Sip and Melt Subscription Box: 2017

Blind Coffee Roasters' ambition to do great things

3:34 PM

Sip & Melt is very pleased to have Blind Coffee Roasters on board as our featured July roaster. We asked owner and head roaster, Tim Howard, to speak about his experience in the coffee world, and his thoughts on how it really boils down to doing great things for the world...

It's all about the taste and smell.

I started blind Coffee Roasters as a reason to stay positive under adverse circumstances. I had just had my second eye surgery, and was terrified of losing my sight. It became very obvious that fear could direct me to not do anything. However, I've never been that type of person. And I certainly wasn't going to be that type of person then or now. It started with an idea, that I could use my smell and taste to develop a great cup of coffee. Coffee has always been in my DNA. I started roasting in 1982, I was a barista between 1984 and 1993. I moved to Portland in 1995, became a barista in Portland, and did that for two more years.

The entire time during my adult life that I have been able to buy good coffee, I have. The reasons are simple, coffee brings people together. I say the chocolate does the same. The idea of pairing the two is simple and natural. This is why mocha is so popular. Coffee and chocolate are extremely similar in taste profiles. What I mean by that is they have similarities when they hit your tongue. Sweetness, cocoa, roasted nuts, all of these are normal parts of our taste profiles in coffee and taste profiles in chocolate. In addition, they are grown under very similar circumstances. Generally speaking, both substances can also do great things for people in need.

I choose my coffee to represent the places and flavors that are my favorite. I also choose to buy coffee as close to the source as possible. The closer you can get to the farmer in purchasing wholesale coffee the closer the money goes to the people who probably most deserve it. Many of my coffee come from single origin representation. In other words, they come from The Growers, or cooperatives of Growers, that are actually responsible directly for the quality of the coffee and the people most deserving of the money spent to buy green coffee. My Guatemalan coffee highlights female-owned farms. My Vietnamese coffee comes directly from a single farm owned by women. Several of my coffees from South America come from female cooperatives; my Brazil and my Columbia, especially. It is always been my focus to do the right thing not only for my customers, but for the rest of the world.

["Sprite"-- my beloved roaster]

As I roast coffee, I'm looking for visceral types of experiences. The sound, the smell, the taste when tasting and testing coffees. All of these things lead me to choose to coffee that I want to carry. The best part of all that is, finding something that is truly amazing. This is why I wanted to team up with SIP and melt. The representation of the people in need, the interest in pairing delicious flavors together, the ability to improve people's day-to-day life (the farmers, growers, importers) was so instrumental in my interest in teaming up with you [Sip & Melt], it seemed a natural fit.

-Tim Howard

Urban Grind Roasters and the Perfect Couple

6:47 AM

Visiting Venezuela-Bolivia-Peru-Guatemala-Ethiopia

3:51 PM

A taste-bud and brain explosion of spicy fruity wine, licorice, floral notes, cocoa, and nuts and honey...and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

That’s what happened when we combined beans from five different countries, and two continents. Remember opening up that giant crayon box from Crayola when you were a kid, and what seemed like an entire rainbow of colors begged to be used -- and with them endless possibilities of color combinations? If you can recall those memories, then you have a general idea of what it was like to sit down and experience the flavors and aromas of our chosen chocolates and coffees, as we curated Sip & Melt’s first pairings.

Let’s establish flavor versus taste: flavor is the combination of compounds and aromas, or the sensory impression of food; taste is composed of six sensed (your brain decides) characteristics: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, unami (savory), and fat.

To create our pairings, we began by identifying the dominant aromas and flavor notes, and then established if these notes and aromas complemented one another in a harmonious way (such as nutty with spicy or fruity with floral); or contrasted one another (bitter and fruity, acidic and bright ) -- in that one flavor is able to bring out the qualities of another (contrasting doesn’t mean one flavor overpowers).

We then discussed our findings and figured out what specific flavor notes we were able to identify. This was interesting, in that on several occasions, we disagreed on the flavor notes we had discovered in the same coffee or chocolate. To manage our findings, we kept a running list of adjective descriptors that described what we were tasting and smelling with each sample, and then compared them at the end of the tasting (and these descriptors can be found in your tasting booklet).

One of our curators was on the tail-end of a head cold, and instead of backing out, we thought it would be a great experiment considering that what we taste is dictated by aroma, or what we smell (see our February post), and our team member did not have her full smelling faculties at this point. This was taken into consideration during final discussions, for in almost all coffee and chocolate samplings, our gal was unable to identify bitterness, and only a very superficial taste of fruit flavor notes.

