In preparation for our move next week, we’re selling a bunch of supplies we won’t be needing to take with us. If you would be interested, please give us a call at 347-338-8267 or email me at neil@tamptamp.com.

Here’s an approximate list of what we have left. Let me know what you’re interested in and we’ll work out a price:

opened/used
Toddy Containers/lids – 6
HP Photosmart Printer – 1
16 oz French Press – 1
51 oz French Press – 3
Pitcher Rinser – 1
Bodum Kettles – 1
Bouillon Cups – 33
Rocks Glasses – 36
SCAA Cups – 56 + 2 boxes (PT’s has them)
Chemex (used) – 2 – SOLD
Escali Scale – 1 – SOLD
20 oz Steam Pitchers – 6
12 oz Steam Pitchers – 5
Coffee Sample Trays
Ditting Grinder – 1 – SOLD
Bathroom Scale – 1
Latte Bowls – 3
Latte Saucers – 6
Demitasse – 22
Demitasse Saucers – 9
Cap. Cups – 14
Cap. Saucers – 5

Unopened/Brand New:
20 oz Steam Pitchers – 2
Coffee Tools – 2
5×7 Blue Ikea Frame – 1
Chemex – 1 – SOLD
Chemex Filters – 3 boxes – SOLD
16 oz French Press – 5
Bodum Grinder Mills – 3
48 oz Bodum french presses – 7
large white cooler – 1

As we embark on our west coast adventure, leaving some of our staff behind and moving into a new arena for TampTamp, we thought it was time to share some of the special language we’d developed to talk with one another while working at TampTamp HQ. This will also be helpful for those of you who may come across a TampTamper in the future, and you’ll wonder what they’re talking about when they say, “we need mollusk!” or “stop leprechauning me!”. Surely you must be curious, so take a vocabulary lesson from your favorite coffee preparation advisors.

Bad jokes are free, expression. (ety every espresso class ever taught) Anne’s introduction always begins with a bad joke, and then this quote.

Barber Shop, noun. (ety. The E-Myth Revisited) A term used to talk about consistency, and how the customer experience must be consistent across all visits or they will become confused and not return.

Beers @ tamptamp, noun. (ety. started shortly after wiggles started with us) A weekly roundtable where the staff and notable special guests gather to drink copious amounts of alcohol and discuss coffee and life.

Bolo tie, noun (exclamation). (ety. Sarah’s childhood) Whenever someone is about to say something that could escalate to an argument, or something WBS, someone else should yell out “bolo tie” to indicate it’s time to change the subject. Additional usage: “It’s starting to feel a little bolo tie in here.”

Coffee flavored coffee, adjective. (ety. the disenfranchised first time cuppers) The idea that coffee might actually, god-forbid, taste like coffee.

Dollar for a Dollar, (ety. Fast Trac Growth Ventures) The tendency to give something of equal value to us as a sample for our services, such as a free class when something of great value to the customers but relatively little value to us would do fine, such as a branded pen.

Espresso Rainbow, noun. (ety Neil’s advanced espresso courses) The act of splitting shots throughout the extraction to explain how espresso extracts. Must be used in conjunction with an interpretive dance of the rainbow, complete with describing red and blue as adjacent colors (they’re not). There’s something about the color of extractions in there, but we’re all still not sure what he means.

Flavor naming contest, noun. (ety. attending cuppings with superfluous descriptors) The tendency of coffee professionals to throw out big flavors with no regard to the flavor wheel. Examples: pork roast with mint jelly, sauteed onions and french bread with a red velvet cupcake for dessert. Outcomes can go from slightly annoying to detrimental to first-time cuppers’ experiences.

French Press as Drip, noun. (ety. Seth Lester taught us this phrase) The practice of making large, 51 oz french presses and pouring them into airpots to be held at temperature until it is time to serve. This is trouble, as the large number of undissolved solids at high temperature continues to extract, leading to overextracted, bitter coffee after just a few minutes (see this for more information).

Help Juice, noun. (ety. Seth Lester at BGA camp). After many, many hours volunteering, one is entitled to a discreet beer or shot of bourbon. It’s help juice.

Ideas @ tamptamp, noun. (ety. created by Anne in order to keep Neil from spouting crazy ideas at all hours of the day) The email address TampTamp created to deal with new ideas from the staff. Anyone can email it with an idea for TampTamp and it is checked and discussed every Friday prior to beers (see beers @ tamptamp, above).

Kumbaya noun/party. (ety. ideas @ tamptamp) TampTamp’s trip to the woods to discuss the company and drink copious
amounts of alcohol. Shortened from Kumbaya in the Woods. Highly recommended for all organizations.

Leprechaun, verb. (ety. Neil and Anne pre-TampTamp) Neil mentioned interesting facts about leprechauns while Anne was trying to get out the door for work and Anne said “Stop Leprechauning me!” It stuck.

Mollusk, proper noun. (ety. Anne Boatner & TampTamp Inc.’s my little pony.). Anne Boatner came to work one day stating she’d had a dream where TampTamp owned a pony named Mollusk. Anne jumped for glee and said, “but we DO have a pony!” Mollusk has since become the company mascot and our talking stick, used both at TampTamp meetings and with the BGA Executive council. Just ask Chris Baca.

