Roastmaster's Blog

In the early days of the DoubleShot, when we were just beginning to understand the magic that Ethiopia brings to coffee, an interesting story opened up to me that brought that world from across the sea right home to Oklahoma. 

Two greying men met at the DoubleShot a couple of days per week. They would sit at ease and drink our drip coffee and leisurely converse. If you wandered near their table at any point you might hear them discussing politics or current events or some philosophical point of which they’d plenty of time to ponder. The discourse was one monologue with plenty of air between words, unhurried and immersive, followed by the other rebutting or augmenting the previous assertions. And this would go on until they figured they should mosey on to who-knows-where.  It reminded me of the coffee breaks my grandpa would take in the afternoons, meeting daily at Hy-Vee’s grocery cafe or Hardee’s restaurant, seemingly unplanned yet unsurprised to see his buddies.

One day, one of these older gentlemen came to me with unusual and mysterious items in hand. He told me he had been a professor at OSU and taught in Ethiopia for a few years.  He handed me a primitive wooden mortar approximately one-foot tall, which he said was “an Ethiopian coffee grinder.”  I envisioned a woman roasting coffee beans in an iron bowl over a small mound of coals and then pulverizing them in this hollowed-out log.  Ethiopia is one of the only countries who maintain a custom of drinking the coffee they produce. Most coffee-producing countries export their entire crop and leave the coffee drinking for Nescafe.  Ethiopians have a lengthy, unhurried coffee ceremony that my grandpa would appreciate. They take fresh roasted coffee to the extreme, much like I did in the beginning of my roasting exercises - pouring coffee from roaster to grinder to brewer to cup, all within minutes.  Coffee is indigenous to Ethiopia.  And after the storied discovery of coffee’s restorative powers, the development of its consumption moved from eating the cherries to consuming the raw seeds mixed with animal fat, to drinking wine from the fruit pulp.  And who devised the amazing plan of roasting its seeds and extracting their goodness with water?  No one really knows. But though the consumption of coffee had evolved, the cultivation and processing of coffee had remained a wild, anecdotally-driven avocation in Ethiopia for centuries. 

In August 1952 a group of six Oklahoma A&M (now OSU) staff members arrived in Ethiopia in order to determine a suitable site for The Imperial Ethiopian College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts.  At that time a survey had been done and it failed to find a single Ethiopian national with the equivalent of a B.S. degree in any phase of agriculture.  OSU had commenced the construction of an agriculture school in Ethiopia with funding from USAID.  With the assistance of the Emperor Haile Selassie (hereafter referred to simply as “King of Kings, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God, Emperor of Ethiopia” or alternatively, “His Imperial Majesty”) the school was located in the famous coffee-growing region of Harrar, with a junior college in Kaffa and one near the capital city of Addis Ababa. The goal of this project was to teach Ethiopians about the scientific and industrial progress in agriculture, and to educate enough Ethiopians to take over the administration of these institutions as soon as possible.  The main focus of the college was on food farming and coffee cultivation.  OSU operated in Ethiopia from 1952-1968, when there were enough nationals to fill the staff.  During that time 384 people graduated, most becoming ministers of Agriculture and Education.  And 136 students went on to pursue advanced degrees in the United States before returning to teach at the college or work in the Ethiopian government.

The professor who gave me the mortar for crushing coffee also gave me an elaborate charcoal drawing of one of Haile Selassie’s Imperial Guards, or Kebur Zebagya.  He told me one of his Ethiopian students drew this and gave it to him.  The drawing is signed "Kiros Woldu" and dated ’65.  I love this piece of art and it hangs on the brick wall behind my roaster.  It’s a reminder of our connection with Ethiopian coffee farmers through OSU and the professor who spent so many days chatting at our tables. 

Bekele Dukale lives in the Gedeb region of Ethiopia.  He owns a farm that is about 5 hectares in size, which is the equivalent of 12 acres or the size of 10 football fields. That’s a pretty big farm in Ethiopia. Bekele grows coffee and sells it to a mill called the Worka Cooperative. This is a place that buys coffee cherries and dries them, and then processes the coffee to be sold through the Ethiopian Coffee Exchange or through a private exporter. Bekele has enough land and is producing a high enough quality for the mill to separate his coffee into a micro-lot.  This is fairly unusual for Ethiopia.  

