barismo.com : Coffee, tea, and espresso

Easter Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Sun, 5 Apr 2026 19:03:00 -0400

Some quick updates, you can watch the WBUR CitySpace panel here.

I ran the Peru on the 364 bar as an SO espresso (18g dose 200.5f 1.75oz yield by volume). Really positive feedback and maybe it's psychological but we started to move bags of it quite briskly. Switched over to the Yirgacheffe today for a bit, similar specs but a little longer volume as it's thinner and brighter.

Changed the burrs on all the little pour over grinders at both shops, the change is always immediate. I also tweaked the water remineralization cartridges at 364. Cambridge water is pretty hard on coffee machines so we have to use RO to clean it up then put something back in. I also put that black two group linea back on the bar after replacing a bad key pad, and a group head solenoid as well as a full descaling.

Had a scheduled group come by Saturday from a local school that let us host a full cupping and a roast demo. Basically 9 people cupping 5 sets of our coffees and then asking questions while we roast. We are going to do more of this going forward as an event offer for people to let us cater a coffee experience.

Clean S.O. Espresso

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:03:00 -0400

One of the things about keeping a blog and being in coffee for a long time is that trends can come back. If you wait long enough, the old is new again.

This crisp Sunday after a nice busy Saturday at Broadway, a customer named pulled me aside to tell me the espresso was really good. He introduced himself as Jay, asked what was in it and pointed out that he lives over in Porter Square and that “everywhere the shots are burnt.”

His words, not mine.

We talked for a bit. It was actually a little hard to keep up. Jay was excited and talking quickly, the clockwork espresso was doing its thing, and he was ahead of me on several points. It took me a minute to catch up.

But somewhere in the middle of the conversation I realized something:

There’s still a lot out there that can be done with espresso and can still be exciting.

Lately we’ve been getting more customers coming in and talking about shots. Ordering straight espresso. Asking questions. Paying attention.

For me, it's brought back two moments that really shaped how I think about espresso. The first was back in 2006 I took a trip to New York to visit my friend Chris Owens, who was working at 9th Street Espresso at the time. I was coming from Boston, where most espresso was dark roasted Brazilian coffee or something close to a black and tan (French roast cut half and half with lighter roast).

The espresso scene was dark and the shots were long.

Chris had recently been to Scandinavia for a barista event (I think it was the Nordic Barista Cup) and he had done a café crawl while he was there. When he came back he had smuggled a bag of coffee with him.

It was a blend of extremely expensive coffees:

Guatemala Huehuetenango El Injerto, a Rwanda Golden Cup, and another coffee in the mix. Back then coffees like that would almost always have been reserved for filter brewing. The conventional wisdom from a lot of respected people in the industry was that coffees like that simply wouldn’t work as espresso.

They would have recommended brewing them on a Technivorm not an espresso.

But Chris pulled the shots.

They had structure.

They were layered.

They were clean.

They were beautiful.

I had pulled good shots before, on Synessos, on home setups, in cafés, but I had never tasted anything that intentional. That well paired.

It stuck with me enough that I later wrote about that experience here.

The second key moment for me was taking that inspiration forward few years to 2008. Once I had actually been trained in roasting and wasn’t just trying to make the best out of other people’s coffees or blends, I started developing my own philosophy around espresso and chose to test apply it then and there in one gloriously crazy event.

I set up a espresso tasting event at Simon’s Coffee Shop. I had been the manager there and helped build the coffee program that put that café on the rails it still runs on today. The café had this monster 4 group linea that used pstats to determine the Temps. I had to dial in the left 2 groups to one temp and the right two to another, then have four espresso dialed in for the event.

Heres my memory of the four different espressos served:

• Two Ethiopian coffees paired together

• A single-origin estate Kenya

• Panama Esmeralda Geisha

• And a classic Brazil–Yirgacheffe blend

The shots ranged from $3 up to $9, which at the time was beyond wild. We had several pounds of each coffee in the hoppers.

We went through all of it.

People would get in line, take a shot, go wow, step aside… then get right back in line and order another from the lineup. It was amazing.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you people don’t want to try interesting things. People want experiences. That event even got covered by some local press, either The Dig or The Boston Phoenix. Unfortunately there’s almost no record of it now, but I did write about it as a feeding frenzy at the bar.

⁠

Over the years I’ve done guest espressos, single-origin espressos on bar, espresso events, lots of experiments and a lot of fun in my owm shops. But scenes move in cycles. Things get popular, then they quiet down, then they come back in new ways.

Talking with Jay today, he was pushing me that people want this and that “If you build it, they will come.”

Field of Dreams quote aside, he's right. He was making the case that there’s still an audience for this. That people are curious. That people want to taste these things and care again.

Maybe he’s right. So I’m going to take that seriously and follow through. I’m going to start slotting some single-origin espressos on the bar at Broadway and see what happens. I already dialed in the Peru Cajamaru as a shot at 364 Broadway, Cambridge. It will be on the menu shortly but you can ask for it if you drop by.

Right now, I have the grinders and kit setup but I pulled the Linea PB off bar to service it. In the meantime I got a GS3 as a backup so it will be a bit slow during rushes but gotta do a full descale and clean on the Linea PB to get it peak.

Because the Boston scene has been in a lull for a little while and maybe it's time to have fun again. Rekindle my love of espresso and just go for it.

Give me a couple weeks to get everything set up. Stop by 364 Broadway Cambridge and see what you think the difference is between a single-origin espresso and a two bean blend blend.

