Kuma Coffee

Origin Trip: Part 2

2011-04-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

Our adventure in Guatemala started with an overnight in Guatemala City followed by an 8 hour drive the next morning into the hills of Huehutenango. The drive took us almost 10,000ft up in the air at one point and through beautiful, lush landscape. After a long drive over one lane roads, sometimes taken out by landscapes we made our way to El Injerto Estate. From El Injerto Estate we trekked onward to the Lake Atitlan area. This volcanic lake is famous for being surounded by three volcanoes and 12 cities that line the lake and are named or represented by the 12 apostles. The lake Atitlan area was gorgeous and we got to play tourist for a couple days. One of the highlights from this area was visiting Mike of Crossroads cafe in Panajachel. www.panajachel.com/crossroadscafe.htm From Panajachel we moved onward to Antigua to meetup with Luis Pedro Zelaya Zemora.

Trip to Origin: Part 1 Guatemala El Injerto

2011-03-31T12:07:00.000-07:00

This past February I made my first trip to origin to continue to build relationships with farmers around the globe. I spent 11 days between Guatemala and El Salvador and visited many estates and mills and cupped over 50 different coffees.
We started the trip by visiting one of our direct trade farms Finca El Injerto. Arturro Aguirre Jr. arranged transportation from Guatemala City to his farm 8 hours away in Huehuetenango. His farm was absolutely gorgeous. It was lush and green, coffee cherries were large and vibrant, pickers were upbeat and tenacious. Arturo must be doing something right! We cupped many coffees grown on the estate. These included 100% bourbon, 100% pacamara, a natural blend, a honey coffee experiment, an estate grown Panama Geisha, an estate grown Ethiopian Geisha and even dwarf mokka plants.
El Injerto estate is named for the thousands of trees on the farm that give the coffee shade. The estate is rain forest alliance certified and nearly 40% of the estate is shade trees and rainforest. El Injerto has also won first place in the Guatemala Cup of Excellence competition 3 out of the past 4 years! It has also won top place in the battle of rain forest alliance certified farms two years straight with near 92pt cupping scores both times! El Injerto is a top notch farm!
We only got to spend about 24hrs on the farm because Arturo's wife was expecting a little girl within the next week and had to get back to the city to be with her for the arrival of their first born child. But we learned so much within those 24hrs, met so many wonderful people, got exposure to over 8 varietals of coffee on one farm and had time to hike throughout the estate and tour the wet and dry mills. This is an estate that I could see spending an entire week on in the future.

Kuma Espresso

2009-08-28T12:06:00.000-07:00

One of the common misconceptions of espresso is that it is a constant. My "x" brand of espresso tastes this way or my "y" brand of espresso is best pulled at this temperature. The fact of the matter is that espresso is comprised of changing ingredients. Green coffee is seasonal and ever changing. Most roasters aim for a flavor profile when blending for espresso in order to have their coffee taste similar to what their patrons are used to. One major Seattle roaster last week told me that they've changed their espresso blend 4 times in the last 4 months and that the components that comprised it changed drastically. An Ethiopian Sidamo had been replaced by a Nicaraguan coffee.

Kuma Coffee is also constantly reformulating our espresso. Standing still in the world of coffee is boring. I would even go beyond that and say that standing still in business, especially this business means that your heart isn't in it. I am trying out new espresso blends. The blend that is just starting to make its way around town is a 50% Brazil, 25% El Salvador, 25% Guatemala blend. But blink and we might be onto something new. Give our new espresso a try and give me feedback if you get the chance.

Slacking

2009-08-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

Well let's just come out and say it. I've been terrible with updating this blog. Now with that out of the way let me share about what's been happening at Kuma Coffee.

Kuma is at about 200lbs a week of roasted coffee now. We are continually growing a fan base of people who love our single origin coffees and espresso. Kuma has stepped up as on of Seattle's only microroasters to offer high end single origin coffee in grocery stores. Some of our "regular" coffees consist of past Cup of Excellence award winning farms such as Guatemala's El Injerto Estate and Panama's Carmen Estate.

The list of venues that serve Kuma Coffee continues to expand. Kuma Coffee can now be found in most neighborhoods across Seattle. In the next couple of months Two Beers Brewing Co. will once again be featuring Kuma Coffee's espresso in their Winter Seasonal Espresso Stout.

Jolie Guillebeau

2008-11-17T19:28:00.000-08:00

For a limited time only, local Wallingford artist Jolie Guillebeau's paintings will still be on Kuma Coffee's walls. Please contact Jolie for more information or to inquire about her work. Thanks, Jolie! We have received so many compliments on your pictures.

http://www.jolieguillebeau.com/

Grocery Store Offerings

2008-11-17T19:24:00.000-08:00

Kuma Coffee is now available at Magnolia Thriftway, Queen Anne Ken's Market, and Ballard Town & Country. We want to say thank you to these grocery stores for carrying Kuma beans and believing in buying local, organic, fair trade goods.

