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Next Chapter: Roasting!

We are so excited to welcome you all into the next step of our coffee journey together: roasting! From our popups, to Altadore and Fifth and now roasting - This has always been a dream for our whole team and it feels surreal to have it come to fruition. At Monogram, we aim to inspire wonderful coffee experiences, and roasting will enable us more opportunities to do this. It is very exciting for us to delve deeper into more parts of the coffee chain from seed to cup: beginning new adventures in sourcing, bringing in delicious new coffees, and passionately focusing on roasting techniques. None of this would have been possible without our incredible team at Monogram, and we are so excited to embark on this new adventure together. We are truly thankful to all of you for your support - our community is the foundation that supports these new steps and we can’t wait to take you along with us on this new adventure!

We would also like to fully recognize the partnership that we've had with Transcend Coffee. We are very thankful for their willingness from day one to experiment with an untested and unique partnership and for their belief in Monogram. We remember meeting in Poul’s backyard with Josh and Michael throwing around ideas as to how the collaboration would work. Fast forward a couple years and we want to thank Transcend for being awesome to work with and having incredible coffees and most importantly, great people. Looking forward to collaborating in the future!

Expect to start seeing our colourful bags return to the shelves in the cafes, and our coffees to fully take over our menu on espresso and filter! We are so looking forward to have you meet our roster of coffees - there are some big time flavours. We'll be posting more about our roasting set-up in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that!

Let's explore the #wonderfulworldofcoffee together.

Monogram

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In light of this crazy heat wave we’ve been experiencing, Jill created an iced Aeropress recipe for all you home brewers! Here’s her recipe //

18g coffee 180g water grind: medium fine

- Fill your cup with ice - Wet Aeropress filter, and screw black cap into place - Place Aeropress over your cup - Add coffee - Quickly add all of your water to 180g, ensuring that all your grounds are immersed under the water - Let brew for 1:10 - At 1:10 stir well - Plunge from 1:15 -1:45 - Stir hot coffee with ice, and once your brew is cool, add more ice to taste! 

Let us know what you think!

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Monogram Brew Guide | KOKEDAMA

We believe that coffee is an important part of story. People use coffee as a tool to connect with one another, to be alone, to cope with late nights, and survive early mornings.  Coffee is a tool often used to build community and tell story, and we’ve been privileged to see this and be a part of it first hand.

We’re launching a new online brew guide, featuring our friends and community brewing coffee in their own spaces! Celebrating our city and community is important to us, and we feel like this is a great way to use coffee to connect with and tell our friends’ stories.

A couple of weeks ago we had the chance to visit Caine Chow of Kokedama at his pop-up shop, Atelier Secret Kokedama in Stuff (102 - 709 11 Ave SW) to brew some coffee (recipe below!) and chat.

We’ve known Caine for a few years now, after he mysteriously dropped off a beautiful Kokedama at our Altadore shop on opening weekend. Since then we’ve collaborated on an exclusive Arabica coffee Kokedama, hosted Kokedama workshops in Fifth Ave, and had a lot of coffee talk.

Before we get into things, if you haven’t heard of Caine or Kokedama, you may still have noticed his signature planting style throughout small businesses in Calgary. “Kokedama is a planting style from Japan. In Japanese “koke” means moss, and “dama” means an egg-like shape, it's a very literal meaning of the planting style,” says Caine, “I take the plant, and I make a ball of soil around the roots, wrap that in moss, and then bind it together with thread...And it grows just like that.” This style showcases a Japanese minimalistic approach, putting the emphasis on the simplicity and beauty of the plant.

Along with being a kokedama and aesthetic genius, Caine is a very sufficient home brewer!

“The control [of brewing coffee] can be intimidating, but I don't think it has to be. And I think that if you have fun with it, and view it as an experiment.”

Currently he is brewing with an aeropress at home, so we thought we’d show him our recipe for this guide. Our method is ultra simple, great for lazy half-asleep mornings, camping trips, or brewing in kokedama work shops. We met Caine at the atelier, where he creates and houses so many incredibly beautiful Kokedamas.

“To me, coffee is a drink made out of a bean...it's super simple. But there's all this complexity to it. Where the beans are grown makes a difference...even though it's like the same variety of plant.

