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Inspired by our recent launch of The Mierisch Project Box Set, we took a trip down memory lane with Amanda Byron, Joe's first Director of Coffee, to learn more about the origins of our relationship with the Mierisch family. To explore these early beginnings, we would be remiss not to first introduce you to Amanda. Not only was Amanda Joe's first Director of Coffee, she was employee number one, helping our founder Jonathan Rubinstein open Waverly Place. In those early days of specialty coffee in New York City when latte art was still a novelty, Amanda was our go-to pourer of latte art, which meant that at first, our Waverly cafe hours were built entirely around her availability. During her 13 years at Joe, Amanda became a vital part of our growing company, touching nearly every part of the business, including getting our roasting operation off the ground in 2013. Our relationship with the Mierisch family, who is deeply intertwined in the Joe Coffee story, spans several countries and many years, but can be traced back to meeting Steve Mierisch in New York. We first met Steve when he worked in sales and customer service for our coffee provider at the time, Ecco Caffe (which later became Intelligentsia). Steve, whose family owns Fincas Mierisch in Nicaragua and Honduras, eventually went on to open the Pulley Collective, a shared roasting space at the Liberty Warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It was here in this 19th century waterfront warehouse, and thanks to Steve, that we got our start in roasting.[caption id="attachment_45316" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Pulley Collective[/caption]The Beginnings of Pulley Collective & Joe RoastingIn the days when we were purchasing coffee from Intelligentsia, Amanda often traveled to Chicago to visit their roastery. On one such trip, she can recall sitting in the booth of a dark bar with Steve and other folks from Intelligentsia when he told her about his idea to open a co-roasting space in New York. Although she'd never heard of such a thing before, she had a feeling it could be a good fit for Joe. Making the move to roasting our own coffee was something that had been at the back of Amanda and Jonathan's minds for some time." Once we got to a certain number of cafes, it just made sense to take production like this in-house," she explains. "I don't know how things would be if Joe didn't have that as a stepping stone."[caption id="attachment_45313" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Amanda with Ed Kaufmann, Former Director of Sourcing, in 2014[/caption]From Pulley Collective to Sourcing From Fincas MierischOnce we got going at Pulley, it was only a matter of time before we began sourcing coffee from Fincas Mierisch and got to know the rest of the family. Although our first "Joe" coffee wasn't a Mierisch coffee (it was actually from our partner Wilmar Guarnizo), our sourcing relationship began soon after we began roasting all of our own coffee. Amanda recalls, "When we first started roasting, we only did 10% and the other 90% came from Intelly. But once we started roasting 100%, my guess is that a Mierisch coffee was on that menu very early on. It was also the first relationship we had where we traveled to the farm to select lots." When asked if she has any favorite memories from her sourcing trips to Nicaragua, Amanda says, "So many! I just remember thinking it was truly one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. I felt so lucky to be able to see the entire coffee process as it happened and to do that with the Mierisch family was really special. I loved riding in the back of the pickup truck, I loved the food (and the Flor de Cana!), I loved wandering through endless coffee trees and tasting coffee fruit. My understanding and love of coffee deepened and grew so much during those trips as did my relationships with the people who I got to travel with."[caption id="attachment_45314" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Amanda with Eleane Mierisch in 2014[/caption]Setting the Tone for Future PartnershipsVisiting the Mierisches in Nicaragua every year has become an integral part of who we are, and this foundation of friendship has truly set the tone for how we've evolved as buyers of green coffee. "There's a certain legitimacy of having real genuine relationships with the people who are producing your coffee. It takes you to a different level," Amanda says, "It not a 'direct trade' that's just for show." As we've grown and forged new partnerships around the world, we've held on to this as an important example of what a sourcing relationship can and should be. Importantly, as with any relationship, we believe that the value in our sourcing relationships must flow both ways. In this pandemic climate where coffee producers are shouldering an even greater share of the risk, it has been an opportunity for us to experience how we can share risk more equitably and a good reminder of how important it is to be honest business partners. That's why we were eager to collaborate with the Mierisch family on The Mierisch Project Box Set, to provide a sales outlet for this special trio of coffees which were grown, processed, imported, and roasted (at Pulley Collective!) entirely by the family. Shop and learn more about this collaboration here.[caption id="attachment_45345" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] On a sourcing trip in 2015[/caption]