Gedeb is southeast of the Yirgacheffe region, which is well-regarded as producing the best coffees in the world.  The reasons for this are likely the high elevation, the microclimates, and the age-old heirloom varieties of coffee that are growing in the area. Though Gedeb is designated as a separate region, it is home to some of the same types of coffees, and is supposedly the highest place in the country where coffee is cultivated.  

Coffees are graded for export.  Each coffee-producing country has different grading practices and designations, some based on bean size, others on its elevation, etc.  In Ethiopia, coffees are graded 1-9 based on visual inspection for defects and on cup quality. Up until just a couple of years ago, a grade 1 Natural was unheard-of.  And it’s still a very stringent designation because the natural variance in dry-processed coffee beans is something that must be minimized by careful harvesting, hand sorting, and meticulous milling.  

This year I bought coffee that was grown by Bekele Dukale.  I’ve never been to Ethiopia, nor have I met Bekele.  I bought the coffee from my friend Peter at Royal Coffee, which is a specialty broker in Oakland.  This coffee is a grade 1 natural, 100% grown by Bekele Dukale in Gedeb, and dry processed at the Worka Cooperative.  This is one of the holiday coffees we are offering this year to help you celebrate with family and friends, at home by yourself in front of the fireplace with a good book, or with someone special.  The coffee roasts beautifully.  It is consistent and even in color.  In the cup, it has a very soft mouthfeel with lots of dark chocolate and cinnamon.  Notes of pear and strawberry peak through, not in an invasive way, but just to tickle your more extravagant sensibilities.  I love it and I know you will too.  Our pastry chef, Curtis, developed a beautiful and simple food pairing for this coffee, based on a rustic French dish called clafoutis (apparently pronounced claw-foo-tee’).  Buy a pound at the DoubleShot or online and we’ll send you the recipe card with instructions and a mouth-watering picture.  

I can’t consume any dairy, so clafoutis is out of the question, but my friend Mark Brown suggested another pairing for Bekele’s coffee, and it’s one I am really enjoying. From Mark’s food publication, argentfork:

chocolate pear crumble

I tossed one of these together for some

friends last month who barely saved me

any. I did one similar for the woman who

taught us French when we were in France.

She said, “Mark … c’est incroyable.” And it

was. Butter the bottom of a baking dish big

enough to accommodate your pears. Half or

slice or chunk the fruit—it must be ripe—and

lay over it the best chocolate you can afford.

About 4 ounces. Top that with a mixture

of flour, butter and sugar, and maybe even

a little cornmeal for bite. Any old crumble

pastry will do. Bake until golden.

On June 18, 1954, the Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie came to Oklahoma to visit OSU (then known as Oklahoma A&M College). He was visiting in order to show his appreciation for the initiative that the president of Oklahoma A&M College had taken to reach out to his country to develop an international program for educational aid.  The colleges that OSU set up in Ethiopia were the first in a new program called the Point Four Program, announced by Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address in 1949.  The Emperor’s visit was apparently quite a society event, and 300 of the “elites” of Oklahoma were invited to a formal dinner. Afterward, His Imperial Majesty stood in a reception line for an hour and forty minutes shaking hands and greeting 1,600 people.  

Two things stick in my mind about the Ethiopian Emperor’s visit.  First, Haile Selassie had requested, while in Oklahoma, to meet an Indian. So upon his arrival he was greeted by a well-known native american named Acee Blue Eagle, who was in traditional dress, and he presented the Emperor with an Indian war bonnet.  And second, after the formal dinner, Oklahoma Governor Johnston Murray gave a welcoming speech, during which he bungled the pronunciation of Ethiopia, calling it “Oklamopia.”

