Barista Extraordinaire

Let me begin by saying Dave's "Roastmaster Brews" blog has been hijacked.  My name is Christy Chapman and I have something important to say.  So that my naturally scattered and somewhat rambling nature doesn't take over this piece, allow me to start from the beginning:

Jan 5 2012   2-4 pm

Quality checking our coffee and brew machines in various ways and by default consuming way too much caffeine.  Then trying one of our new bagels (which rocked btw).

Fast Forward                                                                                                                         

Jan 5 2012  10:30 pm                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                                                                           Doing my nightly routine of Bean Traders paperwork while obsessing over new ideas and products for the shop---social media postings (ok yes I did update my personal FB status as well---although I blame that on the caffeine ingested earlier)---ordering things we needed yesterday----and just general obsessing about our business, I thought to myself  "I really need to get Dave to post on his blog".  That led me down a path of becoming annoyed that he hasn't posted in over a month---and although I know it is my job to gently remind people to get their tasks done---why can't he just do a post without my prod.  As I was thinking this and feeling the caffeine still pumping through my very awake body---I realized I was being somewhat irrational in my expectations since we just ended our busiest season in our retail and wholesale departments.  Both of which he works full-time. 

 Please stay with me---my point is right around the corner.

So as I am thinking about him working so much I fondly started picturing him behind the bar in the mornings- which naturally led me to start fantasizing about my morning latte.  Oh how I love that man's espresso beverages!  This fantasy then carried me to the Indy Best Of Award.  (if you know me well you totally get that my brain is in a constant stream of thought---if you do not know me that well, I think you may be starting to get the picture....and I am sorry)                                   

So yeah---the Indy Awards---why has Dave not won The Best Barista in the Triangle???

Look I am not one for ever campaigning----it actually makes me feel really uncomfortable to ask people to say our business is the best.  I know so many gracious and generous customers and friends who frequent our shop all the time and in 12 years I have never even asked them to give us a good review on the various review sites.  I believe that would not give us an honest assessment of our business, and frankly I would feel dishonest if we courted people into doing things that made us look good.  Do I secretly wish more would participate---I would be lying if I said no.  But I do believe the natural flow of that stuff is best.  When various contests come up I might post once...maybe even twice something like "if you love us don't forget us!"   That just feels best....and we feel more genuinely happy when we win something. However, this is not about Bean Traders, this is about the awesome Barista who makes my drink every morning! So now I really must get to my convoluted point....

 

I believe Dave Chapman, Barista Extraordinaire, is The Best Barista in the Triangle! We all know he makes a supreme beverage--he has personally made 3 out of my top 5 all time best espresso beverages (of course #1 was his)---and I have tried A LOT of espresso beverages from various places.  But aside from that, he has been a full-time Barista for 12 years.  Serving hundreds of people a day 6 or 7 days a week for 12 years and counting. 

                                                                                                                                                        However that is just the tip of the cappuccino's micro-froth.  This is the guy who gets the raw beans dropped to his door step----lugs the 10+ 130-150 pound bean bags into his warehouse every 2 weeks with only his bare hands and broken body----roasts those beans 3-4 times a week to perfection by himself---delivers them to our store and other wholesale clients---then gets up at 5am almost every morning to grind, brew, and serve said beans....for 12 years. With, might I add, a pretty mellow and sweet disposition. 

And to just come full-circle....he makes an absolutely delicious beverage. 

So if you have had the honor (like I have) of being a customer of ---as one person put it---possibly the best Barista in the world Dave Chapman, please remember him when that contest comes up and take the time to vote for him.  He totally deserves it, and I know it would secretly make his year. 

Thoughts about SB closing

When we opened 11 years ago September, we were the only coffee shop in Southeast Durham.  It's crazy to think about how different this area was at that time....loads of woods....no huge mall....about 3 less strip malls...you get the idea.  The SoDu community was pretty happy we were giving them a coffeeshop, and we were happy to do it (selfishly we were really happy just to be able to drink a decent cup of coffee ourselves). 

Now.....years later.....there are 4 Starbucks....1 Dunkin Donuts.....and at least 3 local cafe/coffee shops that have come and gone.  This is all within a mile of us! 

