Coffee Review scored Tony’s Summit Winter Blend with a 90 in their 2012 Holiday Coffees article.

Summit was noted as “A comfortable cup, not too brightly acidy, original but not intensely so, balanced and appealing to a wide variety of taste and expectations. And reasonable in price.”

Happy Holidays!

UPDATE: Summit Winter Blend is SOLD OUT.

And it can lead to a considerable amount of confusion and misunderstanding about what exactly their relationship is with the grower.

I can’t speak for others, but when we designate a coffee as Tony’s Direct Trade, we are guaranteeing that:

1. Quality – the quality of the coffee meets or exceeds our minimum cupping score of 85.
2. Price – the price that we paid the farmer for his or her coffee is fair, sustainable, and negotiated on an objective, quality-based premium over market.
3. Relationship – we have met the farmer(s) and/or producer(s) of the coffee, we have visited their farm(s) and/or production facilities, and we will continue to do so no less than biennially — with the intention of fostering a long term, mutually-beneficial business relationship.
4. Transparency – we document, and are willing to share with all interested parties, the financial details relating to our purchase of the coffee.

In short, when you purchase a bag of Tony’s Direct Trade coffee you have our word that we have a personal, fair, transparent and, ultimately, sustainable relationship with the producer of the delicious coffee inside.

When brewing coffee thru a pour-over cone (such as a Melitta), making many small pours helps stabilize temperature and create a more even extraction.

One of our favorite brewing methods is the Clever Dripper. Unlike other cones, the Clever is a full-immersion brewer (like a French press), meaning you can control how long the coffee and water interact. This brewer creates a clean, crisp, layered cup, which makes it a great candidate for light roasted, single origin coffees.

Our go-to recipe is 25 grams (or 4 tablespoons) of coffee ground at a drip setting and 12 ounces of water just off the boil. We suggest stirring after the pour, placing the lid on the brewer to hold in the heat, waiting 2 minutes, stirring again, and then draining. The brew takes about 4 minutes, but we find it to be well worth the wait.

Clever Drippers are now on sale at our website for $21.99.

If you’re looking for a low-stress way to consistently brew great coffee at home, the Clever is the way to go. And remember, when you make a purchase of $50 or more, your items ship for free.

The new packaging offers our customers cupping notes and the roast level of each single origin or blend.

We have even included each coffee’s Agtron score, which is a specific number denoting a coffee’s degree of roast.

We can’t wait for the new packaging to come to your house for coffee.

We’ll continue hosting weekly cuppings and brewing classes every Saturday at 12 Noon; all are welcome!

We would love to have you stop in and give us your thoughts!

Here’s the info:

LOCATION:
7001 NW 3rd  Avenue (just west of Phinney Ridge)
Seattle, WA 98117
Phone: 206-972-1459
MAP

HOURS:
Monday – Tuesday: CLOSED
Wednesday – Friday: 7AM-Noon
Saturday – Sunday: 8AM-Noon

Follow us on twitter @tonyscoffeebar for the latest updates.

Jill Killen of Cloud City Coffee recently assumed ownership of El Diablo Coffee Company, located at 1811 Queen Anne Ave N #101 (map).

Jill is keeping Diablo’s trademark Cuban coffees on the menu, and will be adding drip coffee and Ganesha espresso to the menu.

There are also exciting plans in the works for a hand-brew drip bar, featuring our single origin lineup.

The El Diablo website has lots of great info.

Stay tuned for updates!

It is a natural (or dry) processed coffee, which means that the entire coffee cherry is left to dry in the sun on tables or patios.

Coffees processed in this way have potent fruit character and need to be selected carefully to avoid those with overripe fruit or fermented flavor notes.

The coffee varietals in this Yirgacheffe are wild heirloom and are grown at an elevation of 1850 meters.

Grinding this stuff will engulf your senses with fragrances of mixed berries and apricot. This is a cup filled with notes of melon, raspberry, watermelon candy, and lemony brightness.

To summarize: this is a heavily fruited cup of coffee with moderate acidity and a very sweet finish. 

For a limited time only: available here through our shop.

SOLD OUT!

I had the good fortune of travelling to Honduras and El Salvador on our buying trip in March. My experience, limited as it was, showed me that growing and processing excellent coffee requires an enormous amount of both patience, as well as urgency. Here I’ll provide a rough sketch of how coffee gets from the tree to your cup — as well as a few connections I found between growing and roasting/brewing coffee.

High quality Arabica is grown at high elevations, between 4,000 and 7,000 feet. At those elevations, the plants have to fight to survive. Without providing the scientific explanation (which I don’t have), this struggle for life, and subsequent longer maturation period, translates to more flavorful coffee. The same principle is true for many tree fruit. When a farmer plants at high elevations, they do so knowing that the tree will take longer to bear fruit and will have lower yields. They are choosing quality over quantity, and they are exhibiting a lot of patience.

