I'm in Vancouver BC right now, at the end of a long trip in France. It is always a bit of a shock to my system to return from France, the land of good food and horrible coffee, to a place where good coffee is readily available; I am still adjusting.

This is a shorter trip than usual for me to Vancouver, and I've truncated my activities accordingly. I have visited a couple of cafes, however, most frequently the 49th Parallel cafe on 4th Ave. in Kitsilano. Today I arranged to visit the 49th Parallel roasting facility in Burnaby, which I have been to once before several years ago with Rick Knowlan, who seldom posts here any longer. The roasting facility has actually moved across the street from where it was on my last visit. I apologize in advance for not taking any pictures; this was due to my laziness and sloth, having forgotten to even bring my camera along.

I was fortunate to be hooked up with Mie Hansen, the green coffee buyer for 49th Parallel. Mie is a very attractive Swedish woman who previously worked for Ritual Coffee Roasters in California. We started out drinking a brewed Brazilian microlot coffee, which I had previously had in the 49th II Cafe as a SO espresso; I much preferred the coffee brewed to its use as a SO espresso. Mie told me that she does not drink much espresso anymore; I think its intensity makes it hard for her to taste in her job cupping samples for purchase.

We had a long conversation about coffee preparation methods, espresso shot weights, extraction ratios, etc. Andy S, of whom Mie had heard, would have been at home in this conversation I think that Mie was a little bit surprised to hear that there are home barista nutcases (such as myself) who weigh their beans and weigh their shots. She told me that in the cafe they weigh a large percentage of the espresso shots they make as the shots are being poured. I commented that I had been to another well-regarded cafe (which I will not name) yesterday, and they had produced a very tiny double shot espresso, which I'd estimate at maybe 10g of weight, which I found nearly undrinkable. She told me that the 49th II Cafe is shooting for double shots made from around 19g of coffee, with shot weights around 30g. This isn't that far off from what I do at home, on a percentage basis, which is a shot weight of around 18-20g from 14-15.5g of ground coffee.

(Thanks to Andy S. for getting me to concentrate on this shot weighing business as it has markedly changed my extraction parameters for the better in the last year).

We also discussed sourcing of green coffees. Mie wanted to know where someone like me, with a commercial 1kg roaster in the garage, sources green beans. I told her that we were using the usual sources such as SM's and other greens sellers, but also buying whole bags and splitting them amongst like-minded large volume home roasters. To that she replied that she did not view people like me roasting these volumes of coffee to be "home roasters," rather we were more akin to small volume craft roasters. I took that as a complement

Next, we went into the roasting facility itself which is an enormous warehouse with 3 commercial roasters, packaging equipment, and many tons of green beans sitting in their sacks on shelves. In the past 49th II has frozen their green beans but they are not doing this any longer. At this point they are relying on Grain Pro bags and their rapid throughput rather than freezer preservation. I got the impression that they have gotten to a volume production level where they just go through the beans too quickly to have them sit around very long, negating the need for further preservation. I had a chance to chat briefly with Mike Piccolo, who runs the roasting operation, as I had done several years earlier on my earlier visit. I asked Mike what their "average" roast parameters were. He told me that with 3 roasters that operate differently, plus many different types of coffee that they roast, the numbers vary, but to pick an average he said, 9 minutes to FC, and 13 minutes total for the roast. I think this is pretty similar to what most of us with larger drum roasters do also.

As an aside, the location of the roasting facility, in Burnaby BC, would have been considered to be in "Hooterville" 10 years ago but now the area is hugely built up with high rise condo buildings and even its own light rail line.

Many thanks to 49th Parallel and Mie Hansen for making my visit a very memorable experience.

ken

And thank you Ken for sharing this. I which I someday get the same opportunity. I respect 49th II coffee very much.

The last time I visited 49P was at their old location and to put it mildly was a rather industrial and production oriented letdown compared to the experience of visiting Stumptown Seattle, Vita, Olympia, Heart, Coava or any of the other artisanal roasters here on the west coast. Very big by comparison and no interest in creating a seductive consumer environment. The cafe on 4th is OK most of the time but the best shots in town are pulled elsewhere. The best shop in town for vibe and service is by far the JJ bean on Commercial at 6th very Portland and Seattle like - the towns which of course rock the north west coast by a long shot. Big news this way is that Verve can be found in town and Ritual is on it's way - gotta get out to swanky west van though. Lot's of new dudes around who look good but after paying their dime - nothin. As they say great coffee is wasted in the hands of the mediocre.

wildbwilson wrote:The last time I visited 49P was at their old location and to put it mildly was a rather industrial and production oriented letdown compared to the experience of visiting Stumptown Seattle, Vita, Olympia, Heart, Coava or any of the other artisanal roasters here on the west coast. Very big by comparison and no interest in creating a seductive consumer environment.

