Great Ideas Start with Great Coffee
Wishing you a happy safe Victoria Day Long Weekend.
We also want to tell you about Coffee Beans from the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, which is our featured coffee:
Victoria Day Long Weekend Hours
Here are our hours for the Victoria Day long weekend:
Saturday – Open – 9am to 4pm
Sunday – Closed
Monday – Closed
We’re always happy to answer any of your questions about your home brewing technique’s and coffee choices.
What does it take to make the perfect cup of coffee? Four passionate National Barista Champions from the United States (Kyle Ramage), Ireland (Niall Wynn), Germany (Chloe J. Nattrass) and Japan (Miki Suzuki) represent their countries and their craft in an attempt to win the World Barista Championship in Seoul, South Korea. The film places particular emphasis on the Japanese Champion, Miki Suzuki, as she attempts to become the first female World Barista Champion in history. You can check out the trailer here: Barista Movie Trailer
go to the website here: Barista Films
see it on iTunes here: Barista Movie – iTunes
follow on Instagram: Instagram – @baristafilm
producer la concordia taste graham, coconut, ginger
certification ft organic brew french press, drip
variety bourbon, mondo novo recommended grind medium
elevation 1,600 m use 60g per litre of water
Price: $14.99 / 400 g
Cafe Justicia is an organic “fair trade plus” coffee grown and produced by Mayan communities in the hillsides above Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.
producer café justicia taste chocolate, raspberry jam
certification ft organic brew french press, drip, espresso
variety caturra, typica recommended grind medium
elevation 1700 masl use 60g per litre of water
Price: $14.99 / 400 g
Sweet floral fragrance, citric acidity, chocolate flavor, medium body.
producer SOPPEXCCA taste floral, hazelnut butter, cocoa
certification ft org brew french press, drip
variety caturra recommended grind medium
elevation 1100 + m use 60 g per litre of water
Price: $14.99 / 400 g
Soppexcca was created by 68 families in the northern department of Jinotega. This organization today plays a vital role to 650 families. It is directly impacting four thousand people working under the Fair Trade certification, in which 60% of its volume of production is sold under the Fair Trade seal, providing an opportunity to invest in the main needs that the process has identified and prioritized.
The stability of the sale price of the crops is a very important factor for the viability of the small agricultural family, constituting the most transcendental aspect: keeping the land ownership in the hands of small producers, as well as sustainability of rural communities. The main actions in which the social premium has been invested, are education, training, schools, gender equity, environment, diversification and health care and finance.
What’s Unique: This Yellow Catuai is the fruitiest (if that’s a word) Brazil that we have cupped this year. Our nickname is ‘sweet yellow’.
Producer: Jose´ Maria de Oliveira
Harvest: Fall 2018
Farm: Fazenda Serrinha
Region: Cerrado Mineiro, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Altitude: 1200m
Variety: Yellow Catuai
Process: Natural
Certifications: RFA, UTZ, 4C
Taste Notes: Strawberry Shortcake, Orange, Sweet, Velvety
Price: $16.99 / 400g
Fazenda Serrinha was acquired by Jose Maria in 2004. Everything on the farm, José constructed with his bare hands, including the very first light post on the property. The main house on the farm is located on Fazenda Serrinha where José Maria and his family resides. The farm is home to the drying patios, raised beds, wet mill, silos, orchard, garden, and horse stables. Yellow Catuai is a variety of coffee that ripens a deep yellow colour – as you can tell by the beautiful picture above – rather than the more common red types.
Laspada Java Sunda Hejo
What’s Notable: Coffee was first planted in Java by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. No wonder we call it ‘java’!
This coffee comes from small holder farmers near the town of Laspada in West Java. Fresh coffee cherries are carefully chosen and pulped in small batches. Fermented overnight and washed clean, the parchment coffee is dried on raised beds in bamboo greenhouses. This is one truly hand-crafted coffee!
Taste: Soft, ripe fruit tones of plum, cherry and caramel.
Monteblanco Purple Caturra Colombia is a complex coffee with a svelte sweetness and tasting notes of pear and almond, with a syrupy sweet body. Our roast brings body with a silky texture, balanced acidity and a delicately tangy finish.