I searched the list of college graduates during OSU’s time in Ethiopia, but I didn’t find the name Bekele Dukale. No surprise, because the graduates seemed to be from the wealthier families of Ethiopia, emerging into teaching and governing jobs, or if into private farming, it was generally a large enterprise.  But the advancements made in farming technologies and education of farming methods, experiments with varieties and processes, and the general imprint made on the culture of coffee farming in Ethiopia by the schools from the OSU/USAID program were wide-reaching.  It is because of this dissemination of information and practical knowledge that a man like Bekele Dukale could learn to produce the highest quality of coffee from the finest coffee-producing region in the world. It’s a testament to the foresight in the 1950s by a handful of leaders in Oklahoma and Ethiopia that today one of the best coffees in the world was grown in Ethiopia, and is being roasted, brewed and enjoyed in Oklahoma. For that, we show our gratitude.  So why not call it “Oklamopia”?

Our Ethiopian coffee from Bekele Dukale is available for a limited time at the DoubleShot and online. We are selling it in special one-pound bags with an info card attached and our clafoutis recipe card.

This is an official Nekisse update, current as of the date and time of this posting.

Things are really heating up around here.  Much like Kemgin, the Nekisse is not loitering around the DoubleShot.  In fact, we suddenly find ourselves in short supply.  In fact, as of right now, I only have 17 gold 12-ounce bags of Nekisse left and available for sale!  In a vain attempt to be fair to our online customers as well as our local customers, I'm going to put an online limit of 7 bags in the website inventory.  Once they're gone, that's it.  The remaining 10 bags are for sale in-house.

If you have bought the Nekisse, or you're planning on it, you'll want to pay special attention to the suggested food pairings on the label.  The blueberry lemon-drizzle bread is a great breakfast loaf that will pull you in with its citrus notes that play on the fruity tones of Nekisse, bringing our some of that berry flavor as well as the chocolatey sweetness in the coffee.

Our chocolate lava cake recipe is so rich.  With Nekisse, the brightness of the coffee comes in to cleanse your palate between each super chocolate bite with citrus and strawberry flavors.  Here are the recipes.  Hope you enjoy.

Blueberry Lemon-Drizzle Bread

1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 oz./235 g.) plus 1 tsp. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 cup (4 oz./125 g.) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup (6 oz./185 g.) granulated sugar

1 Tbs. finely grated lemon zest

3 large eggs

1/2 cup (4 fl. oz./125 ml.) whole milk

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 cup (4 oz./125 g.) fresh blueberries

For the syrup:

3 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

3 Tbs. granulated sugar

For the glaze:

1/2 cup (2 oz./60 g.) confectioners’ sugar

3 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350° F (180° C). Butter and flour a 9-by-5-inch (23-by-13-cm.) loaf pan.

In a bowl, sift together the 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder and salt. In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, granulated sugar and lemon zest on medium-high speed until lightened. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until each is incorporated. Add the milk and vanilla and stir until blended. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended. In a small bowl, toss the blueberries with the 1 teaspoon flour. Gently stir into the batter.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Transfer the bread to a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet and let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then turn out onto the rack.

While the bread is baking, make the syrup: In a small saucepan, boil the lemon juice and granulated sugar over medium heat until syrupy, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Using a wooden skewer, pierce the sides and bottom of the bread all over. Brush the bread generously with the syrup.

To make the glaze, in a small bowl, stir together the confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice. When the bread is completely cool, drizzle the glaze over the top. Makes 1 large loaf.

Chocolate Lava Cakes (or Molten Chocolate Cakes) - courtesy of my mom

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

8 oz. bittersweet (not unsweetened) chocolate, chopped

½ cup unsalted butter, diced

3 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

Butter and flour 5 custard cups.  Whisk sugar and cornstarch in large bowl to combine.  Melt chocolate and butter in heavy medium saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly.  Cool 10 minutes.  Add sugar mixture to chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth.  Whisk in eggs 1 at a time, then whisk in yolks.  Divide batter between pans.  (Can be prepared 1 day ahead.  Cover and refrigerate.) 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Bake cakes until puffed, dry and cracked on top and tester inserted into center comes out with some wet batter attached, about 25 minutes (28 minutes if batter has been chilled).  Cool cakes 10 minutes.  Cut around cakes to loosen.  Turn out onto plates.  Serve cakes warm with whipped crème or ice cream.