One-y Whip, noun. (ety. Benjamin Liebmann, at TampCamp) The strange idea that Neil has a “style” of latte art pouring, which entails starting the bottom leaf of a rosetta with a quick “whip” across the cup. Jordan Barber has been rumored to call this technique “The Cadillac”. Also supposedly Neil invented it, but that’s not true.

One True Barista, mythical noun. (ety. years of dealing with cafes as a training, consulting, and staffing services providers). The belief among some cafe owners that they will hire one “super” barista to manage the store, run the espresso bar, and act as the face of the company. This barista will work for them forever and never leave, and has exactly the same beliefs that the cafe owner has, and oh yeah, also will work for $10/hr. In our experience, this barista lasts 3 months.

Orange, noun. (ety. Cat Moran) Any junk food, though most often cheetos. Became classic on Eric Grimm’s first day, when Anne asked for orange on his way in and he brought an orange.

Pull a Neil/Sarah/Wiggles/Anne, verb. (ety. TampTamper’s personalities) Depending on the person, the “pulled a” quote can mean anything from throwing your hands up in disgust (Sarah) to telling your latte art instructor that you mom can tongue it (Wiggles).

Robusty-poo, noun. (ety. Seth Lester during our Kumbaya in the woods). While stopped for lunch on the way back to NYC, we each paid $2 for a 6-oz cup of robusta coffee. His quote? “You can tell it’s Robusty-poo because your heart is beating out of your chest.”

Stupid Busy, adjective. (ety. Our experiences as temps) A busy cafe that could feel much less busy with one more person on staff or with better workflow. Needlessly busy.

Tea drinker, noun. (ety. Neil) Not as popular as WBS (see below); a put-down for coffee geeks. “What are you, some kinda tea-drinker?”

Tongue it, verb. (see above) When trying to draw a rosetta, tounging it is placing the lip of the milk pitcher so close to the surface of the latte that it appears to be able to lick up the milk.

WBS/”in tents”, adjective. (ety. Neil’s favorite pun/joke) Talking about something that is outstanding or difficult: Where do Bedouins Sleep? In tents. Get it? Intense? It’s catching on. Really. Shortened to WBS.

“X” percenter, adjective. (ety. Danny Meyer’s book Setting the Table) Danny Meyer hires 51%-ers, meaning that at least 51% of the candidate’s qualifications are personality based, while the rest is technical. “X” percenter is used in two ways: 1) “That guys totally a 31%-er,” meaning they aren’t very nice. 2) “They are totally a 51%-er,” meaning they are awesome.

by Sarah Leslie

I really like French Press coffee. It’s the first “alternative” brew method I mastered as I learned more about coffee preparation and ditched my mini Mr. Coffee. I enjoy the body and the relative ease of the French Press. I think the French Press is great for anyone brewing coffee at home: it’s inexpensive, it’s easy to explain how to make, and it makes great coffee. In short, I love the French Press for home brewing and I will preach it’s benefits far and wide!

However… there are two trends in coffee biz these days involving the once revered French Press that I just don’t understand: “French Press as Drip” and the dreaded restaurant French Press. The later issue will have to wait for a different blog post. Today I would like to start a discussion about the French Press as Drip phenomenon.

Maybe it was the Clover, or maybe it was the beginning of the manual brewing craze, or maybe it was because we were all just sick and tired of poorly made coffee from auto-drip machines. But for some reason cafes and roaster/retailers began swapping their big, fancy Fetco and Bunn machines for a half-dozen large French Presses and a few airpots. And then this idea gained credence in the specialty coffee world. People were told that serving batch-brew coffee this way was better. And this madness took over the United States cafe by cafe. But it’s time for the madness to come to an end!

Sacrilege or Sense? Maybe a bit of both. Although there are definitely problems/challenges with automatic drip coffee, I just don’t see how FPAD solves any of them except that French Presses are cheaper than auto-drip machines. In fact, not only is FPAD not better than auto-drip machines, in a lot of respects it’s actually much worse.

Clean Pot/System
The key to a great coffee program is cleanliness. If the equipment isn’t kept clean or maintained, the quality of your coffee will suffer. Batch brewers and airpots are often neglected when it comes to regular cleaning. With FPAD, not only do you have to be vigilant about the cleanliness of your airpots, you also have to maintain a clean fleet of French Presses to prepare your coffee. The fine mesh of the plunger, if not cleaned properly, can hold onto oils that are then exposed to your next batch of coffee.

Also, cleaning out a French Press is a mess because all of the grounds are left in the bottom of the brewer — less convenient than removing the spent grounds in a filter.

Old Press v. Old Drip
In the business we never recommend serving coffee that has been brewed more than 30 minutes ago. But old French Pressed coffee is particularly bad and it’s self-life is shorter than automatic brewed coffee. This is because the French Press allows more sediment to end up in the cup. This sediment continues to brew as the coffee sits resulting in an over-extracted cup of coffee. So unless you instantly serve all that coffee in the airpot once it’s been brewed, well you are serving old AND over-extracted coffee.