We’ve met a lot of small business and entrepreneurs that use the mindful practise of making coffee to centre themselves and get their days started. “For me it's a mindful practise, when I make coffee...I'm just there to make coffee. Whereas sometimes when I drink coffee that is not case. But I like making it because I can go through the whole process, and at least I am still in that mind frame where at least the first 2, 3, 4 sips are very conscious.”

Many of our customers, friends, and partners practise mindfulness and use coffee as a mindful tool as opposed to a caffeine fix. “If I miss it, then my day feels a little less calm. I find that if I start my day with those moments, it sets the pace for the rest of the day.” says Caine, regarding his daily two cups of coffee. “It's a little bit about the ritual. So even if I brew a coffee that doesn't taste great, I like the ritual of making coffee. It's like a meditation.”

Caine started full time with Kokedama in October 2016, diving into the crazy, challenging, and in his case, rewarding role as small business owner. “I was doing kokedama just for myself.. I was really enjoying it, but at the time I didn't quite understand what it was about kokedama that really resonated for me. That didn't come until recently. I was enjoying kokedama...but wondering if it would resonate with others.”

Fast-forward a couple years and Caine has built a community around Kokedama, creating new friends and collaborations. During our brew time with him, he shared his insights on community and loneliness. Although community wasn’t his original focus, he found himself in need of it, and the midst of it.

“While you're working on whatever it is you're starting, it will inevitably feel lonely somewhere along that journey. And probably more than once. The thing that I discovered is that even in the times that I felt like I was walking alone..that was actually just a self-centred thought. There were always people around me, and there were always people supporting me. They didn't always understand all the parts of it, but they were always there.”

We’re thankful for what Caine and Kokedama add to our community, to our shops, and our greater Calgary community.

Aeropress Brewing Recipe

You’ll need:

- Coffee! - Aeropress - Filters - Kettle & water - A scale - Timer (some scales have timers, otherwise just use your phone!) - Grinder - A spoon - Cup or server

To start, weight out 16.5g of coffee beans, and grind on medium/fine. Caine used a Porlex hand grinder in our brew guide, but you can use any conical burr grinder (hand mill or electric).

Place a filter in the black aeropress filter hold, and pour a small amount of hot kettle water on it to rinse. Shake excess water from the filter, or screw it onto the aeropress and allow it to drip off for a couple of seconds.

On your scale, place the aeropress with filter in place on top of your cup or server. Pour ground coffee into the aeropress, and tap the side to create an even coffee bed. Zero your scale.

Start your timer, as you begin to pour in your water (we used water heated to 200F). Pour quickly, making sure all the grounds get saturated. Fill your aeropress to 280g. Carefully move your aeropress and server together off the scale.

At 1:10, break the crust of coffee that will form at the top of your brew (this stops the extraction), and at 1:15 begin to plunge. Use even, slow, and firm force. You want to finish plunging the coffee at 1:45, so keep an eye on the timer and the amount of coffee left to plunge. It may take a few times to get a hang of pacing your plunge time.

Remove your aeropress, pour yourself a cup, and enjoy!

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Invermere Coffee Fest w/ Jeremy

Hey everyone! I’ve been in Invermere the last couple days for Invermere Coffee Fest. It’s a fantastic 3 day festival that aims to build coffee culture and community in the Kootenays. This is the fourth year for the festival, and we have been involved since day 1 in helping plan educational sessions for the festival. Growing coffee culture is one of our passions, especially in underserved yet excited communities.

Every year I come down to lead many workshops, tastings, and educational opportunities for attendees. It always amazes me to see people come from all over the area – Invermere, Panorama, Banff, Canmore, and even Calgary (to name a few) just to attend my classes. At Monogram we strive to always be on top of our learning so that we can be a resource of coffee knowledge for our communities, which is why events like these are right up our alley.

On Friday, I lead a cupping with a group of high school students from the local culinary program, which was a first for me! I had a few goals for these kids: to have them discover new and exciting flavours in coffee, to teach them about tasting and evaluating coffee, and to hopefully inspire them to consider coffee as a profession in the future. These kids were fantastic – not afraid to tell you what they taste and if they liked it (or not!). It was cool to see them prefer the extremely fruity, natural processed Ethiopian we had on the table – perhaps an indicator of the taste preferences of the next generation of consumers? They were also great tasters, which is always a good reminder for me that we should have confidence in our customer’s ability to taste.