6 months after we opened, Starbucks opened its first location right across the street from us and a lot of our customers were angry and nervous that we would not survive.  That first month they opened we were inundated with the never ending question "Are you guys scared you will go out of business?".  Each time we answered the standard: "no...not so much".  Most of the time this sufficed...the remaining times we had to listen to all the reasons we should be nervous and all the reasons why said customer felt awful for us.  It really was coming from a good place, but it was hard to hear a list of reasons why someone might think your business will tank....and even harder that people didn't have more faith in our survival.

Our thought was, still is, and always will be: 

1) Never look at the guy(gal) next to you to measure your success
2) Keep focused on your vision and do not let people or other companies scare you into changing it
3) Keep on the pulse of your industry and be flexible and progressive while staying true to what made people love you
4) No matter how great everyone says you are or how many awards you receive, the minute you stop striving to be the best, you suck
5) Your customers are the heartbeat of your business......always take care of your heart!

So now, all these years later, the place across the street is closing its doors for good this Sunday.  And while you may think we are doing cartwheels in the back room...a part of us will  always ache at the closing of a business.  It is hard to explain, but it doesn't necessarily feel good to rejoice in someone elses downfall...major chain store or not.

With all of that said, we were surprised, but not so much so about the closing.  We had heard about a year ago from a pretty reliable source that the SB across the street was one of their smallest volume stores in the area.  We joked at the time that we probably played a big part in that and it's hard to compete with our delicious bean!  Honestly though, we don't care to speculate about the closing or why.

 Our hope going forward is that we can turn some people on to our product.  Do we think we will get everyone?  NO...not even close.  We will get a small amount of people that may have heard we were across the street but never bothered to try us....who now try us because they do not want to change their morning routine drastically so they just come across the street...and then like our atmosphere/product so they stay.  The rest of the people who know that we are here and never tried us will most likely do McDonalds or Dunkin, because they just like Chain Store coffee and the atmosphere that caters to that...which is totally fine, we are not trying to fit square pegs into round holes...people should go where they are comfortable so there is no friction. 

Then there are the people who have no idea we are even here. We have never had visibility from the road (we love our strip with all the trees..but it definitely lets NO ONE know we are here) and you can see the Starbucks loud and clear.  Again, some of them won't care because they like a different genre....but we are most excited about the people who had no idea we are here...thought they were stuck with a certain coffee and then now that said coffee is gone they are forced to investigate other options...find us... and feel blessed to find the perfect coffee shop for them.

And lastly, if you happen to hear your neighbor...co-worker.....etc moaning about their go-to coffee shop closing, tell them to drink some bean!

You might change their life as they know it :)

Beautiful Coffee Transporter

If you've come by the shop in the last week, you've seen her.  My brand new...old.....dream mobile.  My 1973 VW Bus.  She's Bean Traders orange and so eye-catchingly beautiful.  Her name is Garcie...rhymes with Marcy.  I found her in Chapel Hill in the parking lot of Southern Seasons of all places.  Christy and I were returning from delivering the bean to Red Star Coffee in Pittsboro, NC.  As we came up 15-501..  ...BOOM.  There she was For Sale sign in window.  One screaming U-turn later we were staring at a super clean engine and our Bean Transporter Dream...in a state of disbelief.  I made a call to the seller...who informed me through some mishaps with other inquirers the bus had not sold...I set up a test drive and waited.  My lifelong vehicle dream was about to come true...a VW bus of my very own!  A bean bus for deliveries!  A family road trip mobile! 

If you haven't seen Garcie yet...come by the shop, check her out, and share your VW story with me.

See you in the AM
DC

My Daily Intake

Sometimes I forget not everyone drinks coffee, and most coffee drinkers probably don't drink as much as me--the guys who prepares coffee beverages 10 hours a day--the guy whose second job is roasting the beans that help in the process of making said beverages.

You probably shouldn't attempt to take in the amount of caffeine on my daily menu.

Today I drank a 20oz coffee around 8am....a double shot iced latte around 11:30am....and a triple shot of espresso around 6:30pm, and this was on a very rare day off.

Tomorrow I work 5:30am-6:30pm....and then roast coffee for about 3 hours...I probably should mention I eat the coffee beans throughout the roasting process to make sure my roasts are on point.....my caffeine intake tomorrow will be Charlie Sheen.  

How much coffee do you drink daily?

My Favorite Barista

Today is my 9 year wedding anniversary.  (Happy Anniversary Christy!)  Did you know:

we eloped after 2 weeks of engagement?
to Las Vegas?
gone from Bean Traders for less than 48 hours?
none of our staff or family knew we were even out of town till we got back? 

