I get asked about French press a lot in the brewing classes we put on every Sunday, so I figured I’d write a blurb about it for you guys. I love brewing on a French press; I can easily make enough for several friends at once, I don’t need a fussy setup with filters, gooseneck kettles, or anything like that, and on a slightly nerdier level the extraction is pretty even—all the coffee touches all the water all the time. Now in general, if you’re aiming for the same qualities in your cup of coffee every time like strength and extraction(1.25% TDS and around 20% Extraction for those keeping track), then your brew recipe should never change. The French press is the one exception. Here’s why.

Water loses energy (heat) quickly. Like, REALLY quickly. On top of that, Denver’s altitude makes water boil much quicker—around 202 degrees Fahrenheit as opposed to 212 degrees at sea level. Now, with pour-over style coffee brewing you have the opportunity to set the kettle back down on the heat to keep the temp up throughout your brew. But with French press you just pour all the water in at once, throw the top on, and wait. In the twenty seconds it takes to do that, the water is already down to around 170. That’s no bueno for coffee brewing. Without enough heat, the water can’t extract all those good bits of flavor, and you end up with a thin, slightly sour tasting, massively unsatisfying brew. So what do we do, Doug??

The reality of brewing a French press in the mile high city is that you just can’t get the same amount of flavor out of your coffee grounds as you can with other styles of brewing. The solution…Start with more coffee grounds! This may seem obvious, but there’s a good reason to avoid doing this in general: Using more ground coffee to get the strength you want in the cup usually means your coffee ends up slightly sour. The sweet flavors—chocolate, caramel, and things like that—are harder to dissolve, so they get left behind causing the coffee to taste out of balance(classic “under extraction”). But here’s the thing about French press: there’s no paper filter to remove all of that coffee silt that ends up in your cup. Those tiny grounds or “fines” add back in those bittersweet flavors that would normally be left out of a more filtered brew. That’s where we’re going to get the flavor balance we want.

Below is a recipe that achieves the strength(TDS) we’re looking for with the right flavor balance as well. You can scale this up for more coffee, just increase both your ground coffee and water proportionately. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Mile High French Press Recipe

Dose: 30 grams
Brew Water: 400 grams
Final Beverage: 12 ounces

1. Grind 30 grams coffee on coarse setting.
2. Add 400 grams water(right off the boil!)
3. Start timer and stir vigorously for 30 seconds.
4. Cap and plunge slightly (about an inch).
5. At 4 minutes, slowly plunge rest of the way.
6. Serve!

TLDR: Use this recipe when brewing French press at high altitude!

By Doug Stone, Corvus Trainer

This season we have eight small experimental lots from our friends Roberto & Celeste in Guatemala. These include different varieties processed as honey, sun dried, or pre-fermentation natural coffees. The goal is to roast these small lots in a production setting and give feedback on which ones to focus on in future harvests. This project represents the pinnacle of direct trade sourcing.

Direct trade takes time, investment, and a bit of risk if you are doing it in a sustainable manner. If you are truly dedicated to a partnership with a farmer you will have issues with quality every now and then, problems with logistics, or need to pay a price reflecting the future value of a relationship while a farm gets on their feet.

When that investment results in forward progress, the sharing of risk in a way which challenges both the farm and roaster, and has the potential to increase quality and variety of offerings for the farmer and the roaster/consumer, it's a very exciting thing. We bought all of these experimental lots because we want to support this type of innovation, and Celeste and Roberto feel comfortable making the significant investment in doing these tiny experiments because we have told them multiple times over the last 3 years we have worked together that we would support them in this. 

Direct trade isn't just about getting good pictures, great coffees from farmers you meet and never talk to again (or don't buy from again), and interesting stories. It's about forming mutually beneficial relationships that help both parties to learn and grow as coffee professionals. We hope you get the chance to try some of these really exceptional experiments; because the payoff is worth the work, and the proof is in gems like these and the coffees that will come in the next years because of these micro lots.

Colombia is an excellent country to visit, and Huila is one of the most beautiful coffee growing regions I have traveled to so far.

