So I’m told that they are the only USDA Certified Organic Coffee Roaster in New Hampshire. Thank God we have at least one up there. And, being a processor you need to do more than just purchase organic green coffee beans. As part of the organic standard they are required to be certified USDA Organic by undergoing an annual audit.  … But the fact that they are organic means more than just producing awesome aromas and having to close your eyes while savoring their blends. Much more. You see, for coffee the environmental and health  considerations are ratcheted up a notch from where they usually are. I know, I know, coffee as compared to other organic foods has low residual levels of pesticides since it’s the internal bean that’s consumed (and some feel that the high temps of the roasting process destroys anything left… although I haven’t

seen the before and after chemical analysis to know if this is true or just a combination of speculation & wishful thinking). The big issue really is that coffee is basically a third world crop where growers tend to raise their families in intimate proximity to the farm. Also, the rules for pesticide and herbicide usage can get pretty loose and fancy-free in some of these countries. .. So.. we have a direct exposure issue and then there’s the run off … and then there’s the potential drinking water supply issues etc etc. Definite issues in every case? No. A definite concern? Absolutely. .. This just isn’t a visual I feel comfortable with. Anyway, with coffee, more so than with most products, I feel that I’m doing the world as well as myself a favor by going organic.

So much for the “malarkey theory” of organic food.  … Now what about the the coffee in and of itself? First, we need to know how fresh is fresh and does it make a difference? Well this morning I sauntered down to the corporate coffee cafe and took a peek at a pound of French Roast. Noted that the expiration date is a mere seven months from now. This of course would make Justin and Emeran just about pass out (my father would say what’s the rush). These guys, like every coffee connoisseur, states that after a week forget about it, it’s morphing into instant.  … A week vs. seven months. … But they do qualify this statement by saying that the coffee changes, evolves, as soon as roasting is complete. First, in a universally good way.. you need to give the newly born roasted beans about 24 hours to degas and otherwise settle down before they can be truly appreciate in their full coffee flavored purity. But they continue to change, age and as a general rule, get as my old friend Ray Kavanaugh would say, “not-good”. But like anything there are exceptions .. Justin mentioned that one coffee he found tends to become better with age to his palette.. but I doubt he was talking seven months worth of aging.

In addition to these post birth from the roaster issues, there are also considerations beyond the organic pedigree for the prenatal green coffee beans. For instance, Emeran mentioned how the industry is continuing to evolve where in the past it was generally assumed that a one year shelf life for the green beans were acceptable where now things are beginning to turn where three months is starting to become the more prevalent standard of excellence. And then of course there’s the trend towards micro-lots where they will separate the better grade high altitude coffees form the the other “not so good” beans instead of bagging everything together was was traditionally done. … And, even the bags themselves. Where jute tended to be used exclusively is now giving way to the use of so called “GrainPro” Bags  which help maintain freshness.

But getting in the finest beans (Emeran generally looks at cupping data to make her choices…BTW her staff recommended the Brazil Blend for it’s ashy notes.. Awesome! So good I finished the bag before taking the earlier pic) and keeping them fresh is only part of the beautifully complex world of coffee roasting. Since coffee is a natural product it will obviously not only vary by grower and farm but also season to season from such things as a particular year’s unique climate (here wine has the upper hand where a vintage from 2007 could be excellent … with green coffee, after three months… not a pretty picture). So the raw materials of the roast, the green beans, are a constantly moving target and  it takes a bit of artistry to combine and roast them to achieve a consistent and almost decadent product. Making a low end product is easy.. High end is hard. And high high end with ingredient variations like coffee… now we’re starting to drift into artistry. And I’m not being dramatic. It literally takes years of apprenticeship before one is considered a Master Roaster. In fact, one business in the next town over makes it known to new roasters that they would like to see at least a ten year commitment to the company before starting out. … These are important people you want in your bunker .. And here’s a small snippet as to how they go about their craft. .. When fresh beans arrive Eneran & Justin will roast small batches and after a day taste test the coffee. Depending upon the attributes found they will make their adjustments in order to produce a consistent flavor and aroma profile for the various blends.  And for those not yet introduced to the world of coffee tasting.. there’s an entire vernacular to learn and understand … they’ll mention taste notes such as chocolatey or blueberry (that’s right blueberry) … if you’ve ever heard a wine tasting described you’ll know what I mean. According to Emeran coming into a coffee shop and asking for French Roast is like going into a bakery and asking for bread. .. Indeed. .. A word of caution to the uninitiated. Get into the world of freshly roasted coffee at your own risk. By this I mean that you really don’t know how bad your current on the shelf for seven months coffee is. But once you learn, it will ruin you for life.  .. Take my father. He has been drinking this horrible mass marketed $2.99 a pound stuff forever. .. And he’s happy with it. It’s a disaster but he doesn’t know any better so he’s satisfied. .. That’s one hand. … On the other, however, is that I really don’t see him savoring his coffee. He just chokes it down and calls it a day. A nice piece of home-baked chocolate cake … this he savors.. 