Kettle gicleur and Hario Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 21:28:00 -0400

At WBUR'S CitySpace event, one intrepid coffee enthusiast brought attention to my foray into kettle gicleurs. We called them Kettle flow restrictors but they were essentially snap in Teflon pieces to adapt the hot water flow out of the Hario beehive or buono kettles. It was high temp Teflon precision machined and designed to narrow the flow rate so you just tip the kettle to a 45 degree angle and get a perfect slow flow without all the balancing of the kettles. It took away the focusing so hard aspect and allowed you to get it just right. This made a lot of sense for v60 because there is no real restriction beyond grind/dose and flow rate of water, pour too fast and too much water will run through.

Mind you, this was a time when dark roasts were still everywhere, roast dates were rare, and labeling coffee like a French wine label was considered novel. Many of the leaders we now think of as legends were advocating batch brew and were quite skeptical of per-cup brewing. The push was toward buying a high-end drip machine, not standing there with a kettle and doing it manually like we did. It was a wild moment where experimenting with pourover sometimes felt like we were swimming upstream.

That kettle flow restrictor really was a thing for a while and we sold a ton of them until it just faded for us. More people started copying us and selling them so we just stopped. It was a heck of a throw back though for one of the dozens of coffee attendees to bring up something from a specific time frame like that. Check out our shelves from that era, selling siphon!

Back then, we were part of a wave in 2008 to that brought Japanese coffee gear from Japan like siphon, kettles, and v60 by hario into the thoughts and hearts of a lot of coffee people who were pontificating about our American coffee scene and what to do next in coffee. While we definitely were the voice evangelizing it in the early years, we inadvertently got involved in bringing a bunch of gear in through varying channels as we advocated for it and for a while we were trying to establish a gear business based on the demand we were seeing.

I even made a trip to Japan and visited Hario headquarters but could not convince them to sell to us. I am pretty sure I wrote in barista magazine about the trip and do still have the photos on my Flickr which I've included below in this post. Check out the glass violin from the Hario headquarters museum!

I think in the end though the demand and attention sparked Hario into opening hario usa but it was the first wave of gear into the states before so many start ups and others began making competing gear. Now there is a huge selection of gear options that solve the problems we identified and an explosion of quality kits to noodle around with. Gone are the days of gear smuggling in suitcases from Tokyo mega coffee stores.

Shout out to that attendee for bringing me back to that headpsace for a bit.

WBUR CitySpace event

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 11:40:28 -0400

Last night we set up at WBUR'S CitySpace for a pop up. The format was interesting in that I got an hour to serve coffee while people arrived for the event. Honestly not knowing the scale of the event, I chose a brew method that wasn't built for speed or capacity, the Siphon.

It's a throw back for me because it was one of my favorite methods back in my early coffee days. We'd get together and brew on a hario TCA 2 cup and load it up with coffee to evaluate roast issues and character. So much stronger than a cupping that you could really see the issues in a coffee.

Back then we (barismo bloggers) had a reputation of being known for this method to the point that I got invited out to the west coast to present a bar doing just siphon. It was my first major event I traveled out of Boston for and would turn out to be a who's who of the next decade of specialty coffee. This being nearly 20 years ago now, it was back when the coffee community was just starting to do throw downs and barista jams.

So maybe it was a reach to be trying to set that up in a situation where I didn't have an idea of how many people would attend or be interested in tasting coffee at night but I gave it a shot on the idea of bringing it back to basics.

So siphon brew on one side and to give contrast, I put the same coffee (Colombia El Plan) as our cold brew on the other. So attendees went from the basic clean coldbrew to the heavy dosed siphon for contrast. The idea being the coldbrew we do is clean and more like regular coffee where the siphon will have all that structure and layers of flavor. It worked really well and we got a huge response from it. I haven't really ever gotten so many good high level coffee questions in an event that wasn't pro.

Afterwards, there was a panel and some seriously good conversations. I got to swing a mic around and answer some solid topics. It was great fun but my takeaway was that the coffee scene in Boston is in a position to get a bit of a revival.

We now have a limited edition release of this single bag lot from Hacienda Santa Rosa on our shelves. Yep, Gustavo only had about 150 lbs worth of yield and we got it all. It's a new micro plot surrounded and isolated by forest corridors on all sides. This plot has similar elevation to Buena Esperanza. High nitrogen soil and it's planted under the existing rustic hardwood canopy. This is a beautiful plot and a beautiful coffee. Available at @barismo171 and @barismo364.

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Sat, 10 Dec 2016 12:53:00 -0500

http://ift.tt/2gMtiiV

Hot draft of a Thai coffee we brewed with @beanspirecoffee. Thailand is a producing country with a lot of potential but also several problems to overcome in the near term. Storage of green, processing, and varietals to name a few. The biggest problem will be one of brand. As Thai coffee improves, it will face a perception bias. Many roasters will simply write it off because they will lump it in with other asian coffees. That means lower price offers and often a basic unwillingness to sample them. We are betting that over the next few years companies like beanspire will overcome many of the hurdles to get better. Expect more info on that this winter.

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 17:15:00 -0400

http://ift.tt/2ecBCN0

New seating and signage @barismo171. One of several projects these last few months. Our staff put a lot of work into the remodel so drop by and give them props for the improvements.