These are some the farmers I met with:

Finca Tablón- Owned by Luis Correa, this farm produced a 89 point lot of coffee I purchased totaling about 8 bags. Luis and his godfather, pictured here, are in a valley of coffee which has some of the steepest slopes I've ever seen for coffee growing. The steepness of the land is offset by the rain they receive nearly every other day, and the town of Tarqui has a very good system of rotating pickers through the seasons of harvesting fruit, cocoa, and coffee to minimize shortages of harvesters (a common problem throughout Colombia).

Finca Porvenir - Owned and run by Sandra Milena Mora and her husband in Palestina, this farm is going to be well known someday. In this picture, Sandra is standing with one of three rust resistant Caturra trees. Without any treatment, these trees are completely free of rust, and she is hoping to get about 1,000 trees from each to plant throughout their farm. Finca Porvenir is managed in a very sustainable manner, using organic fertilizer, fungicides, and blends of minerals which can combat rust on the majority of the farm without negatively impacting the soil. I picked up a 88 point lot of about 14 bags of Caturra coffee from Sandra.

Finca Buenas Aires - Owned by Gustavo Ibanez and run by him and his family. This farm is in a little known area of Acevedo which has produced a solid string of Cup of Excellence coffees over the last 5-10 years because of the unique microclimate and dedication of the farmers who live here. It sits just to the North of the Andes which border the Amazon rainforest. In this small mountainous area, the climate is cooler than the rest of Colombia, and even with climate change having huge impacts on growers throughout Colombia (and the world), it has longer maturation and fermentation times, which lead to a great balance of acidity and sweetness. I wasn't able to cup any of Gustavo's coffee until near the end of my trip and I already had everything we needed, but you could put it up against a table of Ethiopian coffees for the vibrance, citric, and floral notes present in the cup. In case you're curious, Nordic Approach importers bought that particular lot.

Finca Los Angeles - Owned by Maria Bercella Martines. This farm sits just down the hill from Finca Buenos Aires. The food we were served here at finca Los Angeles rivaled the coffee and included some of the best smoked beef anywhere. We found an 89 point lot of coffee totaling about 10 bags from Maria which I think you'll enjoy as much as I enjoyed her smoked beef.

At Finca Los Angeles I also met Cirro Lugo. Cirro is a leader in the community here, and it was great to talk with him about how he views some of the problems facing the Colombian coffee market. Due to the rise in "Specialty Coffee" the demand for coffee from all areas of Colombia has soared, and especially in Huila. The result has not been an increase in the quality of coffee produced, and a lot of times it's been the opposite. Desperate for the Huila brand, coffee importers throughout the "specialty coffee" market have demanded an increase in volume without an increase on standards. Hundreds of people are drinking coffee which was dried in sacks, blended into lots barely scoring in the mid-80's, which is labelled as specialty "Huila" coffee from one sub-region or another.

This demand on quantity without a similar demand for an increase in quality is confusing for the best farmers, who have always worked hard to produce small lots of amazing coffees. They've heard the term "specialty" thrown around and have expected their coffees to receive more appreciation as a result of this wave. Instead, they've seen little other than their coffee being blended into coffee of worse quality than has been produced in the last 10 years. Cirro is one of those people who remains a standard bearer in his producer community. Despite the potential to become jaded from this vaguely explained "specialty movement" he is continually preaching the message of quality from the standpoint of pride in one's work. We're proud to work with an exporter like Alejandro Renjifo who have come into communities like this and has implemented a strict quality standard of purchasing with much higher prices. 

The importance of sourcing coffee from growers who have their own code of quality was impressed on me more than ever this trip. Producing coffee is a hard and wonderful life, and the best producers aren't the ones trying to make as much money as possible to escape coffee. They are people who have a deep connection to their communities, families, and their craft. What these people have told me over and over is that they want people to appreciate the work they do, help them improve, and share their coffees with consumers who enjoy it at a similar level to the effort they put into it.