The manual brewing revolution that is taking over coffee bars across the world is great. But I would argue that if you really want to elevate your coffee program, you should consider a manual brew-to-order bar instead of FPAD.

This week, while some people were having fun out in California at Camp Pull-a-Shot, other coffee professionals were in New York for the NCA’s Fall Educational Conference. I (Neil) was invited to be an instructor for the SCAA’s Introduction to Cupping (the first time the SCAA and the NCA have worked together on a project like this). On top of that experience, the NCA allowed me to stay to attend the conference. I certainly learned quite a bit from the entire experience.

One of the most timely talks given the current status of the market was “The Current Green Coffee Market.” It was paneled by Jim Cleaves of Dunkin’ Brands, John Meyer of ADM, Jonathan White of White Coffee, Christian Wolthers of Wolthers America, and Jon Stefenson of Atlantic Specialty Coffee. These people knew their industry in ways we simply live without inside the barista bubble – but should we? Some of the highlights (please correct me if I’m wrong in any of this):

• Production – This year has zero carryover coffee, meaning everything in the world right now is fresh (sort of). As of now, the estimated worldwide crop totals will be about 134.7 million bags, giving us a carryover of ~1 million bags compared to estimated consumption. Next year, however, it going to be a lean year, with consumption expecting to outstrip production by 3 million bags. So while prices will go down again at the end of the year, they’ll be higher next year. One of the biggest issues effecting the market today is origin consumption. Brazil’s consumption is up 5% this year, and is using nearly 25% of their crop internally. This puts pressure on the rest of the world. Keeping up with demand is difficult.
• Market Volatility – The volatility in the market is due to the economy. Right now the safest place to invest is in futures. It works as a protection against inflation and deflation, so when the stock markets take a hit, money floods into futures. Traditionally, only people buying actual futures bought them, so 15 years ago, there were far fewer transactions and a much more stable market. Today, hedge funds and speculators are making the market much less stable. Swings of 6 or 7 percent are not uncommon in a day. This will reduce both as the economy improves and once the price goes down after the strong Colombia crop is released.
• Differentials – The differentials have been extremely high for quite a while. A differential is the premium paid for a higher quality brand of coffee (Panama has C + “x” differential, Colombia is C + “y”, etc.). Colombia’s Differentials have been very high lately due to a low yield (I think) from last year. That has led many buyers to try to find similar coffees from other origins like Costa Rica and Guatemala, pushing their differentials up. Combined with an inflated market, these prices are difficult for many buyers to swallow, but it should be reduced a bit once the market goes down. The big question is whether Colombian Supremo will still reign now that people know they can get as good or better coffee elsewhere.
• Brazil – Should it be tendered to the C market? Most say no. In order to be in the C market, coffee has to be “washed mild.” Brazil has traditionally been a naturals country. Adding Brazil to the market would flood it with less expensive, naturally processed, low-grown coffee that doesn’t meet the standards of the ICE. It might cause the market to react violently. But the other side of that coin is that Brazil is already part of that market. If C prices are too high, buyers go instead to a “Brazil contract” and buy the coffee off the market. Adding them to the market would only add one more layer of complexity to the price, with differentials being lower than the C price. Brazil produces nearly 1/3 of the world’s arabica coffee, and can’t be ignored, because where Brazil goes, so goes the market.

Very interesting stuff, and it makes me curious what the next year of coffee will look like.

As I depart the east coast and look back on the work I’ve done over the past two years at TampTamp, some big lessons I’ve learned keep coming back to me. I learned them from some places that are totally normal and others that are surely a bit unexpected, which I will reference below. I know that some people are pretty sad that we will be leaving NYC, to which I say: Don’t be! Here are some things you can do to drink the TampTamp Kool Aid, live a bit of the TampTamp way, and to help out your fellow coffee professionals. More likely than not, you’ll be teaching us a thing or two about it before I know it.

1. Probably the single most useful lesson I was given during my tenure in NYC was the adage, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” I learned the phrase at a commercial leasing seminar offered by the NYC small business office. The phrase certainly applies to commercial real estate, but as it bounced around in my brain it became apparent how much it applies to so many other areas of life and work. From that expression, I learned to give it a shot, reach out to others, and ask for help. The response has come in the form of sponsorships, volunteer hours, participation in events, paying clients, and the same request from my colleagues – to which I was happy to give my support. I’ve also learned not to take no for an answer, something that I think baristas sometimes get stuck on. If I had given up the first time a shop owner discouraged my participation in a barista course, or competition, or event, I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today! But I kept asking, and wasn’t satisfied until I did have what I needed. It is out there if you reach out and look for it.

2. On the flip side of this life lesson is “be humble.” I would like to think that humility has always been a feature of my personality, although it always sounds silly when someone brags about how humble they are. Perhaps it was from my days with Dan Griffin at the start of TampTamp, or from my influence from Nick Cho, who humbly thanks compliments on the enormous contribution he’s made to the people within specialty coffee (notable example of the month, Barista Magazine‘s cover model, Ryan Jensen), or Peter Giuliano, who commonly asks more questions of those around him than offers his own extensive knowledge of coffee.

