The LA Weekly article went on to report that Tonx has started a brewed coffee subscription service, US$35 a month for 2 12 oz bags of coffee. An espresso program is in the works. But, what really made this article a must-read were Tonx’s words of wisdom, especially to one who is starting out as a roaster.

“A coffee should have inherent sweetness,” he says, “The roasting process should accentuate that. Clarity and articulation of the intrinsic flavor of the coffee is the role of the roaster. It’s a sacred duty to not screw up the thing that went through some tremendously convoluted supply chain.”

Tonx further sums this up in the article:

“I just want people to taste the coffee, and to experience it as good,” he says. “And if it is good, I don’t want them to look at me as the roaster as being the one that made it good. I want them to understand that it was the producer who grew the coffee, the people who processed this coffee, and all the care that was taken before it got into my hands that made that coffee great. And all I did was just not fuck it up. “

[excerpted from LA Weekly]

P.S. You can sign up for Tonx’s coffee subscription service on tonx.org

As far back as I can remember, I have been quite lucky and have always managed to turn my passion into a job. I’ve done this with comics and toys for 14 years. Now, I’ve elected to do the same with my other love, coffee. Walking away from a barista trainer position at Shangri-la Hotel Singapore and The Line buffet restaurant certainly hasn’t been easy. In the 9 months, I have worked alongside service staff and pastry chefs and I’ve made quite a few friends. Also, there are some regular guests at The Line with whom I’m extremely pleased and honoured to have met their acquaintances. But I’ve replayed this scenario many times over in my head, and I keep coming to the same conclusion. I would rather resign than compromise on the quality of coffee. And there are these other words that still echo in my mind. These words were in the form of an extremely inspirational email sent from James Hoffmann aka jimseven:

“I don’t think you made a bad decision. It is unpleasant to compromise constantly on what you do for a living, especially when it is something you love. I believe strongly that there is always a need and desire for passionate people in any industry, so I don’t think you’ll struggle to find something else. Getting to do what you love is a great goal for a job, rather than to be paid to turn up somewhere and robotically go through the motions to get a paycheck.”

Flashback to events before this whole resignation deal while I was attending the first day of SNBC 2011, I was approached by the hotel’s F&B Trainer, Ryan Chan, who passed on the message that the F&B Director wished to incorporate The Line Restaurant’s barista station into the staff cafe for a day as part of Shangri-la Hotel’s 40th Anniversary celebrations. I was (and still am) extremely thrilled and honoured at the idea. This would mean I’ll be the barista for the entire staff of Shangri-la Hotel Singapore for the lunch hour for a day. I could not think of a better way than this to thank Shangri-la Hotel for all the fun I’ve had working for them.

Back to present day. I’m putting the finishing touches on my Quickmill Anita and my Compak grinder. It seems I’ll be getting to showcase the both of them during lunchtime tomorrow, 12th April 2011 at the staff cafe. The home barista machine setup meets the big boys. My trusty Quickmill and the modified Compak grinder in a cafe setting. By the way, the Compak grinder has been modified to accept single serving doses and not having to grind the entire bag of beans for convenience factor, or otherwise known as the principal reason behind my resignation. I’m thrilled to say the very least. Other than getting to thank them, this is a chance to bring my colleagues closer to good espresso and hopefully to discourage the notion of adding all sorts of syrups to the coffee to get rid of the bitterness.

The venue will be at Our Cafe, Shangri-la Hotel Singapore from 10.30 am til 2.30 pm on 12th April 2011. The coffee of the day will be the Shangri-la Blend. The espresso machine will be the Quickmill Anita. The grinder will be a modded Compak K-6. And the baristi are from The Line Restaurant, Colin Loh and Peter Li.

This is dedicated to all my colleagues; both former and present at the Shangri-la Hotel Singapore. It’s been a privilege. And a whole lot of fun.

And a shout out to all of you to not ask for syrups in your cappuccino! At least not for the capps served at Our Cafe on 12 April.

I posted this on my facebook page. Many of you readers here would have read it. I would like to thank all of you for your support and your well-wishes. Part of my inspiration comes from the many people and the participants in the barista championships like SNBC or WBC. So many of you are propelled to take up the challenge each and every year, thereby raising the bar in the overall standards of coffee both here in Singapore as well as on a global scale. I feel I would not be doing my part just by blogging about it and sitting on the sidelines. Thus, herein lies my contribution.