The importance of drinking excellent coffee is immense. Every cup of quality coffee is supporting a person who supports their community standards, family, and their craft through their commitment to excellence. And while none of us can single-handedly fix all the problems in the "specialty" coffee industry, we can help fix them for a few people, and for these people it makes all the difference in the world.

Farm Report- La Palma Y El Tucan/ La Mision

Flying into Bogota, I was expecting to find wonderful coffee in a storied growing region undergoing a renaissance. What I discovered was more of a story about the diligence of the human spirit. 

I was going to Bogota after meeting Elisa and Felipe Mandrinan in Seattle at a cupping. I had been talking with Christian Ott, the head buyer for Stone Creek Coffee Co and he mentioned he was heading to a cupping with some Colombian growers who were doing some interesting work in Cundinamarca. I tagged along and was really blown away by the presentation and engagement these folks had around their coffees. Not only are Felipe and Elisa coffee farmers, but they own the mill which produces coffees for a growing number of their neighbors. Their dedication to these neighbors was evident throughout the cupping. The passion in their voices and intensity in their promotion of these coffees spoke to me.

Several conversations, and a few months later I was headed down to Colombia to visit their mill and cup some coffees. Throughout the trip Elisa described in great detail their desire to revive Cundinamarca. She talked about how this region, which lies in the mountains just to the north of Bogota, had once been one of the best growing regions in Colombia. Due in part to the conditions created through a quantity based purchasing program offered by the Colombian Coffee Federation, the region had gone into a steady downward spiral. 

I saw this first hand visiting some of the farms they work with through their “Neighbors & Crops” program. Despite owning some of the best farm land in the world for growing coffee, these farms had fallen into disrepair and the coffee was barely being processed to a commercial quality. Not only did the farmers lack an incentive for producing specialty grade coffee, they had no outlet which would offer them additional compensation if they wanted to produce quality coffees. This meant farmers were trapped in a constant state of struggle. Children were leaving for better opportunities in the city, patios were falling into disrepair, pulping equipment and fermentation tanks were disintegrating into the ground. 

Enter the “Neighbors & Crops” program by the La Palma Y El Tucan family mill. Felipe and Elisa have built a state of the art wet mill and series of raised drying beds to process coffee to the highest possible standards. Their farm manager Carlos manages agronomists which are available as resources to all their neighbors, and he trains picking crews to travel to their farms and employ quality picking techniques. These are resources which are luxuries to the farmers in the region, but because of La Palma’s willingness to share resources, these farmers are able to produce extremely high quality cherries. The La Palma team purchases the freshly harvested cherries and grades them upon arrival, offering incentives for quality and consistency. The coffee produced here is among the best in the world in my opinion, and the story behind its production is wonderful.

Sometimes you have an experience which changes a paradigm for you. This was one such experience. The La Palma project is not only important because of the quality of the coffee, but because the mindset curated through this project is the mindset essential the future of specialty coffee. Helping farmers create real livelihoods through the production of coffee, sharing resources to create a synergetic growing model, and communicating these things through engagement with roasters and consumers is where the future of the industry lies. On the retail and consumer side of the supply chain we need to place a high value on projects which are creating real sustainability for growers while producing excellent coffee. This coffee, from the La Mision farm, produced by La Palma Y El Tucan, is one such coffee. I hope you have the chance to try it, and I look forward to bringing more coffees with this sort of story to Denver in the future.

• Phil 

We’ve all seen those “Gone For The Season” signs tacked up in windows of small mountain town shops sprinkled all over Colorado’s back country. Reminding passerby’s and locals of the several months of visitors and memories gone in a flash and never to be forgotten. 

Here at Corvus, we experience similar seasonal changes as we go through coffees at the Roast Works. We have been moving through some coffees recently here at the shop so quickly that they may only be on the shelf for a month or two. And in order for you, our valued patron, to understand why we go through coffees so rapidly, I’d like to let you in on couple of our secrets about how we select our coffees and why some are here and gone in what seems to be the blink of an eye. 

First, I will share a question one of our employees posed to me the other day. He asked, “Is it just me, are we getting better coffees in, am I starting to appreciate coffee more, or are you doing something different in Roast Works which is improving the quality and taste?” 

