#monogramcoffee

[enlightninged1]

@monogramco thanks for the yummy coffee this morning. You can tell when it's made from love. Hope @deannarculp enjoyed her #condesdmilklatte. This is what it looked like when it made. #coffee #fuel #devilsbrew #monogram #monogramcoffee (at Monogram Britannia) https://www.instagram.com/p/B746pi-BWYP/?igshid=10xpcsuwya3l9

[monogramcoffee]

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

[grandedrip]

Time to visit Monogram Coffee in Calgary. Co-founder and barista Ben Put is part of a national award-winning team with over 20 years of experience in sourcing, roasting and serving coffee. He claimed third place and beat out baristas from over 50 countries in the 2016 World Barista Championship. Monogram Coffee is definitely on my must try list next time in am in Calgary. 

[enlightninged1]

Had a @monogramco #cofffee this morning and top the #pups out for a walk in the #Calgary #fog. #yyc #greatdane #grantham #georgina #fawn #brindle #monogramcoffee #dogs #riverdalepark #pets #family #furbabbies #yycdog #dogsofinstagram #elbowriver #elbowrivervalley (at Riverdale Dog Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/BvZoQQ4HoUg/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=nel171aluoyo

[monogramcoffee]

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!

[crusadingcanadian]

Sunday Yumday with @laurenmh100, a mocha, and a london fog. Took these bad boys and Bandit for a walk in the Calgary sunshine. #SundayFunday #coffee #hearts #MonogramCoffee #walking (at Monogram Coffee)

[monogramcoffee]

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”.