The takeaway: You are your own teacher! There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to your palate, and the wonderful thing about flavor pairing is that the combinations are seemingly endless.

WIN a Sip & Melt box on us!

12:47 PM

We Think Outside the Box

7:14 PM

Pre-sales start May 1st. Don't Miss Out!

9:10 AM

Grounds for Health Discusses our Partnership

11:15 AM

Stay Informed- What's Happening?

1:56 PM

Featured Products

4:20 PM

Here’s an early peek at some products that will find their way into one of our boxes. We will be updating this as we continually acquire new products and forge new partnerships with vendors.

[Cascadia Roasters]

Coffee Time
Portland, Oregon

Run by a husband and wife team, this company has been a historic fixture of northwest Portland for over twenty-two years. Roasting under the name Cascadia Roasters, the owner is a former roaster for the legendary Spella Cafe. Their beans come from fair trade relationships with their farmers which allows for high coffee bean quality. They also boast a Cascadia Cold Brew on nitro.

[81301 Coffee Roasters]

81301 Coffee Roasters

Durango, Colorado

Nestled in the beautiful Four Corners area of Colorado, Durango, 81301 is the only local coffee shop that roasts its own beans. Owned and run by a husband and wife team, they source beans from women-owned farms in South America, and roast single origin and blends.

[Roseline Coffee]

Roseline Coffee Roasters

Portland, Oregon

These guys are wholesale roasters who came onto the coffee scene in Oregon in 2012. Each roast is tailored to express and respect the intrinsic qualities of each bean with their single origins and blends, and their gorgeous packaging that is specific to each roast, is a sight to behold.

[Trailhead Coffee Roasters]

Trailhead Coffee Roasters

Portland, Oregon

Trailhead acquires many of their beans from woman-owned cooperatives around the world. They focus on medium roasts, letting the bean origin nuances to come out and play, creating very unique tastes. Their bags are combustible and they use cargo bikes to deliver beans all over town.

[Ranger Chocolate]

Ranger Chocolate

Portland, Oregon

Ranger is a small batch, bean to bar artisan chocolate company. They focus on three, single origin Peruvian cacao beans that go into their delightful bars. Their unique factory and tasting room, Cup & Bar, offers tours and drinking chocolate, and shares space with another local coffee roaster.

[Taza Chocolate]

Taza Chocolate

Somerville, Massachusetts

Stone-ground chocolate direct from bean-to-bar. A pioneer in ethical cacao sourcing, their chocolate is incredibly complex in flavor, and their harvested beans come from all over the globe.

[Valrhona Chocolate]

Valrhona Chocolate

Southeastern France

Valrhona is one of the few chocolate companies that owns its own bean plantation—both in Venezuela and The Dominican Republic. They have been producing chocolate out of a small village in Tain-L'Hermitage, France, since the 1920's.

[Lillie Belle Farms]

Lillie Belle Farms Handmade Chocolates

Central Point, Oregon

Lillie Belle Farms is a family venture, having begun ten years ago, selling truffles at the local farmer's market. All of their truffles (blue cheese, among others), bon-bon's, caramels, and bean-to-bar chocolate bars are all hand-made with organic chocolate—with names such as The Other One, Purple Haze, and Dark Star, these guys are huge rock n' roll fans.

Stay Tuned!

Keep an eye out on our blog, as we will be adding products continuously, as we cultivate fantastic partnerships with coffee roasters and chocolate makers worldwide.

-Sip & Melt

Interview with Featured Roaster: Urban Grind Coffeehouse and Roasters

2:50 PM

Urban Grind of Portland, Oregon

Urban Grind's story begins in a renovated 1910 warehouse, that has become an integral part of this now burgeoning Paciﬁc Northwest neighborhood, known as the Pearl District. Established in 2003, Urban Grind Coffeehouse & Roasters created a unique niche, being renowned as the ﬁrst artisan coffeehouse in the area. Yes—they were here before Starbucks! Family owned and operated, they bring a hands-on experience from bean-to-cup. We met with Sam Alkhal, owner and roast master, to discuss his roasting methods and his thoughts on pairing coffee with chocolate.

Hi, Sam. From what regions do your source your beans?

We carefully source our beans from a myriad of regions near and far, including the mountains of Colombia to the plains of Ethiopia; the lush Paciﬁc Islands and everywhere in between.

Tell us about your roasting methods. Your roaster is beautiful, by the way.

Our 23-kilo roasting machine is 100% American made, and a thing of beauty - custom designed for us by U.S. Roaster Corporation. The roasting process itself is rife with variables—yields, temperature, batch sizes; all vary each time the machine is engaged. Artistry and science play a signiﬁcant role in creating the perfect cup. We prefer to roast in small batches—at the time an order is placed—in order to ensure optimal peak of ﬂavor.

