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and Lore - Commitment to Sustainability
Do you know where your coffee comes from? A Video from Shamrock Foods at Coffee Reserve
Chef Bryan of Shamrock Foods recently talked about why it’s important to know where your coffee comes from, and how to select the right coffee wholesaler/roaster. Did you know that Coffee Reserve custom roasts to suit your flavor profile, so that your coffee will be uniquely yours?
The Advantages of Shamrock’s Coffee Program, Filmed at Coffee Reserve Youtube Video
The trips that we take to coffee producing countries play an important role in establishing relationships with coffee growers and ensuring that we have a consistent supply and quality. Even more important is the batch roasting process and experienced roastmasters to bring out the best flavor from each origin and blend. According to Chef Bryan, that’s what sets Shamrock Foods and Trescerro Coffees from Coffee Reserve apart from the rest.
We roast each batch to order, and offer proprietary blends and a variety of packaging and labeling options. We agree with Chef Bryan that consumers today are more and more discerning when it comes to their coffee. We owe it to our customers to provide the highest-quality, best tasting coffee to represent their brand.
Food Service Industry Veteran Deborah Sandoval Joins Coffee Reserve Brands
We are excited to announce the addition of Deborah Sandoval to the Coffee Reserve team. Deborah brings almost twenty years of experience in the food service industry to her position of Account Executive at Coffee Reserve, and has spent the last several of those years in the coffee business, deepening her respect for a great cup of coffee. With a strong foundation of experience in management, national sales, contract administration, purchasing and marketing, Deborah is ready to share her knowledge and provide exceptional customer service to clients. “Building true partnerships with clients and customers has been a key to achieving strong sales successes over the years,” Deborah says. “I look forward to developing long-term relationships with Coffee Reserve clients and becoming an integral part of this talented and passionate team.”
When she’s not immersed in the world of coffee, you can find Deborah rolling up her sleeves and tackling her love of renovating older homes. She and her two Labrador retrievers are currently living in her most recent project.
The History of Latte Art
Coffee Reserve Brands has been a proud sponsor of various Latte Art throwdowns lately, and it seems like this creative yet precise form of delicious artistic expression has come out of nowhere to become a measure of barista skill and talent everywhere. So where did the idea of latte art begin and how have the techniques been passed on through the coffee community?
David Schomer, owner of Seattle’s Espresso Vivace is credited with bringing latte art to the forefront of coffee culture. He first became intrigued with the “velvet foam” crafted at Uptown Espresso in 1988. He worked on his technique of free-pouring the textured milk using the sides of the cup to form swirls and waves, and perfected the heart pattern by 1989. He learned to create concentric rings around the heart by using a method of shaking the pitcher, which he learned from a barista in Milano.
Schomer saw the now popular Rosetta pattern (fernlike waves that form a floral design in the cup) first in a photo from another Italian café in 1992. He was smitten with the beautiful pattern and worked for about six months perfecting the technique. Once the heart and Rosetta patterns are mastered, a creative barista can expand his or her repertoire into swans, rabbits, elaborate geometric designs, birds and other animals.
In the last few years, latte art throwdowns have become increasingly popular competitive events in the coffee world. As in all culinary disciplines, presentation is a vital component of a successful creation. In Schomer’s words, “The intent is to promote respect for caffe espresso as a culinary art that emphasizes flavor, a silky feel, and stunning presentation possibilities.” As specialty coffee roasters, we love the history and dedication behind this growing art.
Clearing up the Myth of Cloudy Iced Tea
Many of us have been conditioned to think that iced tea has to be crystal clear to taste its best. Cloudy tea is the result of low-quality tea or funky preparation methods, right? Not so! Although the phenomenon of cloudy tea is still a bit mysterious, tea experts and researchers have determined that, looks aside, clouding isn’t necessarily a negative thing, because it does not affect the taste of the tea.
Clouding can be caused by using hard water which contains high concentrations of minerals. The minerals can take the form of visible solids that don’t dissolve at cooler temperatures. Simply brewing your tea with water treated with a reverse osmosis and re-mineralization system can alleviate the cloudy appearance. Clouding can also be caused by a component of tea known as theaflavins. Theaflavins remain evenly suspended in tea when kept at a higher temperature or cooled slowly. If the tea is cooled quickly, the theaflavins will cause the tea to cloud.
Further studies have tried to determine why certain teas contain more theaflavins and thus are more prone to clouding. There are theories about teas from certain regions or those grown at high altitudes being more likely to cloud, but the Sri Lanka Tea Research Institute has concluded that clouding can take place in either high or low quality teas. Theaflavin content can change from harvest to harvest, making it difficult to predict a tea’s propensity toward clouding based on region.
A cloudy iced tea can be cleared up by something as simple as adding a very small amount of hot water, which demonstrates that the clouding is unrelated to flavor. Try tasting the cloudy tea before and after adding a splash of hot water – just don’t dilute it in the process. The simple discovery that clouding doesn’t affect the taste of iced tea may just open up a whole new world of great tasting teas to you.
Sustainable Practices at Hacienda la Esmeralda – People First
The Panama Palmyra coffee used by Coffee Reserve originates at Hacienda la Esmeralda, growing on the slopes of the Baru volcano. This traditional Boquete coffee makes up approximately 70% of Hacienda la Esmeralda’s crop, as well as sustaining close to 1,000 Ngobe-Bugle nomad pickers during the harvest season from November through February each year.
Hacienda la Esmeralda is not only dedicated to sustainable farming techniques, but to sustaining the health and well being of the harvest workers. Hacienda la Esmeralda has committed to providing daycare for workers’ children, along with a focus on nutrition and medical care. Hacienda la Esmeralda provides food designed to boost nutrition daily, as well as weekly visits from a physician, dentist and mobile pharmacy. Additionally, they provide all adults in the family with packages of rice and beans, or rice and sardines.
Hacienda la Esmeralda also developed a program in which they supply lunch and all didactic materials to two local elementary schools, also entitling every child associated with the farm to a scholarship to not only elementary and secondary school, but to the University of Panama as well.
The workers are not forgotten as they return “home” after the harvest season is over. Hacienda la Esmeralda visits the mountains in June or July when the workers will have little or no money left and are awaiting the harvest of the few crops they may have planted. Depending on the coffee sales for the year, an additional bonus of 10 to 20 percent of the earnings is given to the workers to help sustain them until their own crops come in.
Coffee Reserve is committed to working with coffee producers like Hacienda la Esmeralda who are working not only to sustain the growing conditions for the coffee crop, but to improve the lives and health of workers and their families.
