So I too am back from my European extravaganza. My trip took me to many of the outer peripherals of the continent: Hungry, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, and Denmark. I also had enough time in Germany to try a shot or two. I must confess most of the shops I went to had employed folks who despite their best intentions, and occasionally with my neurotic instructions still delivered balls-up beverages. This was striking because of the reputation Europe seems to have here in Michigan.

I am amazed by how often the European card is pulled here in the states. Some of you may have experienced this. Have you ever run into the know-it-all coffee fan that validates their opinion on how, or how not, this or that should be done, by simply mentioning they went to Europe, once. Never mind the research, years of experience, and continual dedication to quality the Barista may have undertaken. One trip to “the land of coffee,” and all that is rendered null and void in the omniscient gaze of a European traveler.

This to me is one of the most frustrating kinds of exchanges in the business (second only to the powerful Seattle native empowered from birth to discern good and evil, and all that is not their beloved Starbucks). However now that I have sufficiently ingested the amazing array of espresso offered in the fine beaneries across the pond I am equipped with the same Omniscience donned upon the travel weary consumers who make their way into my humble place of employment. And for the most part I can say European coffee sucks just as hard as our own.

With that said I would like to talk a little bit about the places that did a great Job. There were a few shops that delivered a drink that made me smile. In Budapest Mike, Laura, and I found one little shop down an alley that had great service and served a decent macchiato. Unfortunately I was just waking up when we got there and forgot to write the name down. In Ireland, well I tried, but the coffee wasn’t so great. I didn’t really come across a cup that caught my attention until I got to Copenhagen.

My cousin, Erica, mentioned that a place called Estate Coffee served a wicked brew. Although she hadn’t been there herself rumor had it they were one of the best. At this point it had been quite a while since I had had a drink that I had truly enjoyed. I think Laura was about ready to kill me from my continual pining after the Ugly Mug. I asked Erica where Estate was and she told me it was by the Reuters office where her husband Gelu worked. Laura and I rode out to the shop that afternoon.

The first thing I saw when I walked in was the La Marzocco GB/5 3 group manual sitting there. Pure beauty to a fatigued coffee deprived traveler. The shop was small and pretty quite. I came up and ordered a drink. I watched as the Barista dosed, tamped, steamed, and poured. It was perfect, a real top notch Job. I looked him in the eyes and thanked him and told him of my quest to find a good cup of coffee. He asked if I was a coffee geek. I said yeah, and he asked where I worked. I told him about the Ugly Mug. He had heard of us and all the baristas there hooked us up for the rest of our time there. It was really great. They even let me make a few drinks on the GB/5 (which, by the way, is kinda leaky). THANKS LINUS AND THOREY!!

Estate gave me a nice list of local shops to check out. I spent the whole day bouncing from shop to shop. First I checked out Ricos. They had a pretty chill environment, but the coffee wasn’t drinkable. Then I went to Risteriet. This was a small roaster with better coffee then Ricos, and a great home Barista store in the back. Their coffee was alright but not quite up to snuff. Next I went to Europa. This place was packed. It wasn’t nearly as friendly as Estate, but the coffee was pretty good. My main complaint was that the Barista let my shot sit way to long before she added the milk to my macchiato. The tamp was also sloppy and it started channeling a little. I decided to stick with Estate for the rest of my time there.

Check them out at http://www.estatecoffee.dk/

The rest of my trip was filled with adventure, fun times, and a whole lot of stories.

Come by the shop and I’ll tell you a few

Signing off,

-Billy Kangas

Praha.
It's about 6:30 in the morning in Prague and Mike and I just climbed the hill to the StVitus catherdal and the castle. On the way back, we crossed the Charles Bridge and found that we were the only people on the entire bridge. I nearly cried. I've never been so overwhelmed by sheer beauty. The lights of the city were reflected across the Vltava River, perfectly still, foggy, incredible. Today we met at Cafe Louvre, there since 1902 and an old hang out of Franz Kafka and Albert Einstein. The coffee was sub-par, but who cares?

I'm in Amsterdam right now now and I have about 1 minute before the computer at theis coffeeshop dies on me, butI thought I'd post something really quickly on here to let everyone back home know I'm ok and I'm not coming back.

