He will now be representing Ireland at the 2012 World Latte Art Championships (location to be confirmed). We couldn’t be more proud!!!

Ruslan can be found dividing his time between our North Wall Quay location & The Art of Coffee on Grand Canal Dock. He is an amazing barista and we wish him every success on the world stage!!!

Photo courtesy of Jackie Malone.

Via: Homeowners Insurance

NWQ
Closing – 22.12.11 at 1430
Re-open – 03.01.12 at 0700

MYO
Closing – 23.12.11 at 1500
Re-open – 03.01.12 at 0700

Online Shop
Last date for deliveries – noon on 21.12.11
Last date for collection – 1100 on 22.12.11

All webshop orders placed after 22.12.11 will not be dispatched until after 04.01.12.

All of us at Coffeeangel would like to thank you for your support over the last year and we look forward to serving you in 2012.  Be safe, stay warm, hug those you love and have a Merry Christmas!

Karl and all the Coffeeangel Team

Free Delivery means you won’t pay a cent for any orders over €100 shipped within the Ireland – North or South!

To qualify for Free Delivery your order must be shipped to a delivery address within Ireland and the total value must exceed €100*. If you are having your order shipped outside of Ireland it will not qualify for Free Delivery.

If you are ordering from the North, please order with the SHIPPING charge in place and the charge will be refunded back to you.

Thanks for all your support this past year. The whole team at Coffeeangel would like to wish you and your families all the very best this holiday season… Merry Chistmas!!!

Karl & the Coffeeangel team

*This offer is valid from Nov.25th up to Dec. 21st, 2011…please note the last day for guaranteed Christmas delivery is Dec. 21st & orders must be place before noon. Ensure you select Free Shipping – Free on the Checkout Page. SHOP NOW

At Coffeeangel, we are big fans of a multitude of manual brewing methods. But we accept that – for the non-professional – deciding what coffee tool to give (or what to do with the one you receive) can be a daunting and confusing proposition.

Thankfully there is a fantastic and objective coffee resource available online that will both answer and inform… brewmethods.com

Brew Methods is designed with one thing in mind: To provide anyone and everyone with access to the best coffee brewing guides in the entire universe.

Brewmethods.com is filled with tips, tutorials and videos from some of the world’s most respected coffee pro’s.

So if you are thinking of buying – or just received – an AeroPress, Hario V60, or some other amazing coffee tool, the good folks at brewmethods.com have created a brilliant resource providing you with thorough overviews and professional tutorials on what’s really involved in producing fantastic coffee.

Knowledge is power. Happy Brewing!!!

I won’t re-hash what was clearly written, but given the quality of the coffee we cupped (referenced against what I usually taste), the scores presented in the final article were very generous and some of my more colourful descriptors were wisely edited out (no doubt potential advertisers may have been miffed). But I really felt a few of these coffees would be better suited at repelling slugs in my back garden.

Some may feel that I’m being disingenuous (given my own position as a coffee reseller), but I do feel the that it is collectively shameful that the Irish public should be subjected to such an appallingly bad coffee product by it’s major roasters and retailers. Surely part of their job is tasting and QC’ing every product going out of the factory and being housed on their shelves?

For what it’s worth, I had previously compiled a list of Irish roasters – see here. And disappointingly, a couple of these brands were on tasting table that day. The only further advice I can offer is to continue to shop around and do taste what other roasters have to offer. And if getting their product is not handy, I’m fairly certain most offer a very convenient mail order service and will grind to suit if needed. We certainly do at CoffeeAngel.

And if you don’t find a coffee that pleases you on this small island (and you are not prepared to go down the route of home-roasting like Ernie), you could do much worse than trying what these very fine UK roasters have to offer – HasBean, Square Mile & James Gourmet Coffee.

I must accept that the purpose of this newspaper article was to offer clear advice to those trudging down the aisles after a hard week’s work, but I can assure you that there are amazing coffees out there and it really is worth the extra effort to seek them out. Given what I have tasted… it appears the supermarkets are unable to do so.

We pride ourselves on our dogged dertermination and hardiness to serve throughout the year, but if there is any reason that CoffeeAngel can not be there for you – whether it is the weather, equipment failure or some other unforeseen catastophe – we will, in future, be letting you know via email as soon as we possibly can.

If you would like to be kept apprised of any potential and regrettable disruption to our service, please fill in the form below and we will do our best to ensure that you stay both warm and informed if we are ever AWOL…

But give me the more pedestrian back-of-bottle descriptors like “freshly cut grass”, “strawberries” or even “cat’s pee” and I would be pretty confident that I, like many others, would be able to spot them.

However, describing and determining the flavour profile of a coffee is another game altogether… or is it?

