I am mulling over a post that I want to write here in the next little while.  In the mean time, I am interested in what you folks out there think about "direct trade"?  What does it mean to you, is it a useful distinction, does it have any meaning at all in your world as a coffee consumer or professional?  Seriously, I would love to know your thoughts.  I have some definite ideas, and I think that Transcend Coffee is going to make some statements regarding direct trade coffee, but before I do, I would love some feedback.  So please send me your comments, questions, rants or raves.

Have I ever said how much I have come to enjoy Kurt Hain's Piesporter Goldentopfchen Riesling Spatlese.  Well if you haven't heard me say it before, I am saying it now.  The 2005 vintage of this delightful Riesling is so tasty.  I tasted it first at Bin 104 a couple of months ago, and I was surprised and delighted to find a couple of cases of it in Lethbridge over the Easter weekend at Andrew Hiltons.  I would tell you to rush out and buy some, but that would be wrong, as there is none left in the province.  You see they don't make too much of it, and even less of this delightful wine makes it into the province.  In fact, the wine is brought in exclusively by the Richmond Hill group of wine stores (I thing there are 5 of them).  All I know is how much I love the balance of fruit, residual sugar, and the crisp acidity which gives it both sparkle and life.  This is a wine to both drink right now, as I am doing as I write this post, and put down too, as I am also going to do, to see how it matures and develops in the bottle.  Why am I writing about this wine, well in fact it reminds me a lot about great coffee.  It is hard to find, and it doesn't show up just anywhere.  Yes it is true, there is plenty of coffee lining our grocery store shelves, but the sad truth is that there isn't much good coffee there, and even less great coffee.  Without a word of a lie, finding truly amazing coffee is a very hard thing to do, and it is something that we are working hard to do better each year.

What does all of this have to do with Condescending Boobs you ask?  Well recently in the comment section of a blog I was referred to as a condescending boob, and further, Transcend Coffee and specifically its new coffee bar at Garneau was called nothing but hot air.  Personally it doesn't matter what people think about me, but I take offence to my team at Transcend being maligned.  You see, at the end of the day we are just excited about things like taste and quality, things which entice and intrigue the palate.  We marvel at the amazing gifts of the earth, both in the form of coffee and wine, and we spend a lot of time trying to find the best that our earth has to offer.  We work tirelessly at trying to excite others about our passion, and we also work hard at trying to mitigate the poor prices that coffee farmers receive for their hard work.  I am the first to admit that Transcend is not perfect in its execution, and that it can improve in all areas, including customer service, drink preparation, roast development, education, coffee sourcing... the list goes on.  But having said that, we (all of us) are committed to doing the very best that we can, on any given day, and we are equally committed to doing a better job tomorrow than we did today.  We delight in life, and get excited about sharing our excitement with those who drop by to drink our coffee, or grab a bag to take and brew at home.  So if being passionate, and dedicated to quality and a sustainable business model within the global specialty coffee industry makes me a condescending boob, then I will gladly wear that title with pride.

Thanks to all of those in Edmonton, who have shown such amazing support to Transcend Coffee and its new venture at the Garneau Theatre.  The support has been overwhelming, and as such, we are already looking for more staff.  To fill some immediate needs, we are looking for passionate coffee folk, who are willing to enter the fray and support the Garneau location as cafe staff for a couple of months, with a view towards moving up into the barista position later.  Right now our immediate needs require one or two people to help work the till, and help roll out our long awaited waffle program, in addition to just helping out where-ever else something is needed.  If you are looking for some part-time work, and are available on weekends, and would like to join an exciting and dynamic team of committed coffee professionals, drop a resume by the Garneau location, or send Chuck and email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

After nearly two months of waiting, and numerous screw-ups, the Technivorm's have finally arrived.  We at Transcend and many of our resellers are happy about this.  The reality is that this batch of new brewers are going to disappear very quickly.  We also received 200 of the new brew through lids with this latest order.  They will be for sale on our website, and they may also be available for free; as we are also working on something which might be able to get some of you a free lid, quid pro quo.  So stay tuned, we will blog about this later in the week.

By chance, I bumped into Scott Rao on the floor of the SCAA in Anaheim last week. He was crusing the show floor with copies of his newest book in hand, Everything but Espresso, and was gracious enough to hand one off to me. I read his book at the LAX airport as I waited for my delayed flight, and decided that we will soon sell these books in our stores and online, and that I should write a quick review of his latest work.

