So after doing a look at the past twelve months I wanted to let you in on what I see happening over the next 12 months. So at the end I can check over how well or not we have done. Also a little prompt as when you say your going to do stuff in the open you really have to get on and do it all.

In My Mug

I see in my mug as a really important part of what we do. I plan over the next twelve months to do much more out the roastery shoots, and continue to find the amazing coffees we have in the past. I also hope with the help of Aiden to develop the app, and get more people able to use it (as desk top and an android and windows 7 version all planned)

Blog posting

I want to try and be more focused on my blog postings. I’d appreciate if you can let me know what kind of thing you would like me to focus on. My varietal posts are something I want to personally do some more with and collate in some way, but thats a personal indulgence. Do let me know but the blog will be more used.

Direct Trade

the very end of 2010 saw us bring in our first ever container from Brazil. At the time of writing our second has landed and were awaiting the first delivery from Bolivia. This is going to be an ongoing theme of 2011 for me doing direct trade, but also finding out much more about the farms.

Has Bean App

We have already started this one with Nigel but an ipad version is planned of the app and we will continue to develop this. Let us know what you want need and we will make sure we keep making it better

Blends

The blends will continue to develop and change (even if the names don’t) I have some ideas for a killer filter blend for 2011 and I also want to keep looking at how we can do better with some guest type blends.

Trips

I have a trip planned in February to central america where I will be looking to cement some already built relationships and look to find some more exciting coffees for 2011-12 I’m also have some plans afoot to get to Africa this year if I can. Africa is somewhere I think I can do better, and will continue to try to do so.

Africa and Asia

As I said in the trips section we need to do better here, and I want to make sure we do exactly that. Africa we have three coffees at the time of writing and asia we have six. I want this to be more, so the cupping table will be overflowing.

Barista Competition

I announced in April last year I wasn’t going to do any more competition blends for barista competition. I think looking back at the past year, I’d have a big hole if I did this, so I expect to continue to work with great baristas, and continue to learn from them, as and where we can.

Brew Guides

I have loved the brew guides so far, the last one of 2010 eva solo was one that not so many people use, but the first of 2011 will be a very popular brew method, and the plan is to build up a large library of these, tackling some of the difficult ones, like espresso, milk steaming etc that will take lots of work to get right.

There are some other ideas I have for 2011 but things need to be lined up before then and thought through but I see it as a very exciting year ahead.

So the final part in the 12 month review, and the year finished as well as it started. It was all about espresso blends it seemed, a new focus for us.

September 2010

This month brought us JailBreak and the first for the “stable” of blends we have introduced. As a direct replacement for the Premium Espresso Blend, the branding and the launch were a bit new, and seemed to be well received.

This started a crazy program of four new coffees over a couple of months.

It also started the brew guides (that we have lots more to do this year). The first being the aeropress. It started with me unlearning everything I had learned and just playing for a whole head of time to come up with these. Again very well received.

September I also went to the Nordic Roasters and Nordic Barista up in Oslo norway, much learnt, and the company of many friends old and new was thoroughly enjoyed.

October 2010

The second of the blends released in October was kicker. Kicker is inspired from my love for kicker shoes (I weak kicker boots all the time) but also as this is a fruity kick in the mouth wake up espresso.

The third blend in Blake was released, an old school blend named after my old school.

This month we also hit the land mark of 100 in my mug’s, I can not believe we made it to 100 from the first recording to what has now taken over my life. It seems only right to post it below

We also proudly launched the new has bean app (with the help of Lawrence and of Nigel who built it from the ground up, an in my mugger), complete rebuild from the first we launched, giving you the chance to buy in app, watch the brew guides, watch the blend ad’s and use the build in tools.

If you have an iphone / Ipad then you should download it here

November 2010

Following on from the Has Bean app in came another “in my mugger” in the shape of Aiden who built us a from the ground up app for in my mug. With the ability to leave cupping notes and share with others and leave the important comments for the next episode, I think the app was a great addition to watching in my mug, I hope it will become a really useful tool.

If you have an iphone / Ipad then you should download it here

We also had one more blends up our sleeves for this year in the style of Jabberwocky. Named after the beast in Alice in Wonderland that had jaws that would bite and claws that will catch, and ths blend also had some claws and a jaws that would bite. But also it is my favourite poem of all time, and written by Lewis Carol at his parents house who lived in Sunderland, and I’m a big fan of the mighty Sunderland Football Club. Of course there was a video

December 2010

Of course the most recent in memory, but december gave us the Christmas card that I think was a triumph and much nicer than sticking card in envelopes

It was also very exciting that we received our first ever full container from Brazil. I am very proud of how we have begun to develop the longer term direct relationships and see great things for the future.

I hope you enjoyed the review as much as I enjoyed being part of it. Lots of highlights and lots of fun I can not wait for the next 12 months. I plan to write a look into the next twelve months too in the near future, so if it doesn’t appear you must all shout at me to do so.

And finally thank you very much for letting me do what I do, without you guys I am sure I’d not have experienced half the things I have done.

Happy new year.

So carrying on from the last blog post the Has Bean 12 month review

May 2010

May was a quite month, from what I can remember anyway, but it did involve one of my favourite in my mugs, cup of excellence against a cup of mediocrity, a bad mistake Timor with an amazing cup of excellence from Costa Rica

June 2010

June was all about London and of of the most memorable Summers I have ever had. The world barista championships were in my back yard for the first (and probably the last time for a very long time) , and I was sure I was going to enjoy it. Collaborating on the UK Barista champions blend and of course helping Colin Harmon from Ireland with his coffee.

