Day eight of the Hudson project is just starting.
There are a few things to report. The Weekend came and went with little fanfare. My family went camping with three other families to Rathtrevor provincial camp ground in Parksville. We had such a great time. It was so nice just to relax and watch the kids play. While I was slowly pickling by the fire, the first traditional media coverage began. The interview and photo shoot that I did on Thursday with the Times Colonist made it to print. The article was very nice to me and was a good public launch for the move to the Hudson. SamJonesTCjune252011
I got several emails while camping that I felt I had to respond to. One of which was from an Interior Designer, Krista Rossato. She sent me her fee proposal to review. I’ve never had need to hire a designer and was surprised by the depth of the work to be provided. On Tuesday I hired Krista officially. Her job is going to be a liaison for me, the architects, city hall and a translator of my vision to paper. She will also be my chief treasure hunter. For the amount of time she is going to save me, the fee is nominal.
So now I have a designer I need to come up with a list of everything that needs to be in the shop so that Krista can measure it all up! I’ve been scouring design magazines and the web looking for cool ideas. I’ve compiled two groups of pictures. One that I do like, and equally important, one that I do not like.

The Hudson Building is prepping for construction right now. I think yesterday they took the last of the old floors out of the building. This is in preparation for pouring the new slab as the basis for all that is to come.
Yesterday I passed a major hurdle for myself. I paid the deposit for the space. I am free of that burden and can move forward with less stress now. Today I turn in my financials for review. This will be a formality and I expect no issues there.
I’ll be looking to get my key soon!
I get the feeling that things are about to speed up quite a bit. I’m trying to eat better and get as much sleep as is aloud with three kids and work that could go 24/7.
Going through the negotiating phase of the project has given me a better appreciation for patience. I plan on using more patience to get me through the next five months. I think I’m going to need it.

Today I received the final documentation back from the Townline. There won’t be any need for further adjustments. We have come to an amicable offer that took two and a half months to negotiate! That seem like a long time for the average lease, but this is no average lease. Let me tell you friends, this is an UberLease!

There is no time to catch my breath after the successful negotiations. I did my first interview with the local press,the Times Colonist. I had a photo shoot outside the new space and met my first choice for an Interior Designer. I was very happy with the interview with the Designer. It began with personal exploration to see if we liked each other and where we were coming from. Then we got right down to business! The meeting was over 2 hours and I feel confident after that time I won’t need to look further for the right person for the job. She got it , I mean she heard my ideas and concepts and not only liked them, but was able to make great suggestions based on my ideas! I’ve never worked with an Interior Designer before but I feel confident that this relationship will be solid.

I then got in touch with my lawyer. I’m waiting to hear back from him right now! I don’t expect any issues there.

On the side, I was able to help a future customer buy all that they needed for a pour over cafe that she wants to open July 1-3. Time and experience may not be on her side, but I am. She was so happy that she bought me a wicked bottle of Gin! That will taste good camping this weekend!

All of that and an hour or so of banking and I was out of a day! However I still had to roast coffee. So at 5 pm I rolled into the Roastery and started a nine batch evening. I loved it! A 16 hour day, and all for the right reasons!

Day 3 has already begun at 5am and I can expect an very active day again.

Stay tuned as I chronicle the adventures of opening a roastery/cafe in a downtown historical heritage building.

I’ve been looking for a space for my Roastery for the last year and a half. I have not been looking hard, but I would explore any opportunity that came up. There were a few that I thought would be nice out in the WestShore, but for the exposure and price all the spaces I looked at fizzled out. My wife looked for houses with a large detached shop that had the right zoning but moving our business and our house at the same time seemed to be a daunting task. There were a few spots in town that I looked at, but nothing really grabbed me. I put the search on simmer while I started to just focus in on what I had and not what I wanted to have. I remember as a teen that boys that looked hard for a girlfriend were always alone, but as soon as you “did not care”, or stopped looking the right girl would just appear. Good life lesson I think. That is how the perfect location just appeared to me as soon as I did not show anymore interest in finding it.

I was delivering coffee to Smoken Bones and the owner Ken told me about the deal he was working out to get a new location. As soon as he told me a few of the details I needed to know more. Ken texted the real-estate agent to tell him that I would be calling. I called in one minute and began this journey at Smoken Bones.