The 2009 World Barista Champion, Gwilym Davies, put it so beautifully and concisely when he said, “Coffee is a fruit”. And I think that this reality, when presented to people (as surprising as it may be to some) is a damn good place to start.

It has, and continues, to be discussed within industry circles that coffee labels / descriptors – like wine – can be confusing, intimidating and often times misleading. And I would tend to agree (and TBH, customers have told me as much).

Tomorrow I board the 0720 train from Dublin to Kilkenny to attend Ireland’s first ever Foodcamp – part of the Savour Kilkenny food festival. I am viewing the event as – apart from a rare day away from The Pale – a great opportunity to mix, mingle and learn from some of the Irish food industry’s leading lights.

I will be bringing along our newest coffee, Chelba – an Operation Cherry Red ((Operation Cherry Red is a program is funded by coffee trading company Trabocca, in cooperation with funding from the Dutch Government.
Ethiopian farmers are encouraged to pick only the ripest, red coffee cherries, which produce an exceptionally cleaner, sweeter and more complete cup of coffee. Operation Cherry Red hires experts in agronomy to assist the farmers in practicing environmentally safer practices and cuppers to assist with implementing better equipment and procedures.
Quite simply, these farmers are paid a higher price for higher quality coffee and the extra margin is reinvested to improve quality and increase volume.)) naturally processed, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. And I am planing to brew this coffee (if I can find a kettle) during the lunch break ((I’ll be using a Hario V60 & Baratza Maestro and attempting to brew to Gold Cup Standard. No milk or sugar will be provided.)) and then asking the assembled luminaries to taste, assess and basically share their thoughts. ((Obviously, I have my own ideas of it’s flavour profile, but I am exceedingly curious to find out what the professional foodies think.))

I will then pull together all the comments, impressions and thoughts from this sampling and will publish these as this coffee’s official tasting notes.

I am hoping that this little exercise may challenge and hopefully open a few eyes… maybe even my own.

However, I must bashfully admit that I have just recently had a re-revelation. This revelation was not new to me. Nor is it particularily enlightened or contain insights that any first year business student could not have shared. It would appear that the passage of time, abundance of paperwork and wood / trees seems to have obscured what once was obvious.

But thanks to a rather recent and very forthright and forensic customer email (thanks Eoin), I have just rediscovered that – outside of our daily operations – I have been remiss in gaguing exactly what my customers both want and need.

In my enthusiasm to convey all the amazing things that speciality coffee can be – different origins, varietals, brewing methods, tips, tricks and tools (and possibly in an effort to keep pace with those same industry luminaries), it would appear that I have left several people behind.

Now obviously, not everyone is following the coffee world’s James Hoffmann, Mike Phillips, George Howell or Vince Fedele on Twitter or free-basing off speciality coffee industry’s shared ‘cupping spoon’ of wisdom. So I guess that where I should step up. And in terms of being a good teacher (which I do think is part of the job), I will do my utmost to improve.

Thankfully, as I have mentioned in a previous post, Ireland is blessed with some truly great coffee professionals. There has been a marked increase in coffee-themed tutorials / events – particularly at Dublin’s 3FE. So if there is an event going on, I will do my best to keep you updated. If there is something relevant and not too over-the-top-technical or esoteric that is being discussed or setting the coffee world alight, I’ll fill you in here.

For our own part, some may have have noticed that the range of coffees available at our sites in Dublin and in our webshop has been reduced over the last several weeks. Partly due to the aforementioned customer email and some rudimentary market research, I have decided to simplify our coffee offering and carry no more than three or four coffees at any one time ((this is subject to change, but for the moment this is what we are aiming for)) – but we will make sure that all of these are coffees that we really love ((I firmly believe it is much easier and enjoyable to sell coffee when you love it.)) and are easily accessible. ((Like wine, there can be critically acclaimed coffees that command high prices and expert palates to really appreciate. We will leave this coffees alone for the moment.))

In line with industry best practice, we will be working with our roaster to find those coffees that are seasonal, ethically sourced and delicious. Prices of these coffees will undoubtedly fluctuate depending on global demand, harvest conditions, auction prices and many other factors beyond our control, but we will do our best to find value.

We will also have enough to stock of these coffees to last for a few months. One of the main customer complaints we have had is that just when the customer finds a coffee they like, we have moved on to something else. Again, we will do our best to let both our team and our customers get familiar with the coffees on offer whilst trying to keep things fresh and interesting. Where logistically possible, we will have samples of the coffee on offer so customers can taste before purchase, plus simple-to-follow brewing tips and serving suggestions.

Like before, we will still be running G.O.D. Fridays and free local collection from any of our locations on orders placed through the Coffeeangel webshop.

Our first coffee in keeping with this new initiative is Kenya Karimikui. And we will be adding a couple more to the family over the next few weeks – watch this space.