The class will take place at CREMA on 15 Hermitage Ave, located just south of downtown, Sunday, August 21 from 2-4pm.  $25 for the class,  which will get you an 8 oz bag of coffee to get you started and instructions to take home.  We look forward to seeing you there!  Be sure to inquire about special group pricing at info@bevecoffee.  Sign ups here.

-beve

Having the right grinder is the first step to brewing excellent coffee at home, and could very well be the most important thing in home brewing.  Those of you that have taken some of our previous classes know that when you are using very specific ratios for brewing coffee, and the slightest change can effect your brew, thus potentially effecting its flavor, would know that the grinder could make or break your brew.  Grind consistency, grind particle size, adjustability (apparently not a word, but we’re keeping it!), durability, etc. are all important factors when looking at which grinder to buy.  Plus, there are so many different brands…which ones honestly are good, and which are not?  We’ll take a close look at several different grinders and use them on the spot, to show you first hand how a grinder might effect your brewing.

Preregister for this class at www.crema-coffee.com/blog/learn-coffee-classes.  Sign ups will shortly follow!

- The Beve Boyz (yep, a “z”)

Visit our sister company’s site at http://www.crema-coffee.com/blog/learn-coffee-classes/ for more information and to sign up for the class! Sign ups coming soon! Every class comes with a free bag of Brown Coffee Co. coffee, and a Beve How-To Guide to take home in case you are like me, and can’t remember what was taught when I get home!  Sunday, June 18th, 2-4pm.

Details @ www.musicianscorner.com!

We hope to see you there!

This is certain to be a valuable class, we’ll be exploring two brewing methods in one class: the Frech Press and the Clever Coffee Dripper. In this class we are going to highlight the major differences between the two brewing devices, as well as giving you the tools and knowledge to make coffee on the Clever Coffee Dripper and French Press at home. With just a little know-how and the right equipment, it’s so dang easy to brew fantastic coffee every morning!

Sign up for this one today and discover all the secrets that make these methods our favorites! You can sign up for the price of the class + yourvery own Clever ($40/person) to take home, or just the price of the class ($25). The French Press will be available for purchase. We look forward to seeing you there!

*Contact us for discounts on groups of 2 or more: info@bevecoffee.com

**If you would prefer to pay by another method please contact info@bevecoffee.com

To those of you who have been waiting for the announcement of the next class, we’re sorry that it is just getting out there.  Join us on Twitter or Facebook to make sure that you get the message as soon as each class is announced.

Without further ado, this next CREMA\\ Beve Brew Methods class will be covering the Abid Clever Coffee Dripper.  This brewing method has quickly become one of Beve’s preferred brewing methods.  Upon discovering this method and using our handy-dandy coffee refractometer to figure out our methodology, we realized that it was so easy to hit the desired range of Total Dissolved Solids.  The repeatability, ease, and “cleverness” of the design led us to deeming it the method of choice when tasting new coffees and profiling them for which brew method they would perform best in.  The Clever Coffee Dripper exhibits all the right conditions for a proper extraction.  With the newly designed lid that rests on top, this method allows you to easily control temperature, steeping or “infusion” time, and the rate of the drip or “release”.

Make sure you sign up for this one here and discover all the secrets that make this method one of our favorites!  You can either sign up for the price of the class + you very own Clever to take home, or just the price of the class if you already have one and would like to learn how to better use it.  We look forward to seeing you there!

The Beve Brothers

One of the best things about being extremely geeky when it comes to coffee, is that it gives us Beve boys a chance to meet and teach some really fine people about the ways of coffee.  This past February, Nathanael and I were privileged to train the staff members at Edgehill Cafe on the corner of Villa and Edgehill, in the ever expanding Edgehill Village.  This place has undergone many changes throughout the years, but I believe that this last ownership change has been one for the better.

Winn Elliott, also owner of Brite Revolution and his newly acquired Fringe Magazine, bought the struggling cafe back in spring or summer of 2010.  With the help of some local and very talented contractors, Winn completely redesigned the inside of the store which now boasts a very elegant yet down to earth, backwoods Montana vibe, utilizing what looks to be some old barn wood on the counters, walls, and table tops.  Winn has a very good vision of what he wants the store to be, and he and I are collaborating often to continue changing the face of Edgehill Cafe.

Beve had already been a huge part of the happenings at Edgehill Cafe prior to the employee trainings that took place in February.  There were many long talks with Winn on how to further improve this picture perfect location for a coffee shop, and this eventually led to us holding a day full of public cupping classes.  The local community came in to taste three coffees, from three different regions, and hopefully learned something entirely new about processing, roasting, and how to profile coffee’s tasting notes.  Keep an eye out for more of these public cupping classes!