Espresso Stout with Two Beers

2008-11-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

Kuma Coffee is now available in Two Beers Espresso Stout, which won 3rd place at the 21st Annual Phinney Ridge Neighborhood Association Beer Taste. Congratulations to our master microbrewer Joel. It's a delicious combination. Contact Two Beers if you'd like some for the holidays.

http://www.twobeersbrewery.com/textpattern/home

http://www.phinneycenter.org/events/beer.shtml

Soft Opening on October 11, 2008

2008-11-17T19:07:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from our soft opening. Business is going great and we are thankful for the great customers that keep pouring through the door. We particularly enjoyed the espresso showdown with the coffee meetup group pitting the 35th Ave Espresso, Nectar Espresso, and Brazil Jacaranda shots against each other.

Kuma Coffee Cafe

2008-10-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

Kuma Coffee is proud to announce the opening of our first retail store front. We just got a location at 4110 Stone Way N. in between Fremont and Wallingford. We are going to be opening October 13th. In celebration of our next step within the world of specialty coffee we will be offering $1 drinks and $2 pastries all day long on our opening day. The store boasts bottomless portafilters, a wide variety of fresh roasted coffees for brewing and for whole bean sales, high-end loose leaf teas, a brew station and organic and fair trade offerings. Please join come in and say hello to me or one of my staff. We are eager to share our love of coffee and our desire to roast and brew some of the best coffee you've ever tasted. I guarantee.

Mark

Coffee Fest Weekend

2008-09-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Kuma Coffee Crowd,

CoffeeFest was this weekend and was a whole lot of fun! This year some of the standout exhibits were Cafe Vita serving "Kopi Luwak" through a slow drip, cold brew, science experiment type beaker, visiting Synesso and seeing their new 3-group, 3 pumps, 3 invidual group boilers and seeing 49th parellel and taking shots of "epic espresso."

This week at the Queen Anne Farmer's Market we are going to be doing a Cup of Excellence blowout. We are going to be sampling and selling three El Salvador Cup of Excellence coffees; #11 Santa Maria, the #18 El Porvenir and the #19 San Isidro and one Costa Rica Cup of Excellence coffee, the #5 Finca Carrizal.

Kuma Coffee can now be found at Ken's Market in Quenn Anne. We deliver twice a week for the freshest coffee in Seattle.

Always Improving

2008-08-20T16:23:00.001-07:00

Hello Kuma Coffee Fan Club,

I have just a few quick announcements.
Announcement #1: Starting today our coffee can be purchased at the Magnolia Thriftway.
Announcement #2: I have secured a limited amount of Brazil Organic Jacaranda for those single origin espresso lovers out there. It is chocolaty, floral, big body, and glorious fruit. I will have some available at the Queen Anne farmers market this week.
Announcement #3: One of the brazils in the 35th Ave Espresso Blend has been changed to give a bigger, sweeter more chocolaty body. And it's delicious!
Announcement #4: If you missed the Ethiopia Sidamo Koratie - Dry Processed coffee....we ran out last week. The good news is that I ordered in a very limited amount that I will be running as a special at the Queen Anne Farmers market starting August 28th. I had to go through a reseller to get my hands on more of this amazing coffee, so the price on my supply is going to be a little bit higher. Cupping notes on the coffee: peaches and cream, blueberries, mango, sweet aromatic cup. This makes excellent french presses and great single origin espresso.

Rollin'

2008-08-07T11:32:00.001-07:00

I have been very bad at keeping my blog up to date. I have given myself 30 lashes and promise it won't happen again. (fingers crossed). With that out of the way, let's talk about the direction that Kuma Coffee has taken.

Since we opened around a month and a half ago we have gone up to about 32lbs a week of production. We are negotiating a contract with Thriftway that should add another 20-25lbs a week of production. That will be 50+ lbs of production per week within the first 2 months! Look for Kuma Coffee in the Magnolia Thriftway by the end of August, maybe sooner.

The Queen Anne Farmers market has been treating us well. We have a core group of eclectic coffee connoisseurs that frequent the market and understand the kind of devotion and attention we put into sourcing and roasting our coffee. We hope that the clientele that supports us within the market will begin to realize that they can get their coffee roasted fresh every week at the market instead of making it an impulse buy at the grocery store.

Kuma Coffee has been Fair Trade certified for a few months, but has finally got some fair trade coffee for roasting. Our first two Fair Trade coffees hopefully amongst many more to come are our Sumatra Gayo Highlands FTO and our "El Dozo" Decaf Blend FTO (which makes a mean decaf espresso and works great as drip).