Immediately after we conducted an intensive espresso workshop, where we explored variables that influence extraction, tasted how brewing ratio and contact time can impact flavour, and calibrated our palates on extraction influenced cup characteristics.

A steaming and latte art workshop came next. It was great to see both home enthusiasts and industry people alike come to my workshop to either learn the basics or take it to the next level. We had a lot of fun learning how to consistently steam silky milk and pour some beautiful art. There were a lot of laughs! Seeing people discover new aspects of coffee never ceases to make me smile and is one of my favourite parts about working in coffee. These classes were held in a room with an unbeatable view of the mountains from all sides, which really showcases how important a beautiful setting is for great events.

Tomorrow we finish off the festival with another cupping and a manual brewing methods workshop. I will be teaching these very full classes about our techniques behind French press, aeropress, and pourover brews, and also why certain variables are important when extracting coffee. I love this class because it totally encapsulates the wonder of coffee that I think is so important when creating experience – people experiencing “aha” moments that change their perceptions on coffee. Cool.

We will always be about strengthening coffee community and creating wonderful coffee experiences. Look forward to a whole bunch of educational workshops and classes coming into our cafes soon. We love coming to Invermere and being a huge part of this festival. Many thanks to all that attend our classes here. Do you have an event or community building initiative that you want us to be a part of? Don’t hesitate to let us know!

- Jeremy

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Picking & Processing

For this post on Ninety Plus Gesha Estate (NPGE) I am going to focus on two critical processes on the farm: Picking and processing. Coffee producers spend months and years devoted to preparing their land for coffee, choosing specific varieties, and building infrastructure. Once harvest begins, the time scale narrows. Now days and hours are measures of time and precision and data collection are the keys to unravelling the best practices that will produce exceptional coffee for that particular farm.

Picking coffee only when the cherry (coffee fruit) is ripe is essential to coffee quality. Coffees produced from ripe cherry are sweeter, more complex, and have more intense and vibrant flavors. Sound great, right? Just pick the red ones! Unfortunately, picking only ripe cherry is a laborious and expensive process. It is laborious because cherry might look ripe on one side, but have areas of under ripe fruit on the other. It is expensive because coffee doesn’t ripen all at once so pickers have to pass by each tree multiple times during the harvest and producers have to pay coffee pickers more per pound because the pickers volumes are lower.  Ninety Plus Gesha Estates invests very heavily in picking. They train their pickers and pay these pickers high wages. The results show in both the vibrant, deep reds of the freshly picked cherries and in the extraordinary flavours showcased on the cupping tables. It also had an unforeseen benefit: Ninety Plus is slowly developing a reputation in Panama as a farm that you want to work for and migrant pickers return year after year.

This year, Joseph has taken an additional step in picking by having the pickers do additional sorting in the fields to further separate the ripe cherry. Now each day’s harvest is from a specific plot and is separated into varying stages of ripeness. The results are fascinating. First, this additional separation greatly improved some of the first harvest lots. First harvest coffee generally is not exported because the cherry is unevenly ripened and developed too fast to transfer sweetness and complexity to the bean. Last year, Ninety Plus wouldn’t have had exportable coffee that early in the harvest; this year I tasted a coffee from the very first part  of harvest that is so good that Ninety Plus is keeping it as a separate micro-lot. By improving sorting, they added months and multiple batches to their harvest. This separation is also revealing how different stages of the harvest react to their different processing methods.

Over the last three years, Ninety Plus Gesha Estates performed countless experiments with processing. They record and catalogue these methods and are slowly building a roster of different taste profiles the span the flavour spectrum of coffee. At the moment, NPGE has five flavour profile designations that are different expressions of their of their washed, honeyed, and natural processed gesha: Lycello, Juliette, Perci, Silvia, and Lotus. These different profiles highlight something important for me that I didn’t fully consider before: We cannot accurately categorize coffee flavour profiles using only the three well known processing categories. The industry has already started acknowledging this with honey-processed coffees in Costa Rica. Initially there was just honey processing. Over time this process was developed and now there is white, yellow, and red honey processing. Each of these names designates not only a method (how much mucilage is left on the coffee), but also an anticipated flavour profile. Variations in washed and naturally processed coffees do not have the same type of easy classification and as a result they are often painted with a broad brush by baristas and consumers, but this is changing on farms!  For example, I tasted naturally processed coffees at NPGE that I thought were washed coffees because of the delicate flavours and squeaky clean acidity. More and more farmers are experimenting with processing and refining their processing methods to their farm’s unique terroir. I believe that the longer that this goes on, the less value broad terms like “washed “ and “natural” will hold for classifying coffee’s flavors, unless we add additional qualifying terms. NPGE’s flavour designations are one potential answer to this problem and also a great example of the diverse, often unexplored flavour profiles that exist beyond the three classic processing methods.

