Roastmaster's Blog

“How did you get into coffee?”, people ask me.  It’s kind of a long story. 

I was riding my bike down Riverside Drive, on the river trail, for what felt like the millionth time, and my mind sort of hit this pothole and it was deep and red and depressing, and I felt like I couldn’t ride that path any more.  

I started out, like everyone else, sipping the last, cold remnant of Folgers out of my parents’ squat, heavy, ceramic cups.  I can still remember the taste.  And the smell.  But it wasn’t until I was a big boy that I started actually drinking coffee.  It occurred to me one day, and I distinctly remember this, that I was completely independent and that I could do anything I wanted.  Anything.  (Not true, but an enticing thought nonetheless.)  That feeling of freedom was liberating.  I had freedom and responsibility.  I had my own apartment, all by myself, and I was responsible for paying the bills.  I owned my own business and was responsible for making the money to pay those bills.  With freedom comes diversity.  Decision-making.  Discovery.  I did all sorts of things and tried all sorts of coffee.  And I learned that coffee tasted better without sugar.  I found out that french press was a good way to brew coffee.  But not with a blade grinder.  I made “espresso” and pourover coffee, and moka pot.  And then one day, much to my surprise, I learned that coffee didn’t have to come to me already roasted.  It didn’t have to be roasted in a factory or in a large, industrial roaster.  I could buy a very small coffee roaster and learn how to do it myself.  

I’ve told this story over and over again through the years, and you’ve probably heard it before, but it’s the core of the very beginning and the true essence of the DoubleShot.  I bought a small home roaster and various green coffees, and I read a book about coffee and roasting.  I roasted and brewed and tasted coffee for the first time.  The explosion of flavors in my mouth was startling.  I wasn’t sure what to think, but I knew coffee had changed forever for me.  It was the first time in my life that I’d ever tasted coffee that wasn’t stale.  And thus, the foundations of DoubleShot Coffee Company were conceived.  After a few years roasting in my apartment kitchen and riding my bike down the river trail, I decided to strike out, take my bike and roaster to Colorado, and open a coffeeshop in the Rocky Mountains.  To share fresh, delicious coffee with the masses!

As you know, that didn’t work out.  And after two years slumming it in pristine mountain country, I returned to Tulsa, where this taste for fine beverage began.  

There are endless details to this excursion:  trials, hurdles, victories, mistakes, discoveries, everything.  Just about anything I can imagine; it’s happened here at the DoubleShot.  I remember some things, and a lot I don’t.  

The beginning of life in this long, skinny strip mall space at 18th and Boston was difficult.  I was younger and much fitter and so I guess I had a lot more energy to work more and still play a little in the night.  Everything I had went into the creation of this concept, and so each night I would go home to an apartment that was really more a storage unit for my sleeping body.  For three-and-a-half years I lived without gas or electricity in a run-down habitation, in order to skimp on the bills.  And truthfully, it’s likely the DoubleShot wouldn’t have made it with that extra burden.  And so I suffered for my craft.  It was cold in winter and hot in summer, and the shower was always a little warmer or cooler than the air.  And then one day I upgraded, beneath the smog of mold-infested lungs.  My lungs!  Possibly my biggest asset, my lungs have carried me far throughout my life.  And taken the biggest punishment.

One December day, as I find myself every December now, I decided I was fat and out of shape, and I needed to do something drastic.  So I signed up for an ultra-marathon.  My first one.  I started taking one day off on the weekends and I implemented a training regimen that was based on 9’s.  I’d run 9 miles the first weekend.  Then 18 miles the next.  27 miles the next, and so on until I got to a distance that was unrealistic.  I finished that first 100, but it took a lot of caffeine and perseverance.  (They don’t call it “running a business” for nothing.)

Running has been a parallel to life for me, ever since I realized the liberation that running gave me.  Just like in life, you can’t choose your natural ability, but you can decide the effort you put in and your willingness to persevere.  And, as I’ve coached aspiring entrepreneurs through the years, it’s that unwillingness to quit that makes all the difference.  My high school football coach, Chris Stiles, used to say, “Men,” (he was the first person in our lives to call us men)… “Men, we’re all going to face adversity, but you have to keep on giving 110%.  You’re going to get knocked down, but you have to get right back up.”  He was right, and I’ve tried to live some version of that doctrine.

