For several years, Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters has donated used burlap coffee bags to Zoo Atlanta’s Enrichment Team. Under the supervision of zoo keepers, volunteers stuff the bags with hay, popcorn and peanuts and give them to the zoo’s gorillas. The gorillas spend time searching through the bags for their treats and then use the bags in a variety of ways. Ivan likes to wear his bag on his shoulders or sit on it. One female likes to wear it like a hat. Some young males chase each other for the bag, even after it is empty.

The group of volunteers that coordinates this project is called the Ape Conservation Effort and they work to increase awareness of the extreme threat to all great apes in the wild, including gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. We salute this group for its work and will be contributing coffee for an upcoming fundraiser.  

We’ve been roasting Panama Esmeralda since August 4 and it has been earning raves ever since. Luke from 21st Street Coffee blogged about it recently and encouraged folks in the Pittsburgh area to “definitely get up there [Enrico’s Tazza D’Oro] and try their Esmeralda. Batdorf & Bronson did a great job with their lot.”

Luke sampled the Panama Esmeralda at a Barista Smackdown hosted by Pittsburgh coffee house Enrico’s Tazza D’Oro. The competition featured baristas from 21st Street Coffee and Aldo Coffee in a head-to-head latte art competition. The winner received a pot of cash and all competitors were invited to sample a French Press of B&B’s Panama Esmeralda brewed by the evening’s host, Amy Enrico.

Our training specialist Oliver Stormshak was recently in Pittsburgh to do an in-depth training at Amy’s coffeehouse.

“Tazza D’Oro are true leaders in the east coast coffee community.  This is their second year being barista certified, yet they always want to learn more.  I worked one-on-one with each member of the staff to improve bar skills, technique and explore the chemistry and science behind espresso.   It was awesome.”

Photos courtesy of Amy Enrico

Just wanted to make a quick post and let you know what’s been standing out on our cupping table lately.

In the Americas, it’s all La Minita, La Trinidad, and El Valle.  La Minita has to take top honors right now - juicy tangerine acidity, gorgeous body, sweet maple flavor, complex, inviting, and a finish you wish would never end.  La Trini is another standout with its classic milk chocolate flavor and mild acidity.  Well-balanced, approachable, easy-drinking, very very nice.  And then there’s El Valle - deep and rich caramel and brown sugar flavors, lively acidy, balanced with a medium-heavy body.  And look out, this one always just gets better with age.

Africa - Our Kenya right now is very nice, more grapefruity than berry, but sweet nonetheless, and nicely intense.  Harar has been a consistent performer and remains so - clean blueberry fruit and hints of rosemary.  It’s easy to be fooled by other naturals that have gone too far to fruit - this one is near perfect!  Don’t take it for granted.  And an upcoming star from Africa is a beautiful Sidamo we’re getting ready to launch - pristine lemon and bergamot flavors, flowery, crisp, and sunny.  First roast date for this coffee will be August 18th.

Indonesia - Sumatra Lake Tawar is your baby here.  Super heavy, super intense, rich flavors of exotic pipe tobacco and deep forest.  Not at all mulchy, or earthy, though you may find bell pepper or root vegetable hints, cloaked in a syrupy body.

From time to time we like to do a roaster exchange with our staff in Atlanta. We ship one of our Olympia roasters to our Atlanta roastery, and one of our Atlanta roasters travels up here to the Northwest. This week, our Atlanta Roastery Manager Aaron Shively is with us in rainy Washington, while Olympia Roaster and Production Supervisor Brian Meyers is sweating it out in the Atlanta heat.

It’s all about maintaining consistency. Every week, both our roasteries exchange samples of roasted coffees with one another to make sure our customers on both sides of the country are getting the same quality product. In the same way, the roaster exchange helps our roasters to be able to trade places and go through the roasting process with the other half of our fabulous roasting staff.

Plus, it’s nice for the rest of us to see their faces once in while. Welcome, Aaron!

In addition to the new crop Central American coffees Scott mentioned in a previous post, we also received a recent shipment of Ethiopia Sidamo. It’s a washed coffee, certified organic, and from our first sample tastings it is going to be a popular one: gorgeous, refined, sophisticated, clean with beautiful flavours of lemon and bergamot.

Thirsty? First roast date will be August 18th.

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, the Panama has landed.

What you see here is the limited amount we have available for our customers. The first roast date for this eagerly awaited, world-renowned coffee is set for August 4th. There’s still time to take advantage of our free shipping offer if you pre-order now.

Don’t miss out!

Our shipment of Panama Esmeralda is in the country! It arrived at the beginning of July to the importer in Minneapolis and is currently being freighted over to our roastery in Olympia…

It should be with us sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Watch this space!

The sweet smell of fresh green coffee inundates our roasteries this time of year, as new crop coffees roll into production. As of early July, all of our Centrals are new crop, except El Salvador Siberia Pacamara . Our 2008 lot has shipped, however, and I anticipate a late July delivery of that coffee - we should be roasting new crop Siberia by August. In addition to all the American coffees, we’re also enjoying a new crop Kenya , a nice little Nyeri coffee, as well as fresh Ethiopia Harar , and a recent delivery of Sumatra Lake Tawar . These three coffees deserve a post of their own at a later time.

Highlights on just a few of our standout Centrals:

Our latest arrival of Organic Costa Rica Cerro del Fuego is fantastic. The year’s first roast just yesterday by Steely Van revealed great balance, with citric acidity and syrupy body. "Tropical fruits and nuts" from the official description only scratches the surface - complex and inviting, "tropical fruits" goes deeper to ripe mango and juicy pineapple, while "nuts" means everything from chewy cashew to macadamia.

