Wormhole Guest Roaster Dec. 2011: Counter Culture Coffee
Count us here at The Wormhole as total suckers for shiny glass items, sci-fi paraphernalia and long, meandering conversations RE: quantities of high-end coffee beans and the process that begat them, plant to gullet.
Gullet-wise, it’s time to announce that we are currently offering the tastily balanced beans of Counter Culture Coffee in our guest roasting program this month. One of their most unique products, Cascara (link a PDF, fyi), is also featured in our current signature drink, The McCallister.
Canaan Vallejos (our resident, self-described “stuck up, half-witted, scruffy looking nerf herder”), who heads up our guest roaster program along with Andrea “Ottermatic Weapon” Otte. Vallejos said it was an easy call to feature Counter Culture: “This company has really been an asset to the industry in a whole here in the states,” he says. “Good people. I digz.”
DEDICATED COFFEE SPACE
Hence, we visit the non-restrictive confines of Counter Culture Coffee’s Chicago Training Center, one of a number of such coffee data-saturated temples Counter Culture has created up and down the East Coast. Their foray of such endeavors into Chicago creates new opportunities for all of us: coffee professionals, home baristas, random sippers of roast and brew notes and such things, and coffee drinkers who want to know more about what’s in their cup.
For the at-large coffee aficionado, Counter Culture’s regular Friday a.m. cupping (eleven-hundred hours) puts you immediately behind the scenes of coffee culture in America, a place we at The Wormhole have called home for some time now. The crew at the Chicago facility mainly consists of Joshua Dugue and Richard Futrell.
These two work to set up interesting coffee tastings at these weekly cupping and foster discussion in about as gentle a manner as is possible; there are no right’s and wrong’s, just personal opinions and a general yearning to dissect the aroma, flavor and other characteristics of coffee from the bean to dry grounds to adding appropriately heated water to said dry grounds to create a “cup” (hence, cupping) fully of fresh, perfect coffee that’s capped with a layer of grounds at the top that one breaks with a spoon, getting said nose as close to the cup as possible at that moment as possible and taking in the heady flavors and such issuing forth. Take notes (we love notes!), talk about it, enjoy. It’s not that complicated (oh, but it can be).
Past the Friday a.m. cupping, in-depth, knowledge-enhancing programs of all kinds are offered for coffee professionals. “On a daily basis, we do lots of education for beginner baristas and experienced baristas, to hone their skills,” says Futrell, noting recent discussions included a chat about coffee quality and sourcing with Tim Hilton, Counter Culture’s coffee buyer and Ken Burlich, their sustainability and product relations manager. Also, a pro series where Peter Giuliano works with professional baristas to up their game.
“Over the last five years, [we’ve seen the development of] a new class of professional barista, who are dedicated to their craft in the same way a chef works at being a chef,” says Futrell. “Ten years ago, barista was largely an hourly position you did during college, now it can be on par with a baker, a chef, a farmer.”
The pro series appeals to that type of person (training at this level doesn’t come cheap, we’re talking in the range of $500 for a two-day session with Giuliano. But knowledge is power, power is money…yada yada yada. It’s really just about making ridic good coffee that you enjoy however much though you put into it…or don’t. We put lots.
A BIT ABOUT COUNTER CULTURE COFFEE
Though Counter Culture beans are still fully roasted in Charlotte, N.C.; however, as mentioned briefly above, they’ve reached out to coffee communities across the country with regional training centers. “We don’t have shops of our own, which most roasters of our size do and that’s how they present their brand to the public, so it’s both a brand experience center for the public and a way for us to completely embrace our exclusive customers–prepare them to present our brand to the public.
“The real crux of what we’re all about is partnership, strong partnerships from seed to cup. We’re about supply chain transparency and relationships, connecting the end consumer to the farmer,” says Futrell, noting again how important retail partners are in this process. In Chicago, you can find Counter Culture beans at Swim Cafe, The Grind, Common Cup–and, seasonally, The Wormhole.
More about how they work with coffee shops: “Our sales team are more coffee educators,” says Futrell. “When we meet with a potential customer, the idea is to have a conversation and see if we’re a good fit for each other.
“We’re not going to come in and do your coffee program, but we’re going to be there to help make sure you do it well,” says Futrell, continuing: “For instance, we have cafes ask us to lead cuppings. What we will do is have you and your staff in for a cupping leaders lab, then help you with two public cupping at your cafe. The first one, I’ll lead and your managers assist; then, we flip it and they lead their own cupping. You and your staff need to be the experts; more powerful if the expert is the person behind the counter [on a daily basis].”
As far as the early days of Counter Culture and the “crop” part of the process, Futrell says, “Geoff and Peter were going around the world ten years ago, doing things differently–looking at the soil, processing techniques, getting to know the farmers, tasting the coffee and giving the farmers feedback.
“As they were doing this, they created that style, all about transparency through the entire supply chain and also quality. Now, we know we can pay farmers for high-quality coffee because we can charge more for high-quality coffee.
“Our triple bottom line for sustainability: environmental, social and fiscal,” says Futrell. “Sustainability is also about profit: a sustainable farming operation is one that makes money and it’s the same with roasters. The real goal with direct trade is that every knows who makes what money and the goal is that everyone along the way makes the money they need to [be sustainable].”
ON THE CHICAGO COFFEE SCENE
“I love being in Chicago, and so does Counter Culture,” says Futrell. “We would much rather compete with high-quality roasters here in Chicago, it makes us all better. We taste each other’s coffee, learn from each other…it’s a fair way to compete and there is so much business out there, none of us are going to put the others out of business.
FIND COUNTER CULTURE HERE
Counter Culture on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Oh yes, $1 from every purchase of Counter Culture’s 2011 holiday release goes to charitable uses, FYI.