In addition to those three figures, I also give myself the constant reminder that at the end of the day, we are just making cups of coffee. I try to keep that on my mind whenever I might want to cross a line with a guest in a cafe, or get mad at an employee, or accuse someone of being stupid or uninformed when it comes to coffee. When it comes right down to it, it’s a lot harder to say “Yes” than it is to say “No”, so I both take “no” with water under the bridge, and take each “yes” as a gift (making sure to say thank you and give credit whenever due). I hope I give the same back to the community. I hope more baristas will keep that in mind, and be humble with each customer they serve (and each employer they work for!), remembering that each time they say yes instead of saying no, they give the customer, themselves, and specialty coffee a gift. Thank you!

3. “A person’s name is the sweetest sound in any language.” This one is straight-up Dale Carnegie, and I am not afraid to admit it. I’m also not afraid to tell you that if your boss or co-workers tell you that people don’t want you to know their name, they are wrong. Especially in this day of hyper-connectivity, it’s become even more paramount to people to have real, tangible relationships with people they know and trust. Especially when they are sharing food with another human being – one of the most basic rituals of our existence. While I’m not insisting that every customer that walks in the door should have keys to your house, I am saying that sucking it up and writing, “Candice” on a cup instead of the fourth medium latte in a row will make everyone happier. And amazing things happen when you move to a first name basis – Candice may share some common interest that you would never had known about if you had kept the relationship closed.

The same goes for employees – I’ve worked in shops where employees don’t even know each others’ names (!). This is a frightening situation; morale stays low and of course employees aren’t interested in their customers’ names. This is a downward spiral that can so easily be fixed – by giving baristas a special break room, by giving a bonus to staff when they learn every co-workers’ name, or by starting an internal message board to introduce the staff to one another. The teamwork and camaraderie that comes from those simple steps can have huge impacts on a company, exponentially beyond what you’d believe. And it all starts with, “Hi, I’m Anne, what’s your name?”

3. Two lessons that I learned together about customer service delivery are “Under-promise and over deliver.” and “Never Give a Dollar for a Dollar.” Now that I know them, they are very basic tenets to live by in retail. Duh. But it did take well over a year in the service business, and several years in retail before that to get all the way there.

Both were explained to me in the Kauffman Foundation’s free FastTrac: Growth Venture course Neil & I enrolled in this winter, and shortly thereafter I had a picture perfect representation of “under-promise and over deliver” happen to me.

I was flying out to Seattle, on Jetblue of course, and it was getting to be the end of the ride. We were probably already over Montana, but I was hungry for more snacks. I stopped the stewardess and asked if there were any more sweet potato chips. “Hm, I’m not sure, we may be out. I’ll go check for you,” she said. “Oh, ok,” I replied, “if you just have regular potato chips, that’s fine too.” She went back to the storage room, and returned, not only victorious with the sweet potato chips, but also with the other chips. That simple moment so perfectly illustrated the concept that I still think about it, months later. She could have said, “yes, absolutely” and then come back apologetic and empty-handed, which is the complete opposite experience. But how often in specialty coffee do we follow through on the ultimate over-promise plastered on walls in every cafe: “we make the best coffee”? How can we make promises that we can, unquestionably, measurably keep with our customers – and then over-deliver?

The concept of “Never Give a Dollar For a Dollar” is one we in the coffee community have a hard time giving up. We are generous, and we love our products, and we want to share them with our colleagues, regulars, and friends. But when I sat down and wrapped my brain around this concept during the course, I realized – I was discounting, comping, and bartering TampTamp into bankruptcy. Now every time a retailer offers to buy me a cup of coffee, I am very wary – if I’m not paying you for your number one revenue generator, are you making enough to make sure everyone is getting paid, including yourself?

So if you are not supposed to give away your products, what can you give? Items that do not directly impact your own bottom line. The most classic example of this is the free toaster you get when you open a bank account. Banks don’t make toasters. They make more money from your money. But they entice you by sharing a free toaster with you. In fact, they probably bought thousands of toasters at much lower prices than retail in order to provide it to you. So the return on the investment for them is minimal, while the impact the consumer has is significant. Same goes for coffee. Maybe there’s a partnership you could work out with a local flower shop that will give a free bouquet to your regulars, so they can tap into a new market – which is at no cost to you. Or you can provide samples of your products, at fraction of the cost of comping a whole beverage, and that satisfies many more customers. Think outside the box, and start doing this math on your comping policy – it will certainly enlighten you.

4. The final, and most important, lesson I’ve learned comes from Danny Meyer. The sentiments from his book, Setting the Table, are the basis for just about everything we do here at TampTamp. If I could only take one concept from his book, it would be this, summed up in an online article: “But the biggest thing we do well–and the biggest thing we fail at–is making sure people feel heard. People don’t need to feel agreed with, so long as they know you took it in, looked them in the eye, and were thoughtful in your response.”