What’s Unique: A variety named “purple caturra” by family farm manager Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia due to the cherries on these coffee shrubs maturing a dark purple colour rather than the normal red ripe colour for the caturra cultivar.
About Finca Monteblanco: located high along the winding mountain roads of Vereda La Toroca in the San Adolfo municipality above Pitalito, is a family farm managed by Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia in the tradition of coffee cultivation that began with his grandfather. Monteblanco’s 18 hectares sit on the crest of a hill, with the wet and dry mill at the top and slopes of coffee planted below.
In 2002, Rodrigo participated in a local program teaching local children of coffee producers to cup. Before that, he and his family had never considered coffee in terms of cup profile. By learning to differentiate profiles, he and his father and grandfather were able to able to make the connections between the farming techniques they applied and coffee’s attributes in the cup.
At this time, Rodrigo also began to learn about cupping competitions that evaluate the best lots from farms in a region. He noticed that farms would win one year and then never again, so he decided to investigate how to produce quality coffee consistently. This led him to explore the trees planted on Monteblanco, were he discovered various cultivars his grandfather had planted in the 1980’s.
One of these varieties is Purple Caturra, a type of Caturra whose cherries ripen to a deep purple color. All cherries harvested are measured for degrees Brix. Based on sugar content indicated, the team at Aromas del Sur, the umbrella group of Monteblanco, Progreso, and La Loma farms, then designates which processing method is appropriate. Coffees with 24-27 degrees Brix are processed as washed coffees, beginning with depulping cherries they day they are harvested.
Coffee is fermented between 28 and 32 hours, fully washed with clean water, transferred to the solar dryer for several days, and finally moved to shaded raised beds to complete the drying process. Floaters are removed at the first stage prior to pulping to produce clean, consistent coffees that represent the terroir of the farm.
Rodrigo is proud that he, his wife Claudia Samboni, farm manager Don Gerardo, and the team that works in the fields and at the mill have reached the goal of achieving consistent quality. Each harvest, Finca Monteblanco produces micro-lots that serve as competition coffees around the world, but the farm also consistently produces containers of delicious coffees that appear year-round on café menus and retail shelves. By applying an ethic of rigorous monitoring, planning, and management of each stage of production and processing, all coffees from Monteblanco showcase their full potential.
Harvesting and processing on Monteblanco have evolved with the times, adapting to a changing climate that yields harvest dispersed through ten months of the year rather than in a concentrated peak.
How Coffee is Made
If you’ve ever wanted to know about how coffee is made, we wrote this just for you! Visit our award-winning coffee roasting plant for coffee beans, espresso, and the best coffee equipment available today – from Aeropress, Hario V60, Chemex, Clever Dripper, French Press, Yama Vacuum Siphon, Breville espresso machine and Baratza Encore grinders.
It starts with the freshest beans. Imported directly from the farmer and stored in cool conditions away from other products, green coffee can have a shelf life of up to 12 months before the flavor and intensity starts to fade. Green coffee is high in chlorogenic acid, an anti-inflammatory, which can reduce blood pressure, and if you have ever heard of green coffee extract, it’s the chlorogenic acid being sought out and promoted as a weight loss aid.
Fun Fact: Finland consumes the most coffee per capita.
Everyone recognizes a roasted coffee bean. Before it is roasted, the green coffee bean is the seed of the coffee cherry after it is picked, de-pulped, and dried. Coffee cherries grow in bunches along the branches of the coffee shrub. After the flowering of the fragrant, white blossoms, it takes nearly a year for a cherry to mature . Because it grows in a continuous cycle, it is not unusual to see flowers, green fruit, and ripe fruit simultaneously on a single tree. The best terroir for coffee is rich, volcanic soil and high elevations with mild temperatures, frequent rain and shaded sun. The best coffee is hand-picked, constantly turned as it is dried, and carefully sorted for quality. Green coffee has a shelf life of 6 to 12 months.
Roasted daily for peak flavour and aroma. Coffee starts to lose aromatic compounds starting the day after it’s roasted, even in a sealed bag, eventually becoming flat and lacking in complex aromas. Over the time of about 6 weeks, oxygen starts to creep into the bean and oxidize it. This causes the increase in bitterness associated with store shelf coffee. Oxidation destroys anti-oxidants, which one of the major health benefits of fresh coffee.
