Well, who’d have thought that just over a month after wondering publicly whether the novel coronavirus would put an end to public cuppings, nearly the entire world would be thrust into an unprecedented lockdown. Here in the Bay Area, we’ve been sheltering in place since Tuesday March 17, and it...
Editor's Note: We’ve made a PDF available to you, as well as uploading it as a publicly available Cropster form, so you can choose it—it’s called “Deviation Production Cupping (Royal).” Cupping: Time Honored and Honed for Purpose Cupping coffee is one, if not, the best-known methods for evaluating...
By Nate Lumpkin, The Crown Barista As you all know, everything’s closed down for a little while to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, and the Crown is doing its part by staying closed. In the meantime, I have a lot of time on my hands. I’ve been curious about all the different drippers and...
A Taste of Perception: Examining Bias in Side-by-Side Coffee Tastings By James Scott, Crown Barista Over here at The Crown, we taste a lot of coffee--so much that we probably spit out more than we swallow (can you believe that?). Between slurps, we describe each coffee in as much detail as...
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...
We're fortunate to have team made up of incredible humans at Royal Coffee. In honor of National Women's Day, we are featuring some of them here, and sharing their career advice. Amanda Amato Junior Trader, 3 years with Royal Coffee Favorite Coffee: Colombia (Huila specifically) and Rwanda ...
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...
Editor's Note: This article first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2020 edition of Roast Magazine under the Column "Technically Speaking" and is reprinted here with permission. You can view and download the article in its original format here. Sections of the article also appeared in Part III of our Green...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
