Best of the North Bay 2005

Best Conscientious Cuppa

North Bay Bohemian – March 2005
By Ella Lawrence

Taylor Maid’s slogan is “A mindful cup,” and the company, indeed, is one of the most mindful coffee traders and roasters around. Each of its roasts is organically shade-grown and fairly traded, not to mention being some of the most delicious beans available on the market. The company’s campaigns to improve environmental and social conditions in the coffee industry, as well as supporting the small-farmer movement, have taken president Mark Inman of Sebastopol from classrooms in the United States to coffee laboratories in the hills of Nicaragua.

Taylor Maid also has a complete line of loose-leaf teas, and while the prices on a tin aren’t cheap, it’s the best tea this beverage snob has frankly ever quaffed. The coffee prices are the standard $8 to $10 per pound, but the quality on many of the blends far surpasses the burnt blackness of many other local roasteries. Taylor Maid also has an organic farm, which offers up perennial herbs, fruits and vines—well worth a ramble.

_______

Roaster Pushes Sustainable Farming

Sebastopol businessman promotes benefits of paying more for coffee

Press Democrat – 31 March 2005
By Erin Allday

Raising his voice over the grumble of a cappuccino maker in the corner, Mark Inman is talking about sustainable farming, the U.S. war on drugs and poverty in Central America—and how it all comes back to a cup of gourmet coffee in Sebastopol.

It’s an easy connection to make, Inman insists, leaning over his desk and sipping from a tiny cup of espresso made with beans roasted by his Taylor Maid Farms. Sustainable farming helps keep growers out of the drug industry and above the poverty line, he said. If consumers only understood the impact they could have on South American farmers by paying more for their coffee, they would, Inman said.

“We don’t want to guilt the soccer moms into buying organic coffee,” said Inman, 36. “We want to make it easy for them to buy good coffee at fair rates. Coffee is a social vehicle and political vehicle, not just a food product.”

Inman is president of Taylor Maid Farms, a 15-employee coffee-roasting operation tucked between Rite Aid and Safeway near downtown Sebastopol. The company, among a handful of small North Bay coffee roasters, has about $2 million in annual revenues. More than 90 percent of that comes from organic coffee sales, with the rest coming from organic teas.

But aside from running the company since 1993, Inman has become an expert voice for the $9 billion specialty coffee industry, leading trends toward organic growing in Central and South America and speaking out on everything from U.S. drug policies to international coffee prices now on the rise.

“Mark’s a tireless advocate,” said Mike Ferguson, a spokesman for the Specialty Coffee Association of America, with which Inman serves on the board of directors. “He’s absolutely uncompromising in his ideals of quality and sustainability.”

With bean prices rising in recent months due to December’s tsunami disaster and other global pressures, consumers are already paying anywhere from 3 percent to 26 percent more for their coffee. But Inman thinks organic coffee is still a deal.

Even after increasing his prices 4 percent last month, Inman said a pound of gourmet coffee typically retails for $10 to $11 a pound – or about 22 cents per home-brewed cup. Of that, farmers receive less than $2.40 a pound for organic coffee.

“You’re paying 22 cents for the finest cup of coffee in the world. Where are you going to find the finest glass of wine for 22 cents?” Inman said. “Coffee is the best deal around.”

Even if the best coffee is still relatively cheap, it’s a tough sell to ask consumers to pay more, Inman said. And it’s even tougher when he’s such a small player in a $23 billion industry that’s led by much bigger names, from established roasters such as Starbucks to grocery store brands such as Folgers.

Inman has kept his business regional so far, selling primarily on the West Coast. His coffee is available in Whole Foods and several Sonoma County stores, and is brewed at hotels up and down the coast.

If organic roasters are going to grab a bigger piece of the coffee market, Inman said, they need to work together and, eventually, merge into larger companies.

“I still believe that a great cup of coffee from El Salvador is better than any Frappuccino. But that’s why I’m a $2 million company and Starbucks is a multi-billion-dollar company,” Inman said, laughing. “It’s hard to get that message out. If Taylor Maid can’t grow, we won’t be recognized. And if we can’t do it alone, we’ll absorb a couple companies.”

For now, though, he’s focused on what he can accomplish with Taylor Maid Farms alone.

Inman travels throughout Latin America at least twice a year, making deals with the family cooperatives and larger estates from which he buys his beans in El Salvador, Colombia, Nicaragua and Peru. About 65 percent of his beans come from South and Central America, and the rest of Indonesia and Africa.

Twelve years ago, when he first joined Taylor Maid Farms as a consultant to start their coffee-roasting business, Inman was just starting to venture into Latin America. He would spend weeks working with farmers to teach them about sustainable and organic farming.

“You walk a fine line between being helpful and being imperialist,” Inman said. “Farmers want to know, if I put in all this effort who’s going to give me money? So if they adhered to my system, I agreed to buy their coffee for a five-year period at much higher prices.”

Inman runs a risk when he travels to Latin America – many of the areas where he works are war-ravaged communities, where foreigners face threats from guerilla forces and roadside “death squads.”

Still, he makes the trips and this summer plans to take his wife and 9-month-old son along with him.

“Kidnappings are common. I’ve been approached by guerillas,” Inman said. “But I’m seen as more the ally than the enemy.”

_______

Roaster of the Year Runner-Up: Taylor Maid Farms

Roast Magazine – November/December 2004
by Shanna Germain

All of the coffee that Taylor Maid Farms roasts and sells is certified-organic. Seventy-five percent of it is certified-fair-trade.

This makes sense when you look at the company’s mission: to be environmentally and socially progressive, to be responsible to the communities it interacts with and to be committed to sustainable quality—all while remaining profitable. “I set out to prove early on a sustainable business can be just as profitable as a non-organic company,” says Mark Inman, Taylor Maid Farms president and green coffee buyer. “When we started, people thought we were a joke.”

Since then, Taylor Maid has turned the passion of being sustainable into two kinds of green benefits: saving the environment and turning a profit.

The company’s list of sustainable practices is long and unique: deliveries are made in biodiesel-powered vehicles; biodegradable waste is recycled using vermiculture; coffee is packaged in recyclable steel packaging; and each Taylor Maid employee is given a raised bed on site, in which he or she can grow organic vegetables. Taylor Maid was also the first roaster to use the Kestrel S35 Roaster by Loring Smart Roaster, a roaster that reduces fuel use and emissions by 80 percent. In addition, the company buys only certified-organic products that come from farms that use bio-intensive/whole system farming practices.

