All right all right dynomite.
Hey it has been a while peeps and while I have been very much under ground we are back again.
I am going to be a coffee roaster and barista part time at village coffee.
Here in scottsdale Arizona. As phoenicians know, Village Coffee and its owner Craig Sellman are an institution in this town practically.

Village looking great to grow stronger this year than ever before.
Craig is looking to re energize things and make them the way they should be.
I have a feeling very soon there will be several positive changes coming about at village coffee.

I am excited to have this opportunity to work with Craig.
They have a very scientific approach to roasting with there samiac.
That uses air humidity temperature and bean density to calculate the bean charge weight and transition points.

After everything bad happening me losing my business and all my equipment and filing bankruptcy there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. Minus me losing my IT job today. But I would not have gotten the coffee job today if I had not lost the IT job so I am optimistic and believe sometimes you happen to be at the right place at the right time for a reason.

I still will need to get another IT job but that is okay.
I am just happy to be working coffee again for the peoples.
Phoenix stop on by there is going to be a new village coffee in town.

www.villagecoffee.com

Why the coffee Industry Sucks Part II

This is going to be the last I write about this then we are moving on to more positive things.
To keep this on track I am going to list the things I really hate about this industry.

1.People are really selfish and don't care for others or really help out.

2.There is way too much B.S. and politics.

3.Too many arrogant people, tone it down a little please.

4.There are too many haters, bitches, users and fakers.

5. With due critisism I place myself in the haters category.
However I am willing to try to change that and I would not ask anyone to do something I would not do myself.

6.The industry has proven to be corrupt from the inside out.
A prime example, former scaa president was a thief and swindler.

7.Everyone is motivated by money not always by what is right by the customer.

8.The common misconception there is tons of easy money to be made in coffee.
It just is not so.
In this industry you need plenty of captial to start out with before you will ever make a freaking cent.
Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

9.People so readily give their word and do not deliver, all talk.

10.People who have made it are not willing to help others to do so also.

11.Innocent people starting there business and being swindled out of all their start up capital by industry con men.
This just pisses me off I hate this more than anything.
People who do this are the worst, I have 0 tolerance and respect for them.

These peeps are all reasons the industry sucks and until they are changed the coffee industry will never be different, will never change.
I have given many years to the coffee industry, sacrificed lots for it with no return.
Not even thanks most of the time.
There was a time I would bleed to make this industry better in hopes it would be someday what I envisioned.
I had hope for it.
However the longer you are in the industry the worse it seems and more corrupt it gets.

I have essentially thrown in the towel on the industry and don't care about the industry any further.
On a personal level, I still love coffee and think a perfect espresso or cappucino is still a wonderous thing.
I am a straight shooter.
I don't do the politics and I call it as I see it.
In general that does not make me popular with anybody.
I call people on there b.s. and make them accountable for it.
But it is my call to duty.
I can't see something that is not right and let it go with out trying to make it right.
Unfortunatly this industry as with the world is so corrupt you can't even begin to fix it.

Often I feel like a one man crusader on a mission of suicide that no one could possibley understand but me.
But this is my duty, course and destiny in this lifetime as much as I wish it wasn't.
I wish I could ignore my conscience at times and take a different path.
I have found that rather impossible.
So I except my eternal fate.

There are some really great people in the industry but they are few and far between.
Am I hurt by some of these things? Yes at times I am at other times I realize this is just how people are.
The people are the reflection of the industry.
So my issue is really with the people that make up the collective coffee industry and their course of action or lack of action at times.

So do I really belong personally and professionally in this industry.
Probably not.
I go against the grain everytime.
I rock the boat and make waves.
Sometimes not even understanding why I feel compelled to do so, except for the reason I refuse to live my life as a slave to anyone or any organization or business and so readily daily sacrifice myself and those I love to be free from tyranny and bondage of the oppressive nature of man kind.

Because of this I have lost many a job, found myself at times barely able to pay the bills and eat.
Is it worth it yeah when I die I get the great honor of having a clean conscious towards my maker.
Knowing I made every effort to do the right thing.
That is justice enough for me.

Have I paid the price. Yes over and over again.
Many have said and continue to say I will never learn and I subject myself to undue relentless pain.
But I refuse to see it this way.
I would gladly suffer to be free to say and do what is right at any given time and place.

