Pop Coffee Works: Tête-à-tête with Abe and Lana

It’s time to know more about Pop Coffee Works. Pop Coffee is an award-winning Toronto based micro-roaster. The beautifully roasted beans are packed in super funky bags with UFOs, astronauts, butterflies and popping dance (of course with a cuppa in hand!).

Let us find out how Abe and Lana started their specialty coffee journey, their first farm visit, recommendations and more.  

How did you start your specialty coffee journey?

I first got interested in food and beverage during my college years. I was fascinated by Chinese tea art and took a couple of tea classes from a tea master in Richmond, BC. I can see a lot of similarities in terms of pouring technique and theories between coffee pour over and Chinese tea ceremony.

I then started to work in a local coffee shop chain called Take Five Cafe in Vancouver. It was my first time working with an espresso machine, La Marzocco Linea. Vancouver is very close to Seattle and Portland and Seattle and Portland are like the pioneers of specialty coffee at the time. I attended some barista classes and events in Portland and got really interested in specialty coffee.

I then purchased some coffee gears like the Londinium L1 espresso machine and other coffee brew wares and started to learn about them. I purchased a small roaster from Taiwan, called Huky 500 in 2013 and started roasting in my garage.

I took several SCA classes, got my Q-Grader license and trained with Mike Perry, Roast Master from Klatch Coffee before I started roasting for my business.

From which region did you first source your coffee?

The first coffee I ever sourced was a natural Ethiopian coffee. Ethiopia is the motherland of arabica coffee and always has a special place in my heart.

Can you share a little about the experience when you first visited a coffee farm?

My first farm visit was with my Q-Grader instructor Mane Alves. We visited some coffee farms in Thailand. The visit really opened my eyes and Mane was great at explaining coffee farming and the science behind it during the visit. We also got to visit many amazing coffee shops. It was a lot of fun exploring the city with a group of coffee enthusiasts. 

Which is your favorite method to brew your cup of joe?

I would literally use anything.

For all the coffee enthusiasts, which one will be the most adventurous Pop coffee?

We have a new La Esperanza Laurina coming next week. It was sourced through Forward coffee from Calgary. Laurina is a coffee variety that is naturally low in caffeine, which means it will be sweeter than the other varieties. La Esperanza is an award-winning farm and we are so excited to be able to share this coffee with you. 

What will be your advice for someone starting their specialty coffee journey? Any coffee recommendation to begin this journey?

As a starting point, you could explore more to get to know what your favorite is. Brazil Fazenda Rainha is a good classic Brazil coffee with chocolate and nutty flavors.   

Your favorite snack/dish to pair with coffee? 

I love to pair my coffee with a good Canelé.

Any proud Pop Coffee moment that you would like to share with the coffee lovers?

There are two proudest moments for Pop.

The first one is when we first received a wholesale order from Revolver coffee from Vancouver. Revolver has been an inspiration to me before I started my business and I was so proud to see our coffee on their shelf. 

The second proudest moment is when we competed at the 2019 Roast Master competition in New York. We got the highest score in the blind cupping first round and the highest score for espresso and milk beverage presentation.

Thank you Lana and Abe for sharing your coffee journey with us. Keep popping those brewsome beans!

Roaster of the month: Pop Coffee Works

We are excited to begin 2021 with Pop Coffee as our ‘Roaster of the month’. 

Actualized in March 2018, Pop Coffee Works was created to serve as a bridge between the world of specialty coffee and people.

Through thoughtful design elements in their space and products, combined with an approachable selection of wonderful coffees, they have an amazing coffee for everyone. 

Together we will get to know more about them and all the orders this month will get a sample of their coffee to try. 

PS: Watch out this space for an informative live session with Abe, the person roasting this brewsome POP-your-mind-out-to-space coffee.

Coffee by Design: Tête-à-tête with Seth Taylor

Seth Taylor is our ‘Roaster of the month’ for December. He is a wonderful roaster and an even better person. 