Wow.

Christy and I would not be together if it were not for coffee. We met when I was almost 16. I stopped for coffee as I usually did on the way to school. She was there working -the new barista. When I saw her, there was almost a halo of light above her head.  I'll never forget it. The way I felt inside at that moment I had never felt before or since. I didn't really understand at the time. I was face to face with my soulmate for the first time.

There were hurdles for us to conquer like the fact she didn't realize I was alive. No surprise since I was barely 16 and she 21. I spent a lot of time pining for Christy at CoffeeWorks. She was beautiful and care free with thick  flowing blond hair everywhere. She had an electric smile that lit up the whole room. She innocently and unknowingly seduced me with her tight barista skills and loose gauzy hippie shirts. When I first laid eyes on her we were in different worlds. She left CoffeeWorks when I was a junior in high school. I never thought I would see her again. She left in a VW bus to drive across America. The last words I told her were in 'another life' we would be going on that trip not her and her boyfriend.  I told her it should be me driving that bus. She looked at me with amusement while her boyfriend looked confused.

Life moved on. I graduated high school and crash  and burned at college. I also began working as a barista first in Asheville from spring 2000 till January 2001.  I moved back to Charlotte that new year and got the chance of a lifetime.  I was offered the job to become the new roaster and a barista  for CoffeeWorks.  No one said yes faster to a job offer than when Bruce asked me to give it a try. Working for CoffeeWorks made me know I wanted to be in coffee. 

I'll never forget the moment she reappeared. Early Spring 2001. I'm sitting out front of the shop. Pushing open the glass front door that always reflects blinding sunlight rays....there she was....asking if anyone had a light.  I did.  Soon we were chit chatting, catching up, and laughing.  No more obstacles in our way.  Quickly we started dating from a distance. I was in Charlotte working at CoffeeWorks. She was in Durham opening Bean Traders.

The writing was on the wall. It was all there in front of me. Christy. Durham. Bean Traders. Destiny.  I moved here November 30 2001.  Hit the ground running.  Amazing!

10 WTF coffeeshop moments (2)

5. Because there is a bus stop right in front of one of the Bean Traders, sometimes random... not looking for coffee just a place to sit...people end up in the shop. No one left a bigger mark than the angry lady who "left her mark" in our soft cushioned chair after the Barista told her she would need to make a purchase to stay in the shop.  Needless to say the soaked chair and the lady who was responsible for said chair had to go with the help of local law enforcement.

4. At BT there is no 'bus station'-a place for customers to put their dirty dishes, food remnants, and last sips of coffee. Instead there are two scenarios. 1) Customers leave their used dishes on their tables and a Barista clears and wipes the tables. 2) Customers bring dishes to the bar or kitchen.  But one day a third scenario played out. There was a table we had not cleared yet. On the table was an empty to-go cup and a few final bites of a muffin. A customer who was not in anyway connected to the table or person that left the table, came in before it was cleared and actually consumed left items and then approached the bar and ordered a refill with empty cup.

3. A motorist that was parked in front of the shop asked the Barista on break to blow into his breathalyzer ignition machine to help him start his car. Their brief conversation concluded and the Barista believed he had been drinking (uh..yea) so she said no to his request. He proceeded to ask other passing pedestrians while she went inside to call the police. When she returned to the front door he was driving off.  

2. Car pulling into parking space in front of BT hops the curb and drives directly into a support column that helps hold up the shopping center.  I braced for the shopping center to have a crumbling domino effect...but phew...she had only chipped the column she hit.

1. Beyond all these, my biggest WTF coffeeshop moment was definitely when a customer told me he would kill me.  This happened at the first coffeeshop I ever worked at.  I suggested he stop calling my co-worker sweetie, baby, honey, etc.  He wasn't cool with that and said if I ever said another word to him again...he would literally kill me.  He eventually came back in and said he might should have handled it differently...he wasn't going to kill me....we shook hands, and I continued to serve him until I left that job.

still alive to serve you in the am
DC

Love and Coffee

Today is the national day of love...aka Valentines Day and although I was on the verge of hitting "Post" on my part 2 of WTF Coffeeshop Moments I felt it was more romantic of me to post some love stuff. 

