"…The sky is a blue gum streaked with rose. The trees are black.
The grackles crack their throats of bone in the smooth air.
Moisture and heat have swollen the garden into a slum of bloom.
Pardie! summer is like a fat beast, sleepy in mildew…"
Dear BOPpers,
Welcome to our new newsletter, a place to learn the latest goings-on, tidbits, and scuttlebutt relevant to your friendly neighborhood coffee roaster, the BOP. I'll be sending these out once a month.
Coffee Is A Fruit
As the summer reaches its steamy zenith, this truth, that coffee is a fruit, is at the top of my mind.
This knowledge has greatly increased my enjoyment of coffee. It does not become what it is without the earth that nourishes it and the many people who cultivate and curate it before it reaches your cup. It is sweet. It is diverse. Its profile changes with time and the seasons. It is both ephemeral and in a sense, eternal. Knowing all this makes me love it more, and makes me want to experience it more broadly.
My job as a roaster is to curate your coffee in a way that reminds you it's not just some manufactured brown powder –-- it's a fruit, made delicious through the steady, conscious work of many hands.
Farmers tend small trees to produce berries with big seeds packed with caffeine. They pick the berries at peak ripeness, then remove the fruit of the berry and dry the seeds. At this point, the raw green coffee beans are ready for export, and for roasters like me to apply heat in such a way that the green seeds become a delicious brown that consumers can grind and extract their essence with water.
A fresh batch of green Brazilian beans will arrive at our roastery in Parkville in the coming days. They will have a certain “Brazilian” characteristic (nutty and smooth). But, these will not be the same beans as the ones you tasted last year. They’re grown on a different farm by a different farmer’s hand. Most importantly – they experienced a different growing season, different levels of precipitation, different temperatures. All these things affect the way the berries develop and how the beans eventually taste.
Green coffee beans can generally stay "fresh" for at least a year after they've been processed, and after that, the nuanced, vivid flavors that farmers worked to create begin to atrophy. After coffee is roasted, it spends a few days releasing the gasses that were created by the chemical reactions during the roasting process; then, the roasted beans reach their peak tastiness, after which they slowly lose their vibrance over the next few months. The job of the local roaster is to source green beans you may find delicious from the farms within their peak, roast them in a way that does justice to the fruit, and serve them pleasurably.
Hartford Is A City
In my experience, one of the best ways to appreciate something better is to acknowledge what it is and to develop an understanding of the labor and talent that goes into making it beautiful. Learning to sing in a choir increased my enjoyment of great vocalists and harmonies. Learning to cook chicken 65 or ghee roast has made me so much more appreciative of the incredible food I receive in Hartford restaurants and the homes of friends.
Another simple but forgettable truth is that Hartford is a city.
People often ask me why I chose to live in Hartford, and what I like about it. Friends from outside New England usually know nothing about Hartford and want to learn. Friends who are from Hartford are curious about what I see in the city and how that tracks with their experience. But it's the friends who have spent time in Hartford’s suburbs but not much in the city itself who react from a place of shock and revulsion.
This hate for our state's capital and fourth-largest city has always felt strange to me. In the suburb of Indianapolis where I grew up, folks treated the city like a city. They knew it was different from the suburbs; that there were things worth doing and seeing, even if it meant you may have to walk a few blocks from where you parked your car; that there were different neighborhoods with different characters, and that, yes, some of them had been left raw and even dangerous by generations of disinvestment.
All this amounted to a sense of respect for the region's urban core that I've found is lacking in Connecticut. So often, my CT suburban friends speak of Hartford as though its history ended in its lowest moments. They speak of its former greatness, if they remember it at all, as a foil for the irredeemably sorry state in which it finds itself.
My love for Hartford stems from my respect for what it is, what it was, and what it can be. In my eight years here I have come to know the city as a living thing, and so I've come to recognize its beauty.
Recently, a city employee told me, "A city is not a place. It's an idea, made up of systems, that’s made real by people." It is no secret that many of Hartford's systems are currently sclerotic and flawed. As a citizen and an entrepreneur, this can be frustrating. But I have faith in the city because I have faith in its people, enough faith to consider myself proudly one of them. Day by day we are all defining what Hartford is. I am optimistic, and I am enjoying myself.
THE ROUND-UP
New Café Hours
Starting September 9th, we will again be OPEN ALL SEVEN DAYS.
Starting September, we are slightly revising our hours:
Monday-Wednesday 8AM-3PM
Thursday-Sunday 8AM-5PM
Fall Specials Are Dropping the First Week of September!
Pumpkin pie latte
Tres Leches Latte
Pistachio matcha
French Toast Cold Brew
Local Apple Cider
Smores hot chocolate
Current Coffee Menu
Bolivia-Apolo: Washed, light-medium roast with notes of tangerine and caramel
DR Ramirez Estates: Washed, medium-dark roast, low acidity with notes of chocolate
DR Ramirez Estates: Aged Natural, light roast with notes of berry and cedar
Kenya Swara: Washed, medium roast with notes of cherry tomato
New coffees coming in early September!
Brazil, Sebastiao Peixoto, Natural - from a different farm owned by the same family from whom we sourced last year's Brazil bag. This is tasting nutty, slightly chocolatey, and wicked smooth. Sourced by our friends at BD Imports.
Colombia, Diever y Alvaro Galindez, Washed - these are coming from a new importing partner, Semilla (no relation, sadly), and they are chocolatey, juicy, a little fruity, and delicious.
Burundi, Hafi and Akeza Natural - back by popular demand, we are adding two coffees sourced by JNP Coffee. These are going to be the brightest and lightest coffees on our menu.
Wholesale and Catering
Don't forget we offer wholesale pricing for anyone looking to buy our chai or coffee (beans or beverages) in bulk. Drop us a line through the website, or better yet send us an email!
Until next month,
Jack at the BOP
Comments