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Dark Matter Coffee & Friends is a two day pop-up in the Shibuya-Ku neighborhood of Tokyo, hosted by Craftheads. Featuring experimental coffees, beer collaborations, artwork from Shawnimals and a Public Image Ltd presentation from Martin Atkins! Join us Thursday & Friday, September 20 & 21st starting at 11:00am!

 

S.A.C.R.E.D. is a Chicago-based nonprofit that uses traditional and artisanal agave spirits to improve quality of life in rural Mexico. You may remember them from past collaborations/coffee projects like this:

 or agave distillations like this:

They use revenue generated from tastings and events to build libraries and greenhouses and to maintain water preservation systems in the same communities where agave spirits are fermented and distilled. In order to continue this growth and revitalization, they need your help. The best part? All you have to do is grab a drink and join a tasting! Here's the upcoming event schedule:

 

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The Pumpkin Spice 5K Run/Walk takes place during the most beautiful time of year in Chicago and along its spectacular lakefront.  Join us for a scenic, family-friendly 5K Run or Walk through the historic lakefront area of Chicago’s Jackson Park.

RACE BENEFICIARY

Whitney Young High School is Chicago’s first public magnet school bringing together students from across Chicago. Whitney Young provides an academically rigorous education, consistently ranked among the best public high schools in the state and the top 50 in the nation. It was recently named the most diverse school in the nation. Each year 2,200 students walk the halls, study in classrooms, labs and libraries, and participate in over 100 clubs, 52 athletic sports teams and fine and performing arts. For the 5th year in a row, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) names it “The School of Champions”. Help support the academic, athletic and artistic excellence and be a part of the Pumpkin Spice 5k.

 

Every Saturday morning, you can count on Shawnimals being at Star Lounge, hanging out and chatting it up with his fellow friends and neighbors. So we are stoked that a piece, or pieces, of Shawnimals will be around 7 days a week, as he is the featured guest artist for his favorite watering hole. His work is WELL KNOWN throughout the world through his Ninjatown video game, plush toys, and also as a featured artist in March 2016's Ninja Blend. Check out all of his rad things, read epic stories of good versus evil, and download his Ninjatown game at Ninjatown.com and Shawnimals.com. The kick off party will be Friday, October 6th, complete with coffee, music, beer and snacks! 

 

A universal notation that can be applied anywhere.  

DMC are crazy beer geeks just like you. From our collaborations, to our packaging, etc, it's a fact that we love beer. Now we have taken things a step further and incorporated different fermentation using ingredients that make beer possible. These experimental processes are new to both the DMC inventory and the coffee community as a whole. Our goal is using a culinary approach to coffee, combined with knowledge, and fun, we learned from our many beer collaborations over the years. Now combining all that together, we are ready to introduce a new series of coffees that will satisfy even the biggest beer geek/coffee fanatic out there. 

These releases will be a combination of single origin and blends, using hopped or yeast fermented coffee. (Just like the beer making process) The first two in the series, Citra hops and Saison yeast, were also released last year, with great success. This year's harvest is no different, yielding yet another round of delicious coffees. 

Future releases will involve the following yeast or hops. 
Crystal Hop Fermented Catuai
Beer Blend (Combining one yeast and one hop fermented coffee.)
Bohemian Weiss Yeast fermented Catuai
Hallertau Blanc Hop Fermented Catuai

Saison Fermented Catuai

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a species of yeast primarily needed to produce beer, wine and bread. Because of the abilities of this microbe, Saccharomyces has become one of the most studied and cultivated organisms in the world.

Yeast, a type of fungi, is a single cell organism needed for coffee to be processed. To be clear, coffee fermentation doesn't need Saccharomyces, as there is a whole universe of other yeasts out there for fermentation. Fermentation tanks usually consist of a soup of microbes that also feed on coffee sugars and are almost always open air, and made of cement. Beer, wine and bread need the byproducts of yeast for them to be successful and gain complexity and flavor, while coffee does not. At the very least, coffee needs microbes to break down the sugary gelatinous layer of pectin surrounding a coffee bean to be dried properly. We've purposefully inoculated coffee fermentation tanks with Saccharomyces so we can layer the esters and acids it produces into the coffee.

When propagated, yeast will live the most amazingly simple life on the planet - it eats, it mates and sleeps in abundance, and if it's happy, that's all these critters will do their entire life. All yeast strains have slightly different preferences to be happy but overall they need:
-Sugar
-water with regulated temperature and pH
-oxygen
We've had great results from Saison yeast in the past. It's sturdy and not particularly fussy over its environment or *food*. Characteristics like this are ideal for us, due to the unruly and unpredictable nature of open-air fermentation tanks. Saison yeast produces esters and phenols that give saison beer their signature flavors - think bubblegum, banana or clove. As the coffee sits, it can absorb these flavors and take on a unique set of characteristics.

Once the saison yeast is active, we add it to the fermentation tank with freshly pulped coffee. This process fundamentally alters the ecosystem of the tank. The combined characteristics will stay present through the rest of processing, roasting and finally brewing.

Citra Hopped Catuai
We have played with hopping coffees using two processes. Currently, we send out iced coffee brewed with Citra hops, but this process is not related to this whole bean coffee. 

In this process we added dry hops to freshly pulped coffee in a fermentation tank at the farm. Hops flowers have resin glands that produce bittering compounds that inhibit microbial production. The dissolved hops make a "marinade" for the coffee to ferment. Similarly to the saison yeast, the roasted coffee has a subtle layer of hop character, which should add juicy fruity qualities to the bean.