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 11:46:00 -0400

http://ift.tt/2ee1hPw

(Pic:The nursery at Hacienda Santa Rosa/aka Buena Esperanza/El Plan/Cerro Verde) Buying direct isn't a well defined term and we all have our own interpretation. A staff discussion about another roaster 'well, they are new. Don't roasters do direct buying later on....'. Since that roaster already dresses the coffees and talks about the importance of farm relationships, so the question of why they weren't buying direct yet was topical. We can't speak for the industry peers, but for barismo, it was a core value from the beginning. We went down and started sourcing directly with visits and purchases our first year. We set up our business in Jan 2008 but didn't open until late summer with our first few direct buys in hand. Thise first buys amounted to over 40k or about what we put into roasted gear. We felt both were of equal importance if we wanted to be taken seriously. It was a bit of a risk to drop that much money on coffee when we could have focused on turning spot coffees every 30 days. We felt without the farm relationship, it would just be selling coffees we didn't really know that well. This was eight years ago, so it was really not as common a thing to source directly. The idea was that you can't dip your toes in the water, you have to invest early if you want to build real meaningful change. Waiting would have made it much harder to get off of spot buying and into sourcing directly. Now we have farmers like Gustavo (Hacienda Santa Rosa) that we really truly collaborate with (coming up on 5 years). We find ourselves in contact with many of our partners at the farm level year round because the farm and roasting businesses are tied together. They are excited, and should be, by our success because they share top billing in it. #coffee #directtrade #barismocoffee

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Sun, 28 Aug 2016 08:28:00 -0400

http://ift.tt/2bseLpl

The runaway favorite of the last two days @barismo295 was by far our draft latte. It looks cool and it tastes good. It's really exciting to see Kendall adopt something so new, so quick. Thank you for the warm welcome. #draftlatte #latte #coffeegeek

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 17:05:00 -0400

http://ift.tt/2bKrvdA

Cold shots in a chilled glass really hits the spot in this weather. Solid feedback so far. We are working to make them even colder, if we can. These puppies have the same strength (tds/brix) as a real espresso but the caffeine of a small filter coffee. Before we served it up, we sent it off for caffeine testing to make sure our draft products aren't unusually caffeinated. Testing came back good for us, but doesn't speak to other cold brew methods... so YMMV.🍵🤓

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:06:00 -0400

http://ift.tt/2aVW3vZ

Drop by @barismo364 Broadway, Cambridge this coming week. Barismo will be testing out some new draft coffee concepts that should be appearing on an updated menu this week. The draft latte (pictured) combines our milk faucet with a true draft shot concept. We took up the challenge when we heard shops were serving regular coldbrew in a 1:1 ratio with milk (out of taps and in cans) but calling it draft lattes. The quick thought was, 'hey that's just an au lait' but the second thought was 'but what if it was done right, how could we do that.' First, we had to create a cold shot of equal measured strength to an actual espresso. Then we Nitro it to get espresso like crema. Assemble and make sure it worked flavorwise in a real latte proportion (coffee:milk, 1:4ish). It really did in the best way. The result is a stone cold iced latte topped with a presistent cold micro foam.

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 16:27:00 -0400

http://ift.tt/2b98YoU

Top(our transparent pricing), bottom was sent to us by @santaanacoffee (see @truthtradingco for more co like this). barismo "was mentioned in the sustainability table here at the Anacafé 27th Congress" in Guatemala. 😆🖒👍 We've been buying direct since 2008 and working on an evolving partnership approach with farms. While many roasters are adopting farm direct or directly traded looking labels, there was one piece missing: the ability to draw a line between the price we set for quality with farms and the price we set for coffee fans like you. 🍵🤓 For barismo, they are linear and quite related, which isn't often the case in our industry, but maybe that can change✌#coffee #directtrade

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Mon, 8 Aug 2016 17:00:00 -0400

http://ift.tt/2aG9BWc

We've been doing a popup in Kendall Sq outside @barismo295 ahead of opening. There has been some coffee and swag going out every Friday. Our new neighbors at Cove are bringing in a piece that's essential to the community. Check this video out for more on our visions: https://twitter.com/barismo/status/760579026197020672 Over the next few weeks, we will be hiring to staff up in Kendall and across barismo. On the retail side, with the new space, we need to add barista, floor supervisors, and even some baking/kitchen help. On the roasting operations side, we are looking for packing, roasting, coldbrew kegging/bottling, and more. Big moves with Kendall Sq. opening soon and a big scale up in our roasting/bottling divisions this same month. Email info@barismo.com if you are interested. #barismo #barista #coworking #kendallsquare

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Fri, 5 Aug 2016 18:40:00 -0400

http://ift.tt/2aOTR65

Nitro coffee is all about those bubbles 😉🖒 Far left is coldbrew pouring next to nitro on the right. The color difference is clear. Those tiny bubbles give authentic Nitro coffee an almond color and add that interesting mouthfeel. We will expand the draft bar this week to include two secret new innovations 😲 #coldbrew #coldbrewcoffee #coffee #nitro

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Tue, 2 Aug 2016 13:03:00 -0400

http://ift.tt/2aN7mpq

New 'not the coffee' things to get excited about: chocolate confections 🍫 & nut milks 🌞! Expect confections by @gatecommedesfilles this fall and nut milk products as soon as @nuttylife.boston gets that wholesale permit (soon-ish). More ideas in the works, stay tuned for updates! #cambridgema

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Mon, 1 Aug 2016 12:16:00 -0400

New 'not the coffee' things to get excited about: chocolate confections 🍫 & nut milks 🌞! Expect confections by @gatecommedesfilles this fall and nut milk products as soon as @nuttylife.boston gets that wholesale permit (soon-ish). More ideas in the works, stay tuned for updates! #blog #cambridgema

Today's weather says espresso. Offering shots of Buena Esperanza with it's caramel and citrus notes or Clockwork (blend) with it's smoothness. Can't go wrong either way. Both pulling 18grams in, 26-28 seconds, 32grams out. 🤓👌 #blog #twitter #coffee #espresso #barismo #directtrade @barismo364

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Sun, 31 Jul 2016 11:22:00 -0400

via Instagram http://ift.tt/2ajjs67

An update on barismo, dwelltime, and voltage

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 10:15:00 -0500

Many of you have seen, read, or heard rumblings about what we are up to. Let me break it down and explain a bit more.

