Misty Valley & Twitter

A quick post to let folks know the ever popular Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley is back! It is available for sale on our website and being served up on the Clover and sold in our cafe. Our Ethiopian Idido Misty Valley has a pleasant perfume aroma with flavors of zesty lemon, punchy blueberry and brown sugars.

If you haven't had this coffee yet come get some fast. We have a limited supply.

Also we have broken down and succumb to Twitter finally. Great coffees are arriving at a furious pace these days and we figure Twitter the best way to keep you all up to date.

Find us on Twitter here.

Guatemala Finca Santa Isabel

Please welcome our new Guatemalan offering.

Guatemala Finca Santa Isabel

Finca Santa Isabel is located in the Department of Santa Rosa, about 40 miles southeast of Guatemala City. In 2004 Santa Isabel experienced a widespread disease on their coffee plants. After extensive research, the Jinaya-Keller Family decided the only way to rejuvenate the Finca was to implement organic agriculture techniques. The 07-08 harvest was their first to produce certified organic coffee. Interesting to note that in it’s time as transitional organic farm of 2006, Finca Santa Isabel was a Cup of Excellence Winner. The highest area of the property is a protected nature reserve, where there are many diverse plant and animal species. Biodiversity and sustainability are key components in the production of Santa Isabel coffee. Santa Isabel was the second coffee farm in the world to receive Rainforest Alliance Certification

Each coffee cherry at Finca Santa Isabel is carefully selected, handpicked and sorted, guaranteeing a consistent and high quality cup of coffee. Santa Isabel is a perfectly balanced, sweet and clean coffee; with flavors of chocolate, cherry, and citrus.

Olympia Coffee wins La Mirella in the 2009 Costa Rica Cup of Excellence

We sweated it out to the last minute online this morning bidding against other roasters from around the world to win the 2009 Costa Rica Cup of Excellence #22 Winner La Mirella.
La Mirella was the only certified organic coffee in the competition, which continues our tradition of buying the best organic coffee grown in the world.
La Mirella is located in the Sabanilla of Alajuela, Central Valley coffee region. Francisca Cubillo Salas is a third generation coffee grower who inherited the farm from her grandparents, but the first in her family to grow organic coffee. The coffee produced in this farm is milled in the Ecological Mill Las Lajas, were the milling is done with a low water usage (honey process). The coffee is dried on african beds and all of the waste is used as organic fertilizer for the plantation.

Top Jury Descriptions: aroma/flavor: very sweet, orange, chocolate, butter, cherry, cream, apricot, green apple, dark berry, stone fruit acidity: sweet, bright, fine other notes: lemony

Mark Your Calendar!

On June 10th we will be rolling out two new coffees.

Panama Boquete Finca Berlina

We are really excited to start roasting this coffee from the Boquete region of Panama. Finca Berlina is a farm founded by Mr. Segundo Diaz, a Colombian soldier who was sent to Panama to quench the separatist uprising at the beginning of the 1900's (Panama at the time was a Colombian colony) . Diaz who ended up marrying a Boquete girl stayed in Panama to grow coffee and a small amount of sugar cane. For generations Finca Berlina has been a model in sustainable farming and quality coffee. At Finca Berlina they grow an heirloom varietal of coffee called Typica which has really good sweetness, cleanliness and body. Finca Berlina has won many awards over the years including winning #1 in 2000, at the Specialty Coffee Association Cupping Event.

We will be roasting this coffee to highlight the pleasant acidity, and creamy body.

Finca Berlina is a perfectly balanced coffee with flavors of chocolate and lemon.

Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley

Yes, it's back. Preserved in it's own coffee parchment until January of this year, we can't believe how truly fresh and vibrant this coffee tastes even though it was picked over a year ago. Ethiopia has a new government program called the ECX which has really turned Ethiopian Coffee on it's head. I don't want to go into it right now but basically Ethiopian Coffee is really late coming into the country and traceability may be lost. So while the ship may be going down, lets get the good stuff out, and drink it, right?

Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley was the first high-quality natural processed Yirgacheffe I ever experienced. It is carefully prepared and loaded with strawberry and blueberry fruit notes, to an almost intoxicating degree. Idido is a town in the Gedeo area of Yirgacheffe. As you may know, the tradition in Yirgacheffe is wet processing, whereas Harar has a dry-processing tradition. Wet processing is the method used in Central America and the resulting is a green seed with a cleaner, less earthy or rustic cup profile. Natural processing involves drying the entire coffee cherry in the sun and later removing the skin, fruity mucilage layer, and protective parchment shell that surrounds the green seed…all in one fell swoop. Excellent dry-processed coffees are difficult to achieve.

The milling method for wet processing allows for separation of ripe and unripe coffee cherry (and other defective seeds) using water and machines. But in dry processing, sorting out under-ripes is done visually, either by sorting the ripe cherry, or later, sorting the "green" bean. Misty Valley's cherry’s are picked ripe, uniformly screen-dried in the sun, dry-milled using the same screen and density-sorting techniques as wet-processed lots.

Long story short you wont find a cleaner tasting natural processed coffee.

Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley is heady and lush; flavors of perfectly ripe summer Northwest berries.

We hit the big time according to Everyday Olympia!

One of our favorite local news sources, Everyday Olympia, just ran a little story and interview about our Big Truck blend receiving a 91 on Coffee Review. We are pretty excited about the review, but are also excited that so many of our customers have told us they always knew we had the best espresso and didn't need a review to tell them. Awesome!

Olympia Coffee Presses For SLURP

Olympia Coffee Roasting's Oliver Stormshak and Michael Elvin served up some stellar French Pressed Ethiopia Natural Sidamo to some of the over 400 patrons at the eleventh annual SLURP event held Sunday the 17th of May at the Fish Tail Brewery in Olympia. The event, which stands for Shellfish Lovers Ultimate Rejuvenation Party, raises money for protecting and restoring shellfish growing along the West Coast. Thank you to all our loyal customers who stopped by for a cup, or just to let us know that we have some of the best coffee they have ever tasted. Also, to the folks from around the Northwest who haven't had our coffee before, it was nice to meet all of you and thanks for kind words of praise about our coffee.

Big Truck Espresso 91 points!

Our Big Truck Blend was selected for review from dozens of espresso blends in this months Coffee Review article, American Espressos. Forty coffees from boutique roasters, like ourselves, as well as some from the bigger guys were reviewed. Reviews were published of the coffees that received the most points. When all was said and done, Big Truck shone through the crowd of espresso blends garnering 91 points. Ken Davids from Coffee Review and Byron Holcomb, a guest cupper, used flavor descriptors like, "fruit, chocolate, butter and nuts," to describe Big Truck as a straight espresso. Adding that with milk it smooths out and tastes of "milk cocoa and lots of spice." Read the full review, and then come on in to our cafe for an espresso, some beans or buy it now.

Meet Ian

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Originally uploaded by D-Ron101

So a few months ago, Ian walked into Espressoparts and Olympia Coffee, to let me know he was living in town.

What is interesting to note is that I have known Ian for most all of his time on the planet, as his Uncle Micro and I have been friends for the better part of 25 years.

Another interesting fact is that it was with Ian's uncle that I first ventured beyond your average cup of coffee and into the realm of espresso. We both used to hang out at the Smith Field Cafe in Downtown Olympia " Back in the Day" which in our case was the 80's.

Anyhow, so Ian comes in to let me know he is living in Olympia, and that he was looking for some part time work (arn't we all?)
So when Ian started hanging out showing off his espresso skillz, we knew we needed to bring him on board.

Having trained at Alterra Coffee in Milwaukee with Scott Lucey and Justin Tiesel he was a natural behind the bar at Olympia Coffee.

Add to his coffee making skills, his ability to figure out computer related work and microprocessors, Ian was and is a great fit to the Olympia Coffee / Espressoparts family.

So if you get a chance welcome Ian to Olympia and to his new job on the corner of 4th and Cherry, but let me say it first.... Welcome to the family Ian!!