Let me first say that Scott's generosity towards me was in no way ever expressed in return for a quid pro quo. My motivation for writing this brief review is solely based on my constant reminder of our customers' demand to learn more about brewing coffee at home. While this book is sophisticated enough to engage any and all baristas, it is also accessible and thoroughly readable so as to prove a great resource for any home brewer who simply desires to produce a better and more consistant cup at home.

This book is all about brewed coffee, and does not address making espresso. If you want to learn more about espresso, I highly recommend Scott's previous work, The Professional Barista's Handbook.

This new book is an enjoyable balance between technical instruction and information, all while remaining eminantly readable. I read Scott's book from cover to cover in just under two hours. Having said that, I know that I will return to this useful work, as a reference, many times in the future. So whether you are a professional barista being challenged by the emerging single serve revolution, or you are a coffee enthusiast who wants to understand how to brew coffee better at home, this book is for you.

I had 5 hours to myself today in the car as I drove back and forth to make a quick family visit in Irricana.  I took this opportunity to catch up on a bunch of Age of Persuasion podcasts.  I have really grown to enjoy Terry's podcasts both for their entertainment value, but probably more for their educational value, as I am learning a lot about marketing.

As I listened to his podcast entitled "Being There: Selling Experiences" a lot of things came to my mind.  At Transcend, we work very hard to make our customer's experience more than just a great cup of coffee.  We are dead serious about the quality of the drink, and work tirelessly to ensure that the bean is roasted so as to celebrate each lot of green we bring into the country.  We are committed to making the experience for each patron better with each passing day.  In short, we are never satisfied, I am never satisfied.  I am so proud of all of my team, but they know, and I know, that we can always find ways to do it better than before.  So I believe in the overarching experience that our customers have when they walk into the roastery, and now the new coffee bar at Garneau.

Having said all of this, we are about to launch some radio ads with CKUA.  They sent out a draft version of their proposed copy, and frankly it left me underwhelmed.  CKUA isn't into sound affects and flashy advertising, but rather focus on simple copy read while some music plays in the background.  As a staunch supporter and listener, I appreciate the station and their approach to programming.  As an advertiser however, I wish I had a bit more control over the way our ads will sound.  However, the copy needs to be right and that means engaging our the listener, and offering them some benefit, some reason to explore the world and products of Transcend Coffee.

OK, enough of all of that, because it is not really the reason why I wanted to write this post.  One of the things featured on Terry's podcast was a reference to Starbucks coffee, and their focus on experience.  Joseph Pine, the co-author of the book Experience Economy writes about Starbucks, "a cup of coffee is only worth a few cents, but when packaged and sold at a supermarket it is now worth .25 cents, if it is brewed and served by a waiter it's worth $2.00.  But if you are allowed to design your own coffee and it is brewed in front of your eyes and you can enjoy it in the setting of a Starbucks cafe, it easily sells for $5.00".  Terry goes on to talk about the theatre of coffee, the experience of the brewing process, which makes the product worth more.  It is this aspect of the podcast which I wanted to comment on.  While I can't dismiss the "theatre" aspect of the Starbucks experience, and the millions of folks who have ascribed to the new language created by Starbucks; what I can take issue with is the fundamental error in the math outlined above.

Firstly let me categorically state that a cup of coffee is not worth a few cents.  This is the erroneous premise which dominates our culture and economy. In truth, coffee is highly undervalued.  Coffee is traded world wide as a commodity, and while earning somewhere in the realm of 80 billion a year, it should be worth at least three times that.  The problem lies with the fact that most farmers get paid less for their coffee than it costs them to grow it, and as such, quality rarely comes into the picture.  If consumers were charged more for quality and not just the "theatre" spectacle, farmers would get paid more, and the quality could go up, regardless of whether the cup include a spectacle.  Starbucks has suffered from this in North America, as they have focused on the experience and have sacrificed quality along the way.  This is no more evident than when an independent cafe is situated in close proximity to a Starbucks, and is focused on quality.  The evidence shows that "theatre" can't compete with quality, and is further borne out by both the rash of closures of Starbucks stores across the continent, and the arrival of new Starbucks "inspired" cafes sprouting up in Seattle which are harkening back to the early "quality focused" roots of the company.