As I reminisce about the history of the DoubleShot, there are two times in my life that I can’t really remember.  For ten months, I worked the DoubleShot all by myself.  With no employees, I barista’d all day and then roasted and ran the business (poorly) at night.  I was sleeping ~5 hours per night, sometimes lying down on the floor by the sink or napping on the sofa when I was just too exhausted to finish the dishes.  And I was exhausted, fighting TMJ and sleep deprivation.  But that was one turning-point in the life of the DoubleShot.  I proved I could go it alone, found some extremely supportive friends, and made a statement about how important it is that coffee quality be foremost at the DoubleShot.  But, like I said, most of that time is a blur.  I was a robot.  An exhausted robot.

Most people don’t know this, but the DoubleShot almost didn’t come into existence, because I came near to death just a couple months prior to its opening.  I was staying with my parents in their new house, and my dad was working in Chicago.  My mom went to visit him, and while she was gone, I began to feel sick.  After a couple days, I woke up early in the morning and realized I was about to die.  So I went to put the dishes away, so my mom wouldn’t find the dishwasher full when she got home.  (I didn’t want to be remembered for that.)  But I couldn’t do it.  So I sat down to think.  And it occurred to me that I had carbon monoxide poisoning.  I can’t remember all the details, but I remember driving to Lowe’s with terrible tunnel vision to buy a carbon monoxide detector.  I remember the look on my mom’s face when I picked her up at the airport.  I remember not being able to stand any more because lactic acid had built up in every muscle in my body.  I remember the doctor telling me I should be dead.  And that I also had the flu and meningitis.  And I remember the pain.  But I survived.

And so did the DoubleShot.  It has survived the downturned economy, employee turnover, crazy neighbors, debilitating thefts, a car through the window, threats from Starbucks, twitter, myriad disappointments and failures, and the tragic loss of a few friends.  And it has continuously grown, and seen even more daily successes.  We’ve developed new coffees and relationships in Colombia, and seen the real face of coffee in many farms throughout Central and South America.  We’ve doubled the size of our store, employed professional bakers, and trained the most talented and passionate baristas around.  We’ve been featured in a documentary (The Perfect Cappuccino) and a story in Wine Spectator, and inspired an episode of Portlandia.  (We even got to serve coffee to Kevin Bacon.)  And we’ve seen the delighted faces of countless customers throughout the years who experienced that same amazement I felt all those years ago after my first home roast, my first taste of fresh coffee.  And that was the goal.  So for all of you who enjoy our coffee and appreciate the effort we put in to always make it fresh and delicious, we count each of you as part of our success over the past 10 years.  Thank you.

This week, we will be celebrating with a few delicious coffees.  Online, we are offering The Decade Collection, a set of 3 coffees that I think encapsulates the DoubleShot at 10 years old.  You can buy that set here starting at midnight on the morning of our birthday.  Mark Brown and I discussed the Decade Collection and what it means to be 10 on our podcast, AA Cafe #87.  In-store on this Wednesday, we will institute a new brewing method for the DoubleShot.  And in that brew, we will be drinking the new Ethiopian natural, Beloya, as well as the amazing Perci Red - a natural Gesha, and probably the most interesting coffee we’ve ever sold.  Perci Red, as you’ll remember, is from Ninety Plus Gesha Estates in Panama.  

The first time I visited Panama, I walked up the mountain at NPGE, skirted by tall, thin Gesha trees, and at the top, where the rainforest crested the other side of the mountain, I waded through tall grass into what seemed like a paradisiacal scene.  Valleys swept away all around, hawks floated on mountain breezes, wild flowers colored the otherwise-green landscape, and trees laden with huge, ripe, orange fruit guarded the entrance to this eden.  These oranges enticed my palate, and so I plucked and peeled one bright, textured orb.  And upon biting into the first dripping slice, I was shocked.  Absolutely shocked.  As this was the most sour thing I’d ever tasted.  It turned out not to be an orange, but some sort of orange-looking lemon.  But this is as it should be with life and with coffee.  The unexpected is what makes it exciting and memorable.  You think you know what coffee tastes like until that one day you taste fresh, DoubleShot Coffee.  

And the story continues.

Celebrate with us Wednesday, March 5 with amazing coffees all day and a party from 7-9p that evening.

