We’ve got a big selection of coffees on the shelf today to set you guys up for the weekend.
House Espresso (complex, caramel and citrus a finish) is up along with some Indonesia Takengon (figgy sweet and earthy), Guatemala Liquidambar (fresh raspberry and dark chocolate), Kenya Nguvu (delicate citrus and berry) and Guatemala Isabel (creamy and nutty).
I’m not going to talk about the reasons for the creation of the EXC, those stated outright or those conjectured by bloggers and coffee nerds and everyone else who has the words “I think” in the language they prefer, and knows how to use them. Those things, for my purposes, aren’t actually important.
What I am going to talk about is the ECX and how it’s making me crazy.
1. The point of the coffee trade in Ethiopia is to sell coffee overseas.
I say this because, according to Wikipedia (which is, I grant you, notoriously fluid about facts), Ethiopia sits at number 69 in the world for coffee consumption, consuming just 1.3 kg per person every year, but is the 7th biggest exporter of coffee in the world, exporting something like .26 million metric tonnes. So it’s safe to say Ethiopians drink some coffee, but they export most of it.
2. North American specialty coffee drinkers want to know their money is getting to farmers.
Since the 90s, when people suddenly started to give long and careful thought to who was producing their food and what they were getting paid, North Americans have been concerned with fair trade practices.
Because of my experience at the bar, where people often ask if the coffee is fair trade but no one seems to give a flying fig about who grew the sugar or harvested the cinnamon, I believe that coffee is probably the world’s most scrutinized food commodity. I’m fine with this. I’d like to see more people taking an interest in where their food comes from.
Because specialty coffee drinkers appreciate the work the farmers are doing, and they want good coffee next year too, they demand coffee that’s traceable.
3. No one I’ve talked to knows what the hell the EXC or it’s sub-group the DST is doing.
My brokers have no idea. My colleagues have conflicting information. Even the webinar that recently went down didn’t really answer a lot of my questions.
4. What this means for me and you and the farmers.
This means that 10 months after the ECX started up, I still am not buying coffee from Ethiopia in anything near the quantity that I used to.
When people ask for it, I tell them that we only get coffee we can account for, and that we can’t trace the coffee on sale through the ECX, so we’re not sure when we can get more Ethiopian coffee in. I also tell them that in my opinion, things look pretty weird and sketchy right now.
5. My point
Well, if you’ve made it this far, you obviously care and therefore you deserve to be rewarded with the point of this rant.
My point is this: Despite all the mess with the ECX, people still want to buy Ethiopian coffee, because Ethiopian coffees are sometimes mind blowing and wonderful. That’s great. That’s the point of growing coffee in Ethiopia – to export it to a market that wants it bad, will absolutely pay for it, but also wants to know that money is getting to farmers.
But 10 months after its inception, the ECX is still not fit for purpose when it comes to specialty coffee. Unless it comes from someone who can avoid the muddying effects of the ECX, I cannot buy it. I cannot sell it to my customers.
I’m tired of the ECX and its layers upon layers of obfuscation tarted up as clarity. I’m tired of being told that this situation is somehow helping farmers of specialty grade coffee. I’m tired of hearing that my brokers cupped a sample of coffee and then turned back the shipment when it arrived because the sample they cupped and the coffee they got didn’t remotely resemble one another. I’m sick to my back teeth with it.
I’m sorry, you guys. I have 210 lbs of beautiful, delightful, traceable Ethiopian coffee for you in the roastery. 210 lbs. That’s all.
I don’t know how or when I’m going to get you more. I’ll do my best, but from where I sit, things aren’t looking very good.
I went down to the store this morning (even though I was supposed to have today off) because there was a coffee in the roastery that I wanted to taste. It’s a natural Ethiopian, the first fresh Ethiopian crop I’ve had access to in a while. When I sniffed the bag the green beans arrived in (they were vacuum-packed in foil) it smelled like fresh grass and garden peas – sweet, starchy and wholesome.
I missed the first roast of that coffee yesterday. I missed the drop and the burst of fragrant vapor that fills the roastery when the beans are emptied into the cooling bin. I did get to smell the beans a few moments after they’d been roasted, though. The smell was muted, like most super-fresh coffee tends to be, but I could pick up promising sweet and floral notes.
I cupped it yesterday afternoon, a few hours after it had been roasted. The gas sat like a bubble on my tongue, but even still I could detect fructose sweetness, the promise of cherry. I couldn’t wait to get up this morning and taste it again. So this morning I did. Hauled my butt out of bed, rolled into yesterday’s clothes and trudged down to the shop. And there I cupped the coffee again.
Maybe it was just that I had my favorite Neil Young album on the noisebox. Maybe it was the peace and quiet of an industrial space still in bed. Maybe it was the fifty pairs of hands that cared for the coffee before I got it. Whatever the case, the coffee was stunning; Fresh cherries, creamy body, and an effervescent, delicate finish. And it’s not even peaking yet. I could still taste the CO2 muffling the other flavors.
I can’t wait for tomorrow because tomorrow I get to cup that coffee again. Time will have pulled the veil from the flavors. Tomorrow it will be perfect.
Pee Ess: This coffee isn’t on the board just yet. It’s coming up soon, though, so keep your eyes open, and don’t hesitate to ask if it’s available yet.
