Aldo Coffee Company

Why We Compete

Jaime of Barismo pretty much says it all.

This is why we're going with four "rookies" this year at the upcoming MidAtlantic Barista Competition in Cranberry next month.  When everyone on staff gets to experience what the competitions and community are about, it's only then that they understand the bigger picture beyond a potential trophy.

Even I (Rich), after judging at four regional basrista competitions and the USBC don't fully get it from the barista's viewpoint.  Which is why this old fart is one of the four, along with Michelle, Frank and Lauren. 

Maybe one of these years we'll get Lois to do it  ;-)

It's not only about winning, although it was nice for our shop to win last year.  It's about showing up, being honest about your capabilities and knowledge, taking your best shot, being open to criticism and learning from your industry colleagues.  No pain, no gain.

Thanks Jaime for putting our thoughts into words so eloquently.

Happy Day After

Thanks to everyone who kept us company yesterday morning. 

As regulars know, Melanie and I aren't behind the bar all that often (not that we couldn't be, but there's so much else to do around here) and we only work two shifts together each year - Thanksgiving and New Year's Day mornings.

Since our own families are far afield and we're not cooking for company or visiting, we enjoy seeing a lot of familiar faces on those holiday morning shifts.  And we get to spend a bit more time talking with customers as the holiday morning flow is less hectic than the typical morning rush - not that there weren't some lines yesterday, but everyone is a bit less hurried and more relaxed about it.

And perhaps most important to the staff, all of yesterday's tip money goes into our Christmas Party fund.  So on behalf of everyone here at Aldo - thank you for your Thanksgiving business!

Sometimes the Coffee Finds You

There's a certain type of coffee shop one sees on various industry forums that insists their coffee can only be prepared properly within the confines of their environmental-controlled shop-cum-laboratory and only on their state-of-the-art equipment.  And they won't prepare coffee outside of that environment.

We're not one of them. 

While it's true that we can't duplicate the experience of serving a cup in the cafe just anywhere, we can come close enough for rock n' roll.  We also believe it's important to get out there in the community from time to time to showcase good coffee, even in less than ideal conditions.

Look at it this way: if you're talking drip coffee, all coffee ages (stales) at a predictable rate once brewed.  But good coffee that's been in a Cambro for an hour still tastes much better than poorer quality coffee brewed and served under the same conditions.

How Is Your Coffee Decaffeinated?

We don't talk about decaf much over here, but there are obviously a lot of you who choose decaf for personal reasons. Those of you who enjoy your coffee with less "buzz" might also enjoy learning a bit more about how the "de" gets into - or more appropriately, gets out of - decaf coffee.

In this brief article from Chowhound, Chris Hallien of Intelligentsia and Mark Howell of Coffee Solutions offer a "science for non-scientists" explanation of the four major decaf processes.

Both our decaf Black Cat Blend (from Intelligentsia) and our house Colombian decaf (from Jake's Java) use the water process method.

Another Week, Another Top Coffee List. With Bonus Pizza Analogy

The 21 Best Cups of Coffee in America.  Intelligentsia is #2 on this list. 

As with all "best" lists, one can find things with which they agree and disagree.  We've been fortunate to have the opportunity to visit and/or try coffees from many of the places listed.  And we've been even more fortunate to have tasted even better cups from places not listed.

Opinions on what's a good cup of coffee are subjective.  And arguments about what's best cannot be won, much like arguing for/against light beer, beans in chili or perhaps the most contentious example - pizza. 

It would be hard to argue that there's anyone who knows more about making traditional Neapolitan pizza in the city than Ron at Il Pizzaiolo.  He's been a student of pizza forever.  Get his cheeses shipped from Italy.  Obtained a rare DOC certification for his margherita pie.

But people still flock to Vincents or Betos because they like that style of pizza.  Some people like a particular pizza because it's what they grew up with - pizza comfort food if you will. Others don't care about the taste as much as free delivery. Still others see pizza as simply a delivery device for toppings. They want buffalo chicken and ranch dressing, or extra mounds of commercial cheese or cold industrial toppings.  Regardless what style of pizza people enjoy, they think their style of preferred pie is the best (and what's wrong with you if you disagree with them?). 

And they'll argue for their preference in the face of facts (Il Piz's better ingredients, oven, training, DOC certification, fresh ingredients, etc. vs. canned mushrooms, frozen pie shells, bags of cornmeal-coated pre-shredded domestic imitation provolone, etc.)

Drawing the parallel to coffee, there are many who choose convenience or price over quality. Others who will add sugar or flavor syrup or milk without ever tasting the actual coffee. And others who simply see coffee as a caffeine delivery device. The numbers of people who truly seek out quality coffee and savor it in all its black gloriousness are indeed few compared to the masses.

