We're excited to announce the arrival of two new Coffee Pods from The Coffee Artisan and four new Coffee Pods from Reunion Island! We've added a great new Ethiopian Harrar light roast and the new Artisan Blend (Sumatra + Tanzania Peaberry) dark roast to our premier line of Coffee Artisan pods.
From Reunion Island, we've added their new feature flavor - Jamaican Rum Cake and 3 new 12 gram Extra Bold pods. The new Extra Bold varieties are Chocolate Buttercrunch, French Vanilla and FTO French Roast.
As always, the new pods are available in our Mixed Case and in our U-pick sampler.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Upcoming Fratello Changes
We pride ourselves on carrying the largest variety of Fratello pods on the web. We started our business selling only Fratello and have expanded the Fratello product line from the original 5 varieties back in early 2007 to over 40 varieties today.
Over the past 3 years, Fratello has changed their philosophy and is now focused on sourcing unique single-origin coffees in a Direct-Trade relationship with coffee farmers. I have seen the quality of their coffees improve every year and we have been privileged to bring you some of the finest coffees on the market today
including our exclusive Cup of Excellence pods. We are excited about some
of the new coffees Fratello is sourcing that we will be adding to our inventory
in the coming months.
After a careful analysis of our sales patterns and following Fratello's lead towards single-origin direct-trade coffees we have decided to discontinue several of Fratello's coffee pods from our lineup. We realize that one or more of these pods may be a favorite for some of you. Unfortunately, we have minimum order quantities and the pods we are discontinuing have not been moving fast enough to stay fresh. Fresh coffee is our number one priority and we are committed to only selling pods that are within their guaranteed freshness dates.
The following Fratello coffee pods will be discontinued and the remaining inventory has reached their expiration dates. These pods are currently being offered at special $4.99 per box clearance prices until they are gone. Quantities are limited, so act quickly!
Acid Jazz
Guatemalan Nueva Granada
Highlander Grogg
Honduras Marcala
Kauai Blend
Nicaraguan Mama Mina
Nicaraguan Organic Fair Trade
Outlaw Blend
Peru Organic Decaf
Snakebite
Sunshine Coast Organic Fair Trade
We're absolutely committed to the Fratello product line and want to assure you that these changes will insure that we can continue to source Fratello's
newest and best coffees while maintaining our coffee freshness standards.
Sincerely,
President
The Coffee Artisan
Monday, February 8, 2010
Make Your Own Coffee Pods
Here's a video showing you how to make your own coffee pods using fresh ground coffee and paper drip coffee filters.
Corretto Roasting
Here's a video we put together on how to roast your own coffee at home with a bread machine and a heat gun.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Friday $4.99 Pod Deal of the Week
Every Friday we're going to be featuring a box of coffee pods at a special low price of only $4.99. We will include all brands and varieties of coffee from week to week so always be sure to stop by and see if your favorite is on sale. You can also follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/coffeeartisan and Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/coffeeartisan where we will post upcoming deals and specials.
This week we are featuring our Malawi Coffee Pods from our own "The Coffee Artisan" line of premium pods. Our Malawi pods have a light fruity acidity with a full body. Stop by http://www.thecoffeeartisan.com/ and try them today!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Art of Cupping - How to describe what you're tasting
There are many approaches to cupping so don't take this as the gospel. Our good friends at Fratello Coffee Roasters do their cupping these days based on the standards established by the Cup of Excellence program shown below. Use these examples to refine your own cupping methods for evaluating your coffee.
Here are the Cup of Excellence Cup Quality Criteria:
Clean cup: this is the basic starting point for coffee quality. Clean cup is complete freedom from taints or faults. It is the transparency necessary for a coffee’s terroir to shine through.
Sweetness: the sensation of sweetness correlates directly with how uniformly ripe a coffee was when harvested. Sweetness is not entirely dependent on how much sugar is in the roasted coffee, but also on other components which combine to create the impression of sweetness.
Acidity: this is what brightens a coffee. It gives life. In wine it is often referred to as nerve (nervosité in French), backbone or spine. Quantity of acidity is not necessarily related to quality. A judge must score the quality of the acidity in a particular coffee. As with wine, not all coffees should be notably acidic. It is rather the expression of that acidity, whether powerful or very mild, that is important: is the acidity harsh or overly tart? Is the acidity refined or tangy or does it have a pleasant snap? These are the kinds of questions the judge should ask when scoring a particular coffee’s acidity.
Mouthfeel: the tactile sensation imparted by a coffee. Mouthfeel can include the perception of viscosity, density, weight, texture and astringency. As with acidity, the degree of mouthfeel presence is not the same thing as quality. The judge must score the quality of the mouthfeel.
Flavor: this is a combination of taste (sweet, sour, bitter, salty and pungent) and aroma - or nose. This is where a fine coffee can truly stand out as an elegant, and even forceful, expression of place – terroir. The judge must determine whether a coffee’s flavor profile is merely generic or a genuine expression of terroir brought out by the care of the harvester and the skill of the processor.
Aftertaste: the lingering flavor after the coffee has been swallowed can either reinforce the pleasure derived from a coffee’s other attributes or it can weaken and even sabotage it. Does the coffee sweetly disappear or is there a harshness that emerges?
Balance: is the coffee harmonious? Is something excessive? Is the coffee missing something?
Overall: does the coffee have an exciting complexity or is it a simple but very pleasing coffee? Does the cupper simply not like it? This category is the cupper’s personal call.
Final points: One way the coffee experience is truly different from wine is the perception of how it changes from hot to cold over a considerable amount of time. Most judge a coffee by their first impression. The first step to leaving the commodity world, however, is to discover delight in the elegant and slowly evolving transformations of the rare best coffees. Judges take care to explore each coffee presented at the Cup of Excellence® competitions in this way.