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.

Well, the holidays are upon us once again.  And as usual, we have pulled out all the stops to bring you some amazing coffees during your holiday celebrations.  This Wednesday night marks the beginning of Hanukkah, and Thursday is Thanksgiving, so right now is the opportune moment to purchase the first of these brilliant coffees. 

Kemgin is a very high-end coffee from Ethiopia that we procured through Ninety Plus, who have brought us so many exquisite coffees throughout the years.  We offered the Kemgin a couple of years ago, and it was a big hit then, so we've brought it back for another go-around.  This is a coffee that has been celebrated by coffee reviewers and professional tasters, as well as winning top coffee at the Good Food Awards.

Because of the region where it is grown, the care with which it is picked, and the clean processing and sorting of Kemgin, it achieves some of the flavors that make coffees stand out as the best coffees in the world.  Aromas of jasmine and lemon lead off, and as you taste the coffee, nuances of black tea and orange excite your palate, with a long, silky finish with highlights of pine.  Perfect for the holiday season.

Because we care about your coffee experiences at home, we came up with two food pairings we think accentuate the coffee in different ways.  Obviously you'll want to drink Kemgin by itself, but having just the right thing to go with it for breakfast and dessert makes the coffee all the more pleasurable.  Follow these recipes for our Cranberry-Orange Muffins and Blackberry Cobbler.

Cranberry Orange Muffins (courtesy of our baker, Kristin Hoffman)

1 orange (including peel), quartered with seeds removed

1/2 Cup orange juice (juice of 1 orange)

1 egg

1/2 Cup butter, melted

1-3/4 Cup all-purpose flour

3/4 Cup white sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2/3 Cup dried or 1 Cup frozen cranberries

Preheat oven to 400ºF and prepare 12 muffin cups with spray or paper liners.  Puree orange quarters and orange juice in a food processor or blender.  Add egg and melted butter to orange puree and blend until smooth.  Sift dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl, then add orange mixture and combine.  Stir in cranberries.  Fill muffin cups with batter.  Bake 20 minutes.

These tend to bring out the black tea flavors in the Kemgin, as well as some soft vanilla flavors that really make this pairing meld together.

Blackberry Cobbler (courtesy of my mom, Millie Franklin)

3 Cups frozen blackberries (do not thaw)

1 large pear, halved, cored, thinly sliced

2/3 Cup sugar

3 T orange juice

2 tsp orange zest

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Gently toss all ingredients together.  Pour into buttered pan.

1 Cup flour

1 Cup sugar

Dash salt

1 Stick butter

Vanilla & Almond extracts (to taste)

Mix sugar, flour, salt, and sugar in food processor with butter until crumbly.  Add vanilla and almond extracts and pulse again.  Pour over fruit and bake 350 degrees until brown and bubbly (45-50 minutes).

The pears in this cobbler really smooth out the acidity in the blackberries, and the whole thing brings out the citrusy aspect of the Kemgin, and the cinnamon really carries forward through the coffee to make for a unified experience.

Both of these recipes are just unbelievably good, and I highly suggest you give them both a try while you have Kemgin in hand.  And it's not going to last long, so buy some today!  

DoubleShotCoffee.com/kemgin

I'm sure you're scrambling to figure out what to buy for certain people on your holiday gift list.  You've probably been googling to see what cool new gifts are out there for people who love coffee, and who doesn't love coffee?  Well, google no more.  I have compiled a list of my TOP 10.  The top 10 things that, if I didn't own the DoubleShot, but I were still me, I would be stoked about getting for Christmas (which makes shopping for ME a lot harder).  Here it is, David Letterman -style: from number 10 to number 1!

10. A DoubleShot gift card. If you just have no idea what to get, but you know they like coffee, get them a gift card. Buy a card in the DoubleShot or buy one online HERE. We can even email you a coupon to send to your favorite coffee drinker so they can buy on our website!

9.  The new DoubleShot Corporate Mastermind Tshirt!  You know your friend loves the DoubleShot.  Get them a shirt so they can let everyone else know.  It's the new design, it's just arrived, and it comes in two colors:  blueberry or split pea soup.