I’m so glad I can share my most recent experience with this phenomenon. It happened just last week, at the SCAA‘s Leadership Summit in Houston, TX. Last year when I went, the opening meeting was a little dry. They talked about how the previous year had been, and speakers gave presentations on explaining how the SCAA worked. While the information was useful, I didn’t feel particularly connected with the content at hand – even though as such an active member, I would be volunteering all weekend long to execute the plan spelled out to me in these very PowerPoint slides.

Flash to this year. Peter Giuliano and the SCAA decided to do something a little bit different. Rather than tell us what they were thinking, he asked us to get into groups and discuss what the SCAA meant to each of us there. Moderators were appointed to each group and then reported back the information at the end of the meeting. From that conversation there was a palpable excitement from the room – the discussions couldn’t get stopped when the moderators wanted to reconvene! It was clear that everyone there truly valued that Peter had simply asked – and offered to have SCAA staff really listen – to what our thoughts and concerns were as members. And while I’m sure many ideas will be implemented from what came out of the discussion, even if none of them had, I certainly felt much more strongly that I had contributed in a meaningful way to the work at hand over the weekend.

This is how customers and co-workers feel, too. No one really wants to feel like they are being told what to do. They like being given options, making choices, and being able to report back on their experiences to an attentive audience. Nothing is more frustrating to a customer or an employee if they feel as though their fantastic ideas (or necessary criticisms) are falling on deaf ears. Even just listening for a minute can reveal much more about your own personal level of service, or your entire company’s brand recognition in the community. So take some time to listen. If you haven’t lately, have a pizza party and ask your staff about questions or ideas they might have. Put out some comment cards to see what your guests are thinking. Don’t be afraid to ask how a drink was, or if there was any way you could make the experience better. And when there are criticisms or concerns, listen closely and see if there are ways you can improve. By keeping yourself open, you’ll find yourself surrounded by people who truly stand behind you, your company, and your reputation. Taking the time to ask questions and listen in earnest is one of the single most effective investments you can make in yourself and your company.

I am writing to announce some exciting news on behalf of TampTamp. After two and a half years helping 50 clients with dozens of cafe openings, trainings, and logging thousands of temporary barista hours, President Anne Nylander and Vice President Neil Oney have decided it is time to move on from the New York coffee scene. On November 15th, TampTamp Inc. will be relocating to Seattle, Washington.

We are honored to have met with, worked with, and learned from some amazing coffee people on the East Coast of the United States. We are thrilled to see the specialty coffee market flourishing in NYC and we see certain signs of more great coffee places in other places throughout the Northeast. We are certain that many passionate individuals will continue to grow the coffee companies and community that has sprung from a small handful of coffee lovers just a few years ago. I am personally proud to have brought so many wonderful people into the fascinating and never ending journey that is specialty coffee. I am especially thankful to everyone who has worked for TampTamp, especially most recently our fantastic Director of Office Relations Sarah Leslie and Director of Community Outreach Wiggles Peters. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

What does this all mean for TampTamp? Operationally, we will continue to be open, offer all of our current services and offer courses in NYC and Boston until November 15th. After November 15th, we will continue to return to NYC and the region for events and client visits, but will no longer offer public course dates on a regular basis.

While we move to Seattle, we are also taking the opportunity to reshape our company and take the opportunity to focus on my central area of expertise – developing training programs and systems for specialty coffee retailers and wholesalers. We do know that the company will undergo a bit of a radical transformation, but we are very excited to see what comes from the new incarnation. And of course, we are very excited to be closer to coffee people and companies we are excited to collaborate with in our new home. We hope to be welcomed with open arms and delicious espressos!

Thanks again for working with TampTamp since 2008, and stay tuned – notice of a going away event of some kind will be hitting your inboxes soon. TampTamp won’t leave NYC without one last splash of funjoyment!

Well, Fall is officially upon us and that means cooler weather! That also means it’s time for hot coffee and espresso drinks! I, for one, am really looking forward to wearing sweaters, and getting cozy with a hot cup of coffee. This is a great time of year to capitalize on the increased demand for hot coffee beverages (i.e. starting/updating a brew-to-order bar). Here is a collection of information from our experiences with brew-to-order coffee.

There’s been a serious trend in the industry in the past year or so towards brew-to-order coffee. Here are some tips/musings on how to effectively set up a pour over bar in your cafe and things you might want to consider addressing if you already have one set up.

Keep the batch brewer?
When transitioning from 100% batch brewing to a brew-to-order bar, many cafes choose to keep the batch brewer and highlight a few single origin selections on a brew-to-order menu. Cafes may choose to keep the batch brewer for many reasons including volume, price, and consistency with the customer. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with a well made batch brew, but if you are going to do a brew-to-order menu, why not go whole hog! It maybe a good idea to transition slowly from batch brew to brew-to-order, but once you’ve got the brew-to-order bar set-up and dialed-in, why not just go ahead and get rid of the batch brewer? It’ll allow you to focus on making great coffee consistently with the brew method you choose.

