Ritual Coffee

Ritual will be at Maker Faire!

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:57:21 -0500

Come find Sputnik (the Ritual coffee bar trailer) at Maker Faire. Maker Faire is one of our favorite events of the entire year! We're kinda hard to miss, but Maker Faire is huge and full of fun and distracting things to see. We'll be near Homegrown Village. And fear not, we'll be serving up espresso drinks, V-60 coffee, batch-brewed coffee, and iced tea. Please come say hi!

San Mateo County Events Center

Saturday 10 AM - 8 PM

Sunday 10 AM - 6 PM

Have you ever wondered why a cup of coffee tastes better when it's made by a pro?

On Sunday at 3 pm, we'll be giving a talk: Make Better Coffee. Join Ritual's coffee buyer, Steve Ford, and Ritual's trainer, Chris Casassa, for a talk on how to make better coffee at home. Steve will present the basic points that most people miss. Chris will follow it up with a brewing demo. Bring your questions!

El Salvador Week is 5/17-5/26

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:33:59 -0500

El Salvador week marks the first of the fresh-crop arrivals from Central America. We will be celebrating El Salvadorian coffee in our coffee bars beginning Friday May 17^th through Sunday May 26^th. We’ll have three different coffees available as filter coffee and two single origin espressos. Showcasing these coffees side-by-side highlights the diversity in flavors available even from such a small country.

We have been working with some of these producers since 2008, when we were first learning how to source great coffee. Their constant dedication to quality paired with innovative spirit for improvement won us over. These coffees are intensely bright, exceptionally sweet and have a special place in our hearts. We hope you will feel the same way too.

We’re proud to showcase the following coffees:

Monte Rey: Carrizal from producer Nancy Majano de Arenivar

Siberia: Plan de Cedro from producer Rafael Silva Hoff

Matalapa: Cidra from producer Vickie Ann Dalton

Ritual’s Origin Week Series showcases several coffees from a particular region or country in order to share the stories of our producers with our local community. We love to focus on a particular country in order to highlight the unique characteristics of coffees from that country and to celebrate the arrival of freshly harvested coffees.

Art by Jared Sussman at Ritual on Valencia

Tue, 07 May 2013 13:30:20 -0500

Jared Sussman is a painter whose work is vibrant, alive, and always changing. He often incorporates artifacts from his wanderings through life into his work: rope from his dog's leash, feathers and rocks from the beach, or bits and pieces he stumbles across from landscaping yards throughout San Francisco.

The work will be on display from May 5th to June 4th. We will hold the reception May 9th from 6-9pm.

Seeking Production Roaster

Tue, 07 May 2013 13:01:46 -0500

Ritual Coffee Roasters

Production Roaster

OVERVIEW OF THE ORGANIZATION

Ritual Coffee Roasters is a San Francisco-based coffee roasting company with four retail coffee bars. Ritual is known for outstanding quality at all levels. The mission of Ritual Coffee Roasters is to be a destination for people who love coffee while building a sustainable business and investing in the communities that support us, both locally and globally. Ritual is a growing, high-energy, fast-paced collaborative work environment where communication, self-direction, creativity, fun, and the willingness to pitch in wherever needed are highly valued.

Since 2005, Ritual has been growing and expanding. In order to increase our quality as we continue to grow, we are looking for a production roaster to assist in roasting coffee and related tasks.

For more information on Ritual, please visit www.ritualroasters.com.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Ritual is seeking a qualified roaster to join our roasting team and help coffee quality continue to increase. The production roaster is primarily responsible for daily roasting of coffee as well as tasks related to roasting.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

-The Production Roaster is responsible for daily coffee roasting (6-8 hours per day)

-Utilizing datalogger and photospectrometer to monitor and track roasts

-Daily cupping and discussion of roast lines for quality assurance

-Assist in weekly inventory and roaster maintenance

QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE

-We are looking for a minimum 3 years roasting experience for this position

-Cupping experience is critical

-Candidate should have a strong understanding of roasting but more importantly, a desire to learn and grow within Ritual's roasting approach

LOCATION

Ritual Coffee Roasters is based in San Francisco

COMPENSATION

This position is full time, competitive wage based on experience. Ritual also offers a benefits package including medical insurance, dental insurance, commuter benefits, and sick pay after 3 months.