Fun Fact: During roasting, coffee pops a little like popcorn, twice.
Home coffee roasting is easy! It only takes 7 to 15 minutes and your reward is the freshest coffee around. Green coffee is half the price of good roasted coffee. We have a huge selection of green coffees, each carefully chosen for quality. Coffee can be roasted in many ways, from home coffee roasting appliance, to the oven, on the stove-top, in a popcorn popper, with a heat gun, or even on the gas grill.
The craft of roasting coffee is a highly developed skill.
Fun Fact: Espresso beans and Coffee beans are not different, only the brewing method is.
Whether your goal is to experience the best light roast Colombian coffee, or to savor a bold, dark roast in the french press, coffee has the potential to offer one of the most complex sensory experiences of all the foods and beverages. As green coffee is roasted, acids and sugars react with heat, turning the coffee brown, caramelizing sugars and creating hundreds of aromatic compounds that contribute to a vast array of smells, tastes and textures. Our artisan roasting team is constantly developing and tasting, driven by a passion to bring out the best aspects in every coffee that we source. Every country of origin, every harvest and every lot has different potential and our roaster develops roast profiles that allow the coffees to speak in their own unique voice, creating a pleasing experience in the cup for our customers.
Brewing coffee should be easy, fun and tasty.
Fun Fact: Forty percent of a coffee bean is soluble in water. Only the first 20% tastes good.
There are dozens of ways to enjoy your fresh roast coffee at home. All involve the same basic steps: grind, steep, filter, enjoy!. Starting with a quality grinder, filtered water, a scale and your brewer of choice, spending a little time learning to make a beautiful, aromatic and complex cup of coffee can be a rewarding experience. Whether you enjoy a delicate, floral, citrusy cup or a bold, syrup, dark brew – there is a coffee and a method for you. From french press to drip, aeropress to espresso, siphon to moka pot, we have you covered with a coffee and the tools to do it up right.
Sometimes it’s good to let someone else do the heavy lifting!
Fun Fact: 65% of coffee is consumed at home.
We provide only fresh, roasted-to-order coffee to your cafe. Along with coffee, our wholesale customer gets our expert guidance on the best method and techniques for brewing, along with hands-on training, and all of the cafe supplies needed to keep first-rate coffee your passion. We are obsessed with making the best possible cup of coffee, so don’t shoot us if the coffee tastes better at the cafe. It’s what we do!
Nebilyer Papua New Guinea Org A/X
This clean, complex wet processed coffee is sun dried on patios has a baking spice and light-bodied buttery sweetness and a lingering citrus note.
Crop: 2018-19
Drying: Bourbon, Typica
Elevation: +1350m
Fragrance: caramel, spice
Tasting notes: lemon, cherry, buttery finish
Price: $14.99 / 400 g
Coffee has been cultivated in the Eastern Highlands for over 80 years. The bulk of it originates from small holder farmers having 1500 and less coffee plants. Previously, the central valley has been strained because clans and tribes have been at war. However, with the addition of coffee cultivation, the region has become less hostile. This specific coffee is a product of a multitude of small holders’ crops originating in many different villages throughout the valley. The cherries produced by these small holders are taken to the Goroka mill and thoroughly checked for quality control before being prepared for export, resulting in a clean and consistently smooth cup quality.
Pour-over and batch brewing
La Meseta Colombia
About La Meseta: The coffee tradition of our country and especially the central coffee-growing region has lead this family group to create, for more than 25 years, a beautiful plantation farm of Colombian soft coffee, blended with the richest flavors and aromas that Colombian mountains have to offer. We also have the tenacity and strength of the region’s hardest working people who contribute to reach our shared objective.
Crop: 2018
Variety: Geisha
Elevation: 2000m
Fragrance: Honey, Floral
Tasting notes: Notes of peach, apricot, tangerine, delicate body
Price: $22.50/340g
What’s a Geisha?
It’s not Japanese! It’s a coffee variety. In wine, the analogy might be pinot noir variety.
