By Sal Pizarro

Mercury News

First it was wine. Then it was specialty beers. Now coffee is the latest beverage to rise above its proletarian origins and develop its own elitist culture.

“The Bay Area is really experiencing an espresso renaissance,” said Andy Newbom, owner of Barefoot Coffee Roasters in Santa Clara.

Coffee, Newbom said, has entered a third wave of popularity. The first was your standard Folgers drip, the second was the espresso revolution started by Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee & Tea. And now, discriminating coffee lovers are going beyond chain coffee shops and are willing to pay a premium for higher quality and more variety.

“It’s very similar to the wine industry,” says Newbom, 33, who prefers the very Silicon Valley title of “chief espresso officer.” “It’s just beginning, so it’s not as developed. But in the last five years, it’s really begun to take off.”

This weekend, Barefoot Coffee Roasters will host the Western Barista Guild Jam at the Professional Culinary Institute in Campbell. The two-day event is primarily for professionals — cafe owners, chefs and baristas — but there are a couple of components for the home brewer.

If you want to elevate your morning cup of coffee, the event’s Home Espresso Festival on Sunday will feature the latest espresso machines for your kitchen. Also Sunday at the Iron Barista Competition, teams will compete to make four drinks and a food item using coffee and a secret ingredient. Go to www.westernbaristaguildjam.com for details.

“If we want to get anything out of this,” Newbom said, “it will be to get people to treat coffee as culinary art rather than a caffeinated drug.”

It’s new coffee crop time!

New coffees coming, changes to some standards and a whole bunch of killer new farm direct offerings that will make you shout for joy. So the Barefoot crew has been madly scurrying around sourcing some pretty amazing new coffees. With the amazing success we have had with the multiple award winning Finca Vista Hermosa Guatemala Estate Reserve and the Peaberry Reserve from the wonderful Martinez family in Huehuetenango Barefoot has been working hard to source some equally amazing coffees direct from the farmer to bring you similar world exclusive coffees that are astounding in flavor complexity, depth of character, sustainability and history. Stay tuned for coming announcements of all the amazing coffees that Barefoot will be getting our happy hands on this summer! So to kick things off with an explosive bang of flavor intensity and amazing coffee read on about the new coffees we have already in house.

Kenya Kagumoini – Dorman Estates – shade grown
Kenyan coffees are prized for their breathtaking red wine syrupyness and mouth tinglingly bright acidity. The best Kenyans can be a fruit bomb of citrus sweetness and winey snap. Top Kenyan coffees are fetching ever higher prices at auctions due to an intense and comprehensive quality control process and great hands-on farming expertise.

And then there is the best of the best. Those ultra rare Kenyan coffees that so blow through these high expectations that one is left almost speechless at their complex flavor.

Enter Kenya Kagumoini Dorman Estates AA reserve . This is a Kenya like no other. It is hard to believe the intensity of flavor in this amazing bean. Brew this coffee in a French press and close your eyes as you take a sip. Your mouth will fill with the unmistakable, pure sweet essence of yellow grape tomatoes and red, ripe sweet bell peppers. Yes tomatoes and red peppers. Think savory explosion rather than sweet acidity. Kenya Kagumoini tastes like the best fresh pureed tomatoe bisque soup you could ever imagine with the perfect amount of huckleberry zing, petitie sryah red wine lilt and the sweetest most exhilarating aftertaste ever. It is quite simply the most remarkable coffee I have ever tasted.

It was the top auction winner from the top AA Kenya Auctions and it was the most expensive coffee at it’s acution for good reason. Nothing else even came close to the price paid for this remarkable coffee. And Barefoot bought it all. Barefoot is the sole owner of all three of these bags of mind blowing Kenyan bliss. It is expensive and worth twice what it costs. If you want to let your customers taste an out of this world coffee grab a bag of the Kenya Kagumoini today. Brew it by the cup in a French press for $3.50 for a 20 ounce cup. It is a steal at only $12.00 a pound wholesale and $21.00 retail. And once this coffee is gone it is gone for ever.