In February we held our Coffee 101 course for about 8 of Edgehill Cafe’s staff, including Winn and his father who aids in running the place.  This course is an hour-long dissection of the processes that coffee goes through from seed to cup, followed by an offensive cupping where they get to see firsthand the differences in regions, processing, etc.  In light of everything that goes into coffee before it reaches the barista’s hands, our responsibility as baristas is not something to be taken lightly.  The next portion of this 3 hour course is a walk through of all the ways we can either “mess it all up” or “hit a home run” with the coffee.  We also do a thorough cleaning and breakdown of machine parts and equipment.  This is one of the most eye opening parts when we realize that EVERYTHING the coffee touches could in the end affect the way it tastes.

The Coffee 101 was followed up by three of Edgehill’s baristas taking our 4 hour Espresso 101 & 102 courses.  We spent two weeks developing good habits, as well as teaching the science and technique behind preparing great espresso beverages.  Trevor, Rachel, and Tyler (not pictured) all gave up 8 hours of their life to learn more about this exciting process, and quite happily at that.  These courses touch on everything from the basics of dosing, tamping, steaming and overall drink prep to the theory of espresso extraction, weighing your shots, calculating extraction yield percentages, latte art, and a breakdown of the proper maintenance schedule every coffee shop should have in place.

The aftermath has been very game changing for Edgehill Cafe.  Immediately they began hearing that their coffee was tasting better than it ever had.  They are even looking into getting new equipment that will allow their baristas to better utilize the things they’ve learned, and have gone as far as making sure they hire new employees who are passionate about coffee.  We’re thrilled to be a part of their continual development, and we think you should be too!  If you’re a barista or coffee enthusiast in town, go be a patron of their place, and know that you can talk coffee with them.  I’m sure they’d be thrilled.

There’s more to come from Winn at Edgehill Cafe, so stay in the loop!

Who’s next for training?  Contact us at info@bevecoffee.com for pricing and an expanded information brochure about our training.

Cheesy Beve farewell,

Sean

P.S. We teach classes on home brew methods every 3rd Sunday @ CREMA from 2-4pm.  Sometimes things like this happen:

Crema // Beve Aeropress Brew Method Class from Chad McClarnon on Vimeo.

And once again thanks to my awesome wife, Julie, for the photos seen in this blog!

Be sure to look through the March/April issue of Fringe Magazine…for in it you will find an article about the CREMA \\ Beve partnership.  You can pick them up at local coffee shops, like CREMA, or read it online here.

That’s all the news we’ve got!

Beve out.

Berlin

Café CK

Marienburgerstraße 49

10405 Berlin

Owners: Cory Andreen, Kerstin Winklebauer

www.cafeckberlin.com

Upon entering Café CK we were met by a well constructed bar that sat a beautiful white paddle group La Marzocco FB80 to the right, and shelves stocked with a wide array of  Hario products and brew methods immediately to the left.  It was a beautiful wood construction, and unlike every cafe I’ve visited in, say, New York, there was plenty of space to sit down with friends and enjoy several cups!

For our first round of drinks I ordered a cortado, which is often something I often order when I’m in the mood for something milky and my wife Julie got a latte since she likes to see peoples latte art skills (she’s quite remarkable at latte art herself, and taking great photos like these!).  The espresso was extracted nicely through naked portafilters and was amazingly balanced with the milk, with notes of smooth dark chocolate, buttered toast, and steamed to a near perfect temperature.  The cortado was served in a small rock glass, about 4 oz in size, which aesthetically was very pleasing, and made the drinking experience one to remember.  I followed the cortado up with a V60 of a varietal from Ethiopia, Sidama region I think (I was awful at remembering farm names this time), which was extremely aromatic, with notes of lemon zest, lavender, and african tea like body/acidity.

Although they do not roast their own coffee, they get their coffee from a local roaster, backyard coffee, that is roasted lighter for their specific taste.  I didn’t see a single dark oily bean in the cafe, which is atypical of the vast majority of European shops.  They are also dedicated to 100% Arabica coffees, to which we think, “why the need to state that”? It’s just too common all over Europe to purchase copious amounts of coffee that is part Arabica – part Robusta, or just simply Robusta, roast it dark, and not pay any attention to cleanliness, extraction times, and just plain ol’ good habits.

