The Vancouver Indy Coffee Scene

The clover is a fairly new and unique brewer that uses a vacuum press to extract the coffee from the beans one cup at a time.

Clover in use at The Elysium Room

Flavourful but without any strong, pungent or unusual flavours.

Bike to Work with Coffee Photo: David Niddrie

I have done a few coffee tours with friends, the over-indulgent coffee tour Geoff Howe and I took, and the educational tour I took Erica Hill on at New Years Day. The first one was done by car the second was done by transit, the third will be done by bike.

This summer I have been working with Bikes on the Drive developing a blog and some social marketing around their new bike The Tree. The experience has been one of the most compelling and encompassing projects I have ever worked on. I worked with ilan Handelsman and he quite enjoyed an excellent cup of coffee and really enjoys this blog.

Over a few Americanos we hatched this plan of a biking coffee tour to some of the best coffee shops in East Vancouver. After blogging about The Tree bicycle for most of the summer I found that the bike and coffee blog share the same goals: More sustainable products through education. Both ilan and I thought this would be a great way to showcase some excellent roasters, groovy cafes and the quintessential commuter bike all in one shot (sorry no pun intended).

We had the idea and now just needed to extract the details:

The East Van Biking Coffee Tour
Sponsored by: Bikes on the Drive & Vancouver Indy Coffee Scene

Meet: 10:30 am at Bikes on the Drive 1350 Commercial Drive ~ Rain or Shine.
Day: Saturday  July 11, 2009
Cost: Your choice of coffee beverage at cafes we will go to.
Distance Travelled: 9.5 kilometers
Finishing around: 2:00 pm give or take time taken at cafes.

Being that this is the first public coffee tour I have ever organized I had a few goals in mind:

1. Variety of roasters
2. Short distances travelled
3. Quality of cafe

which is kind of why we have chosen the cafes we have and the route we did. If it is a success we certainly have another one and will choose a different route with different cafes. So please come out it will be a lot of fun and hopefully good weather.

Tour has concluded thanks for all who came out

JJ Bean Mainstreet Store front

The Main Street JJ Bean is one of seven in the string of cafes that are part of  JJ Bean Coffee Roasters. They have a large wholesale and distributing arm which services a huge number of independent operated cafes across the lower mainland.

But the house that I am talking about is exclusively the JJ Bean Cafes located across Vancouver and are owned and operated by the parent company. These cafes are where a lot of barista’s in Vancouver have gotten their start and some cafe owners like Amy York were taught the business before going off to start new cafes.

This is also an exclusive review of the Main Street Cafe as chains go one cafe can not speak for the entire brand.

A short walk up from Broadway you’ll find yourself at East 14th and a bucks on one corner and a JJ Bean on the other. The JJ’s has a large wood finish on the exterior and a huge portal for people watching along main street. Walking into the cafe the wood theme continues with high wood ceilings, a central fire place, with a green titled and  wood bar.  As far a cafes go this is quite the large one with a pair of La Marczocco Linea three group machines and a large fireplace in the center. Their is a roaster in the corner and it is used on a weekly basis for small batch roasting.

The Main Street Patio

Song bird style

The cafe has large garage style windows which open up to the patio during the summer. I must admit I whore for this style of windows and with the type of climate Vancouver has it suites the cafe perfectly. Small little song birds who are quite cheeky in their pursuit of muffin crumbs perpetrate through the large garage bay windows. Personally I think it adds to the cafe. If a seagull came nibbling around my feet I might have a different opinion, but the sounds of the song birds are certainly sweeter then roar of traffic IMHO.

The JJ Bean Coffee Roasters has been going through a re-genesis of sorts the have shorten their line up and refined their purchasing, the Espresso Nero Organic has been really kicking it in high gear lately. I think were coming into a great time for coffee drinkers in Vancouver as the roasters are really challenging each other in terms of quality.

The Americano ordered on the first visit was rich in crema. As it cool I found it kinda mellowed out a bit with a clean finish. I had to down it as I didn’t realize the time, but even doing that I didn’t ruined the finish, although I wouldn’t recommend it.

A Roman Indulgence

The Macchiato was so good I almost forgot to take a photo

8oz Dry Cappuccino

I returned a week later to have an espresso macchiato. The milk was steam perfectly with a decent amount a micro foam and both the espresso and milk melded perfectly together. It was one of the best drinks I have ever had from a JJ Bean. I find it hard to sometimes describe the perfect drink as their are so many variables that can’t be judges or quantified. But everything came together, quality drink, the environment, service, music, mood.

In my second drink I decided to go all out and ask for an 8oz Dry Cappuccino and they delivered in my estimation a perfectly crafted dry cappuccino of which I fully enjoyed from the spoonfuls of foam on top to the perfectly heated milk below.

They don’t have wi-fi, but they do serve food and this place can get dam busy even at the slowest of days. I have been really enjoying JJ’s coffee as of late and these latest cafe visits has certainly excelled in quality from previous visits.