2020 has been a difficult year up and down the coffee supply stream. With demand on the decline, producers like our friends at Fincas Mierisch have had difficulties finding buyers for their high-quality, meticulously cared-for coffees. As roasters, we too have felt the constraints caused by the global health crisis, unable to be the good partners we have been in the past, but eager to help. This dynamic is what led us to collaborate on the release of the The Mierisch Project Box Set, a collection of three special coffees from the Mierisch family's farms in Honduras. As a vertically integrated business, Fincas Mierisch is responsible for producing, exporting, importing, and roasting this coffee. We're excited to be able to offer this incredible set directly to our customers—an effort to share risk with our friends and partners in an unprecedented time.On the heels of the release of this set, we took a moment to connect with Wingo Mierisch to hear how they've fared this year.Q: How has the pandemic affected you all personally? A: The pandemic has been especially hard because we lost someone that was with Fincas Mierisch for over 50 years: Enrique Morraz. Losing him was like losing a family member. Our dear farm manager of our farms in Honduras passed away due to Covid in July. Q: When did the worst of the pandemic hit Nicaragua, and what was the response from the community and local authorities? A: May/June were the worst months for the pandemic in Nicaragua and Honduras as this was the time when hospitals reached full capacity. The Nicaraguan government initially didn’t take the virus very seriously, even claiming that it was just another strain of the flu so their response was really slow and inadequate. No restrictions or work closures were enforced in Nicaragua. Honduras had a better response, they closed their borders (essentially locking us out of Honduras since March) and restricted the days and where people could travel (also which business were allowed to stay open). However, these restrictions in Honduras did have a toll as many producers were not able to buy all necessary supplies to prepare for the next harvest and many had issues with coordinating exportation dates with the shipping lines that were working with minimal staff. In Honduras local authorities, such as the ones near our farms, restricted access in and out of the villages. Local authorities in Nicaragua were initially pretty relaxed but now there is an information campaign going on to inform and educate people on best practices to prevent the spread of Covid. Especially in Nicaragua, the brunt of the burden was taken on by individuals, communities, and private businesses to instill and follow safety protocols. Q: Did you take on responsibility for your crew in ways that differed from the official/governmental response? How were your teams affected by all of that? A: In Nicaragua we pretty much had to take full responsibility for our crew as the government response was inadequate and neglectful. We made sure to purchase and hand out masks and alcohol gel/spray to our entire team, enforced social distancing, created smaller crews/shifts, and we even have taken the extra step to hold meetings with our team and fellow producers to talk about best safety practices to prevent the spread of Covid. In Honduras, thankfully the government has been more helpful with their response so we do not have to take on as much responsibility with providing PPE, as the government was giving these out, but we still made sure to educate and try to enforce from afar the proper safety protocols. After the death of Don Enrique we paid out of pocket to get everyone at our farms in Honduras tested for the virus. Q: Did you see a difference between the impact of the virus in Nicaragua and Honduras? A: It’s difficult to tell exactly how Nicaragua was affected as the government hasn’t been releasing information (and the information it does release should be taken with a grain of salt). But from what we can tell Honduras, the country, was affected more probably because of the higher population and very densely populated major cities (Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula). Official death tolls in Honduras are much higher than the official death tolls in Nicaragua (but again, take the Nicaraguan death toll with a grain of salt). Q: What are some of the long-term effects that you are experiencing now, ~9 months after the virus started to make waves in the world? A: We’re noticing it’s definitely affecting everyone and every market. No one has escaped untouched. Early on this meant that many pre-orders were not fulfilled by our buyers and we were left with inventory very late into the season. In Nicaragua we just finished exporting our last container in September, we usually