Aldo Coffee Company

Tale of Two Aldos

Last night, Melanie, Michelle and John were off working at Polotini, a black-tie event held at Saks that benefits Family House.  With Lauren in Italy, Melinda at school and Frank and Belle having pulled the afternoon shift, that left Rich and guest barista Brad Richards (ex-The Vault) for the Friday evening shift. 

Turns out quite a few Vault customers made that scary trip across a bridge to come down to Mt. Lebo.  That's a major credit to Brad, who build a loyal customer base up in Brighton Heights. 

Meantime, up at Saks, Melanie, Michelle and John were serving up a couple hundred "Black and Gold" martinis (based on a new Shakerato we've been developing), using the Platinum vodka supplied by the sponsor.  There were several bars and restaurants serving drinks, we were the only coffeehouse represented.  At first some were hesitant to try an espresso-based martini, but our trio won over the crowd in short order, and many folks came back for seconds. 

Thankfully the Polotini crew came back in time to help clean up the mess that Brad and Rich created... wasn't their fault, it was too busy to get to all the dishes!

Good times across Pittsburgh last night.

Menu Changes Coming

Heads up: we're throwing out the entire lunch menu.  No more North Beach, tuna, or clubs, so you've got two days to say goodbye to those items.  A new lunch menu will be in place come Monday that will focus more on lighter fare and local ingredients.  Change is good.

Friday, May 30. Two Guest Baristas. Hilarity to Ensue.

Brad and Drew will be behind the bar for the Friday night shift, 5-10p.

We've had barista luminaries pulling shots before but we've never foisted total strangers on our customers for an entire shift.

Until now.  With the duo having left The Vault a couple of weeks ago in search of greener pastures, it was the least we could do to help them keep their espresso slinging skills honed to a fine degree.

Besides, all our usual Friday night folks are busy:  Melanie, Michelle and John will be at Polotini that evening serving up Black and Gold Martinis and Lauren will still be carousing in Italy.  So we figured we were overdue for an evening of testosterone and bad jokes.  With Brad and Drew behind bar with Rich on register and barback, we've got it in spades.

If you never had the opportunity to head up to Brighton Heights to experience The Vault in all its glory, at least you'll get part of that experience on Friday, May 30.  Come for the coffee, stay for the banter.

UPDATE:  Drew has a conflict with some wussy foreign sporting league.  So it's Bradly and Rich and any other baristas who want to show up.

Our Shakeratos In Today's P-G

From P-G food critic China Millman: On the Menu: Impress visitors with food scene.

It was fun talking with China and friends a couple of weekends ago (one of whom is now a new Aeropress owner!). She really gets food and, more importantly to us, coffee's role in an expanding culinary scene. Thanks for the mention China!

Btw, we currently offer three Shakeratos: the Traditional (as per the article), the Aldo (with star anise-infused simple syrup), and Chocolate Biscotti.

Memorial Day Weekend Hours

We're open usual hours today (til' 6:00p) and Sunday (8:30a-6:00p) with the usual offerings. 

On Monday we'll be opening an hour later and closing early  (7:30a-1:00p).  We will not be offering lunch or soup on Monday.

Enjoy the parade, enjoy your weekend.

And for those whom are what this holiday is about - thank you.

The Realization...

OK, so we own X pounds of Esmeralda.  Now what?

Certainly we're going to have a lot of drip roasted by Jake's after all the clearances are paid for and it arrives in Peters.  And maybe we'll offer some half pound retail bags.  But we're talking a lot of coffee by our standards.

Then Miss Behmor started calling us like a siren, drawing us in with her sweet song.  "Psst.  Roast some for espresso.  You can play with me all you want - test dozens of roast profiles until it's perfect - with me all things are possible!  "

And we believe her.  Well, ok, we want to believe her.

ES5-14 Is Ours, Baby!

OK, so lot ES5-14 from today's first ever private auction of Hacienda Esmeralda was not the most expensive, nor the second most expensive nor the 86h most expensive of the lots offered.