We started dwelltime 3 years ago with a mission to build a flagship cafe. We hosted throwdowns, took per cup to a new level, hosted farm producer events, and won some awards along the way. It has, on many levels, been a success. It was never quite barismo though. That's probably because barismo delved into additional outside investment to open the cafe, hence the different name. In 2015 we ended up buying out that outside investment and have been doubling down on the core aspects that we care about.

Meanwhile, Voltage has been a mainstay of the coffee community for many years under Lucy Valena. We were the roaster there for several years and as with many of our partners, we shared strategies, discussed financials, and were quite invested in that space. Lucy was getting married, looking for a change, and with the renewed momentum and energy we had, we have been in a unique position to get more involved. It became a natural fit for us to go one step further and bring that space into our family and continue it's vision. Once we won approval from the city to let this happen, we now have some clarity to communicate to you.

dwelltime and voltage are closing.

In their place, we will be opening 2 more barismo locations. 364 Broadway (dwelltime) has already undergone the cleanup and changes that better communicate who we are. The new colors and layout were something Lucy has organized in her new capacity with barismo. 295 Third St. (voltage) will be under renovation in the winter, some paint, new gear, modifications to the bar. We hope to have a new food menu in place and get things up ~~and running by January~~. It will be much more in line with what we do on Broadway.

UPDATE: For 295 Third St., barismo is looking to partner with Cove.is to bring a new look and feel to the gallery side of the space. It has been used for years as a study, meeting, and work area so we feel that upgrading that capacity with Cove to meet the needs of the neighborhood is best for everyone. More to come soon as this is pending landlord approval and will require some additional construction.

That is not to say we will not be investing in our other spaces. Our original barismo location in east Arlington will get a paint job and possibly some facade work over the winter. We are also planning a menu change to go into effect by Christmas. There is a lot going on everywhere.

By 2016, you will be able to visit us at three retail locations:
171 Mass Ave, Arlington, MA
295 Third St., Cambridge, MA
364 Broadway, Cambridge, MA

You can still contact our Somerville roasting operations for wholesale/office/online orders via our website:
barismo.com

We hope that clarifies everything!
Sincerely,

Jaime van Schyndel

Coffee Sourcing Transparency

noreply@blogger.com (Staff @ barismo) — Fri, 14 Aug 2015 11:03:00 -0400

UPDATE: We wrote more on the why & how of transparency in Fresh Cup Magazine -- read the full story here!

A few weeks ago we were discussing our current projects with a customer who has been with us since the very early days of barismo. Looking back on where we have come since 2008, they noted one of our defining qualities has been that we've never settled with where we are, and always are working on the next project. That pursuit and advocacy of quality has taken many forms over the years and has helped push our local & national coffee market.

Still, in some ways the coffee market today is harder than ever for a consumer to navigate; alongside genuinely great coffees on the market there are cheap coffees dressed up in the same way, packaged and marketed to mimic progressive quality coffee. No matter how many pictures of farms and slick branding accompanies the coffee, at the end of the day they're still the same "black box" blends that don't tell you what's in them, roast dates hidden or unlabeled, and the coffee itself simply being cheap & poor quality.

The best way we can respond to this is by becoming even more transparent; this year, we are making a move to full pricing transparency for our coffees. We're proud of the prices we are able to pay farmers & how they have increased each year. We fully own that we don't sell the cheapest coffee in the market by a long shot; our business is in quality coffee, and in order to get quality you have to pay farmers more money for their coffee. We have made a concerted effort over the years to build our business in a way so that we can reward producers for their work & the risks they take in pursuit of quality. We've often shared this information casually across the counter when talking coffee sourcing with customers, and we have taken the step this year to fully publish what we pay for coffee.

The coffee prices we paid for this year's arrivals are listed below. The prices are per pound green coffee. Every country we work in and source coffee from has a different dynamic between farmers, millers, exporters and contracts; based on that, we have listed one or two different prices: Free On Board (FOB), which is the price for the coffee delivered in a container to the ship dock, and Exit Warehouse Price, the cost to us once the coffee leaves the warehouse in the United States on its way to us.

After the coffee arrives, we have to pay for the cost of origin travel, truck freight, handling, rent, gas, electricity, equipment, bags, labels, QC, and labor (in addition to extra costs of running a business — accounts receivable/collections, accounting, insurance, taxes, etc). During the roasting process itself, green coffee loses 17% of its mass during the roasting process as water weight. In this light we believe that quality coffee is an incredible value in light of all the hands and expenses that are involved from the coffee nursery to the coffeebar.

Our average Landed Price in 2015 is $3.90 per pound. In comparison the commodity coffee price (C-market price) today ranges from $1.20 - $1.60 per pound, the same price that was being paid in the 1980’s; everything has gotten more expensive over the past 30 years, but the majority of coffee farmers are still making the same amount of money.

