#ruby coffee

On this cold and gray winter day in Milwaukee I am dreamin’ I was back in California. While I did like the climate there, the beaches, chill culture, and the more omni present ethnic diversity, it is the coffee-culture I am missing the most.

The coffee roasters focused on high quality single origins, roasted lighter and brighter to let the nuanced flavor of the bean shine through. The coffeehouse moved well beyond a menu loaded batch brewed and milk+flavor drinks, towards offering a wide range of SO-Espresso and Brew Bar options. Most of all the baristas where not only knowledgeable about coffee, but passionate about their craft.

Most of all I miss the many Siphon Vac-Pot Bars in coffeehouses in Little Tokyo, Koreatown, and beyond, as when brew correctly the flavor extraction is amazing.

Places like Verve, Portola, Ritual, Blue Bottle, Four Barrel, Insight, Temple, Demitasse, Handsome (R.I.P.) and Caffe Luxxe come to mind as places we visited often and loved the 3rd-Wave coffee they were serving. There were also many multi-roasting coffeehouses shattered thought Californian using beans from the best roasters local roasters (roasting mainly on Probat and Deidrich) and grinding on the Mazzer and Mahlkonig grinders and pulling shots on their pressure profiling LM Strada MP, Synesso, and Slayer machines. The result of all of this was that it was easy to find amazing world class coffee in almost any corner of LA, San Fran, and SAC, as well as somewhat easy in the smaller cities in between.

It's a bit depressing knowing that there are only two places in the city of Milwaukee I can go to find lighter and brighter SO-Espresso and three to find decent brew bar options with baristas that know what they are doing and care about how they are pouring it.

Compared to metro-Milwaukee, the state of Wisconsin, or even the Midwest as a whole, the coffee-culture in California was light years a head of us. While in Wisconsin we do have some notable exceptions like Kickapoo, Ruby, and JBC, these roasters have had too little influence on coffee-culture in Milwaukee. While I am grateful for Alderaan Coffee, Hawthorne Coffee, and the Kickapoo Coffeehouse for providing Milwaukee with 3rd-Wave quality coffee, having only three coffeehouse to choose from in the city is a major downer.

Not sure why this is, but the national coffeehouse chain (Starbucks, etc.) habits of dark roasted coffee, loaded with milk and flavors seems to still be in vogue among most of the cities local chain coffeehouses. -- This is my everyday lament.

While I LOVE Milwaukee’s hip-and-trendy Eastside, East Town, 3rd-Ward, Riverwest, and Bay View knighthoods, but I really wish the coffee-culture would catch up with whats taking place on the West Coast.

In any cases, on this cold and gray Milwaukee winter day I am dreamin’ I was back in LA chillin at one of the many amazing coffeehouses with a double shot 8zo SO-Americano. The 3rd-Wave is grossly underrepresented here and oh how I wish the California coffee-culture would come to Milwaukee. -- This is my everyday dream.

Ethiopia Guji Uraga - Ruby Colorful Coffee (more photos)

This is one of five single origins I have tried from Ruby Colorful Coffee, most recently the Guatemala Consuelo. Was able to try this Ethiopia as Kalita Wave, Areopress, and SO-Espresso in Ruby’s tasting room on their LM Linea.  Although it tasted great in all of these brewing methods, the SO-Espresso pull as absolutely amazing. I would put this SO-Espresso experience right up there with my all time favorite pull from Verve Coffee Roasters, which was a Guatemala Dola De Oro. This is also in the same category of excellence as Kickapoo’s Organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Idido.

This Ethiopia Guji Uraga from Ruby Coffee won them the Good Food Award in 2015.

Its a bit darker roasted and sweeter than the Guatemala Consuelo, but the peace tea and lemon pie notes shine through and balance out the experience.  

Tasting Room - Ruby Colorful Coffee (more photos)

Was finally able to visit the Ruby Coffee tasting room in Central Wisconsin yesterday, as I had been wanting to for some time. This is one of the new kids on the block, although only a few year old (est 2013), Ruby has gained national attention, has been winning a number of awards, and has developed a large customer base all over North America.

Their tasting room provides a pleasant and spacious sitting area, as well as space to sit outdoors and a path down to the Tomorrow River. This makes for a wonderful place to enjoy their lighter, brighter, and fruit, floral, and berry notes forward roasts.

In terms of brewing equipment, I was excited to see that Ruby’s tasting room was outfitted with a Mahlkonig PEAK Espresso Grinder as this offer amazing temperature control of the grind. They are pulling shots on the new LM Linea PB, which offers state of the art control over every aspect of the shot, including weighing the shots. For pourovers, they are using the Kalita Wave, Fetco temperature contorted water dispenser, and Mahlkonig shop grinder. All of this makes from an amazing coffee brewing experience to sample their high quality seasonal single origin roasts. 

Was able to get to know Jared, the owner, as we taste tested (see photos) their Ethiopia Bokasso, Guatemala Consuelo, and Keyna Nbmaini as a Kalta Wave pourover, and Ethiopia Gujil as a pourover and SO espresso shot. While each of the coffees we samples were excellent, I enjoyed the Ethiopia Guji as a single origin espresso.

Jared’s past experience with Intelligentsia Coffee and Caffe Ladro shines through in his ability to source beans from some of the best and rare coffee farms in the world. His knowledge and passion for chasing after the nuanced flavor of the bean is clear in every area of coffee conversation. In addition, Jared is one of the most easy going, friendly, and chill guys I have met in the specialty coffee industry and is great to hang out with.