Off The Menu: Beware, Here There Be Pumpkins

Mention flavored coffee to any coffee drinker and you'll either get a reminiscing smile or a bored eye-role. Anyone who's had more than a few cups of joe is familiar with this part of the coffee world, a suburb of rundown nostalgia not unlike the an 80's theme park that still trudges along unchanged: think vanilla, hazelnut, blueberry, Irish cream. Those are the coffees I remember seeing in the aisle at the grocery store, the first coffees I remember liking (okay, finding slightly less disgusting). And those are now the coffees that I and so many other coffee geeks now glare at with the same look of distain a five-star chef would reserve for a hot pocket. But before I lose the flavored coffee supporters out there, let me humbly walk into their most lauded temple, the Pumpkin Spice Latte.

"Come fellow believers, let us ascend to the utmost peak of autumnal bliss!"
-Someone wearing plaid somewhere
Photo by Consumerist

Though it's more of a coffee beverage and the flavor comes from syrup, Starbucks' biggest success might be the biggest representative of what the lovers love (it tastes like sweet sweet sugary fall) and what the haters hate (it doesn't taste like coffee, at all). The Pumpkin Spice Latte has brought about a new era in flavored coffee, an era where a drink has enough faithful adherents to create a secret code so you can get it early, has short stories written about it, and may have kicked off an entire trend of pumpkin flavored foods and beverages. And that's saying something considering that we don't actually like pumpkins unless they're in a pie.

"Aww, pretty pumpkins! Become pie or get lost." -America
Photo by Kim Abbot is licensed under CC BY 2.0

There are probably many reasons for the success of the pumpkin spice latte and the pumpkin cult that followed, but one of the biggest drivers of the flavophiles is that some people don't like the flavor of coffee. Which is an issue because coffee can be delicious. Coffee nerds hold coffee on a pedestal because they've put time and effort into it; they've learned how to make it and how to taste it. Coffee has more flavor compounds than wine: wine sits around 200, but coffee ranges from 850 to 1500, depending on who you ask, making coffee a complex, extremely flavorful beverage. So asking your barista to add some flavored syrup to a cup of single-origin, carefully brewed coffee could be (to them) the equivalent of asking a talented chef to slather ketchup and mustard on his dry aged, perfectly medium-rare T-bone.

"Oh, you want mint syrup in your coffee? Sorry, I think I need to go flip the vinyl
and then make a pour over using a stream of my own tears."
Photo by Matt Biddulph is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

But let's be honest, some coffees aren't worthy of a coffee nerd's tender love and adoration. Specialty coffees make up 37% of the coffee market; that means 63% might not be the kind of cup of coffee you'll want to savor on crisp autumn day while sporting your favorite flannel. And even that is a new trend: for the vast majority of history, coffee wasn't particularly tasty, and needed sugar and milk to make it palatable. And this is where the Pumpkin Spice Latte (and any other flavored coffee or vague coffee drink) has risen to it's glory: not everyone has access to good coffee. And sometimes you just want some drinkable coffee, so much that you'll make a deal with the devil to get it.

"So you want to be able to drink your coffee without cringing?
Oh, I can make that happen... can I ever make that happen."

So flavored coffee makes sense, but it comes with its own downsides: most flavored coffees (and grandiose Starbucks whipped cream receptacles) are flavored chemically, not naturally, and when you get into the world of Starbucks (or any other dessert-coffee purveyor), you're basically drinking candy. What's a coffee lover to do?

May I present the 'JUST GIVE IN' option?
Photo from The Stir

One option would be to go high class with the flavor, something like coffee brewed with dehydrated raspberries and Madagascar cocoa. Yeah, that honestly sounds amazing, but it's also not exactly available to everyone. My humble suggestion to those who can't do coffee straight up: go au naturale with the flavors, and start light, adding just enough to taste both the flavor and the coffee. My marketing department demands I inform you that, at Arabica, we like maple syrup, homemade caramel and chocolate syrup made from real chocolate (and they all taste pretty rad). We even have a pumpkin syrup that's all natural and actually has pumpkin in it at our Commercial St. location, if you must get in the spirit of fall.

But it's your coffee in the end, and the choice is yours. So if it's your thing, go ahead, get the Banana Foster Float coffee, or the Christmas Cookie coffee or the Big Ol' Chunk O' Cake coffee or whatever suits your fancy. Just not the Spicy Taco Flavored coffee. Really, that's just too far. Nobody wants coffee that makes your house smell like you "cooked up some taco seasoning with ground beef in a pan."