We spent a little bit of time speaking with the owner Cory Andreen, a very knowledgeable and down to earth guy from Washington, DC.  After talking for a bit we ended up purchasing a bag of Costa Rican coffee that was fresh enough to make it 11 days until we returned home, which we’ve made both with Clever Coffee Dripper and Chemex since and it is a superb coffee.

He left us with a few more shops to try, but we were too limited on time to visit them.  His recommendations were The Barn and Godshot.

Paris

Coutume Café

47, Rue de Babylone

75007 Paris

Owner: Antoine (sorry, can’t remember or find the last name)

www.facebook.com/pages/Coutume or www.coutumecafe.com

Paris, even more so than Berlin, is suffering from a wide scale of really terrible coffee.  This comes from the cultural norm to just sit down at one of the thousand cafés to sip a tasteless, dark espresso whilst smoking a cigarette, and from the economic variable that most shops just don’t want to spend money on Arabica coffees, since their coffee sells like crazy anyway and is cheaper.  It’s not uncommon to see a semi automatic espresso machine in Paris, but it is also not uncommon to have baristas that don’t keep the machines clean (which owner Antione informed me was one of the biggest problems there with coffee), and that wouldn’t mind pulling 2 minute shots of espresso that blond after about the first 7 seconds.  Coutume stands as an oasis of good coffee with only two other recommendable shops in this large city.

We first entered and were met by Kevin, a guy from Iowa, who had been very active in the Specialty Coffee scene here in America before transplanting into Paris, and Antoine, who had previously worked in a specialty coffee shop in Australia but was native to France.  We were soon met by a third guy in the team, Tom, who came from Australia.  These guys were really genuine, and even spent an hour talking to us about their operation, their goals, the coffee that is roasted on site, and even filled me in on how the café was constructed with purpose.  They thought of everything that makes this coffee shop brilliant.

Antoine informed me that they source coffee as direct as possible from small farms, and he’s even traveled to a few them himself.  They are so obsessed with quality coffee that they even used it to paint their walls!  They built a community cupping table where they would hold cuppings of their coffee selections on a regular basis, that was ornate with a coffee plant from Camaroon.  They were equipped with a Petroncini roaster, which would later be replaced by a larger roaster I was informed, a La Marzocco FB80, a Mazzer Robur E, several Hario Siphon pots and V60′s, a couple of Malkönig coffee grinders, and a really neat slow drip iced coffee maker.  The place was set up nicely and had a unique feel.

They not only have a desire to specialize in great coffee, but they want to educate their customers in high quality tea, chocolate, food, and wine.  They are dedicated to and have a passion for everything grown, processed, and prepared with thought, time, tradition, and skill.

Coutume had just opened a week before, therefore, the coffee was only 3 days off roast, and we ended up talking to Antoine for quite some time, so we only were able to taste their single origin espresso that was from Santa Ana, Brasil (maybe).  Although I didn’t taste much, I know they will stand out in quality since they spent much time while I was there brewing, tasting, and altering their methods.  Time spent on methodology and geekery is a quality worth noting in Paris.

Overall, this was an exceptional trip and not only was I relieved to get excellent coffee, but I was even inspired greatly by these places.  Please do check out their sites, and if you’re ever in these cities (which should happen in your lifetime) and are yearning for some great coffee, you no longer have to feel as though you won’t find it.

-Sean

P.S.  Don’t wait too long to sign up for our Aeropress class this Sunday, 2-4 pm held at CREMA.  Sign up at www.crema-coffee.com/blog/learn-coffee-classes before Friday!

With the coming of March, comes the introduction of a new season and yet another over-caffeinated, overly geeky, and overly interesting Brew Methods course.  This little plunger coffeemaker was invented by a company more widely known for their high soaring, long distance achieving flying discs and sports toys out of Palo Alto, CA.  So, what could a flying disc maker know about constructing a coffee making device?

Over the years this little device has gained some unheralded attention, and they even hold competitions all over the world displaying its brewing versatility.  Despite its unlikely origin, its funny look, and its unconventional brewing conditions you can make one heck of a cup of coffee in the Aeropress!

Our Brew Methods: Chemex course in February was a huge success and a lot of fun.  Our friend Chad McClarnon, local photographer and artist came to the class and put together a little video:

Crema // Beve Chemex Brew Method Class from Chad McClarnon on Vimeo.

We hope that you can join us on March 27th, from 2-4pm to learn one of several methods that we’ve found to consistently ‘hit the mark’ in taste, repeatability, and scientifically!

Sign up for the class now at www.crema-coffee.com.