Aldo Coffee Company

This Week's Coffees

We've gotten away from posting our weekly offerings and that must be corrected, especially seeing how lately all the Centrals are disappearing within 72 hours lately. 

Must... order... more...

Here are this week's featured beans in addition to our Aldo House Blend, Black Cat and Organic French Roast:
Los Inmortales, Direct Trade, El Salvador
La Tortuga, Direct Trade, Honduras

What?  That's it?  We need to speak with the owner...

Relax Tonight

Join us tonight at 8 pm for some excellent coffee AND entertainment at 8 pm.  Relax with  the music of Kathryn O'Leary while sipping your lattes and enjoying some dessert.  A pleasant evening will be had by all.

Back from Macungie

Belle finished second to Katie Carguilo of murky coffee.  It was pretty close.  Thanks to everyone for the support and good vibes we felt all the way out in Macungie.

A few photos from the event are over on Flickr. 

Three for Three: Belle, Sonja and Melanie All Make the MidAtlantic Finals

FINALISTS at the 2007 Mid-Atlantic Barista Championships:

Belle Battista, Aldo Coffee Co., Pittsburgh, PA
Jay Caragay, Spro Coffee, Towson, MD
Katie Cargiulo, murky coffee, Washington, DC
David Fritzen, Tryst, Washington, DC
Sonja Schutte, Aldo Coffee Co., Pittsburgh, PA
Melanie Westerfield, Aldo Coffee Co., Pittsburgh, PA

The finals are tomorrow morning.

It's been an incredible experience so far and one that will continue tomorrow.  Thanks to everyone who continues to give us feedback and encouragement to do even better.  This is a big deal, even if we don't win.

Thanks also to our roaster, Intelligentsia, who gave us an espresso blend that was astounding - blew us away as well as the judges, apparently.

Matt, wish you were here to help us represent the 'Burgh.  There was some LaPrima over at the Clover machine... guess that was Phil's doing?

We forgot our camera's USB cord, so no photos till we get back tomorrow night.  Miss y'all.

Hello from the Barista Competitions...

Good morning to everyone, from here in the Poconos, site of this year's MidAtlantic (and Northeast) regional barista competitions.  The Mid Atlantic (our region) first round is complete:  18 baristas dosed and tamped our way through our performances  --   exhilerating, terrifying and fun.  LOTS of overtime penalties yesterday, lots of wonderful performances.  Today at about 3 pm they will announce the six finalists. 

For the Love of Baristas

Here's a YouTube vid on baristas, competing and philosophy.  Mostly shot in Pacific NW, but much of this applies to our MidAtlantic community.  Sort of explains why half of us are in Macungie this week at the regional competitions instead of in the shop.

With half of us out through Thursday, some things might get a little bumpy (like lunch today, apparently), and for that we apprecite your patience and understanding.

Sniffapalooza Feauturing Our Neighbor Dorothy

Dorothy McCall of Kingsbury Fragrances, our upstairs neighbor, is featured in the latest issue of Sniffapalooza (scroll down to second article).

The Worldman's View of Sensory Judging

Len Sabo (Worldman of CoffeeGeek fame) wrote down his impressions of being one of our volunteer judges at Thursday night's pre-competition rehearsal in several posts on CG, replete with photos.

Thanks again for lending us your palate and friendship, Len.

A Great Night of Rehearsal Ends With a Thud

We would like to once again thank all of our judges for helping us out last night: Len, Bill, Mark, Phil, Chris, ToddMichael, Troy, Frank and Ryan 

Everyone had a chance at being a sensory judge, while ToddMichael, Frank, Ryan and Rich took turns as technical and head judges.

The trial runs showed that Belle, Melanie and Sonia are all very close to strong performances at next week's Mid-Atlantics, but there are still some bugs to work out, but nothing major. 

It was the first time we had the opportunity to see everyone's final signauture drinks.  We're not getting into details, but in the mix were rimmed glasses, layered drinks, fresh herbs and pyrotechnics.

Chris took a bunch of photos.  Len took some as well which we imagine will end up on CoffeeGeek shortly.

After the rehearsals things just naturally devlolved into a psuedo-jam, with the home-baristas taking turns at the Linea (quite unlike steaming at home) and the roasters grabbing some beers and hanging out on the patio to talk shop, with Ryan inviting us all to a cupping on Friday afternoon.

All in all it was a great time and one that we hope will further propel the momentum of building a stronger Pittsburgh coffee community.

The "thud" had nothing to do with the rehearsals.  Rather, it was when Rich was cleaning up and trying to carry too many things at once... and watched in horror as his brand new Powerbook hit the floor with a thud.  It is not booting.

As the Dell we're posting on right now is in need of service itself, this could be a challenging week getting out posts.  Hopefully visiting the Apple Store today will pay dividends.

First There Were Gummi Bears, Now There's 'Spro Leeches

With all apologies to Will Goldfarb and Billy Wilson, we've been playing around in the kitchen recently with some chemicals to produce that molecular gastronomy favorite, "espresso caviar".

We've experimented with thickeners and gelling agents for producing different textures and shapes, but until recently we hadn't used the prototypical Ferran Adria "spherification" method of sodium alginate, calcium chloride and a quick rinse of H2O.