So bottom line is that if you haven’t as yet taken the plunge I highly recommend that do and pick up some really fresh roasted coffee. It has a depth and complexity you’ll never find in the cheapo or even the corporate specialty coffees. Fresh is best in coffee, it truly is. And looking at the price, I can buy Corporate French Roast for about $11 a pound or purchase freshly roasted beans from someone such as A&E for just about the same money (with shipping & handling it may or may not be pricier, and if so, not by much). To me this is a total no-brainer. Superior product for the same to a few cents more per cup, no pesticide issues, feeling the love, etc etc. .. And if you were wondering, my father did ask Justin (seriously he did) if he got his coffee from the poo of some animal (if you don’t know what I’m talking about rent the movie ”The Bucket List” or read this New York Times Article, BTW Justin said no) …  I think he meant this as a good thing, a gourmet thing, but who knows. He has been known to slide in a zinger under the radar to avoid detection.  . .

Hope you enjoyed this post and that it gets a few people interested in the Fresh Roast Revolution. If you think this is any good please pass it along to your friends or family members who insist of torturing you with the black coffee swill of the past. Spread the word about Organic Test Kitchen.com  …  Best, Theo

Well depending upon where you are (the Organic Test Kitchen blog reaches 25 countries around the world as of this writing) you may be use to the standard factory production butter. This is especially true if you live here in the USA. If this is all you’ve ever eaten then you’re probably OK with it, but I seriously doubt that you’re excited about it. Well, check this product out and prepare to get excited.

First, this is a cultured butter. And basically what that means is that the butter is made from fermented cream. This actually sours it and produces truly incredible taste notes in butters. And of course, the typical non-organic production butters have such a lack of character that “natural flavors” must be added to make them palatable. … That alone is a red flag to keep me away from the stuff. .. Second, this is a European Style Butter. Basically, this is a term that refers to the fact that good butters in Europe have a significantly higher butterfat content than in the USA. Typical American butters will contain about 80% butterfat which coincidentally they have to contain in order to be legally sold as butter over here. So, as expected, they will make the product as cheaply as possible and stay as close to this minimum as they can. European butters on the other hand tend to run about 84-85% butterfat providing a creamier, richer product. The Organic Valley Butter has 84% butterfat. … nice.

In writing this I’ve come to realize that we need to do a primer on butter in the future. But for the purposes of this review we’ll focus on how good this product really is. You’ll first meet this butter in the market where you’ll notice that it is sold in an 8 oz foil wrapped blocks. Percentage-wise the price is greater than that of regular or even other common organic butters. But as you know percentage differences in low cost items only amounts to a buck or so. But we did keep this in mind and one of the questions we needed to answer was “Is is worth it?”.

On the way back to the kitchen we swung around to Abraham’s in town to pick up some bagels to see how this butter really performs under mission-critical circumstances. … First, we unpacked everything and opened up the foil revealing a good looking but not over the top yellow appearance. In short, it looked real. As an aside, the producer informs us that the color or this butter will vary with the seasons. In the Summer when the cows are in pasture the cream will contain a higher beta-carotene content leading to a deeper yellow color than during the Winter when the cows are eating stored forage. This is the difference from a product that is “grown” rather than manufactured in a cookie cutter fashion. … Anyway, we then cut some thin slices and spread them on the cutting board to soften. It seemed a bit more challenging than the typical stick to cut. .. This is probably due to a combination of the rectangular block configuration and the higher butterfat content.   … Anyway, a bagel was then sliced and toasted while the butter was warming up…

Show time..  By the time the bagel was ready the butter softening wasn’t complete so we let the bagel do the rest of the work by placing the butter on it’s warm golden surface (totally reliving this experience). .. Appearance-wise the butter began to glisten and form pools of creamy happiness. .. Taste. At a new level. Words that come to mind are wonderful, creamy, buttery, homemade.

So in summary, this product definitely gets the Organic Test Kitchen “Pure Goodness” Award. It really is that good. And, really worth the price. This is now our go-to butter for topping breads and warm veggies. For now we’ll still keep with the organic stick butter for baking since it will save a few cents. But we’ll be running comparison tests and if this butter provides a superior baked product we’ll switch it for this as well. … I’m really interested to see the effect of the cultured flavor notes and the higher butterfat content. They claim that it produces a flakier pastry. Maybe they’re right, but the proof is in the baking. I’ll let you know.

Other bites. .. Being organic this product is made with no artificial this or “natural flavor additive” that. They are also earth friendly as we would expect from an organic product. In fact, they have a nice statistic on their website stating that “Your weekly purchase of 8oz European Style Cultured Butter prevents …. 10 lbs synthetic nitrogen (and) 2.3 oz synthetic herbicides & pesticides” In our opinion this is nice to keep off of the planet and out of our bodies. .. Other notes. This butter won first place at the 2009 American Cheese Society Awards (.. who knew there was an American Cheese Society anyway?). .. We think that if you try this product you will be pleased. A link to the producer’s website is here.

