The new DoubleShot Carbon Credit Travel Cups are here!
With World Coffee Domination sweeping the planet, we feel hope for the future and want to preserve the environment as much as possible. So out with the old, and in with the new.
I took the new cup for a test drive today, to see how well it works in my Land Rover. The Land Rover is equipped with ridiculously small cup holders, made for cans of soda I think, and the new CCTC fit in the hole like it was specially made by Land Rover and cost $85. I took some hard corners to see if the cup would tip and fall from its shallow holder, but nay. Nay! It has staying power. But even if it had come out...
The cup has a flip-top lid. It screws on and the flip-top closes over the drinking hole, preventing spillage. Isaiah and I did some preliminary testing before I left for this test drive. I put coffee in the cup. I went to the DoubleShot test sink and turned the cup upside down. Not one drop leaked out. I flipped the cup into the air and caught it and not a drop spilled. I threw the cup to Isaiah and he tossed it back to me like two clowns juggling bowling pins at the circus. This cup is sealed up tight.
It's an insulated plastic cup. That means there is a layer of plastic on the inside and another layer of plastic on the outside, and the air between helps the coffee inside stay hot. It seems to work, though I haven't done any rigorous testing on the length of time it holds temp. This cup is surprisingly heavy (286 grams). It's solid. It feels unbreakable, so I subjected it to the drop test. At 3 feet, the cup bounced off the concrete floor unscathed. I wasn't even worried that anything had happened to it. At 6 feet, it sounded a little worse. This was dropped from over my head. Like if you were drinking coffee and someone came up behind you and scared you and you threw your cup into the air and it landed on the concrete (or maybe if you set it on top of your SUV and forgot and drove off). The cup received some minor cosmetic damage. The very bottom of the cup cracked in a half-inch C-shaped ding. Upon re-filling the cup with coffee and re-testing, no leaks or other impairments were noted.
In the car, drinking from the cup was fine. The flip-top is easy to open with one hand and the coffee pours out into my mouth without drips or hassles, and it closes up as easily as it opens. I do have one complaint. The tiny rubber stopper that closes up the vent hole which allows the coffee to pour smoothly into my gullet pokes me in the nose. Right on the end of my nose. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's a mild irritant. I'll get used to it. The best part was, as soon as I started drinking out of it I felt like I was on a road trip! I could envision myself driving west, toward Colorado, toward Utah... I felt freedom!
But let's talk about the looks of the cup. Our in-house designer put the DoubleShot logo on a background that is the DoubleShot Coffee roaster. The roaster is out of focus and it's kind of hard to tell what it is, but now that you know, well... you know. Anyway, in my opinion it's a beautiful cup.
The cup sells for $10 at DoubleShot or on the website (www.DoubleShotCoffee.com). And it's worth waaaaay more than $10, if you think about it. When you stop using paper cups, you stop killing trees, you earn carbon credits, and you can feel better about driving your SUV to Moab.

Save the planet! Buy a DoubleShot Carbon Credit Travel Cup!

I have some good news and I have some bad news.

The good news is, you can go on ebay and read the tomfoolery I've written about Howdy Doody; you can buy the official DoubleShot Howdy Doody; and it comes with a half-pound of fresh-roasted DoubleShot Coffee.

The bad news is, we're about to part with Howdy Doody.

Go look at our ebay listing.

And the winner for this year's Best Product Placement goes to...
Oh, never mind.

FREE STICKERS!

Come on down to the DoubleShot and get yourself a free sticker or two or three. High-quality vinyl, weather-resistent, sticks to your window, GIVE ME SOME DOUBLESHOT LOVE!

I'm sure you can think of somewhere to stick it.
I know I did.

Vanna McAllister doesn't have a nickname... yet.

But she does have her artwork up on the walls of the DoubleShot.
I'm thinking "Blanca" maybe would be a good nickname for her. But if you have a better idea, feel free to email me (or her).

You should come check out her artwork; it's really awesome. And it's for sale. And they're color-ridden and wordy. I couldn't possibly describe them, so you'll just have to come see for yo'sef.
And visit her website: http://www.vannamcallister.com/

Tell Vanna what you think (unless you don't like it, in which case she told me to tell you to f*#% off - my kind of gal!) And buy something for god's sake; she's a starving artist!

I've been meaning to blog about the SCAA Conference in Long Beach, and I've had considerable trouble getting it done. I've started several times and not finished. I wouldn't be surprised if this is another false start. But I'll give it another shot. It’s been a while now.