finish in June. For Honduras it meant we had to make a decision: leave the coffee in the country and run the risk of not making a significant return on the coffee, or take a chance and export it ourselves to the US to be sold spot. We went with the latter plan and it has fortunately worked out much better than expected and it led to this wonderful project we get to work with Joe Coffee. Now, it’s just created uncertainty for both producers and buyers as no one knows how this pandemic will play out. As producers we worry that the market won’t be there to purchase our new harvest as we cannot afford another late season like last harvest. It will be all the more difficult as many buyers have already informed us that they will probably not be able to visit origin to purchase coffee. This will entail mailing out more samples than usual which does come at a considerable cost. Q: Are there things you still need or still look for support for when it comes to safety during the pandemic? A: I think we have mostly everything in place to continue preventing the spread of the virus in both countries, but educating people on the protocols that need to be taken and preventative measures will always continue to help. Q: Were you able to participate in the Nicaragua Cup of Excellence (COE) this year since it wasn't cancelled due to Covid? A: COE has not taken place yet but there are plans for it to go forward this year in Nicaragua and if it does, we will most likely participate. We are still unaware if COE will take place in Honduras which we hope it does. Thank you both and Joe Coffee for your support on this project. With 2020 being a rough year for everyone we are super grateful and blessed to be working with you on this. It truly means a lot! Q: How have you fared with the impact of Hurricanes Eta and Iota? Honduras definitely took the largest hit from Eta, many casualties and damages, we were fortunate that no one from our team got harmed. The farms experienced mudslides and the dirt roads to and from the farm unusable but no real damage to the trees/harvest thankfully. We're extremely anxious to be able to go back, its been so long but I believe the borders are opening up soon. Nicaragua got a lot a rainfall, which damaged some small lots that were drying from the crazy flowering harvest, and the few ripe Laurina cherries that were there popped or fell to the ground (most likely got contaminated) but we still need to cup them first! We were very fortunate that no one was harmed but the Caribbean/Atlantic coast of Nicaragua was hit hard. COE shared some really helpful links to donate to for Hurricane Eta. https://www.gofundme.com/f/LSV-ETA-Relief-Fund https://support.crs.org/donate/hurricane-eta

Here in the United States, the pandemic dealt a painful blow to the specialty coffee industry with cafes shuttering across the nation in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. However, these same preventative measures have caused daily life to grind to a halt even in the most remote coffee-growing corners of the world, cutting off producers from the labor upon which they depend during harvest season, curbing vital transportation, and increasing production costs.Because the coffee harvest season arrives at different times around the world, some producing countries were just finishing their harvests when the pandemic began to spread globally, while in other regions, the harvest was just getting underway. With travel bans in place and our usual origin trips cancelled, we've been checking in on our partners virtually to see how they're adapting to these challenging circumstances. Here are some of their stories, which we'll be sharing in several parts over the coming weeks. Part 1: Veloso Family, Brazil Cerrado, Minas Gerais, BrazilHarvest Time: May-JulyThe Veloso family supplies a key component of many of our year-round coffees. Anike Wolthers of Red Container Coffee visited the Veloso farms during harvest and reports back.Read more: Part 1: Veloso Family, Brazil Part 2: Ejo Heza Cooperative, Rwanda Mushubati, Rutsiro District, Rwanda Harvest Time: April-MayThrough Ruth Ann Church of Artisan Coffee Imports and Kopakama's Quality Control Intern, Grace Izerwe, we present several interviews with Ejo Heza farmers.Read more: Part 2: Ejo Heza Cooperative, Rwanda Part 3: The Guarnizo Family, Colombia Tarqui, Huila, Colombia Harvest Time: April-July, October-DecemberFor the producers of longtime customer favorite, La Familia Guarnizo, collaboration among the family's nine siblings has been key to navigating the pandemic.Read more: Part 3: The Guarnizo Family, Colombia Part 4: Kibingo Washing Station, Burundi Kayanza Province, Burundi Harvest Time: April-MayBurundi's delayed and scattered government response prompted private actors like Kibingo Washing Station operator Greenco to take matters into their own hands.Read More: Part 4: Kibingo Washing Station, Burundi