Taylor Maid achieves profitability in the same way that it achieves a sustainable business: by being accountable to all the communities with which it interacts, from producers and employees to customers and other roasters. Daily cuppings are used to train employees and to help them understand the product. In addition, everyone at the company is currently being cross-trained in all aspects of coffee preparation. The company is also heavily involved in education, whether employees are speaking at coffee events, writing articles, being members of the Roasters Guild Executive Council board or helping found the Barista Guild of America.

From creating local and global sustainability to offering quality coffee while turning a profit, Taylor Maid is a coffee company that’s truly taking care of business.

_______

Sebastopol’s earth mother teaches workers to grow food

San Francisco Chronicle – October 30, 2004
By Sheila Erwin, Special to The Chronicle

It’s a hot day in October, and outside near the garden boxes at the Taylor Maid Farms Coffee/Tea Warehouse in Sebastopol, yellow jackets swirl around our heads and ankles. But Marjorie Wallace, 78, better known in Sebastopol as the Garden Goddess, and a lifelong environmental activist, seems to be immune to them.

“They don’t bother me none, do they bother you?”

“Yes, they do,” I say tartly, having been stung more times than I’d like to remember. I swat at them with my sweaty hands, remembering the bad dreams I’ve had about them.

“Don’t wave your arms at them, they’re attracted to that,” Wallace says, looking cool as she rocks serenely in a weather-beaten gray rocker. Her wrinkled hand repeatedly slips from the rickety rocker’s broken arm. However, she sits just long enough to humor me, and hands me a sprig of lemon verbena to sniff before she tends to her garden.

For eight years, Wallace has taught Sebastopol how to grow organic food. Her fertile Eden, once an acre at the Sebastopol Community Garden, is a now a portable garden planted in apple boxes donated by Taylor Maid after the land she used was purchased by Sebastopol Skate Park. She attributes much of her holistic gardening knowledge to growing up on a ranch in Wyoming, where her ancestors were homesteaders. Both her parents were farmers and passed on their knowledge of herbs and plants to their children.

“In my day, there was no use of pesticides, and we only used horse and cow manure. We grew everything we ate but the flour, sugar and the coffee.”

Neighbors helped erect the log house of her childhood. “It was all made of cottonwood logs and chink, mud and straw used to fill in the middle. Neighbors always helped each other, and when a child was about to be born, a couple of women were chosen to assist at the birth.”

Wallace talks to her plants, convinced that her encouragement affects how they grow. She believes plants have feelings, and I agree, but I’m a black- thumbed gardener, and the plants don’t seem to appreciate me the same way.

“You’re sure looking pretty this morning,” she says to a monstrous purple butterfly bush.

The bush spreads across an entire apple box and reminds me of an old Tarzan movie where the villain is devoured by a gigantic fern.

Wallace sticks her strong, thick fingers into a crate of deep black loam full of writhing worms, and encourages me to do the same. I close my eyes and gingerly stick my pinky in, withdrawing it quickly with visions of fleshy invertebrates crawling up my arms.

I learn that the worms are fed organic scraps, and their waste, or castings, releases nutrients into the soil. Vermiculture also greatly reduces the volume of garbage, as 1 pound of worms can eat a half-pound of food scraps a day.

Inside their eight boxes, worms are fed cardboard, coffee grounds, coffee cups and employees’ discarded lunches.

Wallace glows with motherly pride as she shows me the lush rope of vines with full ripening gourds adorning a fence. “See this gourd over here?” she says. “That will be sold to an artist in Sebastopol who will make them into lamp shades and musical instruments.

“Here’s another gourd. See this tiny white one? Hippies make espresso cups out of them.

“People keep stealing my gourds,” Wallace says with irritation. “So I try to hide them behind some of my other plants. Once they came at nighttime and stole a wheelbarrow with plants in it.

“When we had the community garden, homeless people used to help plant and spread the compost. I never had to ask them. The next day the work would be completed.”

The garden guru has taught all the employees of the warehouse to cultivate plants. “They are thrilled to see their garden become more beautiful each year,” Wallace says.

“Some of the kids once thought that you had to plant at midnight with the new moon. It doesn’t matter what time of the night it is, it’s just that the root crops, onions, turnips, carrots and beets, go deep into the earth and need the light of the moon to flourish. I’ve also taught them to recycle pallets, something they hadn’t thought was possible.”

Wallace attributes her good health to eating raw foods. “When I come here to tend the plants, I eat strawberries, celery and radishes for breakfast. Now I’m strong enough to move a bed,” she says with a laugh.

Her long white braid falls over her shoulder. She lifts up a bedraggled brown stem of burdock and frowns, noticing how dry it is.

“Burdock is an important plant; it can be used in stir-fry and used like ginseng.”

Burdock, she tells me, is also an herb known for its detoxifying and antibacterial effects. I notice that there’s not a single plant Wallace can’t identify and describe the medicinal properties of.

Inside the warehouse, she introduces me to Coalmine, a spiked blue-haired rocker from the band Spindles, who gives her a hug.

“I’ve been to his concerts and enjoyed them,” she says.

Many of Coalmine’s fellow band members also work at the warehouse. The employees give her ear-to-ear smiles as they pass by. And I realize that I’m in the midst of a living archetype, the mother, the nurturer, the healer. .

That night I dream that I’m in a community garden humming with people just like me, learning to garden. I’m in awe of the lush and vibrant red, green and purple leaves of lettuce I’ve grown, and I notice a rhubarb plant drooping for lack of water. Wallace appears with a white pitcher of water. Her loving hands guide me, and I wake up knowing that I’ve been transformed by the garden goddess.

_______

Pack, Wrap, Seal and Sell

Staying Current with Packaging Trends

Tea & Coffee Trade Online – July/August 2004
By Suzanne Brown

Remember the brown bags retailers used for selling roasted coffee and loose tea? The plain glass generic bottles of RTD tea with paper labels wrapped around them like cigar sleeves? Today’s packaging is more than a mere wrap. It’s about branding. What does your packaging say about your product? Like the products themselves, packaging innovations are changing with lifestyle trends and international influences. The following examples present a variety of recent applications that companies in the coffee and tea industries have introduced in an effort to differentiate themselves and provide better quality products to consumers.

RTD (ready-to-drink) Tea
PET bottles first used in carbonated beverages are fast replacing traditional glass bottles. New technology enables these bottles to do more than hold beverages. Shelf life and preserving quality are primary considerations. A new PET product that can be chilled or heated has been introduced by ITO EN, the Japanese green tea company, whose U.S. headquarters are in Brooklyn, New York. The concept of packaged, pre-heated RTD tea originally started with steel cans in Japan in vending machines. “As the market trend grew toward using PET bottles, ITO EN was the first company to launch RTD tea in heat-durable PET bottles in 1999,” said Yoshie Yano-Pennings, marketing manager, ITO EN INC. North America. Although the bottles are non-microwavable, ITO EN provides a heating/chilling product display unit nicknamed the “Hot-N-Cooler” to retailers for selling the Hot/Cold TEAS’ TEA line. The unit has a hot plate that is designed to safely heat the bottles to approximately 140º F, being both comfortably warm to the touch and ready for drinking. During the warm season, the hot plate can be switched off and the entire unit can be utilized for chilling. That way, TEAS’ TEA can be both cool and hot, depending on the season. Hot/cool bottles come in a handy grab-n-go size of 9.3 fl. oz.; one can drink the entire contents without having to think about storage. The other distinguishable trait is their orange cap. Launched in January 2004, the distribution is expanding throughout the U.S.

