We have been working on a way to sell our iced coffee commercially in some sort of easy to transport container, and while looking for inspiration I stumbled upon this nice article by the Gothamist: http://gothamist.com/2011/04/27/growlers_for_your_64_oz_iced_coffee.php
Nice label on the growler and a nice little blurb about why coffee concentrate is the way to go!
Here’s another one of Shannon’s awesome lattes. In other news, Lamplighter now has two solar panels installed on the roof!!! Courtesy of Urban Grid, a Richmond based company. Their offices are actually over in Scott’s Addition right by the Kickstand.
This weekend at the Lamplighter we will be retailing
Honduras Cerro Azul at a French roast as our darkest offering,
Ethiopian Sidamo Natural Processed / Peruvian Chanchamayo blend @ full city (currently our espresso)
Papua New Guinea Sigri A @ full city
Kenya Gititu Estate AA @ a true medium
Nicaragua Segovia @ light medium
Guatemala Finca Ceylan @ a light city
The last two are our newest Central Americans to come in and they are both delicious. Those will be alternating as our drip brew all weekend long. Here are the notes for both.
Nicaragua Segovia: Sweet and malty with a mild acidity. Notes of hazelnut and caramel stand out with subtler notes of stone fruit and tobacco at the darker roasts. The Nueva Segovia region is at the northern border that Nicaragua shares with Honduras. This specific lot comes from a co-op that uses revenues from Fair Trade sales to provide education to members and their children, build better pulping and processing facilities, provide disaster relief funds, provide health care, and to build a cupping lab. The PRODECOOP was founded in 1993 with the mission of creating integrated systems of production and conservation. Members have consistently competed in the Cup of Excellence competition and won top awards.
Guatemala Finca Ceylan: Nice and bright with a sweet vanilla note and floral finish. This is a really clean cup, great in the morning. Guatemala is often considered the gold standard of Central American coffee producers because the government coffee authority, ANACAFE, encourages sustainable growing practices and has created a strong infrastructure for coffee production and sales. This specific estate has been family owned and operated for over 130 years and has always been dedicated to environmentally friendly coffee production. The farm is both Rain Forest Alliance and bird friendly certified and hunting is prohibited on the estate.
The old and the new. The Probat L5 on the left next to our new Diedrich! I have been pretty lucky to get to roast on two such fine machines, and I am sad to see the Probat sitting and not getting used for now, but using the big ol’ Diedrich is awesome! SO much coffee.
The Probat has been through it all - she was in the flood in Shockoe some years back and has been lovingly rebuilt. During the time that I have been here (two years) I have seen, and helped solve, nearly every conceivable maintenance issue you can have with a roaster, and it has been really great. From tightening the manifold, to replacing a belt, balancing the motor, to various electrical and switch replacements - it has been a labor of love. The learning process has been unbeatable and so hands on. But now we are on to a new era here at the Lamplighter, which is also wonderful, because we are so busy that we needed a bigger machine. Eventually we will offer roastery tours and you can come check them both out!
Iced dranks come n get em.
There is a LOT going on in RVA this weekend. The French Film festival will be going down and we are providing a few pots of coffee to the Byrd Theater for all those early movie-goers. There are also a bunch of bike related events happening, for which I urge you to scoot over to the RideRichmond website for more info. We are re-starting our Final Fridays block party/ art market event tomorrow night with this awesome event: 
Also, we are officially back to Summer hours: 7am-8pm, seven days a week!
PS If you haven’t tried the Kenyan Estate grown coffee we have in right now, you should consider it. It is delicious.
In our ongoing quest to attain ‘spro perfection, we are trying something a little different with the Ethiopian Sidamo this weekend. The consistent feedback from staff and customers is that when you get a good shot it isreallygood, but there are usually about 2 or 3 alright or not so good shots that get dumped in the process. Because it is hand picked and natural processed, the stuff is inconsistent. In order to make it easier to work with I have added some of the delicious, mild chocolatey-sweet Peruvian Chanchamayo that we had been using in the End Times espresso blend. The Peruvian should provide the perfect backdrop to display the Sidamo’s tasty bright and sweet notes, while successfully covering the milder ‘off’ notes that you can get out of a couple weird beans in the mix. Not that this sort of thing would be obvious to anyone drinking a latte, since the Sidamo is really nice in milk, but for our loyal shot drinkers with discerning palates, this should be an improvement.
is upon us in the ol’ River City and that means a couple new things for the cafe! First off, some time soon (not sure exactly when bc we are using some evenings to do some reorganizing) we will be expanding our hours now that it’s lighter later to be 7am-8pm seven days a week. But not quite yet. I have had a bunch of people ask about it, so I thought I’d give the update!
Secondly, after serving the End Times Espresso Blend all winter long, it is time to switch to something different, and we are going back to the Ethiopian Sidamo Natural Processed. As soon as we run through what’s left of the End Times, we will be on to that; I am roasting up the first batch today and it looks great! Should be three or so days until the Sidamo is pouring in the cafe.
We also picked out one of the incredible Kenyan estate grown lots to order a bunch of, which is exciting. This stuff is a bit more expensive than most of the other east African offerings that are available to us, but the first round of Specialty Kenyan lots for the season is always a really promising one, and after reading a bit about some of them, we have chosen the Gititu AA. I will be roasting and cupping the first batch of that later on in the week, so be on the look out!
Macchiato!