Thursday, June 18th, 2020To everyone at Joe,Two weeks ago, I wrote you a letter voicing Joe’s support for the Black Lives Matter protests, with the promise to examine our company’s role in dismantling racism and confronting white privilege. Since then, we’ve begun to engage in deep reflection and discussion, and have carefully considered the thoughtful feedback so many of you have shared in response.When I founded Joe, my vision was to create a welcoming space that celebrates great coffee and everyone who loves it. As I reflect on our history, I think of all the folks who have found safe haven in Joe, finding a sense of belonging that they were not able to find elsewhere. However, I realize that despite our best intentions, we took a passive approach to challenging racial inequity, thinking Joe was immune to bias. The reality is that racism is not always overt—it can manifest itself in subtle and equally harmful ways, and we acknowledge our own complicity in perpetuating institutional racism.It’s time for us to dig deep, confront our historical policies and behaviors, and work to actively design our company systems and processes to champion racial equity. To that end, I want to share the early beginnings of how we’re approaching this work.Listening & Education:Before we can take meaningful steps towards long lasting change, we need to first look inward, listen, and learn. This means reckoning with past harms, understanding the lived experiences of folks in our community, and confronting how bias affects us as individuals and in our business operations. We respect that the onus is on us to educate ourselves, but want you to know that we are listening, and we are committed to holding space for challenging conversations. This is work that we must do, as an employer, to genuinely be in service of our staff.Here’s where we are starting: In an effort to respect the boundaries of our staff while also providing a platform to participate, we have created an anonymous submission form. This form can be used to share experiences that have made folks feel discriminated, marginalized or othered in the workplace, ideas for policy change or new practices to implement, or general feedback. We understand it is unfair to rely on our most affected staff to tell us how to change and that any insight into those experiences is a gift, but we also feel it is necessary to give an outlet for those who want to share. Create a repository of anti-racist educational resources and facilitate dialogue Require training on unconscious bias for all employees Address coffee’s roots in colonialism and slavery through our education program Policy:We can’t create a welcoming place for our BIPOC employees to grow professionally without taking a critical look at our internal policies. Although policy reform will surely be a continuing conversation, we will immediately work on: Fully auditing our employee handbook and company policies with an anti-bias lens Reviewing our in-store safety, conflict resolution, and escalation procedures Recruiting & Hiring EffortsWe have always cherished diversity on many levels at Joe, and yet we have much more work to do, especially when it comes to diversity in middle and upper management. Black and Brown folks are significantly underrepresented in our industry and the specialty coffee community has not done enough to change this. We believe in making coffee more approachable to everyone, and we will play an active role in building better representation by: Connecting with more diverse candidate pools and partnering with community organizations dedicated to the professional development of BIPOC Examining our hiring practices and investigating blind hiring methods where ethnic/gender/age/class signifiers are omitted from resumes Training interviewers to erase potential bias MarketingWe spend a lot of time thinking about inequities throughout the coffee supply chain and finding ways to communicate these complexities to our staff and customers, often focusing on stories about our current producer partners in our marketing. However, coffee has a history of colonialism and inextricable links to the slave trade—these less “palatable” parts of history often don’t make it into the narrative. We understand that it is our duty to tell the full story, and we intend to engage with these truths better in our storytelling.Moving Forward & Staying AccountableIn January, we established a cross-departmental culture working group called the Joe Cultural Advocacy Team (J-CAT). The purpose of this group was to pave the way for conversations about how Joe, as we grow, can be a better employer for all Joeys. Because COVID-19 forced us to reduce our business to a skeleton crew, many of the members of this team were temporarily laid off. In an effort to immediately begin building a roadmap for change in the interim, we formed an anti-racism task force in the week following our initial statement. This committee will be responsible for overseeing this work until we are able to partner with J-CAT again to carry the work forward. Until then, we intend to meet regularly to advance discussions, establish goals, and build timelines. Clearly, there is a lot of work ahead. Our next steps may include missteps, but we won’t let up. I am hopeful that with the help of the entire Joe family, we will become a truly anti-racist organization, an embodiment of the original vision for Joe Coffee.Jonathan