Ken shared loads of information with me about how he had been dealing with The owners and agents thus far. Armed with this information I started to negotiate an offer to lease. I was cautious in my dealings and was not at all sure that I could do this. As the negotiations continued I became very excited about the potential of this space. I still felt like I was playing a game and that nothing would ever become of all this talk. That all changed with one conversation with my wife. She is my grounding force and was nervous about any changes that could potentially hurt our family. One evening that I will never forget, she came to me and told me that we had better do this and  jump in with all four feet. That was all I needed to hear! Time to work this deal out and forge a new path for 2%Jazz Coffee.

Townline is the company that owns the building. Fraser Campbell is the agent for the building. What a great team to work with. Without going into the details of the deal, I can tell you that The team has made every effort to make this deal happen. So after two and a half months, I have a deal!

It took research, patience, persistence and  a supportive wife to get this far. It will take the same and more to continue The Opening. Today I get my returned offer to lease, signed and sealed. Today is the first day my new reality. before today all we had was a dream and now we have opportunity!

2% Jazz has been in business in Victoria since 1996. That is coming up to a special landmark, turning 15. So it feels right to be announcing the start of a new project. For a couple of years I have been roasting in a small out of the way secret location. It is now time to move right downtown and share what I’ve being doing with all of Victoria. I will be opening a brew bar style cafe with a Roastery. I of course will be building with my own special approach. I want this cafe, like the original to stand out of the crowd.

This blog is going to be an attempt to capture the development process. I like the idea of sharing this with others because in part I am just so excited. Sometimes I feel that my passion for projects can boil over and I can’t stop talking about what I’m doing. I hope this blog will be a good focus for this enthusiasm and I do not bore my friends and family too much.

Stay tuned….

Yesterday was my first day to work for 2011. The roastery looks great. Over the holidays I reorganized and de-cluttered. I put up new shelves and moved my existing ones around to make room for new coffees! I got some great new beans in and lots more to come. Right now the new Yigacheffe Koke and the Congo Kivu are rocking my boat.
So yesterday was interesting for a few reasons. The first was simply because it felt so good to come into a newly organized shop. I redid quite a few of my profiles. I was focused on smoothing out the profile curves, saving them in the RoastLog system and reloading them to be my main profiles. I also worked on developing my new roast curves for half batches of quite a few of my coffees. A new year – new and better profiles! The other reason it was such a cool day was that I was roasting for two of my favourite companies and products. I am very pleased to be involved again in the making of Phillip’s Espresso Stout! Many of you know that one of my passions is craft beer. I like it as much as I do specialty coffee (only I can’t drink as much of it). One of my favourite all time breweries if Victoria’s own Phillips Brewery. Matt is a bright star in the sometimes ordinary Victoria business scene. His dedication to his craft and business is second to none. Together we have created a coffee beer that has been coming out now for near 12 years! I think that that puts it as one of the original coffee beers. When Drew Carry was joking around with his Buzz Beer concept, we were actually making it work. So I had Matt down to the cafe for a cupping of three coffees that I thought would all work well for this years batch. He chose my first pick, Ethiopia Harrar. Matt wants the sweetness and body of the Harrar and he is hoping that the blueberry will come through in both aroma and taste. I think that he made the right choice. So yesterday I roasted the first 20 pound addition. There will be another addition of coffee a little further on in the process. We have come up with a unique and complex way of adding the coffee to the beer to make sure we are treating the coffee right! I love a brewer that listens to the needs of the roaster. A match made in heaven!
The other product placement roasting that I did yesterday was equally as exciting for me! Those that know me are a ware that I have an extensive collection of hot sauce. Not the ones with the crazy labels that threaten to set your ass on fire, but real high quality sauces that are stupid hot, but that have great flavour as well. My favourite hot sauce company has always been Denzel’s Gourmet Foods in Enderby BC! Denzel is a character. Always on the cutting edge of the chilli world, he consistently comes out with new award winning sauces. I have been private labelling hot sauce with Denzel for a long time now. As he began to develop a line of BBQ sauces our collective brains began to think about how to put coffee into it. After a few trial runs and private experimentation we have come up with the 2%Jazz Coffee BBQ Sauce. It is available in regular and in Chipotle. So yesterday I roasted up the richest tasting batch of my special Denzel’s blend to date! I cant wait to taste the new batch. To follow up on the day, all coffee was delivered today.
I love the product placement! i’m always thinking about new ways to combine coffee with other things that I love. Some ideas are Curry, Steak Rub, Gin, Smoked Meats and Cheese. If anyone has any great ideas please share.