It was 87th of 101 lots sold this afternoon.  But it's ours.  And we'll love it anyway.  So will you.  We're guessing it'll show up in July if the last two years are any indication.

It was our first time participating at a coffee auction, even though we didn't actually do anything.  Carl Hauptmann and Kevin Flack of Jake's Java did the bidding and outbid three other companies for this lot (while staying comfortably below our bid ceiling - thanks guys!).  The purchase was for 300 lbs which will be split among a few buyers, including us.

Watching and Waiting

We're waiting to learn if we'll be the proud owners of some new crop Hacienda Esmeralda green coffee.  We've got a proxy at today's auction, which is still going on (live) which just finished about an hour ago.

Two years ago a lot of Hacienda Esmeralda fetched $50.25/lb. at the Best of Panama auction.  And last year, one of the lots fetched $130/lb at the BoP.

Without getting too complicated about this year's new auction process, the Peterson family, which owns the Hacienda la Esmeralda coffee plantation, took itself out of the 2008 Best of Panama competition in order to do a separate auction of their own coffees.  As HlE had won the Best of Panama each of the past four years, the Peterson's decision to hold their own auction was lauded as it allowed other coffees from other producers to fetch higher prices in this year's Best of Panama, which was held on April 17.

We already know we're not going to get coffee from any of the more expensive batches as we went in with a fixed ceiling on what we'd bid.  In fact, it was a single bidder (#583 = Stumptown) that locked up Batches 1, 2 and 3, at a cost of more than $135,000 - these were the three most expensive batches in the auction, ranging from $50.24 to $105.25 per pound. Other batches fetched bids in the $6-$13 range, with the exception of Batch 4, which went for $28.

But as everything coming out the plantation has been very good, it becomes a matter of degree as to just how phenomenal the coffee will be.  Unfortunately, we were aiming at Batches 8-9, which were harvested "South of the Creek" and which have cupped very well, but those are already above our ceiling.  We may still end up with something from Batch 5 (Hoguera and Frente Poldo) but the competition for each of the lots 103 being auctioned has been intense, so we're waiting to see what, if anything, we'll get.

If You're Still Wondering What's the Difference Between a Great Dedicated Barista and PBTC...

Somewhere in the middle of a discussion about whether future barista competitions should use a standardized sponsored grinder vs. the current "bring your own" option, a discussion on "what's a real barista" broke out. 

It might seem testy, but only if you didn't watch the end of last night's Pens/Flyers game.

Best quote:
Chris Baca (WRBC winner, 4th USBC):
"I hope I'm not thrown in here...I'm down for the little guy. I feel like I am the little guy; the grinders I've used for competition were purchased by me, not my company. I drive a beat down bucket and generally don't eat/go out at all so I can scrape together cash to get my beloved coffee toys. I do get support from my company in many ways though and it's tough to say, but the big money will always be at the top. A few underdogs will pop up here and there but if you look back the top spots are consistenly dominated by big companies who can afford to dump tons of money and time into the competition. Do I get jealous of the people with more resources than me? Sure. Do I have more resources than the really small guys? Sure. But it is what it is and standardizing the comp grinder wont change any of that."

That's true love.

Switching to Feeburner - Index.rdf Feed Will Be Disabled Shortly

This is long overdue, but for us to get a better handle on site traffic, we're moving our Atom feed over to Feedburner. 

We'll be disabling the index.rdf feed as of this Friday.  If you currently receive the index.rdf feed, please note this change and sign up for the Atom feed through Feedburner at http://feeds.feedburner.com/aldocoffee.  If you're already receiving the Atom feed (atom.xml), no need to do anything.

Apologies for any inconvenience and thanks.

If you're not receiving Aldo Coffee news via your RSS reader (Bloglines, MyYahoo!, Google, etc.), ask Rich how to set you up next time you're in the shop.  It's a great way to follow Aldo Coffee news without needing to visit the blog.  Each post will be sent directly to your personal reader.