Through working with a properly run wet-mill a roaster is able to be more selective in the coffee we choose.  Choosing a single varietal coffee, a specific lot/area of the farm and if we prefer to have our coffee processed a certain way in order to give it a unique flavor is all possible through the micro-mill.

But, there are years worth of work before coffee is ever harvested.  Watch this new training video which walks you through the steps, and years of work required before coffee every gets tasted.

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Coffee is one of the most complicated products in the world when it comes to consistently harvesting, processing, roasting and especially brewing.

More and more you will hear about how important it is to properly harvest coffee.  A Micro-mill is a fairly new term, which is a description for a small mill, located on the farm, which de-pulps the coffee cherries and were coffee is typically dried in the sun.

Not very often do you hear about the steps that happen after this.  These steps are briefly outlined in this video prepared by us.   It was made to help you understand that all coffee doesn’t stop its journey at the farm….in fact, it still has a lot of processing to go through before reaching the roastery.

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Read more about the Panama Mama Cata Geisha HERE and on our online STORE

This weekend we are tasting our fresh crop arrival Nicaraguan Finca Limoncillo Java coffee brewed three different ways: Single Origin Espresso, Cold Brew and on our Hario V60 Pour Over bar! Each method lends its own character to the coffee and brings forward a variety of flavors in the cup.

This will be a casual tasting and we will prepare samples of each method as people come to Analog. Please don’t be shy and ask questions! We look forward to starting to offer regular tasting and classes at Analog Cafe each Thursday. Look forward to seeing you there!

Read more about Russ Prefontaine’s trip to Nicaragua and the farm we are working with directly to bring this coffee to you.

Our current selection from YUM includes: Plain Croissant, Chocolate Croissant, Almond Croissant, Apple Croissant, Orange and Ginger Scone and a Chocolate Sourdough bread!

The Prairie Coffee Project is a movement, a hope, and a passion to create a better understanding and appreciation of truly fine coffee. It is a group of specialty coffee roasters and cafés across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba who put aside differences and competition in order to promote the art and craft of roasting and serving exceptional coffee. It is an ongoing discussion and collaboration of the techniques, tools and processes for making remarkable coffee. It is a place for coffee enthusiasts to learn more about all aspects of coffee, and to be inspired by and connect with the professional coffee community.  It is one more step on the journey toward better coffee.

One of the main activities of the Prairie Coffee Project is hosting an annual barista competition and coffee symposium. The Prairies Regional Barista Competition is an event where professional baristas have 15 minutes to prepare 12 coffee beverages and give a presentation to a panel of sensory and technical judges. The performances are evaluated on taste, technical merit and creativity. The top scoring baristas advance to the Canadian National Barista Competition.  To see photo’s from last years competition click HERE.Coffee enthusiasts of any kind, both professional and “home baristas” are welcome to attend this event held on August 6th at Fratello Coffee Roasters.  Admission is FREE and you will have the opportunity through out the day to sample coffees made from baristas/cafes from around Calgary along with complimentary food/snacks.  To top it off, Alley Burger (of Charcut) will be cooking their famous hamburgers to purchase from 11:30-3:00.   So make sure you come and cheer on your favourite baristas from your favourite cafes!

The Coffee Symposium, a new event for 2011, is presented along with the Prairie Regional Barista Competition. It is a series of hands-on workshops and  classes to teach coffee drinkers how to brew better coffee at home, how to taste and evaluate coffee, and how to better understand and experience the joys of complex, nuanced coffee.

Other events such as barista jams, coffee tastings, brewing courses and other gatherings will be planned throughout the year.   And the discussion and conversation around great coffee will continue online.

We want you to get involved.  We are going to need volunteers at these events.  Please sign up HERE if you wish to volunteer or HERE if you want to compete in these events.

For many years the most expensive prices paid for coffee has been a rare coffee found in Panama.  The record for this Panamanian coffee was set in 2007 when an auction fetched over $150 USD / lb (Green) for coffee grown at Esmeralda Estate using the Geisha Varietal.    Since this time, it is not rare for people to pay 10-20 times the regular asking price for this rare coffee.  In a café setting it is no different.   To get a taste of this coffee, you should expect to pay $10-12 per cup.  Is it worth it?  I think so.