And as a final note, hopefully you’ve notice that this blog up is being taken up a notch. Just launched a flickr site (link to my photostream is here) that will house the photography, will be upgrading the format of this blog, have the twitter thing started (link here) and will be starting a new blog devoted solely to good cooking & baking that will be announced when ready. Anyway, the purpose of all this is that I hope you will be getting more out of this. If so, please share this blog with your friends. With even more readers I would like to take this full time so more content can be generated and hopefully more people seeing the reasons and benefits to converting to an organic lifestyle. For themselves and for the planet. Thanks.

So here’s the deal. The new rule which takes effect June 2010 is that “30 percent of the animals feed must come from grazing and that ranchers must have a plan to protect the soil and the water quality”. … Better … Much better (although I would like to see this eventually jump to 50%). .. And another great thing about this is that there are definite, tangible improvements to the environment when you buy organic. That, plus the benefits of clean food, makes the added cost worth it and the money well spent.

In 2007 we posted a list of ideas to make your Christmas Greener. This excellent post , if we do say, can be found here. Well looking back how are things this year as a result?

Anyway, happy holidays and make this time of year yours again. Be brave and refuse to be a pawn of the stores who love to see mindless consumption and people “shopping till they drop”.

Are these quantities enough to effect you? Who knows? Especially when considering a lifetime of exposure. Anyway here’s some of what they found … narcotics, antihistamines, antibiotics and believe it or not, cocaine. So you know what? I can purchase a gallon of Poland Springs for about a buck. No chlorine, no this and no that. My coffee tastes better, water after a run definitely taste better and no worries. For me it’s worth it. Are other spring waters just as good? I’m sure some are. But you have to be careful there are a lot out there with the fancy-schmantzy names that are just municipal water that’s been filtered and bottled. Now I have no commercial interest in Poland Springs but like it because I know that it comes out of the ground in rural Maine. Is it perfect? Probably not. Is it a positive step towards chemical free cooking and drinking? I would say yes.

The article on the Merrimack River is here if interested.

Related Posts: Water: The Most Basic of Ingredients

 What I got was a high carbon steel knife for about five bucks. I’m guessing it use to belong to some chef sometime in the past. Sure it needed sharpening, but I took care of that and right now I can almost loose a thumb it is such an effective knife. But think..not only did the darn thing cost only five bucks but it was a perfectly good tool that was recycled. No need to mine, smelt, manufacture, transport with all the unnecessary energy and pollution involved. And if this weren’t enough you’d be contributing to a very worthwhile organization at the same time. It really doesn’t get any better than this. But the key in finding such bargains is to check-in every so often until what you want shows up. Now the Gourmet Shop Knives are very fine, don’t get me wrong. I just like the idea of how pleased the original owner would be if he knew that his knife is still contributing to excellent meals for an entirely different generation.

Related Links:

• Mr. Safety Almost Chops His Thumb Off While Gabbing
• Paring Knives
• Sharpening Chefs Knives And Other Knives

Related Posts:

• Being Organic Means Being Environmentally Conscience
• Whole Foods BYOB Policy Page

 There’s an interesting New York Times Article regarding the genesis of Heritage Acres. In it they give us a peek into some of the consequences and costs associated with conventional industrial farming methods. Namely:

-The small farmer cannot readily absorb the negative fluctuations of the marketplace as the big industrial farms can. They cite one instance of a farmer selling a 250 pound hog for a case of Miller Light because “That’s what it was worth”. You obviously can’t pay the mortgage with returns like that.

-The financial costs of the conventional methods are significant..One farmer stating in 2006 that his drug and vet bills were approximately $12,000/yr.

-The standard argument that conventional is similar to a more naturally grown product is once again debunked. Based upon the especially virulent strain of bacteria living in one hog due to the consistent heavy dosing of antibiotics and the blind taste tests showing superior flavor from the more natural product.

-And there is a conscience effort to make slaughter as humane and painless as possible. (Well, I would tend to believe that they are probably more humane than conventional practices but am not entirely sold on the painless portion. And I could be wrong as this feeling is based upon no factual evidence..just a gut reaction).

 This is sold among other places at Whole Foods. And a sustainable farmed product is sold there is because of consumers like the readers of this blog. People who care about their food, the environment and others.

Related Links:

• Many Little Piggies Handled With Care
• Organic Foods Positive Social Consequences

 These important social consequences are highlighted in a case study by Oxfam America.. In it, farmers from Pursat, Cambodia have established the country’s first certified organic rice mill.

And going organic enabled them to step into a more elite segment of the rice market which with growing demand from people such as you is more stable & less cut throat than the conventional, chemicalized stuff that’s more of a standard commodity product.

 It also means using animal instead of chemical fertilizers which has a twofold impact. First, the fertilizer is inexpensive “home grown” as it were vs. the money they had to pay for the chemical fertilizers. Same with pest control. And, in addition, it has been found that often the warnings on the chemicals could not be read resulting in the workers to using them even more unsafely than what’s recommended.

 Net-net, bottom line as it were: the workers are better financially and are healthier. And I suspect that this makes you feel good every time you “throw your money away” by choosing organic.

Related Links:

• Oxfam’s Article on the Cambodian Rice Farmers
• Organic vs Non-Organic Navy Beans (there is a difference)