Showtime

We took the Junior Grendels to the show today.



Junior Grendel Number Two and Grendel's Mother emerging from the cave of horrors.



what a treat - a real army truck!






And please don't tell me that Junior Grendel Number Two is making eyes at an older woman. . .

Grinding Halt

No, I've not stopped grinding coffee - but Windows has spat the dummy on my machine at home and the wireless card in the PC, while working just fine is now somehow not connecting to the internet.

Its taken 3 days so far to try and figure it out, but no joy.


We're over at a friends house and I am sneaking in a quick post. We've been making coffee on their ECM Giotto which takes some getting used too - awesome steam pressure compared with my machine. They REALLY need to redesign that drip tray though.

Friday Night Music

Its music to my ears - even in Spanish.

This is cocoa, but the same things are happening for guys who grow coffee in the same area.



And here is something more melodic - not my usual style, but I'm there for the message and check out what Regina, 1 minute and 50 seconds into the clip uses to spell out her name.

The Personal Angle - an example

This is the second part of a two part post - please read the first post here

I have a number of local examples of relationship coffee – some like Fiori and Five Senses I have talked about before. This one is a new effort that brings together over 5000 Australian coffee lovers with coffee growers on the slopes of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

I am a member of an Australian group called CoffeeSnobs - it is the starting point for many coffee lovers for information, and for purchasing green beans to roast for themselves for the first time.

Coffeesnobs started a fundraising effort some time ago called 'First Crack' which involved a 50 cent donation from each kilogram of coffee sold to go into the fund. CoffeeSnobs proprietor, Andy Freeman, wanted the effort to go directly back to coffee growers, and to have no admin overheads attached at all.

Over $10,000 has been donated so far, and this week CoffeeSnobs celebrated the very first use of the fund. (You can catch the whole discussion on the CoffeeSnobs forum )

The first project was to purchase coffee processing equipment for use by smallholder growers in a coffee farming community on the Southern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The community is adjacent to the Machare coffee estate, an Utz and Rainforest Alliance certified farm in Tanzania.

The owners of the estate bought it as a run-down property and have worked hard to re-establish it as a great coffee origin. This has included not only sustainable production practices but also community development projects involving their neighbours. This has included installing small hydro-electric generators on the slopes of Kilimanjaro for some of the villages.

Andy got in contact directly with Bente Luther-Medoch, the project manager, and was told that their next project was to commence sustainability education for the farmers and establish a communal coffee pulping plant for each village so that they could process coffee themselves as a way of value adding to their own crop.

This also improves the quality of the local coffee considerable as it can be processed much sooner after harvest.

The CoffeeSnobs FairCrack fund has bought the two pulping machines that were required for the project and donated these. One has a 600kg per hour capacity and the second much larger pulper can handle up to 1200kg per hour.

The pulping machine purchased by CoffeeSnobs

Additional funds have also been allocated to purchase scales and fermentation tanks to complete the pulpery. The beauty of this project is that it was direct, personal and 100% of the funds went to the project. Bonus!

The village of Njari-Rononi is one of the villages into which a pulper will be installed and they have met already this week to prepare an existing shed (pictured along with the farmers) as the site of their new processing plant.

The farmers of Njari-Rononi and the site of their new pulpery

Andy describes the Kilimanjaro project as:

“a perfect fit, the actual small holder farmers are the ones that will manage
the use of the pulpers and maintain them. It is a true community project and
could potentially double the price the farmers can get for their beans.”

The inclusion of sustainability education makes this a very exciting project that allows individual Aussie coffee lovers to contribute directly to improving the lives of the farmers who produce a product we love.

The Personal Angle

This a two-post series that I have been writing over the last couple of days.

I suppose it is encouraging to see large companies buying coffee that is ethically purchased or fairly traded, even if the purchase of the coffee is for marketing purposes mostly.

McDonalds, BP's 'Wild Bean' and several others have all shifted to Rainforest Alliance or Fair Trade beans recently.

Unfortunately this doesn't mean that you will necessarily get a great cup of coffee - it also doesn't mean you'll get an undrinkable cup either, but I tend to avoid it anyway. The trouble is - I'm not even sure WHAT beans are going into their blends - ethical trading in coffee still have a variety in the quality of the product and this has been a long standing issue.

The most exiting area of coffee these days is the relationships that are starting to take the place of the former commodity market structures.

The inroads that technology is making into even small communities - often carried by coffee lovers, means that we are seeing images of not only the coffee but the people who grow it. Links are being established and ideas and money is flowing more freely and more directly to those who grow the coffee.

This is still just a very tiny proportion of the entire coffee market but it is an important part because it represents ethics AND quality.