Coffee	Relationship	Origin	FOB	Exit Warehouse	Pounds Green Coffee
Buena Esperanza (Hacienda Santa Rosa)	Direct	Guatemala	$4.25	$4.54	3,800
Pena Blanca (Hacienda Santa Rosa)	Direct	Guatemala	$2.75	$3.04	21,432
Cerro Verde (Hacienda Santa Rosa)	Direct	Guatemala	$3.00	$3.29	6,080
Finca Santa Ana	Direct	Guatemala	$4.25	$4.85	3,040
El Xalum	Direct	Guatemala	$4.00	$4.58	5,420
El Bosque	Direct	Guatemala	$3.95	$4.51	10,100
Jardin De Aromas	Direct	Costa Rica	$3.25	$3.60	3,040
La Bandera El Quetzal	Direct	Costa Rica	$4.00	$4.35	2,280
La Lia Santa Rosa 1900	Direct	Costa Rica	$4.25	$4.60	760
Genesis Oscar	Direct	Costa Rica	$4.75	$5.10	760
Meridiano AA	Direct	Colombia		$4.00	3,040
Matahara	Importer Contract	Ethiopia		$4.18	3,800
Abysinian Mocca	Importer Contract	Ethiopia		$4.40	3,040
Gitare AB	Importer Contract	Kenya		$4.10	1,980
Finca Santa Leticia Pamon	Importer Contract	El Salvador		$4.25	1,520
Mario Doroteo Perez AA	Importer Contract	Honduras		$3.90	3,040
Manuel Adan AAA	Importer Contract	Honduras		$4.35	1,520
Tupac Amaru	Importer Contract	Peru		$4.40	1,824
Average Exit Warehouse Price: $3.90

For love of coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 14:50:00 -0500

2015 marks our 7th year offering up fresh roast and per cup. While a lot has changed (see dwelltime, Cambridge Cold Brew), a lot of our core love of coffee is still there. The weather is just dreadful right now but it's a great time to look back before we look forward to the rest of the year.

I started in coffee a decade ago at a time when there were nearly all dark roasts being offered at local cafes. Mystery blends without roast dates made it pretty hard to find great coffee. That doesn't even cover the lack of good tools and equipment back then. These days, things have changed a bit and the equipment is getting to be a non issue and it shows. More coffee shops are doing latte art and the execution has become better in our scene. These days, there are still mostly dark roast blends at coffee shops in town and while you hear and see 'single estate' used a lot, there isn't that much of it actually being served. Shops and roasters are really laying into 'freshly roasted' but it is surprisingly hard to find whole bean that's less than ten days off roast. The messaging has evolved but there is a lot of room to grow in terms of the quality. Meanwhile, the national 'indie' coffee scene is obsessed with venture capital, acquisitions, aggressive expansion, and (quietly) exit strategies but those topics are less discussed locally. It's easy to be overwhelmed by it all.

In some ways, I am back where I started when I founded this company. I find myself asking some of the same questions. How do we (continue to) do what we do in a community of shops where so many shop owners may be pulling in the opposite direction? After a lot of thought, I realized that we just have to acknowledge that barismo is on a mission. We love coffee and just happen to also be lucky enough to have found a community of coffee drinkers that let's us be a little nerdy and obsessed about great coffee. We have a complex business and a bit of an uphill trek but sometimes you just have to focus on what matters. So, here's a break down of what our core goals are for 2015:

Fresh Roast We will continue to strive to be the only coffee brand you will consistently see on shelves locally that is delivering coffee 24 hours off roast. We want you to take it home and enjoy it in the first two weeks while it is fresh.

Fresh Brew We will push for, wrangle up, and argue for the most attentive, detailed, and cared for brews we can muster. We promise that while you may have to wait a little longer for a brew, it wasn't sitting around all day staling and waiting for you.

Transparency We will never blend up a mystery bag or serve up a murky 'dark roast' that lacks farm identity. We also promise to share as much as you can stand to listen to about our farm partners and their stories of quality improvement. Without transparency, we'd be taking credit for their work and that's not very barismo.

Education We promise to share our brew methods, offer up classes, organize farmer events, and host cuppings.

Value We believe that value is built on everything from how the coffee was processed and stored to roasted and brewed. We will do our best to make the case for what makes good coffee and why we invested in the farms we did. We don't roast anything dark (nothing goes into second crack) and we will continue to avoid obscuring the quality farms have worked so hard to create.

Redefine the Regular Coffee People want to drink good coffee. We don't assume you want to drink bad coffee. If you come in our doors, we know you came looking for more and we will do our best to provide that cup. We want the chance to make your regular everyday cup something special.

While we admit we're on a mission for great coffee, it is a labor of love. We do all this and more because we think it matters and we hope you agree. Sure, we might not be willing to compromise, but in the end, we hope you will see and appreciate the effort from seed to your cup. We want you to enjoy the coffee while we say thank you for the support over the years.

Coffee tree tap handles!

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 10:00:00 -0400

Keep it local Camberville, MA: barismo's founder, Jaime van Schyndel gives a run down on some cool new tap handles at dwelltime.

Coldbrew on tap is the new big thing right now. Cafes, offices, and restaurants are picking this as a new option for quick serve coffee. There are pre-designed 'javarator' setups you can buy and even a reddit section dedicated to the kegging of iced coffee setups. This is the next big thing in coffee!

To celebrate the last two years of serving coldbrew on tap at dwelltime, I came up with a fun idea back in the spring:

While visiting El Bosque de Parramos in Guatemala this spring, I picked up a section of a coffee tree stump from a plot of the farm that had older plantings. This was one of 5 branches coming off the main stump and was still alive. Avelino himself cut the stump off and chose this particular piece of wood.

I brought the wood back and left it with our friends and Somerville neighbors at DGF. After some curing and resting time, the wood was cut into three sections, sanded and prepped as tap handles for a kegged coldbrew setup.

One of the cool aspects of this old stump is that is was right along the pathway. It has several scars along it's backside that came over the years. Over time, different farm workers would sit roadside and have their lunch. They would invariably leave their machete in the closest stump, to which this little tree was the victim a few times. Kind of cool to think about how over the years, the scars tell a story.