After the fun and insightful live coffee cupping session, sharing our tête-à-tête with Seth with all the fellow human beans. Find out how Seth started his specialty coffee journey, his favorite brewing method, advice and recommendations. 

How did you start your specialty coffee journey? 

I started my coffee journey in Victoria, BC in 2008. My wife, girlfriend at the time, was working at a small cafe roastery. It had recently been taken over by new owners and the chef was curious about roasting coffee. He was going in after closing to roast and needed some help bagging and tasting coffee. So I offered to help out in the evenings after working my day job in antique restoration and sustainable furniture making. 

At this point in my life coffee was purely caffeine. I drank it with milk and sugar and only to wake up in the mornings. As I tasted more and more coffees I started to understand the complexity of the seed and stopped adding anything that would alter the natural flavours within each individual seed. I was hooked. It was like I had discovered something that was right in front of me the whole time. I was in love.

From which region did you first source your coffee? 

When I started STCBD in 2017 I was already well into my coffee career. I started out the gate with multiple origins. 

Can you please share a little about the experience when you first visited a coffee farm? 

It is incredibly hard to understand the amount of labour that goes into harvesting coffee. This became extremely evident on my first visit to a coffee farm. I wish I could give you a fancy story about how magical it was but really it was more of a wake-up call. The reality is that we take this for granted every time we drink a cup of coffee. I will never take a cup of coffee for granted again after that first farm visit.

Which is your favorite method to brew your cup of joe? 

I use a V60 Switch Immersion Brewer these days. I love the V60 and the cup of coffee they produce and having an immersion brew version is perfect for easy reproducible cups every single time.

Recipe:
15g of coffee ground on the fine side of a medium grind.
255g of 208*F+ water added all at once.
Release the coffee at 1:30min with a total brew time around 2:45min.

Your favorite snack/dish to pair with coffee? 

Pair with coffee? A croissant or a piece of chocolate.

Any proud moment that you would like to share with the coffee lovers. 

I just turned 3 years old and I’m pretty proud of that achievement.

For all the coffee enthusiasts, which one will be the most adventurous coffee? 

If you want to taste something crazy go for the Mexico Samuel Ronzón Lot 5. It’s a 168 Hour Ferment so you can expect intense fruity flavours and a big ferment note.

What will be your advice for someone starting their specialty coffee journey? 

My advice for getting into specialty coffee is to eat everything and take a second to actually taste what you are eating. Is it acidic? Sweet? Bitter? Once you start to identify qualities in what you are consuming it will become much easier to do it with coffee and you will have an extensive vocabulary of flavours from your adventurous eating! 

If you are so inclined take notes. When I lived in England I recorded and scored every single coffee I drank for an entire year. I have no doubt this made a big impact on my ability to analyze a cup of coffee.

Explore Seth Taylor Coffee

Roaster of the month: Seth Taylor

Hello December! Today, the festivities have started here with Seth Taylor completing 3 incredible years of roasting that brewsome coffee. Congratulations, Seth! 

Seth is also our roaster of the month so gear up for some exciting announcements coming your way. 

Seth Taylor’s Coffee By Design is a Toronto based specialty coffee roaster offering fully transparent sourcing. His mission is to source the best single-origin coffees possible with a focus on small lots and traceability. His offerings rotate regularly based on coffee seasonality and are roasted to order, to ensure freshness on every level.

His coffee adventures started in 2008 and can you believe the next thing was winning the 2010 Canadian Barista Championship?! Then onto judging competitions and training competitors in both England and Canada for a few years.

In 2013, he moved back to Toronto and started working for another roaster with a focus on revamping their roasting program and learning the green buying trade. BAM! They were crowned Roaster of the Year by Roast Magazine in 2015.

Now, he focuses on sourcing excellent coffees from around the world and roasting them with passion and a desire to showcase the hard work of the farmers. 

Did we mention that he is a light-roast wizard?