T-Giving Hours

We are open for all your pre and post turkey needs on thanksgiving (in both locations!) from 8:00 to 3:00.

OMG

The halogen brewers have arrived. They are beautiful, but require a voltage converter before we can play with them.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

We have a winner!

Looks like Sumatra is winning the autumn sippin’ coffee competition. Thanks to everyone who voted, it’ll help us decided if we want to head to Indonesia, South America or Africa this autumn.

Hiring!

Hey y’all! Discovery Coffee is hiring for full time baristi. If you’re interested, come by the store to talk to us about the position, the benefits, and how much awesome can fit in a cup of coffee.

Reg Barber and His Tampers

We’re long overdue in thanking Reg Barber for the wonderful, beautiful custom tampers he’s made for every single barista at our shop. We love them dearly.

Thanks, Reg!

Good bye!

Good bye Atlanta!
We flew out of the Altanta airport at four pm on Monday, and managed to run into Jenny from Dublin, who worked like a Roman all weekend, and the guys who ran the Slayer booth. We got in late, the Slayer guys were on their way to Calgary and had five minutes to get to their plane at the time we landed, so I suspect they ended up on a later flight.

It’s been a big weekend, a really big weekend, and we’ve learned a lot. Regular service on this blog is going to resume, so if you want to hear any Atlanta stories, you’ll have to come down to the store and chat with us.

To the WBC: Thanks for everything, you guys did a great job!
To the blog-readers: Thanks for your comments and your enthusiasm!
To the folks of Atlanta: Thanks for your hospitality!

See everyone in London in 2010!

5:41

The place was packed, so hot that the air conditioning came on at one and didn’t shut off for the duration of the final. I sat beside Gary, who professed himself not anxious at all, but kept leaning forward, folding his body like a hairpin to watch the competitors down on the stage.

There had to be fifteen hundred people in the hall, competitors, their support staff, the sponsors, the friends, the rest of us who came to watch the best baristas in the world work on the bar. When the competitors finished their set and the judges retired to consider their scores, the crowd surged toward the espresso bar and to take advantage of the booths in the exhibition hall. Exhibitors gave away five-pound bags of coffee, samples of beans, toffee, mints, pins, tampers, stickers, bags. Fifteen hundred sweaty, hung over baristas, lots of us still wearing the same pants we’ve been wearing all week long, lots of us covered in coffee and spilled beer, lots of us hopped up on caffeine, sneezing, coughing, calling out to friends, shouting encouragement, making commentary. But when Stephen started to call out the champions names, the hall was silent. I could hear the clatter of the keyboard of the AV booth just to my left.

In sixth place, Attila Minar of Hungary, who had such a good time on stage he actually danced at the bar; in fifth, Lee Jong Hoon of South Korea, who was utterly composed even despite a false start. In fourth place, Colin Harmon, the ex-banker turned barista who’s been in the business for one year and one day. In third place, Michael Phillips of the USA, who blushed when he heard everyone cheering for him. In second, Sammy Piccolo, who I thought was sure to walk away with the gold, and in first place, despite going 17 seconds over time, despite repulling a shot, despite a complex, difficult and multi-part signature drink, the new World Barista Champ is Gwilym Davies.

He’s the third champ trained by Square Mile, the second UK resident to win, and serious about specialty coffee. When asked if he wanted to say something to the watching world he said, “When we say specialty, can we mean specialty?”

You should have heard the cheers.

Times they are

Well, the times they are a-changing, like the man said. So is this blog. For the next little while you’ll probably see a lot of stuff going on. Things moving around. Words come up and words go down. These are the rumblings of something greater, better, and more caffeinated than ever before. Don’t mind the noise and the dust, we’re just renovating.

The New Roaster Comes Home

Hot Cupping Action

Evidence of cuppery:

Aaron and Tamara spent the day test roasting multiple beans, pulling beans for sample cuppings according to the smell they were giving off in the roaster. Our goal was to find the optimal sweetness and balance of each of the coffees we tried and determine the best time to pull the beans.

We tasted something like twelve different samples and eventually had to stop because of palate fatigue. A ten-hour session is planned for next month. Should be awesome.