This breaks through the problem that even with Fair Trade, Utz and Rainforest Alliance certifications there is still a significant disconnect between the person who grows the coffee and the people drinking it.

This is likely to remain the case. The sheer volume of coffee consumed means that it is a commodity and has to be moved like a commodity in order to meet demand. This is a barrier to establishing relationships even at the grower-to-roaster level. It is only when you move into an even smaller market segment – that of “Specialty Coffee” that you see these relationship really working well.

That is not to say that it doesn’t happen at the big end of the market – some of the really big coffee production estates have matching relationships with big coffee chains – but it is business to business rather than the smaller links I am talking about.

For me, Relationship Coffee is the ideal, but not the only way of trading coffee. Some of the larger producers have as much concern for ensuring quality and ethical trading but due to the scale at which they process they are in a different market and can’t engage in Relationship Coffee trading with the same effectiveness as smaller roasters.

Intellectually I understand that even though I’d love to see all coffee traded in this way it is simply not possible if current demand is to be met. I think this segment of the coffee market has plenty of room to grow and might perhaps represent a significant proportion of all coffee traded.

For now, I just have to consider myself very fortunate to have encountered the people I have in the specialty coffee end of the trade.

Travel

It looks like the end quarter of the year may hold a bit of travel for me - including (at last) Melbourne. Naturally the travel is throwing all my other plans into disarray, including my good intentions of helping out at the 2009 Barista Championships, which rather perversely, are being held in 2008.

I am also hoping to get my hands on some wild-picked Ethiopian coffee to try. This is coffee that grows wild in its native environment. I'm curious to try it just because it is the descendant of the original plants and reflects the environment in which coffee plants evolved.

Apparently coffee plants are still mutating and changes to the genotype are resulting in a diverse range of characteristics appearing. This includes Arabica varieties with up to 30% less caffeine that most cultivars. 

Next week I am going to spend some time tweaking the roasts of a few of the beans I already have, but most of the time will be spent with the Junior Grendels - holidays for a week for me and two weeks for them!

Surviving Pirates

Having just negotiated International Talk Like a Pirate Day again I have pondered a few tips for surviving it again next year.

1. Pirate attire, whilst acceptable once on board the ship, is likely to draw adverse comment on public transport.


2. A cutlass and brace of pistols, even when made from lurid coloured plastic, also draw adverse attention and possible aggressive responses from armed security personnel.


3. Once aboard the pirate ship, a pet is required, but a duck appears to be sub-optimal as a pirate animal companion.


4. It is not reasonable to answer the phone at work with: "Ahoy matey! Talk now or be keelhauled"


5. A mug of grog is not an acceptable morning beverage in the office.


6. Pirates like their coffee black to the point of muddiness after grog.


7. While it may be piratical to just "go ahead and organise" a pirate event without seeking the permission of the fleet commander, obtaining said permission may well be advisable.


8. Jolly Rogers are not to be substituted for national flags on government agency flagpoles - even if it is Talk Like a Pirate Day.


9. Talk Like a Pirate Day is NOT a national holiday


10. "Arrrrgh, it be against the pirate code to do the dishes!" does not seem to be a reasonable response to the Pirate Queen at home.
    

Old Friends

It seems that reading for study has sped up my general reading pace a little. I'll usually read at least one book a week but I am finding that I am getting through 3-4 books a week at the moment.

This means re-reading a lot of books in my collection since the alternative is to forgo coffee buying in order to buy books.

That's not really a preferred option.

Looking at the shelves tonight I saw that yes, Science Fiction tends to make up a very large part of our collection - over half with the rest being an odd mix of literature, textbooks, biographies and cookbooks.

There are of course many books from my childhood, books that I kept because I thought I might one day want to read them to my children. Back then 'children' was a very abstract concept and I probably used the idea as justification for not cleaning out my book collection.

Now however, the presence of children is real and immediate - having just tucked them into bed reinforces that somewhat.

Those books are now being read to the Junior Grendels and they really seem to be enjoying "Danny the Champion of the World" a copy of which I bought shortly after the birth of Junior Grendel Number One.

Tonight I found on the shelf, in plain sight MY copy of the same book - a much older copy with a different cover and the original illustrations.

I'd forgotten how much I loved the old copy and it really was like seeing an old friend again. I can't imagine how it happened to be there all this time without me seeing it.

Sometimes I get the same feeling when drinking a coffee - I hit an aroma or flavour that I remember from the past, right there in the coffee and it brings with it a flood of memories. Often the scent or taste was not one originally connected with coffee for me, but some of the coffee around Perth these days is a complex dance of flavour driven reminiscence and it is quite amazing to experience this sudden transportation of the mind to events in the past.