Caps play more of a role these days then just being a lid. Barriers to freshness not only have to be built into the container, but into the cap as well. Kyle Rossler, vice president-sales/marketing, G-3 Enterprises, which manufactures screw or twist tops for ready to drink products, reports that RTD companies are opting for PET bottles. Rossler says they are more efficient, more available and offer more flexibility. “Glass bottles are not innovative,” said Rossler. “Bottles have evolved from rigid to flexible packaging because of barrier innovation.” Caps are also being used as promotional tools. For instance, Snapple’s caps entertain consumers with fun facts, jokes and special promotions like the Snapple Yard Sale. Copy added to the cap, along with fun copy on the label connects with consumers and gets them involved in the brand.

One of the oldest bottle cap promotions was in the 1950s; children could get free admission to afternoon movie matinees with a number of bottle caps from sodas like Frosty Root Beer and Nehi Grape Soda. Not a bad idea to repeat that promotion today, using RTD or any of the multitudes of popular beverages currently being sold.

Debuting from Honest Tea in June is a breakthrough new bottle that combines the elegant look of glass with environmentally friendly PET-1 plastic. Gretchen Leitch of Honest Tea said the company quickly realized that not all plastics are equal. Other plastic bottling options, like PVC, are highly damaging to the environment and are not in keeping with Honest Tea’s commitment to sustainability,” she said. “The new bottle’s innovative panel-less design will facilitate Honest Tea’s entry into new venues. Also, the bottle and label highlight the Honest Tea brand identity and remain true to the environmental imperative to reduce, re-use and recycle,” Leitch said.

Looking sleek and fashionable, highlighting its bright colored contents, The Republic of Tea meets consumer demand for convenience and health with its new line of curvaceous 12 oz. sip-and-go plastic bottles. All nine flavors are brewed using organic tea leaves and all natural ingredients. Bottles are light, fit neatly into a car’s cup or even into a purse or briefcase for easy toting.

And, there seems to be no end to the products and packaging derived from tea. The Republic of Tea’s Tea Oil, packaged in 30 fluid ounces and 17 fluid ounce cans that look like imported olive oil cans, is the next chef’s companion. The can, which is wrapped with a white label bearing the Republic of Tea logo, fits easily onto the home cook’s pantry shelf or beside all the condiments used in a commercial chef’s kitchen.

Coffee
When Melitta coffee company first appeared on shelves, it was sold in cans, yet positioned as a premium, dark roasted coffee, using only Arabica beans. In the late 1970s and for most of the 1980s, when premium and specialty coffees were emerging in packages with optional ground or whole bean selections, Melitta’s point of differentiation was still in the can. One of the big issues raised by package proponents was that commercial coffee companies were canning stale coffee because after beans were roasted, they had to de-gas for a couple of days, thereby growing stale but preventing the cans from blowing up. Melitta, on the other hand, was steadfast in its defense on using the can, stating that the finer, trademarked roast used by Melitta, prevented de-gassing time and the coffee could be canned right after roasting, thus preventing any added time of sitting around growing stale by the hour.

The old adage, “everything old is new again” is back in the can. Mark Inman, president, Taylor Maid Farms, LLC, is using steel cans and says they are one of the best ways to package coffee. “It is unfortunate that the Big Four did not stay committed to the steel can as their package of choice,” he said. “It was, in fact, one of the most environmentally sound packaging choices available to use at this time.” Contrasting the can to flexible packaging, Inman continued, “Unlike multi-layered flex packaging, which is neither recyclable nor biodegradable, steel is the most recycled material on this planet.” Further advantages, according to Inman are: they are more attractive and durable; full color steel cans cost about as much as printed flex packaging, making it an attractive option for those looking for a lot of bang for their buck; canning equipment can be had for a fraction of the cost of bag sealers; cans are re-usable, collectable and recyclable. “Who doesn’t have an old coffee can lying around their house? How many old multi-layered bags do you have lying around?” he said. My first thought to those questions was that bags don’t make nearly as good pencil holders as cans.

One difference with Inman’s canned coffee is they are packed with whole beans. He said that there is no degassing time necessary because the cans now have one way valves. The coffees are packed right out of the roaster. Cans hold 10 ounces of coffee and can be found in specialty stores throughout the western states.

Cans used by Taylor Maid Farms assist Inman in continuing to brand his products by conveying the message of sustainable, organic, safe for the environment and pure. Packaging reflects a company’s brand and needs to be carefully thought out. Selecting new packaging styles and materials requires consideration to color, design, type and label. How the design and packaging material fits into a company’s marketing plan can determine the difference between success and a dud.

Continuing his tradition of prominently displaying the roast date on coffees offered in Coffee Connection stores, George Howell has gone a step further with the launch of his newest coffee, Terroir, with the roast date on the package and description of its whole bean content. Howell’s fanaticism about freshness and quality continues to drive his quest toward providing a coffee as near perfection as it can get. That’s why his new company, GHH Select LLC, roasts and packages each single origin coffee sold. Roasting is a major factor for bringing out the flavor nuances in the Terroir collection. “Roasting is key to the full expression of Terroir,” said Howell. “Terroir coffees are roasted with a light touch, one that does not overpower the unique flavor of the coffee, but allows it to be itself,” he said. After roasting, Terroir coffee is immediately packaged and marked with the roast date.

Packages For Packaging
Sometimes all you need to do is merchandize your packaging. With a little creative thinking, a walk through the fragrance department of a department store, or seasonal display section of your favorite mass merchandise outlet or drugstore, all sorts of products appear that can be used to package your packages.

One company that offers a variety of clever packaging for coffees and teas is Baskets-n-Bags of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Geetha Pai, owner, offers eco-friendly hand screened jute bags that are ideal for holding packaged coffee.

Nashville Wraps, out of Hendersonville, Tennessee, offers just about every kind of basket, crate, tote, wrapping paper, and ties that add fun and pizzazz to a package. Silk and organza bags, plain or ornate with beading, in all sizes, are perfect partners for loose and bagged teas. The larger ones are roomy enough to hold a gift collection of several items such as a tea inceptor, small teapot and/or flavored sugars.

