New Kenya

Barrett Jones

World Cup Tasting Championship

PGMPR

New Crop Colombias

Barrett Jones

49th Parallel Flickr

Barrett Jones

Brewing Guides win AppliedArts design award.

Barrett Jones

Canadian Barista Championship!

Barrett Jones

Krups Kup of Excellence

Barrett Jones

Brumas wins WCRBC

Barrett Jones

Tanzanias score 91 and 93.

CoffeeReview.com

Tanzania Karmaro Micro-lot
Reviewed: June 2009

Tanzania Hope Peaberry
Reviewed: June 2009

Barrett to the WCTC Köln!

Roaster of the Year

Mark Prince - Editor, CoffeeGeek.com

My roaster of the year, 49th Parallel Coffee (if I were to do another 'best of the year awards) garners that opinion from me not because they had the best espresso I had in the past six months (they didn't); nor because they provided me with the most epiphany moment single origin (that came from Ecco Caffe). No, 49th Parallel is my choice for roaster of the year for two reasons. I did not have a single coffee from them (or blend) that I could rank less than 80 points on the espresso scale, and very few below 90 points on the cupping scale. And second, they were so consistently great the entire year, especially on their blends, that it kind of reset the standard for me on how a roaster should do. Throughout 2008 and now well into 2009, I've had Epic Espresso, their signature blend on a weekly basis, and saw the blend start out last year great, and only get better as time progressed. It never had a downtime. I can't say that for any other blend I've tried more than once or twice last year.

I also had some of the best single origin brewed coffee of my life last year thanks to their offerings. Standouts include the Beloyas (still available!) and the Aricha, both from Ethiopia, but also some great finds like the Costa Rica Herbazu Estate, the Kenya Rioki Estate, and the totally bargain priced Ethiopian Ademe Bedane (this drinks like a $40/lb coffee, for $16/12oz). I could go on, but if you haven't tried 49th Parallel yet, you're missing one of the best roasters in Canada and the US.

Sammy Piccolo scores #2

Barrett Jones

Twitter!

9 Great Coffees

Katherine Cancila - Saveur Magazine

Burnaby, Canada; $14.10 for 12 ounces) Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, still produces some of the most complexly flavored beans in the world. The valley of Yerga cheffe is renowned for beans with a distinctive, lemony taste; this particular variety adds notes of cherry and anise to the mix. Though 49th Parallel is only three years old, the Canadian company has already earned praise for its focus on flavor and diversity in the sourcing of African beans.

A pdf is available here.

10 tastes of: Vancouver

Christine Pacheca - Canadian Living.com

A walk along gorgeous Kitsilano beach should be prefaced with the java at 49th Parallel’s coffee lounge. Vince and Mike Piccolo, co-founder of Café Artigiano, are the reigning kings in Vancouver’s coffee-centric culture. The unrivaled creamy, smooth and well-balanced coffee goodness comes from buying, blending, and roasting their own beans.

The sweeter side of coffee addiction

Rebecca Tay - Westender - Dec 6-12, 2007

...Kitsilano's 49th Parallel (2152 West 4th, 604-420-4901, 49thParallelRoasters.com) - owned by Vince and Mike Piccolo, who co-founded Caffè Artigiano - offers one of the city's best selections of specialty custom roasted beans, and recently won the prestigious nationwide Krups Kup of Excellence competition. Fitting, then, that their mocha ($3.65) is less about sugar than it is about fine coffee, so while it doesn't provide a cringe-worthy kick of sweetness, even the most inexperienced coffee drinker will sense the high quality of the java here...

Love it a latte

Vitamin V.ca - Daily Dose

Fuel up for your next West Fourth shopping spree (Gravity Pope Tailored Goods, anyone?) with a girlfriend rendez-vous at the new 49th Parallel coffee shop where modern décor (big, backlit walls) meets deco-chic (chandeliers and wallpaper).

Robins’ egg blue coffee cups pop against the espresso-coloured décor and you can be sure the coffee’s as good as the design – the owners founded the famous Caffe Artigiano chainlet.

And if you’re two for tea? We suggest the pretty flower teas served in clear glass teapots that literally bloom before your eyes.

'Showcase Lounge' for coffee in Kits

Mia Stainsby

When coffee worship migrated north from Seattle, javaphiles launched into this dark brew with the intensity of ardent oenophiles. Our version of Starbucks is Vince Piccolo, former owner of Caffe Artigiano and now, coffee wholesaler.

His company, 49th Parallel, buys, blends, roasts, packages and then sells coffee to discerning retailers around North America. His 49th Parallel coffee bar in Kitsilano is the “showcase lounge” for the dark, rich brew.

