Five Senses' Blog
The ABA Makeover is Complete
After only three days, Fintan Magee has finished his mural on the Australian Barista Academy wall in Victoria. Although a few rain delays prevented the portafilter idea from eventuating the new artwork has still given the west side wall a whole new look. Check out how the some of the balloons are actually part of a coffee branch! On the box heads there are stencils of coffee syphons and group handles, which are visible to Melbourne trains all day, every day. Next time you’re in West Melbourne, drop in a have a look. It’s an appealing image with fun, subtle coffee images woven in.
Thanks Fintan Magee!
The final artwork on the Australian Barista Academy wall by Fintan Magee
London: I need a good coffee!
Getting good coffee in London, could it happen? I wasn’t sure, but I really needed one. After the full on week at Host in Milan, which involved a daily routine of walking as much as 10km, fuelled by very few specialty coffee pit stops, a good coffee hit was just what the body craved.
After arriving in London and settling into the accommodation, we earmarked a few places to visit. Our time here was limited to one day, so we needed to make the most of it. My travel companion ipad, and his mate Google, helped us out with the rest. The day was planned.
First stop Prufrock, the funky new store owned by Gwilym Davies. The cafe is located on a street which had a market running when we arrived, with stalls filled with all manner of paraphernalia. Interesting food smells filled the air and distracted us temporarily from our goal. In fact, there was a moment where we thought they had moved the café, as it was hidden by a large clothes stall. We soon realised where it was and headed in. First impression was a large, well lit space with beautiful old wooden flooring and a clean spacious brew bar with a lever machine on the bench behind. James the barista, whilst working the brew bar and prepping a syphon for us, informed us that the machine was going to be used for the first time this coming weekend. They intended to make some traditional Italian cappuccinos — with 8g of coffee in the basket. Interesting! I really wished I could extend my stay to take part. Sadly, this wasn’t going to be possible. We settled in and enjoyed the hospitality for an hour or so, drinking some great Square Mile coffee brewed both by syphon and aeropress (in homage to the recent World Championship). The Guatemalan COE that Prufrock is currently serving was a highlight — crisp, snappy and clean.
Next stop — our friends at Square Mile Roastery. We had received an invitation from John Gordon and James Hoffman to visit them when in London. We were very excited to see what they were doing, as it seems to be creating such a noise in the specialty coffee world. We caught a cab to the roastery and drove up the street — and back again. No roastery or signage! We got the cab driver to drop us off so we could search on foot. We looked around, trying to spot the tell-tale chimney stack or afterburner – to no avail. Finally, deciding on a ‘knock and see’ approach, we took a punt on an address and John answered the door. It was great to be back inside a real working roastery after the past week at Host. The familiar smells and sights were so appealing and inviting.
Sharing time and thoughts with others within the global coffee roasting business is just so much fun. We spent far more time talking through the victories and challenges of setting up a roastery than I anticipated, but gee it was great. We discussed all manner of things from roasters, fluing, afterburners, colour analysers, layout, staffing, labs and espresso machines to cafes, training, packaging and delivery. In hindsight I was surprised we didn’t talk more about the hot topic of pressure profiling. This was only briefly touched on, as John made us a couple of spectacular espressos on the Synesso Gen 2 in their new training space. That coffee really hit the spot. It was a ‘play around’ blend made up the day before by James (three differently processed Kilimanjaros from memory), and although John played it down, it really was lovely in the cup, with long lasting berry flavours, (which I am currently very biased towards). This coffee made my day.
The tour took a fair bit longer than anticipated, but it was a great time of sharing. I got a great sense of the enthusiastic spirit within the Square Mile Roastery. With such passionate and dedicated individuals, it is no coincidence that they are so highly regarded in the specialty coffee industry.
The rest of the coffee tour that was planned kind of fell by the wayside as time evaporated, but it didn’t matter, because that coffee REALLY hit the spot!
