The Green Roaster Weblog

Sad News from El Salvador

Clive — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:50:37 +0000

Last week El Salvador was hit by gusty winds that affected coffee areas with winds hovering over 65 miles an hour and destroying the roofs of more than 5,000 homes in rural areas. Since 76% of the crop had already been picked the damage to total coffee production is estimated to be around 4%. However severe to total damage occurred in focalized high altitude coffee areas around the towns of Juayua, Ataco and Apaneca in the Sonsonate and Ahuachapan departments (west part of the country) and also in Chalatenango.

Regretfully, 2007 COE winners in Chalatenango were badly hit with crop losses above 60%, and foliage damage even worse (foliage loss affects next year’s crop). The damage was extensive on Mr. Raul Ochoa’s first place winner La Montaña where 90% of the crop was completely knocked down the ground.

As you can imagine the morale among these producers is low but they are determined to fight back lead by the hope that their coffees have already gained recognition thanks to the COE. We appeal to the understanding of the home coffee roasting community and urge you to continue to support the superb coffees being produced in these regions.

Great Christmas Idea - AeroPress is in stock

Clive — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 04:43:57 +0000

Just in time for Christmas - We have the AeroPress coffee making system in stock and ready to ship from our store. Aeropress is a unique brewing system that really does make a great cup. The key to its success is the short brewing time (limits bitterness) and the fact that the manual pressure required to plunge the coffee forcibly extract lots of flavour. The paper filter is nice too because it stops the sediment from reaching the cup - the downside of the French Press.

We love the coffee that the Aeropress makes: very smooth in flavour, lacking bitterness, no sediment and it’s really fast to make. You do have to play with the quantity of coffee and the volume of water used. Just ”tinker” with these variables a bit until you find right “formula” for your taste. I prefer 2-3 taplespoons of fresh, fine ground coffee and I fill the hot water to the #2 mark, stir and then plunge. Once plunged, top up your cup with hot water like an americano. The process is a bit more dramatic for the home roaster because freshly roasted coffee will release lots of CO2 when the water is added and stirred, so look for lots of bubbles. This is a great system for those making a single cup at a time because there is no waste and no coffee sitting around getting bitter. It’s so easy to use and clean that you just have to repeat the whole process to make another cup - you won’t mind since it tastes so good.

Check out the aerobie website for their video demo.

Award winning NEW ARRIVALS are in!

Clive — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:19:22 +0000

We just received a shipment of award winning coffees including 6 different Cup of Excellence winners and 2 very rare Golden Cup Rwandan winners. All of these coffees are in very short supply - so get your before they are all gone! We do hope to continually offer these premium auction coffees but these specific lots will be a one-time offer. The Cup of Excellence program is doing some great work in the coffee growing regions to ensure that farmers are fairly rewarded for producing top quality product. Please read our product descriptions for more detail on each specific coffee.

Hello world!

Clive — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:12:48 +0000

Welcome to The Green Roaster Weblog: The Bean Scene. I welcome you to my first post! I hope to use this blog as a platform to notify all the “green roasters” out there as to what’s new around our shop and also as a platform to discuss general topics and events in the coffee world. Please feel free to post any comments and remember I can always be reached at our email: greenroaster@greenroaster.ca.

Please continue to visit our site www.greenroaster.ca and happy home roasting. Let the blogging begin! Clive