working on getting Tom his own section of the blog: Here’s one of his recents: “My sincerest thanks to…..

Green Street Coffee Roasters is moving along as we enter into the summer. Our company is less than a year old and we could not have done it without all the support from coffee lovers, friends and family. As we are moving along I have been taking time to reflect on how and why we are here. 

I sincerely thank all those who took a chance on us when we werenobody’s coming through the door talking about fresh roasted specialty coffee. True to form for many great Philadelphia stories, we are the underdogs. That said, our tenacity and the support we have makes us a real contender in the coffee arena. All of our accounts have been fantastic in working with us and we are glad to serve you all! I also am so thankful for our friends and families who have helped critique many things, pointed out opportunities and went above and beyond for us. Thanks a million! 

So in sum you can count on us to go above and beyond for you. We will find the highest quality coffee, roast it to perfection and work to serve you and your customers. In the eloquent words of a phrase I heard today “Were from Philly, Were in Philly and were having a hell of a time.” Please connect with us and let us know what you like and how we can improve to serve you better. TM”

“The dream of the 90′s is alive in Portland, Portland”

If you recognize the subject line, you’ve probably seen Portlandia, and if you haven’t seen it, It’s definitely a show worth watching. It’s co-written by Fred Armisen of SNL and a super funny satirical take on life in Portland. After living here in 2010 and seeing the show after moving back to Philly, I couldn’t stop enjoying how much is represents life in PDX.

I mention this since I’m in Portland this weekend for SCAA 2012 and loving it! The conference is amazing and the first morning here I met up with Sergio Reyes of Los Planes in El Salvador, whose farm I visited in February. Sergio’s coffee placed 6th in a recent Cup of Excellence Competition and one of the great coffees he produces is a Pacamara, which he kept hyping up to me and then told me in his broken English how he thinks it might be sold out this year, finally he conceded he thinks he can get me 5 bags and after cupping in El Sal. in Feb. I’m sure it would be worth every bag to offer as a great single origin – one to expect sometime before summer. I also saw Fernando Liu who is very well know in El Salvador coffee. He’s manager of Cuzcachapa Cooperative and owns several farms himself. We purchased his Organic, Santa Elena, bourbon. coffee for this year.

There’s a lot more to discover at the SCAA event and I couldn’t be more stoked to be here, back in Portland and meeting so many coffee enthusiasts.

lots are happening at Green Street Coffee Roasters

We’re working on a new website and I hate it. Having a website designed is super difficult and even after talking to some friends about their awesome websites, the ones that don’t have websites and a designer we very much appreciate, I still hate it. Because, it’s not coffee. Sure, coffee related, yes. And a way for us to share our coffees and other randomness that we feel necessary, but it’s a lot of work and hard to quantify. Having written that I can now see why, so we’re doing it. We’re probably going to manage it ourselves so it should be original, straight from the gut and hopefully pretty dang simple.

Also, I updated our facebook page from the random one fb gave when we started to www.facebook.com/greenstreetcoffee  If you like us on FB it will make you and me both happy. Promise.

Another item we’re working on is branding, public relations and packaging. We’re working on packaging efforts and it could fail miserably, but we’re relying on our very handsome designer to come up with something that helps us avoid failure on this one… We’re open to suggestions on our designs and packaging and would love feedback on this or no feedback at all and just you buying our coffee as long as it tastes amazing. 

We’re adding a new coffee from an exceptional producer – Colombia, ANEI Coffee Cooperative

We’ve recently sampled and selected a new coffee to add to our line-up from Colombia. The 2012 harvest has just arrived and after sampling the coffee the search for another one to offer was complete. It is a fair trade certified coffee and also USDA organic and comes from a woman who founded a cooperative in the 1980′s to bring together the indigenous people of the region to produce great coffee.  Fair Trade USA.org has some good information on the coffee:

“Fair Trade helps us organize ourselves; it helps us be autonomous as a community and to be an organization that helps our members and the community in general to enhance the quality of our lives.”

-Aurora Maria Izquierdo Torres, ANEI founding member and director.

