Our new hours, as of March 1, are:

M: 7am-10pm

T:  7am-10pm

W: 7am-630pm

H: 7am-10pm

F:  7am-11pm

S:  8am-11pm

Sunday closed.  Thanks all!

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Holiday Blend 2009 is now available. A blend of Kenyan AA and Brasilian Daterra, it has nutty flavors with hints of fruit and spice. We’ve toyed around with “tastes like Santa’s beard” or “reminiscent of reindeer games”, but we figured we’d be nice and give you the real low down. Holiday Blend will be available only for a limited time, just until New Years Day, so get is while its hot and fresh! Order now at the BFC&T webstore.

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The roasting reindeer have arrived. More to come.

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Quick post:

Got an email from a trusted professional in the coffee industry this last week that said freezing roasted coffee, as long as properly packaged, is acceptable with minimal flavor loss. I’m wondering what you all out there think!

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Yesterday marked the third anniversary/birthday of BFC&T.  Three years.  And we’re still going strong.

Thanks, first of all, for all your support, understanding, and business through these years.  It seems trite to say, but we really couldn’t have done it without you.

However, this post is about Bethany.  I remember (it wasn’t all that long ago, after all) when she first floated the idea of a coffee shop to me.  Being from the Midwest, I didn’t really know what to think.  Omaha, after all, didn’t get a Starbucks until my sophomore year of college.  I joined on, though, just on the shear ability of Bethany (in the Lord) to do something like that — I had no doubt in her and I still don’t.

Getting the C&T started was a struggle, especially for a young married couple with precarious job situations and a young daughter (who is three and a half, always just a step ahead of the shop).  Once again, Bethany’s tenacity made it happen.

Bethany has, through the tough times (and early on in a business that’s all you have), kept a steady up-beatness.  Those times would have broken a strong man down to tears regularly (and I know…from experience).  In those times, when it would have been so easy to water down the business, the coffee, or the dream, Bethany has stalwartly pressed on (so many coffee metaphors!) and not accepted anything less than the best.  So we started learning the culinary trade, and coffee roasting, and SCAA approved barista standards, and ice cream (even though it didn’t work out), and the list goes on.

From her husband, and I know her employees, thanks to you, Bethany!  You are a constant source of hope, joy, and strength.

Please feel free to add any reflections or thanks to Bethany in the comments!

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Based on some Twitter conversations (always hard to read what is really being said — darn technology) and furthering Jake’s post about community v. culinary at Spronomy, I want to issue a challenge to myself and the other Pittsburgh area roasters. First, a little background.

“Quality” is a slippery and offensive word. People are overjoyed when they are in that category and feel miffed when they find themselves outside of its confines, especially when they thought they were snugly within (as always, please feel free to disagree and take the challenge to fit into the following definition). So a careful and judicious definition of “quality” is necessary when talking about the coffee shops in the area. If you ask me (and feel free, please to disagree), a “quality” coffee shop is concerned with their product seed-to-cup: they know (or are in the process of knowing) the farmers, pickers, processors, importers, freighters, roasters, sourcers, barista, and customers. They know the processes by which coffee is turned from seed to bean, why they decaf the way they do, and how all these things affect every part of the chain from the earth to the drinker. The concentrate on method of preparation and customer service in harmony, not opposition. There are a myriad other qualifications that could be thought of, but this will do for the start.

Of all the quality oriented shops in the region, most all of them source their beans from outside the region, unless they roast the beans themselves. There are, of course, a myriad of reasons for this, but I want to see it changed. So, I’m issuing this challenge to all Pittsburgh area roasters, from New Castle to Washington:

Let’s show Pittsburgh shops that we can compete with, and outcompete, the big boys of the specialty roasting world, in taste, quality, transparency, sustainability, and service. It isn’t going to be easy, and we may have to put our differences aside and work together, but I think regionally fresh roasted coffee that meets or exceeds the demands of the quality coffee shop is within our grasp.

Really, it is the next step in the culinary renaissance of the Pittsburgh region: we have a strong Slow Food movement, great farm-to-table restaurants, and good amounts of people who want quality within a regional or local context. Coffee is the next step. Let’s get ready.

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Some things that may interest you:

We have a new decaf Sumatra in from Royal Coffee in NY. I just roasted the first batch and it is excellent: rich, full-bodied, tasty. It is water process decaffienation, but Royal does it in-house, instead of through the usual Swiss Water that we have. If you click on the decaf Sumatra at our webstore (here!) you’ll get it shortly in the mail. I’ll update the info about it on the webstore soon.