TO APPLY

Please send a cover letter explaining your interest and qualifications and a resume to joel@ritualroasters.com.

Ritual now offers CCOF Certified Organic coffees!

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:12:59 -0500

Since the very beginning of Ritual’s coffee sourcing program, flavor has been the primary arbiter of coffee quality. We’ve avoided the labels of organic, fair trade, or direct trade. We’ve chosen instead to engage you in a discussion about the inherent qualities and unique origins of our coffee, rather than rely on potentially misleading marketing jargon.

These certifications reflect a deep dedication on the part of the producer and as our relationships with these producers deepen, so has our desire to communicate that to you. Each year, we expand the horizons of our buying, and continue to happen upon wonderful tasting coffee that is also organic.

We have been buying organically grown coffees for years, but avoided labeling them as such. These coffees are selected by Steve, our coffee buyer, and make it onto our menu based on the qualities we find in the cup, not because they’re certified organic.

As we have established a deeper connection with a growing number of organic farms, it has been hard to tell the stories of these coffees without talking about the dedication and effort of these producers. It takes a lot of planning and hard work to go organic, and can be very risky due to diseases and parasites that can obliterate entire harvests. Producers must be very diligent for organic coffees to truly thrive. We want to highlight the extraordinary efforts made by these producers by presenting organic coffees as such, and now we can; our Roastery is newly certified organic by CCOF.

In the end, nothing has changed about the way that Ritual sources, roasts, or serves our coffee. It’s still all about flavor. Don’t expect to always see organic coffees on our menu, but if you do, you’ll know that these coffees are held to the same high standards to which we hold all of our coffees.

(Photo is members of the Aramo Co-op, Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia, the source of one of our favorite organic coffees!)

Featured Organic Offering
Potrerillos Organic, Equador: The Potrerillos exhibits a beautiful orange blossom aroma that turns into flavors of dried apricots, gooseberries, and graham cracker- a colorful melange that resolves in the cup with a toffee-like sweetness.

New Bags for 2013

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:19:06 -0600

We’re thrilled to now be delivering your coffee in foil bags. At Ritual, we’re constantly looking for ways to make the coffee taste better, and having coffee in an airtight bag is a huge step to even better quality.

In our Roastery, the coffee makes it into its bag just minutes after being roasted. Having that bag be a sealed foil bag with a valve means that the coffee gets to you in a state that’s as close as possible to being straight out of the cooling tray. The foil bag protects the coffee, preventing it from being exposed to air.

We only decided to switch to the foil bag after extensive testing. Of course, valve bags are the standard for big roasters, but they are selling coffee that is weeks, if not months (years?), old. We wanted to be sure it made a noticeable difference even for someone who consumes the coffee within days of it being roasted. And it does.

In addition to the oxidation that the air exposure causes, we found that paper bags themselves contribute to changing the wonderful flavors we work so hard to highlight. That discovery was very surprising to us, but once we tasted the difference, we knew we had to make the switch to a foil bag. We found that paper bags not only don’t protect the coffee well, they damage it.

Our new bags are not compostable like our old ones, so we’ll be looking for creative ways to reuse them. If you have an idea, please email us at info@ritualroasters.comand we’ll share the best ideas on our website. In the meantime, we’re already experimenting with compostable polyethylene coffee bags. For now, we hope you’ll enjoy the difference in our coffee.

Freshness: you might be surprised to see our suggestions for when to brew Ritual coffee:

Filter Coffee:

Best days 6-10 after roast date

(Try not to brew before day 5, finish by day 12)

Espresso:

Best days 8-10 after roast date

(Try not to brew before day 6, finish by day 12)

Carbon dioxide builds up inside the coffee bean during the roasting process. Resting your coffee allows the carbon dioxide to escape over time and allows the subtle, complex flavors to develop. Our recommendations for the best days off roast are based on what we think tastes best!

Please don’t hesitate to get in contact should you have any questions about this exciting change.

-Eileen (and the rest of the Ritual Crew!)

Call for Artists!

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:12:44 -0600

Attention visual artists! Ritual's flagship coffee bar on Valencia is interested in seeing what you create. Our wall space is open to a wide range of possibilities of mediums, styles, and proposals from emerging and practicing artists alike.

