sync with how they’re brewing. That level of performance only comes as a result of hundreds of hours of practice.

In a second I’m going to play a clip for you from last year’s World Barista Championship. In it, you’ll hear Dale Harris, the Director of Wholesale at Hasbean Coffee, go through the last portion of his routine for the final round of the competition. It’s important to note that to get to this point, first Dale competed in and won the Barista Championship of the United Kingdom. Next, he competed in four days at the World Barista Championship consisting of two days of preliminary rounds, a day of competition against 16 baristas for the semi-finals, and this – the final round where just 6 competitors remained.

In this clip Dale is making his “signature drink.” The signature drink is a unique invention by each barista, which highlights specific qualities in the coffee they’ve chosen and fits in with their theme. While he’s talking, Dale is being evaluated by a panel of four judges. Here he is:

[Dale Harris World Barista Championship audio clip – watch full video here]

The first US Coffee Championship took place in 2002. A group of dedicated volunteers organized the first North American Barista Championship at the Specialty Coffee Association of America Exposition in Anaheim, California. 27 baristas from around the US competed. By the next year, this organization became the representative body for the World Barista Championship in America. They organized a series of 10 regional barista competitions across the US which fed the national event – this same competition format was used until 2010.

In 2010 the World Barista Championship reorganized itself as “World Coffee Events.” They incorporated cup tasting and latte art competitions, and by doing so, further broadened opportunities for baristas to compete. The next year, in 2011, the 10 regional competitions were consolidated into six, and the US Brewers Cup Championship was introduced into the competition cycle.

In 2013 the American competition rebranded itself as the US Coffee Championships. The six regional competitions were further consolidated into just three “big” events. While community feedback continued to be largely positive towards these changes, the Specialty Coffee Association of America was experiencing a significant drain on their financial resources. The competitions had grown so large that costs were exceeding revenues.

2015 was a big year of change for the US Coffee Championships. Regional events were completely eliminated – they simply weren’t financially viable. A new process for qualifying competitions was announced, and was immediately met by protests from the barista community. After a series of leadership summits, meetings, and community feedback, a single qualifying event was created to determine competitors advancing to the national championships.

In 2016 the US Coffee Championship qualifying event took place in Kansas City, Missouri. 100 coffee professionals competed to qualify for the US Barista Championship, and 50 for the US Brewers Cup competition. Of these 150, 36 from each competition were selected as eligible to advance.

Later that year, the Competitions Committee reconvened to develop a long-term solution for regional qualifications. One issue that had been brought up over the years was how to give all coffee professionals the same chance to compete – regardless of where they’re from. Ultimately, the committee came up with a financially viable solution that is community-focused. They’re called “CoffeeChamps,” and in 2017 two of these qualifying events were held in Knoxville, TN and Austin, TX.

Obviously, coffee competitions aren’t for everyone – most people drink coffee largely the same way humans have for hundreds of years. We’re not interested in being on stage, or trying to convince judges why we deserve a trophy: most people, and this includes me, just want a good cup of coffee. And today, more then ever before in coffee’s history, getting your hands on a truly great cup is easy. You could say that this is due to a greater societal awareness about what goes into producing quality goods. You could also probably argue that the marketing focus on organic, fair-trade, and other similar labels has made consumers more willing to buy expensive coffee beans. Both of these things are probably true, and I think you could probably find other equally true statements regarding why more great coffee is available now. 

But I actually think that there is one root cause. Usually, when we talk about the other two waves of coffee, what they are is closely tied to why they are. For example, the first wave of coffee, according to Trish Rothgeb, is defined by air-tight cans, pre-ground portion packs, and making coffee a commodity available to the masses. World War I and World War II were vitally important to this phase because coffee was seen as a morale-booster for troops oversees, and was rationed back in the US. After World War II, in 1946 coffee consumption in the US peaked at over 46 gallons per person annually. This huge demand for coffee meant companies had to come up with new ways to package, sell, and ship beans. The first wave of coffee is defined by its causes.

The second wave is generally associated with the rise and prominence of Starbucks, and similar large-scale coffee chains. The things that define the second wave of coffee, according to Trish, start with an artisan-style drive towards caring about coffee’s origins. Paying closer attention to roasting styles is another marker of second wave coffee. Starbucks introduced words like “latte” and “cappuccino” into the vernacular of everyday Americans, not to mention “tall, grande, and venti.” Once again, the second wave of coffee is defined by what caused it to unfold.

And yet, with the third wave of coffee, while there are plenty of discussions, debates, and articles centered on what it is (it’s definition), there are shockingly few discussions about why it is. Sure, people reference how it got its name, who some of the big players are, and what a third wave cup of coffee tastes like, but the why is rarely brought up.

My hypothesis for why the third wave of coffee exists is simple: the internet. Or, to put it more accurately, the modern, searchable internet.

The timelines definitely match up: between 2000-2005 Google became the search engine power-house of the internet. This was about the same time Trish Rothgeb was relating her thoughts on third-wave feminism to coffee. This was also around the time Nick Cho founded his Washington D.C.-based coffee bar. In 2005 Nick actually expanded on Trish’s Third Wave Coffee concept in an online forum post to CoffeeGeek.com. In it, Nick says “So what of this ‘Third Wave?’ In an admittedly esoteric way, I usually refer to the ‘Third Wave’ as letting the coffee speak for itself. During the first two waves, we appreciated coffee for what it gives us: caffeine, a hot beverage to sip and enjoy a conversation over, a drink to modify with sweetener, dairy (or non-dairy) creamers, syrups, whipped cream, etc. The Third Wave is about enjoying coffee for what it is.”

But did you catch that? Nick Cho posted that on an online forum, completely centered on coffee discussion, in 2005. The early 2000’s were formative years for the modern internet, but that year –  2005 –  was a tipping point. According to a Pew Research Center article written on January 2nd, 2005, “By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere and its popularity.” They go on to list some interesting statistics.

“27% of internet users say they read blogs, a 58% jump from the 17% who told us they were blog readers in February. This means that by the end of 2004 32 million Americans were blog readers…At the same time, for all the excitement about blogs and the media coverage of them, blogs have not yet become recognized by a majority of internet users. Only 38% of all internet users know what a blog is.”

The outer limit of what communicating with other people on the internet looked like at the beginning of 2005 was blogs and online forums. In February of 2005, YouTube came online. Also in February, Google Maps was launched. In June, Reddit launched. In September, a little online college project opened up to high schools across the US – called Facebook. By the end of 2005, Facebook was in over 2,000 universities and 25,000 high schools throughout the US, Canada, Mexica, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.

Google had grown significantly in the early 2000s, becoming the definitive search engine of the modern internet. The first use of “Google” as a verb in pop culture happened on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 2002. Then, in 2005, The Washington Post reported a 700 percent increase in third-quarter profit for Google. Most of this profit came from companies shifting advertising strategies online, and away from newspapers, magazines, and television.

By the end of 2005 the way you could interact with people online, share content, and view media had radically changed. The internet would certainly never be the same, but neither would the way humans share ideas and knowledge. Blogs opened a way for the layman to share their ideas with a larger community of people. Facebook made that even easier, giving you a one-stop-shop for friends, co-workers, and classmates. YouTube made it so you could expand on ideas using videos and visual media. Reddit created a voting system for people to decide what content is important and most worth viewing. But Google really ties this all together – search is the lynchpin of the internet – it makes things possible to find, and allows anyone dsto begin the process of self-education.

Modern coffee culture isn’t defined by a societal event like a world war, nor is it defined by any one company like Starbucks. Instead, it’s defined by the ability to share information with people across the world in an instant. It’s defined by getting feedback on brew methods and roast recipes online. It’s being able to write, record, and publish an audio show about coffee’s history, then having that instantly available for anyone to listen to. Nick Cho said, “The Third Wave is about enjoying coffee for what it is.” I agree, but respectfully I’d argue it needs more. The Third Wave is about enjoying coffee for what it is, and sharing that enjoyment with anyone, instantly. Without the internet, there are no World Barista Championships or coffee competitions. Without the internet, and the communities built around a passion for coffee, there is no Third Wave.

Thanks for listening to Coffee Canon. I’m your host, Colin Mansfield, and I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed making it. If you’d like to discuss more about modern coffee culture, find me on Twitter – my handle is @BoiseCoffee. And if you liked this episode, please leave it a review on Apple Podcasts so other people can find it. Have an awesome week!

The post Episode Eight: Modern Coffee Culture appeared first on Boise Coffee.

You are reading Episode Seven: Dutch Coffee from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

The Netherlands is only about 1,000 miles from the Arctic Circle, making farming difficult. And yet, Dutch culture is intimately tied to coffee culture and history. Many of the biggest events that turned coffee from a novelty to a commodity happened because of the Dutch. On this episode of Coffee Canon, we explore the stories and people that took coffee from Europe to the Caribbean and South America.

Episode Seven Sources:

Episode Seven Transcript:

The primary thing that fascinates me about coffee’s history is how un linear it is. What I mean by that, is that coffee’s discovery and subsequent spread from Africa and the Middle East to Europe and beyond didn’t happen in any of the ways one might expect. When we look at history, it’s easy to forget that we’re peering into real snapshots in time – actual events that transpired because of the actions and choices people made.

In movies, we know that the plot is going to move forward in a predictable way. That’s one of the reasons why I love films by the Cohen brothers – their stories aren’t strictly grounded in reality, but the way the plot advances is. Characters make half-thought through decisions that sometimes lead to dead ends. Some characters never see how their actions affect the larger story. People die unexpectedly.

In past episodes of this podcast we’ve seen how individuals’ actions have had rippling impacts on global coffee culture. From the 16th century Ottoman Empire to 1950s Italy, we’ve discussed stories that show how coffee’s spread and adoption wasn’t some natural occurring phenomenon, but instead the result of a handful of dedicated risk-takers.

Today’s stories are going to put those to shame. Industry-changing heists, royal theft, knife fights, and even pirates – this episode’s got it all. And connecting each of these stories is the Dutch.

I’m Colin Mansfield, and welcome to Coffee Canon.

Dutch culture is intimately tied to coffee drinking. According to 2014 data from Euromonitor, people from the Netherlands drink 2.4 cups of coffee per day. That may not sound like much on its face, but consider this: that’s on par with the US, the UK, Spain, and France combined. Another way to measure coffee drinking habits is in kilograms consumed per person per year. A 2017 article from The Telegraph placed the Netherlands at number 5 with 8.4kgs per person per year, below Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark. The U.S. isn’t even in the top 20.

According to sources familiar with the matter (and by that I mean a guy I work with who’s from the Netherlands) It’s not uncommon for a Dutch working-person to drink a cup before work, immediately upon arriving to work, at midday, and sometime towards the evening. And from what I’ve gathered, the Dutch aren’t extremely picky about their coffee – they enjoy specialty coffee, but will happily drink Nespresso if that’s what’s available.

The Netherlands is only about 1,000 miles from the Arctic Circle, making farming difficult. In as early as the 16th century, the Dutch began experimenting with the concept of greenhouses, also called glasshouses. They were probably the first European country to do so, closely followed by England. These early greenhouses were difficult to close up at night and winterize – they just didn’t provide adequate and balanced heat to consistently grow food in a sustainable way.

In the 17th century, a French biologist named Charles Lucien Bonaparte – the nephew of Emperor Napoleon – built the first practical greenhouse. He did it in Holland. Later in the 17th century, the Netherlands added greenhouses to their Hortus Botanicus – one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world. These greenhouses became the home of many varieties of foreign plants ill-suited to the Netherland’s colder temperatures – one of which was a single coffee bush that had been stolen from Yemen.

If you remember, last episode we briefly discussed the guy who stole that coffee bush; his name was Pieter van den Broecke. He was a Dutch merchant who worked for the Dutch East India Company in the early 1600s – a formative time for the company. See, the Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602 as a means for the Dutch government to enact a monopoly on the spice trade in their country. The company came up with a novel idea – they issued bonds and shares of stock to the general public, allowing individual citizens to own a piece of the company. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s how publicly traded corporations run today. In fact, the Dutch East India Company was the first formally listed public company and first corporation to ever be listed on an official stock exchange.

It was in this environment of corporate growth and opportunity that Pieter van den Broecke sought to make his living. And he did well for himself – at one point in 1611 he transported 65,000 pounds of ivory to Amsterdam from a captured Portuguese ship. At one point during his career he was made the Dutch East India Company’s manager in Dutch Suratte – a colony that is now in present-day India, and later the head of the Banda Islands in Indonesia. Descendants of van den Broecke live on Banda to today.

His greatest contribution to the world – the coffee plant he stole from Yemen – was only a small vignette of his dramatic career. It happened in 1614 when he visited Yemen’s primary port, Mocha. As you might   remember, Yemen had banned the sale of live coffee bushes in an effort to keep their cash crop a monopoly. Van den Broecke stole one of these plants and transported it back to Amsterdam. It was planted in the Botanical Gardens there, where it remained largely untouched for 100 years.

In the years following Pieter van den Broecke’s heist, coffee did find its way to Europe via trading. Coffee shops quickly gained popularity in metropolitan centers like Italy, England, France, and Holland. But as far as I can tell, the only live coffee plant in Europe during this time was the one planted in the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens. Greenhouse or no, coffee simply was not successfully grown as a crop in Europe. It was a treasured novelty, which helps explain the events that transpired in 1714.

That year, King Louis XIV of France visited Holland. The Mayer of Amsterdam presented the King with a gift during his visit – a coffee seedling taken from the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens. The King recognized its value and had it planted within the Jardin des Plantes – the royal botanical gardens – in Paris. It was a showpiece – a token of friendship between nations. According to once source, the plant was received with a ceremony led by the professor of botany in charge.