http://phillipsbeer.com/

http://www.denzelshotsauce.com/

In the mid 1700′s the world had little in the way of coffee variety. The Dutch monopolized global trade at the time and this included coffee. However, the largest coffee exporter at the time was modern day Yemen. Coffee would sail out of the port city of Mocha. This was the home of the first commercially traded coffee. It was bound to happen, the Dutch coffee from Java found its way to the trade city of Mocha. Here the world’s first blend took form.

Yemen coffees are inherently finicky. They are dry processed and do not hold up well to storage. The natural sweetness quickly turns off leaving a dry, leathery taste. This is in contrast to the wet processing of the original Java estates. Big lush taste and body are clear and present. The combination of these two coffees was and continues to be arguably the quintessential coffee blend.

Finding the right coffees for a traditional Mocha-Java proves challenging and many have found similar coffees to use as substitutions. This works well when trying to copy a profile and not just replicating a blend. Dry processed Harrars from Ethiopia are a good substitute for the Yemen. Modern day Sumatrans are processed more closely today to the traditional Javas then Javas are being currently processed today. These day one can still find Mocha-Java coffee offered all over the world. There are traditional blends, cheep commercial knock-offs and then there are the artisan interpretation of tradition.

We at 2%Jazz have come up with a unique offering this holiday season. We deconstructed the Mocha-Java and then reconstituted it in various forms for your pleasure.  We roasted our Ethiopia Harrar, Yemen Ismaili and a Sumatra Permata Gayo separately to their individual peak potential. We then cupped several variations and deviations of the traditional Mocha-Java blend. We chose three that stood out from the pack and have further cupped and discussed them. These three blends are available to you when you come to the cafe. Our Barista are going to resurrect the art of Bar-Blending in honour of this traditional coffee blending exercise. We have chosen the guide lines of the blends, but are leaving it up to you the customer to tweak the blend as you see fit. You will find this a satisfying exercise and with professional help from our Baristas the results are phenomenal. With our educated baseline and with your creative input we are offering you a chance to have an authentic Mocha-Java blend with a flare that you can call your own. This is a seasonal offering and supplies will run out mid January.

Leah’s Pick:     Equal parts Harrar and Sumatra

-Beautiful berry acidity with a sweet chocolatey lingering aftertaste. A delicious deviation from the original.

Rob’s Pick:     Equal parts Sumatra and Yemen

-Clean, clear cup with lovely spicy aromas. Sweet raspberry and light chocolate define this classic traditional blend

Sam’s Pick:     2 parts Sumatra to equal parts Yemen and Harrar

-Sweet mellow cocoa with light blueberry/raspberry flavours. Surprisingly complex for such a well balanced blend. Rich and smooth on the pallet. This a deivlish departure from tradition, but one that will be in my home for Christmas!

Sampling the goods

Yummy!

Ok. Thats it. No more descriptors in this entry. No cupping scores, nadda. Plain ‘ole yummy. I will tell you that I’ve nominated both the Costa RicaLas Lajas Honey Orgasmic and the Congo Kivu on taste. Now I’m going to do the farm research. This is an important part of purchasing. When a coffee tastes good enough to buy, but it the farming practices don’t follow my ethical guide line, then I cant buy them. Working closely with my Broker makes that job so much easier. Because on my perpetual baby making lifestyle, traveling to origin just isn’t something that happens very often, my relationship with a coffee broker is crucial. I should be doing the forward contracts by the end of the week on these ones.

I look forward to researching these coffees and sharing them soon.

Just leaving a meeting with Conor at the NumberCreative. He was most helpful in showing me the back end of my site. I’m looking forward to the launch. With my recent foray into the Twittershere, I’m feeling far more tech savvy. I’ve always wanted to blog and keep my site current, but never felt that I was capable of doing it or making the time to do it. Times have changed people, times have changed. Keeping you posted is what Im going to do.