Suzanne J. Brown is an international coffee and tea marketing consultant based in Atlanta, Georgia: www.browncommunications.us.

_______

Coffee Culture Meets Viticulture

Anticipating the Future of Specialty Coffee

Café Mesa de los Santos
By Kate LaPoint

Having grown up in a small farming community in eastern Washington, the importance of a strong bond between consumers and producers is ingrained. My hometown hosts an annual “Farmer-Consumer Awareness Day” in which the town’s residents and occasional tourists are able to learn about local crops from the farmers who grow them. Kids climb on tractors while their parents browse tabletops and learn little facts about potatoes, apples and a myriad other local crops. When I was in high school, we poked fun at the event, calling it “hokey” and caring little about how our butter-laden corn-on-the-cob came to be. But the event, however hokey, has helped provide an important link between farmers and consumers. The more educated end users are about any product, whether corn or wine or coffee, the more invested they are likely to be in its source.

As well, there is much the coffee industry can learn from wine. Specialty coffee and fine wine occupy an equal position at the top of the “finer things in life” list. But why are consumers willing to pay a fair (even high) price for a glass of wine while paying only an average of less than a quarter for some of the world’s finest coffee? Imagine what would happen to the wine industry if consumers were paying only 22 cents per glass!

The similarities between specialty coffee and fine wine are countless. Both beverages create, as described by Mark Inman, president of California wine country-based Taylor Maid Farms, “a taste journey” for the consumer, offering a sophisticated palate with complex aromas and varied mouthfeel. When paired with food, one’s taste experience can be taken to new heights by either beverage. In addition to providing a flavorful, energetic start to the day, coffee, like wine or port, can provide a decadent finish to a good meal. It’s sold in all fifty United States seven days a week and it can be consumed while one drives. Both beverages equally conjure dreams of languid moments in warm, exotic climes, be it Tuscany or Kona.

Okay, back to reality: In order to enjoy the finest selections of’either beverage, consumers must be willing to pay more. Like understanding the importance of paying a little more for fresh local produce, consumers must understand why specialty coffee is worth more of their hard-earned dollar, and they must feel somehow connected to its source.

Education and perceived value are the keys to sustaining our industry, meaning roasters, retailers and restaurateurs have a weighty, sometimes overwhelming, job trying to raise consumer awareness of specialty coffee from seed to cup. The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) provided a sufficient starting point when they designed the 2004 National Specialty Coffee Month promotions, many of which focused on the parallel between the coffee and wine industries. And while annual events are great, consumer education must be a daily endeavor.

Taking the average consumer (who still considers coffee as little more than the hot, brown liquid that wakes him up and washes down his doughnut) from ho-hum to enlightened is more difficult than throwing some facts in the air hoping they’ll take root. If we are to convince end users of the value of coffee, it must come from the industry as a whole, on a consistent basis, and it must start from the ground up.

Meanwhile, as those of us in the industry have been a-buzz devising campaigns to raise general awareness of specialty coffee, this estate that is tucked deep in the Andes has been creating a honey of an outcome. While traveling in search of a truly unique “signature”, Inman discovered this Colombian farm that is forging the path of chateau-style coffee production and strengthening the relationship between consumers and growers.

Founded in 1872, Mesa de los Santos is currently, to this writer’s knowledge, the industry’s only “triple-seal” estate. It possesses the Certified USDA Organic seal, the Certified”“Shade-Grown, Bird-Friendly” seal awarded by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and the Rainforest Alliance seal for sustainable coffee production.

Origin travel can greatly alter one’s perception—and significantly raise one’s appreciation—of specialty coffee. Because I, like Inman, have had the great fortune to visit a few coffee farms, I am willing to pay more for my daily cup—I know, from first-hand experience, what a small miracle it takes to get that perfect beverage all the way from the mountains in the tropics to my mug in the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, with U.S. Department of State warnings against travel to some coffee-growing regions, and knowing the hit one’s budget can take, most specialty coffee retailers and nearly all specialty coffee consumers in the U.S. are reluctant to make the trip. In steps SCAA to help bridge the gap between those who grow and those consume coffee. The Association’s new Global Specialty Coffee Map enables anyone with a computer to access origin photos and gain a better understanding of specific farms’ growing conditions, altitude, rainfall and more.

Providing “traceability” [what Ted Lingle, director of SCAA, refers to as “linking a sense of taste with a sense of place”] is an essential step toward elevating perceived value in the minds of specialty coffee consumers. SCAA’s map project, after more than a year of research and development, is helping to establish higher quality standards for specialty coffee worldwide, with flavor profile maps and an appellation system similar to that of the wine industry in the works. Helping customers “trace” their coffee back to the hands of the farmer who grew it is a fundamental aspect of this project, and another stepping stone toward strengthening the bond between consumer and grower.

“Working with very precise origins can help the retailer show the link between her customer’s money and how it’s improving the environment and the lives of farm workers,” insists Acevedo. Mesa de los Santos sends monthly traceability e-mails to roasters and retailers to help them promote their coffees. One example promotes one specific migratory or resident bird species per month that is alive and well on the farm because of “the money you have spent on this cup of coffee”.

Some high-end restaurants are becoming keen to up-selling specialty coffees while their customers are prepared to pay more for the indulgence. One such restaurant near Sonoma prepares its locally roasted coffee French-press style at tableside. Customers love it, and those who are unfamiliar with it immediately want to try it, says Andreas Willausch, general manager of The Farmhouse Inn & Restaurant. The press pot “ritual” lends to a greater perceived value of the restaurant’s coffee service and can provide a valuable opportunity for the wait staff to educate customers about specialty coffee. “It is of tremendous help to take the time to talk to customers,” insists Willausch. “For example, a customer may not be interested in tasting a new cheese but by the time I finish telling the story of, say, the cheesemaker or the milk that is used, almost everyone ends up wanting to try it.” Willausch says it’s the same with coffee or tea. “Involve your customers in the story of your product—your enthusiasm will get them excited as well,” he says.

Back to origin. Inman describes the coffee farm as it relates to vineyards he has visited: “Mesa de los Santos is doing exactly what a high-end vineyard does here in the Napa Valley. They have a very knowledgeable farm manager and they have some of the best soil imaginable.” In other words, they’re not just pondering the wine model as it relates to specialty coffee production—they’re practicing it.

As a winery enlists the expertise of an enologist, Mesa de los Santos has invested in an onsite cupping facility and employs a full-time cupper. The enologist is on a continual mission from field to glass, tasting, fermenting, tasting, blending, and tasting until he has come up with a truly special wine. Similarly, JosÉ Antonio Martinez, Mesa de los Santos’ cupper, evaluates each year’s coffee crop in advance of harvest. Because coffee beans differ in flavor, body and aroma from “vintage to vintage”, Martinez analyzes each crop in order to decide which processing method to use. The farm is able to employ two different methods—dry fermentation and aquapulpa—that create very distinct cup profiles.