Ten years later, around 1724, coffee’s propagation took its next big leap. Its hear that we have to dip back into the realm of legend and hearsay – not because the events aren’t recorded, but rather because they’re recorded by the man who carried them out. History is written by the victors, and the victors tend to write themselves as the heroes. In this case, our “hero” is a French naval captain named Gabriel de Clieu. He recorded the events we’re about to discuss in 1774 in a letter written to “The Literary Year,” a French periodical based in Paris. The letter was published, and is the primary source for the events that follow. I couldn’t actually read the periodical – it’s in French, and I couldn’t find any English translations, but a summary of his events was published in the 1922 book “All About Coffee” by William Ukers. It’s an entertaining read and dives deeper into coffee’s propagation – if you’re interested in checking it out, take a look at my show notes for the Google Books link.

de Clieu was serving as captain of infantry on Martinique – an island located in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Somewhere between 1720 and 1724 personal affairs took de Clieu to Paris, and while there he conceived an idea to bring coffee plants back to the island. It’s not clear why he wanted to do this – maybe he recognized the economic possibilities of growing a rare crop in a new place. The problem was that there was absolutely no way the French government was going to let him take coffee plants on the journey back to Martinique. The likelihood of coffee seedlings surviving the journey was incredibly small – and remember, these coffee plants represented goodwill between nations – they weren’t actually supposed to produce a coffee crop. What de Clieu needed was an inside man – someone willing to help him steal one or more coffee plants. The man who ended up helping him was a royal physician named M. de Chirac, but how de Clieu enlisted his help requires a little interpretation.

In Ukers’ book “All About Coffee,” he writes, “His first difficulty lay in obtaining several of the plants then being cultivated in Paris, a difficulty at last overcome through the instrumentality of M. de Chirac, royal physician, or according to a letter written by de Clieu himself, through the kindly offices of a lady of quality to whom de Chirac could give no refusal.” Some unsubstantiated accounts I’ve read reference de Clieu having seduced this lady to help him – but the term “lady of quality” isn’t a euphemism. It literally means an upstanding woman.  The best possible interpretation is that de Clieu found a woman willing to help him convince the royal physician to commit the theft. My sources indicated that any other explanation is reaching, at best.

M. de Chirac, the royal physician, stole some of the coffee plants, and soon after de Clieu departed on his journey back to Martinique. de Clieu took great care to ensure the plants survival on the journey back – apparently he even went so far as to install a box covered with a glass frame in order to “absorb the rays of the sun and thus better to retain the stored-up heat for cloudy days.” The survival of this plant was obviously important to Gabriel de Clieu.

In his account that was later published, he writes about four perilous events, any one of which could have ruined any chance of the coffee plant surviving its journey.

First, one of the young officers on board sought to claim the plant for himself. de Clieu relates the confrontation, writing, “It is useless to recount in detail the infinite care that I was obliged to bestow upon this delicate plant during a long voyage, and the difficulties I had in saving it from he hands of a man who, basely jealous of the joy I was about to taste through being of service to my country, and being unable to get his coffee plant away from me tore off a branch.” One dramatic account, colorfully written but lacking sources, talks about this man pulling a dagger, and de Clieu defending the plant with a sword.

The second event that nearly ruined the voyage was an attack by pirates. Unfortunately there’s no details recorded about how the ship and its crew managed to escape the pirates – but every single version I found references this having happened. In “All About Coffee” Ukers writes, that they “narrowly escaped capture by a corsair of Tunis.” Another version I found talks about the crew fending off the pirates for a full day before escaping. Regardless of how it happened, I think its safe to say that it did actually happen. Both the crew and the coffee plant survived.

Then there was the storm. Apparently it was bad – a “violent tempest” by some accounts. During the storm, the glass box that de Clieu had built to house the coffee plants shattered – but the plants themselves survived.

The fourth, and final event that almost ruined the voyage wasn’t as exciting as pirates or storms, but it was just as dangerous – lack of water. After the storm, almost the entire supply of drinking water was exhausted. What was left was rationed amongst the people on board. At this point I think most of us would let the coffee plants die – I know I would. But not Gabriel de Clieu. In his written account of the voyage, de Clieu talks about using portions of his water rations specifically to keep the seedlings alive. He writes, “Water was lacking to such an extent that for more than a month I was obliged to share the scanty ration of it assigned to me with this my coffee plant upon which my happiest hopes were founded and which was the source of my delight. It needed such succor the more in that it was extremely backward, being no larger than the slip of a pink.” I’m not actually sure what a “slip of a pink” is…but I think de Cleiu’s meaning is clear: he hadn’t come this far only to let the coffee seedlings die.

Finally, the ship arrived at Martinique. The next step, as far as de Clieu was concerned, was to make sure the coffee was planted and protected. He writes about the steps he took, saying, “my first care was to set out my plant with great attention in the part of my garden most favorable to its growth. Although keeping it in view, I feared many times that it would be taken from me: and I was at last obliged to surround it with thorn bushes and to establish a guard about it until it arrived at maturity…this precious plant which had become still more dear to me for the dangers it had run and the cares it had cost me.”

The first harvest from the coffee seedlings came in 1726, and the second in 1727. The coffee plants loved the weather in Martinique and began to spread rapidly. de Clieu writes, “Success exceeded my hopes. I gathered about two pounds of seed which I distributed among all those whom I thought most capable of giving the plants the care necessary to their prosperity. The first harvest was very abundant; with the second it was possible to extend the cultivation prodigiously, but what favored multiplication, most singularly, was the fact that two years afterward all the cocoa trees of the country, which were the resource and occupation of the people, were uprooted and totally destroyed by horrible tempests accompanied by an inundation which submerged all the land where these trees were planted, land which was at once made into coffee plantations by the natives. These did marvelously and enabled us to send plants to Santo Domingo, Guadeloupe, and other adjacent islands, where since that time they have been cultivated with the greatest success.”

The event de Clieu referenced in regards to the cocoa trees was a documented earthquake in 1727. By 1777, there were between 10-20 million coffee plants in Martinique. One source I found stated that the coffee grown in Martinique in the years that followed exceeded what was drank by the entire country of France. What’s more, not only were coffee trees shipped to Santo Domingo and Guadeloupe, as de Clieu stated, but all across the Caribbean and eventually to South America. Guatemala, Brazil, Nicaragua, Colombia – all the coffee powerhouses we know and love today – all of them have Gabriel de Clieu to thank. And as for de Clieu, well – where would he be without the Dutch?

As we talked about at the beginning of the episode, today the Dutch love coffee – it’s a significant part of their daily ritual and culture. Interestingly, another love they’ve held on to since the 16th century is greenhouses. In September of 2017 National Geographic published an incredible article called “This Tiny Country Feeds the World.” Its tagline is: “The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by showing what the future of farming could look like.” I highly recommend checking this article out – its full of beautiful pictures and excellent journalism – classic National Geographic. The article talks about how the Netherlands is home to these incredibly massive greenhouse farms that have made strides in vegetable production most people would think impossible.

About two decades ago the Dutch made a national commitment to sustainable agriculture, setting their goal at “twice as much food using half as many resources.” One farm that the author of the article interviewed has reduced their dependence on water for key crops by as much as 90%. As measured by value, The Netherlands is the globe’s number two exporter of food, second only to the US. All of this, in a country without access to nearly every resource commonly considered necessary for large-scale agriculture. To make things even more interesting, The Netherlands is a global leader in exports of a crop that typically is only grown in warm, sunny climates: the tomato. By yield per square mile, The Netherlands is far-and-away number one in the world, bringing in 144,352 tons per square mile. Compare this to, say, China – a massive country who’s actual tomato yield far surpasses The Netherlands (58 million tons vs. about 1 million from the Dutch), but their farmable land mass for tomatoes is about 3,800 square miles – compared to the The Netherlands 6.9 square miles. This makes China the least efficient tomato farming nation in the world, coming in at only 15,000 tons per square mile. Again, The Netherlands’ number was 144,352 tons per square mile.

The Dutch accomplish this by utilizing space-saving growing methods that aren’t by any means new – much of what they’ve implemented goes back to 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. Rather than relying on heavily regulated GMO seeds, The Netherlands uses molecular breeding to produce some of the most reliable seeds in the world. And they’re a world leader in this area too – Dutch firms had close to $1.7 billion worth of seed exports in 2016.

Notably absent from this article was any discussion about coffee. The Dutch are focused on food and seed exports for crops necessary to sustain human life – coffee, as much as I love it, simply doesn’t fit into their vision for the future. And honestly, the elements that create great coffee – specific temperatures, soil composition, and altitude, probably aren’t achievable in a greenhouse environment. That said, it’s wild to think that the technology used to keep Pieter van den Broecke’s stolen coffee plants alive in the Amsterdam Botanical Gardens in 1614 – greenhouses – is the same technology being used to push the global food market forward 400 years later. And, as always, the Dutch are leading the way.

Thanks for listening to Coffee Canon. I’m your host, Colin Mansfield, and I’m excited to announce a new way to listen to the podcast. It’s called Anchor, and it’s an app you can download on your Android Phone or iPhone. Anchor makes it possible to record your own podcast, if that’s what your into, but it also provides a great user interface for listening to podcasts and audio shows you love. Check it out at anchor.fm/coffeecanon.

Have an excellent week, and please watch out for coffee pirates.

The post Episode Seven: Dutch Coffee appeared first on Boise Coffee.

You are reading Episode Six: Turkish Coffee from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

From the halls of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to the streets of the Grand Bazaar, from the fields of Kaldi the Goat Herder to the room of an Israeli fortune teller; Turkish Coffee runs the gambit. It’s the world’s oldest brewing technique – surviving military coups, government bans, and industry monopolies. It’s unfiltered, strong, and unlike anything else you’ve ever tasted. It has survived the test of time, both served to royalty with panache, and served to commoners streetside.

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Episode Six Transcript:

A big part of the difference between coffee brewing methods comes down to the filter. French press coffee is so distinct because of the metal mesh filter that keeps grinds out of your cup, but lets coffee oils into it. Espresso is similar in this regard: the nice layer of crema that great shots of espresso are known for is a result of the metal portafilter that allows these coffee oils into each shot.

Coffee brewing methods that use paper filters strive for a cleaner taste that highlights bright flavor profiles and crisp tasting notes. There’s tons of these filter cones and brewing devices on the market, but the most popular are the Hario v60, the Kalita Wave, the Bee House, the Chemex, and the AeroPress. All of these devices use paper filters, and all are seeking to bring out the best flavors of the coffee you brew in them. At the end of the day, the biggest difference between these devices is the type of paper used for the filter. Coffee brewed in a Chemex doesn’t taste unique because of the shape of the Chemex or the glass cone – it tastes unique because of the heavier paper filter that Chemex makes specifically for their coffee device.

See, every coffee brewer has a different shape and physical aesthetic, but when you get right down to it, the single biggest factor that’s going to alter the taste of your coffee, aside from grind consistency, is the type of filter used.

So what happens when you brew coffee without a filter?

I’m Colin Mansfield, and welcome to Coffee Canon.

The most popular filter-less coffee brewing method is called Turkish Coffee. It’s brewed in a device called a Cezve (Jezz-ve or Chez-ve) spelled c-e-z-v-e – basically it’s a small pot on the end of a long handle. These can be super simple and functional, or incredibly ornate for fancy occasions.

Brewing Turkish Coffee is about as easy as it gets – you grind coffee very fine, to almost the consistency of a powder. Put the coffee in the Cezve, then add water. Next, put your Cezve over a heat source. The point isn’t to get the water to boil right away, but to gradually heat it until the coffee begins to froth. Once that happens, your Turkish Coffee is ready to serve. Simply pour your mixture into small cups or shot glasses.

As you can probably imagine, there is a large amount of sediment in the final product. When drinking Turkish Coffee, you’ll want to stop after consuming about 2/3 of the cup. The last 1/3 to 1/4 will typically be composed of coffee grinds that have settled to the bottom. And that’s the other thing – don’t drink your cup of Turkish Coffee right after it’s served. Let it sit for a few moments to allow the grinds to settle at the bottom. Otherwise you’ll probably have to floss after drinking your cup.

Many restaurants that serve Turkish Coffee will offer both sweetened and unsweetened versions. The sweetened versions that I’ve tried both here in the US and in the Middle East are no joke – sweet, means sweet.

The cool thing about Turkish Coffee is that there’s almost nothing standing in the way of you tasting the bean. There’s no paper filter to block oils, and there’s no metal mesh to block grounds. It’s all there – for better, or worse. The coffee is, of course, very strong and very caffeinated – think something closer to a shot of espresso rather than a sip of filter coffee.

The origins of Turkish Coffee are closely tied to the origins of the coffee beverage itself – it was, perhaps, the very first way coffee was brewed. And so, like with all things on this podcast, we have to go back. Before coffee made its way to Turkey, it was a valuable source of income in Yemen. And before Yemen, it was a wild plant on the Ethiopian Plateau.

The “who” and “when” of coffee’s discovery is steeped in legend – pun completely intended. Most sources I found point to the 10th century as the “when” – the “who,” on the other hand, isn’t a universally agreed-upon person. There are two popular legends however, which tend to get repeated most by coffee books and papers. The authenticity of these stories is definitely suspect, and its likely that they’re more fiction than fact. But hey, who doesn’t like a good story?

The first account talks of Sheik Omar, a man who had been exiled to the Yemeni desert for certain moral remissness. Facing starvation, the Sheik and his followers scavenged the nearby plants for anything to eat. They came across small berries growing on a shrub, which, while appearing to be edible, were also incredibly bitter and hard. To improve the taste, they roasted the beans in a fire. To improve the texture, they softened them in water. Not only did the resulting brown beverage taste good, but it left Omar feeling invigorated and refreshed.

