Counter Culture Coffee Philadelphia

The 2009 World Barista Champion, Gwilym Davis, became a geological refugee this last week. After traveling to Anaheim for the SCAA event, he was stuck in the USA as all European air travel came to halt due to mega-tons of volcanic ash that spewed into Earth’s atmosphere from the recent Icelandic eruption . Cindy Chang of the WBC toured him around the East Coast, where he was hosted by various Counter Culture accounts, treated to fine foods by concerned reps from Nova Simonelli, and, as far as I know, still awaits travel back to London. I visited our NYC training center for a cupping with him, and got a few snaps as he pulled a guest shift at SoHo’s Dean & Deluca. Gwilym spent 20 minutes talking to the cheese buyer, as he (Gwylim) is personal friends with half of the creameries and cheese producers represented at the cheese counter.

Sam, Gwylim, Lori (Beaner Bar), Sasha, and Tommy, (Background people are Ian from New Zealand, and I did get the other guy's name)

Dean & Deluca SoHo, Gwylim imparts knowledge and experience to the Barista, Maria, and again I don't the name of the guy in back.

On January 20th, at approximately 2pm, Ultimo Coffee Bar in South Philly featured the first ever (that we know of) North American grown and processed coffee to be retailed in a coffee shop.  This mini micro lot from Finca Nueva Berlin, grown by producer Daryn Berlin, was raised with careful and meticulous cultivation techniques in his living room in Durham, N.C.  Trading this scant crop totaling 1oz of roasted beans for $1.50, Daryn Berlin and Aaron Ultimo also made the history books by engaging in the most direct of Direct Trade ever possible in the coffee industry.  The coffee was passed directly from grower/producer/roaster to buyer/retailer/barista in the very coffee shop in which it was to be consumed.  It was my distinct honor to buy that cup, which retailed for $3.25, which I then shared with the whole gang.

EDIT:  First from the Continental USA, Hawaii puts out lots of coffee.

This Direct Trade coffee began as a simple house plant some years ago.  Eventually adding more and more saplings, Daryn’s hot house plants came of seed bearing age.  Coffee shrubs only like to flower after the rainy season, which is something that had to be falsified for the home-grown crop with multiple daily mistings for a period of about two weeks.  After this, the jasmine scented blossoms appear.  I am told that the fertilization is something that must be done by hand, and i can only imagine that since all plants respond well to the sound of the human voice, a few encouraging words are used to hasten and insure the that the pollen takes hold.

A long and slow maturation follows, with 9 months gestation, till the fruit are ripe and red like a strawberry.  With indoor controlled climate, constant and well drained moisture, and the lack of direct sun, the cherries must ripen with similar characteristics to high altitude, shade grown, island coffee.  Once ready, the cherries were processed by a most unusual, though resourceful, method.  Cherries were pulped by mouth before spitting the sticky mucilage covered seeds into a bag.  Once pulped, the mouth-processed seeds underwent an 18 hour fermentation followed by a good hand washing.  Drying was accomplished in the style of the region, employing the “window sill” drying bed.

Daryn tells me that the roasting, done in San Fransiscan sample roaster, was a quick and short process.  The beans began to show the first sings of scorching while still a light milk chocolate brown, ending the roast at an extremely light level.

Aaron prepared the coffee in a single cup Chemex.  The initial aroma of the coffee, believed to be mostly Bourbon, was less then stellar.  There was a trace of something like wet wool, perhaps socks, and perhaps stale graham cracker.  The liquid gave hint to a bit of sugar browning, with the smell of cheap grocery store sugar cookies.  In flavor, there was a hint of this caramelized sweetness, but that was overtaken by the dominance of browned pop corn kernel.  The after taste gave one a sense of regret, lingering like some kind of paper product, (not caused by the filter after Aaron’s multiple flushes).  Was it worth the $3.25, you may wonder?  Scarcity drives up the value in this situation.  It was certainly worth it for me to have the privilege to drink the “most celebrated coffee produced entirely in the USA”.

Slurp, ahh, ohh, eww.

Title: Cupping at Lovers and Madmen
Location: 490th and Ludlow
Description: Public cupping of three coffees from Counter Culture
Start Time: 13:00
Date: 2009-10-09
End Time: 14:00

In keeping with the Counter Culture tradition of helping coffee shops put on awesome community building events, (mainly centered around food, beverages that are considered an acquired taste, and latte art), our good friends in the City of Brotherly Love (if I had a dollar for each time I’ve heard that since I moved up here) are putting on yet another East Coast installment of Thursday Night Throwdown.

Swing by on September 24th to Lovers and Madmen at 7pm.  We will be drinking different kinds of brew, and pitting our free pour skills in the now famous TNT format.

Philadelphia TNT resides here on the web.  Here is the flier: