The new Copper Door Coffee Roasters roastery café at The Yard at Santa Fe in Denver. All photos courtesy of Copper Door Coffee Roasters.

Denver's Cooper Door Coffee Roasters has opened a second café, including a custom-colored new Diedrich IR-12 roaster affectionately named Cecilia that stands in full view of guests.

"We were up to roasting 30 hours a week," Copper Door owner Hannah Ulbrich recently told Daily Coffee News. "All of the roasting that could be done in 30 hours can now be done in 10. It gives us a lot more room to expand."

Ulbrich has owned Copper Door since 2014, making it the first and only 100 percent female-owned roastery in the city. She took over the wholesale roasting business from her neighbor Sinjin Eberle, who founded the coffee company in 2006. At first, Ulbrich ran production out of the garage and basement of her home. Then, in late 2014, she ran a successful $10,000 Kickstarter campaign and opened her first cafe in a strip mall in Denver's Montclair neighborhood. 

Copper Door Coffee Roasters Owner Hannah Ulbrich.

Following sustained success, Copper Door's elegant second shop and expanded production roastery opened at The Yard on Santa Fe in Denver's Art District last month. It's a major feat for Copper Door and its owner Ulbrich, who when she came into coffee three years ago wasn't aware that female owners are vastly outnumbered by their male peers in the coffee roasting business. 

"I didn't know it when I started," she said. "I came from a teaching background and I was a barista for years, which is also a primarily female profession. It was weird for me to step into the role of owner/roaster and then find out that there were significantly fewer women who are doing it."

Ulbrich and designer Erin Lindstrom led the interior design of the café, where a bold tile pattern wraps around the base of the three-sided rectangular bar in the middle of what was a previously unoccupied retail space. On one side of the bar are large community tables, while the entryway side features smaller-profile tables between the order counter and a large garage door that allows in abundant natural light. 

The high side of the bar looks out to the new roastery, where the IR-12 replaces a beloved but overworked 3-kilo machine made by US Roaster Corp. Head Roaster Nikol Werner has been helping to lead the adjustment between the two machines, attempting to match ongoing roast profiles through various analysis tools.

"You get about where the flavor profile is. It wasn't too difficult after that, adjusting the profile slightly to make it better," Werner said. "We just wanted deeper flavors. We knew we had good products, but we also knew we had an old roaster. Giving our same beans a brand new life on this roaster has been really exciting. It's validating."

Copper Door sources green coffee primarily from Atlas Coffee Importers and Cafe Imports. The team doesn't seek any particular flavor profile, preferring instead to serve a wide range of single-origins and blends, always ensuring that something accessible is on offer. Said Werner, "Our spectrum is very well-rounded."

The new Diedrich IR-12, named Cecilia.

One of the roastery's blends is the Shady Lady, formulated specifically for cold brew, either for home brewers buying the beans in bulk or for Copper Door's own bottled cold brew production.

"It has these deep layers," Werner said of the cold brew. "It's nice and woodsy from the Sumatra. It's chocolatey from the Colombia and it's got a pop of fruity juiciness from our (Ethiopian) Yirgacheffe, to make it just a really refreshing cold brew."

The new café offers various manual brew preparations, including Aeropress and Chemex, along with 6-ounce cappuccinos, 4-ounce cortados, brewed tea and spiced chai. It stocks specialty syrups made by Backyard Soda Co. in Denver. Ulbrich raved about their lemon rosemary and lime basil syrups.

The larger roaster, meanwhile, has allowed Copper door to meet the increased demand created by a second café along with wholesale accounts, while creating potential for more Copper Door locations down the line. Werner said she's been thoroughly enjoying learning to "drive" the new IR-12, citing berry flavor nuances in two different Ethiopian naturals currently in stock that previously may not have been as apparent.

"With this roaster, you can get the nuance out of them even if you put them side by side," Werner said. "If you can imagine a stick shift and an automatic, I upgraded to a stick shift."

Copper Door Coffee Roasters is now open at 900 W. 1st Avenue #180 in Denver, Colorado

Lindsay Christians
Lindsay Christians (@LindsayC608) is a full-time food and arts journalist for The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. She is the host of a weekly food podcast called The Corner Table.