I realize every year there is some controversy over the commercialism of this day, but let's get real...if you have a spouse (especially a wife) you are probably doing at least one sweet gesture just to say "Happy Valentine love". Be it bringing that special someone coffee in bed, buying them a coffee card from their favorite place, or taking your love to have coffee and dessert after a special Valentine's night out, coffee is a player on Valentine's day....roses and chocolate are by no means nervous they are losing their grip, but coffee is a contender for the less traditional crowd. 

And aside from coffee being a player...it is the actual object of a whole lot of people's desires.  Just on Facebook there are hundreds of pages centered around the love of coffee...and thousands upon thousands of videos and other social media professions.....not even half the number of pages professing the love of our red flower friends.....take that roses!  Check out this sampler of 40 songs that mention coffee:

The main reason for my change of heart though, is I actually met my wife at a coffeeshop when I was 15...crushed from afar until 18.....then re-connected again at that same shop when I was 20..asked her out and 10 years (2 children) and a lot of coffee later...we still are on this journey together. 




Happy Valentine's Day all!

10 WTF Coffeeshop moments (Part 1)

10. The ice storm of 2002.  The Triangle completely came to a stand still while everything was frozen and covered in ice. This was before Bean Traders expanded. This was also close to when South Point Mall opened. Luckily BT and the mall are on the same power grid. We got electricity restored around lunch time. In 10 years this was the most crowded I've ever seen the shop. People were sitting and laying anywhere and everywhere they could find space. They were just glad to be somewhere warm with power.  Almost all of Durham had lost power due to frozen power lines.  It felt like most of South Durham was trying to enter our business. The wait time to get a specialty drink from the bar was a solid 45-55 minutes. We had around twenty-thirty beverages in the que at any given moment and our brewers actually shut down because of the volume.

To top it all off my mother-in-law came to visit the day the power went out and we did not get power back until the day after she left.  And since no one could get to work for 3 of those days...my wife, mother-in- law, and I worked everyday @ BT then went home and froze in the dark just to get up and repeat. This is a WTF because that is what my mother-in-law was thinking about her trip to see us.

9. Four words: Bird in the store! On particularly nice afternoons I like to prop open the front door to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. Doing this immediately puts everyone at risk for a fly by. Can you imagine the look on the person's face who is studying from a text book beneath a spacious window on a glorious spring day at BT when all of the sudden a bird flies into the shop then into the window trying to get out and lands smack dab in the center of the text they are reading?  I don't have to imagine. I can just remember.

8. We give customers a discount on drip coffee who bring their own mug to the shop.  I was so shocked one day when I saw a regular syphoning his travel mug into additional travel mugs he and his wife were hiding below the bar.  I was on the telephone in the kitchen and walked out to see this activity going on.  After confirming with the barista they had only paid for one cup I confronted them at their vehicle out front. The husband returned to the shop and paid for additional cups of coffee.

7. Two regular customers (unrelated) have attempted murder. One of them was successful. They are both in jail now.  Strangely, the day the former reported his wife missing to the police, he also loaded up on French Roast at Bean Traders and told us his wife was missing. He asked us to hang a flyer on her behalf.  Weird! Creepy!  I was the only person working.

6. We used to roast on-site at Bean Traders. When you roast coffee you take on the risk of a having a roaster fire...and we did.  During our fire there was a customer who was completely absorbed in their cell phone call- so much so they didn't notice the smoke billowing all around them filling the shop and flooding out the open front door, nor all the other folks evacuating the store, nor the fire truck sirens getting really close.  I think a fire fighter actually had to ask her to leave the shop in the end.

My first cup

At the age of 15, I rose from sleep late on a Saturday morning in my best friend's basement bedroom. We ascended to the kitchen on the narrow spiral staircase I had raced up and down uncountable times. Then he asked me the  question that in retrospect paved my destiny in more ways than I could ever have fathomed at such a young age. “Yes! I want some coffee!”  I had never (drank/drunk)?? coffee in my young, sheltered life.  I remember watching him prepare our brew on his father’s generic Mr. Coffee auto drip machine. I was impressed by the gurgling and popping sounds it made. I know there was so much sugar in that first cup that it would probably be undrinkable to me now. I know the same about how much cream I used. I was told the coffee was Colombian Supremo roasted just up the road at a funky, local coffee shop.





      

Love at first taste! I know I had a second cup that morning. I loved the way it tasted.....made me feel.

It was not long before I, like a lot of thirsty curious teens in the 1995 Suburbs USA, made my way to that funky coffee shop to start my journey in  coffee and its  culture. 

