STORIES

Straight from our coffee wizards, here are guides for our favorite home brewing methods.

BREW PRINCIPLES: 

1. Use clean filtered water that has been heated right off of boil.
2. For best results, we recommend using a burr grinder.
3. Look for approximately 1 part coffee to every 16 parts water. 1:16 brew ratio.
4. For consistency at home we recommend a digital scale to get your ratios right.

The Chemex is a classic, convenient and elegant brewing device - it’s in the permanent collection of the New York Moma.

Things you need:
Chemex
Digital scale (We recommend this for best results)
Gooseneck Kettle
Stirring Instrument
Oxygenated Filters
Burr Grinder (Also for best results)
Filtered water
Timer

Recipe:

40 grams ground coffee or 8 level tablespoons
650 grams water or 20 fl oz 
4-4.5 min total brew time 

Yields 4 small cups

1. Look for a medium-coarse grind the consistency of sea salt

2. Make sure to use oxygenated filters.
Pre-wet your filter to rinse out any residual paper taste and preheat the brewer.



3. Start with 40 grams (or 8 level tablespoons) of ground coffee
Tare out your scale.

4.  Saturate the bed of coffee with 100 (~4 fl oz) grams of water. 
Using a stirring instrument, agitate the coffee vigorously to ensure total saturation of the grounds.

5. After the bloom (at approximately 45 seconds), slowly add the remainder of the water with an even, circular motion until a total of 600 grams of water (or 20 fl oz) has been added.



6. Give it a good stir to make sure no grounds are stuck to the walls of the filter.

7. The leftover grounds should be flat and even. 
The brewing should complete in approximately 4-4.5 minutes

8. Serve and enjoy!

Things you need:

Kalita Wave Dripper 185
Kalita 500 Ml Glass Coffee Server
Digital scale  (We recommend this for best results)
Gooseneck Kettle
Stirring Instrument
Oxygenated Filters
Burr Grinder  (Also for best results)
Filtered water
Timer
Cups to serve

Recipe:

25 grams coffee or 5 level tablespoons
400 grams of water or 14 fl oz
3-3.5 minutes total brewing time

1. Look for a medium grind, the size of sand

2. Make sure to use oxygenated filters.
Pre-wet your filter to rinse out any residual paper taste and preheat the brewer.

3. Start with 25 grams (or 5 level tablespoons) of ground coffee.
Tare out your scale and use scale to measure amounts of water added after.

4. Saturate the bed of coffee with 70 grams (approximately 2.5 oz) of water.
Using a stirring instrument, agitate the coffee vigorously to ensure total saturation of the grounds.

5. After the bloom (at approximately 45 seconds) slowly add the remainder of the water with an even, circular motion until a total of 400 grams (~14 oz) of water has been added.

6. Give brewer a gentle tap to make sure no grounds are stuck to the walls of the filter
The leftover grounds should be flat and even.

7. Brewing should complete at 3-3.5 minutes

8. Serve and enjoy!

Things you need:
French Press
Digital scale (We recommend this for best results)
Gooseneck Kettle
Stirring Instrument
Burr Grinder (Also for best results)
Filtered water
Timer
Cups to serve
Pot to keep your coffee warm

Recipe:
60 Grams of coffee or 12 level tablespoons
850 grams of water or 30 fl oz
4-5 minutes

1. Preheat your French Press

2. Look for a medium grind, the size of sand

3. 60 grams (12 level tablespoons) of coffee

4. Fill press to the top with filtered water.

5. After filling the press with water, stir to ensure that all coffee is fully saturated.



6. Carefully skim the floating grounds off the top for a cleaner cup.

7. Let steep for approximately 4-5 minutes and then depress the plunger slowly, being sure to minimize the agitation of the grounds.

8. Serve directly into cup before decanting the coffee in another vessel for freshness of leftovers

9. Enjoy!

Things you need:

1. Traditional Espresso Machine
2. Digital scale
3. Burr Grinder with precise adjustments designed for espresso
4. Tamper
5. Knock Box/Trash can
6. Digital Timer
7. For Cappuccino: 8 oz cup
8. For Cappuccino: 12 oz milk pitcher
9. For Cappuccino: High quality milk

Espresso Recipe:

17-18 grams of ground coffee
35-40 grams beverage weight/pulled espresso (1.5oz~)
27-30 seconds
200 degree water
9 bars of pressure (machine)

For Cappuccino

~4oz high quality milk of YOUR CHOICE

1. Tare the Portafilter on the scale.

 
2. Make sure you’re using the amount of coffee recommended for your basket size. 
At Irving Farm we use 17-18 grams of ground coffee in the portafilter basket.

