Barista Magazine

Apr-May 2012

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we also took a lesson from afar regarding their stance on milk in the coff ee bar. Some time around two years ago, the Tim Wendleboe coff ee bar removed soy milk from its off erings. T ere was some rather signifi cant public outcry over this on the Internet (along with a bit of rigorous public defense!). Big surprise, right? T ey, however, stood by the choice of not off ering alternative milks and have given us the courage to do the same. T e reasons are many for why someone would not want to serve soy. Whether it is the health issues linked to it, the topic of GMOs or the political angle of Monsanto owning the majority of that market, the one we stand by primarily is that we simply do not enjoy the taste of it, or other alternative milks, when textured and combined with espresso. When whole milk is properly prepared, it gives a velvety, thick texture to the espresso, and when it is at just At Handsome, we only use whole milk in our drinks. prices and greater customer engagement, they also had their fair share of fl aws, in our opinion. I don't claim to be a master of manual brewing in any way, but I have had a decent amount of practice and study in the fi eld, and yet I am still not as consistent as I would like. It's even more diffi cult to do consistently well when I have a line of eight drinks in the queue, and have had around that many queued up all morning, and I'm trying to talk with folks intelligently about what they are being served. With all of the talk about how important it is that we have high Park Brannen loves his whole milk. the right temperature to bring out the sweetness, whole milk is simply magical. We don't deny that nor would we want to. Even among whole milk off erings, we were very picky in selecting what we would work with. It needed to be sweet and not so strong as to alter the drink excessively. For those who worry about the potential health risks related to consuming too much whole milk, fear not: our six-ounce espresso and milk has only about four ounces total milk in it. We also have brewed coff ee for the lactose intolerant and straight espresso as well. What we don't have are drinks that we cannot personally stand behind and be excited to make every single time a customer requests one. Again, fear of our customers cannot be a motivator in how we choose to design our off ering list; that type of motivation does not create a healthy relationship. THEATER BE DAMNED! Quality, speed and service: Consider these the three driving forces behind our choice to engage primarily in automation and batch brewing. Tyler, Chris and I have all worked in specialty coff ee from back when urn brewers ruled up through this present day, much heralded era of hand- craſt ed coff ee brewed with kettles, scales, burners, fi lters, and more. As a matter of fact, we have executed these programs in some rather busy coff ee bars off ering multiple coff ees and brew methods every day. While these bars had an amazing draw with the theater they created by manually brewing a cup at a time, which allowed for fresh cups, higher 80 barista magazine temperature stability in our kettles and consistent technique in our pours, we seem to have forgotten the fact that well built automated batch brewers can do this already and with an incredibly low learning curve. I would much rather have my staff spend hours tasting diff erent coff ees than hours learning how to make water from a kettle move in a very specifi c pattern time aſt er time. I would also love for them to be able to serve customers faster and spend more time focused on great service. If we as a community truly have faith that a well executed cup of amazing coff ee is really worth what we seem to be telling each other and ourselves it is worth, then fi nding an easier, more consistent way to make it is the obvious choice. We can't build the future of specialty coff ee on gear and fl are. We need better execution every single time so that—just as with beer and wine—the product is not diminished by the server before it gets into the hands of the customer. And there you have it. While we certainly have not been put to the test of years of operation in dozens of diff erent markets, we have been running this menu for a while—at open-air markets, art shows, in retail stores, and even out of the back of our space. T e only people who ever really give us any issues are those we encounter when we're working a venue that assumes we need a traditional menu (not because they don't like ours but because they are afraid of their customers), or people who have only read about it and have not come in to actually experience our drinks in person. If I have one wish for us as an industry in the next year, it is that we become more confi dent in the truth that everyone has the potential to fi nd great, well prepared and humbly served coff ee amazing.

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