Our Blog
Beyond the Beans: Kristin Lerner
By: Brittany Leslie – Wholesale Account Manager and Educator, Kean Coffee Meet Kristin Lerner. She has demonstrated her coffee skills by becoming certified through the SCA as a Brewer and Barista. We knew of her talent even without the certification, as she has been a long-time member of the Kéan Coffee family and trainer at our Tustin coffeehouse. Her years of training new and experienced baristas, world traveling, and having a sparkling personality make her an amazing teacher and communicator. Her expansive knowledge allows her to not only tell you what makes our Rwanda single origin so wonderful and the …
Guatemala February 2015: Shawn’s First Coffee Origin Trip
We have been a bit remiss in chronicling our Kean Coffee origin trips over the past several years…just too darn busy roasting coffee! At some point we will backtrack and share more of our adventures. But here, at least, Shawn Anderson, our wholesale division roaster, has shared some of his experiences on a recent trip he and Martin made. When we (Martin Diedrich and I) arrived in Guatemala City the first evening, I had no idea what to expect. After all, this was my first origin trip and, as I would soon find out, Guatemala City is in no way …
Judging Guatemala Cup of Excellence 2011 – by Ted Vautrinot, Kean Coffee roaster
There is a special magic wafting through a room filled with passionate coffee professionals intent on finding the absolute best coffee from Guatemala’s crop this year. Every sniff, every slurp is carefully evaluated and scored- descriptions of honey, cherry, chocolate, caramel fill the margins as each coffee gets a meticulous assessment before moving on to the next possibility. I was fortunate to return to Central America to be a judge for Cup of Excellence Guatemala. Our 22 member international panel hailed from Japan, Germany, England, Australia, Russia, Korea, Canada, Morocco, Norway, and the U.S. Our purpose was to identify the …