3. Using your finger or tapping the portafilter with your palm, create a level surface before tamping.

4. Keep your wrist straight and apply firm even pressure across the coffee bed as you tamp to ensure an even extraction.

5. Rinse the grouphead of your espresso machine, then carefully insert your portafilter into the Grouphead and start your espresso pull immediately.

6. Signs to look for in quality espresso:

a. The streams should drop down at approximately 5 seconds.
b. Both streams should flow evenly.
c. Espresso should be have a deep caramel color that lightens as the extraction nears finish.
d. You should see 35-40 grams of beverage weight in approximately 30 seconds. 

7. If you're continuing on to make a Cappuccino, aerate your milk of choice carefully for a few seconds.

Position the steam pitcher so the milk can move in a whirlpool like motion. Hold the position and continue until the milk reaches your ideal temperature. At Irving Farm we steam milk to approximately 145 degrees for cappuccinos.

8. Finish with a beautiful pour. 

Be sure to hold your cup by the handle and keep it tilted at a steep angle. Start off approximately 6 inches away from the surface of the espresso, filling the first halve of the cup and then slowly lowering your pitcher.
For best results when pouring, the tip of the pitcher should nearly touch the surface of the espresso.

We are proud to work with both Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns as their exclusive coffee partner. This season they're serving coffee from Nora Pillimue. Her coffee from the Huila region of Colombia is available only at Blue Hill's restaurants and Grain Bar.

Tasting Notes: 
Red Currant/ Sugar Cane/ Clove

Blue Hill at Stone Barns' world class restaurant is located on the grounds of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. In addition to the restaurant, they operate the Grain Bar where center visitors can pick up whole grain baked goods, flip through a copy of Chef Dan Barber's The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, and have our coffee. 

Our partnership with Blue Hill offers us the unique privilege of sharing our producer's stories with their staff. Mayita, from our coffee team, led a training session to pass along Nora Pillimue's story.

Nora has been a member of the Monserrate cooperative in Colombia since December 2015. She loves working with coffee, and picks and washes all of her farm's coffee with her husband and two children. When Mayita tasted Nora’s coffee during the cooperative’s seasonal competition, its delicacy and elegance paid tribute to the hard work the family puts into it and secured top honors. ⠀
⠀
We have been buying Nora’s coffee since 2016. ⠀

Live in New York City and sad about the lack of accessible farm stands? Cry no more, because you can get fresh, hyper-local, seasonal produce and meats in your own neighborhood.

Local Roots offers the option of subscribing to a season's worth of the goods along with information about the farmers you'll be buying from. A home delivery option is also available for the anti-social or over-scheduled.

Hosting a farm share pickup in our cafes offers us one more way to bring our philosophy into practice of committed partnerships with farmers producing the best products.

Local Roots hosts a happy hour every first Tuesday in our Upper East Side cafe. Chef Alejandro creates a recipe utilizing seasonal items available that day for everyone picking up to try and take a recipe card home.

Come to Happy Hour every first Tuesday
1424 3rd Ave

(Irving Farm recipe collaboration for happy hour using Local Roots produce)

Schedule your pickups here:

UES

Irving Farm Coffee Roasters
1424 3rd Ave
Tuesday 5-7pm

Gramercy
Irving Farm Coffee Roasters
71 Irving Place
Wednesday 5-7pm

Greenwich Village
Irving Farm Coffee Roasters
78 W. 3rd St
Wednesday 5:30-7:30pm

Committed, long-term partnerships are important to us, and our partnership with Natamaya is a great example of one.

In 2012, Nena Mendez, a 5th generation El Salvadoran coffee producer, walked into our 79th st cafe and noticed a mural from the farm next to her family farm, Finca Talnamica. She invited our green buyer, Dan Streetman, to visit the farm she owns with her husband Hermann, Natamaya, on his next trip to El Salvador.

In addition to the farm, Dan also got to see the Mendez family’s passion; a place in Juayua called Canton Ojo de Agua, where they have worked with the non-profit SQ Foundation to establish a school, living accomodations, soccer fields and a medical clinic.

Natamaya is named for Nena and Hermann’s daughters, Mayita and Natalia. In the 1950s their grandparents, Alfredo and Bessita Ortiz Mancia, purchased Natamaya’s sister farm, Finca Talnamica. Mayita started with Irving Farm as a barista at the shop that Nena originally visited and now is our Strategic Partnership manager and an integral part of our coffee team. All photos in this post are from her archives.

We donate $1 from each bag of Natamaya sold to support the SQ Foundation and their work in Canton Ojo de Agua. Donate here.

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