This has most often happened not when I am concentrating on the coffee, but when I have my head buried in a book. Perhaps it is the combination of the distraction with the familiar olfactory stimulus that triggers the free flow of memories.

Either way I am enjoying the experience - but I'm also in need of additional books and may have to stretch the budget for a visit to the second-hand book store to add to the collection - for the children of course!

Spring Garden Sunday

The clever bloggers over at Hoyden About Town run themes on a lot of days - Saturday was "Spring Garden Saturday".  I'm a bit slow some day so while I did (technically) take these photos on Saturday, I am only blogging about it today - hence my title.

We have a very small yard, much smaller than I would like from a vege growing perspective. I built raised garden beds and have managed 2-3 crops a year of everything from Artichokes to Zucchini.

Here are my current seedlings:

Thyme - my old thyme plant got sat on too often by the cats and is now just a woody stalk with a few remaining sprigs. The cats have also managed to did up 5 of the 8 remaining seedlings and are now at risk of becoming coffee table throw rugs if they kill the last 3.

From Cafe Grendel

Experimental Potato - seems to be working so far, planted a potato then mounded old coffee and coffee grounds around it.

From Cafe Grendel

A solitary broccoli plant leftover from a friend's punnet.

From Cafe Grendel

Sugar Snap Peas - ALL of the seedling have survived! Amazing.

From Cafe Grendel

Chinese greens - must eat them before something else does.

From Cafe Grendel

Carrots - coming along nicely now and about 2 weeks from harvest.

From Cafe Grendel

Sweet corn - I will need to cull some of the plants to close to others.

From Cafe Grendel

My lime tree seems to love its new location and has set some fruit - it'll be interesting to see how many stay.

From Cafe Grendel

Lattes and Lefties (again!)

The team over at Grods Corp have photographic evidence that they believe proves that new Liberal Leader Malcolm Turnbull's daughter is a lefty:

Now I've covered to concept of lefties and lattes previously (here  and here and during the recent Federal Election here)  - and some of my politically conservative friends have now been forced into covert latte sipping in order to maintain their conservative credentials.

As a ristretto drinker I've never been slotted into a political pigeon-hole so I can only imagine what this feels like to latte drinkers. 

The one conclusion that I think you can validly draw from observing a latte drinker is that it is unlikely that they are lactose intolerant.

Nice latte spotting and post from the guys at GrodsCorp though!

What the. . .!!!

The Nestle Marketing crew have been at it again pushing their products into the media.

Now a few months back I blogged on their sneaky new "Hidden Truths" campaign that talked about coffee and antioxidants. The infered message was that Nescafe coffee contains antioxidants and this was not supported by any specific evidence.

Their new product is just bizarre.

It is a blend of roasted and unroasted coffee beans - green beans. I can hardly imagine the process you would have to go through to do this - soaking, pulping, boiling and then mixing the resulting liquor with brewed coffee before freeze drying the whole mess to get the instant coffee-based granule.

It is marketed as having 70% more anti-oxidents than green tea,  and they list the key "nutritional benefits as:

• Delivers 70% more antioxidants than green tea*
• Made from 100% roasted & unroasted coffee beans
• Coffee is low in calories

I'm wondering why "Made from 100% roasted & unroasted coffee beans" is a nutritional benefit, but however. . .  What they don't state is WHAT antioxidants are present.

This is crucial as not all antioxidants have a beneficial and some have no measurable effect at all. In addition roasting to coffee bean actually changes it chemically giving it both the flavour and aroma that we have come to love. How are they covering for the bitterness of the green beans?

Here is their promo blurb:

"Through the careful combination of roasted and unroasted coffee beans, NESCAFÉ Greenblend has a full coffee taste and aroma delivering your body 70% more antioxidants than leading green tea brands.

Studies show that although an average serve of green tea contains similar levels of polyphenol antioxidants, the body absorbs 70% more antioxidants from a serve of NESCAFÉ Greenblend.

Boost your antioxidant intake today by trying a cup of NESCAFÉ Greenblend!

Prepare it as you would your normal coffee, whether you enjoy it black, with milk or with sugar."

Note - there is no link to the 'Studies' mentioned and no footnotes provided on their website.

This seems like a desperate grab for market share - and not for a further share of the coffee market but a chunk of the tea market instead. Note to Nestle - tea drinkers drink tea because they prefer tea.

It seems fairly pathetic and a cynic would suggest that labelling the product 'Green' may be taken as a reference to 'environmentally friendly' by some rather than the 'green beans' that I am sure Nescafe would state the branding really refers to. However in my opinion, in the current climate of major shifts to environmentally friendly and ethical coffees, labelling a product as 'green' mislead many buyers into thinking they are buying environmentally friendly coffee - still, Caveat Emptor!

