Coffee

Boot & Shoe Service's Jim Seishas Talks About the Other Side of Restaurant Coffee

By Noah Sanders Thu., Feb. 9 2012 at 10:00 AM
Categories: Coffee

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Boot & Shoe Service is respected in the coffee industry as a restaurant that avoids the usual scenario of fantastic food and poor coffee. SFoodie spoke to Jim Seishas, coffee manager at Boot & Shoe Service and sister restaurant Pizzaiolo, about what makes coffee important to his establishments. At stake: Will good coffee ever be fully integrated into high-end restaurants?

SFoodie: Coming from the restaurant side of the equation, why isn't it standard practice for restaurants to be making high-standard coffee?

Seishas: For one thing, coffee isn't making you any money, but it's something that every customer is expecting you to have. It's not bringing any revenue in, it's not bringing any specific jobs, and even if you have great coffee, our culture isn't one where everyone finishes their meal with a coffee beverage. 

At the end of the day, it is just so far down the list in terms of what you're spending your time on and what you're making money on. In that sense it's intuitive to spend less time on coffee in the restaurant setting.


Why, then, do you find it so important?
Think about the experience of a meal: You're going to care about your food, and you're going to care about your wine. You are going to put all of this effort in to everything you're doing, and then not give a shit about last thing you're offering the table? Even if it is just a few people who are ordering coffee, the last thing people are experiencing is a shit cup of coffee. It's just a little bit of extra attention to detail that makes coming in to a restaurant special, and coffee can be the icing on that cake. 

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Boot and Shoe Service, Jim Seishas, Pizzaiolo
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Coffee

Ritual Coffee Releases Branded Gram Scales

By Noah Sanders Wed., Feb. 1 2012 at 4:00 PM
Categories: Coffee

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​High-end, "third wave" coffee is currently coasting on a trend of precise measurements and the consistency that such precision affords. 

Scales, thermometers, grinders, refractometers -- the coffee world keeps developing and refining the devices needed to "perfect" the roasting, grinding, and brewing of coffee to a flavorful tee. Home brewers, though saturated with home brewing devices from companies like Hario, Aeropress, and Clever haven't had easy access to inexpensive, accurate measuring devices. Eileen Hassi and Ritual Coffee hope to fill that void with the introduction of their Ritual-branded Gram Scale.

The pocket scale is Ritual's way of evening out the playing field between the home brewer and the professional roaster-retailer. "A good, affordable gram scale was the final item for people to be able to brew coffee at home exactly as we do at our coffee bars," Hassi said. 

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Blue Bottle, DIY coffee, Ritual Coffee
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Coffee

Four Barrel's Jeremy Tooker To Open New Coffee & Toast Spot

By Noah Sanders Wed., Jan. 25 2012 at 11:15 AM
Categories: Coffee
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Josey Baker
Josey Baker gets to work on the new coffee cart
​It's looking like 2012 is going to be an impressive year for Divisadero. Already stacked with solid food, great stores, and a prime location, the street is a thrumming stretch of San Francisco. Bi-Rite Grocery opens a store in the space next to the NOPA later this year, and now Four Barrel's Jeremy Tooker is jumping in to the mix with a coffee and toast collaboration with sourdough expert Josey Baker. 

The new, as-yet-to-be-named project will find a home in the 1800 square foot space once home to Emblem Market. Though Four Barrel's coffee will still be at the heart of the matter, Tooker told us that he was shooting for something, "less industrial. Something more homey and comfortable that reminds you of your mom's kitchen." With 1000 square feet of garden in the back and a host of beehives on the roof, Tooker and crew plan to sell almost entirely self-produced products. "We'll be offering toast with honey made in our own hives. Our own peanut butter, our own nut butter, our own butter -- most of the things are going to be made on site and by hand in small quantities." Baker, a Vermont-born breadsmith grown popular through his pop-up work with Pizzaiolo and Mission Pie, will supply his well-regarded loaves for both toasting and retail. 


