Mindful of the importance of our products, we set out to find out the best coffee, tea, and syrups. I have thought about roasting coffee(maybe even within the store) to create the novelty factor of freshness, but I realize that this is not my forte right now and it is not the best move to deliver quality to the customers.  Through drinking coffee at multiple independent cafes, research, and word-of-mouth, I managed to contact and visit some of the top Canadian roasters, both huge and micro-roasters.

Samples of coffee samples that I have sampled

They include Globe, Reunion Island,  Patera,  Equator,  Bona Fide, Mark H  from Ontario; Moccasin-Jo and Toi Moi et Cafe from Quebec; 49th Parallel from Vancouver;  and from sampling in cafes, Classic, Illy, and Intelligentsia. Apart from the last 2, all the coffees are roasted by Canadians and it is our goal to support Canadian roasters by serving and selling them at Red Bulb. While they vary in size, origins, and taste profiles, all of them share a common passion for coffee and it is amazing how they could transform green beans into the myriad range of coffee blends and flavours.

This is freaking good coffee!

Our direction at Red Bulb will be to carry coffees from two  roasters and profile coffees from independent micro-roasters. This will provide opportunities for roasters who are starting up/looking to expand their business to showcase their products and also for Red Bulb’s customers to enjoy a wide variety of coffee. We have not decided which coffee roaster to go with but we do know the characteristics of the coffee we would like for our espresso and brewed coffee, and we have come across a few that are able to meet this.

What we would also want to do is to thank each and every coffee roaster we have met. I have spoken about their passion for coffee, but what also stands out is their willingness to share their product knowledge, time to run through their roasting process, and their belief in letting their coffee speak for themselves. Regardless of who we will be working with, they will always remain a part of Red Bulb’s journey. We are blessed to have the opportunity to try their coffee.

Kay is playing at Moccasin Jo; it is situated within Kanehsatake Mohawk Territory in Quebec

With Walter at Moccasin Jo

p/s: will be talking about syrups and chocolates in my next blog entry, stay tuned!

The blog has been silent for a while as we have been busy working out lease locations and possibilities these past few weeks. Nothing firmed up yet but hopefully we could settle something really soon. In the meantime, I am finalizing my search for coffee suppliers and we should be set pretty soon. Meeting 49th parallel at Vancouver and also roasters at Quebec and Ottawa next week.

Vancouver’s trip will be fun, not only because I will be seeing multiple exhibitors and also the Canadian Barista Championships, but also because I will be meeting up with friends in Vancouver. It’s been some time since i travel to BC(last time in 2008 May) and it will be great to see the ocean. What a difference a year makes – no more staying at grand hotels and taking cabs courtesy of Telus, but budget travel on limited Red Bulb savings (thanks Chris N for putting me up for a few days). It is all good though – I am really enjoying the experiences of working on Red Bulb for the last few months; it’s been a different lingo altogether.

The La Marzocco FB80 - does this not make you yearn for a latte?

La Marzocco and Synesso are generally regarded by the coffee folks to be the 2 leading brands for espresso machines – an important principle of Red Bulb is to ensure the best quality in our product offerings, and even though it costs a fair bit more to go for the best machines, it will provide our customers with the best espresso. Talks are still ongoing and hopefully we can reach a fair deal with La Marzocco. The other area I have to settle on is the drip coffee brewing machines – again I am focusing on quality and it will either be the Twin Infusion Bunn or the Fetco Extraction series with pulse brewing. I could not wait to serve out the coffee to Red Bulb’s customers.

I have also been discussing extensively with coffee suppliers, including areas like the syrups, teas, chai, disposable cups etc. A cafe looks really simple to set up but the list of inventory runs and runs, and then runs some more. Great machines must go with great coffee and I have obtained plenty of samples this week to test out the right product mix to bring into Red Bulb, in addition to all the coffee that I have drank while visiting cafes around the city.

Another big area is the non-coffee equipment that has to be brought in. This includes the oven, pastry case, coolers(kitchen and undercounter), blenders, ice-machine, kitchen sink, freezer, dishwasher, panini press, cash register, water softener, water filtration – this is of course only a partial list of items. I have been visiting both old and new equipment places and they have been an eye-opening experience, especially the price tags associated with the commercial equipment. To say that they are not cheap is the biggest understatement – I have to figure out how we can get some of these equipment used to stay within our budget.

Last but not least, we bought a bulb making tool that basically allows us to create hanging lamps from discarded bulbs.

Hanging Lamp with discarded bulbs

We intend to build 3 of these hanging lamps above our coffee bar counter and I think it fits in so nicely with Red Bulb. If you have any unused or spoilt E27 bulbs, please give us a shout and we will come and pick them up – we need loads of them.

Although it has been an extremely busy and stressful week, I have not enjoyed myself so much in a long time – I guess the passion has fueled me and it is exciting to see my seven-year cafe dream slowly turn into tangibles.  I guess it is somewhat disappointing and frustrating to find out over the past 2 days that we are not moving forward with 6130 as there are additional leasehold improvement costs that we have been asked to pay. Hey, nobody says this is easy – life always throws you a sidewinder when you least expect it and it is a matter of picking myself up and try some other place again.

Let’s move on and forward…

It is pretty interesting … that Red Bulb’s first Cafe may end up being located in a Victorian Building circa 1886. We will be taking cues from this relationship for sure. I’m thinking reclaimed wood elements with industrial cast-iron black accents, modern red mosaics and … exposed light bulbs !

This will probably be the general colour palette with punches of red.

We managed to visit Red Rocket, Mercury, Darkhorse, Ed’s Ice-cream, Simple, Lucaffe, LPK, Te Aro. Most of the cafes do not disappoint and I have to say, even for someone who is a Starbucks fan, the coffee served up is great. We would say we like the coffee best at Mercury, friendliness most at Red Rocket, atmosphere felt best at Darkhorse, and found the concept coolest at Te Aro(it is actually built out of a garage). One thing we found at most of the cafes is that they keep the menu simple, use biodegradable cups,  and of course brew fair trade/organic coffee.

Definitely happy to see the cafes striving and doing well – my hope is that I could open up an independent in the Markham/Richmond Hill/Stouffville area. Instead of the commerical fares like Tim Hortons and Starbucks, would people here give independents a chance? I would hope so.