I'm tempted to try it just to see what it tastes like but I don't want to encourage them by increasing their sales - for extra antioxidants I'd rather eat Goji berries!

Friday Night Music

And in keeping with the pirate theme. . .

"I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" from the Pirates of Penzance.

Its possibly not the best musical rendition but it is worth it just to see Kevin Kline as the Pirate King.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

International Talk Like a Pirate Day in our office Perth has been a great success with $160 raised for the Fred Hollows Foundation and a lot of good spirits in the office. We're all busy these days and the few minutes we allowed for morning tea were a great refresher into why social events in the office have value in stimulating productivity. The team has been sparking well this afternoon and it is great to see.

It seems a bit silly in some ways to dress and talk like a stereotypical pirate, but it is also a great way to let off some steam.

"Aye Aye for Eyes" will no doubt be back in our office next year!

[UPDATE] It's now getting media coverage - although we are incorrectly identified as 'Canberra'

Twelve and a half percent

Meet me parrot! His name be "Twelve and a half percent". If you don't know why, ye be reading the wrong sort of books!

Yes, today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Our office is using it to run "Aye aye for eyes" a fundraiser for the Fred Hollows Foundation.











And some further pics - with a close up of our own Johnny Depp imitator:




And a horde of scurvy dogs:

PNG

Dean from 5 Senses is over in PNG right at the moment and must have access to some mobile tech as he is blogging as he goes. Currently in Goroka, Dean has just finished a visit to Kongo Coffee. You can read all about it on his very own blog.


Dean has also posted up some great photos of the coffee being processed that are worth a look.


Hat tip to Jordan at 5 Senses for the heads-up.

Liar liar truth

Nolan Hirte, 2006 WA Barista Champion and owner of the Hawthorn coffee gem 'Liar liar' has sold his business.

I understand an attorney has purchased it and will be renaming it 'Lawyer lawyer' and working as his own barrister. . .

Ok I made the second sentence up entirely. But it is true that Nolan has sold 'Liar liar' .

I'm looking forward to hearing what Nolan will be up to next as he has always been both passionate and creative.

My only disappointment is that I never got the Melbourne trip for work that I was hoping for which might have allowed me to sample Nolan's latest efforts with the Clover - I hope he added a premium for that too - a rare collectable of the coffee world now!

Thanks to Jackson at Tiger Tiger for the tip-off on this!


UPDATE: - no, Liar Liar has not been sold.

The economic realities of coffee

Coffee is the only drug that approaches universal acceptance in every country, and as such it is traded and used in every country and vast amounts of coffee are grown to support this trade.

I have written a number of times about the importance of supporting those who grow, harvest and process the coffee that we drink. Partly this is concern with the quality of the coffee that we drink, but the greater issue is that by ensuring the sustainability of the people who grow the coffee we ensure that we will have coffee to drink.


There is a direct link between their welfare and ours - although the risks are so much greater for them. At worst we risk only missing out on a drug. They risk starvation and death.

The current economic situation in the United States may seem distant from the world of coffee, but it is likely to have an impact – and we can only hope that those impacts may not all be negative for coffee growers.

Across the political spectrum various ideologies suggest different approaches to the trade in coffee beans. Free-market capitalists at the most libertarian end suggest as an aphorism “The freer the markets, the freer the people”. Now whether this statement is in fact a general truth is open to considerable doubt. In theory yes, perhaps. In practice it is more doubtful. It might also be true in terms of the removal of regulatory constraints being parallel to the removal of constraints on the behaviour of individuals, but in practical application the removal of regulatory constraints on the marketplace seems to have been accompanied by increased constraints on personal behaviour.

The main example of this is the United States, where de-regulation of the financial markets has occurred in the same time period as increasing restrictions on personal freedoms.

The financial markets have now declined – and some suggest they are approaching a collapse to a certain extent.

Obviously something went wrong.

The coffee trade has been a much more long standing example of how a market can go wrong and how much effort is required to restore it. The coffee trade, dominated even today by a few very large companies has resulted in a focus on quantity in production rather than quality in production.

Specialty coffee is part of the struggle to return quality to coffee – and ultimately this has

 occurred by encouraging coffee growers to grow higher quality coffee rather than increase production. Consequently in order for this to be a viable economic alternative for the farmer they have to be paid a higher amount by weight for their beans to recover any loss from the decreased quantity produced.

Ultimately it comes back to the consumer. If the consumer wants quality, that is what the producer can be paid to deliver. Quality costs more, particularly when we are talking about coffee.

Now I’m not an economist, and although I’ve read widely of some of the better known theorists rarely is that that you see an admission that while their models seem sound in principle they never achieve their potential in practice. This is true both of the capital and collective ranges.