For more details, please contact our curator Miles Mattison at art@ritualroasters.com. Please include either a link to your work or a few attached images.

New Art by painter Eric Joyner at Valencia St.

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:58:56 -0600

Join us February 7th from 6-9pm at the Valenica St cafe for "The Return of Robots and Donuts" featuring new prints of paintings by Eric Joyner. Come hang out for a bit, maybe enjoy a little cup of wine, some snacks, a coffee or tea, and of course, some great artwork!

Single Origin Tasting at 18 Reasons

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:38:18 -0600

On Sunday January 13th we are teaming up with the fantastic folks over at 18 Reasons (the team behind Bi-Rite Grocery) to brew up some great Single Origin coffees. We'll be joined by our friends and neighbors over at Four Barrel and Sightglass, so don't sleep on this rare oppurtunity to catch the best coffee in San Francisco all in one place.

Stop by anytime between 11 am and 1:30 pm to 3674 18th Street. Purchase advance tickets online or you can pay at the door.

Holiday Hours

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 15:11:05 -0600

Happy Holidays!

Below are the special hours for each location.

Here are our normal hours, maps, and contact info.

Ritual, 1026 Valencia

New Year's Eve: Monday 12/31 7 am - 7 pm

New Year's Day: Tuesday 1/1 8 am - 10 pm

Ritual inside Flora Grubb Gardens

Wednesday 12/26 closed

Closed 12/31, 1/1, 1/2 and 1/3

Friday 1/4: 9 am - 4:30 pm

Ritual at Proxy, Hayes Valley

New Year's Eve: Monday 12/31 7 am - 5 pm

New Year's Day: Tuesday 1/1 8 am - 7 pm

Ritual at the Oxbow Public Market, Napa

New Year's Eve: Monday 12/31 7:30 am - 6 pm

New Year's Day: Tuesday 1/1 9 am - 5 pm

Ritual's Traveling Brewer's Kit featured on the Wall Street Journal

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 12:56:58 -0600

For the past year or so, whether my trip was a one-night getaway in the Bay Area or a week-long sourcing trip to El Salvador, I haven't left home without my Aeropress and Porlex mini-mill. This combo is a super-sleek traveling duo -- the Porlex fits inside the Aeropress -- that manages to deliver great coffee, even in challenging settings. The Aeropress is a very forgiving brew method; I've made great cups in roadside convenience stores, moving vehicles, and on the farm at Finca Monte Rey.

I'm thrilled that the Wall Street Journal also realizes what a great pair this is and is featuring us on their "Off Duty 50: Holiday Gifts," a list of gifts "geared toward 'off duty' pursuits, from entertaining to geeking out on gadgets."

Here's a link to our favorite Aeropress recipe. And though it's a forgiving brew method, I leave as little to chance as possible, weighing both the coffee and the water with our compact Ritual Gram Scale. This way I don't get just a passable cup of coffee, but one that is sublime, equal to whatever magnificent surroundings I might find myself in.

Happy Brewing!

New shirt! Now with more cats!

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 02:01:15 -0600

In celebration of our love for cupping, cats, and obscure flavor notes, we've released a T-shirt designed by our very own Jen Kruch. Available in sizes fitting both men and women.

Ritual on Valencia OPEN 8-1 on Thanksgiving!

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 19:20:02 -0600

Ritual on Valencia Street is open tomorrow (Thanksgiving) for all of your turkey day coffee needs from 8:00am to 1:00pm! A gift of pie for our hardy baristas lets you skip the line. A happy holidays to you and yours from the team at Ritual this weekend!

Our new website

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:38:11 -0600

After several months of collecting data, editing photos and coding content, we're thrilled to unveil of our new website. With the new look comes a ton of new content. We have created a portal for our customers into the heart of the company. There are several new sections and we'll be updating the content regularly!

Home Page

Here you'll be able to see all the latest news from Ritual, including information about events, new coffees and links to other areas of the site. You can find our locations and hours easily, as well as be able connect with us via social media.

About Us

Read the story of Ritual and connect to different members of the staff.

Our Coffee

The philosophy behind all that we do here at Ritual, from sourcing, to roasting, to brewing.