I will be taking part in SNBC 2012 if I’m lucky enough to be employed by a cafe. Which also brings up another thing. I’m available for hiring. :)

One of the contenders from Day 1, now a finalist, Ryan Tan from Papa Palheta. I was talking to him yesterday about his work experience in Australia. Ryan mentioned having worked with David Makin (who excused himself from the head judge position during Ryan’s SNBC performance) and having worked on the Slayer. Well, I said, that has got to be St. Ali then. They’ve got Slayer Number 001. His signature drink sounds really good, and I hope to try it today. Ryan’s coffee is a blend of Brazil Carmo Estate Peaberry and Kenyan Rianjagi Co-op which he roasted himself. His signature drink is layered with a blueberry maceration on the bottom, espresso, and then hazelnut infused cream on top. From the way he was describing his coffee and signature drink alone, I’m placing Ryan Tan in one of the top 3 positions today. This chap is SNBC Top 3 material.

Anyway, without further ado, this next picture says it all.

From Left to Right, the SNBC 2011 Finalists are:

   1.   Keith Loh (Oriole Cafe);

   2.   Romeo (Oriole Cafe);

   3.   Suhaimie Sukiman (CuppaChoice International)

   4.   Ryan Tan (Papa Palheta)

   5.   Terrence (Joe n Dough)

   6.   Irvin (TBA)

Congratulations to all the SNBC 2011 Finalists!

I really should be talking about SNBC and the performances, but this machine takes the cake. While other companies are starting to introduce PID’s and taking into account temperature stability to produce a better cup of espresso, La Marzocco (and Slayer) have taken the next step in the evolution of espresso making, the keywords being “PRESSURE PROFILING.” They have complicated the whole process towards making a cup of coffee. I say complicated, not in a bad way, but more like the Star Trek of espresso making, to go where no baristi have gone before – the sky’s the limit. Before pressure profiling, this was what the barista had to do to make a good cup of espresso:

Freshly roasted coffee that was properly rested and properly stored and freshly ground-on-demand and precisely dosed into a heated portafilter without clumping and then evenly distributed to provide a levelled surface for a thirty pound equally distributed pressured tamp and the portafilter locked into a grouphead that had temperature stability controlled by a PID and a machine that gave the double basket of espresso grounds a pre-infusion lasting 5 seconds of 3 bar pressured water before gradually heading into the 9 bar region lasting another 20 seconds and filling 2 heated demitasses below with an ounce of crema rich espresso each.

Enter Pressure Profiling and the barista’s (several) new routines will be:

Freshly roasted coffee that was properly rested and properly stored and freshly ground-on-demand and precisely dosed into a heated portafilter without clumping and then evenly distributed to provide a levelled surface for a thirty pound equally distributed pressured tamp and the portafilter locked into a grouphead that had temperature stability controlled by a PID and a machine that gave the double basket of espresso grounds an infusion lasting x seconds of y bar pressured water and repeating the infusion process another z times to make 2 demitasses of espresso of w volume but unknown quality where w, x and z are greater than zero and y is greater than zero but less than or equal to 12 bars.

Here is a diagram provided by La Marzocco to give you a vague idea of what to expect from the Strada:

The La Marzocco Pressure Profiling Cheat Sheet

Where do we go from here?

“Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.”

For those heading out to Singapore National Barista Championships, running alongside Tea & Coffee World Cup Asia today and tomorrow, you can skip the lengthy one hour wait I had to endure just by bringing along your business card, which will substitute as your name tag. I, unfortunately am a lowly barista trainer and wouldn’t warrant a card at my hotel. And for those who are signing up for classes like roasting or cupping, please queue up in the SPECIAL EVENTS queue. I queued in the VISITORS queue and was told to re-queue after queuing for an hour. Are you kidding?

