Honduras Finca Las Canas

A few years ago, Chuck Rabonowitz called me and told me that he had some Honduran beans from a friend's farm. He wanted me to roast them for him. I never say no- you never know whether that batch of beans will be the best coffee you've ever tasted. I am quite prejudiced against old coffee beans, though-that is, coffee that was picked 3 or more years ago. Most of the time, I find that older beans aren't stored properly with the proper humidity. They are either dried out or over fermented. Chuck told me that the beans were three years old. Great incredulity was kept private. I invited him to Chazzano and I roasted the beans. Shocking. The "old" beans were bursting with berry, specifically dark cherry, cinnamon and it was a lovely medium bodied coffee.

Carlos, the plantation owner, has a full-time job in the states and owns the farm in Honduras. It is extremely difficult to grow high quality coffee and to ship it to the states. There are so many crucial steps that occur months before you experience the coffee at Chazzano Coffee Roasters.
 1. Planting the coffee and ensuring that the soil quality remains high.

 2. Picking the best ripened coffee cherries.

3. Drying and processing:

4. Bagging, Shipping and delivering- If the coffee beans are not dried carefully, once they are bagged and shipped, the coffee beans will continue to ferment and the coffee will be unusable.

Chazzano Coffee Roasters has continued to roast the Honduras Finca Las Canas ever since I met Chuck, but now we have crazy fresh samples of the coffee just picked in November 2011! With my first cupping of the coffee, there are some notes of pomegranate with a leathery, smokey finish. I wonder how the coffee will change over the next 3 months, 6 months or 1 year. Coffee beans are just organic matter.  As they break down, the different natural chemicals will change and produce different flavor profiles over time. I don't have enough of this coffee to sell it by the pound, but come in for a great cup of coffee from beans that were picked in November.

Here is Chuck, (on the right), the supplier of the Honduras Finca Las Canas with one of the coffee farmers:

Reflux and Decaffeinated Coffee

If you are someone who suffers from reflux and other issues when you drink coffee, there is a solution: decaffeinated coffee. Chazzano Coffee Roasters roasts only Fair Trade Organic, Swiss Water Process coffee. I've blogged elsewhere about the decaf process, but what is important to note is that you can drink with great joy a decaf soy latte, decaf double espresso, or a large cup of decaf in a French Press. Sadly, for those who are having issues with coffee, the main culprit is caffeine. According to the A.M.A. and other medical professionals, there are great medical benefits to regular coffee drinking. The caffeine is perfect for a quick intensive workout. The caffeine in coffee hits you immediately, unlike the caffeine in tea. In tea, you'll find a naturally occurring chemical that slows down the absorption of caffeine so that you stay alert for a longer time.

So, here are a few choices for those of you suffering from stomach related issues:

1. Drink awesome fresh roasted Chazzano Coffee Swiss Water Process decaf- you'll never know that it's decaf.
2. If you can tolerate some caffeine, many of my customers have told me that the Ethiopia Sidamo Cold Brew with a bit of cream is smooth on their digestive tracts.
3. Drink our fantastic fresh loose- leafed tea that has about 30mg of caffeine, compared to 130mg. of caffeine found in an equivalent cup of coffee.
4. Lastly, drink some of our naturally decaffeinated teas like Rooibos (from Zen Tea Traders) that will have you singing, as in, Good Coffee Makes You Sing.

Rwanda Cup of Excellence Coffees

All of our coffee is specialty coffee. If you've taken a tour of our roasterie, I highlight the fact that there are very few defects, e.g. over-ripe, under-ripe, black, insect damaged, broken beans. In addition, our coffee is roasted to my version of perfection, and then ground and brewed perfectly. That's a short summary of specialty coffee. Although we roast and serve only specialty coffee, there are some extra special coffees- the Cup of Excellence Coffees.

Below is the description of Cup of Excellence from the Cup of Excellence website, 

The Cup of Excellence is a strict competition that selects the very best coffee produced in that country for that particular year . These winning coffees are chosen by a select group of national and international cuppers and are cupped at least five different times during the competition process. The final winners are awarded the prestigious Cup of Excellence® and sold to the highest bidder during an internet auction.

In a few weeks, I expect a delivery of two very special lots of Rwandan coffee. The first is Rwanda Kirorero Lot #11 which has notes of pear, citrus, lemon, with a tea like finish. The second selection is Rwanda Nyakizu Lot #19 which has fruity notes of Rhubarb, peach, strawberry, with tremendous brightness.

Last year, we devoured 66 lbs. of 2010 Cup of Excellence Honduras Finca Fernandez. It had glorious notes of banana, banana foster, vanilla, dark chocolate, pipe tobacco, citrus, currant- let's just say that it was like manna falling from heaven. Anything that you liked, you could taste it in the coffee.  I expect that the two lots of coffee from Rwanda will be equally spectacular.

Yemen Mocca Sanani and Why do the angels drink it?

There are about 100 lbs. of Yemen Mocca Sanani left in my holy green bean room. I'm beginning to miss it like you miss a dear friend who is about to leave town for 4 months. Before we say our farewells, I'd like to share some information about one of my favorite coffees that causes me to claim, "The angels drink Yemen Mocca Sanani."

