It's a beautiful day - full of sunshine and warm breezy air - the perfect day to venture down to Riviera Maya in Bay View and network with YP Impact!  Tonight, from 6-9,  Riviera Maya will host the YP Impact After5 Networking event where you're sure to meet some of Milwaukee's finest young professionals.    Riviera Maya offers a fantastic selection of margaritas, mojitos and showsaces as award-winning menu of authentic Mexican food.  Our partnership with YP Impact offers incredible opportunities for volunteering and networking - most importantly we always have fun!  See you there!

Before a coffee arrives to our warehouse, it is planted, grown, harvested, processed and then exported. All of these stages contribute to the quality and taste characteristics that we experience in the final cup. Once it arrives here, it is our job to figure out how to roast that coffee in a way that will enhance the basic qualities and characteristics of the bean. 

To begin the process of establishing a roasting profile, we first have to sample or “cup” the coffee to define the quality and taste characteristics. In the case of our Brazilian coffee from the Sinay Neves family’s Conquista farm, we cupped the coffee and had the following notes: 

- Sweet aroma with notes of caramel 
- Full body with a nice, crisp acidity 
- Earthy flavor with hints of chocolate in the finish 

A good, full bodied coffee works well in blends…it makes for a strong base when adding other coffees to it. We have used this Brazilian coffee in several blends, the primary blend being our Green Bike Espresso. The crisp acidity helps to give our espresso the bite we are looking for. The chocolate notes and caramel aroma contribute to the sweetness of the espresso. 

From here, we have to develop a roast profile that will enhance the characteristics that we want to bring out in our blends. While roasting coffee, we continually measure the temperature of the roasting environment. Through a series of testing, we determined that our Brazilian beans need to be roasted to a temperature of 448 degrees to achieve maximum flavor enhancement. 

Now it is time to blend…again, through a series of multiple tests, we find the perfect proportions for mixing the Brazilian coffee with other coffees in order to achieve the flavor, body and brightness that we are looking for in a particular blend. The result in the final cup is something that we are very proud of and stand behind. 

The next step in our process is to BREW this coffee expertly so as to extract all of the flavors and characteristics of the coffee in your cup. Check back tomorrow for a “how to” on brewing our Green Bike Espresso.