Partly it comes down to the humans involved not realising that they are part of a game theory scenario and consequently acting in roles not considered by the theory.
Being human in other words.

I guess at heart I believe that there is nothing wrong with acquiring wealth – so long as you use it to the benefit of 

the structure that allowed you to acquire it. Translating this to coffee – it is right and good that a business should sell coffee and profit by the sale, but that business has to ensure that from 

producer to consumer this is done in a way that feeds benefits back into the system that sustains the business. This means paying a fair price to growers for quality coffee and encouraging consumers to learn about the people who provide their coffee, and are in a sense, part of their daily lives.
Fortunately in Perth we have a number of coffee businesses from roasters to cafes that do just

 that. The coffee coming into these establishments has bypassed the normal commodities market. It has been purchased more directly and often with explicit guaranteed returns to the farmer. I know how much I have learned about coffee from the owners of these businesses and I see how much genuine concern they have for others.


This is the best part of being interested in coffee.

The pictures in this post were sourced from the creative commons image collection in Wikipedia on articles linked from the Coffea entry

Coffee tales

Later in the week I am hoping to bring you the full story on how a batch of Honduran Coffee left Honduras and then went missing for months before finally turning up in Perth today.

Also some sad news, the local cafe near us was sold recently and I had high hopes they would improve their coffee, they have, although moving from an imported Italian coffee to a bulk roasted (East Coast) coffee owned by coca cola is not much of an improvement. The fish and chip shop nest door still has better coffee. . .

In better news - I roasted 3 kilos over the weekend, one kilo for home consumption, one kilo for work and one kilo to give to some friends. Although I only roasted it on Saturday we were all out of coffee in the office and had to open the Himalaya today - oh so young and zesty in the plunger, but very fragrant and very good to drink.

Now that the issue of government in WA is finally settled we will be getting busier for a few weeks while we get some signatures on paper. The good news is that I don't really mind who is in government as long as someone is there to sign where things need to be signed.

Oh and that they don't try and ban coffee!

Bullwinkle Assassinated by Palin

I just got this in my email and it came with no attribution so I can't even tell you who did it - except to say it was not I.

Great piece of political satire however. 

I'm currently checking out the first obvious origin - the New York Times, but as yet have had no luck finding it there. If you know more about where it came from than the work colleague who sent it to me then I'd love to know!

Changes

After flirting with a template for a day or so I decided it was too horrible to work with even though it had some styles I liked.

Went back and started again!

Done for now I think - assignments to work on.

Making espresso

Oh dear.

This is a dangerous topic and so I am just going to talk about my two main pieces of espresso making equipment. The trouble is that everyone has different 'stuff' and apart from getting the basics right the best advice is to play with your gear until it is getting you the best coffee it can.

This usually means you don't have an automatic machine but even with a fully automated coffee machine using good fresh beans will get you a better cup than a bag of pre-ground coffee off the supermarket shelf.

I have two espresso machine - A venerable 27-year old Faema Family (Currently in multiple piece on my workbench) and a Sunbeam EM 6910.

The Sunbeam espresso machine is what they call a "semi-auto" in that the electronics allow you to program pre-set buttons to deliver a timed dose of water. Theoretically you could set it so that you get 30ml of espresso at just the push of a button. I say theoretically because everyone that I know who owns one of these machines has set the buttons to flush the group head after a shot or deliver enough water for a basket clean rather than for pulling a shot. 

All of us use the manual button for that.

Now the Sunbeam is a good machine - not up there with some of the great machines such as the  almost commercial grade Isomac Modiale but at the lower price point the Sunbeam delivers a good result that represents value for money.

As it is partially electronic is will probably have a shorter life (electronics, heat and moisture all together in a metal box. . .) but still it should last at least 5 - 10 years.

With my budget that was as far as I could go for the moment and I had the assistance of a reduced purchase price and payments over several month (Thank you very much Tracy of Barker and Hale!).

More importantly is my grinder. Again budget constraints meant that I could not go to the model that I really wanted, but still, the Iberital Challenge is a stepless conical burr grinder that does a great job at grind-on-demand and the particle consistency is bang on. Without this grinder it is unlikely that I could get anything like a satisfactory cup of coffee.

To make espresso you have to adopt a policy that establishes a minimum equipment standard and you have to stick to that in your budgeting. I drank coffee from a plunger for a while before I had enough money saved for the things I needed and I would recommend this over just buying a cheap machine with which you will inevitably become dissatisfied.

The outcome of that is that you end up deciding that you are no good at making espresso and that you'd better stick to cafes.

Not so - anyone can make a decent coffee given good coffee, decent gear and time to play.