Coffee wood grows fast and is typically not good quality. The older varietals that are less dwarfed can get to 20ft tall and this is the type of heirloom bourbon we ended up sawing off to make our handles. This particular stump may have had 20 years on this branch to get to this size. It's color is a bit like poplar but it has a slight tint of green to the bark and wood. Needless to say, I am excited to see how it ages and colors with time.

While we can't guarantee coffee wood tap handles for your setup, we can help you with a no fuss install and consistent quality product if you are in the Boston/Cambridge area. If you are interested in serving coldbrew on tap locally or having this in your office, let us know. We have been refining the process and have a separate division dedicated to expanding this. We already have offices and clients across the spectrum setup for coldbrew coffee and tea on tap but are looking for some exciting new places to get this concept into while it's still hot outside.

NOW Roasted In Somerville

noreply@blogger.com (Staff @ barismo) — Thu, 3 Jul 2014 11:19:00 -0400

After some hurdles, we are now roasting in our new space! Our first full day of production roasting was on Monday. While we weren't planning on a few of the hurdles that set back the move until the last few days of June, the silver lining was that the majority of our 2014 crop coffees are just getting to port in the next 2 weeks, so we had to move just a quarter of the amount of coffee from 171 Mass Ave, Arlington to our new home at 14 Tyler Street, Somerville.

We took last Thursday to move over, and brought over some extra hands to help with moving bags of coffee. Among the many positives to our new roastery is the addition of a loading dock; many of our long time customers have seen us in the past having pallets of coffee dropped off on the sidewalk, then carrying them one at a time through the roastery and downstairs to our basement storage. Pallet jacks and forklifts are lightening the load quite a bit.

Along with the change in location, we've switched the actual roaster we use. Our trusty pair of 4 kilo roasters has served us well, but we had reached near maximum roasting capacity. Late last year we purchased a 12 kilo Probat coffee roaster and have been refurbishing it inside & out. We've been happy with the results so far, and you should expect a positive difference in our coffees going forward.

We're spending most of this week and next working out some of the logistics of our wholesale operation here. By the middle of the month we'll have updates with events & classes at the new space. While it's not a retail store or coffeebar, there'll be plenty of opportunity through the rest of the summer to get to see our new home.

Coffee Updates

We've released some new coffees over the past few weeks from this years crop of coffees out of Kenya & Ethiopia; in addition to Doppleganger (on our last blog update), we've released Homunculus (a 50/50 blend of coffees from two different mills in the same region of Ethiopia), and Kochere Grade 1 (one of the components of Homunculus). We have a second wave of coffees from Ethiopia & Kenya already lined up for later this summer.

We're expecting the boat carrying our coffees from Costa Rica to arrive at port in New Jersey on July 8th. It should take another week upon arrival to clear customs, then we'll be able to bring these coffees -- Jardin de Aromas & Bandera de Dota -- up to Somerville!
Confirming more good news & arrival details from Guatemala today; we'll have a further update for you next week!

Local innovation needs coffee, local coffee needs a little innovation: @Clypd #Somerville

noreply@blogger.com (Staff @ barismo) — Fri, 30 May 2014 10:00:00 -0400

Keep it local Somerville, MA: barismo's founder, Jaime van Schyndel gives a shout out to a local tech company that brought support for a local roasting company.

Caffeinate and innovate. One of the great things about being nestled into this area is that we are surrounded by great ideas and forward thinking companies. There are some seriously cool people doing the next big thing. Sometimes, we get to play a tiny role in fueling that!

Over at Clypd in Somerville's Davis Sq., they have a full tap setup of Cambridge Coldbrew. They started with cold coffee and quickly moved into adding our direct trade coldbrew tea as well. We were surprised with how easy it was to install as they already had a small kegerator for beer. The second surprise is how much they go through! They were up and running in no time, we just had to put an extra keg out there for them.

We want to give a shout out to those folks for being the spark to get us moving on this project. A big thanks to the folks over at Clypd for bringing us into their family and for tuning us into the ideas driven culture around us.

Stay Fresh Updates: Upcoming events, new coffee, and much more... Sign up to receive updates!

NEW COFFEE!!!

Our much beloved and adored doppelganger espresso is back and fittingly it's to be one of our first Somerville production roasts. It will appear online and on retail shelves this weekend!

A pairing of two Kenyas, this coffee is lightly roasted to get it to sing some delicious notes of fruit and floral. It's juicy and sweet, great as espresso, coldbrew, or as a drip coffee.

TEDxCambridge : June 5th 5pm,

We are a coffee sponsor! If you were one of the lucky ones to have booked a ticket, we will be right there with you keeping your energy up with great coffee! (Check out our new espresso cart at this event).

A huge thanks to the organizers of TEDxCambridge for letting us be there to support! See TEDxCambridge for more details on their spring event.

Do you know #Cambridge #Coldbrew?

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Tue, 27 May 2014 10:00:00 -0400

Keep it local 'Camberville': barismo's founder, Jaime van Schyndel updates you on our most popular side project, Cambridge Coldbrew. As we enter iced coffee season, here's our preferred cold coffee.

Some of our local industry old timers complain about the obsession with cold brew (toddy) coffee and complain about it's many faults. They protest that cold brew is a place to hide low quality blends that are often darkly roasted. They gripe that cold brew is brewed at room temp to very strong strengths yet often tastes very under extracted. They grumble that cold brew tasted oxidized, flat, and a bit off (like a merlot left out overnight). Instead of joining the complaining about how it is, we decided to refine the method and search out what it could be. We then set out to reinvent cold brew coffee. We sought something different, possibly better, more innovative, a new idea for brewing cold coffee. We took the first step by bringing it back to the fundamental ideas of what makes quality coffee. Then we brewed it again, from the beginning.