When Sheik Omar returned from exile his salvation was considered a miracle – coffee became famous, and Omar became a saint.

The second legend revolves not around a sheik, but a goat herder named Kaldi (or Khalid depending on the translation). Kaldi worked on the Ethiopian Plateau, the birthplace and original home of the coffee plant. One day Kaldi noticed that when his goats ate the fruit off of particular shrubs, they became energetic and refused to sleep. Dancing caffeinated goats made it difficult for Kaldi to do his job, and he complained about as much to the abbot of the local Muslim monastery. The abbot, seeing a possible opportunity, tried the beans for himself and – wouldn’t ya know it – he felt more alert. He ordered that the beans be crushed and steeped in water, creating a drink to share among his fellow monks. Thereafter no one at the monastery had trouble staying awake during the evening services.

According to this legend, the story of the wakeful monastery spread rapidly through the East, causing other nations to experiment with coffee. This was the beginnings of coffee culture.

While these two coffee origin stories seem to be pervasive, there are other simpler accounts: in one, a Yemeni Sufi mystic observed abnormally active birds snacking on coffee cherries and decided to try them for himself. In another, civet cats are said to have eaten coffee beans in central Africa, carried them to Eastern Africa, then pooped them out in the Ethiopian mountains. Here, the tale says, coffee trees sprouted and were discovered by a traveling Arab merchant. If you’re familiar with modern Kopi Luak coffee (otherwise referred to as cat poop coffee), this brings an entirely new historical dimension to the idea.

Regardless of which account you choose to believe, there are patterns that pop up when you lay these stories next to each other: animals almost always tend to be involved, it’s discovered through observation, nearly always on accident, and Yemeni monks tend to find their way somewhere into the story.

Also, it’s worth noting that all the stories tend to take place within a century or two of each other. When you stop and put this in perspective, it’s actually really interesting. This is a wild plant we’re talking about – not something cross-bred to cultivation perfection in a greenhouse somewhere. The coffee plant and its fruits went undiscovered for thousands of years, slipping through the fingers of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Middle-Eastern, and African worlds. Then, all of a sudden – seemingly out of nowhere, a bunch of legends about how, when, and where coffee was discovered. Still, these are legends – coffee’s rise to world industry was still hundreds of years in the making.

This great book I found called “The World of Caffeine” discusses coffee’s origin story in a really approachable way – and one section caught my eye in particular. Here, authors Bennett Weinberg and Bonnie Bealer discuss at what point coffee went from African legend to primary-document recorded fact:

“Although European and Arab historians repeat legendary African accounts or cite lost written references from as early as the sixth century, surviving documents can incontrovertibly establish coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree no earlier than the middle of the fifteenth century in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen in southern Arabia.”

At this point in world history, Yemen had an important role to play: not only did it have a desirable crop, but it had an accessible trading port as well. This port was in the far southwest corner of Yemen, opening into the Red Sea. It’s name ended up becoming synonymous for quality coffee in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, and while it’s no longer used as a port today, you can find its name on every Starbucks menu world-over. It’s called Mocha.

Yemen had captured lightning in a bottle – their coffee crop was booming, the money was flowing, and they had no real competition. In effect, they had a monopoly on the fledgling coffee industry. And so, as demand for their product grew, Yemen did the natural thing: they stacked the deck in their favor and cut off competition. They made it illegal to sell live coffee trees or seedlings. But, with demand for coffee rising in Europe, and supply limited to the Yemeni bottle-neck, it was only a matter of time until someone stepped in to break the monopoly. That someone turned out to be a Dutch merchant named Pieter van den Broecke. In 1614 he first tasted coffee in Mocha, and two years later he pulled a heist that forever changed the future of the coffee industry: he stole live coffea Arabica bushes, and transported them back to Amsterdam. This single act put into motion a series of events that resulted in coffee as we know it today: a billion dollar industry that is bought, sold, and traded world-round.

Backing up just slightly, in 1555 Yemen was still the world’s coffee powerhouse. The Ottoman Governor of Yemen, (and I’m probably going to butcher this pronunciation) Özdemir Pasha, absolutely loved coffee. Under his rule, a new method of brewing coffee was discovered and established: the beans were roasted over a fire, finely ground, then slowly cooked while steeped water. The Governor of Yemen shared this method with Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the leader of the Ottoman Empire. He loved this take on coffee and popularized it in Istanbul and beyond. Turkish Coffee had arrived.

As you might imagine, brewing coffee for the Governor of Yemen and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire wasn’t as simple as throwing some beans in hot water; no, it was an ordeal. One article I found referenced coffee brewing ceremonies with upwards of 40 assistants needed to properly serve the drink. The brewing ritual was ornate – it included incense, Turkish Delight, and rosewater cologne. The drink itself was spiced with mastic, cardamom, and ambergris. Coffee brewing became so popular that the position of Chief Coffee Maker was added as a legitimate court position – and it was an honor. Apparently a number of Chief Coffee Makers rose through the ranks, eventually becoming Grand Viziers to the Sultan. That would be like the White House barista becoming the President’s Chief of Staff.

About 100 years later, in 1656, the Ottoman Empire pulled a 180 on coffee. Grand Vizier Koprulu helped establish laws which outlawed coffee drinking altogether. Why? Well, as with many bans, the primary reason was, in a word, fear. First, religious fear – apparently people were spending more time drinking coffee and socializing than they were worshipping. Second, political fear. The ruling class of the Ottoman Empire believed that when normal everyday citizens gathered to socialize while sipping coffee, they were more likely to question political doctrines and laws.

If you were caught drinking coffee at this time, the penalties were severe. One article I found related that the first offense would result in being beaten with a cudgel. A second offense, however, would result in being sewn into a leather bag and thrown into the nearest river. I couldn’t find any documents telling of instances where either of these things actually happened – it’s not clear if these were empty threats. But regardless, little was achieved with these new laws – coffee remained popular, and even continued to spread.

If there’s anything I’ve learned while studying coffee’s history around the world, it’s that it’s rarely present without coffeehouses or cafes. The Ottoman Empire is certainly no exception. In an interview with The Guide Istanbul, art historian Cicek Akcil said, “Different historians differ on the exact date, but we know that traders Hakem from Aleppo and Şamlı from Damascus opened Istanbul’s first coffeehouse in Tahtakale some time between 1551 and 1560…the drink didn’t begin to enter regular use in the Ottoman palace until the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent.” Despite the unsuccessful coffee ban, coffeehouses sprung up in both upper-class and lower-class neighborhoods. Akcil, the art historian, discussed this as well saying, “The first coffee houses to open in Ottoman times were based around serving their neighborhoods. Later, many kinds of coffee houses appeared, such as tradesmen’s coffee houses, janissary coffee houses, and firemen’s coffee houses. There were also opium smokers’ coffee houses and public storytellers’ coffee houses, as well as coffee houses for aşıklar — the folk poets and musicians of Turkish oral culture…Sometimes a barber would sit next to the coffee hearth so you could get a shave there as well. The janissary coffeehouses often had Greek dancers for entertainment.”

A great place to see an example of what these 16th century coffeehouses would’ve looked like is the tourist-friendly Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. It’s one of the oldest and largest covered markets in the world, with history dating back to the mid 15th century. It’s considered by many to be one of the world’s first shopping malls. Inside you’ll find a family owned and operated classic Turkish coffeehouse, founded around 1909. It’s set up in much the same way Ottoman coffeehouses would’ve been – a small room, with one side open to the street. Here, customers drink Turkish coffee or hot ginger tea while sitting on small stools and listening to the sounds of the market around them.

If you’ve ever visited Greece or an authentic Greek restaurant, you might’ve seen something called “Greek Coffee.” This actually confused me for a while, by taste I couldn’t tell the difference between Greek Coffee and Turkish Coffee. Both are made without a filter in a Cezve. Both use finely ground coffee, brought to a gradual boil, then served in a small cup – grinds and all. Well, as it turns out, they’re the same drink. And up until the mid 1970s, it was even called “Turkish Coffee” in Greece. The crux of the name change came as a result of the 1974 attempted Greek military coup on the island of Cyprus. For about 10 years, there had been ongoing turmoil between Greece and Turkey regarding who the island belonged to – but in 1974 this all came to a head. On July 20th Turkey invaded the island, and by July 23rd the ruling Greek junta collapsed. As you can probably imagine, this left a lasting impressions not only on the island of Cyprus, but on all of Greece.

Albert Arouh, a Greek food scholar, said in a 2013 interview with NPR, “The invasion sparked a lot of nationalism and anti-Turkish feelings. Some people tried to erase the Turks entirely from the coffee’s history, and re-baptized it Greek coffee. Some even took to calling it Byzantine coffee, even though it was introduced to this part of the world in the sixteenth century, long after the Byzantine Empire’s demise.” By the 1980s it was no longer politically correct to order a “Turkish coffee” in Greece, and by the 1990s brand-name coffee companies were airing TV advertisements saying things like “in the most beautiful country in the world, we drink Greek Coffee.”

Greece isn’t the only country to have adopted Turkish coffee while changing the name. The Armenian Genocide, where the Ottoman empire systematically murdered 1.5 million Armenian people between 1914 and 1923, had a similar effect on the drink’s naming conventions – there, it’s called Armenian Coffee.

Each of these versions of the drink tend to be brewed slightly differently. Whether its a cultural statement, or simply a difference in convention, I can’t say. In some iterations of the drink, smaller amounts of hot water get added to the coffee grounds initially until a thick paste forms, after which the rest of the water is added. Sometimes cold water is used, other times the grinds aren’t added until the water is already warm. If you want to try the different drinks yourself, just make sure you use the right naming convention when you order.

One of the more eccentric uses of Turkish coffee comes in the form of fortune telling. This is done in much the same way tea-leaf reading is conducted – in fact, both fall under the same brand of divination – its called tasseography, or sometimes tasseomancy or tassology. Tasse, being the French word for cup. After drinking a cup of Turkish coffee (or Greek coffee or Armenian coffee…you get the idea), the cup is sometimes swirled, then left alone for a time to allow the grinds to dry. Some traditions call for it to flipped upside down onto its saucer. In the Turkish tradition, the cup is turned towards the querent, then divided into horizontal halves; the bottom half relates messages about the past, while the top half is used to tell the future. The cup can also be divided into vertical halves for yes/no answers to specific questions.

After the reading is conducted, the querent is told to “open the heart.” At this point, they place their right thumb into the coffee grinds and rotate clockwise just slightly. This impression is read by the fortune teller to be the querent’s thoughts or emotions.

I couldn’t find a ton of stories specifically about Turkish coffee tasseography, but one did jump out. In 2007 a famous fortune teller from Israel named Sana Kuma was arrested for practicing magic – a crime punishable under Israeli law with a 5-year jail sentence. One of her clients alleged that she had cheated him out of about $1000 in exchange for fake fortunes. Kuma had been practicing tasseography for nearly 15 years at this point, and she had some fairly high-profile clients including a former Miss Israel. The Israeli law that she violated is vague at best – its okay to read Tarot cards and conduct astrology, for example. This imprecise law must have been enforced  a fair amount – there’s actually an attorney out of Tel Aviv who specializes in defending accused witches.

Basically, the purpose of the law is to keep fake fortune tellers from taking advantage of people – but the only way to imprison these divinators is to prove that they know that they are fakes. Which is actually pretty difficult. In the end, Kuma was able to cut a deal with Israeli authorities – a refund to the accuser in exchange for no jail time.

The only other article I could find about Sana Kuma was a short news article from 2008 – a year later. Apparently, she had charged a woman about $150 in exchange for treating a fake brain tumor with amulets, injections, and concoctions. No word on whether she foresaw the police detaining her.

From the halls of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to the streets of the Grand Bazaar, from the fields of Kaldi the Goat Herder to the room of an Israeli fortune teller; this drink runs the gambit. It’s the world’s oldest brewing technique – surviving military coups, government bans, and industry monopolies. It’s Turkish coffee – unfiltered, strong, and unlike anything else you’ve ever tasted. It’s survived the test of time, both served to royalty with panache, and served to commoners streetside. It’s probably going to outlive us all, so the next time you have the opportunity – taste it. Just make sure someone’s there to tell you if you have any grounds stuck in your teeth.

I’m Colin Mansfield and thanks for listening to Coffee Canon. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends by sending them this link: boisecoffee.org/coffeecanon. Also, if you haven’t already, go to that link and sign up for the Coffee Canon email list. You’ll get exclusive sneak-peaks at upcoming episodes and access to additional content. Finally, do me a solid and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening, and have a great week. Go find some Turkish coffee.

The post Episode Six: Turkish Coffee appeared first on Boise Coffee.

You are reading Episode Five: Season of Giving (ft. Nate Westwick from Wild Goose Coffee Roasters) from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

Around this time of year we hear stories of people giving back to the less fortunate in their communities. Whether it’s Ebenezer Scrooge from a Christmas Carol forgiving debts, or your local church donating money to a worthy cause, there’s something about the Holiday season that propels people to give.

Last week, just before Christmas, I got the opportunity to interview Nathan Westwick from Wild Goose Coffee Roasters. I wanted to do an episode highlighting Wild Goose because they place a huge emphasis on giving back to their community – but not just during the Holidays.

All year long, for every pound of coffee Wild Goose sells, they donate 10 pounds of food to a local food bank. Purchase coffee here to support their mission. Use the hashtag #1equals10 and let them know you’re taking part.

Through their commitment and actions, the folks at Wild Goose remind us that we each have the power to positively influence those around us in practical ways at all times of the year – and what better time to be reminded, than this Holiday season?

Happy New Year! May your 2018 be filled with love, generosity, and excellent coffee!

Colin

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You are reading Episode Four: Holiday Drinks from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

Today on the podcast we’re bending the rules a bit and not focusing entirely on coffee. Instead, in the spirit of Christmas, we’re broadening our scope and looking at Holiday drinks as a whole, and the traditions they come with.

