The final announcement we have as Avenue Coffee will come as a shock to some, while others will not be surprised in the least.  This will be our last blog post as the entity “Avenue Coffee,” as we are announcing our official alliance and merger with the Arizona roaster Cartel Coffee Lab. Be it model trains, base jumping, or snake wrangling, passionate people with very specific, if not outright bizarre, interests tend to feel alone in their pursuit of what fulfills them.  Some go to great lengths to find community within these sub-cultures.  Romantics would call this the need to find kindred spirits; like minded people that understand these common passions and ideals.  Specialty coffee is absolutely the same in regards to these small communities that have to organize and plan to maintain relationships over wide geographic areas, often spanning states, countries, and oceans.  This is the main reason this merge makes sense in our minds.  The state of Arizona has very little in regards to quality specialty coffee, and even the direction and incentive to strive for those standards.  We saw Cartel Coffee Lab as one of the only voices in the state that echoed those standards that we, as the coffee shop Avenue Coffee, grew into over the past year.

Transparency and sustainability might be buzz words in the larger context of specialty coffee, but we saw a company that used these as categories for quality control rather than preachy social awareness campaigns, or even worse, marketing.  We saw a desire to visit origin, and eventually develop relationships with farmers.  We saw passion and agency for employees to take ownership over their products and develop a culture of amazing coffee, reinforced at every level of employment, and few apologies for daring to implement a model that is quality driven.  Most importantly, we tasted their coffee, and all of these factors manifested in the cup.

We saw a lot of who we were as a coffee shop within the Cartel Coffee Lab culture, along with some elements that we were striving to incorporate as a business that employed high-skill coffee professionals.  It only made sense that when the discussion of our future expansion into aspects of coffee that we were naturally curious about (such as roasting), included Jason Silberschlag from Cartel, did the potential for an alliance of people immediately come up.  We could potentially pool our talents, whether it be design, business, technical knowledge, or people skills, and used our common love for coffee to make a cohesive entity in the southwest that voices our standards for specialty coffee.  We could work together doing something we love, and grow our base so that our conversations and standards for coffee can be multifaceted, well rounded, and three dimensional, all while geeking out on coffee in our spare time.

Some might believe that we our losing our voice and identity in this arrangement and that the coffee shop they knew is gone, and those people are entitled to their opinions.  We, however, believe being a single voice in the Arizona coffee culture is not nearly as productive as a group of people, spread out over two cities, all openly debating and striving for amazing coffee.  There are few opportunities to collaborate with a group of passionate people in any sort of specialty industry, and this one was obvious, and natural for us.  After all the due diligence and proper vetting, we are happy to be the same group of people, in the same shop, under the name of Cartel Coffee Lab.
Send all comments/questions to info@cartelcoffeelab.com

Menu

Our menu is now shorter, simplistic, and possibly lacking in your favorite beverage. While we sympathize if your favorite drink did not make the cut to our new menu, we stand by our decision to only have items that allow our coffee to be express by our baristas, and experienced by our customers in a way that does justice to all the hard working individuals involving in making that one cup of coffee. We work very hard, in our constant study and training, to find the best ways to serve coffee, and to change a lot of ideology surrounding coffee by bringing a huge knowledge base, professionalism, and passion to our craft. For this reason, we may in some cases have to refuse a request by a customer to tamper with a drink. This has much more to do with the quality of our products and the idea of promoting coffee rather than syrup/sugar/ice cream, and much less to do with denying customers what they desire. We do not make decisions arbitrarily, or maliciously. If you find yourself unsure of what to order because your usual drink has fallen by the wayside, please ask your barista to find a suitable replacement. We are more than happen to share what we know about our coffees, and the best ways to drink them.

Price

Our prices have gone up. We have gone through several coffee roasters within the lifespan of the shop, with our prices remaining exactly the same. The Intelligentsia coffees were a pivotal point in our progression as a shop, as the quality was dramatically higher than anything else offered in Tucson at the time. Our plans to change the pricing structure existed before this more recent change to Cartel coffees, and just happen to coincide with these changes. We have already blogged on the topic of coffee prices, so we won’t repeat our reasoning behind higher coffee prices in general.

In a similar vein, all of our milk will now be organic. We have made this decision in light of the large majority of our coffee also being paired with milk, and, again, a dedication to quality. Another reason for higher prices is our new commitment to having a greener business. We find it nearly impossible to talk about sustainable sources of coffee while our own business is the source of avoidable waste. Our cups are now supplied by Eco Products, a company dedicated to creating products that are compostable and environmentally sound.

Coffee

Our coffee is now coming from a roaster based in Phoenix. Cartel Coffee Labs has a dedication to quality and transparency, which includes offering coffees that are traceable to individual farms, many of which have been visited by Cartel staff to ensure quality and suitable working conditions for workers. We have switched back to a “local” roaster for our coffee, but not for that reason alone. Coffee is intrinsically a non-local commodity, farmed in largely the third world, and shipped to the first world. With these power dynamics and relations, we believe it is more important to find people that are socially aware and responsible, rather than just a local business to align with. The shop will always support local business, but we will never compromise our dedication to quality and social awareness when it comes to our coffee. As long as the quality and traceability of coffee roasted in the Tucson remains static, we will look elsewhere for the quality we want, and the socially just practices we believe should be the rule in this industry rather than the exception.