It would be remiss to talk the vision of NPGE and initiatives on the farm without mentioning the many, many people that live and work at NPGE. I will discuss this in my final Panama post!

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Ninety Plus Gesha Estates: Variety.

In the last post, I talked about what Joseph Brodsky and Ninety Plus have done for the land at Ninety Plus Gesha Estates. They apply the same amount of detail and care to their coffee trees. Joseph firmly believes that healthier trees make better coffee. To do this he has used lots of different shade trees throughout the farm, ensured that the soil is healthy, and even counted and catalogued every tree on the farm! In my opinion, this kind of attention to detail is at the core of what makes this farm so unique.  

All coffee is originally from Africa, brought to the western hemisphere during colonial times. Only a few varieties were brought over at that time. This means that there are thousands of heirloom varieties still in Africa, each with their own unique flavour profiles, waiting to be discovered. Gesha is a coffee variety that arrived from Africa in the 20th century. It was not well known until Panamanian producers started planting it at higher elevations and then it transformed. Washed geshas are floral and exotic, with orange blossom, jasmine, tea, brown sugar, and elegant acidity. Since that discovery, farmers from around the world have planted gesha, however it does not guarantee quality. Only farms that grow gesha well and with good farm practices will reap the full benefits of this unique variety. Hopefully one day another variety with an equally exciting profile will emerge from Africa and we’ll get to taste yet another facet of coffee’s amazing flavour potential.

Ninety Plus Gesha Estates is planted exclusively with Gesha. Joseph chose to plant Gesha throughout the farm because he believes that it is one of the best representations of the diversity of the east African coffee flavour profile and it has the biggest range and diversity of potential flavours compared to other varieties. I experienced this while cupping on the farm. Even though all the coffees are one variety and from one farm, the flavours here are anything but monochromatic. I’ve had delicate floral coffees, super fruity and chocolaty coffees, and even some flavours that I have never experienced in a coffee before. Joseph and the team at Ninety Plus Gesha estates spend a lot of time learning how to use each processing method–washed, honeyed, and natural– to bring out different aspects of the variety.

In the coffee industry many people feel that the natural process removes or covers the original character of coffee and eclipses the factors that made it taste the way it does, e.g. variety, soil, region, country. Naturally processed coffee is very fruity and intense and it wins many people over to speciality (both Jeremy and myself fell in love with coffee through naturally processed African coffees), but people argue that it is not a true expression of terroir. Ninety Plus Gesha Estates spends a significant amount of work learning how each processing method affects gesha grown in Panama. They have learned how to produce washed, honeyed, and naturally processed coffees that all have clear gesha and Panamanian character, each one its own unique expression of the terrior of Ninety Plus Gesha Estates. In fact, some of the naturally processed coffees I have tasted while here express more terroir because in addition to clear variety and origin notes, there are also distinct fermentation notes that I have only tasted in these coffees.

I hear numerous customers and staff tell me that the coffee moment that made them rethink traditional coffee and start drinking specialty coffee was when they tasted a coffee that “didn’t taste like coffee”. The more that coffee can express terroir through variety, processing, and growing, the more those moments will happen because there will be more farms with unique and distinct flavors. Maybe one day no coffee will taste like “coffee”.

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Ben travels to Panama!

This week I am in the Volcan region of Panama at Ninety Plus Gesha Estates. I am here to participate in Maker Series 5. The Maker Series is a continuing effort to connect international baristas with one another and with production and experimentation on the farm level. This takes many forms, from collaborating and supporting one another at competitions, to sharing knowledge about different processing techniques. Each Maker has their own unique set of skills that they bring to the team and this creates an extremely unique environment to learn. Since arriving here, I have asked many questions, but never felt foolish for asking them – it is the perfect culture for learning!

While I am here I will cup coffee with the other Makers, design an experimental processing project, and start to learn more about what makes this farm special, unique, and exciting.