A big thanks to John and all the guys at Square Mile for giving up your time and hospitality. I do know it just made your tomorrow more busy 
Relaxing for a brew at Gwilym Davies new coffee shop: Prufrock
From Attikan to Araku
After heading back to Bangalore and spending a few hours wandering around the streets, we jumped on a plane and headed for the Araku Valley on the east coast of India. We landed in Vishakhapatnam, about three hours from Araku. I have never seen so many cars, bikes, trucks, buses and people in my life. This place was out of control … and I loved it! We hit Araku at about midnight, excited for what was to come the next day.
After our usual breakfast of dosa (fermented crepes made from rice batter and black lentils), idly (savoury ‘cakes’ of fermented lentils and rice), samba and coffee, we jumped in the jeep and headed for the first farm. There are close to 12,000 farmers here, all with about an acre on which to grow their coffee. These farmers come from about 600 different villages, which are broken down into 73 branches and looked after by 24 board members. The board members and branch officers are elected each year by the farmers themselves, ensuring that the needs of the farmers are met and that they are getting well looked after. Naandi, the non-Government organisation (NGO) who oversees this project, have been helping to build and develop an ethical and rewarding system for each and every farmer here. This came after money lenders had these communities by the throat and were holding them in constant debt, a cycle which has now been broken. Naandi specialises in four areas within the communities here — education, livelihood, nutritional security and health, particularly maternal health.
Both men and women are seen as equals in the eyes of the Naandi foundation which has had positive benefits. Over time the women, who only used to come out of their houses to work in the plantations (and work hard they do!), are now happy to meet with total strangers, inviting us into their village, smiling, and more than keen to get into a few photos. This gender equality then flows on to the children which is great. Naandi fund all of the farmers’ daughters’ schooling in a programme called Nanhikali which means ‘blossoming bud’ and includes their books, lunch and uniform. This programme continues right through until the end of high school. They push hard for each and every girl to be educated, which in the past was unheard of. We were also lucky enough to visit one of the villages’ Early Childhood Education Centres which prepares kids aged three-five for school. It was one of the highlights of the trip! Naandi makes this a full life-cycle project, running from pre-natal care, to early childhood, school and through to helping develop a livelihood.
Next we headed out the coffee processing unit or CPU as it is known here. This central CPU was built in 2006, because the farmers themselves could only manage poor quality processing previously. There is constant development happening at the CPU, with offices being built, and all kinds of organic and bio-dynamic practices going on. All the water is recycled, all the manure and fertiliser is fully organic and it is all prepared here at the CPU and distributed to the farmers. There has also been a development in mobile phone technology here — every Indian seems to have at least one mobile. Each of the farmers have a phone and each phone is equipped with a programme which allows them to fill out details such as how much coffee they picked, when, what village they are from, who they are etc. A truck then appears by the end of the day to pick up the coffee and take it to the CPU. But it doesn’t stop there — the programme also allows the farmers to be paid within 24-48 hours. Amazing!
There are also plans to grow and plant six million different fruit trees by 2013 amongst the coffee, not only to offer shade but to help provide a secondary income for the farmers. All in all, I’m looking forward to tasting the next crop, and seeing the constant development that is happening here in Araku.
But for now I’m going to enjoy Diwali, India’s biggest festival, the Festival of Lights — a huge public holiday. We’ve stockpiled a small arsenal of fireworks and rockets, and look forward to joining in with the festivities and, of course, blowing some stuff up!
Women of Araku
Indian women collecting water from the river
Rosslyn Street Gets a Makeover
The west side wall of the Australian Barista Academy in Victoria is now undergoing a full makeover, with artist Fintan Magee from Brisbane hard at work over the weekend. Cheers to our friends and clients Rtist Gallery for hooking this up.
On Day 1
Fintan outlined his beginnings with his ‘Boxed head’ figures on the lower left side. What do these mean? My take is that the world is blind to good coffee and those who want to know the answers should come inside. Or maybe they’re just really bored? I’ll leave it to the critics.
Day 2
Fintan has managed to get that scissor lift to the top for some balloon action.