Tags: Atlas Coffee, Atlas Coffee Importers, Cafe Imports, Colorado, Copper Door Coffee Roasters, Denver, Diedrich IR-12, Erin Lindstrom, Hannah Ulbrich, Nikol Werner, Sinjin Eberle

,Denver's Cooper Door Coffee Roasters has opened a second café, including a custom-colored new Diedrich IR-12 roaster affectionately named Cecilia that stands in full view of guests. "We were … Business Operations,Craft/Operations,Micro,Openings,Plains/Rockies,Retail,Roasting,Atlas Coffee,Atlas Coffee Importers,Cafe Imports,Colorado,Copper Door Coffee Roasters,Denver,Diedrich IR-12,Erin Lindstrom,Hannah Ulbrich,Nikol Werner,Sinjin Eberle

• 0 comments »

Harvest time at La Revancha, Nicaragua. Photo by Oscar Leiva for CRS Coffeelands.

Following the recent Avance coffee sustainability conference held in Guatemala, the Specialty Coffee Association released a report that analyzed existing public information about farm profitability and costs.

The authors conducted a meta-analysis of reliable cost of production data available to them. Shockingly, they only found nine studies and publications from around the world that they considered usable. For an industry built on 22 million farmers, this tells us that there is very little publicly available data on farm costs and profitability. The main — and surprising — conclusion from the authors of the study is that farm yield is not correlated to farm income. On the surface, this seems to be a somewhat paradoxical conclusion. Why wouldn't higher production lead to more income?

Let's take a quick look at how to calculate net income. The simplest version is (yield x price) – (cost of production) = net income. In practice, this is much more complex, as there are multiple sales, prices and several fixed and variable costs that are involved in cost of production.

For the purposes of our discussion, let's focus on the basics. The first two variables of this equation, yield and price, often come under the most scrutiny, yet we often forget that the three variables in the equation have a correlation. The key finding of the report states, "Increasing yield typically increases the cost per hectare to produce coffee, especially in the short term, and hence may decrease a farm's profitability." In other words, producing more coffee is expensive, costly and cuts into a farmer's margins.

This seems like it follows a basic economic theory – the law of diminishing marginal returns.

This economic theory states that the when you attempt to increase production, the incremental output of each input decreases. In other words, if you spend $100 on fertilizers, for each subsequent $100 that you spend, you would not get the same increase in output that you got on the initial $100.

To get a better understanding of how commercial farms balance the issue of yields and profitability, I talked to someone who knows and manages this dynamic on a daily basis. Gustavo Cerna is the supply chain director of MACERCAFE, a family business in Nicaragua that currently operates 10 farms, each about 200 hectares in size.

I shared with Cerna the findings of the SCA report and asked him what he felt about the negative relationship between productivity and net income. Cerna enthusiastically agreed with the findings, since it mimics an approach that they have on their farms.

"We try to go for a medium level of productivity – trying to produce about 25 to 30 quintales per manzana (3500 to 4200 pounds per hectare of green coffee)," Cerna said. "That's the sweet spot. We've tried producing 40-50 quintales and it's just too expensive and we are exposed to too much risk." (Note: A manzana is a Central American unit of area equivalent to approximately 0.70 of a hectare. Quintales are 100-pound units. A quintal is abbreviated here as QQ.)

In other words, in many cases, it is very expensive and highly risky to be a highly productive farmer. Cerna is referring to the increased cost of production that increased productivity requires. Higher productivity requires some combination of the following management: higher plant densities, increased quantities and number of applications of fertilizers, and higher frequencies of renovation. You also need access to labor, as more person days are needed to apply these management techniques and more hands are required to harvest the coffee. Ultimately, MACERCAFE's economic analysis has shown them that the key to their profitability is to maximize efficiency, not yield. This is right in line with the findings of the SCA report.

Cerna laid out the economic analysis in more black-and-white terms. "We need a margin of about $50/QQ — that's the goal," he said. "That's not our net profit, but that margin covers our long-term loans, depreciation and provides us with some profit. "

If we look at that on a per-area basis, with $50 net profit per QQ with an average productivity of 35 QQ per hectare, that's a profit margin of $1,785/hectare. At Macercafe's average cost of production of $1.10 to $1.20, a $0.50 profit per pound puts a target price at $1.60 to $1.80. These are prices that, while still above the current global price of coffee, are still within reach. The Technoserve study cited in the SCA article put the cost of production at $1.66, which means that these farmers would need a price of $2.16 to reach Macercafe's $0.50 margin.

