Browsing blue bottle coffee.
I once again took photos for this year’s Eat Real Festival, held in Oakland’s Jack London Square from September 23-25, 2011. This post is the first of many from the festival. (Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6) The event’s organizers had a fully packed schedule and there were a lot of really interesting things to photograph.
One of the things that I noticed this year was that there were more hands-on activities. There was a DIY Make-it area and a DIY Eat-it area complete with a community oven, sponsored by King Arthur Flour (I am a fan).
Coffee Brewing with Blue Bottle Coffee
One of the first DIY activities was a coffee brewing workshop put on by the fine folks at Blue Bottle coffee, who roast their beans only a few blocks away. 4 of their training staff led a workshop on making coffee with paper filters and their Bonmac ceramic drippers.
Benjamin Brewer started the talk by giving an overview of the process and continued to make key points as each of the other trainers demonstrated their drip-brewing processes.
The coffee grounds were precisely weighed on digital scales to ensure a coffee to water ratio of 1:10 in the cup. “In the cup” is a key phrase, Benjamin explained. The coffee grounds absorb a fair amount of hot water and thus a little extra hot water needs to be added to the filter to achieve a 1:10 ratio in the cup.
Benjamin emphasized freshness – the beans in the demo were only between 1-3 days old. After the beans were weighed, the trainers took turns grinding them and bringing the grounds back to their table.
Hot water was poured in via goose-necked pitchers until the target weight was reached. In the above photo, Brian demonstrated when to pull the dripper away before guiding attendees in brewing their own drip coffee.
I stepped outside after this workshop to make my way to the DIY Eat-it area, where Beauty’s Bagels were putting on a bagel workshop.
Third-wave coffee was well represented at the festival. Ritual Roasters‘ always-photogenic coffee trailer, Sputnik was there once again.
Bagel making with Beauty’s Bagel
Oakland’s Beauty’s Bagel led a DIY workshop where they showed how to make their Montreal-style bagels. They had premade and proofed the dough and workshop attendees floured up their hands and got to rolling their own bagels after watching a quick demo.
Here’s Blake Joffe cutting up the dough for the first demonstration. They used King Arthur’s high gluten flour (14.2% protein content) for maximum chewiness.
Some bagel recipes call for creating balls and poking holes through them to create their distinctive shape, but here Amy Remsen rolls them out and creates a loop.
Completed demo bagels.
After they created a few demo bagels, the audience members were invited to get involved and create their own.
Meanwhile, things were getting started with the wood-burning oven
Various bagels rolled by various bagel-makers. The bagels were then boiled in honey-water and thrown into the oven.
September 25th, 2011
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: 4 Comments
here’s my subjective ranking of the best espresso/coffee in the san francisco bay area, complete with a google map.
key: more crema = better. empty cup = not so good. Sorry about the funky anti-aliasing.
excellent:
enjoyable:
not bad:
drinkable but not pleasant:
- farley’s (san francisco/oakland/emervyille, farley’s blend from sunshine? in san leandro) Recently had a not good one from the 65th st emeryville location. doh.
- peerless (oakland, peerless)
- woody’s cafe (oakland, ?)
- crepevine (oakland/berkeley, ?)
- riva (berkeley, ?)
- starbucks (starbucks)
- peets (peets)
- uncommon grounds cafe (berkeley, uncommon grounds)
not drinkable:
- none yet. Maybe I have a high tolerance?
credit for working the google maps/wordpress hack: http://digwp.com/2010/01/google-maps-shortcode/ if you want to try this, don’t forget to add the &embed at the end of your link.
October 23rd, 2010
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: 3 Comments
We finally got back on the bike and did a long ride last weekend. ~88 miles to Pt. Reyes Station and back.
fog in the morning in the Presidio:
fog on the golden gate bridge too, of course. It cleared up as soon as we were finished crossing.
The Nicasio reservoir. Our group split soon after – we went to Pt. Reyes Station, the rest to Petaluma and then Santa Rosa.