Coffee roasting is an industrial process, in which a raw material (green coffee) is processed (e.g. roasted) then packaged and prepared for distribution. I have been to a number of other high end roasting facilities and I have never viewed them as being designed for my entertainment or for providing me or any other customer with an ambiance or entertainment function, rather they are there to do the job that their owners ask of them -- to roast coffee.

It is true that some other roasters have designed their roasting facilities to have both production and marketing functions -- the Stumptown roastery in Seattle stands out as one such facility.

In the end the roaster needs to be judged on the basis of the quality in the cup that they provide, and I would leave that to others to determine for themselves; the fact that Stumptown has a visually attractive roasting facility next to one of their cafes does not in and of itself encourage me to visit them nor to prefer their coffees over that of any other roaster. I'll let the cup speak for itself and buy based upon my taste, as I would advise others to do.

I do, however, very much appreciate the fact that a roaster like 49th Parallel would open up their facility to me and provide me with the time of one of their professionals like Mie Hansen. Not even living in Canada, and being mostly a home roaster, they really don't have any need to be so accommodating to me, but I am nonetheless pleased that they were.

ken

Ken,
What were their thoughts on your/our quest for sourcing great SO greens?

Southern Californians who would like to try 49th Parallel's espresso can sample it at Espresso Cielo in Santa Monica and Palm Springs.

farmroast wrote:Ken,
What were their thoughts on your/our quest for sourcing great SO greens?

This visit was different than the last time I went (to the prior roasting plant) in that I spent very little time in the roasting facility itself but rather had more than hour with their green coffee buyer, Mie Hansen. This was great because I've seen roasting facilities before and after a few visits it starts to resemble those winery tours with the obligatory view of the destemmer and the sorting tables . . . . . When I called to make the appointment, the person I spoke with mentioned my call to Vince Piccolo, whom I've met previously, and undoubtedly he steered my visit in this way since he knew I'd visited roasting plants before.

Mie Hansen is one of the few greens buyers who regularly goes to origin and often buys coffee based on cuppings there. She frequently runs into the other people who do this, many of whom are household names to enthusiasts such as us (Tom of SM's and Geoff Watts of Intelligentsia, to give just two people she mentioned). I asked her if she was the only woman out there doing this, and she said there were at least a couple of other women she regularly runs into on the origin cupping circuit.

49th buys some beans in large lots directly at origin themselves, and other beans from green coffee brokers/importers. Even in the case of direct purchases, 49th is not of a size where it makes sense for them to manage the logistics of shipping from origin, so they generally will involve an importer to handle this for them even if they (49th) make the greens purchase directly. She mentioned that at least one of the greens importers in the US will arrange for entire containers to come directly to them in Vancouver without having to pass through the USA first.

Getting back to your question, Ed, about seeking out single origins for espresso: Mie told me that she no longer drinks espresso regularly. I believe that the reasons for this are that she finds the drink a bit overpowering, and that it impairs her job of cupping coffee, which requires a fine sense of taste. When I told her what some of us are doing with single origins for espresso she indicated that this was a pretty specialized little piece of the specialty coffee industry and that it wasn't something that most people were concentrating on. We discussed the fact that some of us are roasting in large quantities and have had to seek out other sources of green beans other than the traditional greens sellers to home roasters. I mentioned that some of us were buying whole bags of coffee from wholesalers and then splitting it amongst ourselves. She seemed rather impressed with this and said that people doing this were not really "home roasters" in her view but more akin to small craft roasters. Another point she made was that people selling green coffee to home roasters have to consider the skill level and equipment being used by home roasters. As a result, they will shy away from beans that are challenging to roast in favor of relatively "bulletproof" beans that home roasters will not screw up with their home roasting devices. She has discussed this with people who service the home roasting market and this is what they do. As a result, she said that if what I/and or others are seeking is exotic green beans, we are going to have to look elsewhere other than the typical suppliers to home coffee roasters.

ken

Ken Fox wrote:Even in the case of direct purchases, 49th is not of a size where it makes sense for them to manage the logistics of shipping from origin, so they generally will involve an importer to handle this for them even if they (49th) make the greens purchase directly.

This is a part of "direct trade" that is often misunderstood by consumers and even by many in the coffee business, who think of it as cutting out all the middlemen. Import/export companies still perform a necessary service of arranging warehousing at the ports, customs clearance, shipping and all manner of documentation.

Ken Fox wrote:Mie Hansen is one of the few greens buyers who regularly goes to origin and often buys coffee based on cuppings there.

I'm happy to say that there actually are a growing number of folks who do this and, in fact, I'd probably not describe it anymore as "few".

Also, fwiw, Mie rules.

Mie is from Norway, not Sweden.