We’re focusing on three drinks in particular: the Pharisee, the Tom and Jerry, and Irish Coffee. All three are steeped in Christmas tradition, and the stories surrounding each are as interesting as they are surprising.

If you’re interested in making any of these drinks at home, here are some recipes I recommend:

Need last minute gift ideas? Check out the Coffee Canon 2017 Holiday Gift Guide, available as a free PDF here.

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Episode Four Transcript:

In Germany, they take Christmas seriously. Every year, starting in late November and continuing all throughout December, most German towns have giant pop-up outdoor Christmas Markets. They’re complete with small shops, delicious foods, and – of course – warm drinks. The Christmas markets are an old tradition, with history dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, and their popularity over the years has turned them from a uniquely German custom into something most of Europe participates in. You can find Christmas markets everywhere from Paris to Copenhagen – but the biggest ones are still in Germany.

The most popular drink at German Christmas Markets is called Glühwein – it’s a hot mulled wine that can be served with or without a shot of brandy. As you walk around the markets you’ll see shop owners ladling out cupfuls of Glühwein from giant vats. It’s customary to pay for the drink, along with a deposit for the decorative Christmas mug it comes in. After finishing the drink you can choose to keep the mug, or return it and collect your deposit back.

Today on the podcast we’re bending the rules a bit and not focusing entirely on coffee. Instead, in the spirit of Christmas, we’re broadening our scope and looking at Holiday drinks as a whole, and the traditions they come with. The origins of some of these drinks, like Glühwein, are straightforward: wine tastes good, so hot wine with spices tastes even better when it’s cold outside. Other drinks have a more interesting backstory – like the Pharisäer, another Germany Christmastime alcoholic beverage. The name literally translates to “Pharisee” – yes, a reference to the Biblical sect of Jews who strictly adhered to ancient laws. But the drink is made from sweetened coffee and a shot of brown rum. So what’s with the name?

I’m Colin Mansfield, Merry Christmas and welcome to Coffee Canon.

It was the early 1870s in Nordstrand, Germany – an island that was home to a pastor named Georg Bleyer. Pastor Bleyer hated alcohol, and the local townspeople knew this. To keep the peace, people abstained from drinking while he was around.

On one particular day, Pastor Bleyer had come to the home of a respected local farmer named Peter Johannsen to baptize his new child. Pastor Bleyer finished giving his blessing to the baby, but decided to stick around for a while and enjoy the cozy home. The other guests weren’t pleased with this – they wanted to start drinking in celebration. Suddenly, farmer Johannsen had an idea. He asked one of the young ladies present to prepare cups of coffee, but to put a nice shot of rum in as well – for everyone, except the pastor. Then, to cover up the smell of liquor, he asked that a nice dollop of whipped cream be placed on every drink.

As you can imagine, a few rounds in everyone was starting to feel very cheerful. But then, misfortune struck and Pastor Bleyer discovered that the other cups contained rum. It’s not clear if the tipsy kitchen staff accidentally added rum to the pastor’s drink, or if he was simply suspicious at how everyone seemed to be getting happier. Regardless, the gig was up and the pastor was angry. After tasting the rum he stood up and shouted, “Oh, you Pharisees!” The name stuck.

Now with stories like this, usually I advise taking them with a grain of salt. Time has a way of shifting the names of people and the particulars of how events happened, but in this case, the story seems to have happened the way its told. One article I found was written in German by the great-great-grandson of Pastor Bleyer. He traveled to Nordstrand last year and met the descendants of the Johannsen family. He even went to the farm where the Pharisee story is said to have taken place – it’s since been turned into a cafe. Each person he talked to told the story the same way – how it was passed down to them from their parents.

The Pharisee became a staple menu item in German bars and cafes – and no wonder: its sweet, slightly bitter, and has nice punch of rum – or at least it’s supposed to.

In 1981 a German dentist named Arnold Rothmaler and his wife entered the Fährhaus restaurant in Holnis on the Flensburg Fjord in far north Germany. He and his wife took a seat, then saw a folded up card advertising the Pharisee drink. The card said that the drink was made, “according to the original recipe.” Mr. Rothmaler ordered two Pharisees, but after taking a sip he noted that the drink was weak – he complained to the wait staff, asking how much rum the drink contained. At this point, the restaurant owner, Mr. Wolfgang Wree, got involved, and he replied that the drinks contained 2 centiliters, or about 4 teaspoons, of rum. Mr. Rothmaler pushed back, stating that the original recipe for the Pharisee required more rum, but the restaurant owner wouldn’t relent. The disagreement escalated, and Mr. Rothmaler refused to pay for the drinks, electing instead to take the restaurant owner to court.

Now to put this in context, each drink was priced at 3.50 DM, or Deutsche Marks. In 1981, 7 Deutsche Marks converted to $13.82 US. Taking inflation into account, that’s $37.22 today.

Arnold Rothmaler got his day in court. The presiding judge, Peter Jacobsen, determined that the only way to know for sure whether or not the Pharisees made with 2cl of rum were weak, was to taste them. The judge ordered several variations of the drink be made, then tasted them with the defendant (Mr. Rothmaler) and the plaintiff (Mr Wree, the restaurant owner). In the end, the judge sided with the defendant – Mr. Rothmaler. I was able to dig up the transcript from the court proceedings – it’s hilarious to read the judge’s verdict in official court documents. Here’s an excerpt. It’s translated from German, but I think you’ll get the point:

“…the plaintiff had rejected the rectification by adding more rum. The fact that the defendant had the opportunity to order more rum in order to make the drink more alcoholic is certainly correct, but here it is insignificant; the defendant would then have accepted the defective performance and would have been additionally charged with a further purchase price claim. The served “Pharisees” were deficient . They have deviated significantly in their quality from what characterizes the “Pharisee” according to the original recipe. It is known to the courts that there are other recipes for this drink that originated on the island of Nordstrand. The original recipe, to which the folding card refers, is based on a drink that is “highly alcoholic” and therefore clearly tastes the rum additive. Because the drink is due to the “hearty” and “decent shot of rum” as “delicious drink warm body and soul.” This is not the case with two centiliters [of rum]. The court has determined by taste that the “Pharisee” tastes bland and expressionless with a rum addition of two centiliters. The rum is barely visible; It is a coffee beverage with a low alcoholic taste, but not a delicious, high-percentage alcoholic beverage. It remains to be seen whether the preparation of a proper “Pharisee” requires four centiliters of rum; In any case, an addition of two centiliters is too small.”

The ruling dictated that Mr. Rothamler did not have to pay back the 7 Deutsche Marks. I guess that’s one way to get free drinks.

In September of last year, 35 years after Judge Jacobsen made his ruling, a German magazine brought the dentist, the restaurant owner, and the judge back together for a reunion at the same restaurant where the infamous drinks were served – they all agreed that “Pharisee peace” has been established.

Each year in October or November, local supermarkets begin carrying a drink that’s closely tied with holiday cheer – egg nog. It’s one of those beverages that people either love or hate, but calling it ubiquitous is probably an understatement – to many people it defines the transition from autumn to winter. Egg nog the beverage dates back to as early as the 17th century, but the name itself likely came about in 1775 – “nog” referring to “strong ale.” One account I read stated that the first US President, George Washington, served an egg nog-like drink which included rye whisky, rum, and sherry.

But while I was doing research about egg nog, I discovered another drink – a close relative to egg nog that was extremely popular around Christmas time in the US for over 100 years. The drink is called the Tom and Jerry. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone. Many people now refer to it as the “forgotten Christmas cocktail.”

The Tom and Jerry likely got its name in 1821 from British journalist Pierce Egan. He invented the beverage to help publicize his new book called “Life in London, or The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn Esq. and his Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom.” So no, it’s not associated with the cartoon cat and mouse – if anything, the cartoon, developed in 1940, may be a play-on-words from the drink.

Essentially the Tom and Jerry is a hot version of egg nog that uses milk rather than heavy cream, as well as a significant portion of brandy. It became a well-loved Christmas beverage in both popular culture and homes across the United States. President Warren Harding even served Tom and Jerries at his annual Christmas party. In 1932 writer Damon Runyon wrote a short story called “Dancing Dan’s Christmas” which prominently features the Tom and Jerry. In it, he writes,

“This hot Tom and Jerry is an old time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.”

Obviously, the drink was delicious. Most recipes call for 12 egg yolks to be combined and beaten with 1 cup of sugar. From there, the egg whites are whipped in a separate bowl, then folded into the stiff yolk mixture along with a healthy glug of brandy. Put a small portion of this mixture in the bottom of a mug, then add hot milk and more brandy to taste, topping with nutmeg and cinnamon or whatever Christmas spices you desire. The finished product should be hot, creamy, and alcoholic.

Although it’s kind of a pain in the butt to make, the drink became so popular that you could buy Tom and Jerry sets, complete with a bowl to hold the batter and matching mugs with “Tom” and “Jerry” inscribed on them, often in fancy lettering. The first appearance of a Tom and Jerry bowl in writing was in an 1864 New York Times article about a bar fight ending in death. “When deceased ran and jumped over the bar; as he went over he struck a ‘Tom and Jerry’ bowl and fell.” Today, original Tom and Jerry bowls are antiques and collectibles.

But then, somewhere in the mid 20th century, around 1950 or 1960, the drink almost completely disappeared. There’s no definitive reason why, but there are theories. A popular one is that the rise of commercially-produced egg nog, available in supermarkets around the country, dis-incentivized people from making the time-intensive Tom and Jerry at home. The interesting thing is that the Tom and Jerry disappeared from bars and pop culture everywhere except Wisconsin. From what I can tell, the drink somehow solidified itself as a tradition in this cold corner of the US, even while it faded from people’s minds everywhere else. To today, you can buy pre-made Tom and Jerry mixes in local Wisconsin grocery stores.

Jim Draeger and Mark Speltz, authors of “Bottoms Up,” a published survey of Wisconsin’s historical taverns, posit two possibilities for why the Tom and Jerry remained popular in their state: first, it’s a dairy drink, and Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland. Second, Wisconsin is cold about nine months out of the year. John Dye, owner of a Milwaukee cocktail lounge agrees with the weather sentiment, adding also, “Trends just move a little slower here. They have their traditions and they stick to them.”

Over the past decade or so the Tom and Jerry has seen a slight resurgence in bars and restaurants looking to add something classic, yet new to their holiday menu. Whatever the reason for the Tom and Jerry disappearance, my hope is that this hot, delicious holiday beverage sees a revival in American culture. I mean, at this point let’s be honest: store-bought egg nog isn’t doing anyone any favors.

It’s the 1930s in Ireland. A man named Joe Sheridan decides to apply for a chef’s job at an airport in the city of Rineanna. It’s a small airport – a flying boat terminal, in fact, but it’s significant. The airport is named Foynes, and it becomes the first place to host transatlantic flights between Ireland and New York City. Joe Sheridan soon becomes well known as a great chef in this new international hub.

In 1943 a flight departs Foynes headed for New York with dozens of passengers on board, when suddenly a bad storm hits. The pilot is forced to turn the plane around and land back in Foynes, and, as you can probably imagine, the passengers are rather scared.

Legend says that after the flight landed and the cold, shaken passengers got back into the terminal, chef and bartender Joe Sheridan decided to whip up something special. He brewed dark coffee, tossed in some sugar cubes, then added a splash of Tullamore Dew whisky. Finally, he topped the drink with a layer of cold, thick cream.

As he passed the drink out, one of the passengers took a sip, then asked, “is this Brazilian coffee?” “No,” Sheridan said, “It’s Irish Coffee.”

Irish Coffee is pervasive now in the same way that mulled wine or a hot toddy is, and it can be tempting to assume that well-known mixed drinks like these spread in the same way as a viral video online. Somebody, somewhere tastes the drink, enjoys it, then tells their friends. Those friends, in turn, try the drink, enjoy it, then tell their friends. Rinse and repeat.

This might be true for some drinks, but Irish Coffee owes its spread to one man. And while Joe Sheridan invented the drink, he wasn’t the person that transformed Irish Coffee into the fixed icon that it is today. That honor belongs to a man named Stanton Delaplane.

Delaplane was an incredible reporter who worked for the San Francisco Chronicle for 53 years. In 1941 he won the Pulitzer Prize for articles about “the Free State of Jefferson,” a group of four Northern California counties and one Oregon county that threatened to break away and form a 49th state in a dispute over highway construction in the gold and copper mining areas. He also won National Headliner Awards in 1946 and 1959. Delaplane wrote a column five days a week for years and years, and in 1944 and ’45 he served as a war correspondent in the Pacific theater of World War II.

According to a SFGate article written about Delaplane in 2008, he was a perfectionist who enjoyed writing on whatever he had laying around – like old air mail letters – then going through every line carefully, ensuring he wrote exactly what he wanted to say.

Starting in 1953 Delaplane began writing a syndicated humorous travel column called “Postcards.” He used short sentences in a staccato style, which he said was for the benefit of San Francisco Municipal Railway riders who had to read the paper while commuting on the shaky train.

After learning about his death, British commentator Alistair Cooke did a segment on BBC radio about Stanton Delaplane. Here’s a clip from that show, though honestly the entire thing is worth listening to.

“Stanton Delaplane wrote like a young and happy and wholly successful pupil of Hemingway. he rarely wrote sentences of more than six or seven words and he could go weeks without calling on an adjective. His peculiar magic, which I often probed into and never discovered, was to keep these bare sentences rollicking along in the most effortless way, running as clean as spring water over the bed of a brook. He could not help being an entertaining writer and that is a gift that very few writers indeed can legitimately claim from the double-domed philosophers to the light-weight journalists.”