From another-jim over at home barista:
All Gesha/Geishas are a single coffee varietal introduced into Central America in the 1930s from a Kenyan nursery, which had produced it from Ethiopian seed stocks of unknown origin. It was initially widely planted because it was purported to have superior resistance to some of the then common coffee diseases. However, this was not true, so the varietal was never replanted. Nevertheless, some of it survived by growing from the berries of the originally planted trees. How much these trees changed and hybridized in the few generations since the 1930s is unknown.
The Peterson’s discovered a stand of Geishas on their farm in 2005 (I think), and won the Panamanian COE hands down with a lot taken only from those trees. The lot also set a record at auction. The taste of the coffee was that of a southern Ethiopian coffees, but without the interfering tannin flavors usual in many southern Ethiopian coffees and with a very pleasant sweetness instead. So the hunt was on for these trees, and more were discovered in forgotten corners of central American coffee plantations. The resulting plantings are maturing now, so we are getting a lot of new Geisha/Geshas offerings.
“Geisha” is the actual name given to the coffee in the Kenyan nursery that exported them to Central America. People looking for the original varietal in Ethiopia speculated that the Geisha name was a misnomer for the Gesha province in Ethiopia, so they started using what they assumed was the correct version of the name, “Gesha.” However, none of the coffee varietals located till now in the Gesha province are anything like the Geisha; so the Gesha name may be a complete misnomer, and the original nursery may have called it Geisha for some completely different reason.
About the Producer
In our Company, pay equality is preached, this principle ensures worker’s special protection in decent and fair conditions; therefore, we practice equality.
One of our Company’s greatest objective is to propagate the necessary conditions to attract and train workers with qualified job skills that can enable them to contribute and achieve our Company’s main goals. To accomplish this, our work environment is based on the principles of respect, mutual collaboration and permanent communication.
Our facilities are designed to provide the greatest comfort for our workers, with lodgings, showers, restrooms; complete and healthy meals, and above all, each of our employees is fairly treated.
All of the aforementioned creates affinity from the workers towards the Company’s farms which are characterized by a young, productive and technified coffee-culture.
Kilimanjaro Tanzania
The peaberry coffee is a perennial favourite around here – with our customers!
Crop: 2018
Variety: Bourbon and Kent
Elevation: 1000 to 2000m
Fragrance: honey, nutmeg, cardamom
Tasting notes: pomegranate, black tea, vanilla
Price: $16.95/400g
What is Peaberry?
Known in Spanish as ‘caracolillo’, it is a type of coffee bean that is separated after drying. Normally the cherry fruit of the coffee plant contains two seeds that develop with flattened facing sides, but sometimes only one of the two seeds is fertilized. All coffee plants experience this small natural mutation, and the single oval bean develops rather than two beans with flattened facing sides. Peaberry coffees are particularly associated with Tanzanian Coffee. The peaberry beans are separated from the flat-sided beans using a sieve.
The Coffee
Coffee is shade-grown in areas inter-planted with bananas which are used for local food and beverage consumption. The banana leaves canopy act as a filter for sunlight. All farmers’ coffee is hand picked and wet processed in a traditional way.
About the Producer
Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union is nestled at the foot of the great Mount Kilimanjaro Tanzania that produces mild arabica coffee. We serve close to 70,000 small producer members on the slopes of the mountain in the districts of Rombo, Moshi Rural, Hai and Siha. We serve because we see small coffee farmers as a unique mechanism to produce high quality mild Arabica coffee that is grown in the volcanic soil of Mount Kilimanjaro. The farmers are the owners of the Union; they are expecting to sell their coffee at highest price through the Union that was formed for social and economic emancipation.
We are certified by Naturland since 2004 for our organic coffee. This guarantees the end customer that our coffee has been produced without the use of agriculture chemicals during production process from our farmers. This certification confirms the high level of quality worldwide.
Organic and quality improvement programs are provided to farmers.
Using Fair Trade premium money, KNCU has established an Education Fund to help less privileged farmers to send their qualified children to school. At present KNCU gives scholarships to more than 400 Secondary School Students. The future plan of the fund is to cover for tuition fees for those students who will make to the University.
