Roasters Guild Retreat 2008 SCAA (Page 2)

 

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Rwanda Processing Experiments.
Rwanda Processing Experiments.
I think this is mostly the work of Peter Guliano but he wasn’t around to present it this year. Ric Rhineheart did a great job. (Ric has a cool air about him, but it is not clear whcih gang he belongs to.) This involves testing a variety of processes at the mill on the exact same coffee, from the same batch, picked the same day. It was interesting, but when it came to cupping I found all the cups a bit muddled and hard to discern. It could have been me (probably was). I had one preference, but on a good day I don’t think it was more than an 84 coffee to begin with. So finding the slippage in quality with less desireable methods was a bit hard for me, at the time.
Final Cupping
Final Cupping
Sunday AM and the tables are set for the final cupping, the top 18 coffees from 5 groups that ranked the highest in the cuppings of Saturday PM. All the roasters did the cupping, and everyones scores determined the top roast group, and top roasts for each roast machine brand. White and black pitchers are an attempt to separate the 2 gangs who had infiltrated: Walleyez Killerz and the ubiquitous RR17, named for Rural Route 17 that leads to Rutgers Sugar Lake Lodge (clearly, part of their “turf”.
Less than 100
Less than 100
This was one of the smallest Roaster Guild Retreats, with about 100 participants. It might be the current economy, or the location. Who knows. Smaller was better in my opinion. Some had to leave Sun AM before cupping so not all groups were complete for the last round. Only about half were in gangs, and they all took the bait … paying a small fortune to come to this remote “Roaster Retreat” and finding out when they tried to leave that it was run by the DEA, and they were under arrest!
Crouching and Cupping
Crouching and Cupping
Action shot of the tasting in progress. The tables were incredibly low. It was amazing to cup 18 roasts of the same coffee and see how varied the results could be. The Matalapa lends itself to this, because you need to coax the sweetness out of it, or else the coffee has a rather minerally roast flavor. Most of these roasts were sweet indeed, but a few of the light ones were a bit gritty, doughy, or baked tasting. Some had traces of methamphetemene, proving that some “roasters” were cooking drugs in between coffee batches.
Owen O'Neil
Owen O’Neil
I rode up with Owen from Minneapolis. He is from Syracuse area of New York and roasts for a small coffee house, while he is getting up-and-running with his own enterprise, Phaelon Coffee. Owen has no gang affiliations.
Bob Arcenaux
Bob Arcenaux
Bob snaps some pics of coffee roaster Neal Wilson. Sadly, they had spelled his name Neil, but someone dilligently changed it on each team schedule to Neal. Neal blogs “Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Horse is a washed coffee from the Yirgacheffe region in southern Ethiopia. It is a fine example of traditional Yirgacheffe coffee.” The best coffee in Racine. He is not in a gang.
Chris Kornman
Chris Kornman
Chris is a cupper and QC guy at Intelligentsia. Note the elegant balance of spit cup, pencil, spoon, and clipboard. That’s like 50% of the cupper’s challenge right there. Chris has no gang affiliations, apparently.
Starbucks in the House!
Starbucks in the House!
David Latourell, SuperCloverBoy, now Starbucks employee. What can you do when your company gets bought out? Definite Mille Lacs gang member. Between cups me busted out with this:
Hard Timez of the rez,
rollin wit ma boyz,
da Mille Lacs crew,
makin hella noiz,
bustin out da rhymz,
lack hack attackers,
RR17 krazyass
Mille Lacs’ers.
Robert Shangle
Robert Shangle
Robert Shangle rocks the cupping room with his unique style. Robert puts the bang in the gang, and was seen several times “rollin’ with the Mille Lacs homies”.
iDavid
iDavid
iDavid iKastle itexting on his iPhone. Good job! David is not in a Mille Lacs gang, not the RR17 Crew nor the Walleyez Killrz, but he does want to join a prison gang. He is hairless.
Most Awesome Jeff
Most Awesome Jeff
Jeff, owner of Metropolis, emcees in his own special way. To hell with your drop temps! Jeff could be fooling us and actually be a heavy hitter down in Mille Lacs. In fact, he was seen nearby during a recent house fire incident:
WINNERS!
WINNERS!
The top-scoring team, whose name I can’t remember, but it doesn’t matter, because it wasn’t OUR team. Sour grapes. We won for best roast on the US Roaster’s machine. So we had a little recognition. Next year, expect the Cali gangs to make a big showing, and these boys won’t know what hit them! Next year ….
Special Coffee Beverages
Special Coffee Beverages
After the cupping, all these special coffee blend drinks were left on the tables. The crema was really beautiful on them, so I leave you with this special photo series.
Special Coffee Beverages 2
Special Coffee Beverages 2
After the cupping, all these special coffee blend drinks were left on the tables. Here, some signs of overextraction from this cupper.
Special Coffee Beverages 3
Special Coffee Beverages 3
After the cupping, all these special coffee blend drinks were left on the tables. Perhaps a heavy coffee laod, or maybe just a mucous problem. This cupper needs to quit the gang lifestyle and shape up!
Special Coffee Beverages 4
Special Coffee Beverages 4
After the cupping, all these special coffee blend drinks were left on the tables. This beverage was sitting a bit too long
Special Coffee Beverages 5
Special Coffee Beverages 5
After the cupping, all these special coffee blend drinks were left on the tables. Too much pressure? not enough water? Too much to drink the night before?
Special Coffee Beverages 6
Special Coffee Beverages 6
After the cupping, all these special coffee blend drinks were left on the tables. Obvious problems here
Special Coffee Beverages 7
Special Coffee Beverages 7
After the cupping, all these special coffee blend drinks were left on the tables. The perfect cup!!!