Cup of Excellence® scoring categories:
DEFECTS
Phenolic, rio, riado -> automatic disqualification
Ferment
Oniony, sweaty
CLEAN CUP
+ purity free from measurable faults clarity
- dirty earthy moldy off-fruity
SWEETNESS (prevalence of…)
+ ripeness sweet
- green undeveloped closed tart
ACIDITY
+ lively refined firm soft having spine crisp structure racy
- sharp hard thin dull acetic sour flabby biting
MOUTHFEEL (texture, viscosity, sediment, weight, astringency)
+ buttery creamy round smooth cradling rich velvety tightly knit
- astringent rough watery thin light gritty
FLAVOR (nose + taste)
+ character intensity distinctiveness pleasure simple-complex depth (possible notations: nutty, chocolate, berry, fruit, caramel, floral, beefy, spicy, honey, smokey…)
- insipid potato peas grassy woody bitter-salty-sour gamey baggy vegetal
AFTERTASTE
+ sweet cleanly disappearing pleasantly lingering
- bitter harsh astringent cloying dirty unpleasant metallic
BALANCE
+ harmony equilibrium stable-consistent (from hot to cold) structure tuning acidity-body
- hollow excessive… aggressive inconsistent change in character
OVERALL
+ complexity dimension uniformity richness (transformation from hot to cold….)
- simplistic boring do not like!
Clean cup: this is the basic starting point for coffee quality. Clean cup is complete freedom from taints or faults. It is the transparency necessary for a coffee’s terroir to shine through.
Sweetness: the sensation of sweetness correlates directly with how uniformly ripe a coffee was when harvested. Sweetness is not entirely dependent on how much sugar is in the roasted coffee, but also on other components which combine to create the impression of sweetness.
Acidity: this is what brightens a coffee. It gives life. In wine it is often referred to as nerve (nervosité in French), backbone or spine. Quantity of acidity is not necessarily related to quality. A judge must score the quality of the acidity in a particular coffee. As with wine, not all coffees should be notably acidic. It is rather the expression of that acidity, whether powerful or very mild, that is important: is the acidity harsh or overly tart? Is the acidity refined or tangy or does it have a pleasant snap? These are the kinds of questions the judge should ask when scoring a particular coffee’s acidity.
Mouthfeel: the tactile sensation imparted by a coffee. Mouthfeel can include the perception of viscosity, density, weight, texture and astringency. As with acidity, the degree of mouthfeel presence is not the same thing as quality. The judge must score the quality of the mouthfeel.
Flavor: this is a combination of taste (sweet, sour, bitter, salty and pungent) and aroma - or nose. This is where a fine coffee can truly stand out as an elegant, and even forceful, expression of place – terroir. The judge must determine whether a coffee’s flavor profile is merely generic or a genuine expression of terroir brought out by the care of the harvester and the skill of the processor.
Aftertaste: the lingering flavor after the coffee has been swallowed can either reinforce the pleasure derived from a coffee’s other attributes or it can weaken and even sabotage it. Does the coffee sweetly disappear or is there a harshness that emerges?
Balance: is the coffee harmonious? Is something excessive? Is the coffee missing something?
Overall: does the coffee have an exciting complexity or is it a simple but very pleasing coffee? Does the cupper simply not like it? This category is the cupper’s personal call.
Final points: One way the coffee experience is truly different from wine is the perception of how it changes from hot to cold over a considerable amount of time. Most judge a coffee by their first impression. The first step to leaving the commodity world, however, is to discover delight in the elegant and slowly evolving transformations of the rare best coffees. Judges take care to explore each coffee presented at the Cup of Excellence® competitions in this way.
Cup of Excellence® scoring categories:
DEFECTS
Phenolic, rio, riado -> automatic disqualification
Ferment
Oniony, sweaty
CLEAN CUP
+ purity free from measurable faults clarity
- dirty earthy moldy off-fruity
SWEETNESS (prevalence of…)
+ ripeness sweet
- green undeveloped closed tart
ACIDITY
+ lively refined firm soft having spine crisp structure racy
- sharp hard thin dull acetic sour flabby biting
MOUTHFEEL (texture, viscosity, sediment, weight, astringency)
+ buttery creamy round smooth cradling rich velvety tightly knit
- astringent rough watery thin light gritty
FLAVOR (nose + taste)
+ character intensity distinctiveness pleasure simple-complex depth (possible notations: nutty, chocolate, berry, fruit, caramel, floral, beefy, spicy, honey, smokey…)
- insipid potato peas grassy woody bitter-salty-sour gamey baggy vegetal
AFTERTASTE
+ sweet cleanly disappearing pleasantly lingering
- bitter harsh astringent cloying dirty unpleasant metallic
BALANCE
+ harmony equilibrium stable-consistent (from hot to cold) structure tuning acidity-body
- hollow excessive… aggressive inconsistent change in character
OVERALL
+ complexity dimension uniformity richness (transformation from hot to cold….)
- simplistic boring do not like!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
A Special Year-End Offer from The Coffee Artisan
To celebrate an incredible 2009, we're closing out the year with a bang! The Coffee Artisan is offering you 10% off of your next purchase between now and when the ball drops on New Year's Eve. Use coupon code CELEBRATE09 during checkout to receive the discount. By popular demand we're also reducing our free shipping threshold again to $50.
We appreciate your continued business, wish you a safe and prosperous new year and hope you will continue to shop with us in 2010!
We appreciate your continued business, wish you a safe and prosperous new year and hope you will continue to shop with us in 2010!
http://bit.ly/4UNM44
Chad Elliott
The Coffee Artisan
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