This room is like a cup of coffee itself, in signature dark browns and “Tiffany blue” – colours that also conjure a Birks’ blue box, wrapped in its brown ribbon. See? Colour psychology at work!

But it’s not all about the packaging. To go with the excellent coffees, he brings in coffee friendly edibles from Thomas Haas, the prince of pastries and chocolates – brioche, pain au chocolat, croissants, almond croissant and quark cheese Danish zapped with lemon zest and raisins. Other edibles include chocolate sour cherry torte, biscotti, carrot cake and brownies.

As for coffee, there are 13 roasts, including single-origin beans from Australia called Australian Mountain Top. It’s served in their espresso-based drinks on Fridays. For drip coffee, they use a Clover coffee system which brews up fresh coffee by the cup in one minute. And regulars, take note.

Every so often, Piccolo or one of his staff will be conducting cuppings, which in coffee-speak means tastings.

“Our goal is to be the world’s best coffee roaster. We only see the best coffees and are meticulous about in buying green, the way it’s shipped, sample-roasted, the way it’s cupped, roasted, packaged and produced,” says Piccolo.

In the end, coffee isn’t about words. Go and check it out yourself. I think you’ll like it. It’s open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday, and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m on Sunday.

Big Buzz, low caffeine

Vancouver Sun - October 31, 2007

Big buzz, low caffeine: Vince Piccolo, the city’s Pied Piper of coffee, has introduced a new low-caffeine coffee not only to Vancouver, but to Canada. You’ll find it at his coffee bar, 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters Café (2152 West Fourth Ave.). Daterra Opus Exotic Blend from Brazil is said to be the world’s one and only naturally grown low-caffeine coffee with only one-per-cent caffeine, a result of a dozen years of natural breeding to grow low-caffeine beans.

“Some people who don’t want too much caffeine don’t like the taste of decaffeinated coffee,” says publicist Tiffany Soper. “This has the taste of a regular coffee but is lower in caffeine. It’s ideal for someone like me who loves coffee but can’t drink coffee after 4 p.m. without being up all night.” At 49th Parallel, Daterra coffee is made on a $10,000 Clover machine (makes each order fresh) and costs $3.75 a cup.

Is one cup of coffee worth $15?

Kate Lunau

A Panamanian brew called Esmeralda has brought the coffee-drinking world to its knees.

By Kate Lunau

Toronto residents have long been accustomed to emptying their wallets for a gourmet meal or fine glass of wine. But is Canada's most expensive city ready for the $15 cup of coffee? Matthew Lee thinks so. Lee, 29, recently opened Manic Coffee, a café on the bustling outskirts of Toronto's Little Italy. To celebrate, on Oct. 19 he'll begin offering up a limited amount of Esmeralda Special - a heady Panamanian brew that brought the coffee-drinking world to its knees.

Can one cup of coffee really be worth $15? "All I can say is yes," Lee says earnestly. "It is the most remarkable coffee I've ever had in my life." Fragrant, floral and tea-like, with notes of jasmine and bergamot - these are some of the qualities connoisseurs ascribe to Esmeralda. Others seem to get tongue-tied at the very thought of it. "It's amazing. That's all I can say," gushes Aaron Webb, a roaster at Discovery Coffee in Victoria, B.C. And Lee won't be offering standard Esmeralda in his café. He's bringing in the legendary Esmeralda auction lot (a careful selection of the farm's very best beans) in other words, the crème de la crème of coffee. Lee and Webb aren't alone in the enthusiasm; the hype has been deafening. Esmeralda first caught the attention of coffee lovers in 2004 - the year a coffee tree known as the geisha was discovered on Hacienda la Esmeralda in lush western Panama. As is produces less that a typical coffee plant, the geisha is rarely cultivated on Central American farms. But after owners sampled beans from the geisha tree-originally from Ethiopia, it flourishes in Panama's high altitudes-they knew they had a winner. "It's a flavour that's never been found in the Americas before," says marketing director Rachel Peterson.

That year, the auction lot sold for a record US$21 a pound, at a time when a pound of commercial-grade coffee was going for about 73 cents. It quickly became "a marketing thing," says Mark Prince, senior editor of coffee appreciation site Coffeegeek.com. One buyer (Kansas City's The Roasterie) even hired an armoured truck to deliver it, presumably for protection against over-caffeinated fanatics.

