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Blog — Ethiopia

Ethiopia Banko Natural 2016: Release And Sourcing Notes

Posted by Oliver Stormshak on

2016 will mark our most serious year working in Ethiopia. Ethiopia tends to be our most popular Origin we source from. Customers and Baristas gravitate to it, I believe because of it's easy to identify flavors. The coffees of Ethiopia are totally unique to Ethiopia, no other origin could be confused with it in terms of flavors. Typically flavors lean to the fruity and floral side of the coffee descriptions.  Over the last six years we have been purchasing through two very large Cooperatives which represent thousands of small holder farmers. All our coffees are Certified Organic and Fair Trade....

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Third and Fifth place finish in the US Coffee Championships

Posted by Oliver Stormshak on

Recently, three of our team had the immense honor of representing Olympia Coffee Roasting and the Pacific Northwest overall at the United States Coffee Championships in Long Beach, California. Co-owner Sam Schroeder, Retail Trainer Brady MacDonald, and Downtown Coffee Bar Manager Alex Choppin qualified for this prestigious event by competing at the regional level in October. There, Alex placed Second in Brewer's Cup, Brady placed Second in Barista Championship, and Sam was crowned Northwest Barista Champion. At the U.S. Coffee Championships Sam, Brady, and Alex all had strong showings in the semi-finals round of each competition. Brady's routine focused on ingredients from the Puget...

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2013 Year in Review

Posted by Sam Schroeder on

  Before January 1st, back in November of 2012 it was announced that we were Roast Magazine’s 2013 Micro Roaster of the Year. Naturally, we celebrated by throwing a huge party at our roastery on the November 15th our 7 anniversary of being in business. Our party was covered by the Weekly Volcano, and featured excellent coffee, organic beer, tamales and live music by Lazer Zeppelin and The Maxines. Capitol Boulevard build out By the time the first of the year rolled around we had just signed a lease on what was to become our Capitol Boulevard Coffee Bar. This...

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Banko Natural - Ethiopia Scores 94 points on Coffee Review!

Posted by Oliver Stormshak on

Blind Assessment: Richly pungent; deep, complex. Strawberry, cedar, night-blooming flowers, dark chocolate, a hint of brandy. Balanced, vibrant acidity; full, syrupy mouthfeel. Flavor, particularly chocolate, saturates a sweet, very slightly drying, finish. Notes: This coffee is certified organically grown and Fair Trade certified, meaning it was purchased from small-holding farmers at a "fair" or economically sustainable price. It is a dry-processed or "natural" coffee, meaning the beans were dried inside the fruit rather than after the fruit has been removed, as is the case with wet-processed or "washed" coffees. Banko, established in 2012, is one of twenty-three primary cooperatives located...

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