Issue No. 7
October 7, 2022
Rising Coffee Prices
Coffee prices for green coffee have risen dramatically over the past year, and not only due to the high inflation the world has been facing.
At this time last year it had become clear that Brazil would be woefully short of its expected yearly output due to unfavorable weather conditions. Since Brazil produces 35% of the world’s coffee, the costs of all coffee soared. As a result, our less expensive topquality regional coffees from Central America, so carefully selected by us, have gone up by 50%. Our single estate coffees from farms that we have been working with over the years, and to which we pay higher prices, have gone up approximately 15%...
Q&A with George
Did you have another career in mind before coffee?
I did have another career in mind. Murky vision may be a better way to express what was in mind at the time. Back in the sixties, many of us “kids” were not thinking so much about careers as we were about changing the world.
The story below is about the art that has been hanging at my cafes since 1975 when I opened The Coffee Connection, and which can be seen at our Downtown Crossing café (showing two works by Jose Benitez Sanchez) as well as Newtonville (4 works by Tutukila). That comprised my first career...
Issue No. 6
May 3, 2020
Greetings from George Howell!
I finally have time to write for our newsletter, something I used to do but found ever more difficult as the complexity of running George Howell Coffee grew. Life has simplified for the time being and this has enabled me to change some of my priorities. I am refocusing on writing about the world I represent. It is one of the few but critical silver linings for me during these difficult days. I will use the newsletter to comment on the coffees we offer, on events shaping farmers lives and on many other themes involving coffee. I am also giving brief answers to questions you might have every Tuesday on Instagram which will subsequently be posted in our blog. To ask me a question, simply send a direct message to our Instagram account @ghowellcoffee and we will do our best to answer all of them...
Issue No. 5
November 12, 2018
Roast Dates and the Right Time to Brew
Back in the 1980s, and even 1990’s, the answer to “when is the right time to brew?” seemed simple: immediately after roast! Indeed, my Coffee Connection was the first in the US to post roast dates on our barrels (we were scooping back then!) and on our bags. Many of our customers wanted to buy our coffee roasted the previous day and no later. Then the one-way valve bag arrived, becoming common practice in the 1990s. It allowed us to preserve complete freshness longer, although many of our very well-trained customers had lingering doubts….
Issue No. 4
August 24, 2018
Mamuto Returns!
Kenya SL28 varietals are one of the great coffees of the world; there are no other varietals or origins, in my opinion, that can claim to be superior. No other coffee in the world swells so amply with deep, clean, velvety dark fruit flavor, filling one’s mouth like a fine full-bodied red wine. There is no better Kenya representative, year after year, than Mamuto, which we are proud to have been offering since 2006. It must be taken black, to be appreciated to its fullest...
Issue No. 3
August 3, 2018
Discover genuine iced coffee for the first time. You’ve
probably never had a good one!
The window for enjoying a properly brewed great coffee is fleeting. A great cup has a life span of 20 to 30 minutes before its complex chemistry begins to disassemble into murkier realms. To make a great Iced Coffee, that magic moment must be captured on the spot...
Issue No. 2
June 28, 2018
Freezing Roasted Coffee
It is striking how many specialty coffee companies recommend NOT freezing your roasted coffee. They are wrong.
I have found that just one day after I have opened a bag of coffee, thereby exposing it to oxygen, it has lost much of its dimensionality; it is a shadow of that first glorious day – assuming it was a great coffee, perfectly roasted to begin with...
Issue No. 1
June 11, 2018
The Northern Hemisphere Harvest Arriving Now
New crop coffees are beginning to pour in from all the Northern Hemisphere producing countries. These harvests have taken place over the months of November to March. The higher the elevation the later the harvest.
Expect the new Kenya Mamuto to be in at the end of the month and available in early July. The good news: the AA are extraordinary – intense and very sweet. However, the amount of AA (slightly larger beans than ABs and more perfectly mature) will be even less than last year. We will also have some other Kenyas that struck us as exceptional...