Old St. Mary’s church + Corvette
Riding back across the bridge that afternoon was a little hairy and a little wet, but this scene was absolutely wild:
this part was a bit scary with the tourists and the fog:
Chrissy field on the way back:
Latte at Blue Bottle in the Ferry Building to end the day:
September 19th, 2010
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: 1 Comment
I recently checked out Local 123 (2049 San Pablo Avenue Berkeley, CA) and Farley’s East (33 Grand Avenue Oakland, CA). I also finally got around to visiting the blue bottle cafe near jack london square (300 Webster St Oakland, CA)
blue bottle cafe
espresso with blue bottle
the ristretto was predictably enjoyable – bright and with a bit of sweetness that lingered. I also had a sandwich with meat from boccalone and some cookie to go with. the space is nice – well-lit with natural light but pretty small – there’s a cupping area and then more space in the back for bags and bags of coffee bean storage and roasting.
local 123
Local 123 is just south of University Ave on San Pablo – near Lanesplitter and Acme.
pretty rosetta
espresso in the patio
(apologies for the iphone photos)
local 123 brews flying goat coffee and they made a tasty ristretto. I don’t remember details of the taste other than the fact that I really enjoyed it. the two people working there who we interacted with were super friendly and the barista offered another shot if this one wasn’t to my liking. the space is nice, with big prints of tasteful and uncheesy square-formatted naturey photos and a nice outdoor seating area.
farley’s east
they pull bottomless shots here from a la marzocco. The espresso was not bad, but not as good as I’d enjoyed from local 123 and blue bottle. compared to the two shots above, this one tasted a little staler and darker. still not bad though. they use beans roasted by sunrise coffee in san leandro.
espresso from farley's east
I liked their interior and the magazine selection and the friendly person at the counter who took my order. I got a cold turkey sandwich – it was good. there’s fun art on the walls and deception by blackalicious was playing as I picked up my sandwich.
it was a monday and the bakesale betty nearby was closed for the day. I wonder how much more business area cafes receive on mondays and if there’s a correlation. the windows of the subway next door were still broken as a result of the opportunistic rioting that took place after the mehserle verdict was announced.
subway window, broken
I saw quite a few windows being repaired in Oakland today:
window repair
July 12th, 2010
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: 1 Comment
update: you can expect to see some wild-looking mugs at miam.maim: http://www.unitedbrands.us/miam/miammiam-mugs/fallseries.html
yet-to-open cafe/lounge miam.miam (5856 college ave) just posted a huge blue bottle banner in their window. after having a banner in the window promising frozen yogurt in “summer 2009″ and then “holiday 2009″ from peeks into their front door, it looks like they’re finally getting closer to opening. The huge banner is a little misleading – the size of it makes you think that blue bottle is actually opening at that location, but not so.
Bittersweet, just down the street also serves blue bottle (or at least they did last time I was there), so miam.miam isn’t alone.
this gets me to thinking – blue bottle’s got a pretty strong brand going if cafes are clamoring to serve their coffee and use it in their advertising, right?
on a slightly related note, scream sorbet is opening up a shop at 51st and telegraph in temescal (5030 telegraph ave), 2 doors down from bakesale betty. they’re scheduled to open in June, according to a not-fake poster.
they’ve got a hilarious set of fake posters in the window:
scream sorbet posters
hilarious fake ads and websites:
“squidazzle! Bringing squid and squid-based technologies to the greater bay area since early 2010. We’ll make you aware what the squid has to share”
“the root seller: your year-roud source for roots and tubers”
“the mauve emporium: love mauve? so do we! finally, the store that’s nothing but mauve. If it’s arguably mauve… we’ve got it!”
“TROUGH: food by the minute – Grand opening special!!! Only $9.99 for 10 minutes! That’s less than a dollar a minute!!” (looks like landing page is broken)
“MARZIPAN MADNESS – The DIY almond paste sensation that’s sweeping the nation!”
June 21st, 2010
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: 2 Comments
