The History of Coffee

Coffee has become one of the world's most cherished drinks. Its distinct aroma and taste have made it a staple of many cultures and a daily part of our lives. However, coffee is much more than just a beverage. Its complex and extensive history has played a crucial role in shaping the world we live in today. The History of Coffee starts from its birthplace in ancient Ethiopia to the modern third wave of coffee, the coffee industry has come a long way, and the development of specialized coffee equipment like Slayer Espresso has helped push the quality even further.

One of the most favoured drinks in the world is coffee. It has become a staple of many cultures and a part of our daily life thanks to its distinctive aroma and flavour. Coffee, however, is more than just a beverage. Its lengthy and complex history has been instrumental in creating the world that we live in today.

What was the Birth Place of Coffee

Ancient Ethiopia is thought to have been the birthplace of coffee, and this is where its history can be found. A goat herder by the name of Kaldi once observed that his goats become extremely active after consuming the berries from a certain bush. Kaldi was intrigued by this and decided to eat the berries for himself. To his surprise, he also felt an increase in energy. As soon as this finding became known, people started experimenting in different ways with the berries. The exact year when coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia is not known, as it was a long time ago and the information is largely based on legends and oral traditions. However, it is generally believed that coffee was discovered in Ethiopia sometime between the 6th and 9th centuries.

The Sufi monasteries of Yemen are where coffee was first used as a beverage in the 14th century. These monasteries would concoct a beverage using water and roasted coffee beans that they felt would keep them awake during their lengthy prayer sessions. The larger populace quickly adopted the beverage, and coffeehouses sprang up all over the area. The first recorded use of coffee as a beverage comes from the Sufi monasteries of Yemen in the 15th century, around the year 1450.

Coffee Began to Move

In the Islamic world, coffee gained popularity swiftly, and it didn't take long for it to reach Europe. When the first coffeehouse in Europe opened in Venice in 1645, the aristocracy quickly adopted coffee as a fashionable beverage. Around this time, several regions of the world started to grow coffee on a considerable scale. While the French introduced it to their colony of Martinique in the Caribbean, the Dutch started growing coffee in their colony of Java.

Coffee became a valuable product in the 18th and 19th centuries, and large plantations were built there and in other areas of the world. The world economy was significantly impacted by the growth of the coffee trade as many nations became heavily dependent on coffee as an export. The development of colonial empires was greatly aided by the coffee trade, as several European powers used their control of coffee-producing areas to sway other nations.

What is the First Wave of Coffee?

The first wave of coffee Is defined by the widespread use of pre-ground, canned coffee, which was mass-produced and marketed as a practical and reasonably priced beverage for the general public. This wave of coffee started in the early 1900s. Coffee was mostly regarded as a commodity during this time, with little consideration given to its origins or quality. The goal was to create a reliable, affordable product that was simple to produce at home.

What is the Second Wave of Coffee?

The second wave of coffee Is defined by the expansion of specialty coffee shops and the rise in appeal of espresso-based beverages, and it appeared in the 1960s and 1970s. During this time, there was a renewed emphasis on the quality and origins of coffee, with the idea that it might be savoured as a gourmet beverage because of its distinctive flavours and qualities. Aiming to ensure that coffee farmers received a fair price for their goods, this wave of coffee also introduced the ideas of fair trade and direct commerce. Our family started in the coffee industry in 1974, and we began roasting coffee in 1985. We have seen a lot of changes in the industry. One can not talk about possibly the most important movement in the second wave of coffee, is how Starbucks impacted and educated the mass market of what specialty coffee is and can be. Starbucks began to talk about interesting regions and espresso based beverages making it common around North America.

What is the Third Wave of Coffee?

The third wave of coffee began in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was distinguished by a stronger emphasis on coffee quality, a preference for single-origin, traceable coffees, and a more sophisticated method of roasting and brewing coffee. Specialty coffee shops proliferated during this time, and baristas improved their skills and coffee knowledge. Alternative brewing techniques, like pour-over and immersion brewing, which attempted to highlight the distinctive flavours and smells of various coffee kinds, also became more popular during the third wave of coffee. The coffee industry's increased attention on ethical sourcing methods and environmental sustainability has also been linked to this wave of coffee.

The modern coffee industry is a highly complex and sophisticated one, with a wide range of different varieties and methods of production. Coffee beans are grown in countries all over the world, with each region producing beans with a unique flavor and aroma. The most popular types of coffee are Arabica and Robusta, with Arabica being considered the more premium of the two. Coffee is typically harvested by hand, with workers carefully selecting only the ripest berries. The berries are then processed to remove the outer layers, after which the beans are washed and dried. The dried beans are then roasted, with the roasting process playing a significant role in determining the flavor and aroma of the coffee.

Introducing Slayer Espresso Machines

Slayer Espresso was designed by us and our team at Fratello Coffee, true coffee professionals for coffee professionals. We wanted to “Make Coffee Better”….to taste better, with better equipment. Since 1991, the Prefontaine family was in the espresso machine importing business, focusing at that time with Nuova Simonelli. Over the years, we had decades of combined experience: Coffee roasting/sourcing, importing & servicing specialized restaurant equipment as well as real world café experience. We, along with other third wave roasters, knew to compete with large chains and the “Starbucks” of the world, cafés had to focus on quality. Quality equipment, coffee, esthetics and staff training.

Countless individuals love coffee today, and new techniques for making and consuming it are always being developed. Every taste and desire can be satisfied by a coffee beverage, which ranges from espresso and cappuccino to cold brew and nitro coffee. One thing we know for sure is, we can’t wait to see what the forth wave of coffee will officially be, and how this might impact our daily lives of enjoying this wonderful beverage.

Discover a Classic Offering: Costa Rica El Poeta

The arrival of Fresh crop coffee from Central American coffees is something that the team at Fratello Coffee, as well as coffee aficionados everywhere, look forward to every year. This year, we're concentrating on the traditional and in-demand products from Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras. Costa Rica El Poeta stands out among them as a genuine tribute to the great quality and varied flavour profile of Central American coffee. As a business that takes pleasure in locating and roasting the best coffee beans from across the globe, we are happy to provide our esteemed customers with more details on the iconic Fratello Coffee offering, Costa Rica El Poeta.

Some of the best coffee in Costa Rica is produced in the West Central Valley area, which is found in the Alajuela province close to San Ramon. This area, dubbed the "Land of the Poets," gets its name from San Ramon, a city with a lengthy political and cultural past. This area is well known for its spectacular landscapes, which include lowland marshes, lush tropical rainforests, active volcanoes, and breathtaking waterfalls.

Can you Describe Costa Rica El Poeta?

El Poeta coffee is a silky, smooth blend with pronounced citrus fruit and mixed nut undertones. This coffee is manufactured from the finest beans and is produced by the knowledgeable coffee producers Julia Vega Rodrguez, Olman Cruz Vega, Ricardo Chávez Garita, and Juan Bautista Mejia Rojas in the San Rafael area of Alajuela.

This coffee's flavour profile is clean and consistent as a result of the fully washed procedure used to make it, making for a genuinely memorable and pleasurable cup of coffee. This coffee is blended with their best Catuai and Caturra beans, produced at an elevation of 1200-1500 metres. Smallholder farmers process and harvest the coffee, which is then delivered to Cafe de Altura de San Ramon, a cutting-edge Micro-mill that meticulously oversees every step of the coffee-producing process. This strategy not only ensures the best coffee, but also offers technical assistance and promotes sustainable agricultural methods, enhancing the farmers' standard of living and income from coffee sales.

How is Costa Rican El Poeta Processed?

A sophisticated Micro-mill is used by Cafe de Altura de San Ramon to process cherries from several small farms and create a well-balanced regional blend. Using a recycling water system, the cherries are first sorted and depulped before being washed to get rid of any pollutants. Using a combination of forced air and a number of dryers, the washed beans are dried, bringing the moisture level down to 11% in just over 5 days. The coffee is processed for export after at least a month of resting in silos (to maintain stable water activity in the beans).

The green beans are dehulled and sorted by weight and colour on a number of machines before the coffee is processed for export. With every detail of the post-harvest operation carefully managed, producers can concentrate on sustainable farm management practices and produce coffee with special intensity and rhythmic precision. This process results in the pure poetry of El Poeta coffee.

What Makes Costa Rican Coffee So Special?

Costa Rican coffee is known for its exceptional quality and unique flavor profile. This is due to several factors, including the country's ideal climate, rich volcanic soil, and the passion and expertise of its coffee growers. The warm and humid conditions, combined with the high elevations at which the coffee is grown, produce a coffee with bright acidity, balanced sweetness, and a smooth, clean finish.

In addition to the favorable growing conditions, Costa Rican coffee producers place a strong emphasis on sustainable and responsible farming practices. This not only contributes to environmental protection but also ensures the industry's long-term profitability. The nation's strict quality control procedures and cutting-edge many micro-milling facilities are further factors in the excellent calibre of its coffee.

Overall, Costa Rican coffee is a very unique and sought-after product due to a unique combination of excellent growing circumstances, environmentally friendly farming methods, and a dedication to quality control.

Shade Grown Coffee and Its Role in Coffee Production

One of the most popular beverages worldwide is coffee, which boasts a distinctive and complex flavour profile. But many coffee drinkers might not be aware that a variety of environmental elements, such as elevation and longitude, have an impact on the quality of the coffee they enjoy. The interaction of these elements may significantly affect the development, maturation, and general quality of the coffee beans. Understanding the relationship between elevation, longitude, and shade grown coffee is important when simply looking at these terms exclusively alone.

Why is the Elevation of Coffee Farms Important?

Elevation and longitude have a significant impact on the quality of coffee. Elevation affects the temperature and other environmental factors that influence the growth of coffee plants. Coffee plants grow best at specific temperatures, and too much heat or too much cold can negatively impact the quality of the coffee beans. At higher elevations, temperatures are typically cooler, making high elevation coffee-growing regions ideal for growing high-quality coffee.

Coffee farms located near the equator are often located at elevations of over 1500 meters, while coffee farms further away from the equator, such as in Central America, are typically located at elevations of around 1100 meters. This difference in elevation is due to a combination of factors including tectonic activity, global weather patterns, and the intense solar radiation at the equator. We go deeper into this conversation about High Altitude Coffees in an older blog post “High Altitude Coffee : What’s The Big Deal”

Why is Shade Grown Coffee Important?

Cloud cover, which offers natural shade and aids in temperature regulation, frequently benefits coffee farms located at higher elevations nearer the equator, thus negating the need for shade trees. This cloud cover is caused by moist air rising from the nearby lowlands coming into contact with the chilly, high-altitude air and condensing into clouds. In contrast, coffee plantations farther from the equator and at higher elevations, like those in Central America, may require the utilization of shade trees to control the temperature and provide a better environment for coffee growth.

