Author: NOMAD COFFEE

More sustainable, more equitable and more inclusive

 

NOMAD COFFEE is a Certified B Corporation

 

We lead poverty reduction in the supply chain in the specialty coffee sector

 

We are so happy to announce that today we are a Certified B Corporation thanks to our efforts to have a positive impact on our workers, our communities, our customers and our planet.

In the specialty coffee sector, NOMAD COFFEE is one of the players leading a global movement for an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy. As part of the Global B Network –B as in ‘benefits for everybody’–, NOMAD COFFEE has achieved an extraordinary score thanks to our impact business model with which we contribute to reducing poverty in the supply chain, as well as our commitment to improving our governance, optimizing the well-being of our team and being more respectful of the environment.

 

 

Reducing poverty in the supply chain

Without specialty coffee producers there would be no NOMAD COFFEE and, of course, we would not be able to enjoy a magnificent cup of coffee. We want to take care of them just as we take care of our team and that is why we establish direct contact when possible and long-term collaborations that ensure economic stability and better management of their time and resources. An example of this is having chosen El Bombo coffee, which was born from the Women and Coffee initiative created by Asobombo to value the coffee of 85 women producers from the Colombian regions of Huila, Cauca, Nariño and Tolima. It is marketed and sold in a differentiated way, ensuring that their remuneration is decent, improving their lives in matters of equity and training them to cultivate for quality.

Caring for people and the planet

We have always been concerned about these issues and it is for this reason that in 2020 we published our first transparency report (and we have continued to do so, year after year, contributing to The Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide, the best practice guide on the specialty coffee trade). However, that made us wonder many things: could we improve the agreements with our producers? Could we increase the traceability of our coffees? The possibility of being a Certified B company made us raise these and other questions, solve them and implement changes to improve us even further. Thus, today we can say that we meet the highest standards in terms of social and environmental performance, transparency, legal responsibility and commitment to positive impact.

How have we been certified?

In March 2023 we began the consulting process that helped us answer all the questions required to be certified. Several B Lab analysts studied them and request the necessary documentation to verify them. In September we completed the certification, which understands that our impact business model as a specialty coffee company contributes positively to the people involved and the planet. A month later and after great learning that has made us more aware and responsible with our actions as a company, we began to be a B company.

A solid commitment beyond economic gains

B Lab, the nonprofit network that strives to transform economic systems so that they benefit all people, communities and the planet in an inclusive, equitable and regenerative way, considers we have a solid commitment beyond economic gains. How we have reached this goal? B Labs helps to create standards, policies, tools and programs that modify the behavior, culture and structure of capitalism that have already impacted more than 150 industries in more than 80 countries.

If you need more information, write to us!

 

It all began when we received a little bag of coffee from Brazil, Milena Rodrigues variety Arara, natural process, and grown at an altitude of 1100m, courtesy of the importer Flor de Café. The importer provided some tasting notes for this coffee, mentioning flavors of maple syrup, yellow fruits, tangerine, and liquor.

It turned out that more than thirty roasters from the country would have nearly a month to roast the same coffee and send the best sample in that first round of the competition, so we got to work.

With this Brazilian coffee, we had 30kg (we were not convinced to roast a single batch of 5kg on our 22kg Probat machine where we usually roast 18kg batches). We decided to do five roasts of 6kg each.

 

 

Nomad Coffee’s first roast of Brazil’s Milena Rodrigues coffee.
After the first blind roast following our philosophy and five subsequent experiments trying different approaches, we decided to send the sample from the first roast, which we liked the most on the cupping table, scoring 85.67, with notes of chocolate, figs, tangerine, and orange liqueur.

The top twelve most favored coffees would move on to a final round, and from those, the winner would be chosen on the last weekend of September at the BCN Coffee Awards.

We were nervous, eagerly awaiting the announcement of the twelve finalists (in random order): Kima Coffee, Urban Coffee Roasters, Harmony Roasters, Cafés El Magnífico, Three Marks Coffee, Slow Mov, Hola Coffee, BRKLYN Café, Dalston Coffee, Brew Coffee, Right Side Coffee Roasters, and us, Nomad Coffee.