Custom designed roaster by U.S. Roaster Corp

You were born in the Middle East. Did you grow up drinking Turkish coffee?

Yes, I did. We offer a large variety of roasts and blends, including our Turkish Coffee line (Cafe Alkhal), melding our Syrian heritage with an uncompromising cup of the freshest, most ﬂavorful coffee this side of the Mediterranean.

What strategy are you bringing to your coffee and chocolate flavor pairing choices? I just tasted a 70% cacao dark chocolate bar from Venezuela—very fruity with hints of caramel. Any thoughts on what you would pair this with?

The pairing of coffee with chocolate provides the palette with two very pleasing and sought-after indulgences of sense and taste. We recommend the acidity, aroma and ﬁnish of a Central American Colombia coffee with most chocolate, bitter or sweet; light-bodied with great balance which could really play with the caramel. Ethiopian varieties offer fantastic fruity notes with a smooth ﬁnish. Coffees from the Paciﬁc Rim delight with cocoa undertones along with an earthy roll off the tongue. We are very excited to begin playing with flavor and aroma. Thanks for having us!

Thanks, Sam, we are so jazzed to have you and your team on board as well.

-Sip & Melt

How You are Directly Helping Women Farmers Beat Cervical Cancer

12:46 PM

Partnering with Grounds for Health is one of the most exciting and important aspects of our business. At Sip & Melt, we firmly believe in meeting challenges and creating sustainable solutions to problems.

Our pledge to donate $1 of each subscription box we sell to Grounds for Health is not just a monetary expression of support, but a way to include the community in our partnership.

Sip & Melt was founded by a Registered Nurse, who knows firsthand how problems can be solved through education, innovation, and process improvement. The more the public understands about how and why a problem exists, the better equipped it is at solving it.

We are passionate about coffee and chocolate, but we are equally aware of the people involved in making our quality products. We understand, as should you, that not everyone in the world has access to preventative medical care; in fact, statistically speaking, the majority of our world's human inhabitants do not. When you drink your morning coffee, or nibble on a dark chocolate bar, does it cross your mind how this delicious experience came to be?

[Grounds for Health]

Did you know that women make up over 70% of the workforce that picks, sorts, and processes coffee and cacao beans? And over 80% of women in the world diagnosed with cervical cancer live in developing nations? Why?

While there is no connection between cervical cancer and coffee, there is a connection between lack of prevention services and cervical cancer. This cancer is the number one cause of death of women in low income settings worldwide.

Cervical cancer is treatable, if caught early. In fact, the cancer takes twenty years to develop, and can be treated for less than $28, and in a single visit—if caught within the first five years.

If every woman was screened just once in her lifetime, global cancer rates would drop by 30%; if screened twice, 60%!

For over 20 years, Grounds for Health has been committed to women’s health in the developing world. Their organization envisions a planet in which all women are protected from the threat of cervical cancer by timely and high-quality prevention services. To date, Grounds for Health efforts have resulted in more than 72,000 women screened for cervical cancer, more than 5,200 women treated, and 460+ community healthcare providers trained.

[Clinical Director, Ellen Starr, MSN, WHNP and her team]

Grounds for Health aspires to be on the cutting edge of innovations that will transform cervical cancer prevention at a global scale.

Currently, they are partnered with MobileODT, a connected health company who uses an advanced optical technology to turn a smartphone into a mobile, point-of-care tool that can be used in remote locations to take biomedical images. Alongside this technology, Grounds for Health trains clinical staff to perform cervical cancer checks on women in the most remote locations, who otherwise have limited access (if any at all) to care and education.

MobileODT has been partnered with Global Good (a collaboration between Bill Gates and Intel aimed at developing technology solutions to the world's most difficult health problems) and their EVA—Enhanced Visual Assessment—technology system has been approved by the FDA for sale and marketing in the USA, as of December 2016.

[Grounds for Health]

For more than ten years, Grounds for Health implemented the Single Visit Approach to care—same-day visual inspection with screening and treatment—and were among the first organizations to embrace this approach as the standard model for care. The World Health Organization has since endorsed this approach in their cervical cancer prevention guidelines, and it has become a model for many other organizations.

In 2016, Grounds for Health screened 13,278 women and treated 1,249 for cervical cancer.

In 2017, Grounds for Health will be expanding to new areas in Ethiopia and Kenya, with numerous training and screening programs led by a talented group of local and international staff.

