More on the big green

Coffee culture grinds Starbucks’ Australian operation
August 3, 2008, 1:38 pm

August 3, 2008, 8:40 pm
SYDNEY (AFP) - Starbucks hit a roadblock trying to export its business model to Australia, a robust coffee culture where customers already knew the difference between a macchiato and an affogato, local traders say.

The US giant announced last week that it would close 61 of its 84 Australian outlets by Sunday, saying “challenges unique to the Australian market” were behind the decision, which cost almost 700 jobs.

The statement from Starbucks’ head office in Seattle did not say what made Australia different, but did point out: “There are no other international markets that need to be addressed in this manner.”

Starbucks Asia Pacific president John Culver was more forthcoming about why the company was on the retreat in Australia, eight years after opening its first store in Sydney.

“I think what we’ve seen is that Australia has a very sophisticated coffee culture,” he said in a newspaper interview.

A wave of post-war immigrants from Turkey, Greece and particularly Italy means that for decades Australians had been enjoying the “coffee experience” Starbucks virtually created from scratch in the United States.

Both Sydney and Melbourne have Italian enclaves lined with cafes where old men sip espressos at outdoor tables through the day and trendy young couples gather in the evening for a caffeine fix.

Starbucks’ idea of making itself a “third place” in customers’ lives between home and work was a novelty in the United States, where in many small towns cafe culture consisted of filter coffee on a hot plate.

But Melbourne cafe owner Jeremy Jenkins said the situation was different in Australia, where baristas have been plying their trade at steaming espresso machines since the 1950s.

“People come in our cafe because they know us and they know they’ll get good coffee, we’re part of the local community,” Jenkins told AFP.

“Starbucks is a McDonald’s coffee experience. It’s not about the quality of the coffee, it’s about convenience and location.”

Starbucks also closed 600 stores in the United States early last month in a move widely seen as a response to belt-tightening among customers less inclined to spend money on luxuries like coffee in tough economic times.

Commentators have suggested similar problems hit Starbucks in Australia, but the queues outside the Met Cafe in central Sydney on a recent windy winter’s day indicated many customers were not yet ready to sacrifice their coffee hit.

Met Cafe owner Brendan Smart said Starbucks had expanded too quickly in Australia.

“A few years ago there weren’t that many of them and they seemed to be going OK, but then all of a sudden, they were everywhere,” he told AFP.

“Some city blocks had three Starbucks on them — it’s crazy.”

Smart said many customers had told him they did not want to buy their coffee from a corporate giant and those who had tried Starbucks were not impressed by the product, saying it did not compare with the numerous local brews available.

“What we do isn’t rocket science, I’m the first to admit that, but you’ve got to have a passion for coffee that involves everything from grinding the beans to operating the machine,” he said.

“You go into Starbucks and it’s full of teenagers behind the counter. I’d question whether they have that passion.”

Starbucks now plans to streamline its operation to 23 stores in Australia’s largest cities Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The Mighty Green Falls in Oz

So news so far at home is that Starbucks will close 61 stores in Australia,with 85 stores nationally,it would be a huge dent on the market.

Although Im not sad to see them pull up stumps and go.
I remember the early days in Sydney When they first came into town and opened up near the cafe i was working at in Chatswood and the staff at Starbucks Would walk around to our place and harrass the customers with their versions of a short black served in a plastic cup,and our customers would just look at the guys and look at me to see if that was cool to do and i would say go ahead put it up against the one i made you and see which one you like.The look on the faces was just priceless.

I was probably a little sadistic at that point,so instead of letting the pain continue i had to ask the starbucks staff not to harass my customers again.

With the Australian espresso culture being so strong i am surprised that they managed to have survived so long,but then again what would the international students drink?

Two of my favourite things….Metal+Coffee=Dethlok

The Ultimate in Competition music while doing your signature drinks

deVille

After two weeks in Calgary helping Paul Brassard and Mark Nolan with their cafe,im feeling some what re energised being home and relaxing with a day of canoeing in deep cove and sunshine under my belt.
deVille coffee will be the the swankiest sexiest cafe in canada,period.I havnt seen a cafe set up like this since being home in oz.deVille will be a healthy addition to the Calgary coffee scene,while still in construction mode interested on lookers were peeking in and commenting on the construction and asking on the opening date,to which Paul replied….soon,would you like a coffee?
So we gave away a lot of coffees to onlookers while i was training the guys,not a bad way for word to get around and free press,the word got around so fast that a food critic came by to check out deVille.I also dropped by Phil and Sebastians and checked out their new set up as they now have a synesso and an fb80 on the go,also i dropped by cafe beano while i was there and had a coffee,i didnt get a chance to drop into bumpys but the next trip to Calgary ill make sure ill check them out.A big disappointment on the crawl was cafe Artigiano,we ordered 4 lattes and mine had to be the super hot one and i wasnt able to drink it,although the cafe was busy it seems the consistency was out.
Unfortunately i wasnt around long enough to attend Calgary’s barista jam which was held a few days after i left,it wouldve been fun to hang out with the local talent,Calgary will be hosting their first regional competition for the upcoming canadians.
I will post photos of deVille when Paul sends me some pics so stay tuned,and if your in Calgary drop in on the guys,they’re located in the arts central building downtown

Wicked Cafe mk 2

So lets get things straight

Wicked cafe will be opening a second location somewhere in vancouver,where it is i cannot say….Yet!
So keep your eyes peeled for us opening in a neighbourhood near you.

