Fratello Coffee is introducing a new Costa Rican to our clients this February.  We have done a lot of research to find this coffee and are very pleased with our results.  After narrowing down from 30 original varities submitted from Costa Rica, we had decided to put the top 12 into a final round of cupping.

We got to share this experience with Zane Kelsall from Bumpy’s Cafe (www.bumpyscafe.com), and got to share with him a Cup of Excellence approach to cupping and selecting coffee.  From the top 12 coffees, 6 were chosen and re-cupped to find our number 1 selection.  After many hours of cupping, Fratello has chose to work with the Coopedota cooperative.

We gave this coffee a Cupping Score of 88.6 and found that this fully washed, high altitude coffee gave an extremely clean taste, with a creamy and toffee like body.  What really stood out for me with the lingering bright and sparkling orange acidity.   Will can also pick up a slight spicey (nutmeg) note in the aromas.

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Check out some pictures from our “cafe crawl” at:

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/15126591@N02/sets/72157603439934924/ 

 My brothers and I spent a day last week touring 14 of some of the best cafes in Seattle! We had a lot of great coffee and gained new insights as to where coffee culture is going.

Our hope is to influence the coffee scene in our home town of Calgary with some of what we are learning. We are committed to doing our part to raise the bar in Alberta.

What does it take to be a “3rd Wave” cafe?  Read this post and find out what some of the best in Seattle are doing. 

On December 6th, a group from Fratello Coffee and Slayer Espresso met in Seattle for 1 day.  In this 10 hour day we visited, reviewed and tasted a lot of amazing products.  When originally planning this trip to we had 2 goals.  The main purpose of this trip was to visit the Slayer Espresso’s studio to witness their break through in brewing technology and to experience their ability to develop new characteristics in its espresso brewing techniques.  It is too new for me to talk about this, so I won’t……    

Our second purpose was to educate ourselves with a few of the great Seattle “3^rd Wave café’s” and to bring this knowledge back to Calgary to help our café’s in elevating their skills in offering excellence to their customers.  With the knowledge of new competition coming to our back yard we felt that this was the best way to help prepare our clients for what the new standard of running a café will be, and what it will take to compete on these new levels.  We know that many people don’t have the time to fly to Seattle/Vancouver them selves, so we decided to bring Seattle to them.  My next plan is to do the same thing for Vancouver.  

14 cafes were chosen, all different and all excellent in what they are doing.  This tour consisted of Chris and Jason Prefontaine, Eric Perkunder, Trent Breitkreutzt and my self.  I decided to document this trip, but please keep in mind that I am not a journalist, I am a professional coffee cupper and roaster, who simply loves coffee.  The views below are my opinion only!! 

Below are some notes and observations I made while visiting these great cafes.  I hope that this will be helpful in setting a new direction for those cafes that are looking to improve with what they are currently doing everyday.  

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Russ & I had the pleasure of taking some of our staff down to Brazil last month on an educational buying trip. We met farmers committed to more then just quality coffee, but also who were committed to making a difference in the environment and to the lives of people who worked for them on their farms.

We look forward to bringing to Calgary some of these special coffees and the stories of the families who put so much heart into producing them. I want to give a special thanks to Schieder and the good people of Tristao Trading for hosting our Fratello family while in Brazil. It was a fantastic trip!

My brother and I just got back from a green coffee buying trip to Brazil. While we were there we had the pleasure of enjoying a coffee at an amazing cafe in Sao Paolo! We met the owner, totally hard core & “3rd Wave” in his approach. He is not able to import coffees from outside Brazil, so he has learned to source & brew amazing single estate brazilian espressos. If ever you find yourself in Sao Paolo… you will want to check this crazy place out! Cheers.

I used to be the best in the building, but very quickly John & Joel are pulling away from me!! I had better start practicing! Good job guys.

I am sitting here looking out the window at the beautiful coast of Victoria, Brazil, getting ready for a long journey home. We have had an amazing time…to much to be said in this one entry. We learned so much, and I am personally looking forward to bringing this knowledge back home to our customers.Not only that, there have been many new relationships begun, and incredible stories of people going far above and beyond what is normal as it relates to coffee quality, agricultural innovation, and environmental & social practices. We are excited to tell these stories, share their coffee with you & support these new friends of ours.Lots more to be said, but that is all for now. Time to head home! See you soon.

Now that most of us have finally recovered from the 10 day festival known as the Calgary Stampede, we can think well enough to form a complete sentence. Fratello Coffee Co. has always been a big supporter of the community and this was no exception.  We offered coffee at several of the Stampede’s free breakfasts and gave away more than 8,000 cups of coffee.  This was done at 4 different events in about 2 hours each time.  An average of 1,000 cups of coffee per hour!!!

To give a bit of an idea what this entails, we start our day at 3:30AM. At this time we take the freshly gound coffee and begin brewing into the large thermal servers we use.  By 5:30AM we are about ready to start transporting the coffee to the location to begin fueling the other volunteers who are manning the grills and food stations.  Then the madness starts… Line ups of thousands of hungry Stampede goers, out for the free pancakes, sausages and most importantly the cup of coffee.  It’s a seemeingly never ending stream of poeple.

The “Rocket Man” in action 

On Parade day, we even took the “Rocket Man” out to where the floats were lining up to offer coffee.  This was very well received, but, we ran out of coffee in the 80 cup backpack very quickly (inside 5 minutes). So, we took a golf cart and created a mobile coffee station…All told, it was a great time and lots of fun was had. As are shown by the pictures.  (Read the rest of this post)

Caffe Beano has spent a lot of time with us at our facilities over the last few weeks. Some in this group have been back 4 or more times to practice proper coffee-distribution, tamping & pulling shots w/ naked filters, plus getting used to heating and texturizing milk on the Slayer espresso machine. Their’s will be the first Slayer to hit Calgary, and owners Janice & Margie want to be sure that the espresso machine isn’t the only upgrade - which is why these staff have invested so much time with Jason & I to upgrade their skills.

While in Vancouver I was lucky enough to spend an afternoon drinking WAY too much coffee with Mark Prince (THE CoffeeGeek)! I have a high caffeine tolerance, but Mark drank me under the table. While together we tested (several times) 4 espresso blends and 2 coffees then went out for more espresso on Commercial Drive!It was a great afternoon together… learned a lot of new things. Thanks Mark for the time!Mark doesn’t like having his photo taking (though he loves taking other peoples picture), but I hope you like this one. It is Mark in his mini home espresso lab!