Ninety Plus Gesha Estates is in Volcan. Looking at the lush vegetation and the numerous shade trees, it is hard to believe that only 7 years ago this coffee farm was actually a cattle farm, filled with hard, compact soil and invasive grasses. Joseph Brodsky saw the potential in the land. Much of the farm borders protected forest providing biodiversity and native shade tree species, a river surrounds the property creating a natural protective boundary for the farm, and the winds from the Baru volcano and the ocean provide cool winds to the farm when the temperatures increase. Joseph went to work: He removed the invasive grass species carefully and with as little negative impact as possible, improved the soil, planted local vegetation and trees, and replaced the unhealthy coffee trees with healthy gesha.

This hard work and vision paid off. Parts of the farm that once were just pasture are now filled with birds and plants. The farm is so healthy and welcoming to the native species that a black jaguar lives nearby (the Ninety Plus team saw it a few weeks ago and we saw its paw prints on the river bed). The coffee trees look very healthy and the vegetation and terrain have created numerous microclimates that Joseph and the team are slowly identifying and cataloguing.

I’ll continue updating as we spend time on the farm exploring, experimenting, cupping, learning, and collaborating.  

- Ben

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Canadian Aeropress Champions

(photo by Vania Ling)

On Saturday we had the privilege of watching four of our family members (Brandon, Jill, Caleb, and Ben) compete at the Canadian Aeropress Championship here in Calgary! Competitors and coffee professionals from all over the country gathered together to hang out, see some killer Aeropress recipes, and of course, see who would be representing Canada at the World Aeropress Championship in Ireland in June! We always love these events, it’s so fun to get to catch up with our national coffee community.

The competition is a bracket-style tournament where 36 competitors compete to brew the best tasting aeropress. In each heat, 3 competitors have 8 minutes to use their own aeropress method or recipe to brew the best tasting coffee possible. Grinder type, water composition and water temperature are just a few examples of variables that could be changed. The only constant was the official coffee, the Raul Gutierrez from Transcend Coffee, which we carry in the cafes. Each competitor’s coffees are then served to the judges blind, with the judges pointing to the best tasting coffee at the end of the round. Only the winner moves on!

(photo by Vania Ling)

There was a huge amount of creativity and variability in the techniques seen: everything from sifting grind size using balloons and static electricity, to customized water compositions and the mixing of different parts of the extraction.  Everyone brought their best methods!

Ben and Caleb were knocked out in the first round, despite having some pretty tasty coffees. This was Caleb’s first year competing and we’re so glad he joined last minute. Can’t wait to see him compete against next year (right, Caleb?!)! As the tournament progressed, Jill and Brandon kept winning their respective heats, all with the loud support of the Monogram crew present!

(photo by Lawrence Lee, Cafe YVR)

After weeks of the two joking about not wanting to knock each other out, the whole competition actually came down to Brandon and Jill in the final, meaning Monogram swept the top 2 spots.

In the end, Jill’s brew won, meaning she is the 2016 Canadian Aeropress Champion!  Jill will be representing Monogram and Canada at the World Aeropress Championship in Ireland in three short weeks! Brandon took 2nd, and Eldric from Aubade Coffee in Vancouver took 3rd.

We are incredibly proud of Jill and Brandon, and are so excited to see Jill represent Canada in Dublin. Caleb, Jill, Brandon and Ben are incredible competitors and we were so proud to see their hard work on display in competition.

To celebrate, we will be launching aeropress coffees and brewing classes in the cafes in the next week! We also sell the aeropress in both of our cafes – it’s a fantastic by the cup brewer that is perfect for home, travel or office!

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Monogram x Crave Pop-up Closing

It was in November when we first met Carolyne, Jodi, Aldene, Laura and the rest of the Crave team at our small pop-up inside DaDe Art and Design Lab in Inglewood. We were so honoured to be visited by the brains behind one of Calgary’s legendary small business success stories. These lovely ladies were hilarious, energetic, smart and extremely kind, and over the time it took to make a cappuccino, we had an instant bond. It became very apparent that both Crave and Monogram shared the same values and beliefs behind quality, experience and business.

Who knew that several months later, we would be collaborating together on our next popup? When the Crave team approached us to do a pop-up inside their newly renovated flagship Kensington store, we couldn’t refuse.  The thought of Crave’s fresh baking paired with our coffee was an experience that we were excited for. Plus, our patterns and branding just seemed to go together so…serendipitously! Since opening the doors, it’s been so great to see the smiles of every person that has come into this unique experience.