Our 35th Ave Espresso blend has been really popular among the underground coffee crowd. The blend consists of two brazil varieties, el salvador, ethiopian, sumatran and colombian coffee and has a great chocolate covered cherry flavor with caramel undertones wrapped up in a sweet, thick, syrupy body.

We're in Business!

2008-06-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

I haven't shared anything on my blog for a couple months and there is a valid reason. Mainly I have been finishing my Masters of Science in Information Systems Management and secondarily I was running out of options for how I was going to roast out of the third floor of our home. With that said, on to the great news.

I graduated a couple of weeks ago and I have started to have more free time back in my life. I have used that free time to get my roaster setup. Within the last two weeks I completely cleaned and pressure washed my garage, moved the roaster down three stories back into the garage, purchased additional shop equipment such as various sizes of bags, purchased multiple containers to hold green beans to maintain freshness and humidity levels, installed new outlets for power around my roasting shop, put in a new work table, but most importantly I have my Diedrich IR-3's venting and gas hooked up and my sweet red bundle of hot roasting goodness is producing some of the finest fresh roasted coffee in Seattle.

The whole process started out with seasoning the drum. I purchased 30lbs of leftover (past years) green beans at a greatly reduced price from Atlas Coffee. They probably should have been free since I suspect they will be getting a lot more business from me in the future. Oh well. The next step was loading the drum with about 3.3lbs of coffee and taking it to Vienna roast so that the beans get nice and oily and coat the entire drum with nice oils. The seasoning process is a great opportunity to get to know the roaster without worrying about performing all of right air flow and gas flow operations at exactly the right times and you don't have to worry about getting the right consistency since you are throwing away all of the beans anyways.

After eight batches of oily goodness the drum was seasoned and I was ready to try my hand at my first roast for consumption batch of coffee. I decided the I would go with my 35th Ave Espresso blend since I knew exactly how deep I liked to take the blend. Sixteen minutes later and about 10 seconds in to second crack a nice full city roast with just a couple splotches of oil came pouring down into the agitator. It looks beautiful and the roast is so even! I will try and take pictures of the machine and the process over the next couple days and maybe I can even post a video or two on Youtube of the roaster in action.

Thanks for everyone's support!
Look for more news soon!

April Update

2008-04-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

We are getting closer and closer to the June 14th launch date.
The roaster duct work should be installed within the next two weeks.
I am starting to rethink running the roaster on propane and am starting to look at how much it would cost to get our natural gas line run up to the machine.
I have a guy named Terry, a seasoned coffee roaster venting guy working on the logistics.
He has done plenty of commerical installation jobs and just recently finished doing some vent and afterburner work for stumptown's Seattle roasting shop in capital hill. He has also done work for Atlas Importers in Ballard and Victrola roasters downtown.
In the mean time I have been doing a lot of blending. I have been mostly been working on espresso blends and have one in particular that I am pleased with. I will continue to work on my espresso blending over the next month. I expect to go through at least 20 to 30 sample blends until I get everything just right. I also hope to be introducing some new coffees to my repitoire this month. I hope to get some costa rican, some fair trade organic sumatra, some fair trade ethiopian yirgacheffe, maybe some guatemalan coffee and introduce a few new blends.
The other addition to Kuma Coffee is a new dual boiler La Spaziale Vivaldi Mini II from Chris Coffee that's paired with a Mazzer Super Jolly that I found on Ebay brand new for $280. I have to say that this setup is a dream and I could fully reccomend both the espresso machine and the grinder to anyone. I will relay more of my experience with my new espresso equipment in my next post.

From the Garage to the Third Floor

2008-03-16T13:51:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine moving nearly 300 pounds of machine from the street level to the third floor of our house was no easy task. After uncrating, unbolting from the pallet and unbolting the cyclone (chaff collector) it was ready to be moved. I rounded up three strong men from work to help move it from the garage to our third story where it would find permenant residence on a super strong table located in my new coffee lab. The only problem was this machine was heavy as a mother antelope and we had no energy left by the time we moved it from its pallet until the time we got it up our porch, in through the slider on the side of our house and into the dining room. By the time we hit the dining room it was either pride or fall time because if we didn't put down the roaster it would have slipped from any one of our grasps. So we did the sensible thing and put it down on the floor. The next few minutes we let the blood flow back into our fingertips and when our arms felt as light as air. We tried to work up the courage and strength to pick up the roaster all over again and try for the next segment of its trip from the second floor kitchen up to the third floor coffee lab. The only problem was that there wasn't enough room for four people to squeeze through the stairway. So we moved everything out of the way between where the roaster was resting and where it was headed. We removed the door from its hinges, we removed the handrail from the wall and tried again. It was still too tight to fit four people through while holding securely on to the roaster. That's when it hit me, we weren't going to get this roaster up the stairs by conventional methods and using just raw strenghth. One of my friends and coworkers suggested a piano moving service. Brilliant! We put all our tools in their appropriate spots we admitted defeat and left with the roaster half way to its final destination.