Off the beaten track part 2

After lunch i decided to do more walking and came across this wonderful vending machine owned by suntory

Tommy Lee Jones looked pissed off,and you would be too if you tasted the canned iced coffee out of this machine,but it had to be done so i can now cross it off my list of to do’s.
Im back in Asakusa after an adventure on the subway in peak hour,it felt like i was playing rugby again stuck in a scrum but instead of big men pushing against you it was a bunch of old nannas as strong as an ox and it was quite hilarious.
As im walking around trying to find the asahi brewery and kannon temple,i found this coffee training centre from the bach coffee company,but it was closed for the day,so i had a little peek in the window,looked really cool with the roasters and lab.

After that i decided to jump back on the subway and head to Ginza for a quick look and see what happens and found this cool place which wouldve been an awesome little cocktail bar

This place was pretty cozy and had lots of cool old equipment on display,a nice little get away from the hustle and bustle of the side walk,nice atmosphere and no english menus so i grabbed an iced coffee again,the best find of the day was again in Asakusa i wish i had made it back in time to eat here……….

Off the Beaten track part 1

So im looking through photos on the computer and came across my tokyo pics that i totally forgot about.
I found a few interesting cafes in tokyo off the beaten track while i was wandering the back streets of Ginza,Akihabara and Asakusa.

I found this place in Asakusa but it wasnt open at the time as it was too early in the morning.

Cafe Paulista I was told was one of the oldest cafes in tokyo,and was the first to bring coffee to japan.
It was quite interesting to have a coffee in there,it was very quiet in atmosphere full of business men with gorgeous girls,almost seems like a scene out of a movie,the tables and chairs were quite short,i felt like a giant walking in,with my shorts and t shirt and heavily tattooed self,the whole room stopped and looked,as thoughts of previous movies as old boy run through my head i was sure as shit i was going to get jumped and every one in suits will be on me like no ones business,but unfortunately that wasnt the case,just my over active imagination and the heat getting the better of me.So i ordered a nice iced coffee to cool me down for the next half hour as i get ready to hit the road.

As i was walking round Akihabara looking for a bite too eat, i came across this cool billboard amongst all the electronic advertisements for cameras,sex shops and icecream,after taking it i wander off around the corner and found this little gem

The Pole Shop Cafe in the backstreets of Akihabara was a cool little find so i found an excuse to pop in there and get out of the heat while i had another iced coffee,maybe the coffee will make me forget that im hungry i dont know.
there was a few people in the booths talking amongst themselves chain smoking malboros and laughing,im starting to enjoy a bit of people watching and trying to capture the whole essence of the conversation without knowing a lick of japanese was quite entertaining.
After watching the guy use the air roaster and do a roast i set off to find lunch as i couldnt put off the cravings for ramen.

After slurping my way through the ramen off i go

Spring

What the hell is going on with this weather on the west coast?

I was looking forward to more snow falling here in B.C. during february,but no…

All we get is warm rain now,which is melting the snow,which is quite annoying,this time last year we saw a decent dusting throughout february which kept the runs nice and soft.

Although on the other side of the country its in the minuses,toronto is -25,i think i watch the weather channel toomuch these days and its starting to annoy me when its snowing everywhere else.I guess not riding in the last 2 weeks is getting to me, and the thoughts of being in fernie with all that champagne powder and hardly anyone up on the hills gets me slightly wound up,although i wasnt fortunate enough to experience the waist deep powder they got a few weeks before,i did get to ride knee deep stuff

walking back home from a session,i wish i had someone with a ski doo to tow me round through all this snow as it was all untouched wouldve been a laugh

cedar bowl

hardly anyone on the hill was a plus,being able to do big carves without danger of taking anyone out was one hell of a ride

Data logger for commercial coffee grinders

I found this interesting article from pico technology about a data logger measuring temperatures occuring on a commercial coffee grinder and the effects of heat on espresso.unfortunately i couldnt get the diagrams loaded up but you can check out the whole story on their website on www.picotech.com i believe that theyre a U.K. company.

This application shows how a TC-08 thermocouple data logger is used in the food industry to help make the perfect Espresso.