Enter the Cambridge Coldbrew

After a lot of refinement and what can only be described as a few years of distilling the process, we latched onto a method that delivered the farm flavors we wanted. We began beta test serving in Cambridge where it then picked up steam and even got some national press mentions. It was not until it was on tap a few years ago at dwelltime that we started to really get some clarity to our new method. The Cambridge customers supported us and pressed us both into bottling growlers and scaling up our brewing to meet the demands. The rapid volumes from the get go kept us busy but made us fixate on how to scale up with the quality we were chasing. As of now, we have been scaling into some seriously large batch sizes we never could have imagined when this was merely a trending topic of summer coverage a few years back. It has been the big challenge refining a better idea for cold brewed coffee. Brewed cold and clean filtered, this is no longer that same old tepid toddy!

Here's what makes it Cambridge Coldbrew:

Stored cold and brewed cold - It's the only iced coffee locally you can buy that's cold all the way through. We keep it at the best temps to preserve it's flavors.
Clean filtered - Cambridge Coldbrew goes through a multiple pass filtration to get a crisp and full taste. Because we don't have the sediment, this allows us to avoid the under/over extraction and focus on the right extraction.
Quality direct trade coffee - We use only quality traceable coffees from farms we have sourced directly. You will not receive a low quality over roasted blend, you will get a single coffee estate with a distinct flavor and unique story.
A different approach - We don't updose and under extract, this is not a 'concentrate', it's ready to drink and dialed in like a great hot coffee would be.

How can you get Cambridge Coldbrew by the bottle (and by the keg)?

We offer our single estate growlers for office and take home at dwelltime as well as our coffee bar 171 Mass ave, Arlington, MA.
We now offer a 5 and 15 gallon keg service for offices, restaurants, and specialty stores (local delivery only).
Join our waiting list for bottles in your store's cold case.

Why Cambridge Coldbrew?

We want to fuel your ideas. Most of our first keg customers were amazing tech companies that already have kegerator setups for beer. Cambridge Coldbrew is innovative coffee for innovative companies.
We hope to change restaurant coffee to be something truly special, not an afterthought. Imagine fine dining and ending the meal with a single estate Cambridge Coldbrew off a nitrogen tap. It's the exclamation point on a great meal!
Most cold brewed blends are generic and lack identity. We want to bring it back to focusing on what makes great individual coffees by highlighting the unique farms that produced them. That means it tastes like great coffees should taste.

What's new with Cambridge Coldbrew?

Clypd's tap setup (art by Olya Rosenberg)

Our direct trade Fulu Red Tea is now available iced and by the Coldbrew keg (currently only as 5 gal kegs).
dwelltime has Fulu Red iced tea on tap and is testing our new carbonated version! (frequently available in seasonal mocktails that pair well with an espresso)
We have partnered to offer kegerator installations for 'Coldbrew on Tap' setups, let's talk!

We set out to make Cambridge Coldbrew a product that speaks to our values of letting the coffee be the good it can be. Transparent, directly sourced, quality brewed, and freshly roasted 'cold' coffee. It took a little help from our friends, and major support from our amazing customers for this new idea about iced coffee to become a big favorite locally but it's definitely catching on. For that, we thank the loyal support of our customers that allowed us to stay true to our brew! We look forward to bringing these farms we love to new friends, restaurants, and even those innovative companies that inspire us!

Dialing in a #Somerville roaster

noreply@blogger.com (Jaime van Schyndel) — Tue, 20 May 2014 09:00:00 -0400

Keep it local Somerville, MA: barismo's founder, Jaime van Schyndel updates you on our new roasting home in the Aeronaut.

Loading our first Somerville batch

At our new Somerville location, we've had a chance to fire up the roaster and begin some batch testing. There are a few little details we've been working on to have some more fun. We got some cool logging software that still needs to be adapted but the basic probes and gas gauges have been installed allowing us to get some test batches out. (Yes, there are still roasters out there who do not use gas gauges or digital temperature probes.)

We have fired up the roaster and dialed in a few batches. We went through this exercise when I first opened barismo, but instead of six months, we are going to get comfortable over six weeks. It only took a couple batches to get a general feel for what this machine does including it's gas limits for the batch size. I have no perspective for how others approach a new install, but we took a medium gas setting and watched the delta between specific observable color points. Basically, we went and 'let it rip' all the way into second crack while we logged sight, sound, and smell markers. (This was initially a shock to The Aeronauts who were concerned by the noise and smoke!) We worked backwards based on our experiences and expectations of what was supposed to be happening and at what rates. We all felt very comfortable as we were able to dial in our first coffee very quickly for a reasonable batch size.

Even Pete Likes! Picture by @AeronautBrewing

Over the next few weeks, we will see how the test coffees rest and age, through cupping and more profiling. We'll also fidget with tinier adjustments, tweaks on the roaster mechanics to account for potential problems, and also do repairs on small issues that pop up. There is definitely work to be done.

With our operational model, the issues emerging are around our just in time freshly roasted inventory and how it shifts to Somerville, MA. Basically, we not only have to dial in to a quality level, we have a lot of logistics to figure out. As a roaster that bikes an extraordinary amount of its volumes around on cargo bikes, there is a logistical challenge that we have in going to bigger capacity, changing storage methods, and addressing a space that will have a lot of other businesses in it. Luckily, we have been trolling a lot of our tech friends and are adapting different apps/management pieces to upgrade how we work as well. These are not huge hurdles but we are taking our time to move over slowly rather than rushing and we thank our loyal customers for being so patient.