San Francisco

DAY 1
Lets just say things didn't get off to a great start. I got to the airport the recommended time before departure and let's say I wished I hadn't. I have not flown in years so to me all this insane security was Greek. The taking off shoes and having air blown all over you seem a little weird. I almost think that those measures are pointless and they just want us to feel like they are doing something. After making it through security I still had over an hour of sitting I had to do. I tried killing some time talking to strangers at the gate but no one really wanted to talk. I would have gone for some coffee; unfortunately the only coffee at the airport is Starbucks and Caribou. After trying to read and realizing it wasn't holding my attention I decided to walk around for a bit. After enough time killing we were finally able to load the plane. It was only after we loaded that they told us that they still had to fuel it for the flight and the flight would be delayed. We took off about forty minutes late. I spent most of the flight sleeping but woke up in time to watch the lights of the cities as we flew in. By the way the moon was a harvest moon and at the altitude it seemed like we were flying next to it. Again as we approached the airport we were delayed. So in total my flight landed over an hour late. After transferring to the BART t and then making it to my stop in The Mission it was nearing midnight. I was staying on the couch at Eileen’s, one of the owners of Ritual, who was already asleep when I arrived. I had a small chat with her roomy then went to sleep myself.

DAY 2
I woke up early which was kind of sleeping in to me being that I'm on Michigan time, took a quick shower, then made the small hike to Ritual. For anyone that hasn't seen it, it's really nice. It's in hipsterville and rightly so. The walls are red, black and white. The long wall down the side across from the bar has picture molding. I finally met Eileen as well as some of the staff but Jeremy was out surfing so I didn't get to meet him. Now before I get to the coffee, I decided that while I was here I was just going to enjoy it for what it is, good coffee. I will be bringing back coffee so Zak and I can get into that when we're bored at the shop. I started out with a double and a coffee; as of right now they are still using Stumptown’s Hairbender and they french press for coffee. I then had a macchiato and tried Ryan's (ass. roaster) Gibraltar. If you don't know what it is it's more or less a tiny latte in a rocks glass. Me and Ryan hung out on the roaster while he did a few batches of Sumatran Torajaland. After that I hoped on the BART to go to the market so I could start the Blue Bottle triple threat. I stopped at the first cart at the ferry market which seems to be a lot slower than the other one. It serves the Retrofil blend I just had a double there and it was awesome. Then I went over to the pink cart and had a double of the Roman Espresso. It was more bright than the Retrofil but definitely tasty. It's really fun watching the four workers orchestrate behind the pink cart, it stays pretty busy and if you've never seen it, the drip is all single served drips. Last I stopped at the Linden street garage location. They serve the Hayes Valley there, which was by far my favorite. I also had a macchiato which was one of the better that I have been served in years. After all that caffeine I decided I'd walk back to Ritual. I came across a place called "We Be Sushi" and stopped for a late lunch, up there with the better sushi I've had. I met up with Eileen and her roomy and we went to the free bluegrass fest. Hey, I'm always down with free. After that we went back to her place, I walked over to get some dinner and then after everyone got ready we met some people at the new bar or the park which ever you want to call it.

My god...where to start. A lot has happened during my 2 (or so) month long blogger hiatus. I think I remember them in correct order.
First, We had a barista jam. A pretty good one I think. We were lucky enough to have David Latourell from Clover, who we all love, out for a Clover demo and a night of drunken revelry. We were also lucky enough to have some amazing coffees sent in by some of our favorite roasters to run through the Clover. Lots of Bolivian COE #1 (some from Victrola, some from Paradise), a small amount of some Brasilian COE from Miguel at Paradise, Ecafe Natural Yirg from Paradise, some mind blowing Mercanta European Lot Harrar from Victrola, and a slew of others, (Great Northern, some of our coffees, some Counter Culture). We ran batches through the roaster, let everyone play on the Synesso, drank an ungodly amount of Clover coffee, stared at a vacuum pot, and snuck cigarettes out back. At the end, I kinda felt like I was on drugs, tasty drugs at least. I think if we bought a Clover, I'd be in the ground within a month.

The last few months have been strange. I feel a little like I've been in limbo. I've been, I wouldn't say uninterested in coffee, but definitely stagnate. We've gotten in some great coffees, almost finished our espresso blend, and have had some wholesale business. But things have, overall, seemed kind of slow lately. We're doing a bunch of renovations in a week or so, which will be a really nice change of scenery. And we're getting in some new coffees in soon which will be REALLY nice. It's suprising how boring it can get to roast the same five coffees everyday. I'm not sure what we're getting yet, I'll make a post of it when we get them. Also, a big "roasting secrets" post is still in the works. I'm going to really try to post at least once a week from here on out. I'm sure that won't be the first time say that though. We have some new stuff going on our site too, thanks to Josh. It's still very much under construction, but should be in decent shape soon. More to come....

