Aldo Coffee Company

The Roasting Jigsaw Puzzle

The other day Jay - a long-time regular and huge fan of Brazilian coffees - commented on last week's post about roasting with the following:

Your in house roasted Colombian is great! Will you be roasting any Brazilian coffees soon?

To which we can only answer, "Thanks, we think so too!" and "Honestly, we don't know."

New Public Classes Announced

Tasting: Saturday, 12/3
Home Brewing: Saturday, 12/10
Culinary Coffee: Monday, 12/27
Intro to Barista Skills: Wednesday, 12/8

For more info on all classes, click here.

Open Thanksgiving 8:30am-1:00pm

The Macy's Parade got pretty boring once they took away the potential excitement of runaway balloons.  So what else are you gonna do Thursday morning?

We'll be roasting coffee here Wednesday night, so we'll have some fresh beans for your company or a nice gift for wherever you're having your turkey.  Stop by!

Open 'Til 9pm Tonight (Light Night)

It'll be a typical Pittsburgh November evening: damp and 40F.  It won't keep Santa away.  He'll be coming down Washington Road between 7:30-8:00pm for the tree lighting.

We'll keep you warm with plenty of coffee, tea and hot cocoa.  Bring the kids.

The Next Step - Going Our Own Way

Starting this week we will begin focusing our retail efforts on marketing our in-store roasted coffees over those roasted by Intelligentsia and Stumptown.

We will continue to sell Black Cat and Hairbender for the foreseeable future, however, we will be carrying fewer of their single origin coffees.

We are currently roasting the following coffees in-store:

Ethiopia Guji Oromo
El Salvador El Manzano
Kenya Tegu Nyeri
Colombia Los Caracoles Peaberry
Sulawesi Toarco
Guatemala La Maravilla Decaf

Each of these coffees will be roasted twice weekly and will be available for retail sale in either 8 ounce or 12 ounce bags.

Our goal is to provide great tasting ethically and sustainably sourced coffees with while keeping costs down. Typically our coffees will run $1.00-$2.00 less per bag than the brands you've been used to buying here.  We believe these coffees will hold their own on both a professional cupping table and in your cup.

We are also planning public tasting and home brewing classes for late November and early December. Check back here by end of week for dates and times.

The Vision Thing

China Millman's review of Salt of the Earth is in today's P-G.  It's a glowing review and one that is well deserved. 

China mentions the fact that Salt was the most highly-anticipated restaurant opening in Pittsburgh history.  Melanie and I went on opening night expecting some bugs. There weren't any. Not with the food, not with the service.  And it's only gotten better over the weeks that followed.

Which is not to suggest or even imply that there aren't other great restaurants in town.  There are.  And those chefs and owners could well be wondering, "What's all the fuss? It's just food. We're good too."  It wouldn't be a giant leap in logic to suggest that the "I don't like" votes on Urbanspoon comprise many jealous/envious competitors. Hard to explain otherwise.

Before we go on, we'd just like to say how honored and grateful we are to have our coffees included in the amazing experience of dining at Salt.  A lot went into that process over a considerable period of time - tastings of different origins, varietals and brew methods - and we weren't even thinking of providing coffee nor roasting our own when the process started.  So to have someone of Chef Sousa's stature choose us is perhaps the most awesomely incredible thing that's happened for us in the six years we've been in business.

Guatemala El Injerto Wins Rainforest Alliance Tasting

Arturo Aguirre and son can put another trophy in their case.  Their Finca El Injerto coffee won a recent cupping quality challenge for coffees with Rainforest Alliance certification. 

We've been carrying Finca El Injerto for a few weeks now only heard raves about the coffee from customers who've tasted it.  The Stumptown offering of Finca El Injerto's Bourbon cultivar is expected to be in stock as whole bean or custom-brewed cup for at least the next few weeks.

Also of note, one of the top coffees entered by Honduras was from the Las Capucas farm. This was an extremely popular coffee here, and one we roasted ourselves. We're looking forward to the new crop when it becomes available in the US early next year.

 

Back Online

Roasting will resume again tonight!  We now have El Salvador El Manzano and Colombia Monserrate green coffee in house, so we'll be firing those up in addition to the Guatemala El Tambor, Ethiopia Guji Oromo and Kenya Nyeri Tegu.