Aldo Coffee Company

Updated Class Calendar (and what you missed on Saturday)

New dates for all the upcoming tasting/barista classes.

If you're interested in taking part of any of the classes, drop us an email.

Here's what y'all missed on Saturday.  We had three cancellations that morning, so it was just Rich with Scott from East End Brewing and his lovely wife for the cupping of four direct trade and auction Colombians.  As Tom had come in for lunch, we invited him over for the grand finale - the six way brew fest. 

We brewed up the new Burundi Bwayi, starting with Chemex, then proceeding to Hario V60 pourover, Abid, Cafe Solo, press pot and finally, the siphon, to compare what each brew method did to the coffee.  Tom took some great photos of it all. 

As always seems to happen, most everyone had a different favorite method, depending on whether they preferred articulated flavors or rich body.  But all agreed that the siphon offered probably the most interesting and complex result.

Best "keeping it real" moment of the day came from the table next to where we were doing the cupping. An elderly lady watched the steaming water being poured into the cupping dishes.  When we were done pouring, she asked, "Is that hot water in there?"  Rich nodded yes.  So she asked, "Well then, can you pour some into my cup because this coffee is awfully strong!"

La Verdad Trapichitos Cups with the Big Boys

During our Christmas travels, we gave our buds Ann and Neil a couple of different roasts of the Guatemala Traphichitos that Rich has been roasting under the La Verdad label.

Unbeknownst to us, both samples ended up on TampTamp's cupping table alongside a couple of Intelligentsia's coffees.

As far as body and acidity, we were worried about the longer roast not developing fully enough. But the notes from TT's public cupping are encouraging.  Not bad for a startup.  Beginners' luck.

The bad news is we're out of it until Thursday :(

Direct Trade, In Season, Micro-Lots - Where Did These Concepts Come From?

Here.

UPDATE: Saturday's Advanced Tasting Class Full

Got an email with a cancellation so three seats just opened up. Leave a comment below or DM us on Twitter if you want to participate. It's 1:00-2:30pm and free.

Actually we're overbooked by one, but we'll make room. 

As we've got a local food professional sitting in on this one, we're thinking of something a bit more 'out there' to really challenge this group.

Thinking this is a good group for a Columbian cupping.  We've got a few to choose from.

We might throw in a Guatemalan roasted three ways.  And finish with a brew-off of the table's favorite coffee.

Fun times.

Not sure if we're going to a formal public tasting next month as we're pretty busy every weekend through mid-March, but we will have some informal ones for staff that we'll tweet in advance if you want to stop by.

Get 'Em While You Can - Old Coffees Out, New Ones In

Six new coffees are being released by Stumptown's Brooklyn roastery this coming week.  We'll be getting our next shipment on Thursday.  Two new ones from Intelligentsia will be in the week after.  Six of these eight will be East African.

Meantime, a couple of Kenyans are being discontinued.  We've got one bag of Kangocho and a few of the Githima.  The Ethiopia Sidama is already gone and won't be replaced.  Same with the Rwanda Vunga.  We think there's a couple of weeks of availability left for the Ethiopia Mordecofe Natural, but that could change. We're also dropping the Guatemala Finca El Injerto Bourbon to make room for something else.

If you like any of these coffees, jump on them this weekend as they won't be around next weekend (except maybe the Mordecofe).

On Today's Abid Article in the P-G

Local food critic/writer China Millman has a feature story on the Abid Clever Coffee Dripper in today's Post-Gazette.  It's a well-researched article and we really appreciate China's continuing attention on coffee in the paper's food section.

We've Got the Gold Standards and Great American Benchmarks, But Where Is the Great Pittsburgh Espresso?

Earlier this week, noted espresso expert Chris Tacy posted on a tasting he and some culinary pros did among his home region's (San Francisco) espressos and coffees.

Stumptown's Hairbender was the preferred espresso and a couple of Intelligentsia and Stumptown single origins fared very well.

So did some espressos and coffees roasted locally in San Francisco, indicating that the Bay Area is gaining ground on Portland and Seattle as a legitimate coffee destination.

As local coffee gadfly Michael Hoffman noted on a recent Tweet, Pittsburgh also offers a wealth of great coffees, including Intelligentsia (us, 21st, Big Dog, Dozen), Stumptown (us), 49th Parallel (Voluto), Counter Culture (Espresso a Mano*, Blue Horse), Verve (Tazza d'Oro), Ecco (21st, testing it here soon) and we'll throw Victrola (Oh Yeah!) into that group.

Inside Intelligentsia: The Movie

Chris Kornman, et. al. put together this YouTube vid showing what goes on in the roasting facility. 

While the coffee warehouse, vacuum conveyors and roasters are bigger (and better) than anything locally, it's interesting how the bagging operation is just about as low-tech as anything in Pittsburgh. Just with a LOT more bags.

LEVERPALOOZA!

Drop us a line for more info.

When Given Coffee, Make Lemonade

Seth Godin hits home today with his post on some budding entrepreneurs and the difference in their lemonade stands.

While we're not serving lemonade, and our coffee isn't free, we think Seth's story mirrors what we've been trying to do here. 

Maybe not everyone appreciates it ("it's just coffee!"), but we'd like to think that eventually we'll all be on the same page.