Seeing ourselves among the twelve best roasters selected with our first 6kg roast gave us a lot of confidence and affirmed that, yes, by following our way of doing things and our endless quest for consistency and quality, our coffees could stand up to the best specialty coffee roasters in the country.

We were celebrating with proud yet timid looks when the coffee for the second round arrived. Importer BELCO sent us 5kg of Ethiopia Chelbessa, Heirloom variety, washed process, grown at an altitude of 2000m, with tasting notes of peach, apricot, lemon, caramel, and jasmine.

Now, that was a real challenge. 5kg and a single opportunity to get it right and produce a great coffee we could proudly send to compete for the Best Roaster award at the BCN Coffee Awards.

Fran, our Chief of Coffee, told me to go for it and entrusted me with the Ethiopia coffee. Ambitious as I was, I opened my notebook and wrote a calendar with all the days remaining until the festival weekend. I tried to guess which day the Q-Grader judges would taste the submitted coffees if, in theory, they were going to announce a winner on Sunday, October 1st. I planned which day I could roast this Ethiopia so it would have the ideal resting days for the judges to taste it at its best.

Then I jotted down the following bullet point in the goals for this semester:

• Best Roaster in the Coffee Awards 🙂

And so, the D-day came, the H-hour, the time to roast the E-roast of the CA. I added the 5kg coffee to Cropster’s schedule, probably between a production roast of Colombia El Roble and another of Kenya Nyanyuki AA, so that my two favorite coffees from this past season would bring me some luck. I got to work, focusing all my attention on the various lines on the screen.

 

 

Nomad Coffee’s winning 5kg roast of Ethiopia Chelbessa at the BCN Coffee Awards 2023.
This was the final curve, what some might consider the inner framework of that cup of coffee that the judges would taste on Sunday, October 1st and name as their favorite. (Before all that, at our own cupping table, the roasting team evaluated the coffee with a score of 86.88 and tasting notes of lemon, peach, floral, and grapefruit, plus the following emoji, kind of joking but not really: 🏆)

But the truth is quite different. The backbone of that coffee cup that had the luck to win, and of all the other Nomad coffee cups enjoyed in Barcelona, throughout Spain, and across the ocean in cafes like Wynyard in South Korea or Dayglow in the United States, the backbone of all these Nomad moments around the world is these people, the fantastic Nomad team in the photo above:

From the CEO Jordi Mestre who has created this incredible coffee-loving family to COC Francisco Tomás González Márquez, and Nomad Coffee Academy’s director, Ivette, continuously teaching us the magic of ROR and TDS, and the most consistent roasters in Spain, Rebeca Silva and Laura Coe, as well as Esteban Conde with his perfect event organization, the web and logistics geniuses Abel Cruz and Alejandro Marín Melgar, Pol’s unmatched accounting, Gonzalo’s and Fabi’s account management, Celia García Quesada making us work happily, the queen of orders María Jara Blanco, and the tireless Baba and Seck, the leader of the local team Núria Ruiz Fanega, the audiovisual master Marc Pérez Estada, and many more I’m not naming but who are essential parts of this fantastic team we’re building.

Nomad Coffee, LFG 😀

Although Spain was under Muslim rule for eight centuries and had colonies in major coffee-producing countries, the introduction of coffee to the Iberian Peninsula came at the hands of the Venetians, who introduced its consumption and trade to Europe.

 

 

Coffee was first introduced to Europe by Venetian merchants in 1575. Venice took the lead when it came to coffee: it was the first to receive a shipment of coffee in 1624, which was purchased by various apothecaries as a medicinal ingredient. By 1759, Venice had so many coffeehouses that the authorities limited their number to 204. Italy was followed closely by the Netherlands and England: coffee landed in Leiden in 1596, and the first European coffeehouse opened sometime between 1652 and 1654 in London, thanks to the Armenian immigrant Pasqua Rosée, as detailed by Jonathan Morris in Coffee: A Global History (Reaktion Books, 2019). A decade later, London had 82 registered coffeehouses, and Londoners enjoyed a drink that gave them energy for work and, they claimed, prevented dizziness.