Their goal: to screen at least 17,000 women and treat 1,900+ for cervical cancer in developing countries.

We stand by their work and will remain an active, supportive, and enthusiastic voice for their company mission.

We hope you will join us!

-Sip & Melt

Food Pairing: What It Is and Why it's Awesome.

2:44 PM

Have you ever wondered why coffee and chocolate go so well together? Food chemists and scientists have wondered the same thing, and have been tackling the question with mass spectrometers and gas chromatography. Through discovery of specific aromatic compounds (in other words, smells) in various foods by concentration, it was confirmed that foods that share the same aromatic and flavor compounds will taste good when paired together.

Years of industry research have determined that the foods that pair well in a certain recipe share specific key aromas. In fact, you should credit aromas for the majority of your flavor experience—80% of what you taste in terms of flavor is essentially aroma, not taste or texture.

Remember that slightly off-putting, hand-drawn tongue from our primary school science textbooks? Each section of the tongue in the diagram supposedly coordinated with a specific taste. But what if I told you that our long held belief that we use different areas of our tongue to perceive five different tastes is a myth?

In fact, the process of tasting takes place in our brains—not on our tongues.

Thank Dr. Charles S. Zuker, Ph.D. and professor of biochemistry, molecular biophysics, and neuroscience for the debunking:

“Dedicated taste receptors in the tongue detect sweet or bitter and so on, but it’s the brain that affords meaning to these chemicals.” (Credit: Columbia University Medical Center)

It seems that our tongue’s taste receptors can detect tastes such as sweet, bitter, or savoriness (also called umami), but it’s the brain that ultimately assigns meaning to these chemicals. That's why when we have sinus congestion we have difficulty tasting things. If you want to test this yourself, just plug your nose while sipping coffee—although coffee contains over 1,000 aromas, it will immediately turn into a bitter drink without the presence of smell.

Food pairing has been around a long time; in fact, we do it all the time. When you add spices to a dish, you’re thinking about what combinations will make your food taste good. Would you add a layer of cheese on top of your waffles? Or salsa on top of your ice cream? Probably not. In the same vein, we may not drink a glass of milk with sushi, but we would perhaps drink white wine with our salmon.

So, what does this mean for coffee and chocolate?

For one thing, coffee and chocolate share origins and processes that both overlap and deviate in fascinating ways. Both beans are incredibly complex in flavor independently, but when paired together, can provide a deliciously unique flavor combination.

The strategy is to find pairings that have flavor and aroma elements that both complement (such as nutty and spicy tones) and contrast (bitter with fruity tones) one another. Identify the dominant aromas and flavor notes when paired together, and decide which pairings you like and don’t like.

A few starter tips for pairing chocolate and coffee:

It’s suggested one begin with single origin roasts and single origin chocolates to get a feel for the specific aroma and flavors of each specific bean region (as opposed to a blended roast which combines beans from different regions) or a chocolate bar that combines beans or adds another flavor element, such as salt, caramel, or red chili.

The cacao percentage expressed on a chocolate bar is the ingredient content from the cacao plant which includes the cocoa butter and chocolate solids; the remaining percentage is the sugar content. So, for an 80% bar, 20% is sugar. (Take a look at the ingredients on a Hershey bar—what you’re eating is not real chocolate).

"Trust us."
Sincerely, coffee and chocolate

Remember, trust your palate! What tastes delicious to one person, may be off-putting to someone else. The fun is in the exploration and discovery. Through time, you will be able to expand your palate and recognize the myriad of flavor tones and aromas found in coffee and chocolate.

Everyone involved at Sip & Melt looks forward to sharing our coffee and chocolate pairing adventures with you!

-Sip & Melt

Pages

Blind Coffee Roasters' ambition to do great things

Sip & Melt is very pleased to have Blind Coffee Roasters on board as our featured July roaster. We asked owner and head roaster, Tim Howard, to speak about his experience in the coffee world, and his thoughts on how it really boils down to doing great things for the world...

Urban Grind Roasters and the Perfect Couple

Coffee & Chocolate: A Roaster's Perspective

Visiting Venezuela-Bolivia-Peru-Guatemala-Ethiopia

WIN a Sip & Melt box on us!

We Think Outside the Box

Presales started today, hooray!

Pre-sales start May 1st. Don't Miss Out!

Grounds for Health Discusses our Partnership

Stay Informed- What's Happening?

Featured Products

Interview with Featured Roaster: Urban Grind Coffeehouse and Roasters

How You are Directly Helping Women Farmers Beat Cervical Cancer

Food Pairing: What It Is and Why it's Awesome.

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