It is crucial to remember that while shade and temperature regulation are crucial for coffee quality, other elements like soil quality, the local microclimate, and coffee varietal also affect how best to grow coffee. It depends on the exact region and its particular environmental elements whether shade trees are required or not. Depending on the region, several things are considered "high elevation" for coffee region.

The regulation of temperature and shade are essential factors in determining the quality of coffee. At higher elevations, coffee plants are exposed to cooler temperatures and more moderate climate conditions. The coffee cherries may grow slower and mature over a longer length of time as a result, giving the coffee beans more time to develop their intricate flavour and aroma characteristics. The general temperature of the farm trees would be too cold to grow coffee if these places also have shade trees.

However, excessive sun exposure can result in overheating of the coffee plants, which can harm the coffee beans and lower the quality of the resulting brew. Additionally, because coffee plants require a constant temperature to survive, excessive temperature variation can stress plants, which lowers the coffee's overall quality. Shade trees are used in some areas to help control temperature, lessening the effects of heat stress on coffee plants.

The use of shade trees in coffee production has other benefits as well. Shade trees provide habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and other wildlife, which can help to maintain a healthy ecosystem in the coffee growing region. They also help to conserve soil moisture and improve soil fertility, further improving the overall quality of the coffee.

In conclusion, the use of shade trees in coffee cultivation aids in temperature regulation and guards against overheating, minimizing the effects of heat stress on the coffee beans and enhancing their quality. In addition to offering shelter for wildlife, shade trees preserve soil moisture and fertility, which benefits the ecosystem's ability to grow coffee.

Maximizing a Cafe's Success : Choosing the Right Coffee Partner

Your business strategy should include selecting the ideal coffee brand to partner with. A good collaboration can direct and mentor your planning and choices, accelerating your own and your team's learning curve. However, a bad collaboration can result in contradictions, broken promises, and poor quality goods. If you are looking to maximizing a cafe's success, choosing the right coffee partner is as important, as finding the right location.

Creating your own brand is an alternative to collaborating with a coffee roaster's brand. While creating your own brand has advantages, it also entails additional costs, potential distractions, and a longer period of time to gain awareness and trust.

At Fratello Coffee Roasters, we provide both tiers of service because they both have many benefits.

The power of two brands working together will be explored and highlighted in the information that follows.

What are the benefits to partnering with an established coffee roaster brand vs trying to create your own brand when running a cafe?

Partnering with an established coffee roaster brand when running a coffee shop can provide several benefits, such as:

Consistency and Quality: Established coffee roaster brands often have a reputation for providing consistent and high-quality coffee beans, which can help attract and retain customers.
Sourcing and Traceability: Reputable roaster brands often have direct relationships with farmers and know exactly where their beans come from and how they were grown, harvested, and processed. This can give the shop owner and customers the peace of mind that their beans are ethically and sustainably sourced.
Brand recognition: By using a well-known and reputable brand of coffee beans, you can benefit from their established reputation, which can help attract customers who are familiar with and trust the brand.
Marketing and Promotion: Established coffee roaster brands often have marketing campaigns, which can help generate buzz and attract customers to your coffee shop.
Supply chain: A well-established roaster brand will have well-established supply chains and distribution channels that can save time and money for the business owner when it comes to sourcing beans.

However, similar to partnering with a brand for running a coffee shop, partnering with established roaster also comes with certain restrictions and often requires following strict guidelines. Additionally, It may limit the shop owner's flexibility in terms of experimenting with different blends and origins.

What considerations should I have when choosing a coffee roaster brand to work with?

When choosing a coffee roaster brand to work with, there are several key considerations to keep in mind:

Quality: The quality of the coffee beans is of the utmost importance. It is essential to try the coffee from different brands and choose a roaster that consistently provides high-quality beans.
Ethical buying practices: It is important to consider the sourcing and traceability of the beans. Look for roasters that have direct relationships with farmers and can ensure that the beans are ethically and sustainably sourced.
Brand alignment: It is important to work with a brand that aligns with your values and mission as a coffee shop. This will not only help attract customers but also help you maintain a sense of pride in the products you're selling.

Support and communication: Consider the level of support and communication that the roaster offers. Look for a roaster that is willing to work closely with you and provide you with the resources and assistance you need to succeed.
Availability and Logistics: Check if the roaster has a good distribution network in your location. Check if they can deliver beans on a regular basis and if they can provide fresh beans when needed.
Cost: Consider the cost of the beans and compare prices from different roasters. Keep in mind that the cheapest option may not always be the best choice in terms of quality or alignment with your values. The lower price of beans can quickly be lost in the price you are able to charge per cup, and lost opportunity.
Reputation: Research the reputation of the roaster, check if they are well-known and respected in the industry. Read reviews and testimonials, and ask other coffee shop owners in your area for their opinions and recommendations.

Choosing the best coffee roaster brand is ultimately a critical choice that can greatly affect the success of your coffee shop. Finding a company that shares your beliefs and can offer the superior beans, assistance, and resources you require to thrive requires rigorous investigation and evaluation of several choices.

What are the advantages of collaborating with another brand instead of solely promoting your own?

Working together with another brand can be beneficial in several ways:

Increased reach and visibility: By partnering with another brand, you can tap into their customer base and increase the reach and visibility of your own brand. This can help attract new customers and drive sales.
Shared resources and expertise:Together, the two businesses may pool their resources and knowledge to increase the potency of their marketing and promotional initiatives. For instance, a coffee shop and pastry business could collaborate to provide a package deal, reaching a larger audience and bringing in more consumers.
Cross-promotion: Both brands can cross-promote each other, which can help increase brand awareness and drive sales for both parties.
Synergy: The two brands' combined efforts may have a synergistic effect, where the whole is larger than the sum of the parts. In order to showcase the coffee shop's specialised drinks, for instance, the coffee shop and pastry shop collaboration may take advantage of the pastry shop's reputation for producing visually appealing meals.
Brand enhancement: Partnering with a complementary brand can also enhance the overall perception of your brand. By associating with reputable or complementary brand, your own brand may also be perceived as more reputable or valuable.

However, it's important to note that a partnership is a two-way street. Both brands should have a clear understanding of what each party is contributing and what they hope to achieve. Additionally, it's important to make sure that the partnership aligns with the brand's mission and values to ensure a smooth collaboration.

Why Do I Need a Burr Grinder?

Blade grinders are not the best choice for grinding coffee beans. While they are inexpensive and easy to use, they don't produce the same quality of coffee as burr grinders. So why do I need a burr grinder?

The reason blade grinders do not produce high-quality coffee is because the blades heat up during operation and this causes a burnt taste. Burr grinders, on the other hand, use rotating disks that never get hot enough to cause this burnt taste.

There is only one grinder for coffee, and that’s the burr grinder. If your coffee doesn’t taste quite right on a burr grinder, at least you have the option of adjusting it. Consistency is everything when it comes to brewing good coffee.

I can’t afford a burr grinder! I’m just a poor student.

We get it. Burr grinders can be expensive. But this is an investment, a piece of equipment that’ll make tasty coffee for years to come. A decent electric burr grinder ranges in price from $200-$1000. We recommend the Baratza Encore burr grinder as a great entry-level grinder. The conical burrs stay sharp for years with excellent precision. If you’re on a smaller budget, the Hario Ceramic Octo Coffee Mill grinder delivers the same quality. The only caveat is that it requires good old-fashioned elbow grease. This is perfect if you only drink one or two cups a day, and as a bonus, it travels well.

If you still don’t want to buy a burr grinder, at the very least, ask us to grind it for you, but make sure to use it up quickly. When you order beans online, make sure to tell us what grind setting you want in the checkout notes.

Why are blade grinders bad for coffee?

Here’s what blade grinders do to your coffee. They blindly cut it up, resulting in coffee particles of all sizes, from fines to boulders. When you’re brewing a particular method, whether it’s French press or pour over, you are looking for 1 particle size… not 20!

Blade grinders are particularly bad for pour overs. When you make a pour over with blade ground coffee, you’ll get a slow-pouring, clogged filter. The resulting coffee will taste bitter and sour at the same time. And, you won’t really get any resounding flavour notes. Just a flat, lifeless cup. Sounds like a waste of effort, doesn’t it?

To understand why blade ground coffee is not ideal, you need to understand extraction. Extraction refers to the amount of soluble compounds extracted from coffee in a given time period. Extraction depends on a few factors, namely temperature and grind size. Temperature is easier to control, but grind size needs a lot of attention. The finer the grind, the quicker the extraction time; the coarser the grind, the slower the extraction time. That’s why espresso pours in mere seconds and French press takes several minutes. A bitter taste indicates over-extraction, and a sour taste indicates under-extraction.

Now that you see why blade grinders can’t create consistency, it’s time to retire that sucker. You can clean it out and use it to grind whole spices, or you can donate it to someone else looking to enter the “fresh ground coffee world”.

How does a burr grinder work?

A burr grinder is essentially a coffee mill. It “mills” the coffee, much like how a pepper mill creates particles that are uniform in size. On a burr grinder, you can adjust settings from fine to coarse, and every particle will be the same size. You need a uniform grind to achieve even extraction. If your coffee doesn’t come out quite right, at least you can adjust your grind and try again. You will notice that this is especially important when brewing espresso. With a blade grinder, you don’t have this option–instead, you get what you get.

Are there ways to make good coffee with a blade grinder?

We certainly don’t recommend a blade grinder for making pour overs, aeropresses and espresso. However, some coffee methods are more forgiving than others. Immersion methods, like steep & filter and French press, tend to respond better to blade ground coffee. That’s because immersion methods eliminate that awful sour, weak taste, which is almost always down to under extraction.

If you’re using a blade grinder, grind it on the coarser side, and pause every few seconds to shake it. Immerse the grounds in the hot water for 4-6 minutes. This won’t make an incredible coffee, but it’ll make it palatable.

What to do with pre-ground coffee

Maybe you’ve decided that a burr grinder is not in your budget, and you need to rely on pre-ground coffee. In this case, we recommend using up your pre ground coffee as quickly as possible. Ground coffee goes stale very quickly, so try to use it up within a few days maximum. Store it in the bag in a cool, dark place.

Another way to quickly use up pre ground coffee is to make a big batch of cold brew so you can use your coffee up in a timely manner. Once brewed, cold brew stays good for 1-2 weeks in your fridge. This coffee method is deliciously smooth and foolproof, and it makes for a refreshing drink in the summer months. If you’re not into cold coffee, you can always heat it up later.

Is a burr grinder a good investment?

