this is coffee

Beginning in April of this year, Nova Roast will be eligible to participate in Cup of Excellence auctions and we will begin receiving samples from participating farms.  Auctions for 2009 include Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and others.  We will use samples from the Cup of Excellence program in our public cuppings and will develop direct relationships with these farms, even if we are not able to secure a winning bid.  This is the best, most direct access to farms producing the highest possible quality and, naturally, it is an expensive process.

To help secure and sustain our participation in Cup of Excellence, we are selling special Gift Certificates for a limited time through NovaRoast.com.  Your purchase of one or more CoE Gift Certificates, either for personal use or to send to a friend or relative, will enroll you in a permanent 10% discount program which can be applied to any whole bean, brewing equipment or supplies purchase.  If you decide to purchase a CoE Gift Certificate for yourself, you can keep that amount in your account and use it over time and you will receive your 10% discount each time you purchase coffee.

Here at Nova Roast we believe that supporting a program like Cup of Excellence rewards quality and sustains small, environmentally-conscious farms throughout coffee growing regions.  Your support also helps us continue to find the rarest coffees of extreme quality.  Please consider helping us kick-start this effort.

Thank you.

A Cupping Bowl (Photo P. Straith)

We had a great turnout at the Cup of Excellence cupping on Saturday, Feb. 21st.  A room full of people hovering over bowls of coffee and barking out flavor descriptors always generates a lot of attention and questions, which we welcome enthusiastically.  I will try to address some of the more common queries here.

What are you guys doing?!

Coffee Cupping is a sensory skills exercise practiced by serious coffee drinkers and coffee professionals in an effort to broaden our knowledge and perfect our craft.  We prefer ours to be fun, focused and free.  Due to demand, we require advance sign-up.

How often do you do this?

As roasters, we cup every new coffee when we get samples from growers or importers, or when we are developing a new blend or roast level for new coffees.  Our public cuppings are every Saturday at 10:00 AM and give us an opportunity to cup current roast profiles for coffees in inventory with a new group of people every week.

How do I sign up?

You can email us with a request to hold a spot for you or register for an account (free) at NovaRoast.com and sign up for our newsletter.  Information about our cuppings is emailed to Nova Roast customers who are given first priority for spots at the table.  You can also find us on Facebook, become a fan and we will post scheduling there.

What if I don’t know anything about coffee?

Then you are exactly the kind of person we want at our table.

What if I know a lot about coffee already?

Then you are exactly the kind of person we want at our table.

What is the Nova Roast-Easy Chair connection?

After 13 years, the Easy Chair Coffee Shop has evolved into much more than an espresso bar/specialty coffee shop.  We have an extensive food menu, a loyal following of customers from Virginia Tech and Blacksburg who rely on our late hours for meetings, study groups, or just for a place to hang out.  Through Nova Roast, we have been able to focus our expertise and devotion to our coffee roasting program to try to reach a wider audience.  If you have a French Press, Chemex, AeroPress, Vacuum Pot, high quality espresso machine or home roasting equipment, then we would like to be your roaster.  If you have ever driven past several big, corporate coffee establishments to find the hole-in-the wall shop pouring perfect espresso shots, then we would like to be your roaster.  If you care about truly sustainable and rare coffee of extreme quality, then we are your roaster.