8.  The Thermos Sipp stainless steel travel tumbler is the most popular cup we've ever sold.  They're so popular that it's hard to keep them in stock.  Rightfully so.  All we get is positive feedback from these awesome cups.  They keep coffee hot for hours and hours, they don't leak, they're indestructible, and they come with the stylish DoubleShot logo right there on the side.  This cup has been missing from our shelves for a few days, but the new shipment will be here today.  Order now, or stop in to get one before they all go bye bye again! 

7.  The DoubleShot proprietary coffee travel kit.  I've been using one over the past year, and it's just been a lifesaver on the road.  I got the idea when I was packing for my trip to Tanzania, and it took me a few months after my return to fabricate the missing link to the whole kit:  The Connect3 Adaptor Ring.  This ring, which I construct by hand right here in the DoubleShot basement, makes it possible to screw the Hario Skerton hand grinder directly onto a Nalgene bottle (I prefer this stainless steel version), so you can grind and brew with the H2JO right in the bottle.  Saves tons of space and makes brewing on the road a piece of cake.  See a video of how it all works here:  http://www.doubleshotcoffee.com/products/connect3-adaptor-ring

6.  Gooseneck kettle.  I've been using one of these kettles for so long that whenever I try to make a pourover without it, I remember how much I like my kettle.  Available in electric or stovetop models.

5.  Everything you need to make a pourover (except the kettle).  Get your friend a Hario V60 pourover cone, some filters, and the DoubleShot filter crib to keep the cone filters neatly stacked on your counter, and they'll be in coffee paradise.  This is the method and the equipment I use every day to make my coffee, so you know I think it's good.  There's really no need to own an auto-drip if you're patient enough to make coffee by hand.  It's so much better.  Watch a video of how it works:  http://www.doubleshotcoffee.com/products/hario-v60-dripper

 4.  A burr grinder.  I've often said that, second to great coffee beans, the biggest difference I've ever noticed in my coffee brewing has been in the grinder I'm using.  Anyone using a blade grinder to whirly chop their coffee to smithereens is not getting the most out of their coffee.  A burr grinder uses a set of grinding disks that adjust to grind consistently coarse or fine, depending on your brewing method.  A consistent grind size will change anyone from a coffee drinker into a coffee taster.

3.  Subscription!  Get someone signed up for our automatic coffee shipments.  One pound of coffee will be shipped to them either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly for 6 or 12 times.  They'll remember you each time a pound of coffee shows up at their door, and they'll thank you every time they see you.  Sign up online and we'll get started shipping whenever you say the word.

2.  Maduro coffee beans plus a MADURO chocolate bar.  This is THE gift for someone who is a coffee and chocolate lover.  The Maduro, an exclusive natural coffee from Colombia (only available at the DoubleShot), is just an amazing coffee, and since we're always trying to push the envelope, we teamed up with a chocolatier to produce a chocolate bar made with Belgian dark chocolate and bits of crushed-up Maduro coffee beans, roasted right here at the DoubleShot roastery.  Satisfy two vices with one awesome gift.

And the number one gift on my list this year is...

1. The Perci Red/Lycello box set.  THIS is the ULTIMATE gift.  The best gift ever.  It's a 2 Barrel Project double wooden box, containing the Perci Red experience and the Lycello experience.  This set is extremely limited and will only be produced as they are ordered, so order yours today.  If you want this before Christmas, you'll have to get it done asap.  My dad has been nice enough to build some more Double-boxes for this awesome gift set, so you still have time to get one, but you should hurry.  The box is solid and beautiful, and the lid is etched with the DoubleShot and 2 Barrel Project logos.  Two Gesha coffees, one washed and one natural, in one box - and each with their own cup!  (If I can't have this, I'll have one of each, Lycello and Perci Red.)

 Happy holidays!

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.

I turned off the air conditioner in my house five days ago.  Yesterday the temperature crept up into the nineties outside, and in my house, the insulation I so fervently felt I needed made sure to keep that thermal energy from escaping.  And so here I sit, sweating beneath the impotent, oscillating ceiling fans.  My body radiates in a futile attempt to generate a moisture barrier to cool my skin through evaporation, adding to the haze of humidity that permeates my lungs like second-hand smoke in a crowded bar.  I pick up where I left off on a dog-eared page of Out of Africa, hoping Karen Blixen will carry me off to a place where the heat seems justified.  And where I might crawl into bed under a translucent net to keep from the mosquitoes that so debilitated Henry Morton Stanley on his long trek across Tanganyika in search of Dr. Livingstone.