And that is my advice on espresso - learn what you can from others, do a course, have lots of fun and enjoy the change as your coffee improves. Above all make sure that you can waste a little coffee along the way in experimenting.

Work in progress

just having a little refresh but am only halfway done - please forgive the builder's rubble.

Happy Roald Dahl Day!

I can already hear some Cafe Grendel regulars going "who? What?"

If you missed Roald Dahl's wonderful stories when growing up then I am pleased to tell you "Its not too late!" Roald Dahl didn't write stories for children he wrote stories for people - some of whom required a child to listen so that they could explain to their parents the real meaning of what he was saying.

He did also write some wicked and funny stories to keep adults entertained.

The first Roald Dahl story that was read to me was Danny the Champion of the World.

I asked for it again and again until I knew it by heart. My own boys, the Junior Grendels are just about the right age for me to start reading it to them.

If you have children and have not yet read them "The BFG" or "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" or "Danny the Champion of the World" then I think tomorrow you'd better rush out and buy a copy.

Roald Dahl had a lot of little clues in his books that I read as a child and have remembered now as a father and I hope my own children have benefited as a result.

Some of this is about how children naturally seek to learn through fun and adventure and by providing this a parent can be more than an authority figure and this is important. Children need their parents to be their friends as well.

Even more than this Roald Dahl taught me how to be Sparky. If you don't know what I mean by that - read the preface to Danny - the Champion of the World.

By the way, if you like the great images I have used from Roald Dahls books, those and more (including fun activities) are available on the Official Roald Dahl Day site.

Fiefy Wins SA Barista Championships

In news just to hand:

Fiefy has won the South Australian Barista Championship.

I suspect she was using the Nuova Point "Sorrento" espresso cups and the "Amalfi" cappuccino cups - although I haven't seen the performance.

She was certainly using the "Fiori Blend" from WA's Fiori Coffee - that must have been a revelation to the SA locals!

Fiefy worked previously in a South Perth bookshop/cafe and has obviously made the most of her shift to South Australia.

Congratulations and good luck in the Australian Barista Championships!

Friday Night Music

If you are not a fan of classical music, or maybe one of the group that "doesn't mind classical music" this is a really great presentation to watch.

Benjamin Zander however is one of the most brilliant presenters I have seen, and the video is worth persisting with right to the end.

I know it is not just music as such, but the concepts that are presented, and the music he uses to illustrate his point is wonderful.

Quo Vadis, Barrios?

One of my favourite coffees is the Pacamara varietal from Barrios Estate in Marcala, Honduras.

It has been in very short supply - partially because of an attack on the estate that resulted in a large portion of the trees being destroyed by fire.

There was a shipment sent but it went missing.

It has been one bit of bad news after another for lovers of this bean - and for the Barrios family who rely on the sale of the coffee.

The really good news is that the ship carrying the coffee finally made it to Australian shores - after a detour to Jamaica among other places. (My pet theory is there was a plot by international coffee counterfeiters to steal the coffee and load it into casks and sell it as Jamaica Blue Mountain!)

Having arrived in Sydney, the WA shipment was loaded onto a train last week - which promptly derailed (naturally!)

It has (I am told) now arrived in WA and roasting will commence next week.

Whew!

Below is a map showing the path taken by the coffee during shipping - click on the image to enlarge.

From Barrios Cupping

Broad - or not

I'm sitting here downloading one of the TED talks to drop onto a thumb drive and take to work.

Its only 71mb - I say 'only' because although 71Mb used to be a stack of floppy disks at least 30cm high, these days it is barely enough to register on your thumb drive.

With the wonder of broadband 71Mb downloads in just a few minutes.

Yeah Right.

Thanks John Howard for totally wasting the 10 years of opportunity you were given.

No bloody infrastructure at all worth speaking of and all during a boom!

A tad frustrated this evening? yup. My 71Mb is taking quite a while.

If Labor don't get their act together and ensure that someone builds a decent network then the country will be left in the information dark ages. For that matter, where is the Australian contribution to the Large Hadron Collider?

Why are the Germans using more solar power than us - and why did they just inaugurate the first carbon sequestrating coal-fired power plant?

Australia, and the US are being left behind in the innovation stakes because we'd rather argue whether or not the problem exists than accept that it does and work on solutions.

Grumble, grumble, grumble. . .

Meanwhile the evening coffee roast went very nicely and I've just finished the last of the batch of Santa Rosa.

Must get more - mind you at the rate I am going through this stuff I really need a whole sack!

I have a new label sitting on the bag near my grinder featuring the Nicaraguan flag - I must be crazy making labels for bags that never leave my house but I do find that it saves confusion.