SCAA
Hmm, where to start?
I guess I should start by saying that Amy Ferraris and I recorded three podcasts while I was in San Francisco, and we talked about a lot of what I experienced on my trip. Listen to AA Cafe #42, 43, and 44.

So I flew into Long Beach, after spending a cold night on the hard, air conditioned floor of the Dallas airport. I checked in at the LONG line in the convention center. Then I went for a walk around by the water, looking for a spot to spend the night. I found one (I thought) and then found a bar that served 175 beers on tap. During my stay I tasted the many Belgian and Belgian-style ales available at the Yard House. So distracted, I almost missed the keynote speech by Jackie's son, David Robinson (he owns a coffee plantation in Tanzania). David didn't seem all that interested in being there anyway.

Then I went to the big welcoming party at the Aquarium. Tons of people were there. I met my new friend Robin from Kenya, who introduced me to a lot of other African coffee people over the course of the weekend. And after the party, I walked down to the place I had found to lay my head, on a dirt trail down by the water, under a low tree branch. But when I got there, I found a homeless man in my spot. I guess I'm better at picking out places to sleep than I thought.

So I eventually lay down on a concrete bench on top of the walkway that led to the convention center. But it got really cold there. (I may discuss in this blog at at later date why I slept outside instead of in a hotel.) (Or maybe not.)

The convention (for me) basically consisted of some classroom lectures and the tradeshow. A few of the lectures were outstanding. My favorite was about sensorial evaluation of coffee by Paul Songer. The amount of knowledge and information he was giving us was incredible, and unfortunately they cut him off because they thought his presentation was too long. I feel that the monitor should realize when something exceptional is happening (like when the holy spirit is moving in a charismatic congregation) and keep it rolling.
The seminar about the changing coffee scenarios in Rwanda was very interesting as well, and Tim Schilling clearly has his shit together. He's way out of my league.
Kentaro Maruyama from Japan spoke on buying coffee from micro-mills and farmers. He was a funny, intelligent, excited guy, and it was inspirational to listen to someone who took a primitive coffee situation in Japan and surpassed what most of us are able to do in the U.S.
The worst "educational" session I was subjected to was called "The Pursuit of Excellence: Living Coffee Quality." Now, you can probably see why I was attracted to this. I guess I was hoping to be among fellow coffee purists; to have my opinions bolstered; to be encouraged and maybe even learn new ways of "living coffee quality." They were disorganized, unprepared, and irritating. Most of the time they talked about organic certification and the SCAA Gold Cup certification, which is really lame. Organic certification has nothing to do with the quality of coffee and Gold Cup teaches you how much coffee to use and how hot your water should be when you brew drip coffee; seriously, if you don't know how to make drip coffee, you might consider a different line of work. The panel of "experts" discussed things like whether or not you should put a cup under the brewer while it’s still brewing, how your market “demands” dark roasted coffee even though someday you’d rather not roast so dark, and the fact that people ask for certified organic and fair trade coffees instead of asking about quality. The panel focused, not on quality, rather on the certifications that marketers buy for coffee. And their ramblings were awkward and insipid. I sat as long as I could because I think it’s rude to leave in the middle of a presentation, but eventually I couldn’t stand it any more. I wanted to stand up and confess: I used to sell decaf. I used to sell blended drinks. I still have chocolate and vanilla flavor syrups. I used to make an exception and give a cab driver espresso in a to-go cup. I used to have employees. They wouldn’t have known what I was talking about. If this is the “coffee quality” that the SCAA advocates, I’m not particularly interested in being involved.