So what is with this coffee and what makes it so unique?  I wanted to know as well, so the purpose of going to Panama was to begin to learn about this varietal and appreciate what it brings to the cupping tables.This very rare varietal (Type of coffee tree/cherry) is called a Geisha and was originally found in Panama over 40 years ago, but is said to have originally come from Ethiopia in the 1930’s, traveling through Africa, into Costa Rica and finally arriving into Panama in the 1960’s.   In the past 4-5 years we have begun seeing more countries in Central & South America now planting Geisha trying to see if they to can grow this coffee, and be rewarded with the same pricing.  So far this year I’ve seen Colombia and Costa Rica successfully harvest this varietal and receive upward of $50 USD / lb (Green).

When speaking with Jose David licensed Q Grader & owner of Mama Cata and the Garrido Estates, he tells me about a time when his father first began planting coffee trees.  He remembers his dad telling him how he went to buy coffee trees but the cooperative was almost sold out.  The only trees left were these tiny ugly trees called Geisha, he didn’t want them, but it was that or nothing.

He soon found out that there are many issues with the Geishas.  For starters they are extremely slow at growing and will usually take 7 years before they start-producing fruit (compared to 3-5 years).  Once producing the coffee cherry’s you will find that they yield around 75% less cherry then other coffee varietals.  In order to get these coffee trees producing fruit year after year, you will need to feed them twice as often with fertilizers (6-7 times per year compared to 3-4 times).  On top of the low yielding, slow growing and very hungry trees, you will find out that they are very susceptible to insect damage and diseases.

So why in the world would a coffee farmer continue to grow Geisha?  Funny enough, Jose David’s father decided to keep them primarily because they were beautiful looking trees.  He would have felt bad about cutting them down.   It wasn’t until many years later, once starting to cup coffees from trees, instead of blending them all together, did they realize that what was growing was not only unique, but outstanding in the cup.

To this day, many of these trees still exist and are still producing fruit.   Many things have changed since Jose David began working the farms.  Today they pick coffee and keep that coffee separate on EVERY Geisha coffee tree.  Each are marked for cup quality and characteristics.  Each day’s pickings are dried and processed on their own, with a GPS Settings attached to each lot for complete tractability/traceability. What they have begun to realize is that Geisha’s are not all the same.  Even neighboring trees can have very different cup profiles, and often do not have a “True Geisha Cup Profile”.   In some cases they have found that trees are picking up flavors of neighboring trees, like orange and lemon trees.  Due to this, wind barrier trees, or “flavor blockers” have been planted to protect the Geisha’s.

Elevation plays a large part in producing the most desirable cup characteristics in Geisha.   We found that lower elevations of 1500 meters gave a very sweet cup and also found the acidity in Geisha grown at 1800+ meters produced an acidity which was hard to tame (Lemon & Orange Zest).

Jose David doesn’t stop here.  He has shown me the evidence on his cupping table what his constant innovation has done.  Jose David is always working with different processing methods like Honey Prep or full Natural coffees, but he is the first one that I have seen to do the “Cracker Jack” process or “Half Natural” (TBD).  This involves saving the skin of the cherry after de-pulping, and re-mixing this into the drying coffee that has been Honey Prepped.  Crazy!   Next up for him is trying a wet hulled process, which is common in Sumatra.

It is for these reasons that Mama Cata Estate has become a name known for some of the highest scoring lots in the world.   They are often scored in the mid to high 90’s and are often in the top lots in the Best of Panama auctions.   It is also for these reasons that these very rare and unique Geisha profiles are fetching the prices that they do.  They deserve it.

Please join us at 11am on Friday June 3rd at Analog Cafe at the Calgary Farmers Market to take part in this ceremony. We are very pleased to have Fikerte Neguisse and Maron Abera from Amharic Immersion Calgary lead us in this ancient Ethiopian tradition. They are excited to share this tradition with you. They will be roasting and uniquely preparing  our Fratello Ethiopian Sidamo Ardi right at Analog Cafe.

Fratello Coffee Roasters and Analog Cafe are honored that we can help bring this part of coffee tradition to you in Calgary and hope that you are able to join us June 3rd at 11am!