That is not a coffee flavor. Not in the slightest.

State of The CaffeiNation (See what I did there?)

So, if you read my last post you know that coffee is a plant from Africa, that it developed into the drink we know in the middle east some time before the 15th century, and that it quickly spread across Europe, spreading daisies and sunshine with it.

Okay, so I may have made up that last part...
Photo by Böhringer is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5

But did you know that coffee is also patriotic, a beverage deemed by all of the founding fathers as necessary for every true American to drink, even if those founding fathers themselves did not quite appreciate the flavor?

First we have to turn our eyes a little more south: Coffee came to the Caribbean in 1720, first planted on the island of Martinique. Within fifty years, coffee farms on Martinique had grown immensely and coffee spread around the Caribbean and elsewhere, including South America. Coffee produced in the Caribbean and the Americas was much cheaper for those in the Colonies to buy, but for the most part, Colonists stuck to tea, and (probably a little more than they should have) beer.

Okay, so maybe I can't blame them...
Photo by Thomas Cizauskas is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0  

That changed with the Revolutionary War. First, the tax on tea was raised. This alone made the already cheaper coffee more desirable, but as soon as a few folk decided it was a smart thing to dress likes Mohawk warriors and toss tea into the ocean, drinking tea became a little taboo. Whether all of the colonists instantly switched over to coffee is up for debate, but things certainly changed. One source sites a letter from John Adams to his wife, saying that he preferred tea, but would learn to love coffee because drinking tea had become unpatriotic. Long story short, much of the revolution went on to be planned in coffee houses, and the USA became the country that runs on Dunkin' and brought Starbucks to the world.

And then we decided to watch them fight... because what else are we going to do?
This map was created by FlowingData

That is how coffee became America's drink, but there's more spreading of coffee that we didn't cover, mainly on the growing side. I won't get into the details, but we can mostly thank the Dutch (who took it to Indonesia) and the French (who brought it to the Americas) for the spread of coffee plants. Although rest assured, there was no lack of attempts at a monopoly, secret stolen seedlings, or unfortunate pirate attacks involved with coffee's dissemination.

So yeah... I don't know about you, but I'm going to be extra grateful next time I have a cup of coffee. You know, assuming I'm not a un-caffeinated zombie.

This is what opening a coffee shop is like. Every morning.

Manifest Bean: Go West, Young Coffee

Have you ever sat down at a coffee shop, ordered yourself a latte, and found yourself thinking, "Who thought this thing up? Why does this delicious mixture of pressure-extracted coffee and steamed milk exist?" or perhaps a slightly more existential, "How did someone living in America come to drink something made from the ground, roasted seed of the fruit of a tree that originated from Ethiopia?" Okay, you've probably never asked that question, but if you are asking it now you're in luck: mysteries like this baffle and delight me to no end.

"The door is open... but it can be closed... but it's not? THIS IS AMAZING?" -Me everyday
"Problems, problems..." by Ion Chibzii is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Let's start with the origin stories. There's a few. I've mentioned the myth about the Ethiopian goatherd in my first post ever (oh what a young foolish man I was...), but that story didn't appear in print until 1671, a rather suspicious 800 years after it supposedly took place. Other origins attribute either the avian observations of a Sufi mystic or the desert wanderings of exiled disciple of a Sheik (his discovery of coffee not only revoked his exiled status but got him honored as a saint, because, well, you know, coffee!), but as before, it's unclear how exactly coffee was "discovered."

The best guess is that the the tribesman of Ethiopia consumed coffee fruit for its stimulating properties, and at some point a visiter from Yemen tried it and thought it was rather swell. What we do know is that the first written evidence of coffee, as we know it, was in the 15th century in the Sufi monasteries in Yemen, used to keep them alert during prayers. This precious beverage was given the name qahwah, which had originally meant wine.

Except when you drink too much of this wine you just start pretending that you're getting a lot of work done.
Photo by Scott Feldstein is licensed under CC BY 2.0

In its early years, coffee lived a mostly religious life,  doing it's prayers and being a good boy. It was mostly found in areas of Sufi influence, with coffeehouses first popping up around a religious university in Cairo, but coffee quickly spread across the Ottoman empire. The bad news for coffee was that as soon as it stepped out into the world, it's reputation started to sour (or perhaps I should say bitter? sorry). In 1511 coffee was banned by conservative Imams for fear of it being too stimulating, possibly encouraging wandering thoughts, or worse, outright rebellion. Lucky for us the people's love of coffee was so great that the ban only managed to last fifteen years.