I realize I myself am fatally flawed and when called on it I will always make it right and am ready to apologize sincerely for my many careless oversights.
However too many people are not willing to do this.
You see not one of us is perfect and we should be more willing understand this about each other.
I am trying everyday to accomplish this and hope some day it will be perfected in me.

People I wish you well.
I wish the coffee industry well and hope for major change and unity and more people willing to help each other so that maybe one less person has to file bankruptcy and loose a business.
That is all anyone can hope for.

I use this forum as a free way to express my emotions and feelings about things freely.
I know there is a therapeutic value doing this.
Things I would not mention in forums or other online sources.

480 eastside phx out for now.

Home Barista

I got an email from Dan at home Barista about my coffee rant at the last post.
To be far I admire and respect Dan for what he has acomplished.
At times I am Jealous of him and his crews success.
Saying he has an agenda at the last post was a little harsh peeps.
I sometimes wonder the direction he is going and his future plans by getting every quality credible coffee person in the HB alliance that is all.

Dan and his crew have helped probably more than anyone I know except the peeps at 1st-line.
Dan as person you are a good guy and your crew is great as the leader of HB you guys are great at supporting sponsors and having credible people with things to say.
The things you have researched I have suspected or believed to be true. However you have these beliefs up with analytical data.
This is truly great keep up the good work. I wish you nothing but good things personally and proffesionally.

I know I often tend to misspeak or even fly off the handle without thinking.
A fatal flaw of my human nature I guess.
As I look at everything I wrote and stand by it except this one thing.
So for that I ask you to forgive my oversight Dan and your Crew.

Thanks,

Best Regards,
Jason Casale.

Why The Coffee industry Sucks

Why did I remove this post?
I thought about it some.
And decided this post is and should be about the industry not about specific people.
I thinking attacking individuals does nothing to help benefit the industry.
Yes there are people of questionable characters in the coffee industry.
That will never change and I have truly given up trying to change the industry.
I have posted my issues with the industry in part 2 of this post.

I stand by what I posted and know the statements I made are accurate about the people I made them about.
That changes nothing.
This post got off course and became a rant about certain people I have issues with in the industry.
Was I buckling to pressure to remove it hardly considering I like got one email from Dan at HB with his feedback regarding the post.
So peeps like no one reads this okay.
There are others like the people I mentioned in the removed post.

Well why did I write it then.
Because I am angy about how the coffee industry operates.
The shady selfish people in the industry put a black eye on the industry.
Partly because of people like this I ended up having to close my roasting business.
To be fair I must admit that there are numerous other reasons my roasting business closed as well.
The industry itself only played a small part but a crucial part.
Without the help of support and people in the industry one is trying to operate in it is impossible to make things work.

My goal is to try to stop hating on the industry and move in a more positive direction.
The only real way to that is to leave the industry wich I am going to try to do.

I wish you all well and the real peeps that have really been my friends in the industry you know who you are.
I wish you the best and know that because you are truly my friends you will continue to be my friends.
The swindlers liars users and arrogant people in the industry I hope you change your ways so the industry can change for the better.

Keep it real be real help others and be giving and not selfish.
Please help people starting up so they can have some of the success you struggled to acheive.
This is what I hope for the industry.

My best to yall


We out.

New Equipment Gotta Love it.

There must be some psychological effect to shopping.
When we feel bad about ourselves we are stressed.
Some of us find relief in shopping.
Me I happen to be one of them.
I decided after a year I could no longer wait for the GS3.
I needed a new espresso machine now.

I decided on a laspaziale s1.
Why you may ask?
Ahh sweet double boiler with a rotary pump.
For those of you who are not coffee freaks like me here is what it amounts to.
one boiler for brewing with full rock solid temp control easily changable.
One boiler for consistent steaming of milk.
Rotary pumps provide consistent pump pressure for extraction.
Steam and brew at the same tine 110 volt standard power.

It was the best machine I could afford.
The negatives no real preinfusion.
No triple basket in 53mm size for extra coffee needed for some blends to extract right.

I have a great Cimbali max grinder all ready.
It is the best grinder for me because it has a conical and flat bur combo plate.
Get a great grinder peeps for espresso.
Don't get one of those freakin cheesy blade grinders or I will come samurai you.
(Discalimer I am only joking about the samurai bit so don't sue me.)

