The Royal Blog

Editor’s Note: This article first ran on March 9, 2020, in Daily Coffee News. It is reprinted here with permission. As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has been capturing headlines worldwide, the Specialty Coffee Association last week announced a series of new hygiene practices to be implemented at upcoming coffee trade shows in Portland (Oregon), Melbourne, […]

Editor’s note: This article was first published in Volume 74 of Coffee T&I Magazine in January 2020. It is reprinted here with permission, and you may download it in its original format here, courtesy the publisher. The only time I’ve ever actually sprinted through an airport to catch a flight, I was on my way […]

Identifying Defects in Coffee March 5, 2020 09:30 AM (PST) Learn to grade coffee in this class focused on identifying both visual and taste flaws in the green beans. This class will cover both physical defects in green coffee and primary sensory defects. (Yep, we’ll be tasting them!)   Coffee Tasting: Brew Ratios March 6, […]

The previous installment in this series outlined some challenges that presented themselves while using our Ikawa roasters here at Royal and The Crown. Below, we’ll look at the journey of creating roast profiles and making adjustments to suit many different purposes. After getting our machines back from their most recent round of servicing, I needed […]

Editor’s note: This article first ran on February 17, 2020 in Daily Coffee News; it is republished here with permission. The Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide released its latest and largest update just a few days before the end of 2019. The Guide itself is a continuously evolving compendium of financial data donated by willing participants […]

This week, Daily Coffee News published a summary of a surprisingly readable white paper by the Clean Label Project about decaffeinated coffee and the dangers of Methylene Chloride (or dichloromethane, CH2Cl2 for the scientists in the room). It circled the office this morning — senior trader Jeri shared the link with a subject line “Industry catching […]

Editor’s note: This article first ran in Daily Coffee News on January 14, 2020. It is reprinted here with permission. Guatemalan coffee has long held a place of honor among specialty coffee roasters. Regional names like Antigua, Cobán, and Huehuetenango are familiar to many, and are frequently synonymous with exceptional quality. The country’s history with […]

Tasting the Coffee Flavor Wheel Feb 6, 2020 03:00 PM (PST) An interactive tasting of the Sensory Lexicon of coffee using reference samples from fruits, spices, candies and many others. Go to event site Coffee Tasting: Southern Hemisphere Coffee Feb 7, 2020 01:00 PM (PST) Free, open to the public cupping (coffee industry standard sensory […]

Flashback to April 2017, SCA Expo in Seattle. (For context, The Crown — the building — is still nearly 2 years from completion.) At Expo, one of the buzzworthy booths was a funny-looking small-batch electric roaster called Ikawa. You’ve surely heard of them by now, the Bluetooth-enabled device that roasts 50g of coffee with customizable […]

Chris Kornman, Education and Lab Manager of The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab & Tasting Room briefly discusses the fabled Gesha coffee variety, the evolution of the plant’s genetics and flavor profiles in anticipation of some new Crown Jewel releases. For more information on coffee plant types, check out this Roaster’s Guide to Understanding Coffee Plant […]