A tutorial demonstrating how to properly dose, tamp and pull two shots of espresso using a naked portafilter. Enjoy!

If you’ve ever wondered how the Barista’s at CREMA craft the Cuban coffee, the popular Baccanerra or you just love espresso and want to learn more, here’s your chance!

As part of CREMA’s ongoing espresso & coffee education events we’re offering a chance for 10 people to get behind the bar and try out CREMA’s LaMarzocco GB5 espresso machine for themselves. Guided by Rachel, co-owner and CEO (Chief Espresso Officer), we’ll reveal some of the dirty little secrets behind the curtain of great espresso, our favorite of which is the naked portafilter!

Secrets of Espresso will be Saturday April 5, 2008 from 3:30PM – 5PM at CREMA.

This is a free event. Space is limited to first 10 people.

Sign up here

If you missed our first event, a meet and greet with our Roaster or will not be able to attend this class and would like to know more about upcoming events join the CREMA email list.

Stumbled upon this article while perusing Intelligentsia’s website. It is an educated explanation on a complicated discussion.

Why choose Drew’s Brews? There are many great roasting companies out there to choose from, but let’s talk about why we think Drew’s coffee is well, awesome!

We, like many consumers are concerned with buying organic and fair trade coffees because we deeply believe these ideals are right. However, there are many other coffees that may not specifically fall under these stringently labeled categories. One of the coffee types that doesn’t always fall under the organic or fair trade labels is estate coffee, these are coffee beans from a singular farm vs. a cooperative of farmers, or the trademark name of an exporter, importer, or roaster. Estate coffees represent the hard work and uniqueness of a specific farm. Most estate farms grow organic, but a lot are not able to slap the official organic label on their beans due to the high costs associated with the certification process.

Drew’s Brews uses many estate coffees because of the wider selection, finer qualities of small batches, and it is the better thing to do because of a closer relationship with the farmers.

Often, due to the closer relationship in estate coffees between the purchaser and grower the coffee farmers are paid higher than what would be the “fair trade” price.

Drew and estate coffee buyers have many choices when purchasing. Estate farmers must be competitive, they must sell their coffee for the highest price to remain viable. They are more motivated to produce a superior crop than a cooperative farm who is paid the same price regardless of quality because they are not highly competing with other farms. Superior crop, superior coffee, which in turn means awesome flavor in your cup!

Drew is a true craftsman at roasting, and lucky for all of us, he is a local Nashvillian. We want to support local businesses that affect our local economy. Crema wants to know where our coffee comes from, when it was roasted, why it was roasted a certain way, and how to best translate that to our favorite people, you!

Thus, we have chosen Master Drew. You’ll never meet another person more passionate, more knowledgeable about coffee than Drew.

A study by American economist Caitlin Knowles Myers finds that females wait 20 seconds longer than men to receive their coffee. The study was conducted in the Boston area and involved 8 shops. Read more…

The study can be downloaded here: http://www.middlebury.edu/services/econ/repec/mdl/ancoec/0711.pdf

“Chicagoans… are among the top consumers of energy drinks and coffee… they are also likely to say caffeine is good for you…”

What other cities are most caffeinated? Read the entire article.

NBC Today show correspondent, Joy Bauer, clears up 5 coffee myths in this interesting article. Discover if coffee can help your memory, prevent skin cancer, and enhance your workouts.

Check it out: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20187977/

The most common topic I’m asked is how should you store beans. Well, there is conflicting opinions and research out there about this, but I’ll give you an experiment to try and some basic principles in coffee storage. In Roast magazine this month, there is an experiment that was done storing coffee in different containers, and then storing that coffee in different places in the home. Group one is the freezer, group two is in the Fridge (Yikes!), and group three is in the cupboard. Now they varied the packaging using a foil bag with a one way valve, glass jar, plastic ware, and a kraft bag with a tin tie. Now, I believe most consumers just leave their coffee in whatever bag they purchase it in, which can be a mess. After 30 days of storage the experimenter cupped all the coffees. They ranked as follows: Freezer-Plastic ware, Freezer- Foil bag with valve, Freezer glass jar, cupboard foil bag with valve, and refrigerator- foil with valve. Now remember, none of these coffees tasted good compared to if they were consumed 3-10 days after roasting. It appears that the foil bag was the most consistent in storing the product, and the freezer slowed down the aging process. So, there you have it, which do think is the best? This might have changed my mind about all those people who store their coffee in the freezer, but I still always recommend to people to buy only enough coffee for one week, know the date it was roasted, and grind only what you need per cup. Remember, coffee is like a sponge, it picks up flavors, and ages quickly once it is ground. Hope that helps!

Try it….package your coffee in different ways and then cup it, and see how it tastes.