I like to drizzle raspberry sauce on the plate before plating.

Keep an eye out for an opportunity to purchase a bit of my personal stash of coffee.  (Tchembe is about to take the stage for the last run up to Christmas.)

My dad* has always been the key influence in my life when it comes to work.  He installs floor covering.  And the man is a workhorse.  I remember when I was a kid, my dad would lift a huge roll of carpet onto his shoulder and walk up stairs.  He seemed to work interminably, sweating, breathing hard, and moving things in ways I couldn’t budge.  Not only that, he makes extremely precise cuts, very rapidly.  He measures in ways I don’t understand, makes calculations in his head, and cuts things upside down and backward, perfectly.  His patterns are uniform and square, and somehow bend around curves.  He wields a carpet knife, with its reversible razor blade, penetrating to the exact depth needed, ripping down a row of yarn, so square that his trimming is minimal and his waste almost nil.  

He has the patience to work on cars.  Completely disassembling and reassembling three in my memory: a Model A Ford, a Model T Ford, and a Falcon Knight Speedster.  These came apart rusted with friction that breaks and busts even calloused knuckles.  But they went back together smooth and lubricated, painted and polished, pinstriped, upholstered, and running like they did off the early 1900s showroom floor.

The man can fix almost anything.  So much so that he took to collecting antiques, some of them relinquished to the junk pile, because he could see the beauty in a worn out, beat up cabinet or dresser.  I grew up using restored antique furniture with names like “hall tree” and “pie safe.”  The patience and precision and vision that he has can transform wood and marble and brass.  And boy can he swing a hammer.

The peak of his antique restoration came in the form of a run-down, dirty, two-story Victorian house with a carriage barn and, once completed, a round brick patio.  Layers of paint and wallpaper and old newspaper came off with sweat and toil, and beneath it all he found the wood that once again brought class and refinement throughout their home.  

His product is meticulous. 

And he drinks a lot of coffee.

Coffee is a curious thing.  Like corn, it’s a huge commodity.  Coffee trees grow and produce fruit, while the farmer toils in the equatorial sun to keep them healthy and productive.  Margins fluctuate but the work is constant.  During harvest, hand picking is followed by milling (sometimes by hand) and drying (oftentimes on patios where people rake the coffee to ensure consistency) and sorting (sometimes performed by women who pick through every coffee bean to remove defects) and bagging (almost always controlled by men who dispense the coffee into a bag and then sew it shut).  And amongst these commodity beans, occasionally an experienced cupper will pull out a specific lot because they recognize that it surpasses the quality and flavor profile of its peers.  But true exceptional coffees are not the result of luck or happenstance, rather the product of concerted effort, focused methodology, and fastidious performance.  People produce high quality coffees on purpose.

I roasted a batch of Nekisse a few days ago and it was one of those roasts where I just knew I nailed it.  It was beautiful.  I set the damper on par to restrict the airflow just right, bringing the temperature of the coffee up at the precise timing I intended.  I felt like the temperature profile of this roast should be recorded on canvas and placed in the Philbrook.  The coffee coalesced at first crack and became one mass of popping, drumming, hip-shaking rhythm to the drone of the roaster purring like a huge metal lion.  And I manipulated the intake and outflow until those precious few seconds arrived at the end of the roast where the coffee and I speak to one another.  

Because I’ve worked with coffee a lot and I care about coffee a lot, something happens between the coffee and me.  There is a personification of the coffee beans.  They become a living entity, the embodiment of all those who toiled on the their behalf.  The coffee is like the star of the show, who couldn’t be where it is if it weren’t for so many people behind the scenes who worked hard to propel it to greatness.  And all those people who had a hand in the coffee come with it to the DoubleShot, from the ones who nurture the coffee trees from seedlings to transplanted mature adults, to those who fertilize and prune and pick and carry the coffee cherry down the mountain.  The people who process the coffee and turn the coffee over on its drying bed.  Those who manage its production and sort out the premium quality beans for us.  The baggers, the shippers, the cargo ship captain who delivered our coffee in port.  They’re all in there with the coffee, because this coffee couldn’t have become what it is without all those people striving on its behalf.  And their spirits cry out in those final moments of the roast and I can feel it.  And they are happy, proud, excited.