In Europe coffee was less liked, with no small part of that caused by its association with Islam. Viewed as the Devil's beverage, the drink of infidels, and all manner of other insults you may apply to potable liquids, coffee was shunned if not outright banned in most of Europe.

"Such mudslop! Truly this is the bitter invention Satan."
Wink by Chris Blakely is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

That is until Pope Clement VIII was pressured by some of advisers to officially declare coffee the drink of sin in 1600, or so the rumor goes. The advisers may not have thought the plan throw and it backfired a little; Clement decided he had to try the drink first to make his decision, and after a taste he supposedly said, "This devil's drink is so delicious...we should cheat the devil by baptizing it!" Fanciful at best, but I do personally like thinking my coffee has received official Papal approval.

It wasn't long after that coffee spread throughout Europe, with coffee shops becoming the new place for thinkers to gather to exchange ideas. Coffeehouses earned the nickname "penny universities" because for the price of a cup of coffee you could join in on conversations about almost anything with the educated elite. The effect was similar to when the internet first kicked off, although probably with less 12-year olds practicing their curses and all the other unsavory bits.

Who could debase anything wearing wigs like those?
The white powder prevented any and all wrongdoings, I'm sure.

"Wait, they can do what to us?"
-The Low Class, on Coffee

In fact, egalitarian ideas, shifts of power, and, slightly less fortunately, rebellion, seemed to follow coffee where ever it went. One might venture to say that coffee may have been the substance the gave people the power to fight for the rights that they deserved. Or, one could observe that the rise of coffeehouses gave people something safe to drink that wasn't alcoholic, and perhaps all the people needed to do was sober up a little and realize they were being toyed with.

Keep an eye out for the next history post, where I'll go over coffee's travel from Europe to the rest of the world.

Bigger Than Caffeine: Coffee and Rwanda

Coffee may be your morning routine. It might be the fuel that gets you going, or it may be your culinary indulgence. But what does coffee mean for the people growing it?

The first thoughts that come to mind when someone mentions Rwanda aren’t pleasant. Being the home of one of the largest genocides of this generation, it’s hard to imagine thinking of much else. But this is changing, and it’s possible that in a few decades the first thing you will think of when you think Rwanda will be coffee. Damned good coffee at that.

Made by some pretty awesome people.

Coffee has been hanging around Rwanda for a long time: small farms were forced to grow it in the Belgian colonial era of the 1930s, planting the arabica species of the coffee plant (keep that in mind). In the early 90’s coffee was the majority of exports, but the chaos decimated the coffee infrastructure, and with significantly less people to work the farms and almost no way to process the beans, the coffee industry dwindled.

Looking at the country now, it’s hard to imagine Rwanda not having world-class coffee: coffee has been a major crop for decades, the country is still filled with the heirloom arabica trees when many other countries replaced theirs with the tough-as-nails-quantity-over-quality robusta trees and the climate is about as perfect as one could hope for growing coffee.

Pictured: Coffee heaven. If you look really hard and maybe cross your eyes you’ll see angelic coffee beans playing harps.
Photo by Amakuru is licensed under CC-BY-SA-2.0

The transition from barely functioning, C-grade coffee production (read: Folger’s) to top class, “let’s sell this at $22 a pound at Starbucks and call it ‘black apron,’ whatever that means,” didn’t happen overnight. Or by accident.

“Oops, I accidentally made great coffee. It just kinda happened” -No One Ever

When President Paul Kagame stepped into office, he realized that coffee could revive the destitute economy and released control of the production back to the farmers. Then, working with US Agency for International Development, an organization named PEARL taught Rwandans better farming practices as well as how to cup coffee and control quality of their product, filling the gaps left from the genocide. 

After learning more about what they were producing, the Rwandan farmers were able to see what they were growing as a craft, not something they were forced to grow, and began to care about what they made. Stepping into the craft coffee industry also meant farmers were able to more than double their incomes. This has helped some famers immensely, but many are still trying to find ways of getting their coffee to processing stations and then to the market, meaning sometimes they have an amazing product, but no way to sell it.

The fireman carrying should be saved for firemen, and maybe adventurous honeymooners.
Photo by Hanoi Mark is licensed under CC-BY-NC 2.0

The question now is, have you tasted any of the delicious coffee from Rwanda? And if not, would you like to? You can find Rwandan coffee at many well-respected roasters across the country, but if you’re in Portland you can buy a pound of Rwandan at Arabica, with beans we source from the local Rwanda Bean Company. If you’re lucky you can stop by our Commercial St. location on July 15th for our Rwanda Benefit, you'll be able to try some of our Rwandan coffee and learn about the importance of coffee in Rwanda from the man who sources it for us.

