Finca Las Golondrinas

Name:　Finca Las Golondrinas
Roaster: Home roast
Roasting degree: City
Area: Mosonte, Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua
Variety:  Villa Sarchi, Catura
Grade: SGH
Screen: N/A
Altitude: 1,400 - 1,700m
Defect: N/A
Processing Method: Fully washed

【Flavor scale】
Aroma: 5
Sweetness: 5
Acidity: 3
Bitterness: 3
Richness: 3    
※Grade 1 to 5

【Impression】
Medium dark, mellow, highly aromatic, cacao, coconut sugar, roasted pecan, rolled oats, Hazel nuts, silky, well-balanced sweetness and bitterness, coconuts sugar, molasses, unrefined cane sugar, vanilla, cacao nib, roasted almond, light touch of acidity, lime, blood orange, black berry, dark chocolate like bitterness with almond essence sweetness as a long lasting aftertaste. 



【Note】
Since 1974, this coffee farm has carried the dream of Peralta Family.  Finca Las Golondrinas won the first place in Nicaraguan SOE in 2007 and bit on the highest price, 47.06 at that time.  They grow very rare variety: Villa Sarchi.  Rarely grown in Nicaragua, Villa Sarchi is a natural hybrid of Burbon variety, which has low level of disease resistance but high yieldability.  This Burbon hybrid often explain as Orange, clean flavor, which strongly depends on and varies by the country/soil they are grown.    

Seattle Coffee Works

After visiting lovely "Ballard Coffee Works", the question comes up:  Is there any choice than visiting Seattle Coffee Works?"
So, here is Seattle Coffee Works in downtown Seattle, near Pike place market.

The cafe is located on Pike St., between 2nd and 1st Ave. Since brief history of Seattle Coffee Works has been covered in Ballard Coffee Works post, This post focuses on introducing Seattle Coffee Works.  

Although Seattle Coffee Works has limited space, you may notice their unique floor layout once step in a cafe.  They divided the space into 3 sections: espresso bar on the left, brew bar on the right and roasting room through the door .  Brew bar is hidden behind roasted/packaged beans shelf and kind of separated by a hip high swing door from the lest of cafe space.

With the order of Soy latte, Latte art came out as angel with a heart shaped head.  In San Francisco, Ballistas often says SOY has less capability to bring silky and creamy texture form to last long, so that they prefer/switched Almond Milk, which bottle shapes like a 18c woman.  However, "the almond milk movement" seems like hasn't affects Seattle Coffee here yet. 

Soy Latte at Seattle Coffee Works came with silky and milky creamy soy form stays until 16oz cup became empty.  Compared with Ballard Coffee works, drink was soft, creamy and comforting.  

Maybe, it was just because out side was heavy rain.  
Maybe, I was soaking wet.

    

Environmental-wise, Ballard Coffee Works has more "handy" and "stay-as-long-as-you can stay". 

Considering the location, in the middle of Seattle downtown very close to Pike Place Market, Seattle Coffee Works cafe has considerably friendly atmosphere for both locals and tourists.   

Intelligentsia Coffee ~ Venice Coffeebar

Since their name was mentioned, here is L.A.'s one of the most popular, the highest media exposure coffee roaster, Intelligentsia, known as "big-three" of third wave coffee in the United States.


Maybe, there is nothing to say about them, but here is brief overview about who they are just for reminder.  

Dated back in 1995,  Doug Zell and Emily Mange left San Francisco, a sanctuary for third wave coffee, to plant a seed of their dream coffee roaster.  The idea of Intelligentsia sprouted and rooted in Chicago, where they opens the very first roastery to bring freshly roasted coffee beans to their own.  After they bloomed in Chicago, Intelligentsia planted a seed in L.A., then in NYC, and now in SF, the city where picked up the seed.
Although they have more coffee house in Chicago than any other location, 7 in Chicago and 3 each in L.A. and NYC for now, somewhat L.A. has more media exposure than any others.  Is this because so called "Specialty coffee movement" has more active and influence on West Coast?  Maybe so.