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coffee, Four Barrel
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Coffee

Tire Fires and Cat Pee: Starbucks Blonde Roast

By Noah Sanders Wed., Jan. 18 2012 at 9:00 AM
Categories: Coffee


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​The trend towards light bodied, floral and fruity coffee has finally registered with the industry's corporate giants. Just last week Starbucks Coffee announced a series of roasts defined as "Blonde". With names like Veranda and Willow, the shiny metallic packaging promises a "mellow, soft and subtle roast" best served "on a sunny day."

In the interest of staying current on all of coffee, we sampled a scalding hot cup of Starbucks new Veranda Roast matched against the much darker Starbucks Medium Pike Place Roast and -- for comparison's sake -- Sightglass' house Blue Boon blend.

Where the Sightglass Blue Boon smelled something like a wispy bit of cotton candy infused with the slightest essence of berry, the Veranda Roast smelled like a tire fire that has been extinguished with a bucket full of cat urine.

The taste of the Veranda Roast was thin at first, almost watery -- perhaps that is the promised lightness. But that's quickly followed by a stampede of charred, chemical flavor reminiscent of severely burned popcorn or a piece of grilled cheese that has lingered on the cast iron skillet for too long. In contrast, Sightglass's Blue Boon seemed downright ethereal, a cloud of ripe orange and cocoa that evaporated in to a soothing, almost cooling freshness. 

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coffee, Sightglass coffee, Starbucks review
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Coffee

Ecco Sends Roasters To Origin

By Noah Sanders Tue., Jan. 17 2012 at 11:00 AM
Categories: Coffee
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For coffee roasters, it's common, if not necessary, to send a staff member to what has been deemed "origin" -- the coffee's producing country -- to sample and learn about the coffee they might soon purchase. 

Traditionally, the task of world traveling and then purchasing the beans has fallen to the aptly named green buyer. Ecco Caffe -- who will soon have a San Francisco location -- is looking to change that: starting the first of the year, Ecco will now send their roasters alongside their green buyers, allowing for a greater understanding, and responsibility of the beans to be had by the roasting team. 


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coffee, Ecco Caffe, roasters
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Talking Points

Shit Baristas Say: A Little Self-Mockery on the Coffee Frontier

By Jonathan Kauffman Tue., Jan. 17 2012 at 7:30 AM
Categories: Coffee, Talking Points
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Sprudge.com
Mere seconds before the "Shit X says" meme goes the way of the Pomplamoose cover, the irreverent coffee-culture bloggers at Sprudge.com have made a "Shit Baristas Say" video, filmed at Four Barrel and starring Ian Hunter Anderson, one of its actual, genuine baristas. 

"We have cream and sugar out but they're just props." "Actually, I only serve this in ceramic." "Where's my Washed Out album?" It's a hell of a lot funnier than the "Shit Southern Gay Guys Say" and almost, but not quite as, true to life as "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls." And for those of you worried about whether your barista is mocking you, if you hear any of these things coming out of his/her mouth, you're not being paranoid.

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Four Barrel, Sprudge.com
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Coffee

Coffee Bar To Open 40-Seat Restaurant In SOMA

By Noah Sanders Wed., Jan. 4 2012 at 9:30 AM
Categories: Coffee
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​What does the son of a family of coffee roasters do after opening and operating two successful coffee shops in the Bay Area's thrashing sea of competition? If you're Luigi DiRuocco -- the youngest DiRuocco, the Italian-American family behind the near 30-year old Mr. Espresso and the mind behind the Coffee Bar cafes -- you open a restaurant.

In late December Nathan Downs, the events and development coordinator for Coffee Bar, offered folks with a prior industry presence (i.e. "pop up dinners, food trucks, retail sales, Twitter, etc.") the chance to apply to run dinner service at a 40-seat restaurant on Howard and 12th. Coffee Bar is using the space during the day as a commissary to supply their two current stores, but wants to offer the place during to a restauranter in the evening.  