The Myth about Mycotoxins in Coffee
Is your morning cup doing you more harm than help? Study after study has been done on the health benefits of coffee, but not everyone agrees that the benefits outweigh the consequences. Some claim that commercial coffee is contaminated with dangerous mycotoxins, which can cause people to perform badly and have a higher risk of disease.
What are Mycotoxins?
Mold, which is a type of fungus, is found almost everywhere in very small quantities. Mold can grow on edible crops and produce by-products called mycotoxins. There are hundreds of different mycotoxins with different functions. For example, mycotoxins are used to create the antibiotic Penicillin. We’re mostly interested in the two mycotoxins that are found most commonly in coffee: Aflatoxin B1 and Ochratoxin A. Aflatoxin B1 is a known carcinogen and is also commonly found in peanuts, corn, tree nuts, and dairy. Ochratoxin A hasn’t been studied as much, but it has been associated with kidney disease, and it is also commonly found in grains. However, it’s important to remember that “the dose makes the poison.”
Mycotoxin Prevention and Regulation
Generally speaking, high moisture content, high humidity, and high temperatures can promote the growth of mold and related toxins. The standards of processing and storing green coffee can reduce the growth of mold by regulating these factors, and studies have found that the roasting process can destroy up to 80% of mycotoxins. Additionally, the FDA has regulated mycotoxins in food and drinks for years, and the amount that they allow is far below the amount you would have to ingest to cause yourself harm. If you’re really worried about mycotoxins, you can buy single origin coffee from regions at a higher elevation that has been wet processed. Higher elevation reduces the chance of a high moisture content, and wet processing discourages the growth of mold in green beans compared to dry processing.
Bottom Line
Mycotoxins are by-products of mold that can be found in many things, including coffee, grains, and tree nuts, but they are only harmful if they’re ingested in large amounts. FDA regulations only allow a very small amount of mycotoxins in food and drinks, and most coffee is processed with the intention of reducing mold growth. If you want to reduce your exposure to mycotoxins in coffee, you can buy high mountain grown single origin coffee that has been wet processed. At the end of the day, the health benefits of coffee outweigh the negatives, so feel free to enjoy your pick-me-up without worry.
Beans and Genes
How does coffee really affect our bodies? It turns out the answer is more complicated and unclear than you might expect. Studies upon studies have been done on the long-term health of regular coffee drinkers, with mixed results. Some conclude that daily consumption is linked to a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or heart disease. Others say that it’s linked to an increased risk of gastrointestinal problems, anemia, or heart disease.
First of all, these studies indicate correlation, not causation. What this means is that regular coffee consumption is linked to these problems and diseases, but it doesn’t necessarily cause them – there could be a third common factor that causes these effects. But one factor that most studies don’t take into account is genes.
Nutrigenomics is the study of the interaction of nutrition and genes. Nutrigenomics says that the health effects that you experience from consuming certain things can be determined in part by your genetic makeup. So let’s apply this to caffeinated coffee and its effect on a person’s risk for heart disease and Parkinson’s.
Heart Disease
A gene called CYP1A2 signals your liver to make one of two enzymes: CYP1A2 fast or CYP1A2 slow. If you have the gene that makes CYP1A2 fast, your liver is able to process and eliminate caffeine quite quickly, leading to a decreased risk of heart disease. If you have the gene that makes CYP1A2 slow, your liver processes and eliminates caffeine more slowly, leading to an increased risk of heart disease.
Isn’t that fascinating? One gene can determine whether your daily coffee habit helps or hinders you.
Parkinson’s
A gene called GRIN2A can affect your nervous system in one of two ways. If the gene acts one way, coffee can decrease your risk of Parkinson’s by up to 60%. If the gene acts another way, coffee doesn’t affect your risk of Parkinson’s.
So can my daily caramel latte be good for me?
The short answer is just what you would expect: no. Even if your genetic makeup is favourable when it comes to the possible health benefits of coffee, those benefits are based on the consumption of black coffee. So have your coffee however you want, but know that most health benefits are negated when you start dressing it up with milk, cream, sugar, and syrups.