Our Producers

We are so excited to finally have the ability to share the stories of our family of producers. Please check it out and enjoy the wealth of gorgeous photos and detailed information from each of the farms we work with. Just clicking around the producers whose coffees are on our menu right now gives someone who hasn’t had the opportunity to go to origin an idea of the diversity of terroir and processing from Costa Rica to Ethiopia and Kenya.

I was thrilled to be able to look through the album of Mauricio Vindas and his family while enjoying my Aeropress of Altos de Abejonal this morning.

In addition to being able to learn more about the coffees you’re enjoying through us right now, we will also maintain a producer archive so you can always keep up with the latest on what's happening with our producing partners around the world.

Store

We’ve updated our store. We can ship you coffee beans, brewing equipment as well as Ritual merchandise. Our new shop is up just in time for the holidays – we have gift cards as well as nicely packaged gift boxes. We can send the Ritual to people who aren’t fortunate enough to live within walking distance of one of our coffee bars!

Coffee Club

We are thrilled to invite you to join the new Ritual Coffee Club! Sign up and we’ll send you our favorite coffees as often as you’d like. Set up your account once and email us when you need to pause your subscription for a vacation. Your credit card gets charged as we send you coffee. Gift subscriptions are available too!

News

This is the new Ritual blog. You’ll find information about Steve’s sourcing trips, announcements about coffee events, educational tips on coffee brewing and anything else we think you’d want to know about.

Locations

Addresses, hours, and maps to our four retail coffee bars.

Brew Guide

Here you’ll find detailed instructions on how to brew the perfect cup of coffee, using any of the devices we recommend.

Please take a look at what our new site has to offer. We're excited to have the ability to update content and to share with you everything that is happening around Ritual. Feel free to email us if you have suggestions for the site or ideas for what you'd like to learn more about.

Thanks!

Ritual Pop-up at Dear Mom

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:01:26 -0600

The Ritual pop-up continues! Join us every Sunday, from 11:30 to 3, for brunch and coffee at Dear Mom, located on the corner of Harrison and 16th in the Mission.

Ritual Sourcing Trip: Colombia

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 15:44:54 -0600

In a country of 500,000 coffee producers, it's a little easy to get overwhelmed by the potential tidal wave of coffee, especially now that Colombia is coming back from a devastating outbreak of Coffee Leaf Rust. Yet despite the volume of producers, and the steadily recuperating volume of coffee, we have seen our producing partners of South Huila continue to focus on growing and processing coffee of exceptional quality.

During our most recent Colombia Origin Week, we had the opportunity to showcase the coffees of several of our Colombian Producers. Returning lots from Edilfonso Yara's La Esperanza, Duver Rojas' Las Delicias, Omar Viveros' Miraflores, Hector and Fabio Artunduaga's El Renacer, Remigio Quinayas' El Silencio, and Benedicto Yara's El Guamo, as well as lots from new producers, Luz Dary Rojas and Mercedes Reyes.

Earlier this week, we were able to visit many of these producers at their farms in South Hulia. We even brought coffee back to show them what we're doing with their beans.

In a couple of cases, we were able to make Aeropresses of their coffees for them, so they could actually have a taste!

With the Leaf Rust issue abating, many of producers are working hard to plant more coffee and to maintain the trees that they have. Several are working with a trained agronomist to focus their efforts on maximizing quality while maintaining a sustainable production. The harvest continues, so we can look forward to more microlots from these, and other Colombia producers in the next few months.

A Film About Coffee - OFFICIAL TEASER

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 15:04:49 -0600

Check out the official teaser for Brandon Loper's "A Film About Coffee" which is currently in production. Brandon and his crew recently joined us to visit with our Honduran producing partners, Sebastián Benitez, Santos Alexis Dominguez and Nelson Ramirez. They were able to capture an epic moment of Ritual barista Kevin Bohlin preparing coffee for Sebastián at the top of his farm, La Piñona!

While no release date has been set for the film, the teaser is quite beautiful and includes appearances by Kevin, Ritual owner Eileen Hassi and a cameo by roaster Joel Edwards.

Colombia Week Cupping Kickoff

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 17:59:25 -0500

Join us. R1. Colombia week cupping