We have been quiet with events and with classes lately, but that is temporary as well. Once we get up and running, we intend to be doing constant classes, education events, fun collaborations, and outreach to the neighborhood. Mid June into July will be a busy time and you'll have lot's of chances to see the new space and will hear a lot about the hub.

We will be hammering home some really important beliefs we have about what makes good coffee great. Brew methods, storage, roasting techniques, farm and mill improvements, and of course a lot of tasting to share those ideas! Same old barismo, but this year we are going to work to make the case:

There is great roasted coffee locally and you don't need to go out of New England looking for it.

Symbiosis

noreply@blogger.com (Staff @ barismo) — Thu, 15 May 2014 08:30:00 -0400

sym·bi·o·sis

\ˌsim-bē-ˈō-səs, -ˌbī-\

: a relationship between two people or groups that work with and depend on each other

Keep it local Somerville, MA: barismo's roaster Chris Malarick steps up and delivers a little piece of why he feels keeping the talent local matters.

Symbiosis and Sustainability OR Why Local Coffee Matters - A Barista Origin Story

Several years ago, I was able to get a staging shift at Voltage Coffee and Art, a shop owned by Lucy Valena in Kendall Square. (I had been working in an organic market with a coffee program for the past couple of years where I unearthed the rabbit hole of specialty coffee and the world that it existed in, the world that existed in it, but my first day at Voltage was the start of something entirely new.) Up until that day, I had experienced resistance from other managers/cafes to a lot of the ideas, theories, and methods that had captivated me when it came to curating a coffee program. Here I was though, standing behind the bar of this place that was a coffee shop meets art gallery built upon and dedicated to some of those pretty unique values. I felt like a kid in a candy store for quite some time thereafter. Every day was exciting to go into work and try new coffees, experiment with extractions, and develop a craft. It also allowed me to truly bond with the customers over why we were both there and share with them what was exciting for me.

At that time Voltage featured a guest program, bringing in coffees from different roasters to run alongside the offerings from Barismo, their primary local roaster. At first, as a barista, this got me excited as it allowed me the chance to try out lots of different coffees from different farms roasted by different people. While this was a resource to someone like myself, trying to take it all in and learn as much as I could, it soon became apparent that this was an unsustainable business model and deviated from the mission statement of almost every party involved. I didn't know these people, neither did Lucy or anyone else at the shop, as there was a great disconnect in the relationship- the roasters knew the farmers and the baristas knew the customers, but the roasters and the baristas had little dialogue whatsoever, so I felt the chain was broken. This didn't turn me off the the particular companies I served while at Voltage but rather drew me closer to Barismo, a local relationship that proved to be more valuable going forward than I could have imagined.

I started spending more time at dwelltime, barismo's flagship coffee bar in mid-Cambridge before and after work on my days off getting to know the staff and talk about coffee. I would drop by the roastery from time to time to watch their hands work while I picked the brain of whoever was manning the roasters about green coffee, roasting, the whole of everything! I got to engage in conversation whenever I could about what it was barismo was doing behind the curtains- I was fascinated. Pretty soon, I was afforded the opportunity to pick up work at dwelltime, an offer I jumped at with haste as it brought me one step closer to my goal of starting a roasting apprenticeship. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to Voltage, a shop that had taught me so much and brought me into a world I fell deeply in love with, but I felt strongly that the next phase of my journey could be as a roaster, and that I would not falter. Fast forward over a year and a half later and I'm writing this post as the head roaster for Barismo.

This post is about me, but my specific path isn't important, it's about the value of the symbiotic relationships within our local coffee scene. I'm here now because I worked for a local shop owner who helped me build my skill set and provided a relationship with our local roaster, which resulted in access to a job that broadened my skill sets. I still get to to support Voltage every week when I roast their coffee to order but the lesson was learned: Support local, employ local, and keep the jobs, the knowledge, and the talent local.

There's a lot of exciting things going on in our industry right now (read: always) on the big scale, but often times there's a lot of noise and distractions, we have to remember to focus on what really matters to us vs the scene. What's important to me and why I'm here: to support our growing local coffee community and share with our neighbors what I've learned and what I'm excited about.

Evaluating for Quality: barismo's founder and GM, Jaime van Schyndel breaks down a recent trip to Guatemala. Part one of three!

A couple of months ago, I took a group (Lucy of Voltage & Simon of Simon's tagged along) to tour farms in Guatemala. Along the way, our host for the first leg of the trip, Gustavo Alfaro, arranged for us to visit artista Rudy Cotton in Guatemala City. Rudy is an established painter with a large portfolio and prominent placement for his works. Lucy Valena (Voltage Coffee) was particularly excited about seeing his gallery/workspace as she has a background in art. Rudy has worked the last two years on a project to craft and create a new angle to the many relationships in coffee. He took his time to interpret the land, the coffee, and crafted a massive mural on Hacienda Santa Rosa (you know it as Buena Esperanza). We are hoping to arrange a follow up to this here in the states through barismo/Voltage and hopefully create multiple spaces to showcase both the coffees and art in unique ways to tell this story.

It was a really interesting experience where we had the relationship that Gustavo and Rudy were childhood friends, Gustavo is one of our relationship producers, and Lucy is one of our cafe partners. We got to match up a farm that's owner has an interest in Rudy's art with a cafe owner (combo art gallery owner) who actually studied some of Rudy's mentors in grad school!

Lucy will have more to say on this in the next few weeks. You can see her most recent post on her blog about what she learned in Guatemala. Drop by Voltage as well if you are in Kendall Sq. and ask her about it while you have a cup from one of the farms she visited.