If you’re the type who drinks 4-6 coffees a day with lots of cream and sugar, you might not notice the difference. But, if you drink coffee more for the flavour than for the caffeine, a burr grinder is a good investment. When it comes to specialty coffee, it doesn’t make sense to ruin

it with a blade grinder. Specialty coffee is pricier than other coffees on the market, in part because of the complex flavour. Only a burr grinder will unlock those tasting notes!

Want to put your burr grinder to the test? Check out our foolproof pour over guide!

How to Brew a Perfect Espresso

There’s nothing worse than going to a renowned coffee shop only to receive an espresso drink that’s bitter and undrinkable. Poorly made espresso-based drinks are more common than you might think. Even the best beans, espresso machine, and grinder can’t guarantee a good espresso. Follow these tips to ensure greater consistency in perfect espresso shot every time.

A big challenge for cafe managers and owners is getting their large team of baristas to make good-tasting espresso. A lot of newbie baristas don’t know what to look for when dialing in espresso and lack the confidence to calibrate it. This is why we offer complimentary ongoing training and consultation for our wholesales clients.

By putting certain practises in place, you can show your whole team how to pull a perfect shot of espresso. First, we’ll show you how to lead an espresso tasting session with a team of baristas. Then, we’ll show you how to ensure the espresso is always running well.

The building blocks of good espresso

It may sound obvious, but you need to start with great coffee and great equipment to make great espresso. Make sure you have all of these in place first before you troubleshoot your espresso.

Beans

Make sure to source roasted beans from a high-quality, specialty coffee roaster. They should have an emphasis on ethical sourcing, meticulous roasting, and freshness.

Espresso machine

A high-quality espresso machine with enough pressure and stamina is crucial for great espresso. We recommend the Slayer espresso machine, which was produced by the fine folks here at Fratello!

Grinder

A good espresso grinder allows you to micro-adjust the grind setting. It should have a timed doser to provide consistency. We recommend Mahlkonig espresso grinders.

If you have all of that already, let’s get into it!

Leading an espresso tasting with your team

It’s always a good idea to do an espresso tasting session with your team. This allows you to answer any questions and try different espresso shots side-by-side for comparison. When guiding your team through a tasting, here are some common things to look for.

Sweetness

While not all coffees have a sweet profile, you should aim for a sweet shot. Sweetness is detected on the tip of the tongue. Unlike an unpleasant sour flavour, you’re looking for a sweetness akin to fruit or sugar.

Lack of bitterness or sourness

A good shot of espresso should never taste unpleasantly bitter or sour. You can assess this more broadly when you try the espresso by asking yourself, “Is this pleasant?” “Is this acceptable to serve?”

Bitter and sour notes can be part of the inherent flavour profile of the coffee, like rich cocoa and lemon. Don’t get confused by desirable flavour attributes.

Flavour notes

Get your team familiar with the flavour wheel. It’s not cheating to fill your head with all the possibilities of what coffee can taste like. It helps your team by giving them a vocabulary to describe coffee.

TIP: It’s easier for newbie baristas to taste coffee that’s cooled down and/or diluted with a bit of water.

Creating an espresso calibration system

After you’ve done your initial group tasting session with your team, it’s time to create a calibration system.

The best way to calibrate espresso is by tasting it and adjusting it as needed. However, most newbie baristas won’t have the skills or the confidence to do this. This method also takes more time, and when you’re trying to move a lineup, it isn’t practical. A calibration system is easy-to-follow, keeps your coffee tasting great at all times, and doesn’t disrupt your flow.

Not all coffee is the same, but as a general rule of thumb, there’s a certain espresso recipe to follow. When it comes to brewing parameters for espresso, you want to start with a dry weight of 18 grams, a wet weight of 36 grams (ie. actual brewed espresso), and a brew time of 28-30 seconds. If you brew your espresso and it doesn’t fit within these confines, you can tweak the dose and the grind setting of the coffee.

How to pull a perfect shot of espresso, step-by-step:

Pop the basket out of the portafilter, and zero it out on a digital scale. Grind your beans from your timed espresso grinder, and weigh it. If it weighs below 18 grams, increase your dose by a few milliseconds. If it weighs above 18 grams, decrease your dose. Don’t worry if you’re off by 0.5 grams.
Once you have the right weight, evenly tamp your espresso with 30 lbs of pressure.
Have a timer ready to countdown from 30 seconds. Grab a clean shot glass or mini metal pitcher, place it on the scale, and zero it out.
Place the scale and the glass under the group head, and begin brewing your espresso. Immediately start your 30-second timer.
At the 30-second mark, stop the shot and read the wet weight on the scale. If the wet weight isn’t 36 grams, make some changes and start over. If the wet weight is below 36 grams, make your grind coarser. If it’s above 36 grams, make your grind finer.

Make sure to post the espresso parameters (ie. dry weight, wet weight, brew time) where staff can see it. Have your team calibrate the espresso several times a day: once first thing in the morning, at mid-morning, and in the afternoon. For accountability, you can set up a checklist on a marker board, and have staff initial their calibrations.

Other factors affecting espresso flavour

Getting the right dose and weight is important when making good espresso, but it’s not the only thing to be aware of. Other things greatly affect the flavour of espresso. Here are some common factors:

Tamping

Make sure your team is tamping properly. An uneven tamp or a cracked puck can result in uneven extraction, and thus, a sour, undrinkable espresso. Check out this video to make sure your team isn’t committing any tamping faux-pas!

Temperature and humidity changes

The temperature and humidity in your cafe can instantly change how your espresso pours. If the weather suddenly changes from rainy and cold to sunny and warm, recalibrate your espresso.

Cleanliness of equipment

A dirty espresso machine can make your coffee taste off if you’re doing everything else right. Make sure your team is cleaning the espresso machine and portafilters every night with Cafiza. Additionally, make sure your team is wiping the portafilter baskets with a dry rag between espressos. Have them purge the group heads between pours, too.

Give it your best shot

Espresso can be intimidating for new baristas who lack skills and confidence. You can’t expect them to know everything right off the bat. The more effort you put into standards and procedures, the more likely it is that your team will get on board.

It doesn’t take long to gain a reputation as a no-fail, sure-shot espresso bar. Before long, your customers will notice, and they’ll be lining up for more. So do a little planning, schedule that espresso tasting with your team, and knock it out of the park!

We know that espresso can be a complicated beast. With decades of experience in the specialty coffee world, we have all the tools to make your cafe a success. Book a consultation call with us by emailing us at . We’re here to help!

Gratitude Journals : The Science of Being Thankful

Thanksgiving is a great reminder to be thankful for what we have, but science tells us that gratitude is important year-round. The act of practising gratitude is great for our overall health. Intentionally going out of our way to bring to mind the things we’re grateful for helps us stay healthy and happy. Read more for why a Gratitude Journal and being thankful is so important.

Studies show that keeping a gratitude journal can ease depression and anxiety and actually improve your physical health. Neuroscience shows that the brain is a lot more changeable than previously thought, and carrying out practises actually creates new pathways, or “rewires” our brains. (You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!)

In today’s day and age, there are constant stressors all around us. Raising kids, full-time work, and excessive screen time can all bring our moods down and make us constantly feel stressed out. Not only does stress affect our quality of life, but studies show it actually makes us sick. Higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that upticks when we’re feeling stressed, has been linked to cancer and heart disease. Starting a gratitude journal eases a lot of this stress.

Let’s take a look at how practising gratitude affects the brain.

Your brain on gratitude

The modern human is not subject to the same stressors as in the past. We no longer have to defend against bears and tigers or hunt and gather to provide food for our families. The modern human still has the fight-or-flight response, but it’s triggered by other things. Things like work stress, gridlock, and overdue bills can all get our heart racing and our cortisol flowing.

While danger looks a little different now, humans are hard-wired to look for danger at every turn.

While this may have helped us escape real danger when we were hunter-gatherers, it doesn’t serve us anymore. Just because negative, catastrophizing thought patterns are our default, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.

Humans can inject positive thinking into their brains, achieving a state of calm and well-being. The more we introduce positive thoughts into our brains, the more we flex this positivity muscle.

Similar to mindfulness, where we practise focusing on the present to achieve calm, practising gratitude creates equally strong pathways. Check out our post about parental burnout to learn more ways to deal with anxiety and stress.

Practising gratitude has some real benefits and changes our brains in many ways. Gratitude can decrease materialism, help us work through personal problems, fight disease and sickness, and decrease feelings of envy and resentment.

How to practise gratitude

There are various ways that you can practise gratitude, and they all involve a pen and paper.

A common gratitude journal exercise is to name 3 things you’re grateful for. Then, elaborate on those 3 things and muse about what life would be like without them. It can be anything from a supportive spouse, to a roof over your head, to your brand new dishwasher.

You can also pick one thing that you’re grateful for, and take time to explore why you’re grateful for it. Let’s take running water, for example. Running water keeps you hydrated, saves you the effort and time of having to fetch it from the lake, allows you to bathe and brush your teeth, and waters your flowers.

While it may sound like child’s play, you’ll notice a shift in your thinking after a few weeks of doing this consistently.

I don’t have time to write a gratitude journal!

It can be hard to justify the practise when you’re skeptical of it in the first place. You’ll reap the most benefits if you spend about 30 minutes everyday. However, even doing it 5 minutes a day can have a profound effect. When you’re first starting out, start small so you can realistically commit to the practise everyday. Deciding when and where you’re going to complete your gratitude journal can help you stay committed, too.

If you’re a busy parent and your life gets busy in the evening, commit to waking up 5 minutes earlier than usual to complete your journal.

If you plan to do your journal on the train or at your office desk, write in a pocket-sized notebook that’s easy to toss in your bag. If you prefer to journal digitally, you can keep a note in your phone, or you can even use a gratitude journal app.

How long do I have to carry on with this practise?

When it comes to mindset work, such as practising gratitude or mindfulness, you should never stop! Think of a gratitude journal like working out or practising an instrument. When you stop working out for a while, you quickly run out of breath when you try to get back into it. Then, you have to play catch-up to get fit again. It’s the exact same thing with practising gratitude, and you should aim to stay “fit” your whole life.

It might sound like a drag to have to do this constantly to reap the benefits. But choosing a set time, day of the week, and place to do it will significantly increase your chances of sticking to your routine. It’s actually more beneficial to practise it in short bursts over a period of time than it is to binge-practise it for hours all at once. Consistency is key.

You don’t have to do it every single day if you don’t want to. But if you’re giving yourself a rest, make sure you do it consistently. For example, choose Sunday as your rest day instead of randomly taking off-days as you need them.