Stanton Delaplane was a tremendous writer, but he was also the man that brought Irish Coffee to the United States – and through that, into mainstream culture. It all started with a trip to Ireland in the 1950s.

By that time the old Foynes flying boat terminal had closed and been replaced by Shannon International Airport. Joe Sheridan – the chef who invented Irish Coffee on that cold, stormy night nearly 20 years prior, had moved to the new airport as well, and he had made Irish Coffee a regular part of his menu.

Delaplane ordered an Irish Coffee, and immediately fell in love. After returning to the states, he took the recipe to his friends Jack Koeppler and George Freeberg, the owners of a San Francisco bar called the Buena Vista Cafe. Delaplane asked for Koeppler’s and Freeberg’s help to re-create the magical drink he had tasted in Ireland, and on November 10th, 1952 they got to work.

On its face, Irish Coffee has an incredibly simple recipe: coffee, whisky, sugar, and cream. But as with any recipe, the ratios of ingredients and the timing of when to add them can turn making a simple drink into a time-consuming affair – especially if you’re a perfectionist like Stanton Delaplane. That night with Jack Koeppler became a study in trial-and-error; the two of them would mix drinks, sip judiciously, and then record the faults. Over time, they acknowledged two recurring problems:

The first problem was that the taste just wasn’t quite right based on Delaplane’s experience at the Shannon Airport in Ireland.

The second problem was that strangely, they couldn’t get the cream to float on top of the beverage. Each time they poured it in, it sank to the bottom.

That night of testing resulted in dozens of failed experiments, and a lot of whisky consumed over several hours. After drinking several Irish Coffees in a row, Stanton Delaplane nearly passed out on the cable car tracks outside the Buena Vista Cafe.

Stanton was heartbroken at their failed evening of experimentation, but Jack remained undaunted. He doubled down, deciding to pilgrimage to Ireland himself and learn the secret of the elusive Irish Coffee. After his return, they were able to solve both problems they had experienced on that hangover-inducing coffee binge.

To solve the problem of taste Stanton and Jack used the same whisky as Joe Sheridan: Tullamore Dew.  The problem with the cream, however, was less-easily solved. They brought their sinking cream problem to the mayor of San Francisco, George Christopher, who also happened to be a prominent dairy owner. It was here they discovered that if the cream was allowed to age for 48 hours, then frothed to a precise consistency it would float neatly on top of their drink just as it had in Ireland.

With the drink perfected, the only thing left was to advertise – a task perfectly suited for Stanton Delaplane. He started mentioning the drink in his travel column, which was widely read throughout the US. Irish Coffee and the Buena Vista Cafe quickly grew in popularity, attracting both local Californians and tourists from all across the United States. Everyone wanted a taste of Irish Coffee. Once Irish Coffee became popular, consumption of whisky at the Buena Vista went from 2 cases a year to about 1,000 cases which equated to almost 10 percent of the United States’ whisky consumption at that time. It’s said that the Buena Vista bartenders made 2,000 Irish Coffees daily, for many years. Meeting that amount of demand required that they become both fast and accurate at making their drink. The bartenders created an assembly-line method for making several, sometimes dozens, of Irish coffees at the same time.

According to one article, the busiest day the Buena Vista has ever seen was the Super Bowl in 1982, 49ers vs. Miami. Three bartenders served 109 bottles of whiskey between 8am and 5pm, and the night crew served another 104. With approximately 29 drinks per bottle, that means the cafe served over 6,000 drinks that day.

By the Buena Vista’s own count, they have served more than 30 million Irish Coffees total.

In 1952 the Buena Vista Cafe took on a new employee; an Irish chef named Joe Sheridan. The very same man who invented Irish Coffee on that fateful stormy night in 1943. Sheridan was asked to come and work at Buena Vista, which he did for ten years. It’s not often that an inventor gets to watch his creation become famous, but Joe Sheridan got that honor. Today, he’s buried in Oakland, CA.

About Irish Coffee, Joe Sheridan offered this advice on what ingredients to use in his famous beverage: “Cream as rich as an Irish brogue; coffee as strong as a friendly hand; sugar sweet as the tongue of a rogue; and whisky smooth as the wit of the land.”

I hope you enjoyed this special holiday drink episode of Coffee Canon. As always, I’m your host Colin Mansfield and I appreciate your support. I recently created a coffee holiday gift guide for listeners of the show. It’s a short PDF complete with pictures and links that outlines some coffee gift recommendations, from brewing devices to grinders to actual coffee. Whether you need a last-minute gift idea, or you just want to pick something special up for yourself, this gift guide is a great resource. You can download it for free now at http://boisecoffee.org/giftguide.

May your Christmas season be filled with warmth and love. Oh yeah – and great coffee.

The post Episode Four: Holiday Drinks appeared first on Boise Coffee.

You are reading Episode Three: Fermenting Coffee from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

For thousands of years humans have used fermentation to preserve food, leaven bread, and brew alcohol. In 19th century Belgium lambic beers were brewed using the yeasts and bacteria naturally found in the air. Fermentation is an integral part of the way we process coffee as well, but because of function – not taste. What can history teach us about fermentation, and how can we use that to create even better tasting coffee?

This week’s episode relied heavily on the article, “Looking beyond Origin for flavor diversity” by Lucia Solis. Read the article here. Also, here’s a link to the BuzzFeed video referenced at the beginning of the show. Links to the rest of the sources for this episode are below. Also, don’t forget to sign up for the Coffee Canon email list. A special gift is going out this week to those on the list! You can sign up here.

Colin

Episode Three Sources:

Episode Three Transcript:

About three weeks ago BuzzFeed posted a video called “$1 Coffee Vs. $914 Coffee.” This video is similar to others in this format – a couple guys go to Japan and try three different coffees at different price points. The first costs 100 Yen (or about $1). The second is a specialty pour-over that goes for 400 Yen (or about $4). The final cup is from a small coffee shop in Osaka, Japan called “THE MUNCH.” The drink is brewed using beans that have been barrel-aged for 20 years, and it costs 100,000 Yen, or about $914. The video is worth a watch, if only because watching these guys’ facial expressions after trying the barrel-aged coffee is as close as most of us will ever come to enjoying the drink ourselves. According to them, it was incredibly delicious and completely one-of-a-kind.

But the video got me thinking – what’s the deal with barrel-aged coffee? Is this the newest gimmick on the block, or is there actually something there?

A couple days after BuzzFeed posted the video, well known coffee expert and author Scott Rao helped answer my questions. He posted an article on his blog called “Looking beyond Origin for flavor diversity.” The article is actually by Lucia Solis, a fermentation expert who started as a winemaker. Now, Lucia is a coffee-fermentation designer.

In the opening sentence of the post, Lucia writes that her work comes down to one simple truth: fermentation creates chemical compounds with sensory characteristics. She goes on to say that tiny microbes like yeast and bacteria have the potential to impact flavor in a big way – good or bad. And they’re impacting our coffee now whether we like it or not.

I’m Colin Mansfield, and welcome to Coffee Canon.

In this episode I’m going to be discussing fermentation and its application to coffee, both historically and currently. I’m no biologist or zymologist – that’s the science of fermentation for the folks at home keeping score – so keep in mind that everything I discuss here will be based on a source I’ve read or interpreted. As always, a list of my sources can be found both in the show notes and the corresponding post on BoiseCoffee.org.

So what is fermentation? Let’s take a quick crash-course in biochemistry, starting with metabolism. Metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical transformations within the cells of organisms. Metabolic systems aren’t the same across all of life, of course – some organisms require substances that might kill other organisms. For example, hydrogen sulfide is used as a nutrient by some unicellular organisms, but it’s completely poisonous to animals.

Fermentation is simply a metabolic process that consumes sugar in the absence of oxygen. It produces organic acids, gases, or alcohol, and it occurs in yeast and bacteria. Fermentation has been used by humans in food products for likely hundreds of thousands of years with a few key goals: preservation, leavening, and, of course, making alcohol. Pickles, sourdough bread, kimchi, yogurt, sauerkraut, beer, wine, and hard cider are just a handful of the great things that fermentation has allowed us to produce.

Beer – in particular – is an interesting case study in how fermentation went from an uncontrolled necessity to a meticulously calculated flavor-enhancer. Beer has changed quite a bit over time, and most of the brews you can pick up at a supermarket today are very dissimilar from their ancient counterparts in major ways.

A couple years ago my wife and I got the chance to visit Belgium and while there, to check out Cantillon Brewery. Cantillon brews lambic beers and has since 1900 when the brewery was founded. But the lambic style of brewing goes back way further than that – by some accounts it was being experimented with as early as 1400. How is lambic brewing different from modern brewing? Fermentation. It’s fermented through exposure to wild yeasts and bacteria native to the Zenne valley – that’s the area around the portion of Brussels that the Zenne river flows through. So – what’s that look like? Well without going too deep into all the processes associated with beer brewing, basically, brewers would take what’s known as the wort (essentially mashed grain steeped in hot water) and let it sit in a giant circular shallow vat. This would expose the wort to all the natural bacteria and yeast floating around in the air. As it fermented, it took on the unique characteristics of microorganisms found in that region – both tasty, and not so tasty.

Modern brewing techniques ferment through exposure to carefully cultivated strains of brewer’s yeast. We do this today because modern brewers are looking for specific flavors only brought out by specific strains of bacteria and yeasts. Back in the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and most of the 20th century, brewers didn’t have the option of picking out their yeasts and bacteria. So, they experimented.

In the 17th and 18th centuries brewers in Belgium were generally considered artisans and were mainly part of the agrarian community. This meant that many of the brewers were farmers themselves, or had close ties to the farmers in the community who supplied the raw materials needed to make beer. According to one author, in 1839 the area in which lambic could legally be brewed was limited to Brussels and the immediately surrounding area – and until 1860 foreign beers, whether imported or domestically produced, were non-existent in Brussels. Why? Well, brewers believed that their beer had a unique taste that could only be created because of the unique micro flora only found in Brussels. Fermentation, they believed, made their product better than anyone else’s. My wife and I agree – the lambic we tried in Brussels was incredible.

But not all regions are created equal, and not all natural yeasts and bacteria taste good. This is one reason why the traditional lambic style isn’t widely brewed today. Now that breweries can pick and choose which “good flavor” bacteria they want to introduce to their fermentation process, they can guarantee a consistent and repeatable flavor for their brews. Ultimately, the consumer wins – we know that when we pick up a 6-pack of brand-name beer from the supermarket it’s going to taste the same as the beer we bought last time, and the time before that.

So what does all this talk about fermentation mean for coffee, and why is it even relevant?

Well, before we answer that question, we first need to discuss how coffee is processed – and to get there, we need to take another step back and talk about how coffee is grown. So, let’s start at the beginning.

The word “coffee,” botanically speaking, is a broad term. It’s like saying “Rose;” just as there are different species of roses, there are different species of coffee. The two most well known coffee species are Coffea Arabica and Coffea canephora, usually referred to as Robusta. Robusta is actually more of a brand name given to Coffea canephora to highlight its strong – or robust – flavor. It was discovered in the Belgian Congo (what is now Zaire) in the late 19th century. At that time Coffea arabica, or just Arabica for short, was the only form of coffee being widely traded and sold. Robusta coffee plants, as it turned out, were able to grow and fruit at lower altitudes and higher temperatures than Arabica. Plus, they were more resistant to disease. This made them ideal to mass-produce and be grown in climates where Arabica couldn’t thrive. There’s just one problem with Robusta coffee – it tastes horrible. The beans have a woody, burnt-rubber quality with low acidity. On the plus side, Robusta beans generally have a higher caffeine content. These days, modern companies like Folgers use a certain percentage of Robusta beans blended in with Arabica beans to keep costs low, and caffeine high.

It’s interesting to note that on a genetic level Robusta and Arabica aren’t siblings or distant relatives: Robusta is actually the parent of Arabica. Some time in the distant past, likely in southern Sudan, Robusta crossed with another species called Coffea euginoides and together they produced Arabica. Coffea arabica spread from there, taking root in Ethiopia where it was first discovered by humans.

Growing and harvesting coffee plants demands a ton of care and patience. A newly planted seedling will take up to three years before it fruits properly. Also, coffee plants are extremely sensitive to temperature, moisture levels, sunlight exposure, soil composition, and altitude. A change in any of these factors can result in a drastically different end-product.

Most coffee trees have one main harvest per year, though some have a second smaller harvest. The first harvest is triggered by a prolonged period of rainfall, causing the trees to bloom in beautiful white blossom flowers with a strong scent, almost like jasmine. Arabica trees are able to self-polinate, though they are often assisted by insects like bees. After flowering, it takes up to nine months until the fruits are ready for harvest. Unfortunately, coffee cherries rarely ripen all at once – this puts growers in a tough place: they can choose to harvest all the fruits at once, then pick out the unripe and overripe fruit before processing, or they can pay pickers to make multiple passes of the same trees to get perfectly ripe cherries. The method used is usually determined by how much money and time the growers have. Regardless of the method, it’s rarely perfect. Some unripe cherries always make it into the processing stage and must be removed later on.

The coffee fruit is usually about the size of a small grape, but unlike grapes nearly the entire inside is dominated by the seed – or bean. All cherries start out green, and turn a bright shade of red or yellow as they ripen. Occasionally, trees that produce a red fruit and trees that produce a yellow fruit will cross breed and to produce an orange fruit. Trees that produce yellow fruit are sometimes avoided, as it can be harder to tell when the cherry is perfectly ripe and ready to be picked.

Coffee cherries essentially have five parts: the outer skin, the internal pulp, the parchment which surrounds the seed, the silverskin – a layer directly around the seed, and the seed itself. The seed is that portion that we’ll eventually roast and brew with, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First we have to peel off the other four layers. The method we choose to peel those layers off is called our “processing method” and, generally speaking, there are three main options: natural or dry, washed, and honey.

