There is a lot of coffee out there. What makes Deep Cello different?
The specialty coffee trade is full of hype, intriguing brands and lots of ego. We decided to create fun brands around world-class coffee and people are coming in droves. We strive to be as green as we can with ecologically-friendly packaging (they can be composted), and to let go of the hype and let the coffees speak for themselves.
Deep Cello coffees are blends of single varietals. That means that we take the best properties of each of the single varietals and make a coffee confection out of them like a great pastry chef combines multiple flavors in a pastry. It’s like comparing Julia Child’s cooking to making oatmeal in the morning.
There are vast differences between single varietals even from the same farm and the same year. People mistakenly think that just because a coffee is from a certain farm or region that it will be the best expression of that region and that’s clearly not the case in practice. By choosing to identify, purchase, and blend “best-we-can-find” single-varietal coffees, we overcome the limitations of each bean and create an artistic composition.
That’s true. Great wines grow in great soil, with perfect weather, with professional land management and natural processes. It’s the same for coffee. Most large-scale commercial coffee is a product that is specifically designed to be “the same every time you drink it.” So when a large producer buys beans, they are specifically trying to blend, roast, and mix them with other beans so that total consistency is achieved. There is no uniqueness *at all* by design. That’s a necessary condition when your firm purchases 2 or 300 million pounds of coffee a year.
Our approach is to keep things small and real, to bring out unique qualities in the beans and combine them in such a way as to create ingenious flavor and aroma in the roasted coffee. Our approach is precisely the opposite of the corporate coffee business. And it shows in the cup.
Most people have never had a cup of great coffee. That includes people who visit national “premium chains” and store purchased coffee too. Most people have never had a cup of coffee with the quality that is found in coffees like Deep Cello. Our customers drink us every day for far less money than waiting in line for a Large Sugar Bomb with a side of of Diabetes at the national chains. I sometimes think their actual product is sugar and ways to sell it to people.
Based on our quality and what our competitors do, we could charge double for Deep Cello coffees. But our goal was to enable *everyone* to have an amazing cup experience, not just aficionados and experts. For the price of three super sized lattes, you can drink perfection everyday for two weeks.
It’s very different. Most commercial roasters use 500 lb. roasting machines. These machines are fabulous works of technology and engineering. The problem is not in the gear but rather in the scale of the operation. When un-roasted coffee beans arrive at a coffee roaster’s facility, they are packed in 200 lb. burlap bags. Inside, one can find grass, sand, rocks, dirt, broken beans and even worse. Most people realize not that coffee is a farm product. When a firm is using a 200-500 lb. roaster, the sheer volume of beans moving through the facility means that defects like stones, dirt, and other contaminants get into the roasting machine, and then into the bag. I once purchased an expensive Ethiopian coffee and my coffee grinder was grinding about 5% rocks. Since one pays for coffee by weight, I was essentially paying extra for a bag of rocks and trashing my grinder at the same time. We really work hard to make our coffees defect free.
The next challenge are damaged or broken beans, called “Waldos” in the trade. Because they are damaged, they roast and burn more quickly, smoke the other beans, and leave an off taste in the cup. Again, due to the scale of a large roasting facility, it is impossible for all the waldos to be picked from the coffee after roasting. But on the scale we use, it’s pretty straight-forward and you get a better coffee with little-to-no defects.
Deep Cello’s process is intentionally limited to a 12 pound roast size. The un-roasted coffees are cleaned and examined in a tray before entering the roaster and any defects are removed. Once they are finished roasting, they are again placed into a tray, where any remaining stones, waldos, and other debris are removed. Our coffees have been praised by experts for how defect free they are. That’s made possible by the intentionally small size of the roasting machine.
The final differentiation is that we roast to order in most cases. This means that the coffee, which needs to “rest” for three days in order to fizz out extra CO2, gets to rest while enroute. When the coffee arrives, it is in the prime window for drinking. Customers report that the aroma literally fills the house when its opened. We like that.
We’d recommend Black Tie to start with. It won “Best Coffee in Oregon” last summer in competition with 51 other roasters. It’s the kind of coffee that will make everyone happy. It truly is like a chocolate brownie with cherry brandy and apricot notes. COOL!
If your auto-drip is a Technivorum or Bonavita, then yes. Most auto-drip are terrible at controlling temperature and make a bitter cup that begs for sugar. The solution is with them is use more coffee; but that’s wasteful to a degree.
Otherwise, our advice is purchase a clever coffee dripper or a Hario VDC-60-2 dripper (on our site or elsewhere). Purchase the Hario filters in any case. They are amazingly free of any paper taste. A French press or espresso machine is also fine. If you need to spend money anywhere, our advice is to first spend money on a decent grinder. They run from $75-600 for a home machine. Try Clive Coffee to see what they are selling. Or Sweet Maria’s.
Make sure you let the boiling water rest for 30 seconds, and pour the water slowly and gently over the grounds. Wet the grounds first, wait 30 seconds, then proceed to slowly fill the vessel for a drip, french, or clever system. Have a great day and a great cup!
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