The entire life of this coffee has come to this.  All that came before was for this moment in time.  Everything that has happened to this coffee along the way allowed us to fulfill Nekisse’s mission by roasting it properly and delivering it to you for your ultimate enjoyment.  That’s what this coffee was made for.  

And at the moment I dropped that Nekisse from the roasting drum into the oversized stainless cooling bin, all of my life had led to this.  All the hours of roasting and learning and listening and reading and hauling bags of coffee on my shoulder.  All the lessons my dad taught me through his actions about working hard and doing my best, about learning a craft and becoming good at it, about the value of transforming raw materials to make something beautiful.  All of that work by my father carried forward in me, like the work of the coffee producers which carried forward in the Nekisse.  And it all came together for one purpose:  To make delicious coffee.

Nekisse is moving fast.  (get it here:  DoubleShotCoffee.com/nekisse) The response to this coffee has been outstanding, and we love the appreciation you’ve shown to our efforts in providing coffees of this caliber.  With fantastic fruity aromas of strawberry and peach, the brightness of Nekisse glows through in the cup past a sea of milk chocolate that will linger on your palate.

Two more exciting things will happen this Tuesday.  We will prepare two food pairings that accentuate the amazing qualities of Nekisse:  a blueberry-lemon drizzle bread and a chocolate lava cake.  You will have the opportunity to let us make you a pourover of Nekisse and purchase one or both of the food pairings with it.  This is a one-time offering, happening Tuesday, December 10.  

The second thing you need to know about this Tuesday is that we will be releasing a new chocolate bar.  I’ve once again collaborated with the chocolatier who produces our MADURO bars to create a new bar featuring our NEKISSE coffee in a darker chocolate from the Ivory Coast.  It really makes a rich melange of bright, fruity, coffee flavors in that bed of amazing, silky dark chocolate.  A great gift for the holidays and a special treat for you.

Tuesday will be a great day at the DoubleShot.

* If you look around the DoubleShot, most of what you see was made by or restored by or at least inspired by my dad, Steve Franklin.

I spent last weekend in San Francisco with my girlfriend.  We visited with some nice people and spent time coffeeshop-hopping:  Four Barrel, Sightglass, Ritual, Blue Bottle, Stanza, Reveille, and even peeked through the windows of the supposed Intelligentsia store in Potrero.  We wandered into Dandelion Chocolate on Valencia, and Beer Revolution in Oakland.  Ate a donut at Dynamo on the water's edge, relaxing with the slosh of water against sailboat hulls, and enjoying the classic Golden Gate vista.  I had a romantic cocktail with my sweetheart in the Top of the Mark, overlooking the lion's share of the city.  We rode the ferry, the train, BART, we walked, we ran, and we dilly-dallied a little.  It was a great trip.  Fun and full of new experiences, new sights and sounds, and it was nice to talk to other people in the coffee industry again, to see what's happening in the Bay. 

Change is inevitable, but whether you steer the direction of the change or not, is up to each of us.  I came back from San Francisco mentally refreshed and inspired, with new ideas and a little extra energy to work on my ideas that are already in the works.  So hopefully the changes you see along our journey will be progress and innovation, serving our customers better and continuing to enjoy unique coffees in creative ways.

Next month I'll be visiting the Hartmann's in the Volcan region of Panama, from where our Ojo de Agua was grown.  We'll actually be staying in a cabin at the Ojo de Agua farm, way out in the forest without any electricity.  For a couple of days, we'll hike through the coffee trees and forested land adacent to La Amistad International Park, making our way to the farmhouse where we can taste more coffees.  The result of my trip to Panama last year is the coffee we're drinking today at the DoubleShot:  Hartmann Honey.  The coffee is outstanding.