Harvesting coffee is one of the most labor-intensive endeavors I’ve seen. A highly skilled picker can harvest 350 pounds of fruit in a long day of work, which translates to just 55-75 pounds of roasted coffee. Time and labor can be saved by harvesting all of the fruit at once, but in order to achieve the best cup quality only the ripest fruit can be harvested, while the other fruit is left on the tree to ripen. This often means harvesting a single tree five times or more, by hand.

Once the fruit is removed from the tree it must immediately be sorted, weighed and transported to the mill, or else the pulp (fruit) will begin to ferment, thereby impacting the flavor of the bean. Getting the fruit to processing mills in erosion-prone, mountainous regions with inadequate roads can be a challenge, and that’s without factoring in the time crunch.

At the mill, the fruit is sent through channels of water to separate higher density beans (sinkers) from lower density beans (floaters). Higher bean density translates to better cup quality. The fruit is then sent through a mechanical depulper, after which point the beans are deposited into tanks of water for anywhere between 8-48 hours. While they soak, naturally occurring enzymes eat away the gooey layer of mucilage that surrounds the bean.

Typically, the beans are then washed and spread out to dry in the sun for anywhere between 6-12 days — all the while they are tossed and raked every hour to encourage even drying. When the internal moisture of the beans reaches 12%, they are put in bags and stored in a warehouse.

At this point, the beans are encased by a papery layer called parchment, or pergamino. This thin layer acts to protect the beans from swings in temperature and humidity during the 30-90 days that they typically rest.
This period, while the beans are “en pergamino” and internal moisture levels are allowed to stabilize, is crucial to the quality of the coffee. It too requires a good deal of patience on the part of the grower and exporter.

Once the beans are sent through the dry mill, where their parchment is removed, it’s ‘all systems go’. If the green beans sit in a humid environment without their parchment for too long, their quality will be jeopardized.

There is a healthy sense of urgency on our end of things, as well. As soon as coffee is dropped out of the roaster, the clock is ticking. Depending on the coffee and roast level, peak flavor is generally realized 5-15 days after the roast. Our distribution team focuses much time and energy on ensuring that our customers receive their coffee as close to the roast date as possible; this is the least we can do, given the sense of urgency that occurs along the rest of the supply chain.

José Marel Portillo has been providing Tony’s with great coffee for the past several years and we are more excited than ever to bring you his new crop.
A few of us at Tony’s had the opportunity to visit Capucas earlier this year and were able to cup many of this region’s great coffees — including José Portillo’s.

His coffee is comprised of Caturra and Catuai varietals, is grown between 1450 and 1600 meters above sea level, and is a fully washed (wet process) coffee. The cup it produces is exceptionally clean and balanced with tropical fruit aromatics, maple and tobacco notes, and a full sweet finish.

Buy José Marel Portillo Here!

We also took a side trip to the region of Marcala to visit our partners at the COMUCAP women’s cooperative. This is the first year COMUCAP is doing lot separation, and many of the coffees were very good. The coffee grown on the farm of Luz Zelaya was our top scoring coffee with caramelized sugar aromatics, flavors of honey, date, malt, and ginger. It is fully washed, Bourbon and Catuai, and grown at 1450-1600 meters.

Buy Luz Zelaya Here! (SOLD OUT)

Both of these coffees are Tony’s Direct Trade certified, Fair Trade USA certified, and certified organic.

The Green Power advantage

Tony’s is a Leadership Partner with Puget Sound Energy’s Green Power Program, one the top renewable energy programs in the country. When you enjoy Tony’s Coffee, you are helping:

• Reduce air emissions
• Enhance fuel price stability
• Diversify fuel sources
• Stimulate local economic development

Where does it come from?

All of the Green Power energy is produced here in the Pacific Northwest. The Stateline Wind Project and Hanford Solar Facility are two major sources for PSE’s Green Power Program. These and other sources in Washington and Oregon provide power from these sources:

• Biomass (14%)
• Solar (<1%)
• Wind (86%)

For comparison, the current average mix of resources supplying Puget Sound Energy includes:

• Large Hydroelectric (45%)
• Coal (35%)
• Natural Gas (17%)
• Wind (2%)
• Nuclear (1%)
• Other (1%)*

Tony’s (And the Environment) Thanks You

From sustainable farming methods to sustainable roasting methods, Tony’s is on board with providing a bright future for our planet. Viva Green Power!

*Based on 2006 fuel mix reported to the State of Washington Office of Trade and Economic Development