Mexican Chiapas Otillo –Fair Trade, Organic, Shade grown
The brand new crop is in! The Professorio Otillo that grows this amazing coffee for us is in the highlands of Chiapas in southern Mexico. Democratically run, organically grown and harvested, grown under native shade trees and Fair Trade certified Otillo is a model coffee co-op that produces world class coffees. Our Mexican Chiapas Otillo is an outstanding coffee with lyrical sweetness, a rich lush body and amazing chocolate tea highlights that are a pure delight to your tongue. Mexican coffees suffer from a bit of underrating but the Chiapas Otillo changes all that. This is a fantasticly great coffee that is superb as a single origin and brings some amazing sweet chocolate tea notes in several of our blends. If you have not tasted how great our super high grown, exceptionally well processed and expertly roasted Chiapas is then you better taste this one now.

Well it’s official. Apparently word is getting out about Barefoot coffees and the passion and craftsmanship put into each roast. It has been a veritable avalanche of praise and awards heaped on Barefoot for coffee excellence in the last few weeks.

First in the March 2006 issue, Food and Wine Magazine rated Barefoot Coffee Roasters as one of the top four Best Boutique Roasters in the entire country! Wow! And the other three roasters were all five to ten times larger than Barefoot and all have been around for 3-7 years. (mad love to the big rockers onthe list: Stumptown, Terroir and OCUnter Culture! You guys are the kings!) Not bad for a scrappy little artisan roastery in Silicon Valley. But wait, there’s more! Then Food and Wine Magazine also chose their top ten coffees in the entire country. Barefoot’s very own exclusive Finca Vista Hermosa Guatemala estate reserve coffee and the mighty micro-lot Costa Rica Monte Crisol from Cooparlmes were chosen as two of their top ten best coffees in the entire country as well.

But wait there is even more! Just this week CoffeeReview.com released their top Boutique espressos ratings. This time the delectable Sweetness! Espresso was among the top 10 best espressos in the country and received a glowing overall score of 90 out of 100. This is an amazing feat and very rare! They judged and tasted over 40 of the best of the best espressos from across the country and did blind taste tests. (Last year our Bossa Nova espresso received an overall 88 and was also in the top ten organic espressos.)

So apparently Barefoot coffee doesn’t totally suck. So get out there and shout it from the rooftops: “Barefoot coffee rocks!”

If you are in the East Bay and are looking for a great cappuccino or machiatto then fly your body on over to the coffee wonderkinds at Eon Cafe. Across the street from Chabot College Eon Cafe is a beautiful cafe in a prime spot.

But what truly sets Eon Cafe apart is their coffee and espresso. They are artisan brewers of Barefoot’s artisan roasts and they do the beans a great justice. Sporting their brand new LaMarzocco Linea 3 group and Mazzer grinders the crew at Eon pulls espresso magic from the Sweetness and Redwood espressos on tap. They take the craft of the Barista very seriously and it shows in their amazing well prepared and delicious espresso drinks. They have been open for only a short 7 months and already are starting to build  a loyal fan base of avid coffee lovers. Birgit and Yoshi and the entire Eon crew are obsessive about making the best coffee and espresso in the Bay Area.

Eon Cafe also has a very unique water filtration system that produces Pi water. Check it out here. They make their own super high quality Sushi on site from their great sushi chef from Japan. All of their food is simply amazing. And they also carry Barefoot’s award winning tea line from Rishi. Try it all you will like it.
Stop by Eon Cafe this week and order a Machiatto or Cappuccino and be ready to be dazzled. And if you like what you taste then spread the word.

A little friendly podcast action going into cyberspace about the Barista Guild Jam. Word is getting out there. It seems thee whole world is coming to play coffee with us.

Are you?

Top seven; comrades:

1. Monica R Hill will be there
2. Attending is the ONLY way you can get one of the “Make Coffee. Not War” tshirts
3. Mirage, GB5 and lever all in one spot
4. Ken Davids cupping with YOU
5. Iron Barista Competition
6. Breakfast and lunch is included
7. You are breathtakingly close to the Barefoot

So what are your top seven reasons for going?

Barefoot getting a little air time to spread the great coffee dogma. World of Food on 910 KNEW  had a full hour of of Barefoot and coffee talkin from Andy Newbom. Aparently the FCC was not paying attention. There oughta be a law about this kind of revolutionary talk on the public airwaves.