The unique vision for Mesa de los Santos and perhaps other coffee farms in the future, explains Acevedo, is to use either method, or perhaps a combination of both, according to which produces the best cup profile for each crop. “It’s a delicate balance—the right process matched to each varietal, each crop, each year,” Acevedo explains. Additionally, the farm utilizes five different drying systems and is researching the results of each method. “The farm’s experimentation with different types of processing and drying is revolutionary,” observes Inman.”“The kind of work Mesa de los Santos is doing will be a big influence on Colombian specialty coffee.”

This is where specialty coffee has a decided edge over fine wine. While wine is generally a business-to-consumer industry, specialty coffee is a business-to-business-to-consumer industry, a factor that is vital in bringing growing and consuming countries closer together. Acevedo believes that closer partnerships between growers and roasters is the way to ensure the future of the specialty coffee industry. “We have the ability to develop signature blends in conjunction with roasters who understand their customers,” he says. “Immersing himself in the process every step of the way enables the roaster to better control the outcome of his product.”

“This philosophy parallels the direction I’m heading as a specialty coffee buyer,” says Geoff Watts, vice president of coffee for Chicago-based Intelligentsia Coffee Roasters. “Roasters are looking for that unique coffee to set themselves apart. In order to achieve that, working directly with growers is the only way to go.” When collaborating with a farm such as Mesa de los Santos, buyers like Watts can play with flavor in the field before firing up the roaster. “This affords me the freedom to push the boundaries of specialty coffee by requesting that a certain varietal be picked at a particular level of maturity, or that it be dried a certain way,” explains Watts.”“Only through partnerships with producers is this level of involvement possible.”

In following the wine model, a few farms are beginning to experiment with different varietals. Mesa de los Santos hosts 58 varieties of coffee in test plots—all in search of an increasingly perfect cup. Bill Siemers, president of Coffee Roasters of New Orleans, traveled to the farm with Inman. “He [Acevedo] is providing a rare opportunity for buyers to consider the particular varietals first-hand before making purchasing decisions,” Siemers describes. “Working with a farm like this gives you more options as a buyer.”

Today, most farms work with one varietal. Mesa de los Santos actively cultivates three: Bourbon, Caturra and Colombia, chosen for quality over high yield. “I think the idea of planting different varieties of coffee is wonderful,” remarks Inman. “The differences are striking—the Colombia is soft, clean and well rounded while the Caturra is bright and clean, bursting with flavors of apricot, brown sugar and cocoa,” he notes. “The Bourbon is soft, chocolaty and elegant, reminiscent of the great coffees of the Caribbean.”

“They [Mesa de los Santos] are cupping continually to track the results of minute changes they’ve made in fertilization or pruning or watering,” Siemers notes. “I was amazed at the absolute care taken in terms of record keeping, soil amendment, pruning, harvesting, cupping and processing. Oswaldo is looking at these slight differences more than anyone I’ve ever seen,” Siemers says. “They’re obviously working hard every day trying to produce the estate’s best possible cup.”

Whether or not it’s the best available, we all have our favorite varieties of wine. Whether as basic as Merlot or Chardonnay or something more exotic, you know what you like. As one’s palate becomes more educated, the same is true for coffee, leading one to choose certain varietals and origins over others. “As a buyer, you choose coffees for different reasons depending on your marketplace,” Siemers relates. “Here in New Orleans, for example, a really bright coffee may not go over as well as a mellower one.”

Because each varietal produces a unique cup profile, Acevedo sees blending, similar to wine, as yet another possibility. “What if we took two or three different varietals and blended them?” he wonders. Parallel that to, say, Cabernet-Merlot. This blend is certainly one of the more popular and often more affordable wines on the market today. Like wine, it’s easy to see that specialty coffee is a product with endless possibilities, for the grower in Colombia all the way to the barista in Seattle.

The industry’s immediate task is to encourage retail customers to embark on a voyage of discovery. As tour guides, we must highlight the many varieties and multiple origins of coffee—showing how each one offers a unique flavor profile. Doing so may just tip the scale of public perception, perhaps even raising consumers’ perceived value of specialty coffee enough to justify charging a fair price for the product. In my opinion, coffee has more of a story to tell than even the best of wines. Let’s get out there and spread the word!

For more information, please visit the company’s web site at www.cafemesadelossantos.com.

_______

Espresso A-Go-Go

Bread Coffee Chocolate Yoga – 26 August 2004
By Fortune Elkins

let’s just say this plain: i love mark inman’s taylor maid “espresso a-go-go.” and this is surprising, because it’s a much darker roast than i usually prefer.

i didn’t have time to properly cup it this morning—that work thing really gets in the way of one’s coffee appreciation—so i just made it as espresso and drank the puppy down. then i realized what i had done.

no no no no. let me step back for a moment and explain… when i peeled back the valved top of the can, i saw lovely large beans. dark-to-chocolate-roasted beans, covered in full oil, what some might call a high-espresso to low-french roast.

i prefer a lighter, northern-italian style and in general recoil from these darker, “west coast” roasts. thus i was a-gog at the a-go-go from the get-go.

but i was determined to taste the blend. so i measured it straight into my mazzer mini and off i went. let me say, this blend is easy to work with; i didn’t have to spend a lot of time dialing it in—the usual setting i keep the mazzer at was spot on.

and it poured in a beautiful honey-thick stream flecked with crema from my italian princess, the rancilio silvia, fitted as usual with a la marzocco double basket in the single-spout portafilter. i gave it a 27-second pour for 1.75 oz.

and how did the coffee taste? even tho’ it didn’t get the full cupping treatment (no playing with the nez du café), i’m going to haul out the whole linglese for this party.

so drag out your copy of scaa chief ted lingle’s flavor wheel and cupping handbook ‘cuz we’re going to town…

the all-arabica espresso a-go-go’s a dark-roast blend, with heavy, buttery body. (it coats the back of a demitasse spoon like zabaione.)

as for the bouquet, the fragrance of the dry grounds reminded me strongly of chinese 5-spice powder, but without the sweetness of the star anise.

i was surprised that despite its roast level, it lacked any smoky or harsh notes. slurping it from the cup as brewed espresso, the blend welcomed me with a deep honey and dark madagascar bourbon vanilla feeling, then closed with an intense ultra-dutch unsweetened cocoa note.

the taste is smooth and sweet. again, i was amazed that i could drink a coffee this darkly roasted without any sugar. i mean, i just drank it down; it was much less pungent than its color might suggest.

to be fair to the blend, i had to try it as an italian-style cappuccino, right? usually coffees this dark cut strongly thru the milk.

yet the espresso a-go-go blended more harmoniously into the microfoam. it wasn’t lost there, but just made a happy meeting.

if you put syrup or flavoring into this cappuccino, you’d be losing the pleasant character of the bean. definitely not a coffee for those who use syrups; it won’t stand out.

remember, i don’t really like dark-roast coffees at all, and yet i found the a-go-go a truly charming morning friend. highly recommended!

