Coffee Common

Coffee Common is Dead, Long Live Coffee Common

seanbonner — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:13:00 -0700

Coffee Common was a reaction to confusion.

We encountered struggles to decipher the sometimes noisy guidance on what coffee should, and could be. We struggled to reconcile those questions with our own advice and habits. At the same time, we recognized some common principles that we felt were core:

Sustainable practices at origin
Quality is established at origin
A duty to realize that coffee’s character in the roast
The importance of grinding and brewing fresh
The value of clean equipment

We wanted more discerning customers, and an industry more determined to serve them. We found ourselves saying the same thing, and thought it might be more powerful to say it together.

A year and a half and five events later we feel like we’ve moved some of these discussions from back rooms to the public square. We’ve fostered a safe place to ask questions, and have seen the impact of better informed customers. We challenged people to look at coffee a little differently and have been inspired by their reactions.

Coffee Common has grown to levels we never imagined at its inception, more successful than we’d ever hoped. It was never intended to be a full-time project for any of us, but it became that for all of us. That level of commitment produced some amazing results that we will always be proud of, but realistically isn’t sustainable for 7 already very busy people without changing the focus from education and experimentation to profitability and commercialization. That’s not the future we wanted for Coffee Common, and thus have decided to close this chapter of our collective coffee experience.

It’s our sincere hope that the ideas that orbited Coffee Common continue to inspire others both inside and outside of the coffee industry and to encourage people to tap in and explore their own curiosity for coffee.

Pourover Coffee at TED

brianwjones — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:14:57 -0700

Here’s a low tech, but fun video we made during TED a couple weeks ago, showcasing one method for the Hario V60 as demonstrated by the talented baristas at Coffee Common. Use this as a guide in your own experimentation and coffee brewing at home. Enjoy!

Coffee Common on TED.com Blog

brentfortune — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:15:14 -0800

The Moments at Coffee Common video made it onto the TED Blog as well as a link to our Flickr stream. Hard to believe it was all just a few days ago.

http://blog.ted.com/2012/03/06/moments-at-coffee-common-2012/

Photos from the last days of Coffee Common at TED are now on...

brianwjones — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:30:00 -0800

Photos from the last days of Coffee Common at TED are now on Flickr.

Tea&

brianwjones — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:07:00 -0800

Following the success of our tea program at TED Global 2011 last summer we were happy to share the experience at TED2012 in Long Beach—and so were the TEDsters.

Thanks to Rishi and Waterloo, we had a great selection of quality loose leaf teas to brew for incredibly happy tea drinkers who often get overlooked. There were blacks, oolongs, greens and whites arranged in a way that inspired guests to make their selection through sight, smell, or tasting several side-by-side.

There was constant conversation going on at our tea bar with a segment of the audience that we may not have been engaging in the past. This encouraged discussions about quality, preparation, and even some comparisons between coffee and tea.

Rishi Tea & Waterloo Tea

John Giannakos - Revolver Coffee and Cafe Crema in Vancouver,...

brentfortune — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 07:49:20 -0800

John Giannakos - Revolver Coffee and Cafe Crema in Vancouver, British Colombia - made a great little video capturing some of the moments and baristas from the week at TED2012.

You can find more posts on coffee by John and his brothers at CleanHotDry.com.

Post TED Post

brentfortune — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 19:46:38 -0800

As Chris Anderson said in his closing remarks, TED doesn’t end when the conference does, its an idea that continues year-round. We feel the same way about Coffee Common. Although our week at TED2012 has finished, we hope the idea of Coffee Common will continue every day.

It will take us a while to decompress and absorb everything we saw, heard, and shared this week. One thing stands out however, and that’s the impressive, passionate, and dedicated team of baristas we got to share the week with in Long Beach and Palm Springs. Our gratitude to all those who helped us make Coffee Common at TED2012 and TED Active 2012 possible.

Let the milk flow

brianwjones — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:07:00 -0800

We serve a lot of coffee during our week at TED2012, but we also serve a lot of creamy, delicious cappuccinos. The better the milk, the better the taste—and the organic milk from grass fed cows that Clover Organic help provide is some of the finest a barista can get in California. That milk, paired well with the espresso we were serving, added a sweetness to the profile to ensure that additional sugar wasn’t needed.