The simplest answer I could give to this question is we are finding better coffees into our shop. As we get samples in from around the world we find that the more we search, experiment and broaden our horizons, the more often we hone in on better coffees. The reality is, as long as you have exceptional coffees and you seek an understanding of a specific bean, you are going to get an amazing roast.  

As a roaster, my goal is to constantly improve at what I do and to offer a better product than I did the day before. To do that, I keep my ear to the ground and broaden our supply chain to extend to find extraordinary coffees which exist out there somewhere. Phil and I are constantly talking about what is needed to find the best coffees and improve the quality of our stewardship of the bean.  What we keep circling back to is the basics of bringing in new samples, roasting, and blind cupping as much as possible. 

Last month alone we sampled over a hundred coffees before selecting only one. We didn’t look at the region, the price, the importer or a number of other factors in advance; beyond asking for cleanly processed coffees which are fresh crops. We weed through our coffees based on traceability and quality of the cup.

It is comforting to know that there are importers which are seeking, as we are,  continual improvement, and it is proved in the samples we are receiving. As we look back at the past few months, we’re pretty amazed to see that without purposely doing so, we’ve ended up purchasing coffees from only a select few importers and farmers. 

And the reason these coffees are flying off the shelves? Well, quality and taste is the biggest factor here, but the second reason is some of these coffees we select are from such small farms that only five bags may be available. So, I may only have seven hundred pounds of a particular coffee which, inherently, results in it only lasting about a month or two. 

Many roasters are (to some extent rightfully so) wary of such limited supplies. People are sometimes upset or sad that a coffee will be “Gone For The Season,” within a few short weeks of it becoming a new favorite for them. However, this is what gets me up every morning. The most exciting part of the job isn’t extending the duration of different coffees, but the arrival of new ones. With each coffee comes a story and with each story comes an experience. 

We are going to be going through many seasons here at Corvus and we are excited to enjoy each moment of every season. 

Now… I have a pallet of two new coffees arriving any moment… So I must bid farewell.

This morning I’m drinking our Volkopi Lintong coffee, planning the day, and doing some research on a new Rwandan lot which just dropped in the Roast Works. This is the first Rwandan coffee that I have personally roasted, and the green coffee on from this lot is a beauty; low defect count, even screen size, and uniform color.

This coffee comes from the Nyamasheke district of the Western Province in Rwanda. We’re calling it Kivu Kanzu, Kanzu being the washing station and Kivu from Lake Kivu which is near the washing station. Kivu is also in reference to the Kivu Arabica Coffee Company, which has a huge hand in producing this coffee. Farmers in this area began to struggle to afford milling and processing around 2010. Farms in this area are very small often have only 1000-8000 coffee plants. Each plant on average produces about a pound to a pound and a half of green coffee in a production year, and farms of this size have a significant difficulty financing operations outside of the harvest season. The Kivu Arabica Coffee Company provided this financing, which let the farmers stop worrying and get back to farming. And it shows in the fact these farmers are now producing award winning coffees.

As a roaster it's easy to have this romantic idea of being able to go to a little farm to make a big difference, fly back with a pallet of coffee, and roast it while telling stories of how I helped mill the beans and eat a cherry off a tree. While I am looking forward to knocking that off my bucket list someday, I’m equally excited to work with importers and mills which contribute to a larger framework of sustainable practices around growing quality coffee and find coffees that are more beautiful that you can imagine. 

Now back to the warmth the roaster.

Balance-

We’ve been getting a lot of insight into the roasting process with the recent acquisition of our Giesen W15. Moving from an Ambex roaster to the Giesen has been an interesting, sometimes frustrating, process. We’ve been forced to rethink the roasting process and categorically eliminate some of our old habits which were based around the Ambex’s “personality.” Our good friend Chris Schooley is always advocating the benefits of roasting on as many machines as possible. He claims getting a feel for roasting on multiple equipment platforms enables you to understand the process outside of any individual equipment platform. This has absolutely been the case from the moment the Giesen was switched on.