Cerna and Macercafe have the ability to analyze their costs and income, arriving at an understanding of how to maximize their economic efficiency. So, what can a small farmer learn from this? What are the keys for producing in an efficient manner? I posed this question to Cerna and he had these ideas:

1) Understanding fixed costs and maximizing productivity

Gustavo Cerna: "A farm needs to understand what their fixed costs are and how to maximize the productivity from these. These costs don't necessarily contribute to the farm's productivity, but the (fixed) costs add up."

The SCA report said that fixed costs for farmers are nearly zero, but this is an oversimplification of the issue. Household expenses could be considered as fixed costs, as they are necessary for the farm to function. And as the report mentioned, the depreciation of trees needs to be included in these fixed costs.

2) Minimizing risks through medium levels of productivity

Gustavo Cerna: "It's too expensive to produce a lot of coffee. You may generate a lot of cash flow with higher yields, but your costs will increase and you'll have a lot of cash coming out. It also puts you at risk for the next disaster — coffee leaf rust, the weather, a bad crop year. You'll have the costs, but none of the income."

3) "Radio de control"

Gustavo Cerna: "A smaller farmer has a greater level of control than on a larger farm on all aspects — the productivity of labor, quality control. This is an advantage they should try to maximize."

Small farmers often lack access to capital in order to make investments into productivity. They don't have the ability to absorb the initial decrease in profitability needed to have higher yields later on. Small farmers are often looking for the highest margins possible, which means they may invest less in the farm — or not invest at all.

This is an uncomfortable answer for the coffee sector, especially when we consider the future needs of coffee consumers and the 22 million farming families involved in coffee production globally. Given this situation, we need to reframe the narrative and think about farmer return on investment rather than absolute increases in productivity.

In the report, the authors criticized the promotion of "Good Agricultural Practices" because while they may increase yields, they may not necessarily improve profitability. Therefore, the question we must be asking is, "What practices provide the biggest ROI?"

It is our job to ensure that we measure the returns not only in purely economic terms, but also considering natural resources and social aspects. Coffee farmers produce more than just a commodity that is the driver of an industry that contributes 1.6 percent of the GDP of the United States. They produce drinking water for local communities; they are sequestering carbon (unfortunately at rates slower than humans produce it); and they are providing jobs to locals and migrants in need of cash for work.

We need to find ways to value all of these contributions in order to fully compensate coffee farmers.

Kraig Kraft
Kraig Kraft is the CRS Technical Advisor for Coffee and Cacao for the Latin America/Caribbean. He is Based in Managua.

Tags: Avance, costs of production, Gustavo Cerna, household income, Macercafe, Nicaragua, research, SCA, smallholders

,Following the recent Avance coffee sustainability conference held in Guatemala, the Specialty Coffee Association released a report that analyzed existing public information about farm profitability… Central America,Columns,Farmer Issues,Origin,Sustainability,Avance,costs of production,Gustavo Cerna,household income,Macercafe,Nicaragua,research,SCA,smallholders

• 0 comments »

A robusta plant in Uganda.

Berlin, Germany-based Benckiser Stiftung Zukunft is funding a four-year technical assistance project in Uganda, with the goal of achieving 50 percent increase in coffee yields among approximately 60,000 farming households.

The social investment organization — which has ties to the German billionaire Reimann family and JAB Holding Company — has enlisted Hamburg-based Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung and Technoserve to each implement intensive, practical agronomy training to 30,000 coffee farmers, with additional implementation support from New York-based Enveritas.

For a period of 18 to 24 months, farmers will receive training in the field that is intended to be practical and participatory, covering such strategies as pruning and rejuvenation, fertilization optimization in relation to soil conditions, integrated pest management, and basic business and farm management training.

"We believe such an approach offers substantial productivity and sustainability benefits for relatively low investment in terms of time and money for smallholder farmers," Bensicker Stiftung Zukunft said in an announcement of the initiative. "It thus provides a cost-efficient way to improve smallholder income and wellbeing, and also allows to reach a large number of farmers in a relatively short amount of time."