Friday, June 5th Dear Joe,I want to take a moment to acknowledge the pain all of us are feeling over the injustices of the last week.George Floyd's senseless death added another name to a long list of victims of systemic racism and police brutality, awakening a long pent-up fury in communities across the country.I want you to know that I share in this outrage and that Joe stands in unequivocal solidarity with those marching in the streets for Black lives. https://frpiluleenligne.comTo witness these mounting injustices, including the treatment of innocent protesters this past week, has been deeply troubling.For this to happen while we as a country are dealing with the trauma of the covid-19 pandemic, adds to the pain.However, I recognize that the pain we feel in this moment is insignificant in comparison to the suffering inflicted against Black people in this country for generations.Our own role as a company in condemning and dismantling racism is not lost on me, and I realize we have likely not done enough.I am committed to ensuring we do better.This will involve a lot of listening, learning (and unlearning), and difficult, introspective conversations.It will involve taking stock of our own values, of which "community" is one, putting them into practice and holding ourselves accountable to them.While it's evident that radical change is needed, as a business that is simultaneously reckoning with the dire financial realities of surviving this pandemic, we at Joe Coffee have to ask ourselves: what meaningful actions can we take in this moment, and what work can we do to ensure that we emerge on the other end of this pandemic a business that is actively contributing to long lasting change?Make no mistake: public statements and donations matter today, but the work of becoming anti-racist is ongoing.The road ahead is long, and progress will not come without mistakes along the way, but the key is to keep forging ahead with an open heart.Right now, we are actively listening and taking time to educate ourselves.We commit to examining our employee handbook, our policies, and our own unconscious biases, actively engaging with you, our team members to create avenues for dialogue, and collaborating with our community at large.Joe Coffee will always be a place where everyone is welcome, and everyone belongs. This means you all have a voice here. I invite you to share your feedback about diversity: whether they are issues you think need to be examined, or ideas about how we can do better. Jonathan

One of our favorite parts of the changing seasons in New York is the opportunity to capture the essence of the weather in our rotating featured seasonal beverage. We get especially excited about this because all of our drinks are selected through an in-house competition, with Joeys from across our community entering their own creative conceptions. It’s a way for us to celebrate not only our city and our coffees, but also our people. The final privilege is sharing these delicious drinks with our customers. Since current circumstances are preventing us from sharing this joy with you all in person, we decided to come up with an easy to make at home seasonal drink so folks can still enjoy a pick-me-up when we all need it most. Usually our seasonal beverages are espresso based, building upon our Waverly Espresso but we decided to shift gears this season to make this drink something anyone can make at home while highlighting a coffee that is near and dear to our hearts, the Rwanda Ejo Heza. You can read more about why the Ejo Heza is special to us on the here, but the vibrant and mouthwatering flavors of stone fruit and custard with intoxicating florals make it a perfect fit for welcoming springtime in the city. In our Bright Tomorrow Iced Coffee we pair flash brewed iced coffee with a cardamom-rose syrup to complement the fragrance and complexity, and just a splash of lime juice to boost the vibrancy. All of this is shaken together to give the drink a silky mouthfeel and served with a twist because we all deserve a treat right now. Bright Tomorrow Iced CoffeeIngredients: 6oz flash brewed Rwanda Ejo Heza* ¾ oz cardamom-rose syrup (see note) ¼ oz lime juice Lime peel, for garnish Directions: Add iced coffee, cardamom-rose syrup and lime juice to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously for 15 seconds. Double strain over fresh ice into a collins glass or your favorite drinkware. For an effervescent touch, top with seltzer water. Express a lime peel and garnish with a twist * See our Flash Brewed Iced Coffee Recipe here (makes approximately 17 oz)Note: Cardamom-Rose SyrupIngredients: 1 cup raw sugar 1 cup water 5g whole green cardamom pods 5g dried rose petals Directions: Mix the water and sugar in a saucepan and set it over medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Gently crush the cardamom pods in a mortar and pestle. Once the simple syrup is nearing a boil, add the cardamom and rose buds, reduce the heat and cover. Let the mixture simmer gently for 15 minutes. Strain the syrup and let cool before storing in the fridge.