Organic Mexico La Trinidad is another big winner. I am particularly fond of La Trinidad this time of year, when it shows youthful acidity in concert with the heavy and sweet candy bar milk chocolate flavors it has really become known for. This is one of the coffees I repeatedly have been brewing at home.

My other at-home brewer is Costa Rica La Minita del Sol . Whoa, this coffee is amazing. This one goes to eleven. Super intense, super breakfasty, with brilliant flavors of sugary sweet maple syrup and fresh-off-the-tree orange and tangerine citrus notes. This coffee has massive flavor, and a resounding presence. Eleven, for sure.

The last honorable mention today is Guatemala El Valle . Now, we usually prefer this coffee later in the year as it settles into its caramelly brown sugar and Zacapa Rum phase, but early in the year it is to be admired as well. Now is when it’s easier to find those somewhat elusive smoky, incense-influenced spice notes that we love so much. This coffee was recently reviewed by Ken Davids on his Coffee Review website, where he scored it 89. View it here .

So, enjoy! I’d love to read your comments on what’s been outstanding for you as well.

We receive letters here from time to time from various charities and organizations, thanking us for coffee and burlap bag donations. It’s always a pleasure to hear how we have been able to help our fellow human beings. However, recently we learnt that we have also been helping a rather different species, namely the Lebia grandis (that’s a ground beetle to you and me). John Dudley Fort of the Underwood Ecology Lab at Florida State University wrote to us:

I am writing to thank you for supplying us with burlap sacks via Carla Marie Reid, owner of Black Dog Cafe in Tallahassee. As Carla may have mentioned, we are using these sacks to help us in our plant-insect ecology research. We are creating traps to capture the ground beetle Lebia grandis . This beetle preys upon the eggs of the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata ) and its cousin, the False potato beetle (Leptinotarsa juncta ). Studying these beetles will help us better understand their effect on a weed known as horsenettle (Solanum carolinese ).

The egg-predator Lebia grandis is an elusive and fascinating member of its family, the Carabid Beetles. According to Eleanor Groden’s ground-breaking research in Maine and Michigan during the 1980’s and early ’90’s, this beetle may be a significant source of mortality for the Colorado potato beetle. This would be an interesting phenomenon to better understand because the Colorado potato beetle has a strong negative impact on production of potatoes and related vegetable crops. Before the work of Dr. Groden, this beetle was only found by doing midnight surveys. However, Eleanor discovered that this beetle could be captured by wrapping wooden stakes in strips of burlap and periodically checking these traps. We are building these traps in Tallahassee and will be very interested to see what we find living in our local populations of horsenettle, a close relative of the cultivated potato.

It just makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it?

Longtime wholesale customer and friend of B&B, Amy Enrico at Enrico’s Tazza d’Oro is featured in June/July’s issue of Barista Magazine! Amy is noted in the article "Mid-Life Coffee" as one of several daring entrepreneurs who have made a successful move into the coffee industry later in their career lives. Amy takes customer service and barista training very seriously and has traveled to our Olympia roastery from Pittsburgh several times for intensive trainings with our staff. Congratulations to Amy on being recognized for doing such a great job!

Read the article !

It’s here! Well, almost…

On May 22nd this year, the 2008 crop of Panama Esmeralda Special went up for auction on the internet to bidders worldwide. Our green coffee buyer Scott Merle, like hundreds of others across the globe, had his eyes glued to his laptop screen for over ten hours; carrying it around the office, taking it to meetings and to lunch, not daring to step away while the action was still taking place.

His determination paid off - we got two lots from the batch we found to be the most impressive. The coffee is scheduled to arrive to us by late July, which means we will hopefully be doing our first roast on Monday 4th August.

Trivia Note: The image we are using for the Esmeralda this year is the Holy Ghost Orchid (also known as the Dove Orchid), and is the national flower of Panama. So now you know…

We’re taking pre-orders now! Find out more about the Panama Esmeralda .

It seems everybody is talking about the famous donuts made by Duck’s Cosmic Kitchen in Decatur. We spotted them on the Decatur Metro blog this week. Haven’t tried one yet? They’re at the Dancing Goats Coffee Bar in Decatur, selling like hot… well, donuts.

Here is the winning pour from Andy Lee (Atlanta Production/Dancing Goats Coffee Bar barista) who won the Latte Art Throwdown at Octane Coffee Bar & Lounge in Atlanta last Thursday. He took home the pot along with an iPod shuffle. Not a bad night for our Andy. The Thursday Night Throwdown is a monthly feature at Octane so we’re hoping to see many more beautiful pours in the future! That is, if our baristas are not afraid to challenge this guy:

Congratulations to our wholesale customers The Prinnie-Mack Coffee Company in Warner Robins, Georgia on being awarded the SCAA Golden Cup Award two years in a row!

The Golden Cup recognizes excellence in brewing coffee and is awarded to retailers and restaurants who grind and brew their coffee according to the strict standards set out by the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

Thanks to Prinnie-Mack for doing such an awesome job with our coffee!

The Latte Art Throwdown last Thursday was a fun and fairly quiet affair. We had nine participants in total - five from B&B, and four visiting baristas from Olympia Coffee Roasters. Judges were Terry Z of Oly Roasters and our own Michael Elvin, both of whom bantered with the baristas and assessed their art on the following points: symmetry/creativity, color/contrast and definition.

The evening produced a lovely array of leaf patterns and hearts, (including one which looked uncannily like a Canadian maple) with Sam Schroeder from Olympia Coffee Roasters taking the prize for a particularly attractive latte leaf.

Rumour has it that Oliver Stormshak stopped in late, just in time to win the judges’ round. However, since we have no photographic evidence of this, his winning art will remain a mystery…