The October 2006 issue of Portico Magazine includes a piece on Birmingham coffee roasters. We were one of the four roasters included in the article. Portico is a good magazine to read as well as to ad surf. Also, they use the matte/satin paper that looks richer (color not money) than the typical high gloss paper. It just feels good in your hands (think Dwell or Fast Company type paper).

The Good.

The specialty coffee industry is a relatively new industry. Three of the four roasters mentioned in the article were started post 2000, so it’s nice to see the press noticing such young companies. The article also highlighted the special care needed in roasting good coffee, the avenues of social responsibility open to roasters, and the fact Birmingham is growing as a coffee town.

The Bleh.

All the pictures are from Red Mountain Coffee Roasters (O’Henry’s Coffee). The photograph of the roaster actually has a de-stoner blocking the roaster.

Since when did the Cafe Au Lait become the signature drink of the year? Page 44 features an English Toffee Cafe Au Lait (requiring Monin Toffee Nut flavored syrup available at O’Henrys). Even better is the Ginger Snap Pumpkin Spice Cafe Au Lait on page 46 (requiring Pumpkin Spice flavored syrup from Big Mountain Coffee Co. in Helena).

Everyone, including the roasters, talks about the beans… the best beans in the world, beans roasted to perfection, beans blah blah blah. Good beans are, or should be, assumed in specialty coffee. We need to move on to give some effort, and ink in this case, to drink and espresso prep. By beverage prep I mean focusing on making a beverage that highlights those perfectly roasted beans: a 5.5 ounce cappuccino, a double espresso made with more than 14 grams of coffee which was ground for your espresso seconds before the shot was pulled, coffee that was brewed not more than 15 minutes previous; in short, not high fructose corn syrup infused milk/coffee.