Over the past few years cold brew has emerged as one of the most popular ways to drink cold coffee, and rightly so as cold brew offers a unique flavor profile that highlights the bass-ier tones of a coffee, shining a light on chocolate and caramel flavors alongside an emphasized body and moderated acidity. However for coffee drinkers looking for a brighter, more aromatic profile a method called "flash brew" is a great option, and one that is easy to make at home. Flash brewing essentially involves brewing a strong cup of hot coffee and diluting it with ice, which rapidly drops the temperature (flash chills) and brings the strength into balance. This kind of approach isn’t necessarily new, restaurants and diners have been icing old pots of hot coffee for tomorrow's iced forever, but the key differentiator in a flash brew recipe is the built in dilution, ensuring the final result is not only cold but delicious. We typically recommend starting with a 1:16 brew ratio for hot filter coffee as this produces a sweet and balanced cup, but diluting this further with ice would drop the strength too low, and the sensations of sweetness, complexity and freshness would all be lost. In order to retain as much of the origin flavor as possible, our flash brew recipe calls for a significantly stronger brew ratio in tandem with a finer grind and extended bloom to achieve a proper extraction and high strength so the dilution won’t negatively impact the final cup. The finished brew is made with a ratio between 1:14 and 1:15, but only 60% of our water weight is actually used to brew the coffee with the remaining 40% coming from the ice added at the end. This means we’re brewing below a 1:10 ratio prior to dilution! This recipe can be scaled up to produce larger batches, though we strongly recommend making it fresh the day you plan on enjoying it, but there’s a bit less wiggle room in scaling down. Since only 60% of the water weight is being used in the brew, contact time (how long the water and grounds are mixed together in the brewing process) is at a bit of a premium. If the brew becomes too small, you’ll need to use too fine of a grind which can contribute muddy and bitter flavors. Finally, while our recipe is designed to use the Kalita Wave, flash brewed iced coffee can be made with a variety of methods, including other pour over devices like the Chemex, an automatic drip machine or even immersion methods like the French Press or Aeropress by replacing roughly 40% of the brew water with ice and adjusting the dose and grind. Happy brewing! Flash Brewed Kalita WaveYou’ll need: Kalita Wave 185 brewer, filter & decanter 35g of coffee, ground finely 300g of water, 208° F 200g ice Scale Timer Spoon Weigh 35g of coffee and grind on a fine setting similar to table salt. Set up the Kalita Wave, filter, and vessel on the scale. Heat water in the kettle to 208° Fahrenheit. Gently pour hot water into the center of the empty filter. Continue pouring in a spiral outwards to wet the entire filter. Be careful not to pour too hard as the filter can collapse. Empty the water from the vessel, place back onto the scale, and tare to zero. Add the coffee to the Kalita Wave with the vessel on the scale, ensuring that you add 35g of ground coffee, and tare to zero. Start the timer and add 70g of water to the bed of coffee quickly, in about 5 seconds. Stir the bloom with a spoon a few times ensuring all of the grounds have been saturated and mixed. Let the coffee bloom for one minute. When the timer reads 1:00, start pouring in the center and spiral out in concentric circles with a strong flow. It's okay to pour onto the filter walls if grounds are clinging to the paper. Continue pouring until the scale reads 150. This should take roughly 10 seconds. Let the slurry drain for roughly 10 seconds, or by about half an inch. When the timer reads 1:20 quickly add another 50g of water to raise the level again and bring the total brew weight to 200. This should take roughly 10 seconds. Let the slurry drain for roughly 10 seconds, or by about half an inch. When the timer reads 1:40 quickly add another 50g of water to raise the level again and bring the total brew weight to 250. This should take roughly 10 seconds. Let the slurry drain for roughly 10 seconds, or by about half an inch. When the timer reads 2:00 quickly add the final 50g of water to raise the level again and bring the total brew weight to 300. This should take roughly 10 seconds. Let the slurry drain completely. This should take between 45 seconds and 1 minute. When the slurry has drained completely, remove the brewer from the decanter and tare the scale so that it reads zero. Add 200g of ice to the decanter and stir to incorporate. Flash brewed iced coffee is ready to drink as is or over fresh ice. Enjoy!