The number one highlight of this entire event will be mentioned in the next post after this one. I’ve only watched 3 performances yesterday, the remaining time spent trolling the numerous booths. The first was last year’s Champion from Oriole Cafe, Keith Loh. Keith was using single origin Kenyan Gethumbwini, which is also one of my favourite and first roasts, also a favourite of jimseven who utilised it and won World Barista Championship 2007. Winey, blackcurrants, I can just taste it. I have a video of Keith’s performance which I will edit later tonight. I had the privilege of tasting the alpha stage of his signature drink during this past Chinese New Year in February. His signature drink is named Gethumbwini Sunrise. Keith’s main goal here is to redefine the taste of espresso by removing the undissolved solids in the cup and replacing these with his own custom oils/fragrances. He achieves this by filtering out the “undesired” parts of the espresso with Hario v60′s and then adding chilled water (looks like 2:1) and finally spraying some lemon oils into the cup and rubbing the oils onto the rim of the cup.

Speaking of jimseven, this signature drink reminds me of jimseven’s first video blog, which caused somewhat of an outrage in espressodom. It led me to 2 experiments, which you can read about in the following links.

Espresso sans Crema Test

Americano sans Crema Test

For the balls (sorry, for lack of better words) Keith has, he truly deserves the brand spanking new machine (the actual number one highlight of SNBC 2011). He’s gone and redefined espresso as we know it. Take out the defining blackcurrants in Gethumbwini, add in the lemons. It should renamed Getlemonbwini. An extremely risky effort, which I’ve been telling him since February, but I really hope he wins this year and gets to take this performance to a world stage. Unnerving, mind-blowing.

The 2nd performance I watched was Suhaida from Marina Mandarin Hotel. She used a blend of Costa Rica SHB and Sumatra Mandheling, and her signature was supposed to use a reduction of honey and figs, but her equipment broke down, and she quickly changed her signature on the fly to a pourover over honey and figs. She’s inspired me to enter into the race next year. During her interview with Victor Mah, the president of Singapore Coffee Association, Suhaida mentioned that the state of hotel coffee is improving. I’m definitely heading to Marina Mandarin for a sip. Her colleagues were extremely supportive, ranging from the GM to the F&B Directors and the staff.

The 3rd performance looked to be another contender for the Final 6. Ryan Tan from Papa Palheta. He’s a Singaporean working in one of the cafes in Australia. His signature was a reduction of fruits and nuts?? But it was his performance that was eye-catching. He had attention to every detail and was cleaning up as he went along. Impeccable! It was a pleasure watching him perform his routine.

Oriole Cafe will be organising a latte art competition on 2nd November 2009. For those who don’t check or have Facebook accounts, the details are below, as excerpted from their Facebook updates:

Get your milk jugs ready and steady your nerves,
Back after 8 months (sorry we’ve been busy…)!
New exciting and audience friendly knockout system
Many prizes galore (alcohol guaranteed)!
$5.50(nett!) beer all night long
cut price shooters
$5 entry, winner takes all
Plus…BRAGGING RIGHTS!
register early to secure your limited slots! Or just come and join in the mayhem!

This event is planned to start at 7:30 pm on Nov 2, 2009 at Oriole Cafe & Bar, #01-01 Pan Pacific Suites, 96 Somerset Rd.

John pours latte art in front of judges.

The familiar “tap tap tap”, dosing coffee grounds into the portafilter

John pours water for the technical judges.

John explains his signature drink, “Summer Blossom”.

John calls “Time,” signaling the end of his performance and is being
interviewed by James Hoffmann.

John thanks everyone for their support, especially the ones cooped
up in Singapore, watching his performance at an ungodly hour.

James Hoffmann.

A total of 52 countries are taking part in this event. Singapore will be represented by John Ting from Oriole Cafe. He will be assisted by Oriole Cafe owner, Keith Loh, who came in 2nd place in this year’s Singapore National Barista Championship (SNBC). According to the WBC article on Specialty Coffee Association of America’s (SCAA) website, John Ting’s performance will be the 10th of 19 competitors on the first day, 16th April. The top 6 finalists will be announced on Day Three, Saturday, 18th April 2009, and these 6 will compete in the Final Round on Sunday, 19th April 2009.

To follow up on WBC 2009, you can click on the following links:

World Barista Championship Official Site
This is the official site for WBC and you can find the live video feeds and news updates.  Live video feeds will begin on 16th April.

SCAA’s WBC article
The schedule of events and the timetables can be downloaded here.

WBC 2009 Official Blog by Barista Magazine (Click here for RSS Feed)

WBC 2009 on Twitter (Click here for RSS Feed)

Georgia World Congress Center

GWCC Google Map