First, consider the natural processes, sometimes called the dry process. The natural process starts with removing unripe cherries that made it past the picking stage. That can either be done by hand, or using a flotation tank. If it’s done by hand, people will literally pick out the unripe green cherries from the batch before moving to the next step. But if we’re using a tank, all the coffee cherries are dumped into a massive water tank – because of buoyancy and science the ripe cherries sink to the bottom, and the unripe cherries float to the top. From there, the ripe cherries are spread out in a thin layer on brick patios or specially designed drying tables. The sun beats down on these coffee cherries, drying them until the outer husk of skin and fruit are able to be easily removed from the bean. While drying, the cherries have to be turned often, usually by people using some kind of rake, to keep them from molding or drying unevenly. It’s at this stage that the coffee cherries undergo fermentation as they’re dried in the fruit. This fermentation is what chemically helps the seed separate from the outer layers of the coffee fruit. Once the seeds are ready, they’re physically separated from the husk and fruit using a specifically designed machine. After the seeds are separated, they are rested for 30-60 days and are then mechanically hulled to remove any protective parchment left over.

The natural process is usually used in areas where access to water is severely limited. Because so many of the steps are manual, an entire batch can easily be ruined by one misstep. But when the beans are processed well, you get some amazing flavors like blueberry, strawberry, and tropical fruit. Bad batches taste like crap, literally. Manure, barnyard, and ferment are common tasting notes in poorly processed natural coffees.

Second, we’ve got the washed process. The washed process has the same goal and end-result in mind: strip coffee cherries down to the seed and ready them for shipment, roasting, and brewing. But the way this is accomplished is very different from the natural process. The washed process is more expensive, mostly because lots of water gets used, but the results tend to be more predictable than with the natural process.

First, the ripe cherries are separated using the tank buoyancy method mentioned earlier. From there, the outer skin and fruit flesh are stripped off of the coffee cherries by a mechanical depulper. Basically, it’s a machine that looks like kind of like a wood chipper, but whole beans go in at the top, and one side spits out the skin and flesh. The other side gives you mostly clean coffee seeds. Next, the coffee beans are placed in a clean trough of water where they are fermented to remove the remainder of the flesh. Coffee fruit flesh contains a lot of pectin that is firmly attached to the seed. Fermentation breaks it down, after which it gets washed away. The amount of time that fermentation takes depends on the amount of water used, the altitude, and the ambient temperature. If coffee is fermented too long, negative flavors can start to creep in, making this a crucial step. This part is key to today’s episode, and we’ll come back to talk about it later – but I want to highlight that the coffee is fermented simply to remove the flesh, nothing more.

The third main processing method is called the Honey Process. It’s most common in Central American countries. The mucilage of the coffee cherry is sticky and slimy, and because of this it’s sometimes called “honey.” During the Honey Process, coffee is dried with some or all of the mucilage remaining on the parchment encasing the seed. Coffee cherries are picked, sorted, and depulped (in the same ways we discussed for the natural and washed processes), and then they’re moved to drying patios for various periods of time. So, in essence, you’re combining some aspects of the washed process with some aspects of the natural process. One of the benefits of the Honey Process is that it doesn’t require as much water as the washed process, making it cheaper, but the results are more predictable than those from the natural process. Honey Processed beans go through little bits of fermentation over short periods of time while their mucilage dries. Coffees processed this way tend to have less acidity than either washed or natural processed coffees, but these bursts of fermentation do allow them to retain some acidity, which manifests itself as some bright flavors in the final product.

So you can see that already, the coffee industry utilizes fermentation in all three of the main coffee processing methods. But in every single one, it’s used as a means to an end – it’s a way to separate the coffee bean away from the outer layers of fruit.

Lucia Solis – the author of the article I mentioned at the beginning of the show – thinks that this is an incredibly narrow-minded way of viewing fermentation and its application with coffee. In the article, She says,

“We have only a handful of words to describe processing methods, for example washed, wet, honey, or natural, but each of these words can encompass very different and complex steps.  The steps and time involved in what someone would describe as “washed” process vary wildly based on the climate, altitude, cultivar, ripeness, tank design and myriad other variables impacting fermentation kinetics.  A coffee could spend anywhere from 8 hours to 72 hours in contact with the mucilage (fermenting) before it is washed.  The words “fully washed” might not even mean that a coffee was fermented – but even if you know with certainty that it had been fermented, a coffee dry-fermented for 8 hours will likely taste different from one fermented underwater for 40 hours; or one fermented at 700 meters altitude (MASL) at 80°F versus 1500 MASL and 55°F; or one fermented in wood versus ceramic tanks. And so on.

Not only do the words we use to describe the process lack specificity, there is little known about the flavor effects of different processes’ steps or the microbes involved during those steps.  This is the focus of my work.”

Later on she makes an incredibly salient point about how the coffee industry largely thinks about fermentation. “I finally realized few people understood the value of fermentation in the first place. I was using the word “fermentation” to describe a metabolic process whereby yeast and bacteria transform sugars into energy and flavor compounds.  Yet the most common working definition for coffee purposes was ‘the step where the pulped coffee sits in a tank until the mucilage falls off’.”

“In the wine industry,” she goes on to say, “fermentation is extensively studied because it is a necessary step in winemaking: you can’t have wine without it. I noticed the coffee industry used the same word, but it had a very different meaning to almost everyone I talked to. I think the main reason for the discrepancy is that “fermentation” is optional for coffee; it’s just one method of isolating the seed from a cherry.”

If you have a minute, I recommend reading her article in its entirety. She’s makes some great points and has some neat hand-drawn diagrams to go with the text.

Ms. Solis’ overarching argument is this: traditionally in the coffee industry we’ve seen coffee fruit as having two “safe states” – that is places where the fruit is stable and not vulnerable to spoilage. These safe states are while the cherry is unpicked and still on the plant, and after the seed has been completely processed and is ready for roasting. In other words, the traditional thinking pattern is that the moment a coffee cherry is picked, it becomes vulnerable to damage and outside factors that may decrease its quality, and therefor its value. Another way of saying that is this: fermentation is unpredictable and “offers no opportunity for flavor enhancement, only risk.”

The new way of thinking about fermentation and coffee isn’t actually that new. It’s used in wine, beer, cheese, chocolate, and bread. This argument states that controlling and extending fermentation can actually yield positive, desirable flavor attributes while mitigating risk. The challenge is that you can’t leave this fermentation up to chance.

Which leads us back to where we started: a BuzzFeed video where an elderly Japanese man charges over $900 for a mug of 20-year-fermented coffee that tastes incredible. See the trick isn’t in the barrel, it’s in the microbes. It’s in the yeasts and bacteria that this man controlled for, yielding an enjoyable cup of coffee.

But using fermentation in tandem with coffee doesn’t have to take decades or cost hundreds of dollars per cup. Advocates say that coffee processors will see immediate results if they treat their beans like brew masters treat their beer – not leaving it up to environmental chance, but instead choosing the results before the brewing process even begins by selecting the right microbes.

But not everyone is convinced. Back in 2012 Peter Giuliano, the coffee expert we heard from in Episode 1 in regards to Japanese Iced Coffee, conducted a fermentation experiment of his own. He has a full write up on his blog, and he begins with a candid disclaimer: “this is not good science…the blinding was marginal, the controls weren’t perfect, we never repeated anything, and we had a ton of bias before even beginning the process. All the same, I feel that I learned something, and I want to share that with others.”

Essentially, Peter Giuliano’s experiment consisted of the same coffee fermented in five different yeasts or bacterias, as well as one control which was un-inoculated. Now, I’ll say this, even a cursory glance at Mr. Giuliano’s experiment makes it obvious that scientific rigor was not the priority here: they used unsealed five-gallon buckets to ferment in, meaning they were open to any other fermentation agents present in the natural environment. Also, the coffees were allowed to soak for only 24 hours, a length that, according to Peter, “is a normal, longish fermentation time.” While this may be true of current fermentation practices, it likely is not the optimal amount of time to generate new and interesting flavors in the coffee. The final thing that stuck out to me is there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why the five fermentation agents were chosen. There may have been a purpose behind those specific combinations, but it wasn’t obvious and it seemed odd to simply pick five at random. To my knowledge there isn’t an establish list of bacterias and yeasts that are best suited for fermenting coffee, so I’m not sure what his selection criteria was for this experiment.

In any case, the results were inconclusive at best. While the buckets had a “dramatic difference in fermentation activity between yeasts” in the form of visual foaming, the actual cups of coffee that were brewed later had only slight flavor differences. In fact, the cupping scores that tasters attributed to all six coffees (control included) fell within the rating margin of error. “In other words, in this test, microbial treatments didn’t have a strong effect on the point score of the coffee.”

Peter does go on to say that the coffees were not unaffected by the treatments; they were different, especially in terms of fragrance and aroma. But the fundamental aspects that made this coffee what it was – the acidity, sweetness, body, aftertaste, cleanliness, etc – were unchanged. He says, “Microbes like yeasts and bacteria may be able to create subtle changes in the perception and articulation of these characteristics, but may not be able to change the coffee fundamentally.”

Respectfully, I disagree. And I think that in time, the rest of the coffee industry will as well. It seems that the main issue with discussing fermentation and its application in coffee is that, like Ms. Solis wrote, we treat it as a way to achieve a necessary physical state of the bean. We know that its happening, but we hand-wave it away as if it’s not already impacting the taste.  But this isn’t the case for other craft foods and beverages where microbes play a significant role.

What would controlling for fermentation look like on a practical level for coffee processing facilities and farms? This is where it gets hairy – as we discussed earlier, processing methods vary widely from region to region. No two cities have the same resources and needs, nor do they have the same kinds of skilled employees. Like with water, some coffee processing techniques are birthed out of necessity rather than out of a desire to make the end product taste better. This is one way where coffee significantly differs from wine and beer. Both can be brewed in 1st world countries that have 1st world resources. Coffee, on the other hand, is almost entirely grown in poor countries. Likely, most farms wouldn’t have the resources to establish the kind of controlled environments that modern breweries use for controlled fermentation.

Ultimately, I don’t know if controlled fermentation is the type of thing the entire industry could shift towards. I think they should – Ms. Solis made a believer out of me – but I’m not convinced there’s an easy path for industry-wide changes to occur. I do, however, think that it’s the perfect opportunity for innovate specialty coffee shops to make better coffee. There are no good arguments against it, and fermentation’s history agrees with me. Please though, someone give me a heads up if a barista somewhere starts trying to implement hops into their roast in some way. Oh, who am I kidding, I’m sure that’s been done.

Thanks for listening to Coffee Canon. I’m your host, Colin Mansfield. If you’re enjoying the show, please do me a favor and give it a five-star rating on iTunes or the Apple Podcasts app – I’d really appreciate that. Also, feel free to drop my a line on email and let me know your thoughts about this episode – I’d love to continue the discussion. You can reach me at [email protected]. Thanks for listening, have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving next week.

The post Episode Three: Fermenting Coffee appeared first on Boise Coffee.

You are reading Episode Two: Italian Coffee from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

Episode Two of Coffee Canon focuses on Italian coffee. We often associate Italy with espresso, but the truth is that true espresso didn’t exist until about 1950. Developing It took the work of key inventors, businesspeople, and visionaries who saw coffee not for what it currently was, but for what it could be.

In this episode I feature a radio interview by Professor Jonathan Morris. You can listen to the whole thing here. Also, he wrote a fascinating paper on Italy’s coffee journey: check it out here.

Enjoy the episode, and feel free to reference the sources below if you’d like to read more. Also, don’t forget to sign up for the Coffee Canon email list if you haven’t already.

Colin

Episode Two Sources:

Episode Two Transcript:

Everything has an inventor. This is sort of an obvious statement on its face – the fact that crafted things – manufactured things – really everything from modern conveniences to primitive technology has a person or a team behind they’re invention – we know this.

But how often do we actually stop and think about these people? There’s the big names, sure, like Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Elon Musk – people who have famously taken huge risks with their companies or ideas. Risks that worked out for them and shaped the world into what it is today.

But for every Thomas Edison there were 1,000 inventors and creators who’s names we’ve never heard. People who have shaped our world in just as powerful ways, but without the name ID.

Coffee is no different. Every single device and method used to harvest, process, roast, grind, and brew coffee beans has a person or group of people who pioneered that technique or invented that product. Last episode we talked briefly about the Hario v60 and how it reflects both Japanese culture and values. This week we’re going to discuss another country; a place that has its history deeply tied to coffee.

For half of the 20th century inventors, fortune-seekers, and businesspeople tried their hand at creating a machine that made coffee in less time, with better taste. The basic idea was that each customer could have an individual coffee brewed expressly for them, and quickly. The country is Italy and the device, of course, is the espresso machine.

I’m Colin Mansfield, and welcome to Coffee Canon.

I’ll confess that up until researching for this episode, in my head Italian coffee has always been espresso. The two are somehow synonymous to me: Italy and espresso. But the reality is that true espresso wasn’t even invented until about 1950. Venice was one of the first European ports to import coffee in the 1570s, and the first recorded coffee house didn’t open in Italy until 1683. This means that for about two and a half of the last three centuries, espresso didn’t even exist in Italian culture. It didn’t exist at all. In these early years Italian coffeehouse owners brewed coffee using infusion based methods that were popular across Europe at the time.

In 1901 everything changed. Luigi Bezzera, an inventor from Milan, patented a steam-powered coffee machine that forced hot water through a coffee cake at about 0.75 atmospheres of pressure. In 1903 Bezzera’s patent was acquired by a manufacturer named Desidero Pavoni who used it to produce the first commercial espresso machine in 1905. He called it the Ideale.