At Velvet Sunrise Coffee Roasters, we carefully craft our fresh roast coffee beans for wholesale and retail customers. Our single origin coffee sourcing and roast profile development program that puts fine quality espresso and coffee within reach. Wholesale customers take advantage of our flexible roasting program to develop custom roasts and blends, private labels, and toll roasting. Extensive cafe support, consultation and training for staff and management are an integral part of our wholesale program.
Mark Hayward claims his recent transition from civil engineer to full-time coffee roaster was the easiest thing in the world. Not to say that he didn’t enjoy his previous job – in fact, quite the opposite. He loved his job as a project manager. “Every project was like climbing up a mountain. It was difficult getting up there, but once you reached the other side, you got to look back and appreciate all the hard work you had done.” He claims that running a business is essentially the same thing, but on a larger scale. When asked how he became interested in the coffee business, he said “Interested? I’m a fanatic, I’m a raving lunatic about coffee!”
He recollected his first encounter with home roasted coffee beans quite fondly. A woman had been roasting coffee near one of his sites downtown, and the smell was so potent that his curiosity was piqued. Turns out, her boyfriend was a green coffee merchant, a person who specializes in sourcing and importing green coffee beans. He started buying green beans from them, and from then on, he could be found roasting coffee under the exhaust hood every Saturday morning. It wasn’t until twelve years later that he decided to start his own business, Velvet Sunrise. “The difference in taste between freshly roasted coffee beans and the stuff that’s been sitting on a shelf for months was so dramatic that I thought everyone should get a chance to try it,” he said.
Established in 2009, the business has grown and flourished. Small shops and cafes, all the way from Port Perry to Hamilton, serve and sell Velvet Sunrise coffee beans, including The Village Grocer and The Mad Bean. Currently, Mark is roasting thousands of pounds of coffee every week.
Sweet, portable, convenient, affordable, and better than a cup of coffee. These are a few claims made by Nootrobox about Go Cubes. Go Cubes are chewable gummy squares made from cold brew coffee, designed for an on-the-go energy boost when you don’t have time to sit down and sip. Each cube contains 50 mg of caffeine, which is equivalent to about half a cup of coffee. Sounds like a dream come true for busy caffeine addicts, right?
Go Cubes aren’t just coffee, though. They also contain nootropics (supplements that boost cognition) such as L-theanine, vitamins B3, B6, and B12, glucuronolactone, inositol, and folic acid. You can read more about this here. Most of these supplements have been proven to enhance cognitive function, although one review points out that inositol is only effective in much higher doses than Go Cubes contain. L-theanine in particular is a green tea extract that serves to counteract the jitters that some people experience when they have caffeine.
Reviews so far have been mixed. While everyone seems to agree that Go Cubes are convenient and effective, there have been some complaints about the taste. One reviewer said that it was “sweet… but after a couple of chews the taste instantly turned bitter.” Another likened the aftertaste to “drinking nothing but coffee for a week while not brushing your teeth.” Out of the three flavours – pure drip, mocha, and latte – the lighter latte flavour seems to be most popular. However, reviewers have pointed out that it’s very difficult to tell the flavours apart. There’s a mix in each package of four and they’re all varying shades of dark brown. Others complained of upset stomachs and bad coffee breath.
Odd taste aside, most reviewers agreed that the cubes simplified their morning and pre-workout routines, and helped them keep track of their caffeine intake. Are Go Cubes the future of coffee? Maybe not, but they’re certainly another fresh, innovative way to get your fix.
Café Pionero ensures that small-scale farmers receive fair prices for their coffee. Created by Jenny Zambrano after an earthquake hit her village in 2016, Café Pionero has created direct-trade between remote villages in the Andes Mountains and coffee lovers in Canada. This has resulted in better pay for the farmers, training and education seminars on sustainable farming practices, and employment opportunities – including some of the only paid jobs for women in Jenny’s village. Café Pionero aims to create lasting relationships, ensuring fairly traded coffee year after year.Special coffee,
Crop: 2018
Region: Manabi, Ecuador
Process: Honey
Fragrance: Pear
Tasting notes: Juicy pear, Peach, Mango, Caramel
Price: $16.99 / 400 g