However, with all pop-ups, there is the inevitable end date. We would like to announce that the final day of our Crave pop-up will be Sunday, May 1st. Come on out our last weekend as we will celebrate our popup with a couple surprises.

It’s fun to reflect back on the fantastic collaboration we had. There were so many unique experiences that we were able to do that fused the two brands together. From teaching the manual brew methods and baking class in the bake lab to coming up with our coffee twist on some old fashioned cocktails for the Dote Magazine baking and decorating class, we are proud of the truly collaborative experiences we were able to provide in the space. And who can forget our YYC Hot Chocolate Fest signature drink, where we  made a liquid red velvet cupcake hot chocolate?

It is always bittersweet to conclude a great thing. In fact, the popup was open for longer than we even expected! We are grateful for the opportunity to work with the Crave team, be part of such a fantastic experience and most importantly gain a lifelong friendship with a group of amazing people that we are inspired from. We look forward to continually working together in the future on some more fun projects and events.

Thank you to the lovely Crave team for their great support. Thank you to everyone that took the time to support us in our pop-up. It was so great to meet our Kensington neighbourhood! See you all at our next pop-up!

Monogram

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Irish Coffee

In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, we decided to come up with a recipe for the Monogram take of a classic after-dinner “cocktail”, the Irish Coffee.

What is Irish Coffee? Basically, it’s hot coffee, some sort of Irish whiskey, sugar, and a layer of cream that the coffee is sipped through.  Here’s our recipe: it’s simple and delicious with a slight twist that really elevates the drink!

Ingredients for two 6oz glasses of Irish Coffee:

200g of filter coffee brewed strong. We like a brewing ratio of 16.6g water : 1g coffee for this strength.

8g of panela sugar. This is a beautiful raw sugar that has this wild, rich fruitiness to it that really works well with good coffee and whiskey.

2oz of Jameson Irish Whiskey. Because without this, it wouldn’t be an Irish Coffee haha.

whipped cream lightly whipped to a pourable consistency.

tonka bean garnish

It’s pretty simple to make! 

Stir and dissolve the strong, hot filter coffee with the panela sugar. Be patient and make sure everything is well dissolved. You’ll get the most beautiful flavour from it. Add the whiskey, and portion into two 6 oz tumblers. We like a slightly wider opening so that you get a good ratio of cream to liquid on every sip. Gently pour the whipped cream overtop the back of a spoon positioned at the surface of the liquid. It will layer the cream on top of the drink beautifully. Finally, grate a nice flecking of tonka bean on top. 

The panela, whiskey an coffee create a really warm and interesting fruity flavour in the drink. We recommend using fresh-harvest colombians for this recipe - their flavours will go well with the ingredients! Finally, lightly whipped cream gives a luscious, rich mouthfeel to the drink that balances out the heat. The tonka bean adds that floral, almost vanilla-like aromatic that really ties the whole drink together and gives it a comforting and delicious twist!

Enjoy and happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Price Increase

Hello dear friends!

Over the last year we have truly appreciated all of you - the close-knit community of people that have called Monogram their cafe. We’ve really felt a strong connection with all of you and with that is a commitment from us to always keep you all in the loop with any developments happening with us.

It is with this respect that we wanted to communicate with you all about our plans for an upcoming price increase. For our drinks menu only, we will be adding $0.25 to the current price. This will take effect the week of February 8 (next week).

The reason for this is simply due to the ever increasing cost of our primary product, coffee. With the weak CAD to USD exchange rate, coffee costs have drastically increased as raw green coffee is purchased with the USD. Our other ingredient costs have gone up because of this as well. Since our early days serving coffee at our popups, to the opening of our Altadore expansion, this will be our first price increase.

We remain passionate about serving the absolute best drinks we can to all of you! We understand how much great coffee means to you all, and so we stay continuously committed to using highest quality ingredients in all of our drinks, because we know you can taste the difference. Cutting quality to make more money is something that you will never see at Monogram.

We have also seen the beverage as just one part of the Monogram coffee experience. We take pride in taking care of you all, building community and relationship, providing educational opportunities and creating tasting experiences that inspire wonder and warmth. We will continue to focus heavily on these branches because it is all of these things together that make you smile when you leave the cafe. 