Which brew method will you choose?
There are lots of options out there for those looking to start a brew-to-order bar at their cafe. Each brew method has it’s own ups and downs and requires different equipment. Here’s a list (in no particular order) of possible brew methods and the special considerations each requires:

Hario v60 and Bonmac Pour Over- These pour overs are popular in brew-to-order bars. For this type of brew method, you’ll want to consider a rack or rail to hold the pour over above the cup. These come pre-fabricated from places like Espresso Parts and other coffee supply companies. If you are thinking about doing a high volume brew bar, you might want to consider plumbing in a drain tray. You won’t have to worry about emptying the run-off and it make pre-heating the brewer/wetting the filter a breeze.

Chemex- The chemex is similar to the v60 and Bonmac, but the coffee does not drip directly into the cup, it drips into the decanter attached to the cone. This means that you don’t have to worry about setting up a brew rail. All you need is a nice clear space on your counter. We brew a lot of chemex coffee at the TampTamp office and really love it! Plus, the curvy chemex is a great conversation starter.

Clever/Abid-The clever is similiar in shape to the cone of the v60 and chemex, but instead of being a pour over, the clever is a dwell brewer. The clever, like the chemex, requires very little counter space. Once the brew is complete, you just set the brewer on top of the cup and the coffee drips out the bottom. This method is great because it requires a little less tending than the methods listed above, but you have to be listening for the timer so that you don’t overextract cups of coffee.

There are also other brew methods that you could consider (i.e. french press, siphon, and aeropress) but I’ve not listed them here. I feel that in comparison, these brew methods have downsides that out weigh the quality, speed, and repeatability with which you will be able to prepare these coffees for your customers.

Some shops are tempted to employ all sorts of brew methods for their brew-to-order menus and while I’m not going to out and out say that I think that’s a bad idea, I would say that it might serve you better to start with one brew-to-order brew method and only add brew methods once you are certain you’re providing a great cup every time through training and quality control.

Workflow, workflow, workflow!
Once you’ve decided which brew method you are going to use and what beans you are going to brew, the next step is to think about workflow. I mean workflow in 2 senses here. On the one hand, you are going to need to get down to brass tacks about where this brewing-to-order is going to take place, who is going to do the brewing, and every other step of the process up until/including the moment the customer grabs their drink and heads on their way/takes a seat. I also refer to workflow here in the sense of training and actual transition from serving coffee from an airpot and the next day making brew-to-order coffee.

To deal with the later process, I would advise clear communication on your behalf with the other members of your staff. If you are an existing business take this opportunity to get feedback from your staff about which brew methods they use/prefer, what beans they’d like to use, and how they would deal with the former issue of workflow from ordering to serving coffee. Chances are they are going to have opinions that could be very valuable. By inviting their input, you are showing that you are on their side and respect them as employees. You don’t have to do everything they suggest, but you have to make sure that they feel like you sincerely listened to and considered their ideas. Then, once everything is ironed out (i.e. menu cost-priced and printed, brewers and coffee ordered, bar set-up) take some time to train your staff. Brew-to-order coffee, while it may not appear as complicated as espresso, still takes skilled preparation.

To set up the actual bar workflow of the brew-to-order coffee, here are some tips:
1. Make sure that paths don’t cross.
You don’t want the person doing pour over to have to disrupt the workflow of any other the other baristas behind the bar. If the register person is responsible for brew-to-order coffee, make sure the station is near to the register, or if it’s baristas on the espresso machine (which is risky) it should be near the espresso machine. Or maybe you should have one (or maybe two) barista who is only responsible for pour-over who is stationed in a place that will not disturb the cashier or the barista on the espresso machine.

2. Prepare in advance what you can.
Make sure to pre-weigh your coffee. This first step can be time consuming and will help maintain a consistent brew ratio. There’s lots of different small containers to store your doses in. PT’s Coffee Roasting Co. uses these awesome containers from Tightvac.

Or if you’ve got a bigger budget, check out what Jesse Kahn did at World Bean: e-grinders! He’s got his modified to hold a bouillon cup instead of a portafilter.

3. Pre-weigh your water.
Instead of putting a scale under each cup or forgoing weighing the water all together, put the scale under your hot water spout have several pitchers for pouring. Once you get really good you may be able to measure the water by volume (like for milk steaming). Either way, please just don’t pour willy-nilly! Oh please, measure your water. Check out this discussion on Barista Exchange for some other people’s opinions.

4. Don’t skip steps.
Just like making espresso beverages for a long line, you/your baristas may be tempted to cut corners in order to increase their speed. Don’t sacrifice quality for speed. Rinse filters, pre-heat the brewer/vessel, and don’t forget to look up a make eye contact/smile at your customers. If you aren’t going to make excellent brew-to-order coffee every cup then why make it all?

Other Resources
The Coffee Brewing Handbook from the SCAA
BrewMethods.com

Where to get great brew-to-order coffee:
(Not a complete list, just TampTamp’s favs)

Intelli Pasedena
Gimme!
Third Rail
World Bean @ LGA Airport
Cafe Grumpy
Coava Coffee Roasters
Stumptown in Red Hook

If you’d like to take this opportunity to implement a brew-to-order bar at you’re cafe, we’d love to hear about it. We’d also love comments and tips from those who have great brew-to-order bars already.

