Arizona Coffee

I received an email this morning from Victor Kessler, one of the first readers of Arizona Coffee, and owner and operator of Lost Dutchman Coffee Roasters. They are growing fast and looking to hire at their Tempe location.

The job description:

Part time work of 10 hours/week to start with. Looking for an extremely coffee oriented person for our business that knows how to work on and update web sites using standard HTML code. Secondary duties (to start with) will be to roast coffee on various equipment including Ambex and Probat roasters as well as equipment maintenance.

Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting response to the question about super-automatic espresso machines:

The wrong assumption that underpins superautomatic espresso machines is that the critical variables in espresso coffee making can be standardized and controlled. They can go close, but superautomatic espresso machines cannot control some of the finer nuances that are necessary for quality espresso coffee making. Control and adjustment of these nuances typically requires the expert ‘eye’ and judgement of a skilled barista.

View the full answer on Quora.

Today my wife and I wanted to grab some Greek food and drove over to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant. They offered Greek Coffee so we had that with baklava for dessert. It is very similar to Turkish coffee… finely ground coffee beans, made in a briki, etc.

Saw this cute little espresso maker photo and wondered if anyone has tried using one before?

This, my friends, is a small cappuccino ‘for here’ from Coffee Plantation (the location on Shea Blvd). I stopped in yesterday afternoon for a game of chess, as I like to do occasionally (good group there), and had this.

Had this exceptional cappuccino yesterday at Echo Coffee. Very tasty, and I like how they give you a little cookie if you order ‘for here.’

Echo Coffee
2902 North 68th St.
Suite 135
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Phone: (480) 422-4081
Twitter: @EchoCoffeeAZ

Here’s a sweet video showing the new Shine Coffee on ABC 15. They show the inside of their Airstream which they drive all around the valley making espresso drinks. Pretty cool idea. In the video, they say it took almost 9 months to fully renovate the Airstream and get set up for business. They buy coffee from a variety of local coffee roasters, according to the video. Laryn Blok, co-founder, says: “Make friends with your local roaster.” Such great advice.

Manuel Santana-Bendix is quite possibly the only person who grows, processes, imports, and roasts coffee and lives in Arizona. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Thanks to Dana Desonie for emailing to let me know about Café de Doña Ella. From the web site:

Café de Doña Ella is an effort to bring you the best quality coffee, from the Highlands of El Salvador. It is farmed and processed by Manuel Alberto Santana-Bendix, a resident of Flagstaff who also owns his family’s small coffee farm in El Salvador (Finca Grano de Oro). On the farm he grows the Borbón (Bourbon) variety of Coffea arabica, arguably the best variety of coffee trees.

In 2004, his coffee was one of the winners in a Cup of Excellence. You can purchase his coffee in Flagstaff. To learn more, visit his web site at cafededonaella.com.

What a year! My wife had a baby girl (Emily), and we travelled all over the state visiting coffee shops. Visited Bisbee, Tucson, Flagstaff, and lots of other cities (still need to write about several of those stops).

Arizona Coffee has 6,676 followers on Twitter (up from 5,800 last year). Facebook is still a fraction of what is on Twitter, but I like the photo album aspect on Facebook. We have 527 fans on Facebook (up from 337 a year ago).

So without further ado, here’s the best posts from this year:

January

• The green paint is gone at Scottsdale Quarter — Press Coffee Roasters had just opened their 2nd store, and we visited and took some pictures
• Best menu board design? — Sparked an interesting discussion about menu board design

February

• A Visit to Dutch Bros. — My interview with the owner of the AZ locations of this franchise

March

• Arizona Traveler: Los Angeles — A handy list (in the comments) of some coffee shops to visit in LA

April

• Vinyl Rush, a coffee bar and cafe opens in Mesa — Photos submitted by a reader
• Copper Star Coffee celebrates five years — A Phoenix gem… how has it been 5 years already?

May

• A Visit to Carmel’s Coffee — A new coffee shop on Camelback Rd.
• Brian Clemens is your Southwest Regional Representative — Includes an interview (copied from another site) with Brian

June

• An encounter with a customer
• Intelligentsia’s Venice Beach — A visit to a coffee house in LA

July

• A Door with Character — The upcoming Mulch Coffee location

August

• Baby Arizona Coffee — My new baby girl, now 4 months old
• Do you check-in? — A discussion about location social networks, a whopping 48% of you ‘check in’
• The inventive coffee shop — Reinventing your coffee shop

September

• Lux Central: My first visit and some camera phone photos — Some thoughts on Lux Central
• Daniel Suh knows latte art — Thoughts after the SWLAC
• Latte Art from SWLAC — The definitive latte art contest for Arizona

October

• Who is your favorite barista? — 92 comments (some people thought it was a contest)
• Coffee Wizard in Tempe — Brand new coffee shop on University
• Results from Urban Beans Latte Throwdown — A really fun event
• Poll: How often do you make coffee at home? — 73% of Arizona Coffee readers make coffee at home every day
• Arizona Cold Brew — In which I ponder why nobody sells iced toddy by the gallon

November

• Mulch Coffee at the Old Town Farmers Market serves a smooth iced coffee — A Scottsdale gem opens

December

• Interesting Home-Espresso Machine on Kickstarter — I am seriously considering ordering one of these, but they won’t ship until December 2012

In case you are curious, you can browse my “Best of” posts from previous years: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.

I’d like to give a warm shout out to all of my sponsors this year, especially:

• The Coffee Bump
• Ground Control Coffee
• Cortez Coffee Company
• Firecreek Coffee Company
• Coffee Bean Corral
• The Roastery of Cave Creek
• Service Associates
• Canyon Oats
• The Drawing Board Signs

Have a Happy New Year! — Chris Tingom

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas! Here’s a little Christmas tree I made awhile back:

Here’s a funny clip from the movie Elf, in which Buddy the Elf discovers the worlds best coffee.

I saw this clever little flowchart the other day and had to share it. What to do if you find a coffee pot at work.

I have to admit, this sounds simply cool, but I don’t know why.

Stumptown rolled out an on-tap version of their Stumptown Cold Brew. It’s pulled from an actual beer tap, with a wooden tap handle, and served tall in a pint glass with ice.

Also, Sprudge notes that Stumptown is experimenting with a slow-bar concept… something I recall Cartel is planning to implement as well.

Seriously?

Last week after this tweet, the folks at Biscotea and Bis*coffee offered to send me a sampler package so I could try their product. I accepted, and must say they are quite delicious.

I haven’t had a chance to take photos of the actual biscotti product, but they look exactly like in the packaging photo. They’re a dry biscotti, so they’re not moist. My favorite so far is the espresso-flavor. It’s not overpowering in any way. You can purchase them at Sprouts in Phoenix, but I am unaware of any coffee shops that sell them. The product name is genius… biscotea / biscoffee. So smart.