BEANTOWN BOX JULY 2022
BEANTOWN BOX…
… features three roasters Boston, Massachusetts and the surrounding area. Boston’s nickname of “Beantown” stems from its Colonial era favorite regional dish “Boston Baked Beans”, which are slow cooked in molasses. The July box includes Broadsheet Coffee (Cambridge, MA), Gracenote Coffee (Boston, MA) and George Howell Coffee (Acton, MA).
Image: Gracenote Coffee
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From the Roaster:
Broadsheet Coffee Roasters was founded in July 2017 and is located just behind Harvard Yard in Cambridge, MA. Our name comes from the long-form paper that the nearby Harvard Printing Press published as a way to spread meaningful news and cheer almost 400 years ago. We are Cambridge’s first (and only!) coffee roasting company.Aaron MacDougall, Broadsheet’s founder, found himself obsessed with coffee after an almost twenty-year career in international finance. He began to enthusiastically pursue expertise in coffee extraction, tasting, equipment, and eventually home roasting back in 2012. Moving from Asia to Hawaii then back to his hometown of Cambridge, MA, he started formal training as a roaster and cupper, won his first amateur competition in 2015, and was certified as a Q-Grader
in 2016. Aaron continued to excel, winning Genuine Origin's Roast and Go competition and placing 5th in the US Cup Tasters Championship in early 2017 in the spring before Broadsheet opened its doors. He also placed 13th and 7th in the National Roasters Championships in the last two years respectively
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From the Roaster: The Rwandan coffee industry has received a significant amount of support and financial aid after the genocide in 1994. For many producers, this has provided the means to break into the specialty market, fetching higher prices for their coffees. The Kanzu washing station is located in the Nyamasheke district of Rwanda’s Western Province. They have invested in organization and management, making this facility a shining example of good processing practices.
This coffee spent 16-18 hours fermenting before being cleaned and dried. The plot this year was dried under experimental parabolic tents, which allows for effective drying for a higher volume of coffee. From our perspective, this experimentation is a huge success, lending to the high quality, fruit forward profile we get in the cup.
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TASTING NOTES
Red Currant, Caramel, PlumORIGIN
Nyamasheke, Rwanda
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From the Roaster:
There’s something that’s difficult to describe about taste. This elusive detail makes it difficult for us to describe Gracenote Coffee Roasters. As both coffee enthusiasts and roasters, we approach coffee with care and skill. Fundamentally, we roast coffee so that it tastes good. It also helps that we source some of the very best green coffee available. What makes us unique is our commitment to the coffees we work with—we attempt to see those coffees for what they are, and undertake the task of roasting in a manner that allows them to express what we imagine and understand to be a coffee’s full potential.Beyond our philosophical approach to tasting coffee, we also incorporate a variety of roasting tools that supplement our understanding of the roast process. The combination of taste and analytics is the most exciting aspect of our job. Our understanding of process and method is both fluid and progressive. Our love of coffee sustains and propels what we do. Ultimately, we want to let our coffee show you all it has to offer—we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
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From the Roaster:
Misty Valley is everything one might expect from a natural process coffee grown in the Yirgacheffe region. Fruit forward, blueberry-rich flavor, and bright acidity balance a full body and clean finish. We love it for its unique chocolate cheesecake richness to pair with the classic fruit and floral notes typical of Yirgacheffe coffees.This coffee has been a staple on our menu since 2012, that quickly rose in popularity among both staff and patrons.
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TASTING NOTES
blueberry, lemonade, peach, chocolate, hibiscusORIGIN
Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia
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From the Roaster:
George Howell Coffee was founded in 2004 by veteran coffee pioneer George Howell. George’s life in coffee began in 1974 with his first café, The Coffee Connection in Cambridge’s Harvard Square.The Coffee Connection grew to 24 stores before it was sold to Starbucks in 1994. George started George Howell Coffee with the primary focus and passion to continually identify, source and roast the highest quality coffees available. Our signature Terroir Coffee acknowledges and highlights the influence of the region and climate or “terroir” (pronounced “tare-WAH”) and the farmer’s craftsmanship in every bean.
We understand that behind every cup of coffee there is a farm with growers who share the same drive and dedication for their craft as we do. In an effort to nurture these relationships, George, and now his daughter Jenny, travel yearly to many of the farms we buy from as well as other coffee producing areas to develop and maintain real and lasting relationships. We are proud to work directly with these farms that share our interest in social responsibility and environmental sustainability. In an ongoing effort to genuinely recognize and demonstrate our respect for the care and costs incurred to produce outstanding quality, George Howell Coffee pays these farms top prices for green coffees, far exceeding Fair Trade pricing.
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From the Roaster:
Nano Challa, founded in 2004, has become one of the quality dominant coffee cooperatives in Ethiopia. It helped put the Jimma coffee zone on the map. Genji Challa is their second washing station, started in 2018. The lot we are offering was harvested later from higher elevations. A delicate kaleidoscopically nuanced coffee. -
TASTING NOTES
Dark Chocolate, Red AppleORIGIN
Gera, Jimma, Ethiopia