May 18th, 2020To the Joe Coffee Community,It’s been two months since we closed our doors, and we have missed you so! Over these last few weeks, we have been carefully considering how to reopen and serve you safely. Now, after several weeks of planning, we are excited to reopen select locations for contactless pickup beginning Wednesday, May 20th, starting with our Bryant Park Kiosk and Pro Shop.As locations begin to reopen, we will update this list:Wednesday, 5/20: Bryant Park: 9am–5pm, every dayPro Shop: 9am–3pm, Monday–FridayWednesday, 5/27: Long Island City Roastery Cafe: 8am–4pm, every dayThursday, 5/28: Union Square West: 8am–4pm, every dayWednesday, 6/3: Waverly Place; 8am–4pm, every dayLexington; 8am–4pm, every dayWednesday, June 10 Brooklyn Heights; 8am–4pm, every dayW 85th & Columbus; 8am–4pm, every dayWednesday, June 15 W 73rd & Amsterdam Avenue; 8am–4pm, Monday–FridayW 68th & Columbus; 8am–4pm, every dayThe Counter at Todd Synder; 8am–4pm, Monday–Friday, 8am–3pm, Saturday & SundayWednesday, June 24 Chelsea; 8am–4pm, Monday–FridayWe will be taking orders in advance via Ritual for contactless payment and pickup. To order, click here, or find the “Order Pickup” button on our website’s main navigation menu as of May 20th.Our full coffee menu will be available along with a limited pastry menu from our friends at Ovenly and Bien Cuit. We’ll also be offering coffee beans for pickup—including new releases Burundi Kibingo and Rwanda Ejo Heza—to keep you stocked up at home. As always, we’d be happy to grind it for you—be sure to select your preferred grind setting when you place your order.All orders will be available for you to pick up from a table positioned near our front door so you can safely gather your order. Don’t forget to wear a mask when you stop by!⁠Protecting the health of the Joe community is our first priority and we are committed to putting safety first every step of the way. In addition to enhanced cleaning procedures, we will be implementing several precautions to protect our staff, including social distancing within our cafes, temperature checks, providing PPE, and working closely with vendors to ensure safe deliveries.As excited as we are to be brewing again, we think it’s important to take things slowly and carefully. We’ll keep you updated as things evolve, and we thank you for your cooperation in adjusting to this new normal with us. We’re grateful to all of you for your continued support and good wishes these last few weeks. You mean the world to us and we are so looking forward to welcoming you back!

