Olympia’s own Olympia Coffee Roasting Company scored big this month. Coffee Review, the world’s leading coffee buying guide tasted Big Truck Blend and gave it a fantastic score of 91 points.

Here are some of the words Coffee Review used to describe their experience during their blind tasting:

… Exciting, hard-to-read complexity in aroma and small cup. Fruit, chocolate, salty/sweet, butter, nut, cedar, earth … comes into its own in four parts milk, where the ambiguity smoothes, fattens and becomes all good….

Read  the full review here

Now, 91 points is a pretty big deal and a great accomplishment for one of our great local coffee companies. It puts Olympia on the map! I chatted with Oliver Stormshak, Green Coffee Buyer and Roastmaster to here from himself on what makes Big Truck such a Big Hit!

Describe Big Truck Blend in your own words and what prompted you to create this particular coffee.

Big Truck is primarily built as an espresso blend. It was prepared as straight espresso and as very small latte (5 oz) for the Coffee Review evaluation, where it received a very high score of 91 points. When we are purchasing and roasting coffees that go into Big Truck, it is always with espresso extraction in mind. Espresso is brewed at a high level of concentration (at 9 bars of pressure), which acts essentially like a magnifying glass into the flavors of the coffee. The roasting process does allow us, as roasters, a bit of control or manipulation of the flavor of the raw ingredients. For example, different application of heat yields different results, as does the airflow through our drum roaster during the roasting process.

Big Truck is a pursuit of one type of blend in the industry that we are particularly passionate about. To me Big Truck is what I would call a “New School Northwest Blend” with flavors of super high quality coffees and some origin flavors clearly shining through. I also feel this school of blending should taste sweet and intense in a milk-based drink and it has to be awesome as a brewed coffee.

Where do you source your green coffee from and how do you determine what goes into your blends?

We purchase coffee from each major coffee growing region in the world: Africa, Indonesia, and Latin America. Much of my week is corresponding with green coffee importers: discussing coffee samples, roasting those samples, and communicating how the coffees cupped. We are committed to working directly with coffee producers as much as possible and building transparent relationships with our farmers that are mutually sustainable to both of our businesses.

We purchase all coffees based first and foremost on quality. However, at Olympia Coffee Roasting, we are also passionate about sustainably grown coffees, and choose to purchase only organic coffee. We are extremely rare in the industry in choosing this path.

When determining the coffees that go into a blend we follow the concept of the blend first, thinking of what we want the end cup to taste like. Blending is tricky, sometimes origins you think would pair perfectly don’t and vice versa. It’s often a long and ongoing process of adjusting the blend, always striving for a coffee that is better than the sum of its parts.

Coffee just like wine has a cult following. Yet even though it’s just an agricultural product it receives an elevated stand in people’s lives, why do you think that is?

Coffee is the most complex beverage in the world; some scientists believe it to be one of the most complex substances in existence. When we take a sip of coffee a complex set of olfactory sensations begin to take place. From our mouth the vapors transfer into our nostril area, which is directly linked to the brain in an amazing transfer of what we perceive as flavor, but is also linked to our memories, hopes, dreams, and all else our brain has the ability to calculate.

Also “having coffee” is a culturally acceptable community gathering activity, which is transferable to most groups within our society from Punk Rock Teenagers to Granny’s Christian Coffee Klatch.

Coffee shops seem to have been a symbol for the economic growth over the last 10+ years. What role does the coffee shop play in people’s daily lives?

I feel that the “third place” is really quite recession proof. It’s a place people can meet friends, use their laptop, read, and stay dry, but that is not work or home. A coffee house provides an informal and affordable space where people can talk to friends or see neighbors; it’s a space for cultural conversations.

Big Truck Blend is only some of the things you are doing over there on Cherry St. - What else are you up to?

I believe that for us it’s really about three things that hold equal footing within our company.

1. Diligently sourcing the world’s best sustainable coffees.
2. Carefully roasting these coffees to highlight the coffee’s natural flavors.
3. Preparing these coffees flawlessly. Honoring each member of coffee’s supply chain from the perfect ripe coffee cherry to the impeccable free-poured latte art.

There are a lot of Coffee Shops in downtown. What’s your take on Olympia and the coffee culture.

It blows my mind; Olympia has one of the strongest coffee cultures in the country. Baristas and Roaster’s from competing shops frequent each other’s cafes, hangout, hold friendly latte art throw-downs together, and some of them even live together. All of this in a city of around 45,000. It has to be the smallest town with this many really good coffee roasters and cafes. It makes me so proud to be an Olympian.

The “New School Northwest Blend” receives high points across the country and here at home. Thank you Oliver for taking the time to talk to us and we’ll be sure to visit your coffee shop soon to try some amazing Big Truck Blend.