No ice cream, this season at least. We ran into some snafus and fubars and some requests for us to engage in unethical business practices, so we decided to wait until later for ice cream. Sorry one and all. We would like you to know, however, that as a business and as people, we value our word and want to approach all our dealings with honesty and integrity. Eventually that will also include ice cream, just not yet. Thanks for your understanding and patience.

Once we get our broken pastry case out of the shop, you can expect a new “dwell bar” to appear in BFC&T. Sit down right in front of the baristas, chat, and get a special menu to boot! Also, the back kitchen/roastery area is shaping up — lots of work going on here, that’s for sure!

Our hours have expanded once again: M, W, Th 6:30am-10pm, T 6:30am-6:30pm, F 6:30am-Midnight, S 8am-Midnight. Welcome back Geneva students!

That’s enough for tonight. We here at the C&T hope this evening finds you well.

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We’ve had the Kenya AA Eeagads Estate coffee for around 7 months or so now. It is an impressively complex coffee. There is always something going on: umami, stewed tomatoes, olive oil, etc. However, many of those are not necessarily taste descriptors people want in their coffee. For the most part, neither do I. So, determined to not let that be the last word, I have been sampling as much as Vanilla Ice. And it has worked!

I tried a whole variety of things: extending the first crack to 14 minutes, doing a 16 minute roast to a medium level, etc. However, I found that a later first crack (around 11 mins) and a lighter roast (410 degrees end temp instead of 435) produced a wonderfully bright coffee with a sugary sweet aroma. It has been a revelation, as it were.

I’m going to try to blend it with our new La Minita Aceh Gold Sumatra soon here — I’ll let you know how it comes out. Or, you can always stop by the shop and grab a cup when it is ready.

As always, the Kenyan is available at our webstore.

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Well, folks, we are nearing the home stretch!  Soon we’ll be announcing a grand opening date, and we’ll have a big event outside with music and free ice cream cones and what not.  Now, I’m in the thick of menu planning (the most fun part, I gotta say), and I’m interested in your take on things.  We have a really good diverse potential flavor list (and many of you have gotten to taste test the little batches, when I happen to have them).

I’ve had a lot of fun so far developing the recipes- I think my favorite was the chai- it was rich and creamy, with just a hint of spice.  I prefer the taste of rooibos red tea in chai- I think it’s mild honey-ness works really well in chai ice cream too!

I’m really excited about using our local farms for as many ingredients as possible- we are blessed with a wealth of local, seasonal foods.  Some other flavors I’m working on:

fresh mint chocolate chunk

caramel latte

Nutella

strawberry cheesecake

peanut butter chocolate cookie dough

thai coconut curry

roasted pear & caramel

strawberry mint sorbet

…

Look for an opening date soon!

Bethany

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Tonight, I prepped two batches of bagels for tomorrow morning (yay for retarded yeast activity due to cold!). Everything was going swimmingly: dough was acting right, Aerosmith was pumping on Pandora, and the time was just striking ten when it was time to shape. Except…

The recipe I use utilizes a “sponge”: half the flour and yeast with all the water left to sit for awhile and get all flavorful-like. When adding the rest of the flour and yeast (two hours later), you must remember the salt and brown sugar/malt. If you don’t, trouble crouches at the door.

I forgot both things.

But food is forgiving. If you blow a roast of coffee, as long as it is quality beans, you have a shot at good coffee, especially in the hands of an expert barista. If you undercook a steak, thankfully there is “carry over” that can be accentuated by a foil tent (and less cooked steak = yum yum tasty cow). Breads and baked goods are especially forgiving. It is as if they are saying, “We know that we are the staff of life, but instead of being haughy and fussy about it, we will be gentle, humble, and merciful.” So I worked in the salt (Kosher, of course) and the sugar into the already well-kneaded dough (everything done by hand, I might add). At first, all seemed lost. The salt just scattered across the board and the dough felt grainy. However, the absorbant power of gluten structures sucked these ingredients in when I just let them sit under a damp towel for a couple of minutes. The dough turned out fine and even and not spiky/crunky.

Of course, the final test will be when I get up at 5:45 tomorrow to bake them — but I have high hopes. Just wish I didn’t have to roast tonight as well. Three hours of sleep never hurt anybody, though, right?

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