Hi the team at The Vancouver Indy Coffee Scene (Coffee Vancouver for short) is taking a vacation and will be back around in August. So please feel free to check out some of our most favorite posts.
and the constantly updated
Fair and Direct Trade Coffee List
On Vacation
Short story: I sold my car. I live on The Drive. It is one of the best areas in town to live with out a vehicle. When I need one I use a Car Co-op, take the bus or call a cab. And while this has worked quite well it wouldn’t in a lot of areas. As I used to work out of my car, (and have slept in it on one occasion) it was a proof of concept to show I could really live with out it. And I have been able to very easily …
When I take the number 20 into downtown I kept on seeing this cafe on Richard Street, called Taxi Cafe. Like thousands of cafes in Vancouver I didn’t know a thing about it. But as my visits downtown increased, I kept walking past Taxi Cafe and really wanted to check it out.
I had my opportunity to check out the cafe and noticed it was much much more than a cafe. One of the most successful and award-winning advertising agencies in Canada opened up a Vancouver Office and along with Taxi Vancouver came the Taxi Cafe.
Why a cafe instead of a waiting room? 
Why a professionally trained barista instead of a receptionist ? I asked cafe manager Chris Reynolds and barista Yvon about this concept.
To paraphrase they wanted to open up the front space of the offices and make it more of a public space; something where they can; one, showcase the work they have done for clients; and two, instead of meeting with a client outside a cafe why not have their own cafe? Also if a client has arrived early for a meeting, why not offer them an espresso or latte? I think this makes perfect sense actually and having the cafe open to the public helps the bottom line a bit and because the agency is all about marketing a brand (Yes those Viagra Commercials are a Taxi creation). So why not show your clients what you can do with a brand and market your own coffee shop in a city that has one of the most competitive coffee environments?
Yes but what about the cafe?
Walking in, you are met with concrete floors, white walls and marble counters. The word Taxi is written on a light wall from across the back wall. But the cafe still has minimalistic aesthetic appeal. There are three screens on the front wall showing the advertisements that taxi has worked on.
The coffee is a dark roasted espresso and is made to a professional standard. I am not a huge fan of the dark roast espresso as it loses some of the subtle flavour you can find in a roast, but overall I was happy with it. Taxi is currently packaging its own coffee supplied by Casa Del Caffe, which is locally roasted and fair trade certified.
Yvon was very diligent about keeping her machine clean and well timed. There isn’t a whole lot of traffic from the street that enters into the shop so she isn’t that busy but the beans are fresh and the service is personable and friendly. There isn’t any free wireless for the general public, nor is there any plug-ins.
Is independent a brand?
As far as independents go, I would consider Taxi Cafe one. They are owned and run by a large advertising agency, yet the shop is unique and different and very much has its own flair. Reynolds has plans to open up a second cafe in Toronto that is completely detached from the agency itself. Would I want to see one on every corner? No, but then I don’t like seeing a Blenz, a Waves, a Starbucks and a tims on the same four corners of every block and in every city. And in saying that I believe Taxi fits the bill as an independent cafe in Vancouver.
A cafe in your kitchen.
After Geoff Howe’s and my adventures in the Expresso-thon, Geoff just couldn’t take the bad coffee other than Cafe Museo. So he took matters into his own hands and purchased his own espresso gear, but he didn’t cheap out on the gear either. Good thing for mail order from 49th or he would be up the South Saskatchewan River without a paddle.
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| If you want one of the best home cafe set-ups and Geoff Howe certainly did his hope work before bringing pulling out the plastic. (Click on the picture for a list of items) |
I can only applaud Geoff for taking the bull by the horns to tell me he has had quite the learning curve getting the precise grind. He tells me living on The Drive has certain advantages, one of them being “I don’t need an espresso bar in my kitchen to have a great latte. I can just walk down the street.” Let’s just hope he hasn’t broken the bank on this little venture. Can a small cafe be far behind?
Marketing a brand… A fridge magnet only a connoisseur could love.
I have developed a fridge magnet for the coffee blog that kind of pokes fun at one of the biggest misconceptions in coffee at home. Keeping your beans in the freezer.
