Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
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36 Fresh Cup Magazine | freshcup.com FIRST CRACK Delicious Collaborations B Y B E V E R L E Y M A G TA N O N G ince we began Mostra Coffee last year, one of our missions has been to bring communities together through coffee. What better way to do this than through collabora- tions with fellow beverage-makers in our area? Our hometown, San Diego, is lucky to host one of the craft beer indus- try's most decorated and respected breweries, AleSmith. The brewery is best known for its adventurous Speedway Stout, a big, bold, and French-roast-black beer. AleSmith has long treated their Speedway Stout as a laboratory, injecting it with flavors as outlandish as licorice, Nutella, and Lapsang tea. Often, these special releases are collaborations. For us, a new micro-roastery, tapping into that world just made sense. "I had drinks with Bill Batten (brewer extraordinaire over at AleSmith) and some friends one night and discussed a possible coffee collaboration with their Speedway Stout," says Mike Arquines, our head roaster. "I threw out different options of coffee varieties, lots, etc., and we both agreed that the Jamaica Blue Mountain's flavor characteristics would be perfect if, one, we could source some high-grade JBM beans and, two, roast it precisely to the flavor profile they were trying to achieve. Challenge accepted." After weeks of research, we sourced Jamaica Blue Mountain beans from the Mavis Bank Estate. More than twenty roast levels were created, ranging from extremely light to past second crack, to ensure a thorough examination of the nuances and f la- vor profile, and, most importantly, to adhere and abide by AleSmith's strict standards. After an intense cupping session at Mostra, four roast levels were decided on and brought to AleSmith for its owner, Peter Zien, and the brewers to cup. "We had our favorite out of the four, but we decided not to say anything until after they tried the coffees for themselves," Mike says. "Luckily, they all unanimously chose the one we all thought was the win- ner." Chemex- and cold-brewed con- centrated versions were made to give AleSmith a comparison of flavor, acid- ity, and body. Eventually they decided to go with the cold brew. " We felt cold brewing was a great choice because not only is it full- f lavored and concentrated, but it is also about seventy percent less acidic than hot-brewed coffee," Mike says. S C O U R T E S Y O F M O S T R A C O F F E E May14_magazine.indd 36 4/18/14 10:44 AM