Bensicker Stiftung Zukunft specializes in partnering with the private sector for social impact bonds, in which repayment to investors is typically contingent upon specified social outcomes. The group's coffee-focused division is called Par, and its stated goal is to alleviate poverty among all coffee farmers.

Previous programs under the Par umbrella have included a fact-finding mission with Enveritas create a reliable overview of the number of smallholder coffee farmers and their poverty levels in key coffee-growing countries, as well as a cash-transfer program with the US nonprofit to support 3,400 households in a Uganda coffee-growing region.

The group has not publicly specified the funding mechanism for the newly launched, four-year Uganda project, although it does plan to incorporate a "randomized controlled trial" (RCT) to asses the program's success. A team of researchers led by Harvard University's Michael Kremer and the International Food Policy Research Institute's Vivian Hoffmann will conduct the assessment.

"This will provide a robust, independent assessment of the success of our program," Bensicker Stiftung Zukunft said in a program announcement. "And it will provide an important contribution to the ongoing debate in the coffee sector which interventions are the most effective and the most efficient in addressing smallholder well-being."

Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. Feedback and story ideas are welcome at publisher@dailycoffeenews.com.

Tags: Bensicker Stiftung Zukunft, Berlin, farmer training, Germany, GiveDirectly, Hamburg, Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung, Harvard, IFPRI, JAB Holding Company, Michael Kremer, nonprofits, smallholder issues, technical assistance, TechnoServe, Uganda, Vivian Hoffmann

,Berlin, Germany-based Benckiser Stiftung Zukunft is funding a four-year technical assistance project in Uganda, with the goal of achieving 50 percent increase in coffee yields among approximately 6… Africa,Corporate,Farmer Issues,Industry,International,Market News,Origin,Sustainability,Bensicker Stiftung Zukunft,Berlin,farmer training,Germany,GiveDirectly,Hamburg,Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung,Harvard,IFPRI,JAB Holding Company,Michael Kremer,nonprofits,smallholder issues,technical assistance,TechnoServe,Uganda,Vivian Hoffmann

• 0 comments »

The year-old Denver-based tech startup Bext360 has announced the launch of two new pilot programs that will put its "Bextmachines" in the field to lead to what the company has described as the world's first Blockchain-traceable coffees.

To unpack that a bit, here's a simplified version of how the Bextmachine may be applied in coffee, based on the company's own marketing materials and on a conversation we had in April with Bext360 Founder and CEO Daniel Jones: Located where coffee is sold in cherry, parchment or green form, the Bextmachine uses a series of sensors and artificial intelligence to determine metrics related not only to volume, but to quality, analyzing every cherry or green bean that passes through the machine. Buyers can then offer a price for that specific delivery, which the producer can than either accept or decline, and payment is made digitally through Blockchain technology.

Blockchain technology, originally devised for Bitcoin applications, essentially serves as a financial ledger that exists on numerous servers so that payment data cannot be adulterated by any individual party.

Jones developed the Bext360 technology specifically with coffee in mind after working for years in the Democratic Republic of Congo exporting conflict-free minerals, where security necessitated by large cash transactions represented a significant expense. In coffee, Jones believes, the Bext360 tech offers the significant benefits of digital payments direct to producers that are associated with quality, as well as complete traceability of that coffee from the point of sale in the field, down to the specific micro-lot, to the time it reaches the roaster.

For the first pilot program, Bext360 is joining with the Kampala, Uganda-based green coffee milling and export company Great Lakes Coffee and the Denver roastery Coda Coffee. Farmers will deposit coffee cherries for analysis at Great Lakes washing stations, where they can also accept digital payment based on the algorithm that factors in both volume and quality. The machines will then link those coffee cherries to "crypto tokens" that will track them through the various stops along the chain until they reach Coda, where they will be roasted.

For the second pilot program, Bext360 is partnering with Amsterdam and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia-based Moyee Coffee, which markets itself as the world's first "Fairchain coffee" brand. During the four-month program, Moyee will source coffee from Ethiopia, using the Blockchain tech to provide proof of living-wage payments made to farmers. The financial traceability will be made available to Moyee's retail and wholesale customers in Europe — hence the "first Blockchain-traceable coffee" claim.

Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. Feedback and story ideas are welcome at publisher@dailycoffeenews.com.

Tags: Addis Ababa, Amsterdam, Bext360, bitcoin, blockchain, Coda Coffee, Daniel Jones, Denver, Ethiopia, Great Lakes Coffee, Kampala, point of sale, traceability, Uganda

,For those wondering how we transport our machine – voila! Ready for washing station action #bexttobrew #thirdwavecoffee #firstmile #singleorigincoffee A post shared by bext360 (@bext36… Africa,Industry,International,Market News,Origin,Products,Sustainability,United States,Addis Ababa,Amsterdam,Bext360,bitcoin,blockchain,Coda Coffee,Daniel Jones,Denver,Ethiopia,Great Lakes Coffee,Kampala,point of sale,traceability,Uganda

• 0 comments »

Populace Coffee's Department of Bay City coffee shop in Bay City, Michigan. The company plans to also open a kiosk at the Siren Hotel in Detroit. Photo courtesy of Populace Coffee.

When Bay City, Michigan-based roaster Populace Coffee first attempted to offer its products directly to the people, as it were, in 2012, it didn't work out very well.

"I just fell on my face and failed completely," Populace founder Andrew Heppner told Daily Coffee News. The company was at that point less than two years old, and, according to Heppner, perhaps a bit overzealous in its introduction of what were then an unfamiliar roasting and preparation styles to a largely blue collar, Midwestern market.

Photo courtesy of Populace Coffee.

With lessons learned and five more years of reputation-building through wholesale and involvement in growing the local specialty coffee scene, Populace last month opened a new flagship café, called Populace Department of Bay City — and it seems this time the people are ready.

"I didn't realize how many people still cared about us here," Heppner said of the customer support thus far. "I guess I didn't realize how good of a following we had."

Customers that fondly recall the first shop have returned, according to Heppner, as folks familiar with the brand through its wholesale accounts and involvement in events have also turned out. And with the evolution in the local scene that has occurred over the years, newcomers to the brand are showing up with less confusion than some did five years ago. Also, the company is making a more concerted effort to meet consumers halfway, with a balanced range of coffees and familiar methods, including grab-and-go batch brew.

Photo courtesy of Populace Coffee.

The 1,500-square-foot shop generates espresso drinks with a three-group La Marzocco GB5 espresso machine paired with a Mahlkonig Peak grinder, while an EK43 grinds for Fetco XTS batch brew as well as the occasional two-serving Chemex, which is the only manual option on offer.

"We're able to do our drip and get people in and out of there quickly that really don't give a [snap] about anything," Heppner said. "We're able to appeal to everyone, which is really the whole concept of the brand from the beginning."

Photo courtesy of Populace Coffee.

It was in 2012, when Populace the roastery was less than two years old and Heppner was still relatively fresh off his position at the Intelligentsia Coffee location in Venice, California, that he set up shop in Bay City with a two-group Synesso Hydra espresso machine, a row of Hario V60 manual pourovers, and little else, excited to recreate the spirit of high-end West Coast coffee in his Michigan hometown.

"Nobody knew what the hell I was doing," said Heppner, noting that the only other progressive specialty coffee companies he was aware of in Michigan at that time were Madcap (Grand Rapids) and Anthology (Detroit).

Now, whether at the controls of the company's Diedrich IR5 in the 1,200-square-foot offsite roastery, or making green purchasing decisions, Populace is all about nuance and balance, according to Heppner.

Photo courtesy of Populace Coffee.

"We'll never have just five African coffees and nothing else. We'll always have a balance of coffees [offered in the cafe], and when it comes to the coffees themselves — our main customer is a Midwestern coffee drinker, and they are a much different person than a West Coast coffee drinker or an East Coast coffee drinker," Heppner said. "Our goal is to highlight body without having the body be mistaken for darkness or roastiness. We need to keep the balance with sweetness, and keep that up. It's a little heartier of a cup."

In addition to the Department of Bay City, Populace also plans to open the Department of Detroit, a 700-square-foot kiosk scheduled to open in early December in the lobby of the new Siren Hotel, in Detroit's historic Wurlitzer Building. The kiosk will be open to the public while also offering brewed coffee room service to hotel guests that call to schedule it the night before.

Photo courtesy of Populace Coffee.