_______

Queen of Cups

Taylor Maid Farms’ Trish Skeie makes some damn fine coffee

North Bay Bohemian – July 28-August 3, 2004
By R. V. Scheide

Now that there’s a Starbucks or similar chain store on virtually every corner of every city in the United States, it’s tempting to think that Americans know a thing or two about coffee. The truth is, from bean to cup, most of us know very little about the world’s favorite caffeinated beverage. That, however, is changing—thanks to specialty coffee companies like Sebastopol’s Taylor Maid Farms.

“One of the best-kept secrets about coffee is that it’s a lot like wine,” says Trish Skeie, Taylor Maid’s official “roastmaster.” As roastmaster, Skeie’s in charge of roasting and blending the many different varieties of organic, fair trade coffee beans that Taylor Maid founder, president and “green buyer” Mark Inman imports from small farmers around the globe.

Like winemaking, selecting and roasting coffee beans is a complex art with its own rich language for describing aroma and flavor, from “floral” to “ashy,” “delicate” to “acrid,” “bland” to “pungent.” Also as in winemaking, microclimates play an important role in determining the flavor of the coffee beans.

One major difference between winemaking and the specialty coffee trade, Skeie says, is that the latter, from growing the beans to roasting them, is much more labor-intensive. Another is that while anyone can learn about viticulture at the local community college, there is presently no equivalent for becoming a roastmaster or green buyer. Just about the only way to learn the trade is to go out in the real world and do them.

“There is no school for coffee,” she says. “That’s why it’s important to hang out with other coffee people.”

Skeie’s real-world training began after moving to Norway in the late 1980s. While specialty coffee is relatively new in the United States—Inman founded Taylor Maid just 11 years ago in 1993—the Scandinavian countries have a long history of being persnickety about quality coffee. An art major with a successful painting career, Skeie began working on the side as a barista in Oslo’s famed coffee houses. She soon discovered that coffee was her calling, and rose to the position of roastmaster at the prestigious Mocca Kaffebar og Brenneri before being recruited by Taylor Maid last year.

“You’ve probably never had a real cappuccino,” she says, drawing freshly brewed espresso from the chrome machine in a corner of Taylor Maid’s Sebastopol warehouse. The espresso must be warm, not piping hot like most American coffee houses serve it. Instead of whipping the milk into a huge head of white foam, she gently steams it, creating creamy microbubbles that blend better with the coffee’s flavor. “Open your mouth when you drink it, that way you taste the coffee and the milk,” she says.

It’s a damn fine cup of coffee, with Taylor Maid’s sweet and nutty Espresso-a-Go-Go blend and thick, creamy milk.

Tasting the coffee is of primary importance, and Skeie says that popular drinks such as lattes are, in the U.S., nothing more than tall glasses of milk. “It’s a great marriage, milk and coffee, but we in the coffee business see that the taste of the coffee is losing out,” she says.

In the same corner of the warehouse, Taylor Maid has set up a retail outlet featuring a score of its different coffee varieties, as well as teas from around the world, which are also wholesaled to local restaurants and cafes. The coffees are separated into three groups: premium blends, espresso and single origin. Blends are just that: mixtures of two or more bean varieties; espressos are also blends. Single origin coffees feature beans that come from one specific crop and are valued for their consistency in flavor.

The raw beans arrive in 130- to 150-pound gunny sacks from locations as disparate as Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Sumatra. As green buyer, Inman seeks out certified organic beans that are grown using the most sustainable methods possible. Ensuring that farmers are paid a fair price for their crops is built in to the company’s credo “that a business can be environmentally and socially progressive while remaining profitable.”

“If we can commit to a farmer in Nicaragua, we can do a lot of good,” Skeie says. “If he knows he can sell to us every year, he can send his children to school.”

In fact, the demand for specialty coffee is helping making small farms across the Third World more viable. Because of Inman’s willingness to journey to remote and sometimes dangerous locations to seek out small farmers, he’s gained a reputation as the “Indiana Jones of green buyers.” Small farmers are generally more open to organic and sustainable methods, such as “shade grown” coffee, which retains as much of the natural vegetation as possible.

But specialty coffee consumers demand the best, and the only way to ensure that is to test each year’s crop with a process known as “cupping.”

Here again, the similarities to winemaking are striking, right down to the swirling and spitting. In Taylor Maid’s upstairs office, Skeie places nine white ceramic cups, three sets of three, on a circular concrete table that rotates like a Lazy-Suzan. Using a nearby coffee grinder, she grinds three varieties of fresh-roasted, single-origin Guatemalan beans, one variety for each set of cups. Testing each sample three times ensures that the beans are uniform, that there are no defects.

She fills each cup with about three tablespoons of ground coffee. Covering the top of a cup with both hands, she inhales deeply to sense the aroma. She repeats the process on the two cups remaining in the sample, then rotates the table to bring the next sample around.

That’s step one. Next she fills each cup to the brim with hot water. As the coffee brews, the grounds sink to the bottom and a thick crust forms across the top. With a soup spoon, she breaks through the crust, sticking her nose right down to the cup again and inhaling deeply, repeating the process until the table comes around to the first set of cups again.

For the final step of the cupping, Skeie scrapes off the remaining crust of each cup. Using a clean spoon, she sips the fresh brew through her teeth with a hissing sound, so that it sprays across her palate. She swirls it around in her mouth then spits it out into a nearby tin can reserved for the purpose.

Throughout the entire process, Skeie records the fragrance, acidity, flavor, body, aftertaste and balance for each variety on a cupping form. When it’s all said and done, the overall score determines which variety is the best. The main difference between the demonstration Skeie performed in the office and cupping in the field is that in the field, the beans are only lightly roasted, in order to give the cupper a better reading of the coffee’s enzymatic properties.

“There are enough small farmers and enough of a specialty movement to keep it going,” Skeie says.

After the beans are purchased and shipped to Taylor Maid, Skeie supervises the roasting process. On average, beans are roasted for 16 to 20 minutes at temperatures reaching more than 450 degrees, turning from a light grayish-green color to the familiar chocolate brown hue and filling the warehouse with the rich smell of freshly roasted premium-grade coffee.