The background
Fresh coffee has to be treated carefully to ensure that the flavour profile designed into the blend is not impaired or altered by the methods of packing and storage or how it is ultimately ground by the user.

The Coffee Roaster for whom I work takes great care to roast coffee to a very precise temperature / time profile. It is then carefully cooled, again to a precise temperature / time profile, and packed in light-proof, gas-tight multi-layer valve bags that will allow CO2 out but will not allow air to enter.

For the ultimate taste and crema (the light brown cream on top of the black coffee that is typical of all Espresso based drinks) the coffee must be absolutely fresh and must be freshly ground in a good quality grinder that does not abuse the coffee by heating it or crushing it.

Contrary to what you might think coffee grinders should not crush the coffee beans but grind them by a slicing action into a controlled range of particle sizes. This is done using two flat, or conical, grinding blades with several different sizes of cutting edges machined on to them in a radial pattern. One blade is static while the other is connected to the motor shaft. Temperature and humidity also affect how the coffee beans will grind.

The problem
Commercial coffee grinders often have a high duty cycle, especially first thing in the trading day when the ground coffee chamber is completely empty (unfortunately most grinders are designed for around a 30% duty cycle). At this time the grinder must produce up to 1 kilo of ground coffee in a short space of time while imparting the absolute minimum heat into the ground coffee. As these machines usually have a relatively small casing size yet contain a powerful electric motor turning at about 1,200 rpm there is a big risk of heat being conducted from the motor up into the grinding chamber. Heat is also generated by the grinding action itself. The purpose of testing the coffee grinder is to identify and minimise all unnecessary heat. It is hoped that from the test results the “maximum run time” can be calculated for the grinder.

Test setup
The actual grinding chamber of a typical coffee grinder is very small and there is little free space. To get a temperature probe in to this space without interfering with the flow of coffee, and thus distorting the results, proved to be a challenge. Ultimately a “fine wire, exposed junction” K-type thermocouple was used. This was bonded into the grinding chamber outlet with a small dab of epoxy resin to provide insulation from any heat conducted up through the metal of the grinder casing while leaving the junction exposed to the ground coffee. The probe wire was fed out of the chamber via the ground coffee outlet chute.

A second probe was attached to the side of the motor stator to detect the heat rise in the actual motor. Here a “fine wire, exposed junction” K-type thermocouple bonded to a flexible magnetic pad was used. This kept the probe in contact with the soft iron of the motor stator.

A third probe was attached to the metal of the grinder casing adjacent to the point where the motor was bolted on to the grinder body just below the grinding chamber to show the conducted heat from the motor.

Finally a hypodermic type probe was inserted in to the base of the coffee bean hopper to monitor the temperature of the beans prior to entering the grinding chamber.

Figure 1 below shows a schematic of the coffee grinder and the location of the thermocouples.

To replicate “Coffee Shop” conditions a temperature controlled room was used. This was set to 28 degrees Celsius and an average humidity level.

Using the USB TC-08 connected to a PC the data was gathered over a period of 10 minutes with readings taken every 500 ms. The test was conducted three times and the results compared. The results from the three tests were so close that they were not averaged and just one set was used.

Figure 1: Schematic of a coffee grinder
Conclusion
The majority of the rise in motor casing temperature was not passed on to the grinding chamber within the 10 minute period; however, there was a notable rise of about 12 degrees Celsius in the temperature of the ground coffee during the period.

This is not acceptable, however referring to the graph (Figure 2) it will be seen that the rise can be limited to 4 degrees Celsius if the run time is limited to just over 4.5 minutes. As this is equivalent to just under 1 kg of coffee being ground this should be sufficient to maintain the provision of ground coffee to the associated Espresso coffee machine for long enough to allow the grinder’s 30% duty cycle to be adhered to.

Thus the test has shown that by controlling the run time of the grinder the taste profile of the coffee can be maintained.

A small electronic timer will now be developed to stop the grinder 4.5 minutes after grinding begins.

Figure 2: Coffee grinder temperature

——————————————————————————–

How to murder a cocktail

Its been so long since the last time i wrote about cocktails.
So ive been surfing for some videos or so of cocktails just to get some inspiration from bartenders,and what i found almost made me sick,bartenders killing classic drinks such as this offering from mojo.com with their version of the irish coffee.doesnt really have that much substance on the drink apart from slapping it all together

Compared to this offering from Angus Winchester,Mixologist extrodanaire and i believe he’s into molecular mixology as well,which is crossing over from food,coffee and now into cocktails which is quite exciting.

Angus’s delivery and short history on this drink (daquiri),is a pleasure to watch,to see a talented bartender deliver this drink well with the step by step guide on technique,a good way to learn if your a budding home mixologist.

A good book for any budding mixologist would be Craft of the Cocktail by Dale De Groff,a great read and a must for any working bartender