"[The hoteliers] don't have to worry about providing [shoddy] coffeemakers in rooms, and then if people don't want to come down at seven o'clock in the morning in their pajamas and messy hair, it'll be sitting outside their door when they decide that they want it there," Heppner said of the service strategy at the 106-room hotel, which will rely upon a dual-group Fetco XTS brewer. Espresso drinks made on a two-group Linea will not be offered via room service, though.

Prior to that opening, Populace will be focusing on this year's Flight of Fancy coffee tasting/identification competition, wherein a box set of four unlabeled coffees are shipped to participants and the first taster to correctly identify all four wins a prize. Heppner said that last year's FOF supply of 200 boxes sold out in roughly one day, so this year they've doubled the number of available packages to 400.

The Populace roastery in Bay City. Photo courtesy of Populace Coffee.

"This year's going to be absolutely insane because we're making the game similar to Guess Who," Heppner said. "We have all hand-illustrated images created for each coffee that's going to go in an actual game board."

Populace Dept. of Bay City is now open at 810 Saginaw Street in Bay City.

Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.

Tags: Andrew Heppner, Anthology Coffee, Bay City, Detroit, Flight of Fancy, Intelligentsia Coffee, La Marzocco GB5, Madcap Coffee, Mahlkonig EK43, Mahlkonig Peak, Michigan, Populace Coffee, Siren Hotel

,When Bay City, Michigan-based roaster Populace Coffee first attempted to offer its products directly to the people, as it were, in 2012, it didn't work out very well. "I just fell on my… Business Operations,Craft/Operations,Marketing,Micro,Midwest,Openings,Retail,Roasting,Andrew Heppner,Anthology Coffee,Bay City,Detroit,Flight of Fancy,Intelligentsia Coffee,La Marzocco GB5,Madcap Coffee,Mahlkonig EK43,Mahlkonig Peak,Michigan,Populace Coffee,Siren Hotel

• 0 comments »

Though the Chinese coffee sector may still be in its nascency, the world's most populous country nonetheless is already estimated by the International Coffee Organization to produce more than double the amount of coffee grown by well-established coffee countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, El Salvador or Ecuador.

On the consumption side, China is by all accounts one of the fastest growing markets in the world, seeing double-digit consumption growth in recent years that has surpassed the total consumption found in Australia. There's a reason global coffee giants like Starbucks are placing big bets on Chinese coffee.

In this time of prolific growth both in production and demand comes the 1st Pu'er International Specialty Coffee Forum Expo, taking place in Pu'er City from January 29-31, 2018. Pu'er City is in China's Yunnan Province, where more than 90 percent of the country's coffee is grown.

Organizers say the event will bring together more than 300 international and Chinese coffee professionals to "share knowledge on global coffee trends, best practices, quality, sustainability, pricing, marketing, roasting, and retail operations."

The event's first day will focus on global trends and China's position within the global coffee community, while attendees can select from one of two tracks over the following two days — one designed for producers, and one designed for roasters and retailers. Following the forum will be two days of farm tours designed to immerse guests in production and processing practices in the Yunnan Province.

The event is being hosted by the Yunnan Coffee Exchange, which was formalized in 2015 and has in recent years been enlisted the help of the Coffee Quality Institute in working toward quality improvement and specialty coffee market access.

More on the 1st Pu'er International Specialty Coffee Forum Expo, including a list of confirmed speakers and registration information, can be found here.

Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. Feedback and story ideas are welcome at publisher@dailycoffeenews.com.

Tags: China, Coffee Quality Institute, Pu'er, Pu'er International Specialty Coffee Forum, Yunnan, Yunnan Coffee Exchange

,Though the Chinese coffee sector may still be in its nascency, the world's most populous country nonetheless is already estimated by the International Coffee Organization to produce more than… Asia,Events,Industry,International,Market News,Origin,China,Coffee Quality Institute,Pu'er,Pu'er International Specialty Coffee Forum,Yunnan,Yunnan Coffee Exchange

• 0 comments »

The new Phoenix Coffee Company bar in Cleveland's Warehouse District. All photos courtesy of Phoenix Coffee Company.

After a remarkable 27 years in the coffee business, Phoenix Coffee Company of Cleveland, Ohio, has risen again, this year redefining its coffee offerings with an updated roastery, unveiling a refreshed brand, and opening a new cafe that reflects these quality-focused changes.