Way too much to talk about, but just go read this

One of the best blog posts I think I have written, a real blast, but by the end I was glad it was over.

I was also honoured to be asked to guest blog post on Dirty Cup at the link here. It was a real month of blogging.

July 2010

After an amazing June, July was about to get a whole heap better. Without a doubt my favourite ever in my mug below, I didn’t think that Mario and Lupe would be up for it, but they were desperate to.

The Bolivia trip was life changing, I picked for the week, I processed the coffee, I lived with the family, and I loved every single moment of it. It was a journey from hell to get there, but worth it once I arrived.

From this I also had my favourite video that wasn’t an in my mug, I had been sitting on this music for a while for the right time and this was that time.

This just shows how long it takes to get here (coffee that is) that it was towards the end of the picking season while I was there, and it is still as I write this to arrive (around 10 days away), but I think its fair to say this coffee is embedded in everything we do at Has Bean, being number one in my top ten video post.

Another post I did was about the Brazil Terramater and the forest blend they had done for us. That arrived just before Christmas and is yet to get on the site, again showing how hard it can be to get coffees to these shores.

August 2010

Another Month another trip. I spent one week from each of these months away, and this is because of the great team we have at Has Bean, I’m very lucky. I’m very lucky because I get to visit these places too. For the second year on the trot I returned to Bahia. The first time was very much a fact finding mission, feel my way with the guys I was meetings, see what came with a small export from them. As lots of you enjoyed it worked very well, so this year was about cementing that and moving a much larger amount (a whole container which is a big deal for a small company like Has Bean). Nearly the whole harvest was in by this time so I spent the week traveling around and cupping like a demon.

This month you will really see the fruits of this trip on the website, we have brought back some amazing coffees.

The trip also brought home how difficult it can be buying these coffees, and how some diffuclt decisions need to be made. See the in my mug below

So to get me back in to the swing of blogging, I decided to to the 12 month Has Bean Review. This time of the year always seems like a good time to look back and look forwards, so on the last post I will do a plans for 2011 (or at least goals).

The last 12 months has been (see what I did there) amazing, so many highs and highs, very lucky to be involved in this wonderful industry that continues to give me so much. I’m lucky that most of my life is in a video somewhere so expect a few of them.

So lets get into it

January 2010

January was all about the official opening of Third Floor Espresso In dublin (or better known as 3FE). Colin had opened the shop in January but this was the official lets have a party opening. At this time I wasn’t fully involved in 3FE but I still feel like we were breaking new ground with this unique method, of taking space that at a certain time of the day is dead, and making it into a destination cafe.

Because he was so busy doing shop keeper the search for a replacment for Colin on Tamper Tantrum began

Tamper Tantrum Auditions from Stephen Leighton on Vimeo.

February 2010

This time of year is always taken up with Barista Competition, the UKBC season of January, February and March is a crazy time. We had lots of customers getting involved last year, which is great and also very draining. But I think the thing I remember the most was this audioboo on the way home from the semi finals

March 2010

The theme of Barista Competition carried on with John Gordon of Gorilla Tamper fame winning the UKBC, using coffee from us. Johns a great friend, and it was wonderful to see him win with a coffee that was 100% him, funky and crazy

One thing I loved was an in my mug we did at the Window in Norwich still one of my favourites. Hayley is a legend and much fun (and coffee)was had, on my flying visit.

April 2010

Like I have already said, so much of the first half of the year is always made up with these Barista competitions, the Irish championships the previous year were all well over by this time, but with a summer competition to be held in London, it was an April event.

Colin harmon knocked it out the park in this tough competition, one I enjoyed very very much. I did the streaming for the event, and got to see every single competitor, I had a blast and was really impressed at the high standards, and the amazing competition the Irish SCAE chapter put on.

It was here I rather prematurely decided I wouldn’t be working on comps again, and I felt at the time I was done with it all. In a way I am, I don’t think I’ll ever get as involved as I did with the Irish and the following WBC (if I ever get a chance to work in those arenas again of course) but its become such a big part of my life and I’ve learnt so much that it seems wrong to stop that just yet.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about cupping and dialling in my palate.

I’ve been to a couple of tastings recently in Liverpool and Milton Keynes (that we great fun and really well run) but it took me three or four coffees to really get my taste-buds going. By that time I was using my memory of the coffees as a measurement which makes it so much harder.

Calibrating any equipment is essential and vital, our palates are no different. I know I have always found the calibration days at cup of excellence really useful, but I have always thought it could be done even better with reference points of coffee.

So I’ve decided I’m going to run a two stage experiment to see if by warming up and using these reference points it means we can detect things more accurately.

Experiment one

First I’m going to do a blind cupping without any warm up, and score the coffees.

Then I’ll do a blind cupping after doing an open tasting of reference points. Reference points should be in line with the table. So for instance, if its El Salvador’s, it should be with a exceptional, good and commercial El Salvador. Then go into the cupping warmed up, on a blind table.

Then compare the data of the two tables.

Experiment two

An blind espresso tasting. 5 espressos from around the country and taste them blind and evaluate them. Then I’m going to dial in with a couple of espresso blends I know well, then revisit the 5 espressos and score them blind again, and then compare the results against expectations.

If I think there is some merit I’ll then open this up to a tasting at the roastery and share the results here. I’m thinking small maybe 5 people, but I think it could be very interesting.

Anyway thinking out loud will report back soon.