My legs are tired because my lungs don't work right because of this damned air conditioner.  And because I rode my bicycle 68 miles yesterday.  A twinge of pain in my knee.  And in my ankle, where I turned it on a rubber tire trying to reenact my youthful and more agile days of high school football.  And a scene drifts across my mind, as if a movie projected on the shadowy ceiling silhouetted by the outline of deer antlers, of Hemingway's gangrene-addled invalid adventurer in the Snows of Kilimanjaro.  

I've just finished another AA Cafe podcast, and I can still feel the hike and conversation with Steve Holt of Ninety Plus Gesha Estates on the farm, in the mountains, surrounded by rainforest, sweating in the unbroken rays of the midday sun.  Steve brings us up the mountain and around the largest Gesha farm in the world, describing the coffees of Panama; and across the Atlantic Ocean, across the dark continent, to the origin of coffee and of Ninety Plus to tease us with tastes of what's to come from Ethiopia this year.

Ethiopia is having a good year for coffee, and we hope to gather a nice crop from a variety of regions and processes (or of the influence of fruit, as Steve Holt defines it).  The newest of our Ethiopian coffees is from the Harrar region.  It's called Deep Blue, and it is a dry-processed coffee, which means the fruit had a large influence on the taste of the coffee.  This Harrar Deep Blue is a product of many very small farmers, who picked the coffee cherries when they ripened and laid them whole on mats and cement patios to dry and shrivel into coffee raisins in the high-elevation equatorial sun.  The coffee, from its terroir and its unique varieties and the weather that allowed the coffee to dry properly at each farmer's home, blends together to give us brilliant flavors of chocolate and blueberries and cinnamon.  So good.

Reminds me of an experiment we did back a couple years ago in Colombia, at the farm of Las Animas, where we asked Gabriel and Orfilia Escobar to let the fruit influence their coffee.  And I remember my visit last year to Concordia, when I rode in the back seat of a pickup truck over dirt roads, winding through coffee trees with no leaves bearing immature green fruit that would never ripen because of a fungus called the Eye of the Rooster.  We rolled up to Finca San Rafael, where Alfredo Correa tends his grandmother's coffee and has produced such an amazing product for us in the past, but instead of picking or milling or sorting coffee like Alfredo usually is during the harvest, we found him working on his motorcycle.  The Eye of the Rooster took 95% of Alfredo's crop and the sweat of all his years of toil dried up on the mountainside and was replaced with the sweat of a young man with almost nothing to show and no way to pay.  Somehow Alfredo produced one bag of super-high-end coffee this year that rivals the best washed coffees we've offered, and we have that bag.  It's a great example of fruit influence in a washed coffee.

I've just finished a cup and washed it down with a rinse of water and the taste instantly transported me to another sweaty time in college, working for my dad.  He is adamant that it must be hot inside in order to lay commercial floor covering, and so we worked on dirty concrete floors with scratchy carpets and heavy ceramic.  And all day long, we drank coffee out of the little metal-covered plastic lid that screws on the top of my dad's beat-up green metal thermos, on our breaks and in between our breaks; and when we needed some water, we would fill up that empty cup and the residual coffee would lend a distinct, mild, flavor to the water.  And the residual coffee in my mouth lent a coffee taste to everything.

The "coffee taste" can't be so easily generalized or genericized any more, as the variety of DoubleShot Coffees spans a breadth of flavors broader than all the Scotch of Scotland.  And even one coffee can become three (like the Holy Trinity) when extracted through different methods.  We are going to do just that.  One coffee, three brewing methods.  On June 28 at 7p here at the DoubleShot, we will premier Alfredo Correa's Colombia Finca San Rafael through pourovers, presspots, and espressos.  Three different stations will allow you to learn the method, pose questions of the barista, and enjoy the unique flavors that permeate each cup.  Alfredo's coffee has depth that is best explored through different types of extraction.

This event is brought to you by Coffee Illuminati, and proceeds will be used to build a swingset for the children at Ninety Plus Gesha Estates.  You can register for this event at the DoubleShot by talking to your barista or by emailing info@coffeeilluminati.com