Jump to Recipe Every year as the weather slowly starts to warm up there are small luxuries that help us mentally usher in and embrace the changing of the seasons, and one that can feel especially hard-earned after a New York winter is the first homemade batch of cold brew. While we always have traditional iced coffee, cold brew and nitro available in our cafes year round, there’s a certain poetry to Cold Brew season. Not only can making cold brew at home feel like a victory against darker days, it’s also one of the easiest ways to enjoy truly delicious coffee at home. While we have brew guides available for a wide range of brewed coffee options to help make cafe quality coffee accessible outside of the cafe, it doesn’t get any easier than set-it-and-forget-it. Before we get into the specific recipe for cold brew, let’s first talk about how and why it works. There are literally hundreds of aromatic compounds in coffee that play together to impact how we experience flavor in a brew cup of coffee. These flavor compounds begin developing in the coffee beans themselves as they mature and ripen on the plant and are being built upon and manipulated throughout their journey from harvest to roasting and finally, brewing. Not all flavor compounds in coffee extract under the same conditions or at the same speed, meaning how we brew our coffee has a massive impact on how we structure the flavor compounds inherent in the beans we’re using. Aside from making the process of dialing in a coffee incredibly fun and quite a rabbit hole, this also creates some rules we can follow. Many of the flavor compounds in coffee are much more soluble at higher temperatures, meaning hot water will extract them much faster than cold water, and there are even some compounds that simply aren’t soluble below a certain threshold. So if we’re swapping out water in the 195-205°F range for water in the 50°F range, the timeline of extraction is going to change significantly. By extending the brew time from a typical hot brew of about 5 minutes to roughly 18 hours, we’re going to give some of those more stubborn compounds time to work their way into the brew. However, if all we changed was the brew time and kept the grind and ratio the same, we’d end up with a final product that was weak, bitter and flat, because the less stubborn, more soluble compounds would be contributing too much, imparting off flavors and lacking in complexity. By coarsening our grind and working with a much higher coffee to water ratio in addition to the extended brew time, we’re able to produce a final product that is rich and sweet, with a subtle balance of bitterness and acidity. As with smaller scale filter brewing, the variables of brew time, grind size and ratio all work together, and changing one usually requires a change to at least one of the other two variables, unless you’re looking to produce notably different results. Our recipe is designed to steep between 16-18 hours and produces a concentrate meant to be diluted 1:1 with either milk, a milk alternative, or water. If you want to shorten that steep time, you can grind slightly finer and if you want to extend it, go slightly coarser. Steeping for too long (over 24 hours) or not long enough (under 12 hours) won’t have the same balance and perceived sweetness, but that still leaves some room to work with your schedule. That said, 16-18 will yield the best results. Recipe 12oz Great Heights, ground coarsely, like Himalayan rock salt 64oz filtered water A vessel to steep in, larger than 2L Sieve or mesh strainer Cheesecloth or jam/nut milk bag (optional) Instructions To start, mix coffee and water in a vessel large enough to accommodate both (a 1-gallon glass jar works well) and make sure all of the grounds are saturated by giving the jar a good stir. Seal the jar tightly to prevent the cold brew from oxidizing too much during the brewing process and store in the refrigerator. We strongly recommend storing your cold brew in the fridge while it steeps. It’s true that cold brew can be produced at room temperature, but this can lead to inconsistent batches (if the ambient temperature changes) and also speeds up the process of oxidation, which is effectively the staling process. Brewing in the fridge will produce tastier, more consistent results and will lead to a slightly longer window of enjoyability. The following day, between 16-18 hours from when you started your batch, pull it out of the fridge. Set a strainer over a vessel that’s at least 64oz, and carefully begin pouring the cold brew through to filter out the grounds. If you want a cup with less particulate, you can line the strainer with cheesecloth, or filter the batch a second time through a jam or nut milk bag. Filtering through coffee filters is an option, but be warned it can take upwards of hours to finish. Once you’ve filtered your batch to your satisfaction, you’re done! Enjoying & Storing You’ll have a little under half a gallon of concentrate that was produced with 3 times as much coffee to water as our standard drip recipe, so it’s pretty darn strong. We recommend storing the concentrate as is and diluting per serving. This will help extend shelf life, but also means you can make tweaks. Start by diluting the concentrate 1:1 with water, milk or a milk alternative. You can alter the ratios to your preference. If you play around a bit and still feel like it’s not exactly where you want it to be, look to make a change to your brewing, starting by grinding slightly finer or coarser to strengthen or soften the brew intensity. We’d only recommend shortening or lengthening the brew time outside of 16-18 hours if your schedule requires it. This concentrate will last in the fridge for 7 days, but you may notice the flavor change day to day. Storing the cold brew in a vessel with as little headspace as possible will help it taste fresher longer.