I drink a lot of coffee every day (In fact, I’m currently listening to my heart beat really quickly as I type this). But sometimes, when I go to a cafe, I’ve had enough coffee and I need some sort of caffeine-free alternative. I could have herbal tea, or I could have a hot chocolate, but that is rarely what I actually want. No, when I want an alterna-coffee, I reach for cider.

I like cider because it’s sweet, a little spicy, and has the eternal hope of actually being nutritious. Plus, sometimes it comes with alcohol.

For cider, there are really only two kinds I’ve seen in New York cafes: Zeigler’s and Red Jacket. Zeigler’s is from PA and can be found in most supermarkets in the region. It’s okay, not the best cider in the world, but I have it in my refrigerator right now, so that’s saying something. Red Jacket is from Geneva, NY in the finger lakes region. This is much better cider – clear, simple, and sweet. They’ve grown quite a bit over the last several years and have branched out into other juices and related products. They’re more expensive, but I personally like them more.

I’ve also seen 4 or 5 other cider brands at the city’s greenmarkets, but I’ve yet to see any of them break into the cafe market.

Having cider on the menu will make me, and other like-minded decaffeinates, happier. So why not add cider to your menu? It’s inexpensive, it’s easy to prepare, and it tastes really good both hot and cold. And with fall coming near, it’s going to be a huge seller starting soon.

Did you know that the National Coffee Association is hosting their fall conference next month? On October 18-20th, they will be holding three days of events with the theme “Micro to Macro – Crop to Cup.”

The event will include lots of people named John: John Moore of Dallis Coffee, Jon Lewis of Cup of Excellence, and Sherri Johns of Whole Cup Coffee Consulting, as well as non-johns like George Howell, Colleen Duhamel, and Colleen Anunu. Also, TampTamp’s own Neil Oney will be an instructor at the SCAA course GE 103 – Intro to Cupping on October 18th, and Michael “Wiggles” Peters will be leading a tour at the same time of cafes in Brooklyn.

Come out and join us. The talks look spectacular, and I’m sure we’ll learn lots.

There are lots of elements that go into making a great cup of coffee. In a cafe setting high quality beans, good equipment, well-trained staff, and a well-designed bar are important factors in providing great coffee to your customers. But there is another factor that seems to stump coffee bars across the country and NYC is no exception–customer service. Introducing people to specialty coffee is an on-going process. Baristas, more than any other group of people in the industry, are on the front lines in the battle to educate, serve, and promote specialty coffee. It doesn’t have to be a battle though. Let’s quit arguing with our customers and fight the good fight instead. Every day, baristas run into dozens of customer services issues while working behind the counter. While most of them are minor, these issues present themselves over and over. Learning to face these challenges head-on and turn them into opportunities to provide excellent service will help you, your business/employer, and the coffee industry in general.

Before we talk about how to deal with issues, we should discuss how to avoid them altogether. Customer service issues are avoidable through consistent, customer-forward habits. By following a few simple steps and paying attention to your customers needs, many of issues can be avoided:

1. Greet every customer with a smile as soon as they walk in the door.
   This lets them know they’ve been noticed and know where to go to order. It goes a long way towards a positive customer service interaction to start with a welcome. A smile is a simple, straightforward to to say hello and makes the customer more likely to agree with you.
2. After the customer orders their drinks, repeat the order back to give them a chance to add any modifiers they may have forgotten.
   Oftentimes, customers may forget modifiers like decaf or skim or you may not hear the order clearly. Repeating the order is a good way to show customers that you are making an effort to give them exactly what they want and it gives them an opportunity to make changes to the order if needed.
3. Ask your customers’ names, and write them on the cups.
   This nearly eliminates lost drinks because customers wait to hear their name, rather than grabbing the first drink that sounds anything like what they ordered, regardless of whether they picked up a 16oz soy cappuccino when they wanted an 8 ounce decaf vanilla latte. It also makes the customer feel more intimate. If calling out a strangers name seems a little weird, it can be useful to make up names for people (maybe the cast from Arrested Development?), but don’t use numbers. People don’t like being numbered.
4. Control the line. If there is no way for a customer to wander off, they can’t forget their drinks
   This is also useful for customer interactions. Keeping the customer actively engaged in the interaction through conversation (or, for the under-caffeinated, a warm smile) will let them feel welcome and wanting to come back soon. Once they pay direct them to where their drink will be made (ex. “Sally will have your latte ready at the bar to your right in just a minute.”)

Danny Meyer, owner of Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Shake Shack, and other successful, customer service-driven restaurants in NYC, says that while customers may not always be right, they should always feel they have been heard. By listening to the issues brought up by your customers and being on their side, you can more often than not get them to understand your position without having to compromise your beliefs. Rather than beginning with a “no, we don’t do that,” start with a yes. Find common ground and work from there, and you’ll end up with happier customers.