In autumn, you guys supported our involvement in Carrot Mob, an organization that aims to use consumer power to affect positive environmental change. With your help, we raised just about 3000 bucks that we’ve promised to put back into the business in a way that’s going to shrink our environmental impact.
Today we’re happy to announce that it’s the end of waste at Discovery. Or, almost. There are still going to be a few things that do have to go into the garbage, but there are lots and lots of things that don’t have to be thrown out and in fact would be better recycled or made into compost. We’ve been meaning to find some way to recycle our everything, but just never got around to it. So, thanks, Carrot Mobbers. We have the means and a great excuse to put into place a huge recycling, reusing and composting program.
We’re starting to curb our waste by, well, getting rid of our big dumpster. It’s huge and ugly, leaks unknown nastiness into the drains, and, according to findings of our intrepid John and Justus, it holds piles of stuff that’s actually recyclable. The best way to encourage us to get serious about a recycling program, we figure, is to get rid of that puppy all together. So it’s going at the start of February.
We will keep two tiny micro garbage cans in the washrooms to provide disposal for the few things that genuinely cannot be recycled, composted or reused, but our goal is to become as waste-free as possible. No more could-have should-have, no more leeching of scary stuff into the drains, no more huge trucks coming by to empty the bins, no more plastic garbage bags getting thrown out and not recycled. We’re trying to achieve the end of waste.
We all ready compost all our coffee grounds, but with our new program, we’ll be stepping the composting up a notch. That means we’ll have enough to provide free compost to the community too, everything from spent coffee grounds to the dry, delicate chaff that comes from the roaster and is, we’ve heard, an excellent mulch. If you want some, bring a bucket (or a truck!) and come to the cafe to find out where we keep it.
Thanks again to the Carrot Mobbers. You guys got us pointed in the right direction. And thanks to everyone who helped us raise enough money to build the compost and recycling bins, and the storage shed that’s going to double as a secure staff bike lock up (’cause emissions is garbage too, guys).
Happy new year folks!
Here’s a list of the cool things you guys collectively did involving coffee in 2009:
- Took a total of 9 classes all about tasting, brewing and cupping coffee.
- Drank somewhere in the neighborhood of 9,000 cups of coffee off the Clover.
- Donated over 300 lbs of coffee to the Open Door (so much coffee, in fact, that we’ve gone through way more than we anticipated and need to order a month a head of schedule)*.
- Helped us open the Oak Bay store.
- Lowered our environmental impact (more to come on this in the next few weeks!)
- Supported the Mustard Seed with food donations.
- Raised over 100$ for the Times Colonist pennies-for-presents drive.
- Drank over ten metric tonnes of coffee. Woah.
*I should add that all this coffee has been raised but not all of it donated. We simply didn’t have enough people to roast all the extra coffee during the crazy that was December, so the donations will continue into January until we hit the three hundred pound mark.
Here’s the holiday hours for both our locations!
Dec 24 7:30 – 3:30
Dec 25 Closed
Dec 26 Closed
Dec 27 7:30 – 3:30
Dec 31 7:30 – 3:30
Jan 1 Closed. You’re not going to want to see us the morning after New Year’s.
We’ve just started accepting donations to the Mustard Seed food bank! That means our box is empty right now. Empty and sad. Woe.
But!
If you bring your non perishable foodstuffs of deliciousness down to either of our stores, you will help make our box (and some needy fellow Victorians) full and happy!
I just stuffed the shelf at Discovery on Discovery, and Discovery Oak Bay is likewise packed to the hilt. Here’s what’s fresh and for sale today:
Cup of Excellence – Lote Langunita (El Salvador #30) – Choco-orange, highly aromatic, exceptionally clean.
Indonesian Takengon – Tobacco and fig with a luscious big body (my personal favorite right now).
Guatemala Isabel – The most popular Guatemala we’ve ever carried. Creamy mouth feel and toasted nut notes.
Kenya Nguvu – Delicate lime-and-apple acidity makes this a beautifully rounded Kenya.
And it’s the Costa Rica on tap this morning at Disco on Disco and the Kenya and Costa Rica at Oak Bay.
Hey Victoria coffee drinkers!
Thanks to you guys we’ve managed to raise over 100 pounds of coffee for The Open Door.
Now that the weather is turning really cold, all that hot coffee is going to be more welcome than ever, so we’ve decided to keep the one-for-one coffee donation going. That means that till the end of December, for every pound of coffee we sell we’re going to donate a pound of coffee to the Open Door.
Even if you’re not a coffee drinker, the Open Door is a great community service and they accept all kinds of donations, from stuff to time.
Well, it’s been a while, but it’s time to get back to doing the what’s on the board posts all regular like again. So, without further ado, here’s what we’ve got on the shelf and/or on tap:
Cup of Excellence – Lote Langunita (El Salvador #30) – Choco-orange, highly aromatic, exceptionally clean.
Indonesian Takengon – Tobacco and fig with a luscious big body (my personal favorite right now).
Guatemala Isabel – The most popular Guatemala we’ve ever carried. Creamy mouth feel and toasted nut notes.
Kenya Nguvu – Delicate lime-and-apple acidity makes this a beautifully rounded Kenya.