The coffee boom of the 17th century can be attributed to various factors. Firstly, the fascination that the Middle East sparked among European artists and travelers of the time. However, since it was considered a beverage of Muslim culture, many sought to find Greco-Roman origins for it to avoid committing any sins according to their Christian faith. By the 18th century, Europe had succumbed to the pleasure of coffee, and it had become part of the bourgeoisie’s breakfast when mixed with milk and sugar. The Dutch, French, and British had started cultivating coffee in their colonial possessions in Asia and the Caribbean.

However, the first Spaniard to drink coffee was Pedro Páez around 1596, as claimed by the Royal Academy of History. Páez, a missionary in Ethiopia, was captured and imprisoned in Yemen, in the city of Sanaa. Later, they were sent as rowers on the galleys of the port city of Mocha, which would later give its name to the coffee prepared by the Europeans. During his captivity, Páez wrote in History of Ethiopia that he tasted “a dark and bitter infusion.” Apparently, not many people found it very appealing since it took a literal century for the Bourbon dynasty to introduce coffee to Spain.

Despite the fact that it was Spain that introduced coffee to Colombia in 1741 (at that time, it was part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, along with Panama, Ecuador, and Venezuela) through the Jesuit colonizer José Gumilla, who documented it in “El Orinoco ilustrado y defendido,” coffee cultivation did not become commercially significant until more than a century later. Spain prioritized more profitable crops. For this reason, the first coffeehouse in Spain was opened in Madrid on July 9, 1765, by two Italians: the Gippini brothers, who adopted the names Juan Antonio and José María, although they were originally from Milan. According to historian Mónica Vázquez Astorga, the Gippini brothers initially started with an inn in 1758, which they called “La Fontana de Oro” and later applied for permission to serve coffee.

La Fontana, like other cafes that opened later in Madrid, such as Café de San Sebastián or Café de Lorenzini in Barcelona or Cádiz, where the most progressive ideology in the country prevailed, were places where intellectuals of the time gathered to discuss the most pressing issues. In fact, the discussions generated tensions with the authorities, and one of the Gippini brothers was charged for allowing people without the required permit to speak and address customers in their coffeehouse, as he defended here.

Despite coffeehouses not being private spaces, women were also prohibited from entering. Although not explicitly stated, the male dominance of public spaces established that coffeehouses were places for men, and the presence of women was only considered in the context of prostitution. “Many cafes were run by couples: women worked in public-facing roles while men prepared the drinks in the kitchen. Few women set foot in a café, fearing they would be mistaken for prostitutes due to the public nature of the place and the sale of alcohol. If women were served coffee, it was most likely taken to their carriage for them to consume in private,” explains Morris.

So, how was the first coffee in Spain consumed? Until the mid-20th century, coffee was brewed in a pot or pitcher: water was boiled, ground coffee beans were added, and the drink was strained using gauze or fine cloth. In other words, it was a filtered coffee, and this method continued until the Italian coffee maker was introduced after World War II.

 

 

Bonus Track: The Origin and Spread of Coffee

The history of coffee in Spain is relatively short. Unlike other beverages such as wine or beer, coffee is made from coffee beans, which are not native to Spain. Coffee originated from Africa, with the Arabica variety being the most prominent among the more than 130 identified species of the coffee plant.

Precisely, Arabica coffee was developed in the southwest of Ethiopia, in the mountainous region bordering Kenya and South Sudan. Here is where its foundational myth is located (although it cannot be confirmed). This myth dates back to the 4th century BC and was first explained by the Maronite monk Antonio Fausto Naironi (formerly Mehrej Ibn Nimrûm, born in Lebanon) in his 1671 treatise on coffee, “De saluberrima potione cahue.” According to the story, some goats consumed coffee cherries and leaped around their herder, named Kadi. This prompted Kadi to try the fruit himself.

However, the earliest written references to coffee consumption date back to 1450. It was consumed in the territories of Muslim culture around the Red Sea. They dried the cherries and used all parts of the coffee to make an infusion called “qishr.” The recipe traveled to Yemen, where Sufi sects, composed of civilians who worked during the day, found coffee particularly useful for staying awake during their midnight prayers. Coffee replaced a ritual beverage called “qahwa,” prepared with the khat plant and having hallucinogenic properties.