Okay second day with the setup great cappas lattes and such espresso straight is good as well.
Steam is good great microfoam.
It steams like my former 3 group linea just as fast.
Sold the linea about 2 years ago a sad sad sad day.
The power wnt up about $120 a month in the house because the marzocco she had to go.

On the side note I am liquidating my company assets and going thru everything we have.
Strangley I am feeling better some what about everything.
I will be selling quit abit of stuff on ebay to get rid of it.

Maybe I will get to the coffee business opinions next post.
Lates for now.
480 Audi.

Closing Classico Coffee Roasting

Classico Coffee started out with a vison to sell high quality fresh roasted coffee to wholesale customers and internet direct.
I was roasting coffee as an enthusiest for years prior to getting started with my own business.

I paid for a website and had it developed and sold some online but very little, tried wholesale accounts as well.
I found out the wholesale game is difficult with so many other microroasters and most under cutting your pricing. It became difficult to move any specialty coffee of high grade and quality.
Also starting with a shoe string budget and very under funded, did not put odds in the favor of success.

Finally, this year we called it quits without much success.
I love coffee what it is, what it represents and the skill it takes to roast it properly.
It can be amazing and some days you think you found the holy grail and other days frustrating as all get out.
I could point the finger at several places for the failure of our business.
We were under funded, no budget, lack of large wholesale accounts, no sales person except myself, not enough time to dedicate to doing things that needed to be done, spending money without getting much return on advertising...
You get the picture.

Was it worth doing?
Heck, yeah! I learned a ton about operating a small business and all the responsibility you have to the state and government and how to run an ethical business that strives to provided a quality product with great service.
I am proud to say with a little help from my wife, we ran everything.
Roasting, blending, cupping, bagging, weighing, labeling, and mailing out all the coffee.

I spent 2 years of my life developing a worthy espresso blend and one year getting the roasting right.
I wanted to develop a Northern Italian blend worthy of the Espresso Vivace legacy.
I like lightly roasted espresso with minimal roast flavors.
Bright, crisp but balanced.

The best day of my life was when I sent David Schomer from Espresso Vivace some coffee.
He called me and told me how much he really enjoyed the coffee.
Later that year, I visted him again for the third or fourth time in Seattle at his Vivace coffee bar.
We had a nice talk about the coffee and Vivace in general.
It was great to see him again.

As a favor to the coffee public, I published my espresso recipe.
I figured somone should get some use out of our 3 years of work.
I will add it here in the blog as well.

Verona Espresso
1 ounce sulawesi
2 ounces dry processed harrar
4 ounce dry processed brazil bourbon
7 ounce of josuma select moonsooned malabar
10 percent robusta on 14 ounces of coffee is 1.4 ounces of wet processed quality robusta from sweet marias. Roasted together until you get the first to audible second cracks. The coffee should be dry when you have cooled the coffee.

Some how I still feel like a freaking failure and no closer to where I want to be in the coffee industry.
Knowing one of the greatest espresso minds in the USA, thought our espresso was good made it all worth it.
David Schomer chooses his words carefully.
So I take his words to heart when he says something.

I mourn the loss of my business and the coffee industry is losing a talented 1 man roaster.
But I have gained some time back for my family,
I ran a roasting business part time and working full time with overtime at my regular job.
That leaves little time for the family.

I guess the question is, am I still going to roast ?
I think I will roast and cup coffees and brew espresso and make lovely cappas for life.
Coffee is part of me and can't imagine not roasting, not cupping, brewing, extracting it in some form or fashion.

I would like to work for another roaster or work with a start up coffee bar that needs guidance and vision as a head barista trainer. I hope a quality coffee company will take a chance on me some time soon in the future.
For now, I continue to work in IT as a network administrator, desktop support tech and your average computer fixer type person who is smart enough to fix your computers and networks, but not much else.

For those of you out there in Arizona looking for a quality coffee person with some very good espresso bar experience and roasting expereince, who is super passionate about coffee, I am your person.

Peace out peeps from Sunny Mesa Arizona!
Next time thoughts and experiences with the coffee industry.

Reppin Classico Fovever
480 baby you know how we do.
Eastside Classic Babbby Yup Yup.