This coming Monday afternoon, I'm going to roast the first batch of another, very small lot of coffee called Hartmann Natural.  It's also from Finca Hartmann:  the same coffee, but different processing.  Honey processing (as in, Hartmann Honey) is one in which the cherries are picked ripe, the skins are stripped from the coffee berry, and the coffee beans are laid out to dry on raised beds with mucilage still intact.  After the coffee is dried in the sun, the mill strips off the dried mucilage and parchment, leaving the raw, green coffee beans for me to roast here at the DoubleShot. 

The Hartmann Natural is a dry-processed coffee.  The coffee cherries are again picked ripe, maybe on the same day, from the same trees.  But then they are spread out on the raised beds to dry whole - skins, mucilage, parchment, everything unaltered.  Once the cherries shrivel into a tasty, sweet coffee raisin, the mill strips them down to the coffee bean nubbins.  And I roast them to perfection.

Do the coffee beans look different?  They do.  In fact, the Hartmann Honey is a bit more yellow, and is stained with the golden-brown of dried mucilage, whereas the Hartmann Natural is a slightly varied mix of green-yellow (or is it yellow-green?).  And the fragrances emanating from the grain pro bags encasing each of the two coffees is really amazing and distinct, from sour fruit to grass and fermented grains.  And that difference, like twins raised in two different cultures, carries over into the roasted bean and into your cup.  It's another really interesting study in the effect of processing on coffees. 

On Friday, I'm making the trip to Panama again to get a feel for the lay of the land and to taste coffee at Palo Verde under the canopy of ancient rainforest, to experience the culture and connect with the growers.  What a contrast this trip will be from the hustle and bustle of San Francisco, but it's the journey to the source of coffee that allows us to push the envelope and serve coffees that are as good as any you'll find anywhere else in the world. 

As soon as I return, we are having another Coffee Illuminati event to taste the contrast of these two amazing coffees: Hartmann Honey and Hartmann Natural.  The event will be held on Saturday, February 16 at 10a here at the DoubleShot.  I'll talk a little about my trip to the Hartmann farm and about the coffees, and you'll get a chance to see and taste the differences and similarities side-by-side.  This is an event you don't want to miss.  As a fundraiser for the Coffee Illuminati [a 501(c)(3)], your $10 donation would be greatly appreciated.  We use these proceeds to support children and families of coffee farmers.  For more information about the Coffee Illuminati, check out www.CoffeeIlluminati.com and for more info about the tasting, read CoffeeIlluminati.blogspot.com.

Put that on your calendar, and then go check out our new Hartmann Natural.  Buy it now and we'll ship it to you right after I roast it Monday night.  Want to do a comparison tasting right in your kitchen?  Get the Hartmann Dubbel, available online now in half pounds or full pounds.  It's like San Francisco all wrapped up in Panamanian rainforest, right here in Flyover Country.

The first time I took a vacation as an adult, I had never really been anywhere besides Illinois, Oklahoma, Louisiana and the couple states in between.  So when it occurred to me to go somewhere, my options seemed limitless.  I eventually settled on Moab, Utah, because I was really into mountain biking and everyone knows that Moab is the "Mecca" of mountain biking.  So I packed up my bike and began this pilgrimage into a vast and mysterious territory.  I had never been in the mountains, nor desert, but I did grow up in farm country much like the scenery during the first 9 hours of my drive.

I didn't do much research about Moab, other than finding it on a map, because Moab is legendary.  Without a naysayer, the mountain bikers who have ridden Moab say it's Mecca, and the people who haven't ridden it either want to or are too scared.  I knew that Moab is in the desert.  So I had this image in my head of a desert.  The desert of Lawrence of Arabia.  Of Captain Riley's "Skeletons on the Sahara" and of my roadtrip to Little Sahara in Northwest Oklahoma during my first year in college.  Of the great, 1,000-foot dunes of Namibia.  And I wondered how people could ride their mountain bikes through sand as deep as a camel's knee, but I never questioned that they did; I just didn't know how yet.  