So while we're happy our roaster is on this list, all that really achieves is preaching to the choir who've already noted that Intelligentsia's green coffee buying is superior in many regards to most other roasters, ensuring a better quality of ingredient to work with.  And that their roasting equipment, roaster training, barista training and overall coffee knowledge ensure that the best flavors that can be extracted from the beans show up in your cup.  Much the same can also be said for coffees from Jake's Java. 

Whether you like the coffee we serve is really up to you.  We simply hope you'll give it a chance.  Preferably black.

In Battista News: Belle Moves On, Frank Gears Up

Belle's final regularly scheduled shift with us starts in about a half hour.  It's a sad day in many respects as we'll miss her skills, charm and humor behind the bar four times a week.  But as she's moving onto something she's wanted to do since day one, our sadness is tempered by our happiness for her.

Belle will post here sometime soon about what it is she'll be doing, but we can tell you it involves working downtown with teens and an espresso machine.  She can fill in the details.

Belle will still be here often as a customer and has indicated she'll fill in when needed if her schedule permits.  And she'll still be handling some of our training classes when possible.

Her shift runs from 12-5pm if you want to get one last drink prepared by the reigning Mid Atlantic Regional Barista Champion.

Speaking of which, while Belle may not compete at the upcoming MARBC (which will be held in Cranberry, Feb 7-9), that other Battista, hubby Frank, has indicated he is willing to step up and enter.  So there may be a Battista to defend the crown.

We hope you'll join us in wishing Belle the best of luck in her new venture.  She will always have a home here.

What Did We Learn This Summer?

It's officially been fall for a couple of days.  Nights are cooler, days are more comfortable.  A few leaves are falling off the trees (time to get those driveway cracks sealed before it's too late!)

We were just putzing around with some ideas for a new fall/winter signature drink menu when it occurred to us to take a moment and catch our breath.  And to put down some thoughts that haven't made it to the blog as their own posts.

So in no particular order, here's the brain dump from this summer:
- The kitchen in insufferably hot when it's 90 degrees and 90% humidity.  When the dishwasher is running and there's something in the oven, it downright hell in there.  That explains some of Rich's overall crankiness the past couple of months.  But the rest of it he was born with ;-)
- We've come to a truce with smoothies.  As we really care about coffee first and foremost, we'd rather you order a cold coffee drink when it's hot outside.  Or even an iced tea.  But after three summers, we recognize we smoothies at a coffeehouse are a fact of life on Washington Road.  And we're actually pretty good at it.
- 100% people who've had Shakeratos enjoy them.  Now if we can only get that across to the 95% of folks who think ice cold espresso is somehow "wrong"...
- People love well-made traditional 6oz cappuccinos if they can get past the "big chain drink" mentality.  We've made hundreds of converts.
- People will come to coffee cuppings if you're offering them some great coffees to experience.  People will not come to cuppings if you promote it as a rare opportunity to discover what coffee defects taste like.  Seems that we reached a bit too far with that exercise.  But we saved the defects for tonight's staff training.  And they're so looking forward to it ;-)
- This season's Black Cat espresso is much less tempermental than last year's.
- We didn't spend more on our Esmeralda auction coffee because we wanted to see how sales went before commiting a ton of money on it.  Turns out our caution was well-founded.  While it's a great coffee, it's not an everyday coffee that people will buy every week.  So we're parsing out the rest of our lot slowly, although we'll roast extra for the holidays.
- We need better tools to work on our equipment.  The bargain stuff can strip nuts.  We also learned that thin copper tubing is fragile.
- Two local coffeeshops closed this summer.  We consider ourselves fortunate that we're still growing.  Thank you for your continued patronage.
- We're looking forward to visiting the new shops we've helped train the past few months.
- We learned from numerous catering gigs that we can make a great espresso under a tent on a hot summer's day or in an air-conditioned conference room at goosebump-producing chilliness or in your kitchen with all your company looking on.  Just give us an electrical outlet and we're good to go. 
- First Fridays are worth staying open late for.  Other Fridays not so much.  Especially once high school football season is underway.  We'll be open late this Friday and next, but closing on Friday nights as of October 10 (there will be a separate post on that one).
- Homemade coffeecakes and bread puddings are viewed as good things.
- Compotes featuring anything but fruit to accompany a chocolate silk tart are not viewed as good things.  I guess that's your way of telling us just because we "can" doesn't mean we "should", even if the result tastes great.  But we get to eat whatever doesn't sell, so it's not a total loss.
- We need to time our patio plantings better so that all the basil and cilantro planters don't go to seed at once.
- We need to transplant our tomato seedlings earlier.  This was a major disappointment since those were seedlings we started from San Marzano seeds we bought in Firenze last year.
- We missed not going to Firenze this year.
- We succeeded at growing our own arugula and lettuce.  Those will be staples next summer.  If we had more space, we'd plant additional beans as well.  There's no salad as tasty as one that's been grown 15 feet from the kitchen.
- Otherwise reasonable people will ignore a readily available ashtray to extinguish their smoke in a planter of fresh herbs.  We don't want to ban smoking on the patio, but the few of you who do smoke out there have to work with us on this one point.
- Cold soups don't sell well enough here for us to offer them.  Except for gazpacho.  But nobody wants to eat gazpacho everyday.
- If you can make a vegan blueberry muffin taste good, non-vegans will buy them.  We could sell more if we wanted to spend more time in the kitchen making them.  Maybe when it cools down even more...
- Since Dorothy asked us to offer Fritos with our Saturday chili, people have been fairly vocal about us not having them a couple of times when we forgot to buy a bag.  Who knew?
- We can safely say that we make the best seitan of any establishment in Mt. Lebanon.  That's because we're the only place that makes it.  Don't knock ersatz "buffalo chicken" until you've tried it.  If things get much worse and we have another Great Depression, you'll wish you had the recipe ;-)
- We could've started hot soups two weeks ago.  But you'll have to wait until Monday.

