Our May Espresso of the Month comes from one of our favorite Direct Trade farms, Finca Los Planes. Their Pacamara variety of coffee has been a mainstay of our offerings since it won 2nd place in the 2006 El Salvador Cup of Excellence. 

In developing the espresso roast, we knew that we didn’t want to put too much roast on it. We wanted to keep its delicate floral and nice, round cherry notes. But, we also wanted to bring out the lush, chocolaty body that is occasionally lost when it is brewed as a drip. The result of the espresso roast is a delightful single origin espresso that pops out of a demi with notes of light lemon, supple red fruit and a rich, chocolaty body. Be the first to taste our May Espresso of the Month - Finca Los Planes Pacamara.

A smattering of thanks from Washburn Rural High School's culinary classes

On Friday, April 9th we at PT’s hosted a day of education for the Washburn Rural High School’s culinary classes. Starting at 8am we had 3 groups of students come through to tour our roasting facility and see what it is that we do exactly. All together there were about 150 students that got an introduction to sourcing and roasting coffee and even got to watch one of our barista competitors go through her presentation that she gave last weekend in Anaheim, CA for the 2010 United States Barista Championship. Today we received a huge envelope of thanks from what appears to be all of them! Here’s a few of our favorites we wanted to share with you…

“Coffee is pretty awesome. You & the people you work with put a lot of devotion in your work. The fact that what you do effects the lives of so many, well, I dig that. You put a lot of care into those beans. Thanks for inviting me in to see. If only you were hiring!

Thanks a lot

-Angela”

“Thank you for giving us such a great tour. I thought it was really interesting how so much work and care is put into your coffee, and it was cool to be able to see the process of making the coffee. I never knew that people who worked in coffee are so passionate about what they do and work so hard to make the best quality of coffee. Thanks for sharing your story with us and allowing us to see what goes on behind every cup of PT’s coffee.

Sincerely,

-Kylie”

And one for fun…

“Thanks a lot bro for the show. It was chill and the fun level wasn’t low. Now I always know what I’ll be havin’ with my toffee, that’s right, you guessed it a P-H-phat cup of PT’s coffee!

Much love -ya boi

-Hunner”

Thanks to each one of you for coming! We are so glad that you enjoyed it!

Variety is the spice of life!

One of our favorite aspects of coffee is the great variety of tastes and flavors. The variety of flavors ranges from distinctly fruity to distinctly spicy to smooth and chocolaty. So why should espresso lovers be limited to only one or two options for espresso? PT’s Coffee is committed to rectifying this injustice. For the next 12 months, we are committed to pooling our creative juices and compiling our coffee resources to produce a new espresso offering every month.

Since their inception, barista competitions have always been an important part of life at PT’s Coffee. As the last step in the seed to cup voyage, the hard work of the farmer, coffee buyer and roaster rests upon the shoulders of the barista. Beautiful things can happen when baristas know their craft and their coffee, but it requires a lot of hard work. During competition season, the baristas are given free range to explore our coffee offerings in pursuit of their perfect coffee. This year, one of our baristas wanted to try one of her favorite drip coffees for her competition espresso. She thought that Finca Cerro Paldo’s beautiful balance and lush sweetness might do wonderful things for espresso at a little darker roast. Now we get to reap the rewards of her hard work. We liked it so much that we have made it our April Espresso of the Month!

In the cup, our April Espresso of the Month from Finca Cerro Paldo in Costa Rica is juicy, with high floral and red fruit notes. It is sweet throughout and is a remarkably complete single origin espresso!  Purchase Finca Cerro Paldo Espresso Roast here!

If you ever wanted to do a Topeka search for PT’s Coffee, now is your chance!  The search giant Google has renamed itself Topeka in response to our fair city’s dedication to attracting the ultra-high speed broadband project that Topeka (previously known as Google) promises to install in a city of its choice.  We are sure that the search giant will soon change its url to topeka.com, but in the meantime, you can check out the official announcement here.