Things we don't know

If you, like me, have Junior Grendel's running around your house, you'll know how voracious their appetite for knowledge can be.

This is a video from TED (you can seek an explanation on that acronym on their website) that looks a little at how we learn things and how we are tied to what we think we know by the way we learned it.




The one thing missing from the TED collection of videos is one about coffee!

I'd love to see a good presentation on the role of coffee in innovation (for example) Better yet I'd love to give such a presentation. I think we underrate the importance of what we eat and drink and the profound way in which what we consume and how we consume it plays a role shaping of human interractions. This is a significant part of the coffee story.

Every dad needs. . .

A ratchet crescent wrench:



The Junior Grendels can be rough with their things and do like having a dad who has a moderate skill in using tools, regardless of how long it takes him to find them in the garage. This year's present will no doubt see lots of use and its kind of a cool tool.

It will no doubt come in handy when I finally get around to constructing the new roaster that has been on hold.

Meanwhile in WA Politics the election has not settled who will construct government. This is mildly annoying as until a government is appointed certain aspects of my work cannot progress. Fortunately there is plenty more to keep me (and two more of me if I could clone myself) busy for quite a while.

I dropped into Cranked in Leederville the other day - nice spot and a much needed boost to the quality of Leederville coffee.

Meanwhile, on the blogging front - why's it all gone so quiet out there?

WA Live Election Blog - with a difference

5.45am - Rise with Mrs Grendel

6.45am - make large take away coffee for Mrs grendel and load her and the kids in the car

7.00am - deposit Mrs Grendel at polling booth where she will be doing her duty as a polling officer.

7.15 - take Junior Grendels on a tour of beach and parks.

8.00 - vote

8.15 - drive home

8.30 - spend the day with the Junior Grendels until the next-door-neighbours birthday party starts

2.00pm - Birthday Party

4.00pm - soccer training

5.00pm - back to birthday party

6.00pm - home

7.00pm - hey there's an election on - perhaps I should live blog it?

7.01pm - Naaa, can't be bothered.

[update] No word from Mrs Grendel, still hard at work I imagine. Getting hungry, will eat dinner without her shortly.

Friday night music

Yay! I remembered.

Fans of the movie 'Malcolm' may remember this one. Music for a found harmonium. This version is by the excellent Penguin Cafe Orchestra.



And another favourite from the same group - Perpetuum Mobile

Fatherhood

Being an avid consumer of ABS statistics at work I occasionally look at their daily releases which are often themed around particular events.

As Sunday is Father's Day here in Australia the ABS had a few stats on Australian Fathers. Here is a sample - and you can find the entire page here on the ABS.

Fathers' Day 2008 facts and figures: ABS


Fatherhood

• In 2006/07, there were 4,569,000 men aged 18 years and over who reported having one or more natural children living either with them or elsewhere.
  
  
• Most commonly, 41% of fathers had two natural children, 39% had three or more natural children, while 21% had one natural child.
  
  
• Over one-third of these men (36%) reported first becoming a father aged between 25 and 30 years, while 13% had first become a father aged over 35 years.
  
  
• There were 1,720,000 fathers living with their natural, adopted, step or foster children aged under 15 in July 2008. The majority of these fathers (92%) were employed and 29% of employed fathers worked 50 hours or more per week.
  
  
• In 2006, fathers living with their children aged under 15 years, spent an average of 8 hours per week where their main activity was related to caring for their children, including providing physical or emotional care, minding their children, teaching or disciplining their children, and playing with or reading to their children.
  
  
• In 2007 .3% of fathers roasted coffee at least once a week with their children.
  

Ok, I made the last one up.

Cafe Matters

I had coffee at a cafe yesterday, and then at a different cafe this morning.

It was the same coffee supplier in each, and the coffee was well made by both baristas.

However I enjoyed this morning's experience so much more.

It really comes back to the subjective experience of a cafe - there were other people in the one from yesterday that were regulars and seemed to feel very much at home there. For one reason or another the cafe just didn't ring my bells.

This morning I had coffee at Urbanistar - I've known Leigh for a little while - we met at a coffee cupping event about two years ago - and I like the funny little out-of-the-way location he found for his cafe. Had you asked me before he opened I would have given it little chance of success based on its location.

Lucky for Leigh that he is a far better judge of such things. Urbanistar is very popular locally and had received good press coverage (including an article in the WA Business News)

He does a great job at coffee and makes a lot of the food items right there in the shop. He's also passionate about things - not just coffee, but family and life in general.

People like that - I like that, and I find increasingly that I am attracted to cafes that are run by passionate people.

It really does add something to the venue that in many ways can surpass the coffee itself. Coffee is, and has been throughout its history, a social drink.