The greatest gift of all

Sometimes life will present unfair, cruel circumstances. On the other hand, you can have everything you could ever want in the world, and still be unhappy and unfulfilled. Living joyfully doesn’t happen by accident or to those who can afford it; it happens to those who are intentional. You have to have the imagination and the diligence to live the life you want.

Let this Thanksgiving be the year you start your gratitude journal, and never look back!

Looking for more health & wellness content? Check out our previous post about drinking turmeric for health benefits.

How to Make AeroPress Coffee

When you’re craving a short, strong and delicious pick-me-up, look no further than the AeroPress. The AeroPress method is a favourite for coffee lovers because it does justice to specialty coffee with perfect, even extraction. If you’re finding your morning coffee routine is taking too long or isn’t tasting to your liking, consider adding this to your arsenal. Read the rest of this article to find out how you can make AeroPress coffee yourself.

AeroPress style coffee is so established and beloved that there are even barista world championships for the best AeroPress. But don’t let that make you think it’s too complicated for you to master. On the contrary, making a delicious AeroPress is easy! Follow our complete guide to making a perfect AeroPress for a delicious single cup.

What does an AeroPress coffee taste like?

The AeroPress makes a small, bold cup of coffee with lots of clarity (ie. no sludge or coffee grind particles). While it does have the element of immersion just like a French press, it doesn’t have the same grittiness. In a way, it combines the best of a French press (immersion) and a pour over (clarity). The fine filter stops a lot of particles from passing through.

The brew ratio for an AeroPress is different from a standard pour over or drip coffee. While the ratio of a standard pour over is 1:16, the aeropress ratio is 1:13 (1 part coffee, 13 parts water). This makes for a strong tasting coffee.

What are the benefits of an AeroPress?

The AeroPress is a favourite for many reasons. It’s a great travel accessory for the stubborn coffee connoisseur. It works well if you’re staying in a hotel in another city where good coffee is scarce. It’s also perfect as a low-tech method of making coffee while camping or day-hiking.

The AeroPress is known for being easy to transport. Because it’s made of plastic, it’s shatterproof, virtually indestructible, and lightweight. And because it’s relatively small, it doesn’t take up too much room in your bag.

It’s made of BPA-free plastic, so you don’t have to worry about plastic leaching from pouring hot water into the chamber. Generally, pouring hot (or even warm) water into plastic is not recommended as it can release harmful toxins.

After brewing, the AeroPress is easy to clean. Just hover over the organics bin and push the plunger until the spent coffee puck pops out. Then, rinse the outer part of the plunger to remove leftover grinds.

The biggest benefit of the AeropPress is that it makes a truly delicious cup of coffee, and fast. It’s perfect if you’re craving a small, strong, delicious cup.

Is the AeroPress for me?

If you were hoping to make a large amount of coffee for a group, the AeroPress might not be for you. While you can make multiple cups, it’ll take some time, and everyone will have to wait their turn. For multi-serve options, check out the Chemex Classic 6 cup or the Hario Craft Coffee Maker.

If strong coffee isn’t your jam, you might not enjoy the AeroPress method. The 1:13 brew ratio makes for a strong cup. You might want to choose a brew method with a weaker ratio, like the pour over method, which has a ratio of 1:16.

How to make the perfect AeroPress:

Brew ratio:

1:13 (1 part coffee, 13 parts water)

What you’ll need:

Weight scale
Burr grinder (if you’re travelling, we recommend the Hario Ceramic Octo Coffee Mill)
17 grams of coffee
Kettle (preferably a gooseneck)
Hot water, 1 minute off the boil
AeroPress Go Coffee Maker
AeroPress filter

Begin by boiling your water. By the time you’re ready to brew, it should be about 60 seconds off the boil. For best results, use a gooseneck kettle, or pour your hot water into a heat-proof pitcher with a spout.
Grab a paper AeroPress filter, and place it in the screw-on filter. Place the filter over the sink, and gently pour a bit of boiling water over the filter. This rinses the paper filter, preventing a papery taste. Once the filter is rinsed, screw the filter cap onto the chamber, and place on top of your favourite mug.
Next, measure 17 grams of Fratello coffee. Grind your beans on the burr grinder on a medium-fine setting. The grind should be slightly finer than pour over. Place the grinds into the chamber, and give the chamber a firm tap to level out the coffee bed. Place the chamber on top of a mug, and place the mug on a weight scale. Set it to zero.

Pour 220 mL of hot water very quickly over the grinds. Using the stir stick provided, gently stir the slurry to make sure all the grinds are submerged. Place the plunger on top of the slurry, but don’t plunge just yet. Placing the plunger just on top creates a vacuum so the water doesn’t draw down all at once. Set a timer for 2 minutes.
After 2 minutes, begin your plunge. Slowly and gently plunge until you hear a hissing sound. Your AeroPress is ready. Enjoy.

AeroPress troubleshooting

If your AeroPress is tasting less than fantastic, here are some basic troubleshooting tips. You can’t fix a cup that’s already been brewed; just grind some new coffee, and start over. You only need 17 grams of coffee, after all!

Problems and solutions:

Problem: my coffee tastes bitter and too strong.
Solution: try again with a slightly coarser grind.

Problem: my coffee tastes sour and weak.
Solution: try again with a slightly finer grind.

Problem: my coffee tastes like cardboard.
Solution: try again and rinse the paper filter. Don’t skip this step!

Problem: my coffee tastes weak and sour, even after tweaking the grind.
Solution: make sure to pour the water very quickly over the grinds, and hook the plunger into the top. If you pour too slowly, your coffee will begin to draw down prematurely. It won’t have a chance to extract properly, giving it a sour taste.

Problem: my coffee has an unidentifiable “off” taste.
Solution: make sure to use high quality, potable water. If your water isn’t great, you can always brew your coffee with bottled or distilled water.

Looking for more tips for brewing that perfect cup of coffee? Check out our article on why you really need a burr grinder!

Analog Coffee Named Best Coffee Shop

Coffee isn’t just coffee anymore. Now, it’s all about the brand, the merchandise, the location, the story, but it has always been, and always will be, about the taste. Lucky for you, Analog Coffee checks off all of these boxes. Learn more about the history and creation of Analog Coffee below.

Coffee has run in the Prefontaine family since 1974, when the father Cam first started a wholesale coffee company out of his home. His three sons grew up helping him with sales and watching him roast his very own coffee. The parents produced the coffee and the sons started selling all the commercial coffee equipment, making them the whole package to share their love of coffee with the world. Eventually after many years in the industry, the family decided that it was finally time to open their own shop.

With seven current locations in Calgary and one soon to be available in the University District, Analog Coffee first started out in the Calgary Farmers’ Market in 2011. As business boomed almost immediately, the company bought their dream location that we all know and love today on 17th Avenue. As the coffee’s popularity grew and more and more people fell in love with the taste, the business couldn’t help but to expand their reach and provide more Calgarians with their delicious brews.

Learn more about the history of the company and see which trendy Analog Coffee location is closest to you.

To see the original article, and other winners check out The Best of Calgary website.

Photo captured by Neil Zeller

Artisan coffee goes to suburbs as Analog Coffee opens in Westman Village

Coffee purveyors in south Calgary can rejoice as on Monday, Feb. 18, Analog Coffee (Analog) officially opens its doors at Westman Village. This is the sixth location for the Calgary-based coffee roaster. This storefront is unique to other Analog locations as it will be home to its first in-house bakery, top-of-the-line equipment - which will be the first-of-its-kind in Western Canada - and a liquor license so Westman Village residents and neighbours can enjoy an after work or weekend drink in Analog’s hip, trendy café.

Analog Coffee’s sixth storefront in Calgary will feature an in-house bakery, a liquor license and top-of-the-line equipment

This new location will harmonize downtown-city vibes with the comforts of the suburbs, while providing craft coffee that is anything but ordinary. It joins the likes of other more urban retailers such as Diner Deluxe, 5 Vines Wine, Craft Beer and Spirits and Chopped Leaf as part of the local, gourmet offerings at Westman Village, Jayman BUILT’s one-of-a-kind lakeside community in Mahogany.

Why did you decide to build in the suburbs of Calgary?

Russ Prefontaine, president and co-owner, The Fratello Group, is passionate about providing coffee connoisseurs in the south with coffee as fuel for a busy day, or an escape from it.

“Being a native Calgarian myself, my team takes great pride in providing a variety of communities a little sense of home and a place to come together creating a fulsome experience for our customers,” says Prefontaine. “This new café is taking us in a direction where we can do more in-house, which enables us to control the quality of products we are executing. We are driven by the need to create an epic, unmatched experience for our customers and this new model of Analog allows us to do just that.”

This location will feature a unique food program that includes soups, salads, cheese boards and other treats - which is new to Analog. The liquor license will enable it to offer a small selection of wine by the glass and local craft beer. However, coffee is still a priority at this location as it will have the highest tech coffee gear in Western Canada: The Slayer Steam Espresso Machine and The Mythos 2 Gravimetric Grinders and Marcos SP9 single-serve brewers.

The vision behind Westman Village is underpinned by the values of Jayman’s founder, Al Westman, weaving convenience, diversity and accessibility into an all-inclusive community. Westman Village is the most recent undertaking by industry-leading, Calgary-based home builder, Jayman BUILT. The community is the first of its kind in Calgary, with buying and leasing options for residents of all ages, including an active adult living, retirement living and starter to estate component. Retail and commercial partners are set to open from early 2019 onward.

“We want Westman Village to be a hub for our residents. We have strategically chosen boutique retailers, like Analog, to bring our residents unique and local offerings,” says Jay Westman, chairman and CEO, Jayman BUILT. “With the opening of Analog, we are bringing an urban, artisan experience to our residents right outside their front door.”

For more information on Westman Village and its amenities and service offerings, please visit http://westmanvillage.com/

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About Jayman BUILT

For 38 years, Jayman BUILT has continually redefined the way new homes are built, bought and, most importantly, lived in. Participating in community developments in Calgary, Airdrie, Cochrane, Edmonton and Sherwood Park, Jayman BUILT is the largest homebuilder in Alberta. For more information, visit www.jayman.com

About Westman Village

Westman Village embodies the harmonization of the values of Jayman's Founder, Al Westman, by thoughtfully weaving convenience, diversity and accessibility into an all-inclusive suburban community concept.

About Analog Coffee

Analog Coffee is part of the Fratello Group who have been roasting coffee in Calgary since 1985, and owned by local brother’s Russ and Chris Prefontaine. Analog is well known on the local Calgary coffee scene, focusing on single estate, direct trade coffees that are acquired from grower partners around the world.