What happenstance that my love affair with coffee started on that fateful Saturday.

What about you? Do you remember that first cup?     

Espresso

I started my love affair with espresso 16 years ago when I was 15 years of age.  That is also the year my future wife (who was a Barista at the coffeeshop) served me my first cold-brewed espresso ice coffee.  I soon after learned that espresso wasn't a type of bean, but a blend of a variety of coffee beans that is chosen to produce a thick, rich, tasty shot when concentrated.  Espresso can also be used to describe your brewing method.  Some roasters use as little as 2 beans in their blends or as many as 6.  I used a special 5 bean blend for 9 years that my friend and coffee mentor Bruce of Coffeeworks gave me when I roasted for him in 1999.  Bruce worked at Joffreys, one of the 3rd Wave Coffee pioneers, before opening Coffeeworks in Charlotte, NC in 1991.  When we opened Bean Traders in 2000, Bruce gave us his best wishes and blessing to use his secret espresso recipe.  Over the years we have had people from all over the world try our espresso, and overwhelmingly the response was the same: it was a favorite.  A couple of years ago, quite by accident, I tweaked the recipe.  I ran out of the green coffee of one of our espresso blend beans and had to improvise with what I thought might be an unnoticeable difference.  Immediately we were getting more and more compliments...even our loyal espresso drinkers were asking how we managed to make our espresso better. 

We never went back to the old recipe and now I feel good knowing that one day I might be able to pass along my very own secret recipe to the next generation roaster.  The experience really taught me that the art of coffee is a constant moving ever changing world and to not be afraid to move with it even though you have something that works.  You can always have a better product and you will never know that until you try something different.  We have always had that philosophy in-store with design, product, and beverage, but I never thought to move it further to roasting. 

When I choose my first caffeine in-take of the day, I usually start with a double shot of espresso.  It hits me fast and then allows me to drink my black regular coffee without desperation.  If you want a great double shot to start your day without leaving the house, remember espresso can be just as enjoyable to drink at home as well as your favorite coffeeshop.  Of course I know a lot goes with going to the coffeeshop besides the espresso (atmosphere, friends, great Baristas, getting out of the house, etc) but if you want to stay at home from time to time, here are my suggestions for achieving great espresso at home:

1) Buy your espresso fresh from a local roaster or via internet from a micro-roaster who roasts to order.

2) Grind your espresso fine enough to extract all of the flavor, but not too fine that the espresso becomes a muddy consistency that is not penetrable.  If your espresso grinds feel like baby powder, it is too fine....if it feels like bigger grains of sand, it is too coarse.

3) Make sure to store your coffee properly.  If possible buy whole bean and grind as you need.  Whole bean or ground coffee should be kept in an air-tight container, at room temp, and away from direct sunlight and humid conditions.  And contrary to popular belief...do not freeze...and the fridge is the death of your bean.

4) Getting a proper machine is key.  If you are drinking straight espresso, a stove top maker is great.  A Mr. Moka or Moka Express is fine, but if you want a flashy version go for it.  The options are plenty this day and age, and for the most part the stovetop makers are usually the same internally.  If you want to make cappuccinos or lattes as well, there is a plethora of options out there.  My advice is to get a pump machine which is more powerful so easier to get better shots than its weak brother steam driven.  Do your homework and read reviews and you should be able to find your fit.

5) Keep said pump machine clean. Wipe down your machine after every use..it's the least you can do since it serves you your morning sanity.  Every time you use your steam wand, you should purge it before and after steaming your milk and always wipe excess milk off wand with damp towel every time.  Backflushing is utmost important and should be done 1-2 times a week for a home machine.

6) Using water that has no distinct smell or taste is extremely important. If you filter your water..great...if not, it could taint your beverage.  Countless times people have asked me why their shots taste funny or sour at home and I advise to use a clean tasting water like LeBleu and problem solved.  Who knew tap water had such flavor. 

7) Proper tamping (after instructions 1-6 are accomplished) is the finishing move on great espresso.  First, use an actual tamper and tamp it proper.  Make sure you extract your shot in a warm porcelain espresso cup / mug and that the extraction time is 20-30 seconds.  If your shot brews nice and has crema (the layer of foam on your espresso), a nice crema.....your espresso task is accomplished my friend.  Tip one back for me.

see you in the am
DC