Our new roaster is amazing, and not only challenges us to re-think how we roast and view the process, but gives us a different style of coffee to which we are adjusting. We’re finding a deeper amount of balance in all our coffees. Perhaps a little bit of this is due to the fact we are finding better processed coffees, but a little bit is due to the extreme stability of the Giesen; in direct heat, airflow, bean agitation, and even negative drum pressure. As we dial into the nuances of our roasting style, we are finding the coffee to be more full, acidity is balanced in the framework of the entire cup, flavors work a little better together, and our morning espresso is a more complete experience. Lopsided coffees are out- balanced coffees are in.

As we learn more, which is the point of being in this business, we’re excited to see how this translates with different coffees and how balance can be stretched to highlight the best qualities of each coffee we bring in. We’re very appreciative of you, our quality-focused customer, for your support and appreciation of the journey we are on to manage the unmanageable agricultural product we work with. Coffee. Get some.

Some people may not be aware of this, but our coffee industry has several regulation bodies and trade organizations which operate on a national and international level to advance coffee research and regulate the general industry trade. Several of these industry bodies have put forth standards for serving coffee and engaging with people as a barista. At Corvus, we embrace these standards while acknowledging that coffee is a multi-dimensional subject of study. Bean density affects the ratio of extraction, being a mile higher than most of the country affects roasting temperatures and water activity. Fat to carbohydrate ratio (among others) within different beans affects brewing. Being subject to all these variables we understand that flexibility is paramount- but not unlimited flexibility. A flexible mindset is only a positive asset within the framework of a standard of excellence.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to encourage industry standards as comprehensively as possible with Corvus Coffee baristas. One realization I’ve come to is an accurate view of excellence, in relation to standards, is critical. Currently, there is an assumption that an “average” barista is one who pulls shots with about a 50% successful extraction rate. Average is viewed as a barista who isn’t entirely sure how to steam milk, but can get lucky about 50% of the time. Someone unsure of drink ratios, not really sure where the coffee they are serving comes from or any of the intended flavor nuances. Similarly, I feel that a barista who can pull shots which are consistently well extracted and finish off well textured milk with a tulip while explaining the expected pull’s taste profile is viewed as an exceptional barista.

Not only do I disagree with both examples, but this paradigm relies on complacency and harms our industry. In my above example, the first person is below standard; more of a person who simply happens to spend time during their day standing behind an espresso machine. The second theoretical person is up to standard, but not exceptional, based on that description alone. Your next door neighbor may think he is an electrician because they own a pair of needle-nose pliers and a voltage meter, but he isn’t.

I’m not sure why we work in one of the few industries where we view someone who has purchased the correct tools as a craftsman regardless of his/her skill level. In order for us to advance to a powerhouse city in the US coffee scene, we need to quickly realize we have few, if any, truly exceptional baristas, let alone baristas who are at the standard. Once we start viewing standards as basic requirements, not the epitome of skill, we will begin to send more baristas to the national stage. 

The other improvement which comes as a result of this mindset is better engagement with customers. Currently, many baristas view customer service as an optional tool of the trade. I think this is manifested clearly in the past. Something is amiss when a major publication for food and drink names a barista of the year & inspires more anger than introspection in many coffee elitists because they view, perhaps accurately, their technical skill level to be beyond the winners’. Technical skill is very important, but being on par with industry technical standards does not define a good barista. A clear and separate section of SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) standards is dedicated to customer engagement. The role of a barista is customer service. You need to be able to diffuse tense situations, engage and educate, and answer sometimes ignorant questions. Angrily serving tasty drinks from a dirty, poorly kept, workspace automatically makes you a poor barista at best. Winning an award based on customer service without taking technical skill into account is no less one-sided than the reverse scenario.

I guess my entire message can be summarized as: we all have a long way to go in the Denver coffee industry. The more baristas who gain a healthy dose of introspection towards their work, the faster we will develop accurate paradigms towards excellence. Thanks to those of you who currently demonstrate this foresight & seek to grow your craft. In a lot of ways we are in the first generation of Denver craft coffee and are paving the way for people who will come after us. Our skill level will directly determine the skill level of people coming after us. Keep this in mind as you go about your day to day routine in the world of coffee.