Mocca (you say Mokha and I say Moka) was the main port for San'a, the capital of Yemen. Mokha was a famous port for coffee from the 15th to 17th centuries. Mocca Sanani also means from San'ai but originally was the name of the special arabica beans found in Yemen. Our Yemen Mocca Sanani has strong notes of chocolate which reminds us why many Americans order Cafe Mochas or Moccachino. These are often a combination of espresso, hot chocolate, and milk. Mocha used to be the port city of San'a, but they moved the city because of some sand bar issues. You should also know that there are some Ethiopian beans that are called Mocca Harrar because of their similar shape to the Mocca beans found in Yemen. It is believed that the Yemen coffee was brought over from Ethiopia Harrar region during the 6th century or earlier. Chocolate was never imported or exported in Mocha.

If you pay attention to what is happening in the world, Yemen and especially San'a are experiencing painful growing pains and the people are revolting in the city of San'a and elsewhere.



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Another fantastic mistake: The Mystic Blend

This week, we shut down the coffee roaster for a few hours and did some much needed maintenance. We replaced some parts before they failed and tuned it up so that it now roasts with a smile. However, we allowed too much space between the face of the roaster and the roasting drum. For 10 hours yesterday, about 5 lbs.beans dropped into a pan inside the roaster and accumulated all day long. There were so many orders to complete that I could not shut off the roaster, let it cool down and then fix the problem. I decided to place all of the beans that accumulated in the roaster pan into a bucket and Julie named it the "Mystic Blend." I roasted the full 5lbs today after fixing the roaster.

So, with mystery blends, there are two possible outcomes. One, it's horrible and barely palatable. Two, it's one of the best coffee blends I have ever tasted. The outcome was fortunately the latter of the two. Get it while it lasts because it tastes like a chocolate milk shake- notes of banana, chocolate, and milky cocoa creaminess. I call this a great mistake.

Return on Luck: ROL

What's Luck Got to do with it? This was the title of one of my favorite recent business articles found in the New York Times. It was cleverly written by Jim Collins and Morton T. Hansen.

The authors discuss and study a new metric, Return on Luck or ROL. Businesses talk about ROI, Return on Investment, but we don't talk about ROL because it's not discussed until you get lucky and you capitalize on that luck. 

Mr. Collins and Mr. Hansen write about people who are 10 times more successful than others in their same industry. They call them "10x-er"

For example, Bill Gates grew up lucky. He is the product of an upper middle class family and we went to a school that had one of the rare Teletype that was connected to a computer in the 60s and early 70s. Truly, he was born at the right time. 

But then...

• His friend, Paul Allen, saw an article in Popular Mechanics about the Altair computer.
• They then guessed that Basic would work well to make a personal computer out of the Altair

Then some luck again:

• Mr. Gates went to school at Harvard where they had a PDP-10 mainframe computer that Mr. Gates could test out the Basic program.

But then, he got a warm introduction to the Altair CEO- got hired, and spent several days programming, debugging, and installing Basic on the Altair. He seized the opportunity presented to him by luck and made the most of it.

These are some of the ways, in my opinion, to increase your ROL:

1. Do you have a well crafted 30 second commercial at your fingertips at all times that fit the situation? If I introduced you at the cafe to someone who needed your services, could you turn the intro into closed business? You must be well prepared for meeting anyone who is in your target market.
2. Bring business cards everywhere- If you are so successful that you don't need to carry business cards with you, then don't. It drives me absolutely mad (crazy) when someone who clearly needs and wants more customers, doesn't bring them whenever he/she leaves home or the office. 
3. Be highly visible and be credible when you're visible. Be a homerun king- hit it out of the park with every customer. 
4. When you receive a great warm introduction, be prepared for anything, but just be prepared.
5. Talk to everyone- You never know who and what they know.
6. Convert leads into closed business. When someone says, "Here's a lead," respond to them, "Thank you for the referral, but I don't want to mess it up- could you please call them and set-up an appointment for me to meet them." In that way, your referral partner must call the lead, toot your horn and explain your business to the lead, and then set-up an appointment. If they are not prepared to do that 

The authors conclude with this great advice:

Getting a high ROL requires throwing yourself at the luck event with ferocious intensity, disrupting your life and not letting up. Bill Gates didn’t just get a lucky break and cash in his chips. He kept pushing, driving, working — and sustained that effort for more than two decades. That’s not luck — that’s return on luck.

Costa Rica La Amistad Organic

One of our best selling coffees is Costa Rica La Amistad. This is a cool coffee. The cupping notes are extraordinary- sweet, chocolaty, filled with luscious raisin notes, and finishes with cinnamon and pepper.

The large family owned farm is located in the extreme southern region of Costa Rica on a mountainside over 3900 feet above sea level. The family helps maintain the integrity of the rainforest by leaving bands of primary forest in between parcels of land used for coffee cultivation. In this way, wildlife have a corridor by which to travel back and forth through the rainforest. The farm maintains a low-tree canopy, in effect, shade grown to allow birds to flourish and to lower their need for more rain. The harvest begins in October and runs through March. Clear, fresh water that runs from the rainforest is used for the milling of the coffee. It is also used to generate power to run the machinery. 

This is a great example of a farm that is not certified Fair Trade or Rainforest Alliance- it just is.  They maintain strict organic growing processes, assist in the bio-diversity of the rainforest and recycle the water used in the milling process. Simply, it's a great cup of coffee- great for you and great for the environment.