We believe in transparency, respect and love you all too much to not share this with you in advance. Please feel free to have a conversation with our baristas in the cafe, or reach out directly to any of the three of us. Our emails are:

ben@monogramcoffee.com / justin@monogramcoffee.com / jeremy@monogramcoffee.com

Do not hesitate to get in touch.  Thanks for being so awesome!

Ben, Justin and Jeremy

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When we started Monogram, our intention was to build a family. We wanted to build a close-knit culture full of people with individual, special talents but all linked together with a passion for service, an attention to detail and a love for people. Coffee experience has never been a requirement as we have put together a truly extensive, rich and innovative training program that never stops once someone joins the team. 

Our desire is for our baristas to approach the position  professionally in their preparation, thirst for knowledge and customer interaction. Our dream is to have all our team members build careers here and use their individual talents to continue and grow our evolving industry. We have an incredible group in place and we are so excited to see how we grow together, both personally and professionally.

We believe that exceptional coffee should inspire wonder and warmth. Foundational to all of this is our obsession for incredible coffee that inspires people to ask questions about where it comes from and how it is prepared. Our passion is to take care of people in a way that gives a soulful warmth to their experience. 

If you are interested in joining the team, please get in touch with us at info@monogramcoffee.com

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Ben, Jill and Phyllis are representing Monogram competing at the Canadian National Barista Championships in Vancouver! In the photo, Jill (bottom left) and Ben (bottom second from the left) are competing in the Barista Competition and Phyllis (bottom second to the right) is competing in the Latte Art Competition! I sat down with the three competitors and asked them a few questions about competition while checking out some great cafes (the photo is from Revolver Coffee). Please check it out below!

Why do you compete?

Jill:  I thought it would be a great way to learn more about the industry and get more immersed.

Ben: It is a good forum for new ideas and trying new things.

Phyllis: It has always been a goal of mine for my coffee career, to continue to push personal boundaries and improve.

What are you most excited about presenting this year?

Jill: I haven’t heard the Justin Bieber song in a few days. But actually, I’m most excited about presenting my concept and theme because I’m really passionate about it.

Ben: My signature drink (we’ll keep it a surprise!)

Phyllis: To show the judges a latte art design that I never thought I could do, and to push my own personal boundaries on creativity with latte art!

What is hard about preparing for competition?

Jill: Long nights, lots of preparation and lack of sleep.

Ben: Trying to figure out how to fit a stellar performance within the rules and time constraints.

Phyllis: Not knowing what to expect, in addition to the large time commitment.

How does the competition relate to everyday service in the café?

Jill: Sometimes you can get lost in the everyday routine of café service. Competition forces me to look at all the details of my everyday routine and analyze how I can improve on these to give an inspired customer experience.

Ben: In competitions you have to condense a great idea into a 15 minute presentation, which a skill to apply to everyday interations in the cafe when there is so much story to tell about the coffees.

Phyllis: By being involved in competitions you can understand more your role as a barista, not just making drinks to the customer but appreciating more of the details and effort behind making each drink or each latte art pour.

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To go.

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MONOGRAM FAMILY.

Meet the lovely Jill Hoff. Fun fact, Jill was the first barista to join our team! You can find her most days rocking the bar at our DaDe Art and Design Lab cafe, or performing with her band Mayfield.

Jill in one sentence: Wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, baby animal lover, coffee drinker, music maker, people pleaser, and loud talker. 

What are you looking forward to discovering most about coffee? Really looking forward to learning about the complexities and intricacies of what goes into making the delicious brew I drink excessively every single day.

What is unique about you? The unique ability to run the full gamut of emotions from weeping, to uncontrollable laughter, to straight up confusion while watching an episode of American Idol. It's really quite amazing, you'll have to take my word for it. 

We're so lucky to have Jill on board. 

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Last week, our sign went up. It was a special moment to see our banner come up, marking the spot of our first, real cafe! We can't wait to have you all over for coffee.

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Altadore Construction Update 6 - Countertops

Just before the long weekend, our gorgeous, dark, polished concrete countertops were installed into the cafe. With the countertop in, we started moving some of our equipment in.

The concrete being installed and set into place.

We installed a custom wood and brass detailed pastry case that will sit flush with our standup bar. Can't wait to see this filled with gorgeous pastry and baking.