Saturday's Intended Schedule: Wake up at 8:00am, go get Sierra, go get coffee and milk for the Great Lakes, check traffic report, leave for Chicago by 9:00am.
Saturday's Actual Schedule: Wake up at 8:00am, walk outside, fall on my ass due to the solid inch and a half of ice coating EVERYTHING, go to the shop to get milk and coffee, find out that every freeway to Chicago is closed due to major pile-ups, apologize to Sierra, apologize to Jim, work a counter shift like a chump.
Today was the first round of the GLRBC. Our friend Jim is competing for the first time and we're suppose to be there. However, there is now a sheet of ice covering everything in lower Michigan. The traffic reports are telling me it will take around 9 hours to get to Chicago. Apparently, there are 10 major accidents between here and Jackson, which is only 45min away. So here I am, sulking in an empty cafe. Hopfully, I'll get to at least listen to Jim's set via cell phone. Since the comp is going on as I type. I'll let go some info on Jim's set.
The blend we built is totally custom, made especially for the comp. It's based with a Brasil Sul De Minas Fazenda Cochoeira Yellow Bourbon. This gives a nice silky mouthfeel, amazingly clean frontal notes, and a light honey finish. We felt it was a perfect base as it acts more or less as blank canvas at the profile we used. The first accent bean is a Sumatran Triple-picked Iskandar from Sweet Marias. It's a very clean Sumatran, unusually so. It boasts one of the most complex finishes I've ever come across. Orange peel, market spice, earthy wet raspberry, back to orange peel. The front notes are very subtle with a little hint of muslin and big body. The next accent coffee is a Yemen San Ani from Sweet Marias. We used a very small percent of this one in the blend. The Yemen was all about the front notes. They were fruity, sweet, punchy, with a little black tea note. The tail end of this coffee was interesting by itself, but clashed in the blend. So we dropped the Yemen content down to about 10%. We felt that at that percent, the top notes were there, and the funky bottom notes were covered by the Sumatran. This combo gave a taste that reminded me of chewing Juicy Fruit and drinking coffee at the same time. Wierd, but good. The topper was a Monsooned Malabar Elephant. We used high percent of the Malabar, against the advice of our esteemed Victrola friends. Our excuse was this: this Malabar doesn't really taste like a Malabar. It's deeply fruity with dark chocolate and smoked almonds. It did have the trademark body and smooth feel, but didn't get gross at lower temps. In fact, it was the saving grace of this blend. It really tied everything together and made the blend "pop" in milk. Without it, the blend was too sharp and seemed too contrasted. The blend, in it's final form, had great top and middle notes of clean fruit, white sugar, and cinnamon, middles of chocolate and earth, with a endlessly complex finish that ties everything together in a mixture of bitter citrus, dank berry, fresh soil and spicy black tea. The straight shots were good, but this is a blend for milk drinks, hands down. I've never enjoyed a macchiatto as much as I did with this coffee. Everything breaks through and is heightened by the milk. Heavy shit. The blend will be available for a very limited time at the cafe, as straight shots or macchiattos only.
The sig drink...is as follows. It's a two part drink consisting of a little shot of fresh raspberry puree, followed by a macchiatto with a little drop of violet. It doesn't show off the espresso too much, but it goes really well with it. The trick was to overdose the shots for the sig drink and only pull about .5oz into each glass. Otherwise, the violet overpowered the espresso.
I'll have another post tomorrow about the results. GOOD LUCK JIM!!!!!!!

We've been running "dry" sets for the Great Lakes Barista Comp. We found out that all 6 of last year's finalists are back this year. So Jim will have to knock one of them out for a shot at the finals. We do have a top-secret plan for the sig drink should Jim make finals. I can't say much except it comes in a 2 liter bottle and it's the Taste of a Generation. If that doesn't work, Jim has a plan to "make sure" the finalists don't make it to the award ceremony....if you know what I mean.
I received a very nice phone call from our main man Miguel from Paradise Roasters last night. He's judging the comp again this year and wanted to know if we'd be willing to take five pounds of Boliva COE (#1) of his hands. (did i mention Miguel is our main man?) So I figure, even if Jim manages to set the Marzocco on fire during his set, I still get to meet up Miguel, drop him a little Streamline, and snuggle up to a bag of #1 on the drive home. I don't see how I could lose.