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At the end of February 2011 we visited our friend Francisco of Exclusive Coffee in San Jose Costa Rica.  Our goal this trip was to re-visit our relationship not only]]> At the end of February 2011 we visited our friend Francisco of Exclusive Coffee in San Jose Costa Rica.  Our goal this trip was to re-visit our relationship not only with Exclusive Coffees, but also our current coffee producer Luis who owns the Rio Jorco Micro-mill.  Below is our observation of the Costa Rican coffee growing market, as well as introduction to two great new Micro-Mills coming to Fratello.

To my amazement and delight, our trip started visiting the new offices of Exclusive Coffees.  They moved into a much larger facility with a state of the art cupping lab.  As always the coffees being cupped at Exclusive are roasted to perfection (which is extremely rare when visiting farms/labs at origin) and the selection of coffees for the most part where shining stars on the table.  Costa Rica has many great growing regions, and now has many first class micro-mills in each of these regions.  To keep our palates focused, we only cupped coffees from Tarrazu and the West Valley.  Aside from the cupping facility, Exclusive Coffees has installed their own Dry Mill to assist in the grading, separation and cleaning of the micro-lots being produced by the micro-mills they work with (approximately 100 micro-mills).

It’s no secret that the current pricing in the coffee market is almost at an all time high.  We’ve seen prices reach $3.00/lb at the New York Commodity Markets this year, the second highest since February 1997.   A weak US Dollar, increased demand for high quality Arabica coffees, global shortages of green coffee due to 25-35% shortfalls of production in most of Central & South America, coupled higher production costs due to costs of labor, oil, transportation costs as well as increases in fertilization are all are all factors which are driving prices up, with no real end in sight.

With these higher prices going to the farmers, what we noticed when touring the farms and micro-mills is how many of these famers have re-invested into the infrastructure of their wet mills.   Along with this, many farms have begun re-planting coffee trees, increasing the amount of fertilizer and making plans for increased production in the years to come.  What we see them doing is INVESTING INTO THE FUTURE OF QUALITY COFFEE & PRODUCTION.  This is huge!  This is something we also noticed in Colombia as well.  Looking 2-3 years out, we can see a lot more production to keep up with the increased demand, which continues to grow every year.

This unfortunately wasn’t the case at every farm/mill we went to.  Sadly, Rio Jorco was one of the mills that disappointed us this year.  I wont to get into why on this blog post, but what I will just say is that we are not going to continue with this relationship this year.  We will re-look at them again, but they need to see some significant improvements…

What is exciting is what we decided to come back with.  Our first 25 bag micro-lot  (Lot#37) of coffee is going to be from the farm San Pablo & La Cabana Micro-Mill.  It is located in a micro region of Leon Cortes of the Tarrazu Valley.   The coffee producer, Javier Meza, grows his 100% Caturra coffee at 1550 meters (5100 feet).  Only 3 people work at this mill and produce 250 sacks of coffee a year (38,000-42,000 lbs / year).  The lot we purchased is fully washed and sundried on raised African beds.  Javier takes great care in slow drying his coffee in hopes of achieving an above average consistency of moisture content and density of green beans.

The second 45 bag micro-lot (Lot #25-01) of coffee is produced by Miguel Rojas and processed at the award winning Helsar Micro-Mill in the Naranjo micro region of the West Valley.  This 100% Caturra lot of coffee was grown at a staggering altitude of 1700 meters (5600 feet).   This Lot is also fully washed & sun dried.

This gives Fratello’s clients two micro-lots of Costa Rican coffee to choose from that are both high altitude grown 100% Caturra, fully washed and sun dried.  You will need to try them both to taste the differences a micro-region makes in cup profiles.

Our commitment to quality continues to grow and prove itself in ever improving quality coffee.  We continue to deep-source our coffee in hopes of discovering unique coffee profiles & stories that hopefully educate not only you, but also your clients.  Thank you for your support, without it, we could not continue to support the families we work with.

We have more photos from this trip available to view on Flickr or Facebook.

Analog Cafe: Calgary Farmers Market 510 77th Avenue SE, Calgary, Alberta

• Thursday: 11 am – 7 pm
• Friday: 9 am – 5 pm
• Saturday: 9 am – 5 pm
• Sunday: 9 am-5 pm