The concept of fresh made-to-order coffee is almost expected from coffee shops today, but in the early 1900s it was a novel concept. Being able to quickly and easily make individual cups of coffee for specific customers meant faster service and better drinks. This new espresso was marketed as a futuristic beverage – in one advertisement, an Italian artist used a steam locomotive to make a visual play on the idea of an express train.

These steam machines created a very different kind of espresso than we’re used to today: temperatures in the group head of the espresso machine rose to 250 degrees F and higher, causing the final drink to appear jet black and taste burnt. Crema – the thin, delicious layer of oil that sits at the top of a modern well-pulled shot of espresso, was never present in these old drinks. The pressure that these steam machines created was just too low, and the steam itself often contaminated the drinks as well. By modern standards, these first generation espresso machines created something closer to drip coffee than actual espresso. Still, the ball was rolling and the way Italians began to think about coffee was changing. In fact, these quick machines started something in Italian culture that remains to this day: standing cafe bars.

If you visit Italy today, there are two basic ways you can order coffee. The first way is to sit at a restaurant, order from a waiter, and be served your drink. This is fairly standard the world over, but the difference in Italy is that you actually end up paying more on your check for table service from he wait staff. The more affordable way to get your espresso or cappuccino is to visit one of the many standing cafes that line the streets of urban Italian cities. Getting your coffee this way means you’ll pay much lower prices – usually one or two Euros – and you’ll find yourself leaning against the bar, brushing shoulders with locals while you sip.

These standing cafe bars came around at the same time the first generation steam-powered espresso machines were popularized. The large machines stood on the counters and would serve dozens of urban Italians that came by to socialize, conduct business, or just for a quick jolt. The interesting thing about these cafes is that they were originally called “American bars” because of the saloon-like layout of the cafe. There were no tables, just one long bar. The first American bar in Italy was Caffé Manaresi in Florence. It was nicknamed “Caffé dei Ritti” by locals – ritti means upright in Italian.

Between the new bars and new coffee machines, Italians were drinking coffee more. Both the consumption of coffee per capita and the number of new cafes increased slowly between 1900-1930 – though it was still mostly the upper and middle classes who could afford coffee. It was still seen as a luxury beverage by many, including the Fascist regime. That’s probably why Italy’s increasingly hostile leadership started taxing coffee imports during the 1930s. This, in turn, made consumption drop.

Nonetheless, the 1930s proved to be an important decade for the development of espresso. Coffee industry leaders knew that the current machines produced bad coffee, and they wanted to fix it. One of the main issues was the contamination and burning of coffee because of steam. Francesco Illy, founder of the Illy caffe and roastery, came up with a compressed air solution to this problem in 1935 that he dubbed the Illetta. Unfortunately, it never saw production. In 1938 two different Italian men – a Milanese engineer named Cremonese and a bar owner named Achille Gaggia, patented a piston solution that pushed water through coffee at higher pressures. But with demand for coffee low and import prices high, producing these machines was just not a viable or financially responsible solution. Then, WWII began and coffee was on the back burner, so to speak.

In 1947 espresso changed forever. Achille Gaggia registered a new patent that year for a lever operated piston incorporating gearing and a spring. This machine was dead-simple to operate by hand, and it’s main function was to take water directly from a boiler, and force it through a compressed cake of coffee. Using a piston meant more pressure – more than 9 times more than the first generation espresso machines. This bump in pressure resulted in a thin moussey layer of tasty coffee oils sitting on top of the extracted end-product. Today, this crema is the defining characteristic that sets espresso apart from all other coffee methods. But in late 1940s Italy, this brand-new take on coffee was seen as an entirely different beverage. It was renamed caffe crema or cream coffee, to distinguish it from the darker, less-tasty standard coffee everyone had grown used to. Sometimes its difficult to let go of the past, even when it tastes like a mixture of burnt rubber and charcoal.

This new take on espresso further drove a wedge between the two places Italians most commonly drank coffee: the home, and the bar. Back in 1933 an Italian inventor named Luigi De Ponti patented a stove-top coffee brewing device that used steam to force water through a valve, through a coffee puck, and up into a serving chamber. If this sounds familiar, it’s because espresso machines at the time worked in much the same way. So just take a second and imagine what this invention would mean for Italian households in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s: you could make coffee in your home with the exact same quality as the cafe down the road. The man who formed the manufacturing company that produced this coffee maker was named Alfonso Bialetti. He called the device the “Moka Express” and in the economic boom of the 1950s, it found its place in nearly every Italian home. This was thanks, in large part, to Alfonso Bialetti’s son Renato. Renato returned from the war in 1946 after spending several years in a German prisoner-of-war camp. Renato brought an entirely new sensibility to Bialetti’s Moka Express; he knew they had something special on their hands, and he focused a huge advertising budget on this fact. He started national campaigns, placing advertisements on billboards, in newspapers and magazines, on the radio, and once TV became widely available, there too. Renato’s focus was on building a strong brand around the distinctive coffee maker. One example of Renato’s intense focus on advertising is this: each year, Italy held a massive trade fare in Milan called the Fiera di Milano. Renato used this as an opportunity: year after year, the Bialetti company purchased every single billboard in the city Milan, plastering images of the Moka Express literally everywhere. Perhaps Renato’s largest contribution to the brand, however, was a distinctive mustachioed cartoon man with his right finger held aloft as if ordering an espresso. This logo still adorns every Moka Express manufactured by Bialetti.

So, here we are in the late 1940s early 1950s with two distinct approaches to coffee: on one hand, you have new engineering breakthroughs with espresso machines that allow cafes to produce truly great tasting coffee for the first time in history. On the other hand, you have Bialetti’s Moka Express that promises to bring the cafe into the kitchen, but with a more, well, traditional coffee taste. This difference in location and taste remains to today; about 90% of Italians have a personal Moka Express for at-home use, yet everyone still gets espresso from their local cafe.

In 1948 Gaggia released his first manufactured lever-driven espresso machines. With slogans like “Natural cream coffee” and “it works without steam,” it’s obvious that Gaggia knew that he had something special on his hands. And he was right –  the market shifted at an alarming rate over the next 10 years. Milan proved to be the epicenter of change, with many of the ideas that shaped the future of coffee originating from Milanese people and companies. Updates to the Gaggia concept were rapid fire: the Cimbali company replaced the spring-loaded piston with hydraulic levers, making it easier to physically operate the machine. Pavoni, the same manufacturer who had acquired Luigi Bezzera’s original espresso machine patent way back in 1903, had the idea of turning the tall boiler on its side, creating a longer horizontal machine that allowed baristas to interact with customers. Ernesto Valente, who split from Gaggia in 1950, introduced an electric pump to his machine in 1961. It was operated by a simple switch – no need to pull any levers. To accomplish this, the machine pulled water directly from the water mains, pressurized it, and heated it before pushing it through the coffee puck. This meant that the barista only had to control the parameters associated with extracting coffee (grinding, time of extraction, etc) but didn’t have to provide the physical power for the process. This type of machine was dubbed “semi-automatic” and became the standard tool for cafes not only in Italy, but all across the world in years to come.

An interesting note about coffee in Italy – not every region has the same tastes. Broadly speaking, southern Italy prefers espresso blends with higher quantities of Robusta beans – the cheaper, bitter alternative to Arabica beans that are standard today. Southern Italy also prefers darker roasts. This was true in 1960, according to a report on the coffee trade for the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro. The report stated that coffee drunk in southern Italy and Sicilly was lower quality and would not be acceptable in other parts of Italy. This is still true today – Illy, a premium roaster who sells only one espresso blend using 100% Arabica beans, even Illy sells a darker roasted version specifically targeted for Italy’s southern market.

So far, most of the information and facts that I’ve discussed in this episode have stemmed from the well-documented and researched work of one man: professor Jonathan Morris from the University of Hertfordshire. He works as the Research Professor of Modern European History, and he self-identifies as a historian of consumption, specializing in the history of coffee. Fortunately for us, Professor Morris has written a few wonderful papers about coffee’s spread from Italy to the rest of the world (as I said, one of these essays is the primary source for this podcast episode). Not only that, but Professor Morris has appeared on several documentary films, he’s spoken at specialty coffee events, he’s been interviewed for podcast episodes, and he’s appeared on live radio. Someday, I hope to have him on this show, but until then I’d love to share with you a clip from a radio interview he conducted back in 2007 with Laurie Taylor, an English sociologist and radio host. In this clip, Laurie and Jonathan are discussing how Italian espresso impacted coffee culture in England between about 1970-1990.

It’s here that Italian coffee starts to become the world’s coffee. Espresso spread like wildfire with Brits and Americans putting their own twists on and creating larger versions of Italy’s classical sized espresso drinks. A little roaster opened in Seattle in 1971 serving gourmet beans, but was re-invented as a coffee shop chain in 1987 by a guy named Howard Schultz. Initially, Schultz actually tried to take elements from Italian coffee culture and implement them into Starbucks. In one interview Schultz talks about this saying,

“In that first store, we were determined to re-create a true Italian-style coffee bar. Our primary mission was to be authentic. We didn’t want to do anything to dilute the integrity of the espresso and the Italian coffee bar experience in Seattle. For music, we played only Italian opera. The baristas wore white shirts and bow ties. All service was stand-up with no seating…the menu was covered with Italian words. Even the décor was Italian. Bit by bit we realized many of those details weren’t appropriate for Seattle. People started complaining about the incessant opera. The bow ties proved impractical. Customers who weren’t in a hurry wanted chairs. Some of the Italian foods and drinks needed to be translated.”

Starbucks proved that while Italian coffee culture didn’t work in the U.S., espresso-based beverages did. Americans may never drink straight espresso while standing up, but a carmel macchiato with extra whip? Sign us up. It’s also interesting to note that currently, Starbucks is nowhere to be found in Italy. That’s slated to change next year in 2018, with hundreds of Starbucks locations planned for the Italian market. I guess we’ll have to see how they do.

One Italian company in particular did benefit from Starbucks’ immense growth: La Marzocco, based out of Florence. La Marzocco was founded in 1927 and manufactured quality espresso machines for decades. In 1970 the company came out with a new type of machine that utilized two separate boilers: one for pulling espresso shots, and one for steaming milk. The steaming power was attractive to the American market, what with our love of milky, frothy drinks, and in Starbucks’ early years of growth La Marzocco espresso machines were imported to Seattle for use in their coffee shops. As Starbucks grew, so did La Marzocco, and eventually they opened a US factory in Seattle to meet this demand. In 1999 Starbucks transitioned to an automatic machine, causing La Marzocco to close their U.S. subsidiary, but the company remains incredibly lucrative. Over 90% of La Marzocco’s high-end espresso machines are exported abroad and they remain a name associated with quality in specialty coffee circles today.

Today, Italian coffee culture is more similar to the 1950s than it is different. People still visit their local stand-up cafes to drink an inexpensive shot of espresso. People still use their Moka Express at home. At first glance, this might make it seem like Italian coffee culture is static, or even stuck. But what’s actually changed? Well the rest of the world has. You might say that while Italian’s have known and loved espresso for over 100 years, while the rest of us are just now getting into it. We’ve got a long way to go.

Thanks for listening to Coffee Canon. I’m your host Colin Mansfield, and if you’re interested in learning more about the history of Italian coffee and espresso’s spread to the rest of the world, check out the sources I’ve linked to in the show notes. Namely, check out Jonathan Morris’ paper titled “A History of Espresso in Italy and in the World.” Really, anything that Morris has written or been a part of is interesting and worth checking out. If you want more Coffee Canon between the bi-weekly episodes, head over to boisecoffee.org/coffeecanon and join our email list. This week I’ll be sending out a link to an article that explores the possible flavor benefits of harnessing the power of fermentation with coffee. If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, sign up!

As always, thanks for listening, and have a great rest of your week.

The post Episode Two: Italian Coffee appeared first on Boise Coffee.

You are reading Episode One: Japanese Coffee from Boise Coffee. Please share it with friends!

In this first episode of Coffee Canon, we take a look at Japan: a culture rich with history and tradition. Today, Japanese people love coffee – they’ve invented entire brew methods that the rest of the world adopted – but it wasn’t always this way. We study how and why Japan went from rejecting coffee outright, to embracing it completely. We discuss the people, companies, and timeline that pushed Japan to becoming a leader in specialty coffee – and we hear from some coffee experts along the way.

Enjoy the episode, and feel free to check out the sources below if you want to read more. To continue the discussion, hit me up on Twitter or Instagram.

Colin

Episode One Sources:

Episode One Transcript:

There is perhaps no better place to start talking about coffee’s journey from obscure plant to modern necessity than Japan. In many ways, Japan is a case-study in how coffee can spread from small import to national obsession in just a few centuries. Japan isn’t the only country that experienced this, but its story is unique in that for about two hundred years and of its own leaders’ volition, Japan was cut off from the rest of the world. Today, Japan is a leader in the specialty coffee world – it’s home to companies that make equipment used in barista competitions and it’s the source of brew methods that people all over the world use to make their coffee every day. How did this happen?

I’m Colin Mansfield, and welcome to Coffee Canon.

To understand Japan’s coffee history, you first have to understand Sakoku: Japan’s period of national isolation. This was the time period where relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited – foreigners weren’t allowed in, and citizens weren’t allowed out. I’m only giving a partial history due to the complexity involved in Sakoku, but it should provide enough context for our purposes here. Sakoku began from 1633-1639 and continued for the next two centuries, ending in 1853 after the famous treaties with Commodore Perry.

Some believe the rationale behind Sakoku was religion-based: colonials from Spain and Portugal had increased Catholic conversions in southern Japan – this may have been seen as a threat to the stability of the shogunate.

Other scholars believe competing religious ideologies to be only part of a larger political reality. Regardless, Spain and Portugal were seen as genuine threats to the Japanese ruling class.