The award-winning beans went on to smash record auction prices for two of the next three years. But this year's crop-recognized as the best yet-blew the others away. At online auction in May, bidding got so frantic the site temporarily crashed. After eight gruelling hours, the lot sold for a stunning US$130 a pound-over 100 times the price of commercial grade coffee (and roughly 10 times higher than non-auction Esmeralda Special geisha beans). 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters was one of seven winning bidders, and the only Canadian company, to claim a share of the 500-lb lot; it roasts the coffee exclusively for Caffè Artigiano in Vancouver.

Since then, Esmeralda hype has reached fever pitch. A Caffè Artigiano press release dubbed it "the World's Best Coffee, EVER!" Journalists who attended a tasting event touting the $15 cup of coffee were gifted a half pound bag, which sells in store for $135. Owner Willie Mounzer has focused on making Esmeralda "an experience" for customers who order it: a manager personally delivers it on a silver platter. So who's buying? "Anybody with a distinct palate; [people] in the industry; showoffs," says manager Joaquin Quian.

Within the coffee community, Esmeralda backlash has begun. "It is out of control, in my opinion," Prince says. He suspects some retailers have been "less than crystal" about whether their coffee is auction-lot or not especially confusing since both bear the same name, Esmeralda Special. Prince himself bought three half-pound bags he believed to be auction-lot Esmeralda, only to find he'd been duped. (Non-auction-lot Esmeralda sells in cafés for about $5 a cup. Timothy's will be offering half-pound bags of non-auction beans for $17.99 as of mid-November.)

Prince's advice to consumers seeking auction-lot beans is to make sure retailers get specific about what they're selling before forking over cash. But, he admits, the average taste buds probably couldn't tell the difference anyway: "They're both fantastic."

Back at Manic, the auction-lot Esmeralda Special is definitely for real. Lee's bringing in three pouds from Chicago-based Intelligentsia Coffee Roasters. It'll probably only be enough for about 50 cups, he acknowledges, and even with the $15 price tag he doesn't expect to make much profit. But it's worth it, he insists. Just don't ask for a paper cup-Lee draws the line at serving Esmeralda to go.

Neighbourhood cafés keep the city buzzing

Andrew Morrison - The Westender

In the cities, towns, and villages of Great Britain and its far-flung former colonies, communities have long bonded in quiet neighbourhoods pubs. Not so here in Vancouver. Thanks to the teetotalers and nincompoops who penned the Draconian liquor laws that established our reputation as a no-fun city, residential public houses remain few and far between. The licensing regulations may have been eased and simplified in 2002 (from seven different liquor licenses to two, and there’s still a long way to go), but it will likely be many years before pub culture finds a road back to relevance in a food-and-drink market that is currently — and almost comically — over-saturated.

Thank goodness for our cafés, then. They are our new social hubs, and, like so many disparate glues, they do their part in keeping our communities together.

Fortunately, they’re pretty good, too. Some of our baristas are internationally famous for their skills, and good interior design hasn’t been in short supply. Your favourite could be down on the corner or it might be a destination spot across town, but the staff will know your favourite drink as well as your name, and you’ll feel very much at home. With wireless internet access, you might even bring your laptop to get a little work done, and feel secure enough to leave it unplugged on the table when you go pee. It could well be the place where you spend the bulk of your time outside of home and work.

In my little village of Dundarave, in West Vancouver, there’s a coffeehouse where the locals get powered up throughout the day, while community gossip is exchanged between residents and shopkeepers. Even the mayor is a regular. Give it a dartboard and a liquor license and it’s straight out of Coronation Street. When Starbucks opened up right beside it a couple of years ago, people were so incensed by the interloper’s effrontery that they’ve stayed away. Of all the Starbucks locations in the Lower Mainland, I wouldn’t be surprised if it pulled in the least.

There are many others across the city that engender a similarly proprietary sense of community purpose and belonging. SOMA, until recently a longtime fixture of the Main-Broadway intersection, springs to mind. At the original location of this cool-kid café, neo-Beatnik locals lounged on the couches and relished its coziness. For lack of a better word, it was a “scene.” When it was squeezed out by the landlord, owners Jonathan Kerridge and Oswaldo Abolio moved it down a block and across the street (151 E. 8th, 604 873-1750, SomaVancouver.com), taking their indignant customers with them. The result is a cool little coffeehouse/wine-bar hybrid. Reminiscent of Gastown’s Salt Tasting Room, it has similar barstools and a small and sharable menu from chef Jeremie Adams (formerly of Lolita’s and Bins 941 & 942) written on a large blackboard. SOMA has clearly moved on from its café beginnings — and it’s doing gangbusters. (The Caffè Barney that replaced the original SOMA, however, isn’t. Of course, it’s too early to speculate on its fate, but loyalty can be a real bitch.)