OK.  Now we can "officially" get ready for fall.

How was your summer?  Learn anything new?

Barista Smackdown in Highland Park.

Amy Enrico, coffeehouse owner extraordinaire, all-around nice person and Melanie's BFF, hosted a latte art throwdown/pizza party last night at her shop up in Highland Park.  Five of Amy's best took on five of our best (ok, four of our best and Rich) along with Luke from 21st Street and Flick, a local coffee geek and regular TdO customer.

The rules:  five bucks, two pours.

Luke, as expected, took first, winning $36.  Emily from TdO took second and $24.

Our team?  Some nice tries, but no cigars.  Or beer money.  However, they'll all be quick to tell you that their shots were awesome.

Thanks Amy for hosting and buying the pizza and beer. And it was nice to spend some time with Oliver, fellow SCAA judge and Batdorf & Bronson trainer who seems to be at TdO almost as much as he's in his Seattle home. 

Cupping Coffee: We Know Why We Bother with Coffee Education. What About You?

We do one or two free coffee cuppings for customers a month, depending on demand.  As much as we hear about how "coffee is the new wine," it's still somewhat surprising we fill any seats at all.

It's not a given that people will flock to a free coffee cupping, like they would a free wine or beer tasting.  Coffee isn't going to make you feel lightheaded and loose like alcohol, our cuppings are inconveniently held on Saturday afternoons (and hot ones at that, lately), and we're going to take at least an hour out of your day.  More if you let us.

In other words, you've got to be fairly committed to want to learn more about coffee from us.  We're not making it easy on you.  Truth be told, we prefer it that way.  We know that if you're willing to spend a hot Saturday afternoon tasting coffee and learning about why different regions and beans and processing methods produce different tastes, we know we'll have your undivided attention while you're here.

We have to regularly cup and taste our coffees anyway so we know what the heck we're talking about.  Coffees from the same plot of land change with every year's crop.  Tasting every coffee that comes in allows allows us to calibrate against our coffee buyer's tasting notes so we can adjust our brewing methods when necessary.  It's something we have to do in order to do business at the level of quality we try to maintain.

But what's in it for you?

New Coffees to Get Excited About

Two new coffees are here this week, available by press pot or pourover.  So far, only Belle has cupped the Finca San Jose, none of us have tried the others.  So for now we're going to give you tasting notes from Intelligentsia's cuppers:

- Kenya Gaturiri.   

Surfacing above the hearty wine-like body and grapefruit-inspired acidity are hints of peach, guava, apricot, mango, and a myriad of other ripe fruit nectars that resolve gracefully into a warm and clean finish of clove, cinnamon and sweet molasses. Its broad-ranging appeal is certain to excite the taste buds of both the adventuresome and casual sipper.

- Finca San Jose, Nicaragua.

Begins as smooth baker’s chocolate and dried berry. The body is firm but not overbearing as hints of orange spice and cardamom emerge in the center. Notably, the coffee blooms in the finish, letting baking spice and licorice notes effloresce to add complexity and length to the taste experience.

Additionally we've got Tanzania Edelweiss Finagro Estate, Colombia Tres Santos, Honduras La Tortuga, Nicaragua Los Delirios and Panama El Machete.

This is the largest number of origins we've had in quite some time, which is nice given the sparse choices of this past Spring.  Such is life when your roaster is fanatical about only selling coffee within a short time frame after harvest.  The trade off is freshness vs. year-round convenience of purchasing. 

Come in and try some of the new offerings.