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Bali boys hit Freo!

If you haven’t been to Hush on Market Street in Fremantle yet, make it your homework for this weekend. These guys have worked away diligently on their craft and are now making some of the best coffee in Perth. When I started to think about a place for some work experience for the Bali boys, it was top of the list. Owner Daniel was happy to oblige and I arrived this morning after the morning  rush was over with two very nervous Balinese baristas in tow. The boys were in luck as Michael was manning the Synesso and really helped the boys find their feet. Komang was thrown in first into the “shot monkey” slot and quickly got into the groove.

He looked very comfortable and pulled consistently great shots and quickly got the feel for working in a busy, high quality cafe. Meanwhile, Gede was keeping it real in the kitchen on dishes duty and quickly fell for the charms of the dishwasher (mechanical dishwasher, that is!) . Not too many of them in Ubud.

After an hour or so it was time to swap roles and Gede got into the swing of things quickly, also pulling great shots and showing the benefit of a solid week’s training.  Michael ran the boys through some latte art techniques and the boys performed admirably. After only a week’s training they could both easily hold their own in any cafe in Perth. Big thanks to all the baristas who helped out with them during the week.

Bali boys on the beach

My apologies for the last post. I managed to post a picture only and totally lose my text. You have no idea how frustrating that is, with my two finger typing technique  and the computer skills of an average pre-schooler. About an hour’s work down the drain!

Anyway, the boys have been training diligently and managing to sneak in a little sightseeing as well. We got a magnificent night for fish and chips on Cottesloe beach. Gede exercised his photographic skills with a great shot of the sunset.

They got through the intro and latte art classes at the WA Barista Academy with flying colours… with the aid of our translation sheet.  Remember to always “goyang” the milk to keep the “busa” integrated before you go to pour!

The boys got the obligatory roastery visit and Richo got out the camera for some higher res shots around the roastery for the boys to take back.  It’s work experience day tomorrow at Hush in Freo. If you haven’t been to Hush, it’s worth the visit, it’s the biggest improver on the Perth coffee scene and doing consistently great coffee.

Terima Kasih-Shaughan

Bali boys bust a move!

Even the hardest working baristas need a little R & R. We took Komang and Gede off to see Tijuana Cartel on Saturday night. Both of the boys love music and it didn’t take long before Komang (with the white shoes) hit the dance floor. He was briefly accosted by a middle aged housewife who showed him some of her best stripper moves, but he survived unscathed. On Sunday we grabbed breakfast at Voyage Kitchen in Sorrento which was awesome. The boys find Aussie sized servings a bit much and struggled manfully with the pancakes and managed to almost finish the stack.

We dropped through the Barista Academy quickly and Komang pulled out some great rosettas; watch out for this boy at the Indonesian Barista Championship in Jakarta next year. After an afternoon session on Google translate, finding some key barista words, everything seems to be making a bit more sense!

Bali boys meet Jenny Jenny!

Komang and Gede’s week in Perth has hit the ground running. They have already seen their first wild kangaroo and attended a primary school assembly complete with singing of the national anthem.
It didn’t take long for Jenny to fine tune the boys dosing and tamping and get them onto latte art. They are already busting out some nice work.
Stay tuned as we immerse the boys in a full on week of coffee culture Five Senses style!

Barista boys from Bali hit Perth!

Hi Folks,

As part of our ongoing commitment to the coffee scene in Bali we are sponsoring two talented young baristas,  Komang and Gede (seen in full traditional dress in the attached picture)  to an intensive week’s training in Perth. The boys don’t have brilliant English but make up for it with lots of enthusiasm and natural ability.

As a coincidence our shipment of coffee from Bali is due to land in Perth tomorrow. After three years and many visits to Bali  we are confident this shipment will be the breakthrough. Can’t wait to cup it!

In other Bali news, our friends Josh and Charlie are working away at their new cafe project in Seminyak due to open in late January. Their goal is to totally redefine what’s considered good coffee in Bali and have purchased a Synesso, Mazzer etc.  Ironically  great coffee is very rare so close to a coffee growing region. The overused “bean to cup” saying is definitely very valid here with the coffee coming from Kintamani about 80 kms away.

Stay tuned for more updates as the boys grind, tamp and smile their way through a busy week in Perth.

All kinds of luck – Shaughan

Competition Weekend

Yep, its that time of year again and no, I’m not talking about Christmas. It’s the annual Coffee industry competition weekend – which probably does feel a bit like Christmas for the die hard coffee geek. Over the years the competition has evolved to include 4 main events, the Barista Competition, the Latte Art Competition, the Cup Tasting Competition and on the national and world stage the “Coffee in Good Spirits” (a coffee cocktail type event)

Historically,  Five Senses people have done pretty well at these events and this year are training hard in the hope to carry this tradition on. The event is being held at the Mt Hawthorne Community Hall and kicks of with the first of 17 competitors (our very own Mark Chandler) this Saturday the 7th at 9am sharp. The schedule on Saturday runs through until the 11th competitor finishes at 3.30pm. Jenny Murray is the 10th competitor and her event starts at 2.15pm. Sunday morning kicks off with the performances of the remaining 6 competitors. Jeremy Hulsdunk is the first up at 9.00am. The plan is for the barista event to be all wrapped up by lunchtime and the Latte Art event to kick of at 1.00pm and to be finished in time for the Cup Tasting event to start at 3.00pm. We’ve got quite a few entrants in this event too.

I’m glad I’m not a competitor (Not sure I could handle the pressure! ) but I am looking forward to being a spectator.