Media inquiries

Lisa Libin

Brookline Public Relations

403-538-5641 ext. 104

At the forefront of bringing the café culture to Calgary

Russ Prefontaine of the Fratello Group talks about why quality, skill and hospitality are at the core of his family's coffee business

Calgary’s Business: How and when did Fratello start?

Prefontaine: Our family’s history in coffee dates back to 1974, when our dad, Cam Prefontaine, first started a wholesale coffee company, which was operated out of our garage and basement. Our parents involved all three of us brothers (Russ, Chris and Jason) in the family business from the start, earning our allowance by helping dad service old coffee brewers.

In 1985, our dad started roasting his own coffee. He was passionate from the start, experimenting and learning how to source and roast better coffee, as well as helping his wholesale customers make better coffee.

He was one of the first coffee professionals in Calgary to focus on higher-quality beans, and became a pioneer in what we now know as the modern café culture in Calgary.

This planted the seeds that would eventually grow into a family of brands known for their focus on premium quality: Fratello Coffee Roasters, Corbeaux Bakery and Analog Coffee itself. These companies, and their predecessors, played a huge part in bringing café culture to life in Calgary and Western Canada.

All three of us brothers started selling commercial espresso machines in 1991, helping local entrepreneurs start their own shops. We supplied all the equipment and training, and our parents’ company supplied the coffee. We bought the roasting company from our parents in 1997 and changed the name to Fratello Coffee (fratello means brother in Italian).

Over the years, we’ve never stopped learning, expanding our knowledge of coffee, working to keep up with the rapidly-changing trends in the industry. We started travelling to the countries and farms where our coffee was grown in search of the best coffee, and to meet the farmers and families who produced the raw product.

We learned from Dad’s increasingly obsessive attention to detail, not just in the way he focused on roasting great coffee but in how he presented it. For Dad, hospitality and community became critically important. He was making the argument – with every new cup poured — that coffee could be something special. Everything had to be as good as possible. Or why bother doing it at all?

This mindset would play a key part in how we eventually built the Analog business. Over the years, we have led, pioneered and challenged a vast variety of innovative coffee and coffee-related businesses, which include the creation of Slayer Espresso machines with our brother Jason in 2007. We envisioned inventing and creating a specialized machine unlike anything else on the market. The ambitious decision to create a machine from scratch that would dramatically expand brewing possibilities was born because we knew there was specific demand from coffee professionals for a machine that could ‘flavour profile’ the unique varietals of coffee that were being produced.

Our family also owned a bottling facility for coffee chai/syrups/smoothies.

We hope you’ll quickly see how completely and totally obsessed we are with every decision that goes into our coffee and its products. It’s simple: ‘good enough’ is never good enough.

As these things often go, it was the original lessons from Dad – the ones about quality and hospitality – that would bring all the promise of our businesses, finally, into reality. We threw ourselves full-bore into expanding our knowledge of growing and roasting coffee. We travelled around the world where we found kindred spirits in farmers who cared as much about coffee as we did.

As business thrived, we started thinking more and more about how best to present the coffees we were working so hard to perfect. This was the moment we decided it was time to create a line of cafés, each reflecting everything we believed a coffeehouse could be if done right. We would take everything we had learned and become so obsessed over, and share it with our community.

CB: Can you give me a scope of your business today and what you do?

Prefontaine: We continue to focus on what we grew up doing. Sourcing and roasting exceptionally good coffee and using our expertise to help other like-minded companies achieve their goals. Our core business is wholesale roasting and now with Corbeaux Bakery, we are also offering a wholesale food solution.

This ambitious project has had a very steep learning curve. But we press on, continuing to put as much effort and intention into our food as we do our coffee. In fact, our team of chefs and master bakers make virtually everything from scratch.

Our natural sourdough bread is fermented 48 hours before baking, our pastries are made from scratch with all-natural premium ingredients, we laminate our croissant dough by hand using real butter, we slow roast our own meat, and even make our own all-natural yogurt, which is a 24-hour process. We don’t add preservatives, we only use natural ingredients.

Simply put, we don’t cut corners. This has started to get a lot of attention because it’s so unique.

Our newest customer, Calgary Co-op, recognized this passion and has begun offering our bread program in a few of their locations. They realize that this was a segment that wasn’t being offered or served in their stores, or most of their competitors’ stores. We’re excited to say that we will be expanding to most of their Calgary stores over the next few months.

Aside from working with our wholesale customers across Western Canada, we spend a tremendous amount of time with our Analog Coffee team fine-tuning our operations. Currently, our focus is on culture and our customer experience. We believe we’re all hosts, and want our Analog team members to feel the same way when greeting and serving our guests.

CB: What are your growth plans for the company in the near future?

Prefontaine: We definitely have some fun and exciting plans for growth in the next five years. Much of these plans are to expand our roasting capacity and distribution in order to make it easier for people to find and enjoy our products. This will primarily be based on where we have our brick and mortar Analog Coffee locations, which is also the perfect place to enjoy our Corbeaux Bakery food products.

One challenge for us is we don’t do anything without going all the way. This does make it challenging when looking to expand outside of Calgary, as there are so many details to systemize to ensure a successful launch. How do we bring this same attention to detail, quality and care to another city with certainty that those guests will experience everything we do in Calgary?

We have been asking this question for a few years now and we believe we are on the verge of something great.

CB: Why have you been able to be successful in a market that seems to be saturated with coffee players and big ones such as Starbucks?

Prefontaine: We’ve been successful in this competitive marketplace because I believe our customers can see we authentically love what we’re doing. Analog is the realization of everything our family has been building for over 40 years. Every detail of the guest experience is considered, calculated and very intentional, from the décor, vibe and food, to the coffee itself. It’s decades of passion made tangible.

We had thought about starting our own café since the 1990s. And in 2011, we couldn’t resist the temptation any longer and opened the first Analog Coffee in the Calgary Farmers’ Market. It exceeded our own expectations. In 2012, our dream location came available for our second shop on Calgary’s 17th Avenue, right in the heart of the city’s Beltline community. More stores followed.

Analog gives us a place where we can carefully craft our brilliant single-origin coffees for guests from across all walks of life.

Analog allows us to practise what we have been preaching with a direct voice to the community. At Analog, average is completely unacceptable. We’re always in search of the finest coffees for our customers and our community. We’re driven by the need to deliver epic, unmatched coffee experiences to our customers. Every day. In every way.

We want to share our coffee with everyone from the longtime aficionado to the newcomer who just wants something a little (or a lot) better to drink. It’s not about attitude or elitism. It’s about how everyone who orders our subscriptions deserves the best coffee we can find.

We know good coffee is everywhere. But great coffee is surprisingly rare – whether you’re drinking it as fuel for your busy day or an escape from it. So, we’re here for those who want a life less ordinary. If only for the time it takes to finish a cup of our Analog Coffee.

CB: Why has coffee taken off in recent years as a burgeoning consumer trend?

Prefontaine: We have been watching coffee grow in popularity since we first started roasting in 1985. I remember the day that Starbucks announced they were coming to Calgary. We were excited. We knew that they would bring an enormous awareness to the public on what specialty coffee is, and we knew that to compete against someone like them, that you would have to raise the bar on everything we did.

Today, truly exceptional coffee isn’t as hard to find as it used to be in most cities. It’s now expected that if you are opening a café, or serving coffee in a restaurant or hotel, that the coffee you’re serving has been given attention. Even Swoop Airlines is offering our coffee on board because they wanted to serve their guests something special.

All the fancy grinding and brewing equipment in the world won’t make a difference if we don’t first find perfectly produced coffee. That’s why our producers harvest by hand-picking. That way only perfectly ripe cherries are selected while overripe and green cherries are sorted out. Our growers spend day after day moving from tree to tree, harvesting only the best cherries. This ensures that the quality of our coffee is not hindered by any shortcuts.

Our growers utilize a variety of different processing techniques from honey processing to fully-washed and beyond – all depending on what they believe will coax the best flavour from the varietal. By the time the coffee leaves the farm on its journey to our roasterie in Calgary, hundreds of people will have contributed to its creation.

This philosophy is the same with many coffee roasters these days and this started the third wave of the coffee movement. When we roast our beans we want to create a profile that best expresses the varietal and the region where it was grown. That’s both an art and a science. We roast every offering with a custom approach, all with the goal of telling a story in every cup.

Our roasters are always on the leading edge of their trade. They’re highly skilled at managing the variables of a roast, producing beans with vibrant aromas and creating the best possible flavour for each coffee.

Skilled baristas are the last important link in this movement. They should be well-trained experts in the art of brewing. They’re working with state-of-the-art machinery and a fine eye to detail. In fact, when one of our Analog baristas is standing behind the counter brewing your coffee, you should feel confident that they’re making sure this final step is done with all the care, attention and intention shown by each and every person who has cared for the coffee bean since it was planted.

That’s how you know that when you’re handed a cup of Analog Coffee, you’re tasting some of the best coffee in the world. Every time.

– Mario Toneguzzi

Respected business writer Mario Toneguzzi is a veteran Calgary-based journalist who worked for 35 years for the Calgary Herald in various capacities, including 12 years as a senior business writer.

https://calgarysbusiness.ca/business/fratello-coffee-culture-calgary/

Analog Coffee - Now Hiring - Quality Assurance Manager

This is a rare opportunity to join a dynamic team of coffee professionals and further your career in coffee and business. Please forward your resumes to info @ fratellocoffee.com.

Summary

The Quality Assurance Manager is responsible for the consistent excellence of every cup of coffee served at Analog Café’s. Our Quality Assurance Manager is the quintessential coffee connoisseur who is as passionate about coffee as they are the overall coffee experience. They are the key resource for coffee quality at Analog.

Areas of Responsibility
· Quality Assurance

o Key resource to Café Managers and team members, working alongside them to educate and encourage the highest quality of Analog products.

o Ensure Analog products meet expected quality standards and consistency by conducting quality reviews and testing at each Analog café. Provide Café team members feedback and encouragement to continuously improve their skills.

o Develop and document Analog product quality standards and procedures.

o Collaborate with the Quality Assurance Manager at Fratello to assist in the constant improvement of all roast profiles.

o Act as Analog “Ambassador” at regional coffee events such as Barista Competition, Coffee Association of Canada and Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) conventions, as necessary.

o Create and maintain Café equipment Preventative Maintenance standards and procedures.

o Maintain equipment and ensure equipment supplies are available at all Café’s as required for preventative maintenance needs. Schedule preventative maintenance and report status and discrepancies to Café Managers.