Quality coffee is grown, not roasted. I think this is the underlying principle which guides roasters in the newest generation of specialty coffee. We don’t try to market our roasting skills; rather, we seek out sustainably grown lots of coffee, and constantly hone our ability to fully develop the existing flavor. We focus on the farm, and understand that improving growing & processing methods is the best way to improve quality. 

Being someone who subscribes to this principle, it’s amazing the variation of green coffee quality I find through importers who sell primarily to specialty coffee roasters. We have several importers which will reliably send us more samples of improperly dried, past crop coffee which is full of defects than samples of a quality level I expect for specialty coffee. What is disturbing is somewhere, “specialty” coffee roasters are selling this as artisan coffee and people are buying the snake oil. I’m not necessarily accusing any roaster of being misleading, but there are multiple examples of small roasters which simply don’t know the difference between good and poor coffee quality. 

This raises the following question in my mind. What is the difference between Nescafe` buying well-processed robusta, roasting it consistently, marketing it as “shared value” coffee, and a small roaster buying past crop, unevenly dried, over-ripe, high-grown arabica and marketing it as “small-batch” specialty coffee? Nothing. 

All this being said, what I think needs to happen in the specialty coffee industry is a greater assumption of responsibility within the emerging roasting community. We can rely on marketing, or “anti-marketing” and the title of small-batch roasters, or we can be seeking out knowledge and rely on a consistent cycle of improvement within our craft. Don’t use the phrase small-batch without explaining how this impacts quality; and if you don’t know what it means, don’t use it (Hint: It’s not the same thing as having a “small” roaster). Admit that we are all constantly improving our abilities, instead of presenting yourself as an authority on coffee. Learn about green evaluation and how, on a practical level, proper drying and sorting affects the cup. The best way to know when you’ve found a very knowledgeable coffee authority is they are eager to learn. The opposite is also true.

If we assume the mantle of “specialty coffee roaster” let’s ensure it means something. I know that as more roasters understand that being in specialty coffee carries a responsibility to every person; from the farmer, to the consumer, and visibility to coffee at each level, this industry will make exponential gains. Sepia toned pictures of a tiny roaster and vintage coffee packaging do not a specialty roaster make; constantly seeking out ways to improve your understanding & skill does.

We’ve recently been talking about the concept and importance of visibility. We are experiencing a lot of growth in our industry, and Denver is no exception. As this occurs we’ve been witness to the amazing opportunity for businesses to create visibility within their brand or, conversely, to mimic visibility while obscuring channels of sourcing coffee, tea, or other products. With a small growing coffee business, the current state of sourcing may not mirror your long-term sourcing goals. My worry is that some craft coffee companies may choose to mislead customers as to their involvement in farm to cup sourcing and imply, implicitly or explicitly, that they have direct sourcing when they do not.

I have told myself that this doesn’t matter, and if a business is being unethical in its communication to customers, it is their business. As I’ve thought more, I realize that this sort of misleading information hurts all of us. Our industry is built on trust. More times than I can count I’ve told consumers to look to the roaster or shop owner who is using roasters and importers to guide their coffee buying decisions instead of a Fair-Trade or Organic certification sticker. Buying from people who maintain open lines of sourcing is a far better way to positively impact the farmer than relying on vague market certifications acquired by large roasters. 

This sort of trust relies on honesty within our craft community of shops, roasters, and importers. As soon as the specialty coffee customers in this city learn of a craft coffee professional misleading them in some way relating to their products, we all lose credibility. Whether we like this or not, we all are in the same boat; pushing for market share against big coffee producers. Consumers new to this market view us as one single group of companies. Everything we do reflects on each other. Be open with your customers on where and how you procure your products and goods. If your current state of affairs doesn’t reflect your long term goals, communicate this drive and direction. Being a company with long term goals is great; being a company who fakes it till they make it is not.