The Q Note

The Q Note is an inspirational online publication that "was created to celebrate the authenticity and progressive spirit that define New York’s largest borough." Alia Akkam, the founder and editor is dedicated to shedding light on the extensive range of offerings available in Queens. Alia's pride in the cultural richness of Queens coupled with her expertise as a writer show through in The Q Note's weekly articles. By raising awareness within and without the borough The Q Note is raising awareness and increasing accessibility to those sometimes hard-to-find gems.

Last year we were lucky enough to have a conversation with Alia over a Flat White about all things Queens, including JET espresso. (access the article here)The Q Note's new website is now up and running so check out her run down on JET as well as her other great articles about all the goings-on in our neck of the City. If you like what you see, I recommend hitting the "subscribe" button to receive the few-times-a-week email. Then, get out there and enjoy the vibrancy of Queens.

What a nice surprise!

I was pleasantly surprised to see this article in AM NY the other day. (turn to page 22 once loaded) It is always nice to see Jackson Heights, Farmspot, New Zealand and Queens mentioned all together in one article, especially when it's about JET espresso! We were blown away and honored all at the same time. It is great to see more and more being written about specialty coffee, the more the better, keep it coming. Thanks to Farmspot and Jackson Heights for all the support.

Coffee background

Have you ever enjoyed the captivating smell of just-ground coffee, only to be disappointed by the taste once brewed? Our goal at JET espresso is to roast coffee so that when brewed it tastes as good as it smells, not an easy feat but one we love. Part of that journey is to share a bit about what it takes to make a decent cup so that you can share in what we're doing. This little blurb is a the first of a sporadic series of notes about coffee. Hope you enjoy.

Every coffee has unique characteristics that come through in the cup. These are categorized as; aroma, acidity, body and flavor. Like wine, it is the terra (land or origin) that gives each coffee these distinct flavors. Different regions within coffee growing countries are known for producing coffees with particular characteristics.

When it comes to brewing, it is about what one considers to be desirable in their cup that determines what they roast, how they roast it, and then how it is brewed. It is the bean that should dictate how it is roasted and subsequently brewed. For example a Brazilian Poco Fundo usually exhibits a medium to full body with a fruity zestiness. This bean needs to roasted to a medium-dark roast in order to bring out these characteristics. Any other roast would reduce the potential strengths of the bean. Some beans are versatile enough to be used for both espresso and drip while others should only be used for drip or espresso.

New Espresso this week

This week we'll be brewing a limited amount (for espresso only) of a new bean, El Salvador San Jose/Shangrila COE 2009. This coffee placed highly in the recent Cup of Excellence competition in El Salvador. Here's one of the juror's descriptions: Aroma/flavor green grapes, peach, raspberry black berry, cranberry, honey aroma, milk chocolate, dried fruit, plum Acidity fresh, lively, Notes Well balanced. I highly recommend you try it in a flat white or French Press! I hope to be offering this in the future, freshly roasted for everyone to enjoy at home!

PS - if it's feeling enough like Fall this Thursday we might be offering some sort of hot apple cider-like drink.

Off on vacation, new Organic coffee and ice cream to go

This Thursday is our last day at Farmspot for a few weeks, we're taking a vacation and will be back on September 10.

I have a great new coffee in stock, Brazil FTO Poco Fundo. (See below for details) Make sure you come by and see how it holds up in a Flat White, or in the French Press.

There's been a great response to our coffee ice cream to the extent that we've been asked to offer it in larger quantities to take home. We'll continue to offer single serve at Farmspot and will be now selling 1 pint servings to go. In the best interests of the environment, we're using reusable glass jars that you can clean, bring back and have refilled.

If you want coffee or ice cream this Thursday, send me an email at jetespressonyc@gmail.com or order via the website.

Please order before Tuesday so I can have an idea of how much to roast!

Our latest offering- FTO Brazil Poco Fundo

I'm really excited about our latest coffee, which will be sticking around for a while. This is the coffee that I've chosen to take the place of the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe as our Full City (medium-dark roast)

It is a Brazil Fair Trade Organic coffee from the Poco Fundo Cooperative which is a coop. of 71 farms in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This bean is really versatile and is delicious as a single origin espresso as well as in a French Press or drip machine. It has a nice fruity zestiness which is offset by a deeper, richer sweetness topped off by a full body. It will be available every week from this week.

Best cities to drink coffee in.....

Being from windy Wellington (Aotearoa/NZ) it came as no surprise when reading an article about the best cities in the world to find a decent coffee to see Wellington on the list. Wellington certainly fights well above its weight both in the coffee and general culinary realms.

Although NYC didn't make it for obvious reasons, there has been a pretty big influx over the past few years of cafes in NYC treating coffee as it should be treated. Hopefully this trend continues so that NYC can add coffee to their already extensive world capital of fill in the blank list. (I won't be complaining) Read about a few of these cafes in this Sydney Morning Herald Article and then visit them and let me know what you think. I'll do my part through adding the odd review when I can.