The new cafe, the company's fifth, is in the historic Worthington Building heart of Cleveland's Warehouse District, at 826 W. St. Claire Ave., where the company has been actively seeking locations since at least 2014. It is the first Phoenix cafe to show off the company's new logo and branding, while also reflecting a menu update that has taken place at all of Phoenix's retail locations, according to Phoenix Director of Coffee Christopher Feran.

"Phoenix went through an organizational and existential restructuring, resulting in the leadership team we've had for the last few years. We didn't feel connected to the old brand visuals — they seemed to signify a different era of Phoenix," Feran told Daily Coffee News. "Rebranding gave us an opportunity to affirm who we are and show our company identity and values more clearly."

While the Cleveland design firm Type Twenty Seven helped execute the rebranding, the new shop's interior design was led by Lakewood-based architecture firm AoDK. The cozy, 650-foot cafe offers seating for 20, and Feran said its limiting size helped inspire a more focused coffee menu, one complemented by fresh pastries and other baked goods from numerous local outfits.

"For a couple years, during the company restructuring, our cafes operated pretty independently from each other," Feran told Daily Coffee News. "Under the new retail leadership, the shops fell very naturally into alignment. With this new cafe, we updated the menu of all of our cafes so they all now feature a more focused, progressive menu."

At the new shop, that menu is executed with the help of a Compak E8 grinder for espresso through a La Marzocco GB5, and a Mahlkonig Guatemala 710 grinder for bulk grinding, while filter coffee is available through Hario V60 pourovers paired with Acaia scales and a Fetco batch brewer.

Even more important to the Phoenix coffee program has been the recent addition of an S35 Loring Kestrel roaster, which replaces a Sivetz model that has occupied the company's warehouse roastery for years. "I fell in love with Lorings when I was roasting on one in Brooklyn — first at Pulley Collective and then when I helped start the roasting program for Bluestone Lane," said Feran, "and when it was time to sunset the Sivetz, Loring was the obvious choice."

The Loring has provided the company with the added benefits of increased profile control and increased capacity, both of which are being applied for coffees sold by Phoenix, as well as through a wholesale program that Feran said has been growing steadily within the past year due to increased consumer interest in specialty coffee throughout Cleveland.

"Since we had to change our profiles anyway, it gave us an opportunity to change how we buy the coffee we use for blends," Feran said of adapting to the Loring. "I'm focusing on traceable and responsibly sourced coffee, and more than half of our coffee in the upcoming cycle is in some way experimental or processed specifically for Phoenix."

With the new roaster, the refreshed brand and the new cafe, the Phoenix company seems poised to reflect its mythical namesake within a city that has also experienced significant regeneration, particularly downtown and in the Warehouse District.

"The Cleveland specialty scene is strong, particularly considering the modest size of the city. It's grown substantially in the last few years," Feran said. "You can find anything from a dozen or so local roasters to Tim Wendelboe served in Cleveland coffee shops. This new shop is designed to fit into that new reality in Cleveland."

The new Phoenix Coffee cafe is located at 826 W. St. Claire Ave. in Cleveland. 

Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. Feedback and story ideas are welcome at publisher@dailycoffeenews.com.

Tags: Acaia, AoDK Architecture, Bluestone Lane, branding, Christopher Feran, Cleveland, Hario v60, La Marzocco GB5, Loring, Loring S35 Kestrel, Mahlkonig Guatemala, Ohio, Phoenix Coffee Company, Pulley Collective, Tim Wendelboe, Type Twenty Seven

,After a remarkable 27 years in the coffee business, Phoenix Coffee Company of Cleveland, Ohio, has risen again, this year redefining its coffee offerings with an updated roastery, unveiling a refre… Business Operations,Craft/Operations,Macro,Marketing,Micro,Midwest,Openings,Retail,Roasting,Acaia,AoDK Architecture,Bluestone Lane,branding,Christopher Feran,Cleveland,Hario v60,La Marzocco GB5,Loring,Loring S35 Kestrel,Mahlkonig Guatemala,Ohio,Phoenix Coffee Company,Pulley Collective,Tim Wendelboe,Type Twenty Seven

• 0 comments »