Selecting Your Beans Part 3 - Where to Score
Published by Tonx December 15th, 2006 in Coffee. Share This
Fresh roasted artisan coffee is not easy to come by in many places. Even when you find local roasters, it can be hit or miss as to the quality of their beans or their roasting skill. Some towns have several great options, others have zilch. Often you can find locally roasted coffee in the stores, but only rarely is it fresh. Its a frustrating state of affairs that drives many coffeegeeks to roasting their own.
My first piece of advice is to head to the coffeegeek regional bulletin boards and do a search for your locality. If you come up light or empty post to the forums seeking recommendations. When I’m traveling to another city I try to check the boards ahead of time to make a list of coffeebars and roasteries to check out.
There is one sure fire way to score great beans which I’ll tell you about after the jump.
There are many coffee companies that sell their beans online, shipping coffee fresh out of the roaster to your door. Outside of getting on a plane and traveling to the doorsteps of the best microroasters, mail order is your best bet for experiencing the best coffees.
We’ll start with the shameless Plug:
I’m proud to say I work for Chicago’s Intelligentsia Coffee, one of the most forward thinking and ethical companies in the business (and that might be understating it). At the risk of flushing away any perception of journalistic integrity I may have earned writing here this week, I will tell you that our coffees rock. Intelli has committed themselves deeply to direct sourcing of coffee, paying high prices to farmers, and developing sustainable relationships that have produced some of the best single origin coffees around.
A comment earlier this week suggested Intelli should offer some sort of deal to Dethroner readers. Not a bad idea. So till the end of December use the coupon code “DETHRONER” and get free UPS ground shipping. The only caveat is this being the Holiday season, UPS ground can sometimes be pokey. Check out our offerings and also note we sell grinders and brewing devices too. I’ll recommend some of my current favorite coffees from our offering list in the comments.
And in the interest of regaining some journalistic integrity, I’ll also recommend a couple other roasters that I routinely sample from whose stuff I like. Portland’s Stumptown coffee rocks and is responsible for some of my most eye opening coffee experiences. North Carolina based Counter Culture always has some unique offerings and their green buyer Peter Giuliano is one of the visionaries of the new movement in coffee. My friends Andrew Barnett and Steve Ford at Ecco Caffe are always up to something good. The coffees I snatched from Seattle’s Zoka made me popular at Burning Man this year. There are no doubt several others worth mentioning, but this should give you a good head start.
And as I said back in part 2, its good to set aside old preconceptions of what you expect certain coffee origins or roasting styles to taste like. Great coffees roasted by great roasters will always have the potential to surprise you.
Tonx,
What kind of results would I get with a Chemex and pre-ground coffee from Intelligentsia? About how long would it be “fresh enough”? What grind do you recommend for the Chemex?
Ta
Okay, here are some of the coffees I’m really loving from the Intelligentsia offering list, though its hard to go wrong…
The “Reserve Coffees” category is your top shelf stuff. These are usually small microlots from our I-Marks (the I-Marks are the coffees we closely develop at origin) and auction coffees such as Cup of Excellence winners. Every coffee here is something unique. A few that I’m especially fond of:
the Flecha Roja Costa Rica Microlot: Coope Dota. I’m drinking a chemex of it as I write this - so damn good. Many in the trade have commented its the finest Costa Rica coffee they’ve seen in many years.
The La Tortuga Honduras, Santa Clara microlot is stunning.
(Actually both the Flecha Roja and the Tortuga standard offerings are pretty phenomenal.)
The Panama Hacienda Esmerelda made from a rare rediscovered heirloom Ethiopian varietal is “the most expensive coffee on earth” (at least from a green bean standpoint) and lives up to its price in the cup. Like no other coffee you’ll ever have, but I wouldn’t recommend starting with something that unique and pricey.
the Los Planes EL Salvador Cup of Excellence got a 95 on Coffee Review (for whatever thats worth) and gets a “hell yeah” when I brew it here.
Our current Kenya is the Karamikui and it is meaty, sweet and bright. I could drink this all day (and have been known to).
The Idido Misty Valley dry process Ethiopia Yirgacheffe is amazing. If you have a love for the deep, chocolately, winey coffees from Ethiopia this one is exemplary.
I’m also really a fan of the Flor Azul and Los Inmortales, and the La Perla de Oaxaca is some of the best coffee from Mexico you’ll ever taste.
Have at ‘em.
Middy -
I would go maybe one step finer than a standard drip grind. Preground is going to lose some oomph but if you keep the bag sealed tight and use it within a few days you’ll still get very good coffee. If you’re going with preground I’d recommend hitting one of the punchier coffees that will have some staying power in the flavor dept like the Kenya, the Idido, or the Flecha Roja.
For those of us dabbling in coffee and wanting/needing an easy-to-find shop for fresh beans, are there ANY chains that you consider worth drinking? I can tell you dislike Starbucks (and even I, a total noob, think their coffee tastes like burnt ass), but what about other chains like The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Tully’s, Dietrich’s, etc. Can anything “passable” come from such places?
Pokysharpy, if you are in Southern California (where I see the Diedrich’s shops) you may do well to go to Kean in Newport Beach. The roasting there is done by Martin Diedrich (yes, that Diedrich) and it is exceptional.
http://www.keancoffee.com/
I’ll say that Peet’s in their stores does a better job than most chains about freshness, even if I’m not a fan of their roasting.
Thanks for the tip, rob. Next time I’m down in that neck of the woods I’ll try to pick something up. Unfortunately, it’s a little bit out of the way to visit regularly (I live in Long Beach and work in Hollywood, so I don’t head that deeply into OC very much).
Nice pick up on the So Cal connection, though. ;)
I’m no expert pallet, but I’ve always enjoyed the coffees I’ve sampled from ,a href=”http://www.thanksgivingcoffee.com/”>Thanksgiving Coffee Co. and they’re also big on the sustainability and fair trade ethics and what not.
Thanks for all of the recommendations and for listening to my suggestion to offer free shipping. I’ll be putting in an order this weekend when I get back in town. This will be the first time I’ve branched out into ordering online, but Intelligentsia looks really promising. I haven’t been able to find a coffee shop to replace my old mainstay, Murky Waters, since I finished college. Maybe this is it??
Thanks again for the free shipping!
I noticed on the board you linked that there’s a rumor you and Intelligentsia will be opening a branch in Silver Lake, CA. Any truth to that? And what would be an estimated timeframe?
Pacrand - some truth. spring.
I’ve been using a coffee service for about 9 months now, and my girlfriend and I are very pleased with the quality of their beans. We have freshly ground coffee every morning and we think that this company is worth checking out at least if you’re interested in mail order coffee.
http://www.bocajava.com
I just had my beans ground at the monadnock Intelligentsia, I’m enjoying the celebration blend. Very nice, I actually don’t normally drink my coffe black, but I enjoy the very rich and diverse flavor that Intelli coffees have.
I also had a latte in store while I was there, though I’m in the middle of law school exams, and I think I accidentally put MORE milk in my latte. I hope all the baristas there now know me as the guy who really really likes milk.
So, as long as I live in this place, I don’t have to worry about where to get my coffee.
So, how about ordering beans from Intelli, have them delivered? I’m guessing it would still be better than most of the coffee I get when I’m visiting my family in Mississippi, as I know of no specialty roaster there.