So, we were flying back from the US Coffee Champs prelims in Reno, kinda bummed to be honest, that we didn't make it to the SCA finals in Seattle in the Spring. Weston was lamenting about his scores on presentation (though he scored well on the actuall coffee roasting part ) while I was like, look... we made it here and we're prepared and savvy for next year. No biggie. We had an awesome time in Reno, meeting up with coffee roaster, importer, hardware and barista friends and going to our first national roasting competition to get our feet wet. We braved 17F temps, had some darn fine local food and cocktails and all in all, had a great time. We make it a business | date trip usually, bonus for being a husband and wife team! We even bought a EK Mahlkonig grinder while we were there, yay!
Anyway, we had just arrived back in San Diego, when a few coffee friends started sending IG messages with congratulations all around. We had just made Thrillist list of Best 21 Roasters in the Nation. Hello! That's a pretty amazing consolation prize for not having a super slick and fancy presentation in Reno. After all, we're a nerdy roasting couple, not quite hipsters. More like hippies.
Dan Gentile, the author of said Thrillist list is quite the travelled writer, foody and all around beverage authority. Dan knows his stuff. He named alot of big hitter roasters we were among, not gonna lie, there were some huge and trendy names on the list, but then he also nailed our story to a T! It makes our heart explode to see someone finding folks like us that are quiety but passionately working to rise to a higher level of coffee and placing us on a list of the best in the USA.
Weston, also a Sommelier and chef, knows his roasting, sourcing and palate (not just the biased wifey, I swear) and though we've just hit our 2 year anniversary in bean slinging, we're serious about the craft, the people and the future of specialty coffee. Our beans are winning awards and high marks and we're pretty proud bean parents. Dan mentioned the fact that we don't source based on organic certification. It's true, we support small farms who are doing quality, natural farming... they're organic without the fancy stickers. It's the right thing to do IOP, so is composting, upcycling everything you can, being kind to others, thinking farmer's-market-minded, even on a global scale and leaving a teeny tiny footprint in general. Cheers to all that and to things to come. Onwards and upwards :)
So Weston decided to submit two of our coffees to the Golden Bean Awards that just took place in Portland, Oregon September 14th-17th. We figured, why not? Our coffees are tasting good and ripe and ready to jump in the ring and see what they can do up against other beans.
The Golden Bean Awards is a competition among North American coffee roasters with coffees being judged as Espresso, Milk and Filter beverages with medals awarded in a number of award categories. They invite roasters to not only send in their entries to the competition but also to attend educational workshops, networking opportunities and social functions in the evenings. This event has been running successfully now for over ten years in Australia and has been one of the key elements in the growth of the Australian coffee industry by way of rewarding the coffee roasters, the vital person in the chain for all coffee businesses.
Since we're still a newish coffee roaster with a limited budget, we sent our beans on their own off to Portland to party and rub bean elbows with some of the best in the biz. Our picks to send, El Gaucho Espresso blend and our Ethiopian Guji. They're both confident and ready for anything, espresso, pour over and cold brew so we sent them off to show em what they're made of.
The way it works is, coffee companies submit their entries on a predetermined date and the coffees are judged through a blind tasting format, in 9 different categories and brew methods. Just yesterday, we got the results back from the competition
Drum Roll please...
Our El Gaucho won a Bronze in the Milk Based Category! Really exciting for us and El Gaucho. He's bold enough to hold up to milk in a tasty espresso drink with his chocolaty richness.
The other Big Winner for us, our Ethiopian Guji!! This sexy and juicy coffee also received a Bronze, but this time in the Single Origin Espresso Category. Guji is fruity and delicious naked and vibrant as an espresso too and we're stoked that the judges agreed.
Thank you Golden Bean Awards for the golden opportunity to let the new kids in town show off our stuff for the first time in competition. Next year we'd like to be there in person and whoop it up with the best of them. In the meantime, we're hoping some cool medals arrive that we can slip around the necks of these two great coffees and give em the credit they deserve. El Gaucho is always around, ready to purchase in the roaster or Online. Guji is here and online on our website until we run out. Get it while it's hot.
Recently, Steve from KCCoffeeGeek a Kansas City based Coffee Writer|Drinker|Photographer tasted and reviewed our Panama Don Pepe and Guatemala Antigua Hunapu beans and had great things to say. Yay and Phew! Being the newish kids on the block in the So-Cal Craft Roaster scene we don't know what to expect... but hey, people like us, they really, really like us!! Ok, enough of the lump in the throat, back to the writing.
So, Steve really liked the versatility of the Panama as espresso or drip. You can check out his blog post about it as well as all of his coffee prep nerdy notes for all of you fellow coffee geeks on his website. He also took some sweet photographs! We look forward to sending KCCoffeeGeek more samples as we get our hands on more interesting and tasty beans and Weston roasts and tests them until he's satisfied with the end result. Thanks Steve for the reviews!