Even with this lengthy explanation of our intentions and direction of our shop, we are sure some of you will still be unhappy, confused, or just flat out disagree with our decisions. That is to be expected, and your sentiments are noted, but we firmly and strongly believe these changes are necessary to elevate the state of coffee in Tucson, in Arizona, and across the country. The direction we are going is not new, and we are not the first to jump in this movement people are calling “third wave.” We do, however, believe we are filling a much needed hole in the coffee culture of Tucson by providing quality, traceable coffee, high skilled baristas, and passionate staff that are constantly refining the craft of making coffee. As we learn more, and digest more information about coffee, there will always be more changes in the future. We hope that you would trust us with our profession, and trust that we make decisions based on the good of all of those involved in the coffee industry, including farmers, baristas, shop owners, and customers. As always, our customer service will always be a priority. We just ask that in return, customers respect our authority on a subject we dedicate a large portion of our lives to master, and our decisions when it comes to the business that we would like to conduct.

And now, for a final big announcement…(to be continued..)

We work very hard.  There isn’t anything easy about what we do..we put in a ton of hours, over-caffeinate ourselves, sacrifice normal lives  and most of the time.. we forget that we are running a business.  Which is why right now I am typing 200 words per minute, sitting in my office at Avenue Coffee..while the Super Bowl is on.  That probably doesnt sound like a whole lot of fun to most people, but we love what we do.  We want our baristas to love what they do and be paid a wage that reflects that passion, love, professionalism and expertise.

Its time for us to do a better job of educating our customers.

Check out the article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/business/smallbusiness/14sbiz.html

In the end, we do what we think is best for our business, and for ourselves.  That is the beauty of a free market, and a great country.  If you care enough about the product you serve, and treat it with enough respect, you get to decide exactly how you want to serve it and most of your customers will respect you because of it.

“The customer really isn’t always right.”  I say this with all do respect.

As I was posting this, the question was posed to and answered by CoffeeGeek.com owner Mark, on Formspring.me, coincidentally..so as fate would have it, I will post the link to his answer.  Another good explanation is located at Ethical Coffee.net.

We use both Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea Inc as well as PT’s Coffee for all of our coffee offerings.  Both of these companies engage in Direct Trade, and we believe, are leading the pack into fresh new territory.  We are honored to be serving their coffee, and do the best we can to serve it with highest standards possible.

Below you will find some multimedia on both of these companies, and how they are doing their part to make a difference.

First the links to each companies Direct Trade program “narrative”, Intelligentsia and PT’s Coffee.

Taller de Cafe Extraordinario from Intelligentsia Coffee

“PT’s Coffee Gombe Coffee Project” Part 1

“PT’s Coffee Gombe Coffee Project” Part 2

“PT’s Coffee Gombe Coffee Project” Part 3

“PT’s Coffee Gombe Coffee Project” Part 4

Responsible, sustainable partnerships with the growers of the coffee we drink is essential to being a good human being, and we commend those who participate in models that actually work.  From seed to cup, we need to recognize how important all of this REALLY is.  This is a top priority for Avenue Coffee.

PT's Cupping

Tomorrow we get to shake things up a bit at Avenue Coffee.  Kasey Klimes from PT’s Coffee Roasting Co. (Roaster of the Year), and Luis Till from Amauta Coffee have put together a wonderful cupping tomorrow , Friday, at 10:00a.m.  It includes some amazing coffees and a guaranteed learning experience and it’s open to anyone that would like to come, learn and enjoy good company!

For those of you that may not be able to make it, we will most definitely have more cupping opportunities in the future.  If you want to learn a little more about it, there is a great guide over at CoffeeGeek.com , the “Beginner’s Guide to Cupping.”  We look forward to meeting you Kasey!

Speaking of North America, the map above plots out some of the roasters we are going to try and get on board, they include:
Verve, Ritual, Sightglass, Four Barrel, Stumptown, Blue Bottle, 49th Parallel, Counter Culture and Arizona’s own Cartel Coffee.

Ideally we will be serving some wicked cool roasters who are pushing the envelope for what espresso really can be. Different can be a very, very good thing.    We will be chronicalling the journey via this blog, Facebook and Twitter for those that are interested in our findings and experiences.  The idea here is not to critique coffees, but to enjoy what each roaster has to offer and enjoy how different each espresso can be.

In the coming weeks you are going to be seeing this come to fruition, along with some other cool changes.  As roasters come on board, we will let you know the schedule and when you will be able to come in and give it a try!  Stayed tuned Tucson, a coffee EXPERIENCE is right around the corner.

Remember we close at 8, so if you need a caffeinated beverage to get you through the night… Come in early!