The drive from Tulsa to Moab is a dogleg north and straight west for hours through wheat fields and sunflower farms.  And then, on the horizon, the Rocky Mountains appear through the haze over Denver.  I camped as soon as the sun set, up on a 4WD road, and I awoke to a mountainside matrix of white trees, which I assumed were aspens.  Needless to say, the next few hours were some of the most amazing miles of my life.  I stopped frequently to look around and take pictures of landscape completely foreign to my corn-fed eyes.  And then the western slope.  And I entered Utah.  

When I turned off I-70 onto Highway 128 and traversed the ledge overlooking the Colorado River, Moab became real to me.  It was no longer a sandy, barren expanse of dunes, but this amazing, ominous land of cliffs and canyons and arches and rock formations of every unimaginable shape.  It became ride-able and beautiful and real, and better than I could've ever imagined.

And honestly, that's the way I feel about Perci Red.  For you, right now, coffee may have a certain Saharan stigma as a bitter, bland, caffeine-saturated eye-opener.  Perci Red will change your mind.  Even if you are a die-hard DoubleShot fan, and you've enjoyed the variety of coffees we offer, from the blackberry notes of our Natural Sidamo to the heavy smoke and herbals of Sumatra Aceh Gold, Perci Red will open your mind to what coffee can be.  It will change your perspective.

Perci Red is a natural Gesha coffee from Ninety Plus Gesha Estates in Volcan, Panama.  It's the sister of our washed Gesha, Lycello.  It has all the amazing flavors of jasmine and lemon and tea and milk chocolate that you tasted in the Lycello, but it has a complex stratus of flavors lingering over that base - black cherry and cranberry and mace.  Layers of complexity are the hallmark of Perci Red, and the aromas are just stunning.

When I visited Panama last January, I was able to taste the fruit of the Gesha trees and watch the coffee pickers carefully selecting only the ripest cherries.  I saw the meticulous nature by which the workers harvested and cared for the coffee.  I made my way to nearby Finca Hartmann, where the coffee was laid out on African raised beds, so the cherries could dry evenly in the sun.  And I experienced the unusual sounds and fragrances and tastes and sights that emanate from the Panamanian rainforest, which all contribute to the terroir of Perci Red.  

The coffee beans are red.  Most unroasted coffee beans are green or bluish-green or yellowish-green, but mostly green.  But the ever-curious instigators of coffee quality at Ninety Plus Coffee decided to separate these beans that mysteriously turned red in processing.  Or maybe they were born red.  And they hand-selected all the red beans from the lot of green ones, creating the coffee we have and hold in such high prestige.  The red ones turned out to be so much more intense and unique and complex from the rest of the lot.  And of the 330 pounds in existence today, we bought 132.  This is the coffee that we have chosen to offer this holiday season.

As part of the 2 Barrel Project, we took this amazing coffee and created an experience around it.  I worked with Tulsa potter, Teresa Rechter, to produce a cup that met my specifications for one that is uniquely suited for drawing out all that Perci Red has to give.  The shape of the cup cradles the Perci Red just right and draws all of its magical aromas into your mouth and nose.  The cup is accompanied by a booklet I wrote that tells all about the origin of Perci Red, and the proper brewing method for the coffee, as well as a food pairing that is just going to rock your world.  All this, with 200 grams of our Perci Red, craft roasted right here at the DoubleShot, held in an amber glass bottle and encased in a custom Perci Red wooden box, build with the tools and vision of Paul McEntire, the creator of the North American Wood Amp.  The Perci Red experience is ready, and you should reserve yours today.  

Buy Perci Red online here:  www.DoubleShotCoffee.com/red

You are invited to our free tasting this Saturday, December 8 at 10:30 a.m. right here at the DoubleShot.  It's open to the public and completely free, so bring your family and friends.  I'll talk about the coffee, show you the goods, and we'll all enjoy a taste of the Perci Red and the food pairing that really amplifies this coffee.

Thanks for being a part of all that we do here at the DoubleShot.  We do it for you, and we hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor this holiday season.  Take some time off.  Take some deep breaths, and retreat from life with a cup of Perci Red.  Happy holidays.