Cafes provide more than access to caffeine, they provide a vital social link in a community. Eventually a good cafe will have a community that grows around it and reflects more than just the trade in a commodity. People tend to find a community that they feel comfortable in and I think this is what has happened at Urbanistar.

A lot of that is due to Leigh, who seems to welcome all and assume nothing - and makes bloody good coffee.




Who: Urbanista
What: Coffee, cakes and light tasty meals
Where: William Street Northbridge (alley entry beside Flight Centre near Kakulas Bros.)
When: Thursday, 4 September 2008
Coffee: Fiori Coffee
Accessibility: Awkward - narrow doorway, but Leigh has a second service window in the alfresco area.

Arrgh, it be coming

Yes, International Talk Like a Pirate Day is just around the corner. This year our whole office is getting in on the act so it won't be just a solitary sad looking bloke in a tricorn hat with an eye-patch, alone but grateful that no one has a camera. . .


No, this year I will be joined by others who seek to embarrass themselves in a good cause.

We are having Aye-aye for Eyes on the day and selling eye patches to raise funds for the Fred Hollows Foundation.

All of us are acquiring piratical names for the day - I followed the links from the ITLAPD website to a handy name generator. Thus on September 19 I shall be known as:

My pirate name is:

Dread Pirate Flint

Like the famous Dread Pirate Roberts, you have a keen head for how to make a profit. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Google Chrome and Making Better Coffee

No, downloading Google Chrome will NOT make your coffee better, but it will help you avoid spooning from the jar of the Nescafe of Browsers (Internet Explorer is surely to browsers what Nescafe is to coffee beans.

I welcome our new Google overlords and look forward to serving their every whim. . .

Friday's Forgotten Post

I wrote this on Friday on the way to work and then left my notebook in the office - so the time setting seems somewhat odd. . .

I usually write my blog posts each night (like I am now) or in my notebook while sitting in a cafe (like I was when I REALLY wrote this post).

This week though my online time has been taken up by the need to complete my first assignment of my new course.

I submitted it by the due date with no sense of rush or panic - oddly I seem to remember my last university studies being marked by rush and panic, but not this time.

The second assignment is due in October and *gasp* I've started it already! I'd dearly love to write about coffee, but I am afraid I need to stay on topic for that one.

One of the advantages of going back to university is the library access, and best of all, online access to journals. This gives me a vast selection of academic collected wisdom (I hope) and access to a large number of papers on coffee (first thing I looked up for some reason. . .)

This includes everything from caffeine and its physiological effects right through to the chemical changes that occur in the coffee roasting process.

Naturally I find these papers fascinating but I am trying hard not to be distracted - and while part of me longs for a return to the world of esters and molecule chains of chemistry, another part of me is quite content in the world of policy and politics. Besides, I now have a great love for the hands-on aspects of roasting where chemistry and physics take care of themselves in the background while my nose, ears, eyes and hands are busy with the beans.

In many ways I enjoy the act and art of roasting coffee beans as much as drinking the beans. I've joked before about starting a coffee based religion but there is something almost sacramental about the transmutation of these hard little green nuggets into something truly heavenly.

Coffee roasting could easily be a chore if it was something I had to do or if it was difficult to do but for me it is always a time to learn a little more. It is also a family time. The Junior Grendels ALWAYS come out the front and take advantage of the presence of a parental monitor to ride their bikes or play 'safari' in the front yard.

Mrs Grendel usually arrives about 5 minutes into a roast, commandeers the comfy chair I've set up and we talk - valuable time for parents of active young Grendels.

I figure the Junior Grendels are never going to grow up thinking that coffee is something simply spooned from a jar into hot water.

Not such a bad thing.

Was your mother right about that too?

Most people seem to love the smell of coffee, particularly when it is being ground.

I know I do and even before I loved coffee I loved the aroma of coffee.

The sense of smell is pretty important in deciding whether or not we will like something - and according to some recent research it is vital in selection of a genetically compatible mate.

It is the woman's sense of smell that is crucial here (apparently the male nose just smells 'woman' and the male hormones override any further discrimination at that point).

A woman is sensitive to an amazing range of olfactory signals that identify whether or not a man is a good genetic match.

Unless she's on the pill.

The research, conducted by Dr Craig Roberts, in collaboration with Professor Morris Gosling and Professor Marion Petrie from Newcastle University in the UK, raises a number of questions and some commenters are discussing whether or not the high divorce rate of recent times can be laid at the door of the contraceptive pill's blocking of an olfactory mate-detector.

An interesting thought - and although not a proven link it does spark some further interesting thoughts for me about how we develop morality and that very often good 'moral' values are also sound biologically.

Rules for living as writ by your genes.