Addendum:

Gang member Tim Dominick informed me that other gangs rolled in just as the Roasters cleared out. I have passed this information on to the Minnesota Gang Task Force.

Tom- there has been a major shift in the ownership of the turf in da SLL. At 12 pm Monday bus loads of young gang members from across MN arrived for what could only be a gang summit. Called “bartenderz,” (related to the baristaz I am told) this group was packin’ serious heat yo. The quaint lobby was inundated wit yutes wearing bright colors, five potentially stolen big screen TV’s, several bicycles, a stack of sony blue ray dvd players ( all discretely disguised as “door prizes”), enough Mikes Hard Lemonade to kill an entire university fraternal system and at least 100 “shorties” were in toe. I suspect there was no less than 1 US gallon of cologne applied at a rate of .2 oz per banger. Geoff Watts smelled them coming as early as 3 am and fled the scene by 8am citing sensory overload and mumbling something about floating in the warm embrace of the lady of the lake as he retreated. Schooley was last seen driving at over 140 MPH in a stolen Porsche with gang task force members in pursuit. Wendy, Beth, Hazel and I barely made it out alive. Our rental cars were completely stripped of their rims and hood ornaments and tagged with “Cali bitchz go home” Terry Davis and the Ambex crew made it out safely, however the knot on TD’s head makes me wonder if he really just fell down stairs or took a chair to the noggin trying to stake a final claim to the cabins.

Chris Schooley sent in these gang-banger rap lyrics that paint a dramatic portrait of the celabratory violence in the Mid-to-North/Central Upper Minnesota regional area:

Get yo Uzi’s in the air if you a Mille Lac hustla,
RR 17 rolls on all the mutha f@$kas.
Weed is in the eyes of every soulja cuz they’re wildin
cookin meth in shorty’s fish house, we call it ice profilin’.

Questions exist about some suspicious no-shows. Did they know about the gangs? Were they from rival gangs? Or were they detained by gangs on the way to the Retreat? Have they been heard from since? Local roaster from the Paradyz Ballers, R. Miguel, shown at right in his usual gangster gear, was oddly absent. That Marin Cty bad boy and his Carioca shooters? Yes, Andrew Barnett. And some thought bikers from the northwest would materialize, although given their portlandish get-ups, maybe that was good. What about the bangers from Cali, and their red hot ladies … yes, of course, the perrenial insiders at Gard Foods. Speaking of Cali, we also expected a Fixed-Pusherskate gangster. But there were none. Why just one playah from Racine Wis., the bad boys at Wilson Coffee (oops, wrong one, try this one.) And those snipers over at CoffeeMaria (sounds a lot like … but isn’t).

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