Cycling to work.

Well, spring has finally come to Calgary, it seems like it’s going to stick around for a while.  So I’ve been riding my bike to work a little more now (2 out of 5 days).  Of course the first day that I rode, it was raining pretty solidly.  It looks like that might happen again today.  I feel very out of shape this year.  I didn’t go snowboarding as much this winter, and I missed out on being able to ride my bike for quite a while due to my broken hand.  However, this is all inconsequential.  The fact is that we, as in Phil & Sebastian Coffee Co.  will be opening  a new café in Marda Loop this fall.  We’re also working on finishing the work on our new roasterie.  Our roaster came in from Holland a couple of weeks ago, a rebuilt Probat UG-15 (I’m not sure of the year).  I think we can expect to see some of the coffee (roasted by us) hit the shop June-ish.  Oh yes, for any wine geeks out there… Metrovino just got in (again) the Gaston Chiquet 1999 Blanc de Blancs d’Ay Magnum.  One is already set aside for me!

Cupping European Coffees

Last week, the boys came back from Europe loaded up with coffee.  After a pretty serious cupping table, I found out that one of my favourite coffees on the table was the Honduras Cup of Excellence #4, Cielito Lindo from Tim Wendelboe.  This is by far the best Honduras that I’ve ever, personally, tasted.  It was so balanced, nice sweetness, fresh acidity, and subtle complexity with citrus and tropical fruit.  Other highlights were two Ethiopia Arichas, one from Tim Wendelboe and one from Coffee Collective.

Breaking Bones

I recently (Tuesday) broke a bone in my left hand while snowboarding.  It’s amazing how much you miss having the use of two hands.  In the cafe, I’ve been relegated to working the till, non-stop; the only position that doesn’t require two hands and it still takes me longer than normal.  Only 3.5 – 7.5 weeks left until I’ll be able to take my cast off, thank goodness I’ve learnt how to type relatively effectively with one hand!  Now, if only we had a Swift, I’d be able to pull shots (of  a sort).  Of course, one handed steaming would probably give better results.

Pork Six Ways

Tonight Kevin from Knifewear and Steph from Farm put together the Pork Six Ways class at The Cookbook Company Cooks.  I’m not in the class, but I did get the opportunity to check out the wine pairings.  Plus, they made sure to bring us some of their amuse-bouche, bacon caramel pecan popcorn.  We’re on our third bowl.  Did I mention my mouth is starting to hurt from all the sugar?  Anyway, I’m really hoping that we get to taste some more of the dishes because they all sounded fantastic.  We have been smelling the pork roasting all day long.  Makes me want to go back to Montreal to Au Pied de Cochon.  Mmm…

Randomnessossity

 

Jason working the La Marzocco

 

 

It’s amazing what you can find when you google the name of the company you work for.  I found this picture that shows the real talent behind Phil & Sebastian.  Oh, It’s me!  Seriously though, we’ve got a great team right now, and it’s only getting better.  We’ve been experimenting with a lot of new things since Phil competed in the Canadian Barista Championship, Espresso blends, ristretto style espressi versus more traditional espressi, modified staub tamping.  It’s all so exciting.  To Mark Prince, I got a chance to check out your tamper prototype.  I like.  Please get them into production soon so we can start using one in our shop.  Pretty Please…

The Newest Things

Sweeet…

I thought I would share the latest random coffee related video. Yay. As a side note, it looks like some of us will be headin’ out to Montreal to watch Phil take on the rest of Canada at the Canadian Barista Championship next month. The plan is to check out the sites, visit some cafes, watch the action, hopefully go to Au Pied de Cochon, hopefully watch Phil in the Finals and (this is very unlikely) go watch the Montreal Impact. They’re just doing so well right now in Concacaf Champions League.

One of my favourite recent finds… via another barista’s blog.

Vans and BaristiThis is one I came across while checking my rss feeds… I forget now who posted the link to it, but I think it’s pretty rad… especially considering I wear my vans slip-ons almost every day.

Prairie Regional Barista Competition

Today was the Prairie Regional Barista Competition, we at Phil & Sebastian had one of our POS terminals  designated to playing the live feed so we could cheer on Phil.  In a way today was bittersweet… we were too busy to watch much of the competition, but all of our guys (and girl) did a good job of working without one of our anfims since Phil was using it for the comp.  Everybody also did a phenomenal job for a day that we normally have two three group machines running, but we were down to one.  Thanks to a tiny broken screw, we weren’t able to use the Marzocco at all.  Let us just say… today was tiring for more than just Phil.  Anyway, congratulations to everyone in the finals tomorrow.  Of course everyone knows who we’re rooting for….

Very long time no see…

Looking out my window onto a dark wintery cityscape this morning, I felt compelled to catch my blog readers up on the last few months of my coffee life.  I’m now at Phil & Sebastian Coffee and I’ve been there for almost six months.  I suppose this may seem strange considering two posts ago I wrote about one of my first visits there.  How things have changed here in the city.  Caffé Artigiano has recently moved into town, bringing more people’s attention to quality coffee, and we’re fresh off our renovation, running two espresso machines now.  Oh, what a wonderful difference it makes.  The owner of Java Jamboree is currently working on a new café called Kawa, on 8th St. at 14th Ave.  As I can smell a wonderful breakfast being made for me, I’m going to leave you with this thought.  If someone asks for a regular coffee, is it not like asking for a regular wine at a boutique wine shop… or a regular bread at a patisserie?  Maybe this is too simple… but maybe coffee has become too simple in people’s minds.

Meet-up / Latte Art Throwdown in Cochrane

Apologies to all of my loyal blog readers, I’m sure most of you are no longer loyal after my long leave of absence. Tonight was an awesome night. It was a good gathering of home enthusiasts, baristi from different shops, The Coffeegeek himself, and a pretty sweet latte art throwdown that included some of the worst latte art poured by some of us in a while (including myself). I’m sure there will be pictures floating around at some point… I unfortunately did not take any. There was some schwag (sp?) given out, and I came out with a sweet Brokeback Steve t-shirt. Will (of Phil & Sebastian) came out with a [hefty prize] after an undisputed victory in the latte art throwdown. Thanks go out to Mark and Beata for coming out and giving stuff away, and a HUGE thanks to Les and his wife for closing Java Jamboree early, feeding us, supplying our needs and letting us take over.