It’s a Clever little dripper

They’ve taken a while to arrive but now they are here. The Clever Coffee Dripper is one of the most recent progressions in making brewed coffee an even more practical an offering to customers than ever before.

I’ve been watching the so called “Black Coffee revolution” with interest over the last couple of years.

Until the end of 2007 there was an intense focus on espresso coffee. This manifested itself in things like the progression of espresso machine technology relating to controlling brew temp etc and also the increasing popularity of the Barista and Latte Art Competitions worldwide. It seems that by the end of 2007 the consumer masses had also plugged in to espresso coffee and were buying domestic espresso machines in an effort to bring their espresso experiences into their homes.

While espresso coffee remains alive and well there has been a re-emergence in the market of enthusiasts who are now looking to embrace other brew techniques as just another way to enjoy and explore coffee. These methods include a coffee made though a syphon, french press (plunger) or a drip filter device. In the last 10 years, in Australia at least, these brew methods have pretty much been forgotten or dismissed in favour of espresso. Now it seems, they are making a comeback.

I can understand why brewed coffee coffee has struggled. Let me explain. Most brewed coffee tastes its best when it is freshly roasted specifically for the brew method and then ground immediately before brewing. Back in the days when we experienced our first drip filter coffee or plunger it is highly likely that the coffee we used was some vacummed packed brick that was roasted for a generic purpose and was ground for a generic purpose. In other words – our chances of a sensational coffee experience was almost going to be zero from the outset even if the brewing technique was good.

We’ve got much cleverer now – and so have the manufacturers. There are companies that have evolved devices so that by design they are able to positively affect the potential outcome of a cup rather than destroy it (remember the jug of filter coffee that sat on the heating plate all day to stay warm).

Unfortunately many of these devices have not been that practical or have been too expensive for both the domestic consumer or the cafe operators. For example, syphon brewers are affordable for a cafe but gobble up a lot of barista time to brew a cup. They are also quite fragile therefore susceptable to breaking in a busy commercial environment. The famous Clover, another excellent brewer is too expensive for most, airpots no thermal or steeping control etc and the list goes on.

Enter the market – the Clever Coffee Dripper. This little thing ticks nearly all the boxes. It’s robust, cafes can offer customers individual/different coffees, steep time is fully controllable, it’s cheap and very easy to use and clean.

We are growing our understanding of brewed coffee through both science and sensory evaluations. We have access to the Extract Mojo, tons of good palates, exacting roasting equipment and soon the Uber Boiler to help us generate knowlege in this area of coffee. I’m sure you’ll see more posts on this subject over the next few months.

Sharing the knowledge

I know I’ve keep going on about it but one of the things that I’m increasingly convinced of is the need for a constant flow of communication between the grower and the roaster in an effort to increase the size of the shared body of knowledge about each crop of coffee and how it performs in the cup. I know that the average roaster knows as little about the direct effects of different methods of cultivation and post harvesting methods on the cup quality as a grower knows about roast profiling and extraction time through an espresso machine.

One day I would love to make a comment as definative as:

A coffee grown at (x) altitude on the sunny aspect of  mountain/region/plot during a high/low good rainfall season that is picked and subjected to a certain type of post harvest method will produce a green bean that if roasted against profile (y) and extracted under conditions (z) will produce a flavour of (insert description)

For me, being able to do this would infact be the Holy Grail of coffee.

As difficult as this may be to achieve I think that we can certainly get close if we focus our attention on specific regions, ensure that there is traceability in the coffee that we buy and we have all the stakeholders (I really hate that word) involved in contributing to the body of knowledge that lies beneath each coffee that passes though each of our hands that ends up in the mouths of the consumer.

We as roasters are trying our best to get our heads around all the factors at origin that influence the cup. We’ve been to Bali, PNG and Sumatra in recent months to spend time with growers but feel that we also have a role to play in making “our worlds” accessible to those at origin.

It is for this reason that we have had Nigel here. Nigel is Jerry Kapka’s son. (from Kongo Coffee). Nigel has spent the last 2 weeks doing Barista training, cupping training and roasting training. Our hope is that some of these knowledge and skills will be passed through to those at origin. Jerry is pretty serious about getting it right – we’ve shipped him a 2 group multi-boiler machine and grinder so that, in combination with the knowledge of how we roast and cup and extract, he will be able to monitor the quality of coffee he is producing though our eyes.

Hopefully this will provide a great platform on which to build more knowledge and get us just that little bit closer to finding the Holy Grail.

Practice. Practice. Practice

Pressure!

Cupping

Going through roasting profiles with Jay

Bean selection

We’ve just finished another cycle of bean selection. WOW! We cupped for five days solid with the sole purpose of making a choice of coffee from the most recent harvests from a variety of origins. Over the five days we cupped coffee from Kenya, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Colombia and Guatemala. Some of the coffee was outstanding – some was pretty ordinary.

The trick for us is to retain a level of continuity in the flavour profiles and intensity between harvest to harvest but also to choose coffees that, while being fairly representative of an origin, also have elements of its character that make it stand out from the crowd.

The ensuing discussions have been quite rigorous, resulting in what we believe are great outcomes. Keep your eyes on our offerings in the Single Origin section of our site over the next couple of months for descriptions of the new harvests and our comments on them.

What’s with the names!

This is going to be a very “uncoffee” post but I have to get this off my chest. We are a very small company with quite a small number of staff. Get this -  We have on staff: 2 x Ashley’s (boys), 3 x Caleb’s, 3 x Emma’s and 2 x Richard’s. What’s with that!!!