• Now that you’ve gotten geeky with your water, the next important component is the coffee.  It’s hard to justify going to all that trouble for your water if you’re just going to be dumping it over a pile of stale, flavorless coffee grounds, right?  It doesn’t matter what brand of coffee you buy and or what country the coffee comes from…if it’s old and stale.  Coffee has a shelf life!

    Read more

  • Coffee is 98.5% water.  Read that sentence again.  Go ahead; the rest of the blog isn’t going anywhere.  ; )

    What kind of water do you use to brew your coffee at home?  Maybe you haven’t thought much about it before, but consider this:  If so much of the finished product (“brewed coffee”) is made up of water, then perhaps it’s important.  (Especially if you’re hoping to improve the quality of your coffee!)

    It seems like a lot of people use tap water from their kitchen faucet to brew their coffee at home.  And understandably so.  It’s convenient.  But the problem with tap water is that it’s usually pretty hard, or contains a high mineral content.  This can affect the flavor of the water, but when you’re using that water to brew coffee, two things happen: 

    1.) It produces deposits of scale or lime which build up in your coffee brewer over time, reducing its life and efficiency, essentially, killing your machine (if you’re using a machine, that is).

    2.) Hard/tap water will affect the flavor of the finished brew.  And by that, I don’t mean that you’ll taste the yucky water through the coffee (although that could be true if the water is foul tasting enough. If the water doesn’t taste good all by itself, it certainly won’t make good tasting coffee.).  Hard water has too much “stuff” in it, so it won’t pull out (or extract) as much from your coffee.  It’s like going to a dinner party, but stopping to eat something along the way.  If you’re full, you generally don’t eat as much.  Water that is full of minerals won’t have room to grab as much goodness from your coffee. 

    How does this translate into your cup?  Read more

  • Mar

    22

    March TNT in Lancaster

    Posted in Blog, Lancaster, Lancaster TNT | Comments (2)

    The crowd was animated.

    Lancaster’s March TNT (Thursday Night Throwdown) took place on March 10th at Prince Street Café. 12 competitors went cup to cup to pour beautiful designs into lattes as 20-30 others cheered them on. This time winning pour came from Eric, a barista at Prince Street. Second place went to our own barista and shop manager, Steve, and third place went to our own Adam (barista and tattoo artist extraordinaire). As always, the winner got the coveted “Pitcher of Glory” and the cash, and this month Prince Street also gave away some sweet merchandise to the top 3 baristas. A big thanks to Josh (Square One) and Doreen (Chestnut Hill Café) for judging, to Steph (Chestnut Hill) for her stellar video camera work (enabling the crowd to see the action on the big screen) and to Crystal, Kevin and the gang at Prince Street for hosting!  Another big thanks to Jack Myers for all of the photos!

    Stay tuned for the location of the April TNT, which will be on Thursday, April 14th.

    Eric from Prince Street took 1st place!

    Steve (Square One!) took home 2nd place!

    Adam (also Square One!) got 3rd place!

    Josh (Square One) and Doreen (Chestnut Hill) deliberate over two skillfully poured lattes.

    It was hoppin’!

  • Mar

    16

    Basic Brewing Suggestions

    Posted in Blog, Education | Comments (2)


    “How do I get my coffee at home to taste as great as it does at your shop?”

    It might seem like a silly question to some people, but others are noticing a definite difference in coffee quality from place to place (even from coffee shop to coffee shop). Why is that? Does it all come down to expensive equipment and fancy gadgets? Or might there be a right way to brew coffee and a wrong way? Or perhaps it’s not so black and white, but surely there is a “better way” and “worse way” to brew coffee. Or maybe it’s all a matter of taste? Read more

  • (If you’re not sure what a TNT is, check out our blog about the first Lancaster TNT.)

    This month the action went down at Chestnut Hill Café in Lancaster. 12 baristas competed from various cafés around the city (specifically from Square One Coffee, Chestnut Hill Café, Prince Street Café and The Coffee Company). Although prizes are only awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, the consensus from the baristas and the crowd was that the level of talent is definitely on the rise. It was clear that everyone had been practicing and the bar has been raised. That’s one of the aims of Thursday Night Throwdowns; to elevate coffee culture. Read more

  • Feb

    03

    Bean Town

    Posted in Blog, On The Road | Comments (2)

    We made another trip out to Boston last week to visit the amazing folks who serve Square One Coffee and the coffee community at large. It’s always a blast to catch up with our Boston peeps. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Coffee people are awesome.

    For us, trips out to Boston are a bit of whirlwind, full of great conversation, catching up with café owners (who are quickly becoming good friends), plenty of time spent training baristas and tweaking espresso machines/coffee brewers…but always LOTS of coffee. Read more

  •  

    Last Saturday, we were privileged to be able to lead some coffee cuppings at Folklore Coffee Co. in Elizabethtown, PA in celebration of their One Year Anniversary.  If you’ve never been there, you are definitely missing out!  Here’s why: Read more

  • What in the world is that?”, you might be asking.  In the words of a modern day poet*:  Wellllll…Obviously…

    Thursday Night Throwdowns are friendly latte art competitions held at coffee shops on a monthly basis to bring the coffee community together (locally, nationally and globally).  We’ve been traveling to some of the Philly TNTs for a while now, and they are always a blast!  What can we say?  Coffee people are awesome!

    Read more