Learn more about the event here, or see how you can help the farmers continue their craft here. And the next time you see some Rwandan coffee in a shop somewhere, remember the words of Zac Nsenga, former Rwandan ambassador to the United States: “The more you consume coffee from Rwanda, the more you give Rwanda hope. It’s the quality and the story behind it that makes it special.”

(P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about Rwanda’s history and coffee’s place in that, please read this wonderful piece in the New York Times by Laura Fraser and this interview on NPR by Michaeleen Doucleff. This blog wouldn't be possible without either of these pieces.)

Arabica, or There and Back Again, a Coffee Shop's Tale

Picture Maine in the nineties: boy bands on the radio, mood rings and scunchies everywhere, families watching Full House around fat TVs with rabbit ear antennae. You get out of bed in the morning and you have a cup of Green Mountain blueberry flavored coffee (and that’s if you’re being fancy). Craft coffee does not exist, most people don’t even know that Starbucks is a thing, or even realize that Starbucks could be a thing. This was what John and Cathy walked into as they were moving to Portland, ME to open a coffee shop.

Obligatory Dateline-style Photo

They were from the Northeast themselves, met in college in Massachusetts, and after graduating they decided to see the world a little and moved out to Seattle. It happened that the world in Seattle included a lot of coffee, and that coffee came in interesting forms like lattes and shots of espresso. After developing a love of coffee and the coffee shop atmosphere (with no little thanks being paid to the fact that Espresso Vivace was just around the corner from their apartment), John and Cathy decided to open a business together, and realized their caffeination infatuation had potential as their business venture. They chose to move back to the Northeast to be close to home, and after a few years of research and countless hours of work, Arabica was born in August 1995.

Pictured: Their first and possibly most demanding child. 

At first everyone thought they were destined to fail: they didn’t have flavored coffee, they had this weird thing (called an espresso machine) to make even weirder coffee, and, most importantly, they weren’t Green Mountain or Dunkin’ Donuts. Closing in on the 20th anniversary, we’re happy to say that Arabica is still here and strong, but it’s certainly not the same creature it once was.

"Wait... what is that thing? I don't like it." – Maine, circa 1995

At the start, Arabica sourced beans from Vivace Espresso and Scott Rao. Scott was kind enough to teach John how to roast and he’s been doing that since 2009. We’ve shifted a few doors down and the ‘original’ store is now at 2 Free St. instead of 16 (we appreciate the windows: we hope you do too!).

We might not miss the dark 16 Free St. location, but we do miss the days of yore, back when $2 could get you a cappuccino, or a three course meal, or a new car. We might not remember those days too well.

We have a second location opened in 2012 that, in addition to housing the roaster, is a full fledged bakery. Some of you might recall that this location, until recently, was called Crema. Initially there was a partner involved and it had to be a separate business, but not long after opening there were some hints that maybe there shouldn’t be partner. A year after opening it was clear that all parties would be happier if there wasn’t, and John and Cathy bought the partner out. 

There was some debate about whether or not to change the name of Crema to Arabica for awhile, but in the end it made more sense the business to have a little more continuity. Many of our customers had no idea that the two businesses were connected in any way, and we wanted to let people know that when they were enjoying coffee at Crema, it was Arabica coffee they were enjoying!

Not to mention everything is more fun when it's called Arabica. Pro tip: This works with everything. Businesses, unruly pets, rusty bicycles, even the occasional old computer are all much better when named Arabica. Try it out!

It’s been a long adventure for Arabica to become what it is, and we’re happy that you’ve joined us along the way. Keep an eye out for our 20 year celebration coming up in August!

Cold Brew, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Iced

Forget the beach. Don’t think about the pool, drinks on the porch or games in the lawn. Leave the grill untouched. We all the know the best part about summer is iced coffee.

But let's be honest: not all iced coffees are equal. I have a memory from when I was young. I was at the house of a family friend, being watched during the day. It was a warm summer day and after running around outside I wanted a cold drink. Knowing that there was some sweetened iced tea in the fridge, I grabbed a pitcher that I assumed contained just that. Imagine the disgust of a boy, a picky eater at that, taking a sip of iced coffee when he was expecting some nice sweet iced tea. All I remember is a muddy, bitter, and burnt flavor before my whole world crashed down before me.

