The Central Canadian Barista Championship happens next week in Toronto, and our own CC (also known as Cheese) will be throwing her hat in the ring.  We have at the moment two new espresso blends for retail designed for competition use, and we’ll also be offering some very special espresso available this weekend only.  Come by and wish CC good luck and feel free to ask about our new espresso blends.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be replacing our Tanzanian Songea and Costa Rica Santa Laura with three new coffees:  Another Costa Rica that 49th Parallel is extremely excited about, our first El Salvador offering in almost a year, and a sadly untraceable Ethiopian Yirgacheffe will complement the incumbent offerings.

I also expect to retail the espresso with which CC and I will be competing with next month in Toronto.  It will temporarily be featured as the Espresso Myriade beginning mid to late next month.

We’ll be open as usual for Canada Day and the weekend following.

But open June 25th and on and on.

We don’t often get to offer a good reason to buy coffee aside from thinking it tastes pretty great, but for the next few weeks we can aim to please more than just the palate.   The much-talked about Ethiopian Sidamo Nekisse will be available for retail only (for the time being) for $30/12oz bag.  49th Parallel is donating every dollar to benefit Imagine1Day, a charity providing for quality of life in Ethiopia.  Specifically, sales of this coffee will go to building a school for Ethiopian children.  It’s one of the very, very few natural processed coffees we’ll ever offer and we’re happy to be part of such an ambitious and well-intentioned project.  We expect you’ll find the coffee to be among the most interesting and memorable you’ve ever tasted.

To less fanfare, we’ve also added a new Kenyan coffee, the Handege AA, to the menu retailing at $18/120z.  As with all of our other coffees except for the Nekisse, you can try this offering brewed any way you like.

Lastly, we’ve added three new oolongs, two darjeelings, and a green tea to the tea menu debuting this weekend.  See you soon.

As of tomorrow our terrasse will be open as usual all day long.  Thank you for your patience.

2010 crops of tea are en route to Myriade and should be here within a month, and when they arrive we’ll host at least one and up to as many tastings as demand calls for.  Our next coffee tasting will be the second weekend of June where we’ll be sampling coffees extracted to different degrees.  This is a fairly advanced tasting and not something we’d particularly recommend to somebody as their first experience at one of our tastings, but nonetheless I expect everyone will experience something new with regard to tasting and understanding coffee extraction.  You can reserve by coming instore and prepaying the $10 fee as a deposit.  See you then!

Our terrasse will be semi-closed for parts of the coming days, mostly for the morning until early afternoon.  We’re taking safety precautions while the building we’re situated within renovates its roof, but when work is finished each day (around 3PM) or as soon as we’re assured it’s safe, we’ll reopen the terrasse to its capacity.  We appreciate your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience, we’re looking forward to the completion of construction as much as you are.

Starting at the end of this week we’ll no longer have Ethiopian Sidamo Shoye or the Brazil Ambiental on offer, but on the bright side we’ll have three new Colombian coffees in rotation for brewing and retail.  We’re planning a tasting soon to try the Colombians against some of our current favourite coffees.  Also, our 2010 crops of tea should be arriving within a month or so and we’ll be sure to inform you more thoroughly when we do have them in stock.  Happy end of snow season!

Scott’s new book is now available at the cafe for purchase.  As many of you already are aware, this is his second book following-up to The Professional Barista’s Handbook and makes an excellent companion for those whose interest in coffee extends beyond espresso.  The text explores approach and preparation in addition to detailing step-by-step brewing guides for different methods.  In my admittedly biased opinion, there’s no parallel for professionals (or amateur enthusiasts) interested in learning how to brew better coffee.  We’re proudly selling it for $35.00, if you’re not in Montreal please visit www.scottrao.com for more information.

Tomorrow will see the return of our full menu of iced beverages, including our cold-brewed iced coffee!  Everything on our regular menu is available in iced form, but we’re adding homemade iced tea and the aforementioned iced coffee as well.  It’s amazing how few synonyms there are for the word “iced” in this context.  Also to remind you, despite the holiday it will be business as usual this weekend at Myriade.