Clover Organic Farms

The only other option besides whole milk was soy, which was provided to us by Pacific Natural Foods to meet the dietary needs of the lactose-free. Soy milk can add new variables for baristas trying to provide the same enjoyable texture in their cappuccinos, but Barista Series Soy Blenders is a specific formula to help baristas do the best they can.

Pacific Natural Foods

Thanks to both Clover and Pacific Foods for their support of Coffee Common at TED2012 and TED Active 2012.

Google Garage Bar

brianwjones — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 10:21:00 -0800

This year at TED2012 one of our bars was inside the Google Garage, built by Boxman Studios using shipping containers. Behind the green roll-up door was the most interactive bar we’ve had to-date at a TED event.

At this bar, TEDsters could request any coffee on any brew methods, including Hario V60, Hario Woodneck, Chemex, or AeroPress. We also had a La Marzocco GS3 (single group espresso machine) on bar for espresso and an Uberboiler for our hot water.

What made this bar unique was that TEDsters were invited to step behind the bar and learn to brew coffee themselves, practice steaming milk, and even pull shots of espresso for their fellow TED attendees. All week, the other bars would send eager guests to the Google Garage for hands-on learning and complimentary bags of their favorite coffees.

For those who missed our master class at the beginning of the week, this was a great opportunity to continue putting the kettles and portafilters into the hands of those interested in taking their home coffee brewing and their understanding of the craft to the next level.

Coffee Common baristi, Mark Hundley and Colin Whitcomb at Palm...

brianwjones — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:05:00 -0800

Coffee Common baristi, Mark Hundley and Colin Whitcomb at Palm Springs, eagerly waiting to take on the last day of TEDActive.

For the second year in a row Reg Barber has supported Coffee...

brianwjones — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:04:54 -0800

For the second year in a row Reg Barber has supported Coffee Common at TED by providing our team of baristas with beautifully crafted custom tampers. These are not only a pleasure to use, but they look fantastic and commemorate another great Coffee Common event.

A big thank you to Reg for continuing to support Coffee Common and rewarding the hard working baristas who help make it happen.

Reg Barber Enterprises

The Long Beach team gathering for our last morning meeting....

brianwjones — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:43:35 -0800

The Long Beach team gathering for our last morning meeting. Coffee Common at TED2012 is almost over, but it’s been a fantastic week with lots of great interactions and coffee served.

The spectrum deepens: Detour's Bufcafe and Phil and Sebastian's Zelaya

petergiuliano — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:43:00 -0800

In the last few posts, I have run with the idea that every coffee represents a point on a spectrum: I often associate flavor with color (I have a whole idea that this comes from our species’ history as primate fruit-eaters but at the risk of digressing, I’ll leave that for now).

We’ve used the color red already- for a Rwandan coffee. Here is another red, but it is perhaps a deeper, sweeter red than the shining brightness of the previous red. This coffee is a Coffee Common favorite, for many reasons, including the producer- Ms. Epiphanie Mukashyaka of Bufundu, Rwanda. Her Bufcafe- and her story- has been a staple on our bar every day. You might consider Epiphanie the queen of Rwandan coffee, and it is our honor to brew it on bar today. This honor is complemented by our delight in welcoming a new roaster to the Coffee Common collaboration- Detour coffee from Ontario, Canada. Where does Rwanda meet Canada, in a symphony of redness and deliciousness? In Long Beach at TED, that’s where.

Orange. That’s the color I choose to represent Zelaya, from Phil and Sebastian roasters in Calgary. They describe the coffee as having flavors of tangerine, and I have always detected a certain sweet body in Antigua coffee that brings to mind the orange-red, iron rich soils that are common there. Regardless, this is a beautiful example of what should be considered a true classic of coffee- the Antigua region. There’s so much to say about Antigua- but it’s a real treat to enjoy one of the true great coffees of the world, from an exciting Canadian roaster. It’s also a joy to celebrate Phil and Sebastian’s blossoming relationship with the Zelaya family, which made this coffee possible. That’s the kind of thing TED is about, and Coffee Common celebrates. Ok, back to the coffee bar….