Skeie is confident that the specialty coffee market will continue to thrive. Prices between the more commercial coffee brands and organic, fair trade coffee such as Taylor Maid’s are already fairly comparable, particularly when taste is factored into the equation.

“We hope that people will see that specialty coffee is an everyday thing that’s affordable,” she says. “If the average consumer picks a good coffee off the shelf, that’s what’s going to turn it around for everybody in the industry.”

_______

Coffee price drop hurts farmers

The Mercury News – Tue, May. 28, 2002
By S.L. Bachman

Whether you drink $3 lattes from a coffee kiosk or brew your own from cheaper canned grounds, the retail price of coffee has not changed dramatically for several years.

But that placid picture masks a market in utter turmoil.

Prices paid to many coffee growers around the world have reached 100-year lows when adjusted for inflation, and some 600,000 people are out of work, according to the World Bank. In country after country, coffee farmers and the people who work for them are struggling not just to stay in business but simply to survive.

People who want their coffee money to help the farmers face a confusing raft of labels, logos and statements about charitable giving. Meanwhile, the major coffee companies—from Starbucks to Folgers—are under pressure to do more. And even those most dedicated to finding solutions can’t agree on what makes the most sense.

Here’s a guide to what’s going on.

For now, most of the efforts to help farmers involve specialty coffee—higher-priced beans that are often sold bagged rather than canned, at supermarkets, gourmet shops or specialty coffee retailers such as Starbucks. Specialty coffee overall is a small part of the U.S. market but the fastest-growing segment. While it is only 10 percent to 15 percent of the total market by volume, it’s about 30 percent when measured in dollars, according to Daniele Giovanucci, a consultant who studied specialty coffees for the World Bank.

The two most common designations for what could be termed “concern coffees” are fair trade, which makes up about 2 percent of the specialty market, and organic, which is about 6 percent, according to TransFair USA, an Oakland-based non-profit group that certifies fair-trade products, and the Organic Coffee Association.

Fair-trade coffee involves a private price-support system.

To participate, farmers join a cooperative. The cooperative sells beans to buyers who agree to pay a so-called floor price that a group such as TransFair has determined is sufficient to allow the farmers to survive. What a living wage is to a janitor, fair-trade plans are to the farmer.

Here’s a comparison:

The price of green, unroasted beans on the commodity markets has been about 50 cents a pound recently, said Judith Ganes-Chase, a New Jersey-based analyst of commodity markets, citing statistics that are a composite of the prices of the two main types of coffee beans: arabica and the cheaper robusta. (During the 1990s, the commodity price was as high as $1.80 per pound.) Companies pay more than $1 a pound for high-quality green beans. But most farmers receive only half or even less of the market price. Middlemen get the rest.

In contrast, the current fair-trade price certified by TransFair is $1.26 per pound for raw beans that meet certain standards. Add to that a premium for growing the beans organically, and the price comes to $1.41 per pound. Because the cooperatives take the place of the middlemen, farmers receive a larger share of the proceeds.

Although fair-trade certification originated in Europe almost 15 years ago, the campaign did not begin to gain visibility in the United States until 1998. Fair-trade coffees are now sold by Safeway and other supermarkets and retailers such as Peet’s and Starbucks, as well as mail-order companies.

In 1999, Emeryville-based Peet’s refused to sell fair-trade coffee because it was not up to Peet’s quality standards, said Jim Reynolds, a longtime buyer and roastmaster for the company.

Peet’s changed its mind as quality improved. “They are—I would say largely at our insistence—working on the quality issue,” Reynolds said.

Organic and other environmentally friendly coffees—the categories include shade-grown and songbird—also claim to pay the farmer more of what the consumer pays per pound. Unlike fair-trade coffee, organic coffee does not offer farmers a guaranteed price. But proponents say the results are similar.

“Retailers of organic products cannot fully guarantee that organic farmers are getting a livable wage, but the co-op or the estate definitely is getting the funds,” said Mark Inman, president of the Organic Coffee Association. Prices paid by association members for non fair-trade organic coffee are about $1.20 to $2.50 a pound — equal to or higher than the fair-trade floor price.

And because the industry is so closely knit, it’s easy to find out how the farmers are doing. “If my farmers are not getting the funds I am sending, I will hear about it either by e-mail or when I am down there,” Inman said.

Bulk market

Although the fair-trade and organic markets are fairly well established and are growing, they are much smaller than the so-called bulk market — the huge quantities of beans that are sold for non-specialty, branded, canned coffee such as Folgers or Maxwell House.

In the bulk market, solutions to help the farmers are more complex. Pro-farm groups have had some success in persuading large coffee-buying companies such as Folgers to donate money to help farmers or to sell fair-trade coffee. Last year, Sara Lee — the third largest coffee seller in the United State — became the first major company to sell fair-trade coffee, though only to some institutional customers. Other big companies have not yet followed suit.

Other proposals aimed at the bulk market include:

Adopting industry standards for coffee imported to the United States (there now are none); diversifying crops in coffee-producing countries; disposing of some low-quality beans before they reach the international market; and increasing coffee consumption in coffee-producing countries such as Brazil as well as in the United States and other developed countries.

A February meeting of the New York-based National Coffee Association, which says its members conduct “90 percent of the coffee business in the United States,” explored additional solutions such as helping coffee farmers diversify their crops, creating long-term contracts between roasters and growers; improving marketing; and establishing a relief fund.

Coffee-industry insiders and social activists argue over which of these ideas will do more to help farmers. Even some fair-trade and organic proponents disagree over which of their plans is more stable in the long run.

Boom-and-bust cycles

For their part, economists wonder if any of the well-intended efforts to soften the blows of the international market will make enough difference to revive the fortunes of coffee farmers.

Some farmers will not survive the current slump in coffee prices, while others will learn from painful experience to plant and harvest less, said Lovell Jarvis, a professor of agriculture and resource economics at the University of California-Davis.

Even then, Jarvis and other economists and analysts said such boom-and-bust cycles are endemic to markets in agriculture commodities—especially orchard crops such as coffee, cocoa and oranges.

“You always have more of that in agriculture than in other industries,” Jarvis said. “It’s very hard to get around the market.”

With all the turmoil in the markets, why have prices at the supermarket, or the coffee kiosk, remained steady or even risen?

Coffee companies believe that is the way consumers prefer it. “The coffee industry has learned, through experience, to keep retail prices stable,” said Ted Lingle, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

Congressional hearings

When retail prices rose and fell with green coffee prices, angry shoppers complained to their representatives in Congress. Three times—in 1955, 1977 and 1987—Congress held hearings in which coffee executives were asked to explain the price swings.

Among specialty coffee purveyors, one solution voiced repeatedly is to try to turn coffee into the wine of the 21st century.