Although all of their coffee bars has significant meanings to Intelligentsia, here is the one in Santa Monica, where celebrities and money actively flows.

Located on Abbot Kinney Blvd., the cutting-edge/sophisticated area ranked with Robertson Blvd. and  Melrose Ave.,  Venice Coffeebar shows its creativity emerged by corroboration with sophisticated L.A. architectural design.  The coffeebar hides itself in inside of old brick made building on almost end of Abbot Kinney shopping area.  The building appears historical, but inside of the building is nothing historical.  As you walk along a short shaded approach to the door, you will find a modern metallic interior merged into natural woody warmness.
Seating area are arranged like a stadium:  the stairs of bench seats are located by the window at the end looking down the espresso bar area.     

To be honest, all baristas appears in training, not fully professional enough to be at the championships.  Not only my cup but also other cups I watch did not appear fancy enough.  My usual choice "Soy Latte" was served as it shown, and creaminess of formed soy milk was far away from San Francisco quality.  

Maybe, this happened just because timing wasn't right.  
Maybe, my expectation was too high. 

Whenever I visit roasteries, I focus to read how much they enjoy "Coffee" and how strong they have the faith in their business.  Sometimes it is better to just simply visit their original location to observe and find out how they are.          

Groundwork Coffee Company

Say "Hello" to Groundwork Coffee, the best coffee company in the L.A. and Santa Monica.


Whenever people talk about the best coffee in L.A., the first name comes up is Intelligentsia.  Maybe, this has happened because of publicity and their performance.  They dispatch baristas to The United States Barista Championship, Big Western, almost every year and open "Coffee bar" in major cities in the States.  Or, it's because maybe their outstanding presentation at their cafes.

If the first thing you care about is quality, here is the one worth to visit, even make a trip to visit: Groundwork coffee.  Groundwork coffee is one of the first coffee roaster to become certified Organic in Southern California, and pioneered sustainable and relationship-based, organic coffee sourcing.  

There are 7 locations, including Roastery in North Hollywood and KIOSK on every Sunday at Farmers Market in Santa Monica's Heritage Square.  Their coffeehouses are very unique, most of them have something memorable or histrionic needed to be carried on to next generation.  Out of all, here is the one, the most unique coffee house on Main St., Santa Monica.   
Only 8 feet wide and 35 feet long, this handy size coffeehouse presents philosophy of Groundwork: "Organic and sustainability" can provide "high quality and exquisite flavor".  Coffee beans and teas they carry/offer are only organically grown.  

They sell not only blends but also single origins: Brazil, Sumatra, Honduras, Peru, Papua New Guinea and so on. 
Some may want to categorize these as "Specialty" since beans are identified by mills and estates/farms, but their effort is more than "Specialty".  

Organic and Specialty can be together if you sincerely deserve to combine these two together.  Groundwork proves it.         

"Specialty coffee movement" certainly brought us the mind of appreciation to the growers and raised value of their work.  So called "third wave" pushed up the price of green beans dramatically and micronized regions of production.

Groundwork Coffee Company shows us the future of "Specialty Coffee": harmonization.  We are now to live for the future.  The future we preserve environments and live with what we have.
 

Ballard Coffee Works

Pike Place and Capitol Hill are well known coffee culture sanctuary but Seattle seems to have "hideaways" in a neighborhood.  

Ballard, a neighborhood located in the northwestern part of Seattle, is one of the outstanding/focused area, where a many high-end apartments are now under construction.  Along Market St., on the corner of Market St. and 22nd Ave., there are three cafes, including Starbucks, gather and welcome us with nice coffee aroma.

Ballard Coffee works seems to the busiest cafe I have ever visited in Seattle.  At 7 AM, there are already a line for a cup and only few seat open.  Revisited at 9 PM, the cafe is still packed with people even on a weekday.     

Ballard Coffee Works belongs to Seattle Coffee Works located on Pike St., between 2nd and 1st Ave., near Pike Place Market.  Reading their history, there is a similar story to the one Storyville Coffee company has.  The capital of Coffee could not satisfy "coffee nuts" with the biggest expectation toward "coffee sanctuary", then "coffee nuts" begin roastery to meet their own expectation together with providing "real" coffee to people to create a genuine sanctuary.  