Jeremy Ho Blogs about his Coffee Common Experience

brentfortune — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:44:24 -0800

Jeremy Ho Blogs about his Coffee Common Experience

Baristas taking a break to watch Marco Tempest, the Techno...

brianwjones — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:27:00 -0800

Baristas taking a break to watch Marco Tempest, the Techno Illusionist.

You can watch him at last year’s TEDGlobal conference below:

With 5 coffee bars in Long Beach and 1 in Palm Springs,...

brianwjones — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:55:36 -0800

With 5 coffee bars in Long Beach and 1 in Palm Springs, there’s a lot going on at any given time here at TED. It can be hard to capture all the action taking place here at Coffee Common, but we do our best to try.

Here are a few photos and you can view them all on our Flickr.

& Roast at Heart Roasters

brentfortune — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:29:15 -0800

Before our coffees could be sent to TED2012, the green beans had to be artfully roasted by one of the eight roasters working with us on this event.

Last week I paid a visit to Heart Roasters in Portland, Oregon to watch and talk with Wille (founder/roaster) and Josh Hydeman (roaster) about the Coko and witness the roasting of one of the TED2012 coffees.

Here Josh is logging times and temperatures as the Coko is roasted to ensure each batch achieves the desired flavor development.

Four temperature probes on the roaster indicate drum temp, air temp, and internal bean temp which is important for proper development.

The coffee in its green stage has almost an aqua-blue color and an amazing green smell. The green is weighed before it is dropped into the hot roaster. Temperature drops rapidly as soon as the green enters the drum.

Heart is roasting on a Probat roaster modified with temperature probes, gas, airflow and drum rotation mods to help achieve maximum control of the variables.

Once roasting is complete, the hot coffee beans are dropped into a cooling tray which pulls air through the beans while they are rotated to quickly stop the development and cool for packaging.

Roasted Coko is ready to be bagged and shipped to Southern California.

Crowd Wisdom-ing a Barista's Age

brentfortune — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:30:13 -0800

In the spirit of yesterday’s TED Talk by Lior Zoref where the weight of an Ox (actually brought onto the stage) was guessed by over 500 people, our baristas were asked to guess the age of Håkon Kinn - our barista from Norway.

What would you guess if you saw this face?
(results are below)

With 20 guesses from the Coffee Common barista team, ranging from the low of 20-years-old to high of 47-years-old, they were within 2.3 years of being correct.

Their average guess was 27.3, and Håkon’s actual (unverified) age is 25.

Time lapse of our North Plaza bar during one of our rush...

brianwjones — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:18:59 -0800

Time lapse of our North Plaza bar during one of our rush periods. When the sessions end, the auditorium floods with TEDsters ready for more coffee and to discuss the previous talks.

More from the Spectrum: El Tanque from Stumptown and Coko from Heart

petergiuliano — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:00:00 -0800

This afternoon, our coffee sessions focus on two more coffees from the spectrum:

El Tanque from Stumptown is a special coffee- from the famous El Injerto farm in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. When I asked Coffee Commoner Jesse Kahn to describe this coffee to me, the first word that came out of his mouth was “purple” (I didn’t even tell him about the spectrum theme). Very sweet notes of plum and juicy fruit, in contrast to the more classic Huehuetenango profile of green apple. One neat thing about this coffee is that it is the Tekisic variety, a sub-variety of Bourbon. A single-variety microlot from the legendary partnership of El Injerto and Stumptown coffee? YES PLEASE.

Our representative from the color “Red” on the spectrum is Coko from Heart. Coffee Commonista Ryan Knapp described this coffee as “big, beautiful cherry”- luscious and oh so red and juicy. Coko is a relatively new cooperative in Rwandan coffee, and comes from Rwanda’s beautiful north. From a varietal standpoint, it’s also a Bourbon- this time from the French Mission subvariety. How can a Tekisic Bourbon from Guatemala taste so different than a French Mission Bourbon from Rwanda? That’s the magic of coffee, and the wonder of the spectrum. Have I gone to far with this spectrum thing? The baristas on the bar don’t think so, and lightbulbs are going off above the heads of TED attendees all over the place.