The tradeshow was more worthwhile. I met a lot of people there. I finally met Nick Cho from Portafilter.net and Murky Coffee in DC. And I met Jay Caragay of Jay’s Shave Ice and co-host of the Portafilter podcast. I was excited to meet George Howell of Terroir Coffee. He’s a legend in the industry, and it was nice to see that we kept running into each other at the same places, talking to the same people. I met Vince Piccolo of 49th Parallel Roasters in Vancouver. And his friends Alistair and Rob from Elysian Coffee (also the admin guys for Coffeed.com). I also got to talk to the two fellers (Zander and Randy) who own the Clover company. I got the thorough explanation/demonstration of how the Clover works and drank plenty of coffee from it. World Barista Champ, Klaus Thomsen was working for Clover and I was pleased he remembered me from our brief visit at La Minita in January. The coffee world really is a small place. My broker, Drew Zent, from La Minita was there showing off his coffees, and he was nice enough to let me stow away my backpack in his room during the day so I wouldn’t have to lug it around the showroom floor (and I even took a shower in his room one day; what a luxury). Drew is always very nice and generous; I’m a loyal (though small) customer and I hope they consider me a friend. Who else did I meet?
I met a young lady named Claudia who works for the Colombian Coffee Federation, and she was very nice, even though I’m such a small player in the industry that they don’t have any business talking to me. Most of my time was spent tracking down people from other countries, trying to figure out how to connect with smaller farmers and get to know the people who produce my coffees. I also talked to my broker from Royal Coffee, Jeri, who generously invited me to come to their office outside of San Francisco and cup with her.
The convention had complimentary breakfast, which was nice even though the pastries were pre-packaged CRAP and the complimentary coffee was absolutely terrible. (I drank Mountain Dew to dull the headache.)
I remember when I first met Claudia from Colombia (and her friend Carolina), I mentioned to them how amazing it was that Vietnam had recently surpassed them in coffee production and Colombia was now third to Vietnam and Brazil. Claudia retorted that they would never be surpassed in quality. What a gal. And that’s how it is at the DoubleShot. We’ll never be the biggest coffeehouse, but I’ll be damned if we’re going to be outdone in quality.

Most of the notes in my journal are tasting notes from the beers I was sampling twice a day at the Yard House. My one poor-man’s luxury. And going to see Ryan every day at his uncle’s concession, Tugboat Pete’s, for a hotdog or italian sausage and some fritos.

Long Beach was a beautiful place. The views were great. The weather was great (except for being really cold at night). The ocean was beautiful. I spent one afternoon walking down to the actual beach. I walked so much that I had blisters on my feet, carrying a 50# backpack everywhere. The sand and waves and distant islands and boats were a relief to my senses. The sounds and smell of the ocean helped clear the stress from my head. The people who live there seem content. One day I was walking down to see Ryan and get a hot dog, and I noticed that a large crowd had gathered. There were a bunch of pirates. They were dressed very convincingly, carrying swords and one of them even had a parrot. The pirates put on a little skit, sword fights and all, and we very much enjoyed their enthusiasm.

It was as if I was existing in three different worlds in Long Beach - the coffee world, the local/tourist life, and the nighttime homeless existence (with all its interesting encounters).

Now that I’ve finally finished this blog, I’ll try to write about San Francisco soon. In the mean time, listen to the podcasts and drink DoubleShot Coffee.

It's raining.

36 consecutive days of rain in the area. Isaiah tells me we're only 4 days (and nights) away.

It's good coffee drinkin' weather.

Maybe I'll sit down today and finish my blog about the trip to the SCAA Conference in Long Beach. The beach was pretty long.

Isaiah has arrived at the DoubleShot.

As it is written:

"I will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken."

I am in possession of two coffees that are good, and I didn't roast them. That may sound egotistical or exaggerative, but once you get used to drinking great coffee, the other stuff tastes terrible. And it's REALLY hard to make good coffee. The last good coffee I had was Barefoot's infamous "farm direct" Ethiopia Adado Moje.

Two of my customers this week brought me coffee from Portland and Chicago. Stumptown and Intelligentsia. Rwanda Musasa and Tres Santos (Colombia).
The Rwandan from Stumptown has a nice, sweet, floral aroma and a clean but earthy, black tea-like taste. Complex. To me, it tastes like a coffee that I would think is dry-processed, but it is washed. Maybe if you took a Yirgacheffe and planted it in Sumatra. It's good. My first Rwandan.
The Tres Santos from Intelli is different. It's really clean on my palate. Very smooth. The dry fragrance is a mild fruitiness or maybe vanilla, but the wet aroma has a lot of something spicy like allspice or what they tell me is tamarind (something in worcestershire sauce). There isn't much fruit in the taste, but it's pleasantly round with a bit of nutmeg or some other apple pie-type spice.
Anyway, kudos to the guys who produced these coffees, from farm to mill to selecting the coffees to roasting. They're even fresh!
How exciting.

Ok. I'm going for a run.

You've probably already noticed, but The DoubleShot is SHUT today. I'm out celebrating my independence.
See you tomorrow.

They're here.
The new DoubleShot tshirt designs have arrived.
Black or slate for the guys.
Black or white for the girls.
$15 each.