A Fresh Coffee Experience

This Is Where the Science Happens

roastmonkey — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:48:02 +0000

During roasting, coffee changes from a dense, green seed into friable, brown bean. The beans not only change color during this process, but lose moisture and expand considerably in size. Depending on the roasting method, this transformation can take just a few minutes or a full half-hour. This deceptively simple process actually involves a fascinating interplay of chemical and physical reactions that liberates hundreds of flavor compounds and reveals immense complexity when brewed. And even after roasting thousands of pounds of coffee, I find this transformation a fascinating process that unravels only bit-by-bit.

Almost invariably when folks wander beyond the coffee bar into the roasting room and see the roaster (which describes both the man and the machine), they also become entranced by the roasting process, by the transformation of the beans (many never having seen unroasted coffee before), the site, the smell and a sudden new layer of knowledge about what they have been drinking all these years. While that wonder is gratifying to us, we also understand that most people, with a more casual interest in the process itself, hanging around the roasting room for 20 minutes or more to see the whole process from start to finish can get a bit dull. So, we have put together I fantastic little film that documents the whole process in just over a minute. So enjoy:

Why do good restaurants serve bad coffee?

roastmonkey — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:14:32 +0000

It’s a question that we at Qualia Coffee find ourselves asking too often. Is it because local chefs, otherwise so concerned with the quality of their ingredients, don’t see coffee as a culinary element of the meal? Or is it because restaurants generally delegate coffee brewing to the wait staff, who don’t have the time or training to treat coffee with the care needed to brew it properly? Or maybe, it’s the fact that customers don’t complain when they get a bad cup of coffee, so why bother making the effort to brew it well? Whatever the reason, it’s a little unsettling how many of DC’s fine eating establishments are content to end an exquisitely conceived meal with a poorly made cup of coffee.

We’d like to see this change. That’s why we have launched an effort to convince a handful of local fine-dining establishments, those that otherwise take great care to source local, high-quality ingredients, to consider serving beans produced in house by our roasting label, Fresh Off the Roast. Here is our challenge to DC’s restaurant, give us ten minutes of your time and we will brew you a cup of coffee in your restaurant with our portable coffee kit. If you don’t agree that it is distinctly better than your house brew, we will give you three pounds of our beans to do with as you see fit. However, if you like what you taste, we can show you how with a little time and care, you can be serving coffee that really compliments the rest of the food you serve.

If you would like to take us up on our challenge, contact us at QualiaCoffee@gmail.com.

With our Portable Coffee Kit (not patent pending), we can go anywhere, any time prepared to brew a great cup of coffee on the spot, no electricity required.

Quale-Bucks

roastmonkey — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:00:36 +0000

No, they’re not a mythological creature, but a brand new currency that ensures the continued flow of great coffee and offers a much needed hang-over cure to a world drunk on credit. Anytime and anywhere you use a credit or debit card, the merchant pays both a flat transaction fee and a percentage of the transaction to a processing company for the privilege of accepting plastic. Since merchants are restricted by the credit card companies from adding a processing surcharge, this cost gets rolled into the base price of all items, which means that those who pay cash effectively subsidize those who use plastic.

For merchants whose business consists largely of daily transactions that are small – say, a $2 cup of coffee – the percentage transaction fee isn’t a big deal, but the flat transaction fee takes up a staggering portion of a small purchase.

We understand that debit and credit cards have become a de facto modern electronic currency. Therefore, as a compromise between those that only carry plastic, and our desire to not fork out nearly the entirety of our meagre margin on a single cup of hot coffee to our lords in the credit card processing industry, we have deployed a house currency called the Quale-Buck (pronounced like the bird)

Quale-bucks are as good as cash, dollar for dollar. You can request that we charge your debit or credit card for an excess of your transaction, and we will give you that excess in Quales that you can use any time in the future (say, for a $2 cup of hot coffee). They also work great as gift certificates.

Quales are currently issued and accepted at our shop, Qualia Coffee, in Petworth.

While it is a lower-tech version of a store gift card that doesn’t require card scanners or a database, Quales do employ a number of techniques to resist copying (you’ll have to figure out for yourself what they are).

We here at Qualia Coffee would be ecstatic if other coffee shops or merchants in the Petworth or DC area would be interested in utilizing the Quale-Buck (or a renamed version) as a community currency. Giving customers currency that inspires them to visit other independent shops in the city grows the exposure of local businesses and specialty coffee, which enriches us all. Please contact us if you are interested.

The Last BikeHouse Clinic

roastmonkey — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:19:24 +0000

This Saturday marks the last BikeHouse Repair Clinic, not only of the season, but at Qualia Coffee. Next year, the friendly crew of volunteers will be moving their operations to the soon-to-be-opened Annie’s Ace Hardware at 1240 Upshur Street.

It has been a wonderfully rewarding three years as both Qualia and the BikeHouse have grown side-by-side. We will be sad to see them go, but look forward to their continued growth and success.

The BikeHouse Repair Clinic will run from 12 to 3 and is located behind the coffeehouse. Bring your bike and any parts that need to be replaced and they will provide the tools and knowledge to guide you. See you there.

Mobius-cut Bagels

roastmonkey — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:50:03 +0000

In our quest to stay on the cutting edge of coffeeshop service, we have added a new option to our bagel preparation methods. For a mere $∞, we’ll cut your bagel in two interlinked halves.

Buy Beans Online

roastmonkey — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 19:00:26 +0000

Qualia Coffee’s in-house label is Fresh Off The Roast, and descriptions of our current and past beans can be found on the Bean Blog, where you can also find online purchasing links.

Our in-stock beans are also listed on the right hand side of this site.

Benethiopia Visits Qualia

roastmonkey — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:51:57 +0000

Today we’re hosting the Fojol Brothers Benethiopia food truck, serving beef berbere, beets, and carrots&peas, all with injera of course. Come by and grab some lunch.

Veteran’s Day 2011

roastmonkey — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:56:27 +0000

Tomorrow is a federal holiday! To accommodate, we’d like to ask all laptop users to use the upstairs or outside, and we’ll be turning off the internet from 11 to 4 tomorrow.

Bagels

roastmonkey — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:36:33 +0000

Georgetown Bagelry (formerly in Georgetown, now baking out of Bethesda, Maryland) have supplied excellently-made bagels to Qualia since it’s inception. We offer them with cream cheese or house-made hummus.

Panorama Bakery

roastmonkey — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:32:11 +0000

Panorama, a dozen-person shop in Virginia, supplies us with croissants, muffins, and the occasional sourdough loaf for toast.