What's this? A new, shiny grinder at the DoubleShot? Yessir. After four years of hard labor, I let the Mazzer Super Jolly out to pasture and "upgraded" to a new Compak grinder that was used in the United States Barista Championships. It's bigger and shinier and quieter. But the reason I bought it is for the grinding burrs. The grinders we've been using have flat burrs and the new one uses conical burrs. So the burrs rotate a lot slower and stay a lot cooler. The coffee grounds come out of the doser a lot fluffier and the espresso is pulling that way too. The best thing about it is that the shots seem to be more consistent and smoother with more fruit aromas and it doesn't fall off at the end- the finish is a lot smoother, sweeter, cleaner.

The conference was fun. We drove up. We'd all worked all day before we left, so we slept in a rest area on the way. We camped in Minneapolis. The first night was cold and pouring rain, but after that it was pretty nice. There's so much to tell about, we'll probably cover more on the podcast than in this blog, but I'll try.

SCAA is the big show. Seems like a lot of the big players in the specialty coffee industry are there. It's interesting. The barista championships were going on the entire time, and Isaiah and Jason seemed to get into that whole scene. We ran into Mark Pendergrast. That was pretty cool. I recently finished reading his book, "Uncommon Grounds," and he was featured in the documentary "Black Coffee." I've been so impressed by the guy's knowledge of coffee history that meeting him was pretty cool. I'd love to have him sit down in my store and just talk.
I also ran into Mark Prince of coffeegeek.com. He's a funny guy. I enjoyed chatting with him for a little while. What an animated fellow. I made OBEY stickers of him before we left, so when Isaiah walked up with one stuck to his shirt, Mark freaked out. Started sweating and was clearly uncomfortable with whatever message he took from this inane sticker. Anyway, he was a fun guy to hang around with at the show for the short time I did.
We attended the party that Hacienda La Minita invited us to. It was a fancy soiree with complimentary drinks and an impressive spread of delicious seafood. The highlight of that party (aside from the salmon and the chocolate covered strawberries we devoured) was getting to talk to the owner of La Minita, Bill McAlpin. He's the king- in one man's words, answerable only to the government of Costa Rica and to God. I enjoyed talking to him as we delved, over the course of a couple days, into what makes a quality coffee and what coffee is "worth." Bill is an adamant opponent of Fair Trade certification, and for good reason. He believes it is evil and voiced a lot of the concerns he has with this system. Bill has a certain way he does things, and a lifetime of experience in coffee. Hard to argue with a guy like that, but I did my best.
Another guy I find myself running into a lot at SCAA is George Howell. This guy is huge. He originally started a chain of coffeeshops a long time ago called Coffee Connection, invented the frappuccino, and sold the whole thing to Starbucks. But now he's a real coffee guy. Like Bill McAlpin, George has a lot of firm ideas about what coffee should be, and there is a lot to learn from guys like that.
One of the funniest encounters we had was with Reg Barber, the guy who makes our tampers. He's a quirky Canuck. He came up and took a picture of Isaiah's back because he recognized the DoubleShot logo on his shirt. Reg seemed excited to meet us and we all stood around yucking it up for a little bit. I'm not so sure Reg knows that he puts out the best tampers in the world.
Of course we talked to Nick Cho (portafilter.net and Murky Coffee). He's a fine fellow, but he always seems like he's distracted - maybe trying to find a more interesting conversation.
Jay Caragay of portafilter.net and Spro was really a great guy to talk to. He took the time to have a real conversation with us a couple times, and we appreciate his kindness and attention. Jay is an interesting guy and I think he's really trying to do some cool stuff with coffee.

There were a lot of other people we talked to. A lot of stuff we did. A lot of products we looked at. A lot of espresso we drank. (Notable espresso included Intelligentsia, 49th Parallel, and Alterra.)

I'll try to blog in more detail about some of the more interesting things, and I'm sure we'll be podcasting soon.

Come in and try an espresso or americano on the new grinder. Yum.