I immediately called Adam's Moving Service of Seattle and talked to owner Adam about my ordeal and asked him if he owned equipment that could help distribute the weight and make carrying this hunk o' metal a two person job. He assured me he could do it. Not only could he do it, but he could do it immediately. Adam and friend showed up two hours later with harnesses in hand and slipped a six inch wide strap underneath the roaster and slowly lifted it up with their legs. The roaster was in motion and was heading for our steep and narrow stairwell. Adam and his accomplice maneuvered the roaster just right to fit into the stairwell and turned it just so to make it squeeze (within a centimeter or two) right through the doorway and started taking a sharp 90 degree angle upwards. After huffing and puffing and moving slowly and methodically up the stairs they made it and placed it unto the appropriate table top. I can fully, highly and without reserve recommend Adam's Moving Service to anyone looking for a great deal and great service! Thank you guys!

So that leaves me in the next chapter of getting my business up and running; the ventilation. At this point we expect to work on the ventilation between late March and early April. Look for more updates soon. Meanwhile, enjoy some of the pictures of the roaster in position and staring me in eyes taunting me. Some pictures of my green beans are also attached.

Mark Barany

Kuma Coffee

It Arrived!

2008-02-29T17:42:00.000-08:00

Well the Deidrich IR-3 made it to my place yesterday. The entire roaster w/ the crate built around it weigh in at around 500lbs. Fortunately for me, the roaster should only weigh around 265lbs once its pulled out from the fortress-like crate that was held shut with about 300 nails. That means with the recruiting of 3 more strong men I should be able to hoist it up and carry it into the house. The hard part will come trying to get it from our second floor to our third floor. The doorway is narrow and the stairs are steep.

The hardest part is now the wait. The wait to fully unbox the roaster, the wait to get it into our house, the wait to set up it up and install the venting and the wait to finish my Masters of Science in Information Systems Management.

Shown are a few pictures of what I could actually see of the roaster after prying off the top panel of the crate. I really like the shiny red!

The Beginning of Something Great

2008-02-14T10:29:00.000-08:00

I took the plunge. I decided life was too short and that being practical and conventional within that short span was becoming toxic. I decided that pursuing my dreams could no longer be put on hold. It was time to start something great, something that will make me jump out of bed in the morning excited for what the day might bring. It was time to start calling my own shots, it was time to risk much for the sake of following my passion. That passion is coffee.

After many long nights of roasting 3/4lb batches of cofee on my faithful Behmor 1600 I decided it was time for something, bigger, better and unfortunately more expensive. Choosing a commercial quality roaster was tricky. There are many requirements that all have to come together. My requirements were that it needed to roast large enough batches to keep sane, while roasting small enough batches to meet Puget Sound Clean Air qualifications without the use of an expensive afterburners (which add more exhaust) and expensive permits. It had to be from a manufacturer with a solid reputation, that offers gold level cutomer support and parts replacement. It also had to be a roaster that would provide amazingly even roasts and wonderfully clean roasted coffee. One of the last requirements, but one of the most important is the roaster's size and dimension. The roaster has to be small enough that it can fit through a standard door way and light enough thay I can unload it off a truck and get it up my stairs with the help of a few friends.

Enter the Diedrich IR-3. The IR-3 was the near perfect balance of all that I was looking for. The roaster has very minimal exhaust and is very eco-friendly. It only requires 13,000BTU/HR gas input, by comparision my small home barbq burns through 26,000BTU/HR. The roaster is is so effecient that Puget Sound Clean Air only requires a record of the machine, but not routine inspections or permits. The IR-3 also roasts 3kilos/6.6lbs a batch. Each batch averages 16 minutes which equates to being able to roast approximately 25lbs and hour. That sure beats the 2lbs an hour I was averaging with the Behmor 1600. Ultimately I was impressed with Diedrich manufacturing's build quality, experience in the market, knowledgable staff and the relatively close proximity. Deidrich's staff keeps pretty much all of their roaster's parts in stock and can get something out quickly if and when their are problems.

The roaster is due for delivery February 24th, 2008. I will keep everyone updated with another post once the roaster arrives. Right now I am looking at having the roaster operational by April 1st and I am sure there will be plenty of blogging oppertunities about the process of getting this roaster setup and the challenges ahead.

-Mark