· Coffee Knowledge Training

o Design and develop training materials, workshops and communications that support and improve overall coffee knowledge of Café team members.

o Coordinate with Café Managers to facilitate regular training sessions and follow up with them to ensure all training materials are up to date.

o Coordinate Train-the-Trainer sessions and regular meetings with Café trainers to ensure the consistent execution of Analog product quality standards and procedures.

o Proactively recommend and implement improvements to product quality standards and procedures. Maintain and update training materials to reflect continuous improvements.

o Design, write and distribute regular communications, i.e. newsletters, to Café team members, highlighting best practices and changes, recipes, new coffees and other information as required.

o Present quality assurance updates and information at regular Café Manager meetings. Maintain a close working relationship with the management team.

o Coordinate with Café Mangers and District Managers to ensure weekly and monthly scheduling of training and quality meetings meet the needs of the Café’s.

Experience and Qualifications
You’re a great fit if you have:

· 3+ years of experience in retail or hospitality or equivalent experience.

· 1+ year of specialized quality assurance responsibilities.

· Experienced trainer, assisting individuals and/or teams to learn new skills or processes.

· Passion for exceptional quality of products and/or services.

· Strong verbal and written communication skills.

· Excellent collaborator and team player.

· Demonstrates effective time management.

· Available to work a flexible schedule to meet the needs of the business; may require weekends and evenings

· Proficiency in using Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook and POS systems.

· Minimum High School education.

Cafe Consultation - How our Team Can Help You.

Meet one of Fratello Sales Consultants Joel May. He has been part of the Fratello team for years and is here to support clients with everything they need to run a successful cafe. If you are seeking to open a cafe or are you wanting support in your current business, we are here to help you with our Cafe Consultation. You can read below to find out more about their role and how they may serve you!

Joel May, Fratello.

What are your roles within Fratello and what do you do?

Our roles within Fratello is ultimately a wholesale sales consultant. We stay current with the newest industry trends, provide exceptional training, phenomenal coffee, and help our customers set up with the right equipment and layout. My goal is to become my customers most valuable asset, their key contact for any coffee related questions, issues or needs.

What services does Fratello offer its clients?

As a wholesaler working with independent and franchise cafe operators, we help our partners (customers) succeed through providing exceptional, high quality coffee, as well as the skills, tools, and knowledge required to showcase the best that our coffee has to offer. In addition, we consult with cafe operators to ensure they have the right equipment and flow for their particular location. Capitalizing on flow makes a world of difference to the bottom line. This ultimately creates a win win sales relationship.

We offer:

- Initial cafe consultation

- Equipment sourcing, specs, and quotes

- All maintenance training

- Installation and pre installation site inspections

- Help with equipment placement for optimized flow

- Help with coffee cost analysis

- Full training for all staff from Owner to Barista, from basic espresso training to advanced barista

- Ongoing training and support as required

- Coffee knowledge seminars

What advice would you give for those who want to open a cafe?

There are a lot of answers to this question, but a few of the most important points of advice I would offer are:

Location, location location! First and foremost, a great location sets you up for success, look for places offering massive amounts of foot traffic. Consider looking for foot traffic and making an offer on the right location even if its not for lease or sale. Stand alone locations with no foot traffic are always a challenge. Be wary of spaces that are too large, cavernous cafes give the impression that the cafe is not busy even if its doing well. A crowd always attracts a crowd and 1200 to 1500 square feet seems to be the winning footprint.

Be prepared to float yourself for a year, it often takes all of that to create a strong loyal regular customer base.

Do your research, understand the micro market you are looking to set up shop in.

Decor and renovation budgets are important but don’t forget to budget for your brewing and espresso gear. So often we see the gear as an afterthought, the espresso machine is the heartbeat of the cafe, get the right machine, espresso grinders, and brewing gear.

When selecting your coffee, choose quality over price every time, strong margins coupled with the high yield in coffee translates into $0.03 cents per cup for every $1.00 per lb. Not much of a savings for using a lower quality product…

Higher passionate staff, who love coffee. If your not a people orientated person, higher a great manager who is.

What is the point of difference with those who work with Fratello?

When choosing to work with Fratello it is important to know that our customers are our partners, their success is our focus. We don’t charge a fee for helping them succeed.

While our coffee is exceptional, poor brewing and extracting techniques can ruin even the finest of coffee, we offer the tools to ensure that every cup is amazing!

We are of the belief that by helping our customers becomes better café operators, offering a high level of quality beverages with a great experience, we will all benefit. We produce excellent coffee.

We also have the experience to carry blends and dark roasts along side boutique style micro lots. In many instances, a customers key demographic in their area is looking for a really good dark or medium roast that is stable and unchanging all the time, one that can work well with cream and sugar. We know this and can help.

4 Things to Know When Buying Coffee for Home

Buying coffee for home is something people do each week and enjoy almost every morning in their homes. There is so much that one can know when purchasing the right coffee. It is more than the brand or name on the table. There are several factors and things to be looking for when you are buying your next bag of beans. We put together a list of the top 4 things to look for when it comes to buying beans and keeping these fresh!

FRESHNESS: Freshness is the key! This will go against culture but think smaller is better, for freshness reasons. If coffee is older than 3-4 weeks after its roast date it may not necessarily be stale it just may lose dome of its delicate, brighter and more complex flavours.

ROAST DATE: Look for a roast date on the packaging. This will always be dependent on how you choose to brew your coffee. If you don't see a roast date there is no way of knowing how long those beans have been packaged into that bag.

AGE: If you are wanting to use your coffee for espresso extraction we suggest that coffee is best aged at least 7 days from its roast ate. If you are choosing to use it for Pour Over, Regular Drip, French Press or Aeropress than we suggest brewing the coffee as early as 24 hours after roasting.

STORAGE: Keep coffee fresh. We suggest to avoid storing coffee in the freezer. This will dry up any oils in the coffee which can be essential to come out of the flavour. We suggest keeping the coffee in a airtight container and stored in a cool dry place away from the direct light.

You can purchase our beans directly from our site or in store at Analog Coffee located on 17 Ave SW, Calgary Farmers Market or Corbeaux Bakehouse.

Analog Coffee Announces its 3rd Location in South Calgary

Fratello Coffee Roasters is excited to announce a fall 2015 opening for a brand new Analog Coffee location in Southcentre Mall. Fratello recently celebrated its 30^th anniversary of roasting coffee in the Calgary community and this new Analog Coffee location will join the current location in the Calgary Farmers Market and the flagship location on 17^th Avenue SW.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Fratello Coffee opens its 3^rd location in South Calgary

Brothers Russ and Chris Prefontaine, co-owners of Fratello Coffee Roasters, have a vision to create spaces for Calgarians to experience community and quality. These spaces exist within the Analog Coffee locations and at Corbeaux Bakehouse, a new concept bakehouse inspired by communal eateries in Europe and other cosmopolitan locales.

The Southcentre Mall coffee house will bring what people love at the 17th Avenue and the Farmers Market locations, including exceptional beverages handmade by trained baristas, community atmosphere and quality service. The menu will additionally offer a broad food service with fresh ingredients from Corbeaux Bakehouse.

This new Analog Coffee location will expand the craftsman coffee experience from existing primarily in the downtown core and surrounding areas to the south quadrant of the City. It will provide shoppers and local residents with an opportunity to retreat and enjoy a meticulously-prepared beverage; an opportunity to take a moment and taste a cup of coffee, not just drink it.

"Southcentre is proud to welcome Analog, a great local business which complements our growing family of retailers and services", says Shawn Hanson, General Manager, Southcentre Mall. "Our shoppers appreciate quality and Analog is the perfect addition to enhance the guest experience."

The fall 2015 opening of Analog Coffee in Southcentre Mall is perfectly timed for shoppers and the south Calgary community to enjoy for this year’s holiday shopping season.

Social Media and Marketing for Fratello Coffee Roasters

Analog Coffee - Past, Present and Future

Owners, Russ and Chris Prefontaine.

Fratello Coffee is excited to announce the launch of the newest Analog Coffee opening in Southcentre Mall in Fall of 2015. This location will bring what people love about the urban location to the south along with broad food service with fresh ingredients from Corbeaux Bakehouse. This will mark the third Analog location in Calgary and Owner, Russ Prefontaine shares more about the past, present and future Analog Coffee in our interview below.

How long has Fratello been around in Calgary? Describe the journey of the company.

Our family has been roasting coffee in Calgary for 2 generations now, 30 years. For all those years we’ve worked closely with our wholesale café customers to educate them about what espresso-based beverages are all about and help them to create excellent café experiences. But what better way to show the world our vision for what a world-class café should be than to open one ourselves? Our cafés were created to give Fratello Coffee Roasters a direct voice to those who matters most: the people who drink and enjoy our coffee every day. We like to think of Analog as our stage; on which we have the opportunity to showcase all of our elite coffees. The intricacies of which are highlighted by careful preparation, using only the worlds best brewing equipment and techniques by professional baristas who share our passion for exceptional coffees with dynamic and unique flavour profiles. We’ve been teaching wholesale clients and trying to convince them of our idea of what a proper café can be — now we are able to showcase our products ourselves, controlling every aspect of the finished product from choosing the beans to texturing the perfect milk for a traditional cappuccino. We have a long history and a fun story, its great to finally share it. https://www.fratellocoffee.com/our-story/about-us/

When did the first Analog open its first location and why did Fratello go in this direction?

The idea of having our own café isn’t new. We’ve been talking about this concept for over 15 years, dating back to when we first purchased the roasting company from our parents in 1997. In March of 2011 we took the first step towards realizing this dream by opening Fratello’s Analog Coffee in the Calgary Farmers’ Market. In late 2012 we opened our flagship location, the stand-alone Analog location at 740-17th Ave SW. We’ve always believed that a coffee house should be much more than just a place to get your caffeine fix and with Analog, we believe we’ve created the perfect spot to retreat and enjoy a meticulously-prepared beverage.

These lofty goals has been both the most rewarding and taxing. To achieve this every single day requires you to be surrounded by like minded people who authentically want those same goals. You can’t fake it. For us, our success has come from the team of people that have joined us at our roastery and cafes. This team is truly behind the idea of delighting our guests. The biggest challenge at first was finding these people, but now that we are together, together we attract more people who are passionate about what we do, and that is very rewarding. The success of Analog Coffee is only because of our team.

What is the story behind the 17th Ave location? When did you take it over and what did it used to be?

This has literally been our “dream” location in Calgary ever since we had our offices down the roast on 17th ave and 9th street. At that time we weren’t doing any roasting, it was still our parents company. Back then we were called Espuccino Imports and were only focused on importing specialty restaurant equipment, like espresso machines. Training and service was our specialty. In those days we would look at the old Buy Right Grocery Store which is now Analog Coffee, and talk about how this location would be ideal for a local coffee shop. It took over 50 years for the owners of this location to finally retire, but when they did, we were ready to take it over. We wanted to keep some of the history of that old grocery store alive, so we installed their old outdoor signage inside our store.