While social, religious, and political factors provide the backdrop for Sakoku, the trigger was the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637-1638. This uprising consisted of 40,000 mostly Christian peasants, and as is true of many rebellions, was due to drastically increased taxes and religions persecution. The shogunate dispatched over 125,000 troops to quell the uprising and besieged the rebels at Hara Castle. Eventually, the rebels fell. The Catholic leader of the uprising, Amakusa Shiro, was beheaded and the prohibition of Christianity became strictly enforced under penalty of death. Additionally, all contact with the outside world, including trading, became strictly regulated by the shogunate.

If you want to know more about this dark period in Japanese history, check out the film Silence that came out last year. Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Andrew Garfield and Liam Neeson, this film dives headlong into 17th century Japan and the dangers Catholics and Christians faced – it’s really an amazing film.

It is under this backdrop that coffee first made its way to Japan. The year that this first happened depends on which accounts you read – some say it was as early as 1609, while most estimate it to be after Sakoku was established, towards the end of the 18th century. Everyone agrees, however, on who first brought coffee to Japan – the Dutch. The Dutch, in fact, pop up often in coffee history; we have them to thank for most of the big moves in coffee’s spread around the world.

Apparently Japanese people didn’t to the drink at first – they felt coffee was bitter and unpleasant, especially compared to tea. According to some sources, the tiny island of Dejima in Nagasaki had a small coffee culture in these early years due to this being the only area in Japan where European merchants were allowed entrance.

The next big date in Japanese coffee history falls after the end of Sakoku, in the year 1888 when the first European-style coffee shop opened in Tokyo. It was called Kahi Chakan, but it only lasted about 4 years before closing due to a lack of interest from Japanese consumers. Still, coffee imports increased and demand began meeting supply. In the early 1900s coffeehouses finally began experiencing success, and by 1930 there were over 30,000 coffee shops across Japan. In 1937 imports peaked at 140,000 bags of coffee beans. Then, World War I and World War II happened. Coffee availability in the wartime and post wartime periods dropped to nearly 0, but at the conclusion of the wars they again rose to normal numbers.

The introduction of instant coffee had a profound impact on European and American consumption of coffee during and after both World Wars. In Japan, it was no different. The availability and abundance of freeze-dried coffee and canned coffee in the post-WW2 era was making the entire world into caffeine junkies, including the Japanese. This created a market where people were willing to spend money, and franchises quickly picked up on it. Doutor Coffee was Japan’s first large-scale coffee franchise and began opening stores across the country starting in 1980. In the mid 1990s Starbucks branched into the Japanese market as well and quickly expanded across the entire country. Today there are more than 1000 Starbucks locations in Japan.

More recently, McDonalds impacted Japanese coffee culture in a big way. They established standalone “McCafe” shops in 2007, and in just 7 years had spread to nearly 100 locations. This is in addition to the 3,000 standard McDonalds locations. The standalone McCafe locations try to appeal to the more sophisticated coffee drinkers with a pricier menu and higher grade of coffee. Some locations even have the ability to deliver coffee.

Besides huge coffee franchises like Starbucks, Tullys, Doutor, and McDonalds, Japan has a rich history of smaller, local shops called kissaten. Kissaten literally translates to “tea-drinking shop” and was originally a place for business people and the older generations to gather for light meals and discussions. As coffee began to be standard in Japanese culture, kissaten evolved and began to serve the beverage as well. They are a popular place for breakfast, serving thick toast, eggs, and a piece of ham or bacon along with a morning cup of coffee. In Japanese culture, kissaten are distinctly different from cafes. While cafes usually feature a more trendy and modern look and feel, kissaten are older and more classically furnished. Another huge distinction is in tobacco use. Smoking is still a large part of Japanese culture, and kissaten are havens for people to sit down and light up a cigarette to accompany their cup of coffee. Many larger cafes and coffee chains prohibit smoking.

It’s difficult to nail down exactly when specialty coffee began becoming popular in Japan, but it’s important to note that at least some elements of specialty coffee culture as we know it today were actually inspired by Japan. James Freeman, the founder of Blue Bottle Coffee – a popular, large specialty coffee chain – visited Japan as a teenager. In an interview with Citizens of Humanity he said that it “blew me away.” He went on to say, “I’ve really been inspired by Japanese coffee houses, called kissaten. They’re dowdy and unfashionable, but they’re deeply personal.” He also discussed the Japanese concept of kodawari, or the devotion to even the most mundane details in the pursuit of excellence. “All of these kissaten have a deep kodawari” he said.

This idea of kodawari really shines through in Japanese-made specialty coffee equipment – most notably, the Hario v60 manual coffee brewer. The Hario v60 is a fundamentally important brew device in specialty coffee circles. It’s more touchy to brew with than a Chemex or similar drip cones – altering small details can change an entire cup of coffee. In that sense, paying attention to mundane details is essential.

Hario, the company that created and manufactures the v60, was founded in Tokyo in 1921. It started by producing and selling glass products to be used for physical and chemical purposes. After nearly 30 years of research, they produced an environmentally-friendly heatproof glass. In 1949 Hario launched a glass coffee syphon as their first home product, followed by a cloth filter version in 1957. In the early 2000s Hario launched the v60 – its name means “vector 60,” referencing the 60 degree angle of the cone. The v60 was first launched with glass and ceramic variants, but now has plastic, metal, and copper variations. The copper version, while expensive, has awesome thermal conductivity resulting in a better extracted cup of coffee. The v60 is used everywhere: specialty coffee competitions, coffee shops, and in homes around the world. I use my v60 for both hot and iced coffee nearly every day.

2015 was a big year for specialty coffee in Japan. Blue Bottle Coffee opened its flagship shop in Tokyo to much media fanfare, resulting in 2-hour lines just to get in the door. In an article from PerfectDailyGrind.com the author references several other foreign-based specialty coffee shops as being successful in Japan; namely, Oslo’s Fuglen and New Zealand’s Allpress Espresso. These quality shops have played a big role in cementing the demand for third wave coffee in Japan.

An ongoing discussion in the Japanese coffee scene is whether specialty shops and kissaten can co-exist. Kissaten, it seems, are beginning to lose popularity as older generations die and younger coffee drinkers look for a more modern take. Some people seem to think that the more local specialty coffee shops have taken a page out of kissatens’ book with a focus on details and a more relaxed, classic Japanese aesthetic. Others say that kissaten will inevitably die, making way for the next generation to fill the void. While I’m certainly no expert on Japanese culture, it seems to me that their cultural focus on details and doing things well opens the door for kissaten and specialty shops to coexist – but it remains to be seen if the market will support that. If people pick one place to get their coffee from, where will they choose? Only time will tell.

There’s one aspect of Japanese coffee culture that we haven’t discussed yet, and that’s Japanese Iced Coffee, sometimes called flash brewed coffee. The history of iced coffee in Japan isn’t completely clear – but what sets the method apart from other iced-coffee brewing techniques is. Japanese Iced Coffee uses the same principles and methods for brewing hot coffee, but then replaces 50-60% of the hot water for ice. Basically, you brew hot coffee as you normally would, but the hot liquid is immediately cooled when it comes into contact with the ice. Then, as the ice melts, the coffee remains properly extracted. The science behind Japanese Iced Coffee is solid: when you brew hot coffee, the amazing smells that come off of the fresh cup are actually aromatics that are escaping the beverage. You get to smell them while you brew and for a short time after, but the actual cup loses these aromatic compounds. By immediately and quickly cooling down a cup of brewed coffee, these aromatics get trapped in the beverage. When you’re ready to drink it, these smells can escape into your nasal cavity, combining the taste of your iced coffee with amazing smells that might otherwise have been lost. This is one reason why Japanese Iced Coffee captures the dramatic, fruity, and acidic notes that other methods like cold brew have a harder time holding onto.

Japanese Iced Coffee has probably been practiced in Japan for a long, long time. It’s introduction into the U.S., however, is more recent – by my research I estimate Japanese Coffee started being recognized as a unique brewing method about 10 years ago, and almost entirely because of one important figure in U.S. Specialty Coffee: Peter Giuliano. Giuliano was the coffee director and co-owner of Counter Culture Coffee out of North Carolina. Since 2012 he’s been director of the Specialty Coffee Symposium for the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Peter Giuliano is one of the people in the coffee world where when he talks, people listen.

At least since 2009, and probably earlier, Peter Giuliano has been preaching the good news of Japanese Iced Coffee to just about anyone who will listen. He discussed it with a journalist from Imbibe Magazine for an article in 2009, he wrote about it in his blog, Pax Coffea, in 2012, and he wrote an article about it for Fresh Cup Magazine in 2014 to name just a few instances over the years. In the Fresh Cup article, Giuliano explains a little bit about why he’s so passionate.

“In 1994, I visited Japan for the first time. There, iced coffee (called aisu kohi) was ubiquitous. Every pastry place served iced coffee, in a tall chimney glass with a tiny pitcher of liquid sugar on the side. Japanese coffee drinkers would sip it in the afternoon, chatting and eating sweets. I ordered one just to explore. I was expecting the battery-acid flavors I’d become accustomed to back home, but instead I discovered a completely different drink—clear and crisp, multilayered and transparent, refreshing and complex. Aisu kohi opened my eyes.”

In the piece he wrote on his blog titled, “Why you should stop cold-brewing, and use the Japanese Iced Coffee Method.” he explains further saying, “I puzzled over it for years.  Finally, I developed a relationship with Hidetaka Hayashi, who is a kind of specialty coffee idol in Japan.  One of the first questions I asked Mr. Hayashi was how iced coffee was different in Japan.  He taught me a lot over the years, but the thing I figured out was this: many of the iced coffee processes I liked the best brewed coffee hot, then chilled the coffee INSTANTLY by brewing right onto ice.  The dilution from the melting of the ice can be taken account in the brew recipe, leading to proper strength and maximum happiness.”

Calling Hidetaka Hayashi a specialty coffee idol is actually putting it modestly – he’s credit as being the individual who brought true specialty coffee to Japan in the first place. He’s worked in bringing quality beans to Japan since the early 1960s. In one interview I found, Hidetaka gives insight into why the Japanese prefer the brewing methods they use. He said that in the 10-year period between 1963-1972 “Japan was considered a new market, therefore we were given very low quality coffee at very low prices, far lower than what traditional markets or Annex-A countries paid, and with no guarantee of quality.” Japan was given low-altitude, low-quality coffee, and due to this Japanese people looked for ways to get the most out of their sub-par beans. They turned to using paper filters for pour-over and siphon brewing methods – both methods are still mainstays in Japanese coffee culture.

At one point in July 2015, Peter Giuliano addressed the name – “Japanese Iced Coffee” – by posting a short thread on coffee forum coffeed.com. It’s actually really interesting to take a look at, several big players in the specialty coffee world like Nick Cho from Wrecking Ball and Jay Cunningham from Intelligentsia stopped by to write their opinion. Giuliano wrote, “I think I understand the reticence to call it “Japanese” iced coffee. I’ve had people tell me it seems fake, or misleadingly exotic, or inauthentic, kind of like Chinese Chicken Salad or English Muffins. I don’t agree, and here’s why:” he goes on to list three main reasons: first, he thinks its important to recognize and acknowledge the origin of the technique. Second, he believes that one of the great things about food is exploring cultural diversity. Third and finally, he doesn’t think there’s a better term for Japanese Iced Coffee. As he put it, “ “Flash brewing” sounds to me like someone is opening a raincoat just before making coffee.”

In recent years cold brewed coffee has gone mainstream – so to speak – with Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts offering their versions for sale during summer months. Cold brew stands diametrically opposed to Japanese Iced Coffee – it steeps coffee grounds in cold water for extended time periods to try and capture the maximum amount of flavor compounds in the final product. The problem, as we looked at earlier, are those aromatics – cold brew just has no way to get them into the drink. For this reason, while cold brew seems to get more popular with the masses each year, Japanese Iced Coffee is typically hailed as the tastier, more captivating iced coffee by specialty coffee enthusiasts. And here’s another interesting fact about cold brew – in Japan, the term they use to refer to it literally means, “Dutch Coffee” despite the fact that there’s really no connection between the method itself or cold-brew equipment with the Netherlands. If there’s one name that needs to change, it’s not Japanese Iced Coffee, it’s this one.

Like all coffee culture, Japanese coffee culture follows the path of the country’s history. Over time, coffee in Japan has shown itself to be resilient and able to bounce back after cultural shifts and entire wars. While Japanese people were at first resistant to coffee’s bitter taste, today they are one of the world’s largest coffee consumers. You can find instant coffee on every corner in places like Tokyo, along with coffee chains. Kissaten, while once a ritual mainstay in Japanese culture, have begun to give way while specialty coffee shops are flourishing. Where in 1888 the first coffee shop in Tokyo closed after just four years, today Blue Bottle has an incredibly successful flagship store. Japan is the home of world-class businesses who manufacture excellent coffee equipment. And beyond physical products, Japan has forever influenced global coffee culture by inventing and perfecting the Japanese Iced Coffee brew method. Today, Japan is undoubtedly a leader in the world of coffee.

Thanks for listening to Coffee Canon. I’m your host Colin Mansfield, and I hope you enjoyed this first episode. If you want to take a look at any of the sources I used to write this episode, head over to the blog post on BoiseCoffee.org. If you’re interested in getting previews for upcoming future episodes and other premium content, join the Coffee Canon email list. Just go to BoiseCoffee.org/coffeecanon and enter your information.

Coffee Canon will have a new episode every two weeks. Until then, go find a cup of Japanese Iced Coffee to enjoy before it gets too cold outside. Don’t worry, Pumpkin Spice Lattes will be here all autumn.

The post Episode One: Japanese Coffee appeared first on Boise Coffee.