What will follow is a surreal mix of coffee cherries and branches moving through the balloons across to the right. Early next week we should see a giant espresso handle on the right side of the building dripping espresso and the Australian Barista Academy logo along side it.
Rosslyn Makeover Day 1
Rosslyn Makeover Day 2
Rosslyn Makeover Afternoon of Day 2
Surprising Results from our Bali Experiments
On my last trip to Bali I brought back the last of our green samples from our processing experiments. This was started by the brave team on our June harvest trip and involved careful cherry selection of each varietal (B1, S795 and Usda) and subsequent processing by either washed, pulped natural or natural method. We had already cupped the washed and pulped natural samples and these natural samples were the last part of the puzzle.
The overall standard of the naturals were very good with the surprise winner being the S795. The Usda varietal is a reliable winner of all previous Bali cuppings and I thought the natural preparation would really suit it. The Usda is an indigenous Ethiopian varietal, a country that produces some amazing naturally processed coffees. But my theories didn’t stand up in practice. I guess it’s a bit like assuming every Ethiopian is going to be a great long distance runner!!
The winning coffee exhibited an atypical (for Bali) fruity brightness accompanied by the usual voluptuous body we’ve come to expect. It was scored at 84 and we’d be pretty confident in thinking this is the best coffee to come out of Bali. This coffee came from the Ulian Murni Subak which is relatively low at 1000 to 1100 meters above asl. Using the rough rule of thumb of 1 cupping point per additional 100 metres above sea level, my dream is still alive to bring back a 87+ coffee from Bali. Just need to find that S795 plantation above 1400 metres asl!!
The natural prep requires a lot more time and space than the usual washed process, so it probably doesn’t have much appeal to the farmers but we may be able to persuade them to do a few bags for us next harvest for our Backroom program. Watch this space!!
Cupping the S795
HOST Trade show in Milan
HOST 2011 has come and gone. It was, as expected, a massive show. This is the 4th HOST show I’ve been to in a row and what I’ve started to realise is how this show has become a great broad snap shot of what the coffee industry looks like globally every two years. It almost acts like a time lapse photo being taken every two years of the coffee industry and every photo being a record of who was doing what, of people, of companies and most importantly of coffee trends.
This year roasting machine manufacturers were hardly represented in comparison to years gone by. Probat were present but only presented their shop roasting equipment. Typically there were trillions of European roasting companies on the floor and an equal number of low end espresso machine manufacturers — not much has changed here.
Things of interest. Call them trends if you will.
Pods are out. Capsules are in. (Don’t worry all you lovers of coffee — this doesn’t matter to you)
Domestic espresso machine manufacturers seems to have doubled — sorry all you home users of specialty coffee, the machines being made are basically capsule dispensing machines. Even traditional domestic espresso machine manufacturers are now pimping their existing lines to be able to brew capsules.
On top of this there were booth after booth of manufacturers selling equipment to roasters that enabled them to pack their coffee into, you guessed it — capsules.
Capsule rant done.
What was exciting was that for the first time at HOST the specialty coffee world appeared better represented in comparison with previous years. The epicenter for activity in the specialty coffee world was at the Marco (Uber project) booth and it was probably the busiest booth consistently throughout the show per square meter — certainly the noisiest and most fun. The booth consisted of a few brew benches, the Marco hot water delivery systems and the Baratza and Uber Grinders.
The activity went off the dial when the booth played host to the World Aeropress Championship. Brewed coffee is well and truly here and is well supported by the people who have become synonymous with espresso. Competitors included WBC champs James Hoffman, Gwilym Davies, Irish Barista champ Colin Harmon, UK champ John Gordan and a whole host of others who highly active in the specialty coffee world. We tweeted the action so feel free to trawl back through our tweets to get a feel for what was happening.
