Our Blog
Adventures in Coffee Growing – by Martin Diedrich
Sunday morning coffee harvest today. I picked coffee from just one specific tree, a Garnica Arabica variety. We have about 14 different Arabica varieties growing on our small Costa Mesa coffee farm. The Garnica tree was full of ripe, sweet fruit, of which the seed is the bean one makes coffee from. The Garnica variety is a hybrid that was developed in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico in the 1960’s. That region is now the only place it grows commercially. We are told it is a hybrid of Arabica varieties, Mundo Novo, and Caturra. Its fruit is particularly sweet, which inspired me …
Meet the Barista: Eight Questions with MEGAN HERRERA
This is an ongoing series in which you will get to know a little bit more about the fine young men and women who prepare your coffee at Kean Coffee through a series of random interview questions. Megan Herrera has been a valuable part of our Kean Tustin team for over two years. Megan’s love for basketball helps her shine as a barista as she applies her multi-tasking, fast-paced, high energy maneuvers on the court to our fast-paced coffeehouse environment. At Kean Coffee just as on the court, Megan is small but mighty. That’s why we love Megan! KC: What …
Recognize this guy? Meet Dwayne Carroll!
At Kean Coffee we love our regulars – our guests who come in so frequently and regularly, sometimes spanning many years, that we learn their names and they learn ours, often becoming good friends with our staff members. We value their input and enjoy learning more about them and hearing their stories. Meet Dwayne Carroll, a beloved regular at Kean Newport and Tustin! My first cup of Martin’s coffee was when the Diedrich Coffee opened at Marguerite Pkwy and Crown Valley in Mission Viejo. I was there on opening day. I remember the first manager – a very nice lady, …
Meet the Barista: Eight Questions with MANUEL RODRIGUEZ
This is an ongoing series in which you will get to know a little bit more about the fine young men and women who prepare your coffee at Kean Coffee through a set of random interview questions. Manuel “Manny” Rodriguez has been with Kean Coffee for two years, as a barista in our Newport coffeehouse. In addition to being an awesome barista, Manny is a successful college student who aspires to become a teacher. Whatever he is doing, Manny works hard and always strives for excellence, while at the same time keeping a great attitude. That’s why we love Manny! …
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 …
Yemen Haraazi Supreme – a coffee pictorial from Martin Diedrich
The steep, rugged Haraaz Mountains of Northwestern Yemen are a world apart from the rest of the country. The terrain is dramatic, wild, rocky, and often inaccessible.The area has resisted the modern world and in the hinterlands one can still feel the pulse of medieval times. Ancient fortified hilltop villages of stone houses cling to the steep slopes, creating a near bibilical panorama. Rocky mountain slopes are carved with ingenious centuries-old stone terraces to preserve the scarce soil and precious rain in this dry region, in order to grow coffee. Approximately 500 families, living throughout the region, continue an unchanged tradition …
Musings of a Nicaragua Cup of Excellence Judge – by Ted Vautrinot, Head Roaster for Kean Coffee
April 26, 2010; Ocotal, Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua. Twenty four judges, all coffee professionals, focus beyond the 90 degree heat and humidity in the classroom/cupping lab to give their undivided attention to flight after flight of the very best coffees Nicaragua has to offer. Every detail is scored to a strict protocol on the journey to find the ten absolute best coffees in Nicaragua this year. The event is Cup of Excellence Nicaragua, and I am one of the international judges discovering these often stunning coffees. The panel hails from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Central America, and the …
One Year Anniversary of Kean Coffee Tustin
March 23rd marked the one year anniversary since opening the doors of our second Kean Coffee at 13681 Newport Ave, Suite 14, Tustin, CA. The opening of our Tustin store was not so much a new venture as it was a return to our roots, as this was the exact location where Martin opened his first full-scale Diedrich Coffee coffeehouse many years ago, which had become a popular hangout in the community. With coffee roasted fresh onsite in a roaster built by Diedrich Manufacturing, the company created by Martin’s brother Stephan who went into the roaster building side of the …
Yemen Mocca: Coffee, not Chocolate – by Martin Diedrich
If coffee were a tribe, Yemen Mocca would definitely be the shaman. Cappucino, Cafe Latte, or Cafe au Lait are unmistakably coffee beverages, while Cafe Mocha is thought of as a hot chocolate with coffee or espresso, or generally a chocolate based drink spiked with coffee. To get to the point of setting the record straight on this matter we must travel back intime to a distant corner of the globe. At the very Southern tip of the Arabian Penninsula, flanked by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, is the remote country of Yemen. Coffee Arabica was named for …