I guess all I want to say is that their is no substitute for real quality.  And in the new age of persuasion, where all the chatter is loud and parity is the name of the game, quality does in fact set you apart.  Having said that, quality alone is no excuse for bad customer service, and certainly does not excuse a company from giving their patrons an amazing experience.  At the end of the day, it comes down to priorities.  At Transcend, we work from the premise that our quality can always improve, along with our customer service, and ultimately the customers experience.  OK, that was a very long post... keep schooling me Mr. Age of Persuasion!

I went to an informative, eye-opening and bewildering session on carbon (dioxide that is) and coffee at the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) symposium in Anaheim.

I’ve discovered that there are a lot of individuals and companies that are concerned with, and working hard to measure the carbon impact of the coffee industry. I heard from folks at Counter Culture Coffee, Sustainable Harvest, Climate Path and others. All were informative. All passionate. All working to make a difference and take better care of our planet.

But I found myself walking out of the session with probably more questions about carbon footprints, offsetting, volunteer carbon marketplaces than I had when I walked in.

Just a variety of views and snapshots from the opening weekend of Transcend Garneau. It's so gratifying to finally see it up and running and see people coming in and out and enjoying some quality coffee. It already feels like a good fit in the neighbourhood. We've certainly had a warm welcome so far. Thanks to all those that came out to say hi and get some coffee during our first weekend.

Click the gallery to the left to open and view a bunch of pics.

We are all tired.  And by we I mean everyone.  Josh, Chuck, Troy, and all of our new staff, my family and me.  It has been a crazy long week!  We woke up this morning to a serious flood as the Cobra sprung a leak over night.  We mopped up thousands of litres of water this morning, and then we opened our doors.  And as we have dreamt for years now, people came.  Hundreds of folk walked through our doors today, to celebrate with us, to drink great coffee and to see one of the city's new great cafes.  Props to everyone who has worked so hard to make Transcend Garneau a reality.  Props to all of our investors as well, and all of the faithful customers who are making all of this possible.  So, to bed now to get some sleep.  Tomorrow, I will finally post my review of Scott Rao's new book, on my spanky new MacBook, as my slightly older one died a very drunk death, soaked in red wine.  Thanks to John Lucas of the Edmonton Journal for the audio slideshow.

To make it officially official, here's the news release:

Transcend Coffee brings a new level of coffee to Edmonton’s historic Garneau district

Edmonton, AB – Friday, April 23, 2010 – Transcend Coffee—Edmonton’s specialty coffee importer, roaster, retailer, wholesaler and educator— today opened a second coffee bar in the historic Garneau Theatre.

The new 1,475 square-foot, 35-seat coffee bar features the same fresh-roasted coffee and exceptional espresso drinks that has helped build a reputation and loyal following for the Edmonton coffee company. Food items were chosen specifically to highlight the coffee. Baked goods, deserts and one item that will be new to the Edmonton area: traditional Belgian liege-style waffles. These small, sweet, cake-like waffles will be made in store and will be available with a variety of unique toppings made with local ingredients.

The new coffee bar occupies the former Pharoh’s Pizza space in the Garneau Theatre, although the space may now look more like Joan’s Coffee—the original tenant in 1940—thanks to the restoration of the original brick wall and terrazzo flooring.

The opening of this coffee bar also represents a whole new chapter for Transcend Coffee and the solidification of a new movement of quality coffee in Edmonton.

“We’ve been noticing a shift lately,” says Poul Mark, owner and founder of Transcend Coffee, “More and more people in Edmonton are beginning to ask questions about where their coffee comes from and look for higher quality in their brewed coffee and espresso drinks. If we can be part of that and encourage and lead that movement, we’re certainly happy and honoured to do that.”

Transcend Coffee is growing in several other ways as well. Increased roasting demand from the Garneau location will mean the addition of new roasting equipment and very likely an expanded roasting facility. An all new website with a world-class e-commerce system was recently launched to improve the Transcend Coffee experience for online customers, and new valve-sealed packaging for Transcend’s coffee beans will make their debut in both stores in a a few short weeks. Poul Mark will be traveling to Honduras in May to sit on an international jury for the Cup of Excellence in Honduras – a program that evaluates and rewards the very best coffees in participating countries.

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