The ANEI is located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Maria and the mountainous region of Perija in Colombia. The organization was founded by Aurora Maria Izquierda in the 1980s. At the time, Aurora was one of the first women of her generation to leave the isolated indigenous Arhuaca community of Santa Maria and get a higher education. Upon Aurora’s graduation, she left Bogotá and returned to her community to create a sustainable agriculture program that would improve the quality of life for all of her community members. From Aurora’s initial dreams, ANEI was formed. The cooperative prides itself on rooting its business values and practices in the traditional teachings of the mamus, the spiritual leaders of the community. The Arhuaco or Ijku community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria is one of four descendants of the Tayrona people. The area is made up of approximately 30,000 Arhuacos located between the departments of Cesar and Magdalena in Colombia. There are many other indigenous peoples in the Sierra Nevada; however, people of the Kogi, Wiwa and Kankuamo communities are also members of ANEI. ANEI’s leaders believe Fair Trade helps them organize and be autonomous as a community. Certification supports the organization in its aim to help its members and the community in general to enhance the quality of their lives.

We’re excited about the wonderful, exemplary taste of this Colombia, Santa Maria coffee.

NERBC – What’s that?? North East Regional Barista Competition.. much better

made a trip up to NYC with Tom to the North East Regional Barista Comp. What a day! I can’t count how many espresso shots we had, but getting to meet so many great people was an amazing experience. Mad props to all 28 Baristas that competed ( Tom and I didn’t) I’m a roaster! and Tom didn’t either, albeit his stellar barista skills.. seen below. Lots of cafes were represented from throughout the North East US and the event was hosted by Dallis Bros. Coffee  The first coffee I had was a yellow bourbon from an estate owned by Dallis Bros. Coffee – in the Mogiana region of Brazil. Mogiana is a coffee I’ve seen plenty of, having used it as an espresso base late last year and it definitely hit the spot as an enjoyable nutty tasting south american coffee. One thing I quickly addressed was whether the crop was 2011 or 2012 since we’re in a pretty weird cycle of coffee right now. Most 2012 central/ south american crops have not arrived to the US yet and right now most coffee available is 2011 crop and pretty much outdated. This probably couldn’t be a reason to change the date of the event, but a precarious time in the green/ raw coffee buying world nonetheless. Once the 2012 arrivals start to appear in April/ May the supply for the better part of this year should reveal itself and there could be some shifts depending on what coffees stand apart.  Also, we tasted a Kenya Muburi which was full bodied, unique in flavor, sweet, but not fruity sweet. It tasted gardeny like, with a full mouthfeel and reminded me how good Kenyan coffees can be.

It was also held in conjunction with TeaFest NYC so it was nice to take a break from coffee for a bit to taste some teas. All in, it was an awesome day and a well attended event.

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Urban Outfitters farmers market

We’ll be at the URBN Farmers Market in the Navy Yard TODAY! We’re brewing organic sidamo from the OROMIA Coop in Ethiopia and selling wholebean bags of our single origins and a couple blends. We’re excited to visit this farmers market and talk to all who come out about coffee and my soon approaching trip to El Salvador in February!

sample roasting a new line-up of coffees, starting with an Indonesian Java Organic Taman Dadar

We’re sample roasting several new coffees to try to find a solid Indonesian to offer as a single origin and/or use in an Indonesian based blend. I’m thinking maybe a blend of a couple different Indonesian coffees or and Indo. and an African, an Ethiopian Harrar, possibly.

We started by sample roasting 2 Indonesians last night, a Taman Dadar and a Flores Bajawa Ngura. Altogether there are about 6 different popular Indonesian and Timor coffees that as a group represent the coffees of this region. They’re different than central Americans ( not as sweet) and also the East Africans (also not as sweet and not as bright to taste). Indonesians are known to be malty, having an aromatic woody taste, with sometimes an earthy flavor and/or fermented fruit.

I had the Taman Dadar today ( 21 grams to 12oz of water, brewed pour over) and I was pleased with the results, but not sure if it will be a stand-out among the others Tom and I will taste ( ultimately, finding a Indonesian to offer comes down first to taste, but then seasonality, and amount available so these factors will go into our final decision on finding one to buy at scale) For the Taman Dadar, I roasted it medium dark. It has a full body, a complex aroma with woody nuances and a full mouth feel to it. I don’t think it stands out as extremely exciting, but it definitely represents a good coffee; one that might be good  to add to a blend with a sweeter coffee. Attached are a couple photos. Don’t fret, there is more to come; we’ll be sampling several more coffees from this region  over the next couple of weeks, including Sulawesi, Java, Sumatra, and the Flores noted above.

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