Spending years, heir business grows gradually.  In 2012, Seattle Coffee Works opened a second cafe in Ballard, called Ballard Coffee Works.  

Ballard Coffee Works is filled with warm atmosphere, warm enough to sit for hours and hours to make the space as our personal office.  The space is supplied with high speed WIFI, number of outlets, lots enough to call personal outlets assigned each seats!, and hide-away seat locations.  Actually, there are many occupies seats "working" there.  

Besides espresso drink and machine made drip coffee, there were specialty coffee choices with Aeropress, CEMEX, V60 and maybe others.  Espresso drinks were priced reasonably, maybe a bit lower than average price range, thus quality was good enough.  The choice of visiting day was Cafe latte with soy milk.  
Flavor of soy latte tastes satisfying for morning cups minus the form of soy milk is a little bit fuzzy.  Some may say espresso is weak for latte, depending on your　taste.       

Prologue ~ Storyville's House Blend

Name:　Prologue
Roaster: Stryville coffee company
Roasting degree: Full City

【Flavor scale】
Aroma: 3
Sweetness: 4
Acidity: 2
Bitterness: 3
Richness: 3          ※Grade 1 to 5 

【Impression】
Medium, sweet and mellow, milk chocolate, a touch of cardamon, well balanced sweetness and bitterness, no notable acidity detected in hot cups, mild, hot chocolate like sweetness, a bit earthy as African beans, cinnamon, raw cacao like sweetness as a long lasting after taste.

【Note】
According to them, Prologue is the signature blend, only one Stryville has, sourced from three continents.  If you prefer decaf, pick epilogue blend. 

Stryville is simple.  There are only two kind of coffee beans they carry:  Prologue and Epilogue.  This simplicity make things easier if for people feeling tired of choosing specialty beans by regions and estates.  The Prologue is the signature blend, also the only one coffee they carry besides decaf, Epilogue.  This makes much easier for both customers and the roaster, but much bigger challenge for the roaster to present who they are through one blend.  
Signature means does not change.  However, unchangeable matter gradually changes underneath along the change in environments.  Hope Stryville will stay as challenging as they are now from now on.  

Storyville Coffee company

Pulled attention by the sign on the sidewalk, there was a new cafe found on the top floor at pike place market, where Starbucks gave birth.

Storyville coffee company,originally founded as a coffee roaster in 2006, started to run cafe in last year, September 2013.  There have been a lot of news about the roaster even before they opens cafes for some reason, taking an opposition to "Big coffee roasters" who over roast the beans and serve a cup with "milk", "vanilla syrup" and "hazelnuts syrup" magics.  
Certainly, Seattle is the place where "espresso-based" drinks boosted to spread around the States, swiping out old fashioned "American diner" style coffee.  This means also, Seattle is the place begin to over-roast beans by naming "Italian roast" or "Dark roast".  So, they made a statement: Coffee should not over roasted".  This statement wasn't made by Storyville coffee but by, so called, the third waver.

After years of roasting, Storyville coffee company finally  opened the cafe at Pike Place Market, where "the big coffee" history launched.  

On top of the location, their cafe may offer you more than you expected.  
Once you passed the door, modern but woody interior design welcomes you there: Atmosphere was cozy and quiet, feels the best hideout from noisy and busy outside.

Pastries are house baked and offered fresh everyday and have variety of choice from ordinarily "turnovers" to creative "salty caramel rolls".  My order was "Caramel roll", which might have differently named, caramel graced crispy pie roll with sea salt flake.  This was kind too sweet but good with their coffee.

The best was atmosphere: teams hospitality filled in the cafe.  They know how to treat people and how to make their customer comfortable.  

Maybe, this is because the are new.  Maybe, so.  
however, there are the way to treat people who noticed the sign on the side walk and came up stairs to visit the cafe on the third floor, which Storyville's baristas know very well. 

The view is wonderful.  Their coffee is tasty.  
Hope this cafe stays here as it is from now on.