The other thing worth mentioning was notable efforts by some of in specialty industry to explore profiling. We went along to hear the results of some testing by a group that included James Hoffman, Tim Wendelboe and Tim Varney. The stuff they presented was by no means conclusive but there were definite signs that with further work in the area correlations between cup taste and pressure profile stages would become pretty obvious. One thing that has become apparent is the link between the length of pre-infusion and the flow rate during the next stages of the shot. Also, traditional understandings of shot time go out the window with a pressure profiled shot — this is consistent with my own experience thus far.
Now, off to the next part of the trip…
The Coffee Spectrum
It seems as though every day is a week. There is so much to take in, and I don’t want to miss a thing!
We made the long and very bumpy journey out of the beautiful Attikan Estate and on to the Lakshmi Coffee Curing Works in Hassan. The journey took about eight hours, but was well worth it. Mr Narayanan, the manager, took us on a tour and explained that the coffee he receives from the Sangameshwar Coffee Estates is all stored separately in individual fields or lots. The coffee being processed on the farm is their own lot, but it is all kept totally separate here too. We went from watching the de-stoning of the coffee and the hulling of the parchment coffee, through to seeing the ‘polishing’ (removing the silver skin) and the way they get rid of excess dust etc. Then the coffee is graded by machine and sorted for different defects such as black beans, by a machine called Spectrum which was imported from Brazil.
It uses a spectrometer to sort the defects out. The coffee then comes out as 95% ‘clean’ or free of defects. Next it goes through a vibrator which again sorts out chipped, triaged and damaged beans and it is now considered 98% clean or sorted. Lastly, all the coffee is hand sorted in order to be checked off as 99% clean or sorted. It is a long and laborious task, but the final product is one that was good enough to make our offering list at Five Senses, as the Attikan Estate.
Next we made the journey to the Karadykhan Estate which is about two hours drive from Chikmagalur where we are spending two nights. We arrived at 11:45pm having left Attikan at 8am — a long and magnificent day. We spent today looking at the Karadykhan Estate, the Gungegiri Estate and the Kondagkhan Estate, which all fall under the Sangameshwar Coffee Estates banner (along with Attikan). There is so much to see and it is such an organised and transparent operation. We were able to see ‘muster’ which is the roll call on all of these Estates. At muster, every single worker is accounted for. They are assigned a place to work on the farm, told what they will do there (weeding, shading, trimming etc.) and given an allotted length of time to work. So the coffee we get is traceable back not only to the field, but to each and every individual worker. Brilliant!
Tomorrow we are heading back to Bangalore and on Monday we will be flying into the Araku Valley. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days.
India women sorting
Visiting Attikan, Deep in the Indian Jungle
It’s just about dinner time on our second day in India. We landed in Bangalore and were picked up by Charles, our softly spoken and somewhat cheeky driver. (This guy can thread the needle between cars at 120km per hour – what a gun!) The next morning we met Mr. Appadurai, who owns the Attikan Estate. He inherited the company from his grandfather, who bought the farm from A.C. Morris in 1960 – but more about that later.
We fought through the traffic in Bangalore to arrive at Mrs Menon’s office and cupping lab. Mrs. Menon is a very well known and well respected coffee expert based in Bangalore. We were greeted with a huge smile, warm welcome and, of course, coffee. It was the sweet, creamy and delicious traditional Indian coffee, with a distinct lingering bitter caramel finish and hand foamed milk. We were able to check out her incredible lab setup and meet her friendly staff. But we only had a short amount of time, because we had a long journey ahead of us to reach the gates of the protected forest and wildlife reserve (where the 440 acre Attikan Estate is located) before they closed for the night. Attikan means ‘fig jungle’ and there are hundreds of huge jungle fig trees on the estate which provide shade for the coffee trees.