I have about 30 or so of these magnets left after leaving them around town and if you want one for your very own fridge, drop me a line and I’ll send one off in the mail to ya (postage is on me, unless you want hundreds or live on Mars, that will be subsequently more).
Monkeying around with my brew
Apparently 49th has brough some India Devon Estate SL-795 Arabica that brings out sourcing to a new level (just joking). The bean is picked by a monkey and only the ripest cherry that encompasses the bean is picked by the little dudes. Subsequently this brew has caused a bit of a stir. So much so that vancouveriam did a story featuring Colter Jones about the stuff.
The Future of Vancouver Coffee.ca
This blog has become more than I ever thought it would be and was started as a class project almost a year ago. But I totally love writing this blog, it has been a true education for me and some future improvements will include:
Yet another chain on the drive. Tim Hortons has decided to take over three stores in the mall and create a behemoth of coffee shops almost the size of Wazubee’s. This also comes at a time when Magpie magazine and Eastside Art Supply and Stationary are both closing its doors due to lack of sales.
Meanwhile, Magpie’s closing has more to do with the laptop culture of cafes. It signals a change to the drive.
I have been know to frequent Tim Hortons on numerous occasions, but is ‘the drive’ really a place for Tim Hortons?
Bump and Grind Sold:
Bump and Grind was sold to Audrey and Joe. Christine needed a break from running the cafe and to focus more on her dance instruction.
Audrey and Joe are new to running the cafe. They are certainly no strangers to coffee, glad to see the old haunts are still in good shape. I will miss Christine’s cappuccino’s she had made some spectacular ones.
Direct Purchase Colombian:
My parents were recently on a cruise and had some shore leave in Cartagena, Colombia. They brought me back a pound of roasted coffee. It is a light roast with mellow body.
Cuppings:
I have been using it with my cone filter at home, but I was talking with Audrey and Joe at Bump and Grind and they wanted to put it up against 49th Parallel Colombian.
We put it to the French press test and had some fun in a cupping challenge. Without going into excessive detail we found that although the Colombian did have a nice body after it had been poured, it lacked the overall quality of the 49th parallel roast. Was it really a fair comparison? No not really. . . was it a fun thing to do on a boring cold and rainy afternoon in June. Oh yeah. . .
Hawaiian Gold:
It has been a lucky spring with me as my brother just returned from Maui with some Kona Coffee. Audrey and Joe have invited back another French press challenge when I get through the Colombian. I can’t wait.
You don’t need verification to be classified as fair trade or organic, but it can help. If you just put fair trade on your roast, without giving any information about where the roast is from or who has farmed it, then it is much like lying on your resume.
“Verified” gives you that little bit of information to say “OK, a third party has checked into this and what they say is true.” A lot of the confusion comes from fair trade being closely associated with organic. Although the two are usually marketed together it doesn’t mean that what is a fair trade roast is automatically organic and what is organic is automatically fair trade. Fair trade certification doesn’t even measure quality or taste all it does is
Take Starbucks for example, it says it has a fair trade roast, but only by its own accord, and the information is very limited to the consumer. It gives you almost no knowledge about what you’re drinking, so their is no paper trail about this coffee, the plantation, or the process the farmers uses.
Also, some roasters do not support third party verification because it takes money away from the farmer.
An example is Victrola. Which doesn’t have any third party verification, but does participate in the Cup of Excellence Competition. Cup of Excellence celebrates the achievements the farmer has made in cultivating the best bean using the best practises and then it is auction off to the highest bidder.
What a lot of educated roasters do is direct trade coffee, a number of them also participate in the Cup of Excellence as well, but what these roasters do is provide information about who it purchases from, who the owner of the farm is and usually pictures of the plantation and how the crop was picked. What these two roasters and many others do is called direct trade coffee 49th Parallel affectionately calls its relationship coffee.
It is not an exact science nor is it fool proof and is a some what controversial subject. But if you have an educated roaster and an educated barista, you will get an educated consumer.
Amendment:
I have made a second edit on this post and know this is a pretty weighty subject. But my reason for this post and the fair / direct trade coffee list is two fold:
If you would like to help please contact me through the form here