DiRuocco said, "We are looking to food trucks and pop up restaurants because we wanted to offer the opportunity for someone to showcase their business who might not have a lot of upfront capital to work with."
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Coffee Bar
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Coffee

Blue Bottle Unleashes Bottled Iced Coffee

By Noah Sanders Tue., Jan. 3 2012 at 10:15 AM
Categories: Coffee
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​It's a big year for high-grade iced coffee. Portland's big-and-getting-bigger Stumptown unleashed bottled "stubbies" of cold-brewed goodness in May. La Colombe followed suit in August with iced coffee encased in elegant containers, and Grady's large bottles of New Orleans Cold Brew showed up seemingly days later.

Now local heavy-hitter Blue Bottle Coffee has stepped in to the ring with limited, bottled versions of its popular New Orleans and Kyoto-style iced coffees. The coffees contain only the ingredients of the beverages made for Blue Bottle's growing collection of cafes and are described as "velvety & sweet" (New Orleans) and "strong & black" (Kyoto).

Blue Bottle's Ferry Terminal kiosk, as well as the Oakland-based Webster Street Roaster are currently the only two outlets carrying the iced coffees. If sales go well, the company says it will consider expanding the release this summer.

When asked about his decision to step in to the bottled iced-coffee market, Blue Bottle owner James Freeman commented, "I think the idea of of a bottled, ready-to-drink coffee is very much in a lot of people's minds, simply because the bar for existing drinks is so low." Freeman says he has always entertained the idea of having Blue Bottle products on the shelves of grocery stores, but is wary of coffee beans "languishing on shelves." So bottled iced-coffee offers, he says, "an opportunity to explore that avenue of growth with a delicious product."

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Blue Bottle Coffee, coffee, Ferry Terminal, iced coffee, James Freeman
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Coffee

Dear Coffee: What Are These Waves Everyone Is Talking About?

By Noah Sanders Mon., Dec. 26 2011 at 11:00 AM
Categories: Coffee
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Amber Fox
Four Barrel, yes, but how many waves?
​In an attempt to demystify the sometimes vague and pretentious world of coffee, we're introducing a sporadic column that aims to clarify the confusing and define the most basic of coffee terms. It's a hard coffee world out there, and we'd love to help be your guide through it.

Dear Coffee?: I keep hearing references to the various "waves" of coffee. Could somebody explain what these are and why they exist?

In 2003, Trish Rothgeb of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters (formerly of New York, now setting up shop in the Bay Area) penned a piece for Roasters Guild periodical The Flamekeeper acknowledging the existence of what she deemed a "third wave" of coffee. This referred to the latest, taste-forward, roaster-retailer, highest-quality-coffee-you-can-muster incarnation of the century-old American coffee business.

Rothgeb's "waves" were simply a way to delineate the three distinct eras that the grand ship coffee has floated across on its way towards modernity.

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coffee, coffee waves, Four Barrel
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Coffee

Blue Bottle Introduces the "Transcendent" Nel Drip at Mint Plaza

By Noah Sanders Mon., Dec. 19 2011 at 10:00 AM
Categories: Coffee

Say what you will about the rapid and ongoing

success of Bay Area alumni Blue Bottle Coffee,
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​ but it's indisputable that, for the gear-loving tech geeks of coffee, Blue Bottle has always been both a standout and a pioneer in fascinating -- and expensive -- coffee technology. 

The Ferry Terminal Plaza location was widely lauded by rabid coffee tech followers everywhere when it opened in 2009, for its usage of a Kees van der Westen Idrocompresso (a three-handled lever machine), the only of its type in the United States. 

Customers at the Blue Bottle's flagship Mint Plaza Cafe have always been able to enjoy a crystal clean cup of drip off of the 20,000 dollar Japanese Siphon Bar. Now, those seeking new, exciting ways to enjoy their fresh cup of joe have just one more thing to smile about - Blue Bottle will now be offering, on a limited basis, Nel Drip coffee at their Mint Plaza location.

With origins linked to 1920s Japan, the Nel Dripper ("nel" being short for flannel) produces dripped coffee processed through a flannel dripper. Though the Nel Dripper can be purchased (with darling hand drawn instructions) from Blue Bottle, this aesthetically simple device is a multi-step, notoriously fickle procedure best left to the pros. 

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Blue Bottle Coffee, coffee
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