We travelled on the crazy roads for the next eight hours, weaving in and out of traffic, dodging, people, bikes, cars, animals and, of course, out of control carts pulled by cows. We arrived at the gates of the jungle just as they were locking up (if you miss lock up, it’s too bad; turn around or sleep in the car!) We were extremely pleased to make it in time – as the jungle is home to elephants, tigers, leopards, snakes, wild boars, and a host of other sweet jungle critters. It took the next two hours to climb the Biligri Hills or White Hills (because of the heavy mist that swirls around the peaks.) We were in a 4WD, and came across deer and a monster porcupine on the way. We arrived at the Estate at around 7:30pm, and as we rolled up, we saw an amazing old cottage (or bungalow as it is known here.) A.C. Morris built the bungalow in 1888 when he established the plantation, and it is still in amazingly good condition, with no electricity or gas; we were in for a treat. There was a generator that worked for a few hours at night, wood-fired hot water and a kitchen. We were able to relax a little after the trek to get there, and were fed more food than I would be given at home … it was amazing!
This morning we woke up, went for a walk to the front of the property and looked out over the plantation from the cottage which is 5400ft up the mountain. We set out on a hike around some of the plantation to check out the 25 different ‘fields’ all which are harvested and processed separately (three rounds for each field to ensure only ripe cherries are picked). Each lot varies in characteristics, and a sample of each field is sent to Mrs. Menon for analysis, grading and a full report of what is good and what needs work. Her lab also analyses the flavour profile which buyers (like us) might be interested in. The farm and production process here is very organised and well maintained. The trees are planted in 5ft by 5ft areas so they can be easily harvested, which makes picking on this very steep and rugged terrain easier.
Next we went to check out the processing plant on the farm where the coffee is sorted for floaters etc., pulped, fermented, washed and dried – firstly on raised beds and then on patios or ‘barbeques’ as they are known as here. The coffee is then ready to be sent to the curing plant … which we will get to see tomorrow.
Lastly, we were privileged enough to be able to head up to the village of the local tribal Sholigas who make up a big percentage of the workers on the plantation. The kids were amazing and, as always, there were a couple of cheeky ones who wanted to star in all our photos. There were well maintained veggie gardens, banana trees, and cows. Their small huts were made from woven sticks and clay and were amazingly clean and tidy. A beautiful and proud group of people.
All in all, an amazing first couple of days, and so much to take in. I could keep writing for days, but this is a blog, not a novel … Enjoy!
Seedlings at Attikan Estate in India
The eagle has landed!
Some exciting things have been happening at the Five Senses’ roastery in Victoria. Lots of new gadgets and toys have been arriving, and we’re particularly thrilled about our new Giesen 90kg roaster. After (im)patiently refreshing the tracking page for the shipping container every 15 minutes while it was en route, the roaster arrived just after 3.30pm yesterday. There was lots of jumping around with excitement and many high fives were exchanged. Then we hit the hard truth …
There were 5.7 tonnes of roaster, and only 4 guys to move it!
Well, everyone got their hands dirty and helped carry all the equipment into our newly expanded roasting room, before taking a moment to sit back and admire the gorgeous fire engine red roaster. We got email from the roaster boys at Five Senses in WA, urging us to keep the photos coming, as I am sure they could feel the excitement too.
Then Richard Muhl could not contain himself any longer — the bubble wrap came off, the tools came out and the assembly began.
All the staff are extremely happy and relieved that this amazing work of art has finally arrived at the roastery. There will be exciting times ahead for Five Senses, and I know the roasters cannot wait to jump on the machine and start playing around with all the amazing variables and controls that this roaster offers. A win for coffee lovers everywhere!
For now let me leave you with a photo, but we will be regularly updating our progress, so keep an eye on this page.
The Giesen roaster
To infinity and beyond
I’m aware that this blog post title and the photo appear pretty random but let me explain. Brad and I have just commenced a journey which includes the HOST trade show in Milan followed by lots of visits to like – minded roasteries to share knowledge and hopefully learn new things. The pic shows Brad standing on the cliff at the most south western corner of Europe looking hard into the distance. When I took the picture I was thinking that I might use it for a post that said something like “we travel to the corners of the planet to bring you all the best in coffee and stuff”. After a milli second of thinking about it I realized that this would take corny to a new level so that idea was shelved.
All I want you to know is that over the next few weeks we will be trying to learn as much as we can from others that will help as make our coffee and the delivery of it as a fresh roasted product to you even better
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