If we take quality coffee as a given, The Elysian Room (1778 West 5th, 604 734-1778, ElysianRoom.com) and Wicked (1399 West 7th, 604-420-4901, WickedCafe.ca) are exemplary. Both boast equally high bean standards, baristas that can compete with the best in the nation, and that elusive neighbourhood feel that can turn a walk-in customer into a regular by the first sip. The former is warm, temple-like, and comparatively quiet (the painted concrete floor has faded beautifully), while the latter exudes an irresistible come-as-you-are vibe that smacks of just the right amount of caffeine.

Caffè Artigiano, renowned for the artistry with which its baristas exhibit their craft, has taken high quality to the mainstream. Five locations have arrived so far, three of which are in the heart of downtown (1101 West Pender, 763 Hornby, and 740 West Hastings). Worries that a dip in quality would ensue after owners Vince and Sam Piccolo sold the company last year to Earls Restaurant executive Willie Mounzer have come to naught. Each cup I’ve had since has been excellent, and the attention to detail remains laudably exceptional. (Visit CaffeArtigiano.com to find out all the locations).

The Piccolos didn’t buy a retirement island with their winnings, though. Instead, last month they expanded their Burnaby-based roasting company, 49th Parallel, to include a retail shop and café in the heart of Kitsilano (2152 West 4th, 604 420-4901, 49thParallelCoffeeRoasters.com). Aesthetically, it’s a knockout, and it’s far enough away from the corporate nabobs that crowd the Artigiano locations to give it a fresh, unhurried, and thoroughly neighbourly feel. Long and narrow (and bottlenecking not a little awkwardly at the cash register), it’s dressed in a combination of light blue, brown and white that compliments the soaring ceilings and low-slung seats. It didn’t hurt that they were cranking Neil Young’s Harvest on my last visit a couple of days ago. Looks and sounds aside, it’s hard to imagine a café more dedicated to coffee than 49th. Master roaster Mike Piccolo is internationally recognized for his palate, and was on last year’s jury for the Brazilian Cup of Excellence, which selected that country’s best beans. One of their baristas, Colter Jones, is a past Canadian Barista Champion, and if that weren’t enough, 49th was recently named Best Café in Vancouver in the prestigious Krups Cup of Excellence, a nationwide café competition that calibrates scores based on quality of coffee, design, and the friendliness and knowledge of the baristas. Considering it’s only been open for a month, that’s a pretty good start.

Flare.com West Coast Alert

Susie Wall

Had it with java shops in Kitsilano that are either A) A little heavy on the shabby and light on the chic or B) Far too cookie cutter to justify anything more than a Lindsay Lohan grab-and-go? Meet 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters Café. Legendary bean roasters in these parts (they supply the famed Caffè Artigiano), the company first storefront has landed along 4th Avenue. A dynamite location for hip mamas (it's next door to Crocodile Baby and is, brace yourselves, stroller-friendly) and general shopping pros alike (Gravity Pope, Capers, Wear Else! And Terra Breads all reside in thls hood), cuppa-Joe pro's dig the high ceilings, the espresso-turquoise colour story and of course, the gourmet jet fuel, 2152 West 4th Ave., or visit 49thparallelcoffeeroasters.com

Edible BC newsletter

Edible BC

Keep your eyes on this space! Each week we will showcase one of our many unique artisan products. For our inaugural feature, we chose 49th Parallel Coffee to honour the West Coast's love affair with the coffee bean. 49th Parallel roasts beans for the infamous coffee house, Caffe Artigiano. At EBC, we have four delicious varieties. lndian Peaberry results in a bold cup of coffee that has a steady sweetness matched with hints of smokiness. Finca La Perla won the Presidential Award at the 2006 Cup of Excellence Competition with it's citric, sweet, and fine characteristics. For the dark roast coffee lovers, 49th Parallel roasts an Organic ltalian Roast coffee which is smoky, powerful, and spicy. lt makes a delicious espresso or dark roast filter coffee. Finally, we have the Wesf Coast Blend Espresso which delivers a rich and complex, yet sweet espresso. If you're a fan of Caffe Artigiano coffee, come give these a try.

Smooth Move

Georgia Straight - Oct 11-18/2007

New beanery on the block, 49th Parallel Coffee Rosters, coffee supplier to Artigiano and other cafés, has set up shop in sleek Italianate surroundings at 2152 West 4th Avenue. In addition to excellent espresso-based coffee drinks, Clover coffee, teas and fresh-baked dolce, find whole beans, grinders, and cupping sessions for restauranteurs and serious coffee geeks.