While the above steps will help eliminate most customer service issues, they will still come up. Here we’ve highlighted a few common issues and given some solutions to help reduce the severity of the problem. Please add your own issues or solutions in the comments. We’d like to hear them.

Common Challenge – Extra Hot Latte
Solution – Preheat the cup/Call it “extra hot” when it’s not
In the case of a ceramic cup, heat it to an inch of its’ life before pouring in the beverage. For to-go lattes just tell a little white lie: say it’s extra hot, but heat it like normal. Don’t let on until they come up to you asking why your lattes taste so much better than anyone else’s. Extra hot is another way of saying “extra attention” so go don’t fight them, just give them a little extra love. If you get a drink returned because it’s not hot enough, that’s when you can point them to the nearest chain.

Common Challenge – Espresso Over Ice
Solution – Mini Iced Americano
There are two issues with espresso over ice: (1) taste and (2) do-it-yourself iced latte. Pouring the shot onto 2 oz of room temperature water helps avoid the bitter taste that comes from pouring espresso directly over ice. And when you think about it, you’re really not watering down the drink any more than you would have it you were to pour the shot onto ice when you consider the melting factor. To address the second issue, make the drink in an 8oz cup so that if the customer does add milk it won’t destroy your Cost of Goods.

Common Challenge – “I ordered Decaf”
Solution – Repeat orders several times
Avoid this issue both by repeating the order at the ordering area and by calling out the order just prior to making the drink. Still, we are only human, so there are bound to be occasions where you get the order wrong even if you are taking steps to avoid it. Instead of pointing fingers and telling the customer how you asked 3 times and they never said decaf or by blaming the cashier for mis labeling the order, just smile, remake the drink, and thank them for their patience.

Common Challenge – Taking the Wrong Drink
Solution – Put names on cups/make eye contact
Again, put names on the cups. Maria is much less likely to take Anthony’s drink if it doesn’t say Maria on it. However, if they both ordered small lattes, it can get a little confusing. Plus, everyone likes to hear the sound of their own name.

Common Challenge – Prices too High
Solution – Let them pay what they want the first time
This is a tough one, especially with new customers. Sometimes explaining that the product is better, the baristas are better trained, or the equipment is high quality works, sometimes it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, have them name the price the first time, on the condition that they pay full price going forward. If it’s good, they’ll come back no matter the price. If it’s not, they won’t. But don’t give it away for free – it reduces the value they put on the drink.

Common Challenge – bone dry/no-foam latte
Solution – “Try it my way”
One of my personal favorites, but sometimes not fixable. When the customer asks for “Bone dry” or some other modifier on the texture of the milk, ask them to try it your way, again trying the “name-your-price” gambit if they hesitate. If they won’t, then steam the milk before pulling the shot. It allows the milk to separate some before pouring, giving the appearance of dryness. Never scoop foam. It is unsanitary. If the customer is still un-satisfied, send them to Starbucks. It won’t be worth your while to fight this person for months and will only end badly.

Common Challenge – long waits/lines
Solution – Make the Wait Worth it – Focus on Quality
The best way to reduce this issue is to have great product, and to make sure that once the customer has made it to the front that they are treated as well as is possible. Never sacrifice quality for time. The 2 minutes a customer saves in their 15 minute wait by stopping shots at 15 seconds is all for naught if in the end they are still waiting 13 minutes for bad coffee. If all else fails, add a shift. Don’t apologize for the wait, but thank them for waiting. Apologizing puts the customer on the offensive, while thanking them puts them on your side. It always works better.

Common Challenge – “Triple espresso long” or “just fill it to the top”
Solution – Make an A-mini-cano
Your cafe serves bottomless portafilter double ristrettos and your customer wants a long, or “over-long” or whatever they want to call it. The secret to this is they want more volume. Give them a short americano – with only 2 ounces of water, and it will be perfect.

Common Challenge – caramel macchiato
Solution – Clarify the order in a customer-focused way
The Starbucks caramel latte macchiato – lots of new baristas fall for this, and serve a macchiato with a little caramel in it. This is most definitely not what your customer wants. Don’t mention Starbucks or say “We don’t have that!”. Instead, approach the situation with a positive by saying “Sure.” and ring them up for a caramel latte. If you don’t have caramel suggest another flavoring, or say, “I could make you a latte. We don’t have flavorings, but I think you’ll enjoy it.” Picking a fight about why they like flavors in their coffee or why they would ever drink Starbucks coffee is not going to make them want to come back even if they end up liking the coffee.

Common Challenge – Starbucks sizing
Solution – Suck it up
Never say this: “Um, we don’t DO Grande.” In Seattle, everyone orders with the Starbucks sizes. Learn the sizes and just pretend translate in your head. It’s not even worth mentioning. I’d even recommend repeating the sizes back to them in their nomenclature. Otherwise it may seem like you’re correcting them and that never leaves a good impression. One day you can correct them, but not for a long time. They’ll probably catch on way before you need to say anything.

These were just the top 10 issues we could think of quickly. There are hundreds more out there. What’s your favorite?