Faces and Places

Where this blog was written: JJ Bean Main Street
Drink that was ordered: 12 oz Americano & 6 oz. Macchiato and 8 oz Dry Cappuccino
Discount on to-go cup: 15 cents
Barista Skill: Top notch
Barista friendliness: personable and sociable
Website: www.jjbeancoffee.com

The aroma and taste of ripe citrus fruit. Hints of citrus are often found in coffee because the coffee bean is the seed of a coffee cherry.

The taste and aroma of chocolate. Coffees rarely have a very strong chocolate flavour or aroma, but some Central American and Yemen beans have a distinct chocolate-y bouquet and a slightly bitter-sweet chocolate aftertaste.

Re-Entry Espresso on Main Street

Re-Entry’s launch pad blast off from 4363 Main Street street near 28th street. It has a very 1967 tomorrow-land feel to it. Walking into it you see its blue and grey textured walls, it has a futuristic feel. It also feels like this place could have been an old diner back in the day and it was renovated and made into an espresso bar. It just has that feel too it, the three group Syneso Cyncra fit right into the surroundings.

The cafe also has a one group Syneso Cyncra that they use for testing new coffee and training purposes. I also bet that it’s used as a backup in case the three group machine calls in sick for the day.

I walked in a quiet Thursday afternoon and glanced at the futurist style menu. While my 12 oz. latte was being made I asked if the Ovaltine on the menu was a big hit with the kids. The barista joked that it was more a big hit with the parents who try to get their kids to try it, albeit with limited success, she said.

Ovaltine for you old school folks

She poured the latte in front of me, which I always liked, most cafes do this anyways, but I still think it is worth a mention. I could certainly tell beans from the venerable Seattle based roaster Vivace were used. I could really notice a difference between the Vivace and the 49th parallel I usually drink while on The Drive.

Change is as good a rest.

The latte was rich in taste, with a clean finish with a note of caramel. It was really enjoyable to have something new. I certainly savored it.

Even with being on Main Street the noise of the street didn’t travel into the cafe that much and the hi-fi stereo system was delivering some mellow lazy afternoon tunes. Sigur Rós was playing while I was enjoying my latte reading the latest copy of the Straight, the paper version, the website is not a favourite of mine.

Re-Entry Cafe Interior

Room for Improvement

I was over caffeinated by the time I finished the latte on Thursday so I thought I would try a decaf Americano on for size. I don’t think it is ordered all that often, because the bag of beans was grabbed from underneath the counter. The shot wasn’t exactly perfect and after it had cooled I felt it was slightly over extracted.

I returned the next day for a dry cappuccino which came with latte art? The foam should be so thick that you can’t pour art with it. That in my opinion is not a dry cappuccino, please don’t get me wrong I got a very nice foamy latte, but a cappuccino it wasn’t. The foam for a cappuccino should be stiff and almost moldable, maybe that is just the way I like them? Am I wrong? But a number of girls at Prado do a very nice dry cap extremely well.

In the five espresso drinks I ordered over three days at Re-Entry I received grounds in bottom of every cup and from different baristas. While the enjoyment of each drink was quite nice the last sips always had some grounds.

All in all I rank Re-entry quite high in my cafe experiences in Vancouver. The different in espresso is a nice change and I really liked the style of the cafe. The sign in the washroom was hilarious, but I will leave you to find that out for yourself. As a bonus to this review any cafe with a Mac on the counter gets an extra point in my completely biased Apple-loving opinion. . . .

Faces and Places

Where this blog was written: Re-Entry Espresso
Drink that was ordered: 12 oz. latte & 12 oz. decaf Americano
Discount on to-go cup: You get nothing!
Barista Skill: Top notch
Barista friendliness: nice but not chatty
Website: www.re-entry.ca

An herb used as a coffee substitute and to flavour coffee. Chicory has been used as a coffee additive for centuries, both to enhance the flavour of coffee and to stretch coffee supplies. Many people in the southern United States have developed a preference for chicory coffee.

Author’s note:
Although it is available across North American I have not seen a Vancouver cafe offer chicory coffee.
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A coffee bean starts out as a ripe coffee cherry, which is harvested and processed to remove the skin, pulp and parchment. The dried parchment of coffee cherry seeds are removed to expose the inner bean. An un-roasted coffee bean can stay alive for months and could potentially even germinate if planted and watered.

Arctic Aurora one of many image from Native Landscapes

In my former life I was a news photographer and I did a fair amount of travel around Western Canada covering the events of the day. So when Joe and Audrey asked me to show my work at the Bump and Grind I was more than happy (it is the closest cafe to my house).

This show was commissioned five years ago for the Bienal Fotosemana, which had photography exhibitions across Bogota, Colombia. I was chosen too as the international guest and showed at Universidad Nacional de Colombia Meseo De Arte, The National University Art Museum.

With the help of Vince over at 49th and Bump and Grind we will be serving the Colombia Timana during the event.

So here is the skinny:

Show: Native Landscapes
Where: Bump and Grind 916 Commercial Drive (map below)
When: Saturday, June 13 5:00 – 7:00 pm