This is how me as a kid would have drawn the experience.
Picture by Joamm Tall is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0

Okay, slight exaggeration.

But it was pretty awful: perhaps a pitcher of Maxwell’s brewed then set in the fridge to become a murky lagoon of bitter, sharp caffeination. There’s a lot of coffee out in the world like that, and some may know that there is a better way. For those of you who don’t, I’m afraid I might become a little preachy, for there is another way.

I tried doing it on coffee bags, ya know, for continuity sake,
but the effect was less than stunning and the footing less than stable.
Picture by MonsieurLui is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0

Enter cold brew coffee: a coffee that can sit for a few days and still taste amazing, a coffee that won’t punish your taste buds with punches of repulsion, a coffee that will taste like ice cream once you add a little cream and gives you a caffeine kick you’d expect only from cartoon mules in old timey commercials. Cold brew is coffee brewed for awhile, ideally 12 hours, at room temperature then filtered. To make iced coffee out of cold brew, you usually water it down to taste, as the cold brew itself is pretty potent.

This is Todd. He once drank a pint of straight cold brew. He hasn’t been the same since.
Picture by bark is licensed under CC BY 2.0

You might wonder what magic happens when you let your coffee sit over night. Surprisingly, it has very little to do with elves. Let’s just say that when coffee grounds and water get to hang out with each other in a nice environment for awhile they become fast friends, making inside jokes, finishing each other’s sentences and whatnot. As a result, there’s no bite, a velvety smoothness, and loads of joyous caffeine. Cold brew keeps very well, making large batches ideal for us coffee shops, but you can make small batches at home. 

Or stockpile for the end of the world. Your choice.
Picture by mikelen is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The process is easy: take one part coarse ground coffee, 4.5 parts cold water, let sit for 12 hours then filter with a sieve (you can also find more detailed instructions here). You’re now ready for a summer of delicious coffee. Although any bean will work, we favor our Brazil, or a blend that's Brazil heavy. Cold brew has a wonderful mouthfeel, but it does tend to mute some of the more delicate flavors, so using a coffee that already produces a sweeter, creamier brew will be extra fantastic.  In other words, don't break out the Ethiopian for it. If you absolutely must have some iced Ethiopian coffee, I recommend starting here for a list of other great ways to make iced coffee. Whichever method you choose, make sure it's good. The Maine summer is short, and there's no point wasting it on bad iced coffee.

Roasting, pt. 2: The Equipment and Roasting at Home

The first thing we have to think about is the equipment: what are you going to use to roast coffee? It’s true that you can roast coffee anywhere there’s heat, but I’m about as likely to try roasting coffee in a dryer as I am trying to cook a turkey in one, even if does kind of resemble the real deal.

Innovation is not always a good thing.
Picture by Damien du Toit is licensed under CC BY 2.0

A drum roaster is the most common type of roaster used in the craft coffee industry. They vary in size incredibly, from tiny, one pound tabletop test roasters to monsters that can roast a few hundred pounds of coffee at once. Generally a smaller batch means less inconsistency in the batch. They feature rotating drums that heat up to roast the coffee. They work through both convection and conduction, so some heat is transferred directly to the beans from the drum, but the air catches some of that heat, warms up, and helps roast the beans a little.

There are roasters out there that work exclusively by hot air. Some might have walked into a super market that roasts its own coffee to find something that looks like some kind of mechanical monster variety of a popcorn popper. Don’t trust those. Generally, the heating is uneven and the process automated.

Coffee is only kind of like popcorn, and this is just taking it too far.
Picture by pchow98 is licensed under CC BY NC ND 2.0

That being said, if you want to try your hand at roasting coffee at home, there are worse things you could do than trying to do it with a popcorn popper. So many people have done it by now that it’s basically a science, and some people have gone as far as adding modifications to their poppers. Even if you have an old fashioned stovetop popcorn popper you can manage some decently roasted coffee.

There are other ways if you don’t have a popcorn popper or feel like owning one. The oven is popular, preferably with a perforated pan or something else that has a lot of holes in it—like a mesh colander. You could even go back to the old days and just roast in a cast iron skillet, but be ready for smoke. Like lots of smoke. Like ninja levels of smoke.

Just train your other sense and you'll be fine. Or turn the exhaust fan on, if you want to be lame.
Picture by Martin Cathrae is licensed under CC BY SA 2.0

None of these methods are going to offer you the same quality you would get from a professional roaster. But this is more about process, adventure and bragging rights than making the best coffee in the world. So what’s stopping you? Go out, get some green beans and roast yourself some coffee.