How have you seen 17th ave as a whole evolve since you opened the doors?

At Analog you will experience craftsman-like drink preparation on our Slayer espresso machines, single origin coffee and single estate tea offerings, delicious snacks and food, and a place where you can engage with us and learn more about the coffee we offer and how we make it. We want to show our passion and elevate your drink every day. When people get a coffee at Analog, we want them to have a true experience in every sense of the word. We want them to taste the coffee….we don’t want them to just drink the coffee. We want to help educate and assist our clients, not preach to them. We want them to be comfortable and relaxed as soon as they approach us and enter our cafes. We want to be hosts. This has always been the goal at both our locations and this hasn’t and won’t change. What has changed is our food offering. Food was the most frustrating part of Analog. Trying to find bakeries that wanted to actually WORK with us, not just give us “off the shelf offerings”. In order to take control of every aspect of our cafe, we needed to create our own food. This is when Corbeaux Bakehouse was born, and the concept continued to grow to where it is today. Now we are not only creating our own sandwiches, but are a full from scratch Bakery and Patisserie. We see the future of high quality, “3rd wave cafes”, and that future is food. You can’t just offer exceptional coffee and customer service, you need to have a complete offering.

Analog is opening its 3rd location in the South of Calgary. How will this be different from its other locations?

At South Centre you will see and experience everything people love at 17th Ave and the Farmers Market. Exceptional beverages hand made by professional baristas. What you will also notice is a much broader and complete food offering. We will even be baking many products fresh each day in store. All of the foods and products will be produced by Corbeaux Bakehouse specifically for our needs. It will be a great experience for shoppers who are looking for a break from shopping, a place to sit with friends, a “office” space for meetings and a little taste of down town. This really will be something different for a shopping mall environment.

What is next for Analog? Will we see more location in the city or even expand across the country?

My brother and I are always dreaming about new business opportunities and concepts, and we will continue to travel abroad seeking inspiration. Lets just say, we aren’t done yet.

Roasting Coffee | The Perfect Coffee Bean

Coffee can seem like a simple thing but there is so much work, knowledge and skill that goes into growing, picking and roasting the perfect bean. As the coffee culture emerges, many are learning and tasting the difference between what really goes into preparing your cup. We interviewed Fratello's Head Roaster, to learn more about roasting coffee, and learn a bit more about the roasting process and how you can pick the coffee that is right for you.

Can you explain the difference between light and dark roast?

The simplest explanation is a dark roast is taken to a higher temperature than a light roast forcing the coffee to go through more chemical changes and darkening the colour of the bean.

What makes for the perfect bean?

Perfection is always strived for and never achieved. The best answer I can give but when looking for high quality beans you are looking at varietal of the bean, soil type, elevation, harvesting methods and processing methods. Typically you are looking for a higher elevation bean because it gives the coffee cherry time to develop properly in a slightly lower temperature than coffee grown at low elevations which get rushed due to the higher temperatures.

When is the best time to use your coffee beans?

It is dependant what you are using them for, if you are using them for drip coffee, the fresher the better. I would buy enough for a week at a time to ensure you always have great coffee at home. For espresso I would recommend 7-14 days after the roast date for use, this lets the coffee de-gas properly and will pull a much nicer shot under compacted pressure.

Can you walk us through the process of roasting coffee at Fratello?

When coffee comes in to Fratello it has already been sampled at least once to make sure it meets our standards so once it gets in the door it has to be profiled. Each coffee is put through many profile roasts changing the amount of heat used as key times in the roast until we have a roast we are happy with how it performs, some times this can take months of profile roasting and some times it is achieved in the first day. Once we have it profiled it goes into production. A production roast starts by loading the green coffee into the hoppers above the roasters, once the roaster has achieved the temperature desired we release the green beans into the drum of the roaster, it is the job of our roasters to make sure the profile that was decided on during the profiling stage is achieved on a consistent basis, they do this by adjusting the amount of heat depending on how the coffee is reacting that day and making sure the timing on everything is acceptable, coffee roasting is aided by computer software to track the curve but the roaster should always rely on the sight, smell and sounds the coffee is making as it roasts.

When choosing beans for our home use, what should we look for?

Personal preference is huge here, I would recommend going to your local barista and seeing what they suggest based off of what you have previously enjoyed. There is really no wrong answer here some people prefer a very light floral coffee, while others enjoy the heavy bold flavours of a dark coffee. Find something you like and look for other coffee's that are similar. But once again make sure its fresh. Life is to short for stale coffee.

Nicaragua Coffee Sourcing Trip 2014

We recently returned from a trip to Nicaragua where I got to meet some new producers and taste some amazing coffee from them and some of the producers that we have been working with for years. This really seems like a great year for quality from Nicaragua. One of the major differences between this trip and previous trips to Nicaragua was the drying techniques that are now popping up around the country. We saw multiple producers using raised African beds and parabolic dryers to dry their product. The goal was to slow the drying process down to increase quality and consistency.

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Bolivian Coffee Sourcing Trip

This year we are excited to announce that we have had the opportunity to work with some new people in Bolivia. The company we are working with is Agritrade, they work with around 500 different farmers to collect coffee from all over Bolivia and bring it to their wet mill in Caranavi in cherry form. This is, the best of Bolivian Coffee.

The coffee makes the trek from up to 4 hours away down the mountains to Caranavi every evening by taxi. Agritrade pays top dollar for only the finest coffee coming from the farms and also pays for the transport by taxi so that there are no additional expenses incurred by the farmers. Once at the Wet Mill it is then sorted by hand to insure only the best cherries get through, this is on top of the meticulous sorting that the farmers have done before it is ever put in the taxi.

One of the most interesting things about this wet mill is how many options they have to process the coffee, they have 6 fermentation tanks, 3 mechanical driers, a concrete patio, African raised beds and Covered African raised beds. This helps ensure that each coffee is processed exactly the best way to bring out the flavours that their customers request.

After it is processed and dried it is stored in Caranavi in a temperature controlled room for 2 month before being shipped to the dry mill at El Alto. The dry mill is a mostly typical dry mill, they remove the parchment then run the coffee through density shakers and finally it is hand sorted to make sure no damaged beans get through, the only real difference between this dry mill and most other specialty dry mills is the black light sorting it goes through. As it is being hand sorted it passes through these black light tents where imperfections that are previously invisible to the eye are shown as little white dots, though not a defect in the coffee this coffee is removed, what this does in increase the clarity of the cup, making the flavours of each particular coffee pop out more and become more exciting.

At every step of the process the coffee is cupped to insure that the product is still what was agreed upon at time of purchase.

One of the biggest challenges in finding good Bolivian coffee is the small size of the farms, with most farms being 3 to 8 hectares, it becomes difficult to find quality coffee in the quantity we need by just dealing with individual farms. This is where Agritrade comes in, with the ability to work with over 500 farms and find the best coffee from all of those and then pass on this quality to us it makes it significantly easier.

For instance this year we will be buying from 5 different farms that Agritrade works with and has a good standing relationship with already, so instead of hunting down these farms from all over Bolivia we now have it much easier because of Agritrade. We are looking forward to working with Agritrade in the coming years; it is my hope that next trip down to Bolivia the farms that we are buying from this year will continue to be as good or better so that we can develop more of a relationship with the farmer. If we can find this kind of consistency we can then start playing with processing types to create the best and most interesting coffee for our customers. We believe they have already found the best Bolivia has to offer and through their continuous improvements in milling and experimenting we expect it to get even better!

Written by David Schindel, Lead Coffee Roaster, Fratello Coffee.

Nicaraguan Coffee | Eleane Miersch

Continual improvement is something every farmer we work with strives for but few have the level of commitment that Eleane Mierisch does. This is Fratello Coffee's 5th year working with the Miersch family and have written about them a lot. We wanted to focus on Eleane in this post as she is a big reason for the consistent quality coffee coming from their farms and why we love Nicaraguan Coffee.

Eleane is the second oldest child of Erwin Mierisch Sr. who was one of the early leaders in specialty coffee in Nicaragua. Eleane gave up a nursing career to take care of her ailing mother, that was over 6 years ago and though her mother passed she has stayed to help with the family business.

She oversees the family farms in Nicaragua but her real passion is the dry mill in Matagalpa. She told us that “We are still quite a small dry mill so the focus has to be on quality.” And that focus on quality really shines through in the cup.

Her favorite job in the dry mill is the quality control, and to maintain that she repeatedly cups the lots that are processed there. The other highlights of her job include experimenting with the multiple different drying techniques and most importantly maintaining and building the team of people that work at the dry mill. Her goal is that everyone enjoys working there and finds it rewarding, because if the workers are enjoying their jobs it is much easier to keep the high qualities of products coming out that her customers have come to expect.

One of the ways she is improving is by putting up African Raised beds as an alternative way to dry the coffee, before this the coffee was dried on a concrete patio. The Raised bed is a drying style that many believe increase the pleasant acidities in coffee. Making them stand out even more from the majority of coffee coming from Nicaragua.

The biggest way that she is improving is by communicating with her clients and finding out what types of coffees and processing methods they prefer what drying method they are most interested in. In this way she is learning what other methods her clients have seen from other countries on how to process so she can not only tailor the best coffee to each of her clients, but it also gives her more ideas on how to experiment and make the coffee better for everyone.

El Salvador Coffee | Finca VillaGalicia | Direct Trade

In February of 2012 we were first introduced with Mauricio Salaverria of Divisadero Café Farms when touring El Salvador Coffee farms and exploring Direct Trade relationships. We were impressed with what we saw at his farms Finca VilllaGalicia and Finca Himalaya, both in the Concepcion de Ataco which is in the Ahuachapán region in Western El Salvador.

What impressed us the most was the care we saw in all steps of production. From his nursery, to his drying practices, the health of his farm and care of their harvesting. Its wasn’t until this past visit in February 2013 though that we made the important decision to work with Mauricio and bring his coffee into Calgary, Canada. We are thrilled to also say that this year, Mauricio won 2^nd place in the El Salvador Cup of Excellence competition! It is no wonder he was a top winning coffee when you look at how they harvest only the perfectly ripened cherries.

COUNTRY: El Salvador
REGION: Concepcion de Ataco, Ahuachapán region of Western El Salvador
FARM: Finca VillaGalicia with the group of Divisadero Cafe Farms
PRODUCER: Mauricio Salaverria
VARIETALS: 100% Bourbon
ELEVATION: 1300 meters / 4290 feet
SOIL: Red Clay
PROCESSING METHOD: Pulped Natural/ Black Honey Prep, slow dried on African beds with direct sun for 18-20 days
LOT SIZE: 18 bags (2736 lbs)

The lot we chose was also originally selected to be entered into the Cup of Excellence Competition; however Mauricio was anxious to begin working with Fratello Coffee as well and agreed that this could come to Calgary instead. This was our top choice out of 30 unique lots we cupped.