The credit for this change goes to the Sufi Mufti Muhammad al-Dhabani, the first historical figure associated with coffee. His story is detailed in Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri’s manuscript on the expansion of coffee in the Islamic world. Al-Dhabani traveled to Ethiopia, discovered coffee, and brought it to Yemen. Drinking coffee soon became a social activity and was consumed outside religious ceremonies. This led to its temporary prohibition in Mecca, but its spread across the Islamic world became unstoppable.

Although coffee is for everyone, the coffee industry is a male sector. Due to the social dynamics of the world we live in, it has happened in coffee as it happened in the world of cooking: from being a task performed by women in the domestic sphere without any recognition, it became a professionalised and specialised job, a challenge for men. However, the advantage of the sector has been that it was born in a world and in an era much more advanced in terms of equality. So, while it is true that the majority of baristas and roasters in coffee shops and competitions are men, it is true that in the not-so-nascent speciality coffee industry, more and more women have joined the ranks. At NOMAD, 18 out of 39 are women, and we wouldn’t be the same without them.

One morning, like every morning, you wake up and prepare your coffee. But on that day, a tragic event occurs: you’ve run out of coffee! The last ground coffee beans recharge you with energy, and you jot down in your agenda “Buy coffee.” If you live in the city of Barcelona, pay attention to this list by neighborhoods of the best places to buy coffee in Barcelona:

The truth is, until now, becoming a barista involved many hours of practice behind the bar and a healthy dose of curiosity to explore online and even travel the world café by café. However, if you decide today to become a barista or simply want to learn all the necessary details to make a great coffee at home, you can turn to The Coffee Academy.

The Coffee Academy is an initiative by Nomad Coffee in response to the lack of formal education in the specialty coffee world. Tailored to the needs of each student, we’ve designed workshops of varying hours where you’ll leave with expert-level knowledge to master your next V60 and courses through which, after a few days, you’ll have both the theory and practical skills to start working in a café.

“Students are very happy because they can finally approach a world that has piqued their interest in a simple and didactic way,” explains Ivette Vera, Director of Education at The Coffee Academy. “The world of coffee is a precision science, much like cooking, and therefore, it has many technical aspects that can be intimidating. At The Coffee Academy, we make it easy by explaining them with clear examples and putting them into practice with exercises that help understand them. And if there are still any doubts, we are committed to resolving them.”

When we buy coffee, we tend to focus on its origin and how it has been fermented, but it’s the roasting that clearly and directly explains the aromatic profile that coffee will have.

The flavor of a cup of coffee is largely determined by the roast given to the green coffee beans. Based on the sensory characteristics of each coffee, defined by its terroir (combination of soil, climate, variety, cultivation care, and fermentation process), we choose a specific roast for each batch.

For instance, if we have a coffee with floral notes, we apply a roast suitable for a filter, which is a brewing method that enhances those notes. On the other hand, if the coffee is dominated by nutty and chocolatey notes, we roast it for espresso. At NOMAD COFFEE, we follow this approach: we prefer very fruity, floral, and herbal coffees for filter, and sweeter, fuller-bodied coffees for espresso. However, we never forget those of you who enjoy a chocolatey filter or a floral and fruity espresso.

We are defenders, lovers and practitioners of good coffee, of precise roasting, of using the most appropriate techniques. But all this is not incompatible with being able to enjoy delicious coffee in the quickest and most convenient way. With this in mind, we started to think about how we could do it and it turned out that the best solution had already been invented: instant coffee.

Specialty coffee is a category given to coffee that falls outside of commonly established ranges. This makes the product gain value, both at a sensory level, improving its flavor, and at a commercial level, increasing its price.

In order to access this category, coffee must meet a series of requirements, determined by the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) and exceed a score of 80 points out of 100, awarded by certified tasters. In this score, the coffee is evaluated sensorially, scoring attributes such as fragrance and aroma, flavor and aftertaste, acidity, body, among others.

As of January 9, 2022, the price of coffee on the stock exchange rose to $2.38/lb. A year earlier the price was $1.00/lb. How could the price of coffee have increased more than 150% in just one year?

One of the reasons behind the increase was the frosts in Brazil during July, where more than 9,500 coffee producers suffered losses between 4 and 11 million bags of coffee, between 8.2% and 22.4% of the production (Perfect Daily Grind, 30/07/21).

Coffee has a very volatile market price. In more than 30 years since coffee has indexed on the stock market, these extreme changes have happened several times.