Defining the Terroir of Coffee as a Radical Movement

Posted on by in Terroir +.

Sumatran and Ethiopian Coffee at Batdorf. Photo taken by Annie.

The owners of Batdorf and Bronson and Olympia Coffee Roasters showed little interest in terroir. OCR was incredibly dismissive of it as a concept as we slurped our way through their different coffees from Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. They highlighted their coffees from Burundi, Kenya, El Salvador and Honduras. All of their beans are tied to a place, sometimes to a single farmer. As we meandered around the table of coffees, all labeled by their origins, I was overwhelmed by the importance of terroir in coffee. Why is origin labeling so important to specialty coffee if the origin labeling doesn’t tell the consumer what it will taste like? If taste is represented through processing, why not just roast all of the coffees that were processed similarly together and label them by roast?

Terroir in coffee fights anonymity. Origin labeling is a palpable representation of the politics encompassing terroir. Labeling is an admission of past injustices and acknowledgment of the environmental and human exploitation present in the coffee industry. The trend of labeling coffee by origin, of representing its terroir, is specialty coffee’s version of radicalism.

Cafés Create an Intellectual Stew

Posted on by in Permaculture and Coffee, Terroir +.

Photo by Annie. Words by Bach.

You can thank coffee for electricity, existentialism, the FDA, the Enlightenment, and Beethoven’s 5th. That may be a stretch, but Benjamin Franklin, Søren Kierkegaard, Teddy Roosevelt, Voltaire and Beethoven are just a few of the noted thinkers who drank inordinate amounts of coffee. Bach wrote The Coffee Cantata in 1732 to defend the Vienna coffeehouse scene (Pendergrast 1999:11), Maragaret Atwood helped create a coffee with The Smithsonian and coffee allegedly killed Balzac.

Mark Pendergrast, the author of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World points out “One of the ironies about coffee is it makes people think. It sort of creates egalitarian places—coffeehouses where people can come together—and so the French Revolution and the American Revolution were planned in coffeehouses” while being interviewed on NPR’s “Morning Edition.” In his book he writes that the cafés “provided an intellectual stew” and allowed men and women to exchange ideas without impropriety (9). In Uncommon Grounds and during the interview he asserts that cafés made a major impact on the rise of business, progressed literature and newspapers and sobered up Western Civilization.

I believe the superfluous amount of coffee shops today may be in response to our vanishing sense of community and time for free thought in the digital age. I love Jay Oldenburg’s piece “Our Vanishing “Third Places.” One of his many valid arguments is that “Third places are ‘sorting’ areas. While third places serve to promote the habit of association generally, they are also the places in which those with special interests find one another. In third places, amateur musicians, shooting enthusiasts, poetry lovers, fishermen, scuba divers, etc., get introduced and find local outlets for their interests. Here is provided the basis of whatever kind and degree of local culture will emerge. In the modern subdivision, “local” culture is provided by television.” (Oldenberg 1996)

I often think about his argument for the balancing “third place” (home and work being an imbalanced bipod) when opening my screen at a coffee shop. And while I think it is important to engage with other humans or the occasional piece of paper while working at a coffee shop, I also believe coffee shops provide a supervisory relationship for academics and artists. Coffee shops provide an audience to be productive for and a reminder of the world outside of your house and work that is worth producing for.

Plus, coffee offers hedonic and utilitarian motivation! 

Favorite Cafés

Posted on by in Field Study.

Coffee at Noma. Photo taken by Annie.

 René Redzepi wanted the best restaurant coffee in the world. Noma’s staff trained for eight months before debuting their new coffee program. They installed a reverse osmosis filter that’s sole purpose is to filter water for coffee. They hired an extra staff member. Noma decided to do pour over to make a soft coffee unlike any other coffees around. Noma serves ants regularly, but after implementing their new coffee system, they were given a lot of grief from their guests. The man in charge of the coffee had this to say about the terroir “I really want to meet farmers, because for me it’s very important to know the people. The people are where everything starts and ends, and it’s the same with wine. More or less, all the wine that we serve here on a daily basis is from people that I’ve met and visited. For me it’s a very important element of what we do and I intend to do the same with coffee–I want to meet the people and see the places where they grow it, and really understand more about what they do, what they don’t do, and why.”(A Quest For The World’s Best Restaurant Coffee At Noma)

Sleek Coffee Video

NOMA

Strandgade 93, 1401 København K, Denmark
Coffee at Café du Monde. Photo taken by Annie.

 

  Café du Monde has been around since 1862 and is more than a New Orleans staple. If I had to pick only one experience to highlight New Orleans’ terroir, Café du Monde would be in my top three. It’s open 24 hours, and located in the French Qaurter. Each time I’ve been (always later in the evening) there is amazing people watching to be done and powdered sugar to inhale. The coffee is blended with chicory (endive root was available, coffee was scarce during the American Civil War when the port of New Orleans was blockaded), adding a warm finish and changing the mouthfeel. Café du Monde speaks to the city’s history and lively spirit. Having  beignets and coffee at 3am is equivalent to having a Domaine Leroy in Burgundy at sunset.

Café du Monde

800 Decatur St, New Orleans, LA 70116
Coffee at La Colombe. Photo taken by Annie

 

 

 La Colombe makes delicious coffee. I frequented their Chicago location and visited their new tasting room while in Philadelphia. Their mission is hopeful: educate people in order to create better coffee and a better planet. They have fun workshops and an accessible blog with posts like “Jammin’ Out On Kenyan Coffee” and “Coffee Varieties – They Vary.” They break down coffee lingo and while they like rare, single-origin coffees as much as the next shop, their focus is on education and a good time. Their terroir is purely enjoyable.

La Colombe Fishtown

1335 Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19125

La Colombe West Loop Chicago

 955 W Randolph St, Chicago, IL 60607
Slate coffee. Photo from The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 In a city saturated with coffee shops, Slate, is the most memorable. They offer a deconstructed cappuccino. Once ordered, the barista perfectly makes each component of the cappuccino and presents each one with a lengthy explanation. Each time there are details about the origin, the roast and tasting notes of the espresso. And, the same goes for the milk! I’ve been presented two different farms’ milk along with their individual tasting notes. They also offer a two-hour coffee tasting menu.

Slate in Ballard

5413 6th Ave NW, Seattle, WA 98107
Careful Siphon brewing in Osaka. Photo taken by Annie.

Clean, complex coffee brewed by the man above and presented beautifully. Photo taken by Annie.

  I stumbled into this place while waiting for a reservation and it ended up being one of the best coffee adventures I’ve had. The man behind the counter represented the wonderful mindful attention to detail and to graciousness implicit in the terroir of Japan. He was very meticulous during the brewing process, then so warm when presenting the beautiful cup of coffee. He checked on me twice during the cup to make sure I was enjoying it. Even if the coffee hadn’t been brewed perfectly in an extremely (the most) complicated way, it still would’ve been a great cup.

Osaka, Japan