The honey processed coffee at VillaGalicia is world class! The mucilage left on the beans made moving the coffee on the African beds very difficult as it was thick like toffee! This requires continual movement of that coffee, every 30 minutes, day and night for the first few days during the drying process. Mauricio is also one of the few producers we have come across who is already aware of the great importance of drying his coffee properly. He knows, through working with his Australian roasters, that in order to extend the quality of his green bean freshness, that proper slow drying is required.

History of Finca VillaGalicia

More than a century and a quarter ago Don Manuel Ariz left Galicia, Spain and arrived in concepcion de Ataco, Ahuachapán to a truly magical area that was known by the locals as the site of "elevated springs". In that time period coffee planting was beginning to take hold so Señor Ariz smartly proceeded to invest in small plots of land nearby, beginning with 13.5 flat, clay-lime soil hectares of what today is VillaGalicia farm, hence the name.

Producer Mauricio (Moe) Salaverria continues the family tradition of specialty coffees which includes 6 small farms ranging in altitude from 1000 to 1600 mts and investing in a ecological Micro Mill as part of Divisadero Café Farms . The coffee is treated separately by tablones and dryed slowly in African beds after being depulped with stored rain water. The picking/harvesting is very selective to assure quality year after year.

The farm has kept its Bourbon varietal yet we have added Pacamara plantings since VillaGalicia is located at a perfect altitude with no wind factor, where the terroir and shrubs are protected with a heavy canopy of shade, specially this days of difficult weather. They have dedicated all their efforts in being an ecologically minded grower with progressive employment for their workers including higher wages. This in part by the added value our coffee gets with a proven and consistent quality.

We are thrilled that Mauricio’s Finca VillaGalicia will be available through Fratello Coffee Roasters and that we are the first to bring this coffee into Canada. We are hopeful that this could be a long lasting and mutually beneficial relationship.

Colombia - Elias Roa - Acevedo Region

Elias Roa and his family have been producing coffee for 25 years. One in in the Acevedo region, Finca El Recuerdo and the other in El Pital called Finca Tamana.

Elias Roa and his family have been producing coffee for 25 years. Elias has 2 farms, this one in the Acevedo region called Finca El Recuerdo and the other is in El Pital called Finca Tamana, giving him the ability to harvest coffee all year long. Elias will be able to send his 3 children to University through producing high quality coffees. Elias is the president of the coffee growers association called Primavenal in Acevedo and is leading the other members to produce higher quality coffees through his examples. There are 8 people who are employed on his farm all year long, and 25 people during the harvest season.

COUNTRY: Colombia
REGION: Acevedo, Southern Huila
FARM: Finca El Recuerdo
PRODUCER: Elias Roa
VARIETALS: 80% Caturra, 20% Castillo
ELEVATION: 4700 feet
PROCESSING METHOD: Double washed, soaked, slow dried on African beds in a parabolic solar dryer for 20 days.
LOT SIZE: 20 bags (3040 lbs)

Acevedo is on the southern side of Colombia in the department of Huila. Huila is one of our favorite regions within Colombia--the cups have lots of tropical fruit, citric notes, have pleasing acidity and are extremely sweet.

The average farm in Acevedo region is about 3 hectares of land with traditional varietals of Caturra, Typica and now more and more Castillo as this is a Roya/Rust resistant plant. From this, you can typically harvest 20-40 exportable sacks of coffee (152 lbs per sack), twice per year. Colombia and Kenya are unique in the world for having 2 harvests per year due to their proximity to the equator and many microclimates with in their countries.

Elias uses a small traditional pulpers on his farm along with small fermentation tanks. There is ample spring water coming down the mountains that producers use to ferment and wash their coffee. An overnight fermentation of 10-13 hours is followed by hand test in the morning to determine if the sugars are off the beans. Should the fermentation be complete, coffee is then brought to his small parabolic drier with a bamboo floor and domed poly roof to keep the afternoons rain off.

Elias is one of the rare coffee producers leading the way in his drying techniques. He understands the importance of drying his coffee slowly and evenly to ensure consistency and longevity of his coffee. Elias ensures that the temperatures in the parabolic dries are calibrated. He has 3 layers of African beds. 2 layers of beds are calibrated at 30 degress, and a lower layer at 20 degrees. READ THIS for more information on drying coffee. Once dried it goes to the communal warehouse Primavenal in town where it is catalogued and cupped.

Our challenge over the past 5 years working in Colombia has been finding a coffee producer who is able to consistently produce enough high quality coffee each harvest for us to partner with. The risk with Direct Trade in Colombia is that you do not have much flexibility in choosing different Lots from a single producer. Ideally when working with coffee producers year over year, is the ability to pick and choose specific Lots (areas within a farm) that you want to buy that harvest.

Each harvest produces new challenges to the coffee producers, and you are never guaranteed to get the same quality as you did before. Being able to choose different Lots from a single coffee producer creates more certainty in finding the specific quality we desire year over year.

These challenges are also what make Colombia rewarding for us. Because this isn’t an easy country to source from, a lot of roasters do not go, or have yet to try and establish Direct Trade with any coffee producers. Due to the relationships we have established over the years, we have been able to find some amazing producers who we are confident to work with.

The Vanguard Review - Analog Coffee 17th Ave

Calgary has become an amazing coffee city. It’s quite rare for a city to have one great coffee roaster, let alone three. Fortunately the city has been quick to embrace this coffee movement. I’m confident to say Calgary coffee roasters rival that of Blue Bottle/San Francisco, Stumptown/Portland, or Intelligentsia/Chicago.

Analog is the café arm of what seems is becoming the Fratello Coffee Roasters ‘empire’. Owned by three brothers, Fratello sources, roasts, and now brews its coffee. Analog struck gold with its location on the corner of 17th avenue and 7th street SW. Quite fortunately this is also less a mere block from my house.

In the few months the café has been open it has developed a bit of a reputation as a hipster hangout. Needless to say the crowd tends to be young, hip, and gorgeous. In my mind this is never a bad thing.

While I consider myself a latte guy, to me the quintessential coffee at Analog is the single cup pour over. I’m consistently blown away by the flavour notes of the roasts. It’s impossible to get such flavour notes in a latte.

In addition to great coffee, Analog sources a great selection of pastries and delicious sandwiches from Sidewalk Citizen Bakery. This makes it a great spot to do some work and grab some lunch. Given the location, it is always a great spot to sit at the window bar or the patio and people watch.

One can discuss who makes the best coffee in Calgary. Ultimately this is dependant on the roast, the barista, and the individual’s taste. Analog is a great option in a great location with less children than the average Calgary café.

To read this review from the original source go to: The Vanguard Review

Guatemalan Coffee | Montecristo, Geisha

Easily one of the top coffees we've ever had the opportunity to taste has been our new Guatemalan Coffee, Don Gustavo Geisha, a stunning cup, bright citrus and tropical fruit notes with an incredibly smooth body and a candy like finish. It is grown at 1600 Meters above sea level alongside Bourbons and Caturra coffee plants and macadamia nut trees which provide shade for this coffee. We have been working with Johann Nottebohm (seen beelow) at Montecristo now for 5 years.

Easily one of the top coffees we've ever had the opportunity to taste has been our new Guatemalan Don Gustavo Geisha, a stunning cup, bright citrus and tropical fruit notes with an incredibly smooth body and a candy like finish. It is grown at 1600 Meters above sea level alongside Bourbons and Caturra coffee plants and macadamia nut trees which provide shade for this coffee. We have been working with Johann Nottebohm (seen beelow) now for 5 years.

COUNTRY: Guatemala
REGION: San Marcos
FARM: Montecristo
FARM PLOT NAME: Fratello
FARM OWNER: Johann Dieter Nottebohm
PRODUCER: Don Gustavo
VARIETALS: Geisha
ELEVATION: 45280 feet
PROCESSING METHOD: Double washed, soaked, sun dried on patio.
LOT SIZE: This tiny 5 bag nano-lot is 100% exclusive to Fratello Coffee Roasters.

The Montecristo Estate is a Rainforest Alliance certified farm. It has schools, housing and many other facilities for its many permanent workers as well as for any workers that come just for the harvest. The schools are also available for the surrounding community that does not work for the farm. Montecristo has been part of the community for over 40 years, and the farm manager, Don Gustavo (seen below), has been a vital part of it for over 30 years!

What is truly special about this coffee besides the amazing taste was the fact that we were able to see this coffee grow from a seedling 5 years ago. Having this special relationship with Johann for many years allowed us to taste and buy it on its first year of production. This new area of their farm has 8000 new Geisha trees being planted and is being called FRATELLO for our evolvement in this initiative.

For those of you who don’t know, a Geisha is a unique varietal not only in taste but also in the way it grows. If treated like a typical coffee varietal/tree a Geisha will grow very slowly and take up to 7 years before it produces any fruit, compared to the 3 to 4 years of most other varietals. What Johann (Owner of the Montecristo Estate) has found is that with proper grafting of a stronger and more productive root system onto his Geisha plants, along with 4 times the amount of fertilization, he has been able to have Geisha’s start producing after 3 years, which is absolutely unheard of.

Other differences of the Geisha include a lower crop yield, typically 25% of what other varietals will yield. When I asked Johann if he felt it was worth growing he told me if he could find people who enjoyed this coffee and were willing to pay the higher cost than it would be worth it to him. He also went on to explain how he felt it was much more resistant to Roya (also known as Coffee Rust) than the Bourbon and Caturra he was also growing, which is still a major concern for Guatemalan farmers.

The Montecristo estate fully washes all their coffee with the Geisha being no exception. It is soaked for thirty-six hours in their fermentation tank then rewashed and soaked again for another two days, giving it the clean crisp notes in the cup. After the two soakings it is Sun died over multiple days and then run through a density shaker to separate the lower density beans away from the lot and then sent through a color sorter where it picks out any discolored beans, after this it is then hand sorted for any defects or broken beans that may have gotten through. After all this it is bagged and put into the bodega to ensure the moisture levels are stable. Even the bodega at the Montecristo Estate is a very unique as it is lined with Conacaste wood which helps keep the moisture level down in the building, which leads to a more stable coffee, increasing its shelf life and trapping all the characteristics inside the bean.

So is the price and all this work worth it? I would most definitely say yes! This is such a unique and amazing coffee I recommend for everyone to try this cup at least once. But be warned you may fall in love with it!

Written by: David Schindel, Lead Roaster.