The idea is to sell more, better-quality, better-for-the-earth or better-for-the-farmer coffee at higher prices. But success will depend on persuading coffee drinkers to think more with their taste buds and pay more for the opportunity.

Will they?

The hopes rest on consumers like John Mansperger, a sales engineer for a computer hardware vendor who was drinking a venti non-fat two-pump-caramel macchiato at a Santa Clara Starbucks.

Mansperger figures he downs about seven cups of coffee a day, including two macchiati at $3.50 a pop. Mansperger had not heard that wholesale coffee prices had dropped to historic lows. As for what he pays per cup, he said, “I’ve only seen it go up; I’ve never seen it go down.”

Nevertheless, he said he is ready to pay a little bit more to help farmers—up to a point. “Unless it got too crazy, then I might think about it,” he said.

_______

Garden Variety

Taylor Maid’s organic teas perk up the cup with wild flowers, leaves, and savory herbs

Sonoma County Independent – January 29–February 4, 1998
By Paula Harris

THIS COULD USE more lavender,” remarks one woman as, like a professional “nose” creating the latest designer perfume, she deeply inhales a fragrant liquid and swirls the concoction around in a pure white bowl.

“I can taste the licorice notes, but the finish is a little astringent,” adds a man, reverently sipping the heady fluid and rolling it around his palette before deftly spitting it out like an expert winemaker.

It’s late afternoon and the pale winter sun hangs low as three men and three women stand around a wooden table under the shade of an old oak tree at the edge of a huge Occidental garden leading into a deep forest.

The group is wearing gardening attire and heavy boots, and everyone is grubby and tired after a day of working on the land. They could use a break, but their attention is now focused on the white bowls as they swish the liquid around and watch the steam rise into the chilly afternoon air.

But it’s not perfumes or pinots inspiring this particular group of connoisseurs–they’re blending organic loose-leaf tea.

“We analyze the qualities, the different notations, whether the finish is bitter, sweet, or spicy,” explains Michael Presley, a tall, lanky, athletic man, who is the chief cultivator for Taylor Maid Farms, which currently produces 15 blends of tea. “We’re looking for a real harmony—it’s very sensual.”

Taylor Maid, which also roasts organic coffees, opted to begin farming ingredients for teas five years ago, deeming that the necessary crops (many of them native to the area) would be a good environmental fit with west Sonoma County. “We felt that growing wine grapes would be bad for the land and that herbs were the way to go,” says Taylor Maid co-owner Mark Inman. “This is the easiest method to work with to keep the farm in sustainable fashion.”

Now some 50 acres overlooking the coast on the hilly west side of Occidental are devoted to tea farming. The picturesque scene includes flower fields, bicycle paths, and frog ponds, where the amphibians are used to naturally control pests.

Taylor Maid cultivates traditional culinary and medicinal herbs and flowers, including peppermint, lemongrass, sage, hops, nettles, ginger root, rose hips, hibiscus, sunflowers, and English, French, and Spanish lavenders to blend with imported organic green and black teas.

Presley says eventually the company would like to grow its own tea plantation under the extensive canopy of the conifers and redwood trees shading the property. “We live in the Banana Belt here and it’s favorable to all kinds of horticulture,” he explains. “But growing tea is a future plan for down the road.”

The company’s final product is caffeine-free, 100 percent organic, and void of the man-made chemicals frequently used in tea production. The blends contain only leaves, flowers, seeds, roots, essential oils, and fruits.

The specialty teas are available at many local stores and at the Santa Rosa Farmers Market. Bestsellers include Herbal Gardens, Black Lavender, and Vital Green (a tasty blend of nettles, lemon balm, and green tea).

“People really like these teas because what they taste is the real herb; there’s nothing boosting the herb and no artificial flavors sprayed into it,” says Inman. “The natural flavors are subtle but deeper—it makes tea-drinking a more poignant experience.”

While some of the blends border on being medicinal, the company makes no specific health claims. However, Inman is quick to point out that nettle is a reputed blood tonic with antiviral properties; spearmint, raspberry leaf, and chamomile have proven calming effects; and lemon balm and rosehips are said to fight colds.

“Our whole thing with tea is that it’s a natural food with healing properties–not just a beverage,” says Inman. “Remember, the natural healing properties in herbs have been used in tea form for centuries.”

Presley agrees, claiming that our “oldest interaction with plants” has been to brew up a batch of hot, soothing tea. “It’s our common heritage, all of humanity shares it: Europeans, Asians, Native Americans,” he explains. “Now we’re realizing that it’s a global art.”

“Art” is an apt description. From the planting to the harvesting, drying, milling, and blending, a common thread of creativeness runs through the operations at Taylor Maid, elevating the beverage way beyond the common cuppa.

Indeed, when you pry open a vacuum-sealed tin of, say, the company’s Flower Power blend (an intoxicating mix of hibiscus, rose hips, orange peel, cinnamon, calendula petals, cornflower petals, lavender, rose geranium flowers, and essential orange and cinnamon oils) the sensation is almost overwhelming. The dried blend is alive with color, like a burgundy and orange-hued potpourri–and it smells like Christmas cookies. Tempting enough to bury one’s face in the reusable container.

“It’s almost like aromatherapy,” says Ananda Johnson, part of the Tea Tasting Team, assistants to blending expert Julie Morbitz. “When we stand there and taste—sometimes from silver goblets, sometimes from white china bowls so that we can see the color—Julie tries to pull responses from each of us about what we see, smell, taste, what it makes us think of, and how it makes us feel,” Johnson says. ” We’re really committed to this. It takes a lot of work and study. I guess you could say that tea is our destiny.”

_______

TMF Tweets
SEASONAL SINGLE ORIGINS – WINTER

COLOMBIA - FINCA KYOTO
Caramel and malt aroma, oak and nutty notes, smooth honey body and balanced citric acidity.

FLORES - GREEN DRAGON
Sweet chocolate and floral notes, earthy and smooth body, with a hint of smokiness.

SUMATRA - TAKENGON
Earthy sweetness with hints of cacao, caramel, roasted hazelnut & honeysuckle.

Real People. Really Good Coffee.

Best of the North Bay 2005

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

Roaster Pushes Sustainable Farming

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

Roaster of the Year Runner-Up: Taylor Maid Farms

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

Sebastopol’s earth mother teaches workers to grow food

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

Pack, Wrap, Seal and Sell

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

Coffee Culture Meets Viticulture

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

Espresso A-Go-Go

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

Queen of Cups

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

Coffee price drop hurts farmers

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

Garden Variety

Upcoming Events

Roasting Tour & Roundtable Discussion

TMF Tweets

SEASONAL SINGLE ORIGINS – WINTER