Moko Coffee

Take a look at the new Summer menu!

Download Summer menu

Vegetarian Friendly

Moko goes veggie. Don't worry, we've still got your whole milk and your classic Italian panino, but Moko coffee is definitely a vegetarian friendly place for coffee and lunch. We feature vegetarian panini, yogurts parfaits, fruit cups, our spicy tomato with blue cheese soup, as well as our Friday special, mac and cheese. And for your vegan friends? Don't worry - for lunch we have different vegan soups and sandwiches, and for your coffee drinks we've got organic Silk soy milk.

Congrats Kyle Glanville!

Congragulations Kyle, the 2008 United States Barista Champion.   The nation’s top espresso-makers battled it out to be called best-of-the-best, but it was Kyle Glanville of Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea who took home top honors. Glanville won the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s (SCAA) highly competitive 2008 United States Barista Championship (USBC). The heated competition took place at SCAA’s 20th Annual Conference & Exhibition, May 2 – 5 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

As the industry’s most watched contest for coffeehouse professionals, the USBC encourages and recognizes achievement in the art and skill of espresso-drink preparation and service.

During the competition, the nation’s best baristas created some of the world’s finest coffee concoctions. Challengers prepared and served 12 orders–four espressos, four cappuccinos and four original signature drinks of their own creation–all within a 15-minute timeframe. As they readied their coffee beverages, contestants engaged the audience and explained their actions and selections while expertly working the competition’s La Marzocco espresso machines.

Seven USBC-certified judges, including one head judge, two technical judges and four sensory judges, carefully evaluated and scored each of the contenders. Judges focused on station cleanliness, taste, beverage presentation, technical skills and total impression.

As the 2008 United States Barista Champion, Glanville received the highest national honor for a barista, a trophy, $1,000 in cash, and an all-expenses paid trip to the 2008 World Barista Championship in Copenhagen, Denmark, June 19 – 22, 2008, hosted by the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe and held at its “Wonderful Coffee” event.

Zirikana

Have you ever had Rwandan coffee?

We've got it. Rwanda is the up-and coming star of the East African coffee world, featuring bright, juicy, citric flavor profiles, and a wonderful mouth feel. Moko Coffee is happily brewing Intelligentsia's newest Rwandan offering- Zirikana.

The word "Zirikana" means "show your commitment", and the name reflects Intelligentsia's commitment to helping develop the coffee industry in Rwanda. It's a big coffee, with no bitterness, tons of fruit flavors and a finish like brown sugar. We'll be brewing it in our drip rotation, and it's available in a French press, as well as to take home in a pound or half-pound.

You can read Intelligentsia's coffee buyer Geoff Watts notes about this wonderful coffee here.

Yes...We Are Open!

YES...WE ARE OPEN!

Like the sign says, Moko is finally open for business! I can't tell you how happy we are to be open and how well we've been received, thank you everyone. I opened the doors last Monday with our great coffee and pastries and and this Monday we started a lunch menu with our panini and an out-of-this-world eggplant Parmesan made for us by Carm at La Campagna.

Our coffee has been pouring out the door, this past week we brewed our Moko House Blend, the El Diablo Dark Roast blend and even had a chance to play around with the La Perla de Oaxaca Organic Mexican in a press pot. The Black Cat espresso is drinking pretty nice for just a week into working with it other than in my basement, so I'm happy about that and I haven't made any total gaffs behind the bar but I'm a long way from a pro barista.

Stop in and say hello. Our most current hours are from 7am till at least 5pm  weekdays and by the end of the week we should be consistently open till 7:30 or 8pm. I wish I could be less wishy-washy about the hours but we are still feeling our way and need to be on top of our game for the hours that we are open. If you are planing on coming downtown for a show you could email or call us to check if we'll be open. 

   

The Worlds Most Expensive Coffee

Hacienda la Esmeralda's famed Geisha coffee sold at the Best of Panama 2007 auction last Spring for an astonishing $130 per pound, making it the most expensive coffee in the world. On October 1, our roaster Intelligentsia, will be having an open house at the Roasting Works on Fulton Ave. in Chicago. You're invited to try a cup of the Geisha for yourself that evening and then take home some Hacienda la Esmeralda non auction lot coffee to brew later at home.

If you can't get up to Chicago for the open house and still want to try the Geisha you can order from the Intelli web site or just email/call me and I'll place an order. The supply is limited and if you have to ask how much... O.K. it's expensive - $99/half pound or $55/quarter pound.

We should be getting the doors to the coffee house open soon and when we do I'll try to get a stock of the Hacienda Especial which is coffee from the same farm but not from the same lot that was in the auction. It should give us an idea of the Geisha taste for a lot less! We can make it in a press pot or you can buy whole beans to take home.

Direct Trade Coffee article in the NY Times

Interesting story in the NY Times this week about Intelligentsia Coffee's Direct Trade business model. Times reporter Peter Meehan writes on how the "big three" micro-roasters in the USA - Intelligentsia, Stumptown and Counter Culture - travel the world developing and fostering relationships with coffee farmers. The hope in developing this "relationship coffee" is that we can have great coffees from micro terroirs just like in the wine trade and develop sustainable practices so that we can continue to have great coffees.

Quality in the cup is a lot easier to define than sustainability, then you start getting into Fair Trade, Rainforest, Shade-Grown and organic and all that which might be better left for another day over a good cup. Here is a link to Ethical Coffee where they give a quick overview of some of these programs. You can also go to the Direct Trade page at Intelli where they have bullet-pointed and codified the Direct Trade model. If you are more visual and have 9 min. go on and jump over to You Tube where there is a video by Geoff Watts about the Direct Trade Flor Azul Project in Nicaragua.

Thanks to IrishGirl at the Food & Wine Forum for the heads up and link to the Times story.

Coffee Drinks Illustrated

I was reading Specialty-Coffee.com this morning over a cup of coffee and came across a cool link to to a blog with illustrations of traditional coffee drinks. The name of the author/illustrator is Lokesh Dhakar and thats the name of his blog too.

The illustration on the left is a traditional cappuccino, this is the original espresso drink you might find in Europe that the American coffeehouse Cappuccino is based on. You can clearly see the 3 equal parts that make up a traditional capp - espresso, steamed milk and milk foam.

When you order a "trad cap" at Moko we build it just like the illustration. First the barista crafts a 1.75 oz. double shot of Black Cat directly into our Intelligentsia winged demitasse like this one. Then he steams and froths the milk pouring 1.75 oz.'s of milk and foam into the cup. Does that come up to 4.75oz.? Let's see 1.75oz. X 3, Well it might be a little more than what the cup holds but if everything comes together just right the foam will mound up above the rim of the cup in what is called a monkshead and that little bit more should get us up to the total amount we want. Anyways the trad capp sure stays truer to the rule of thirds than our American capps that can be about 2oz's of espresso to 10 or more oz's of milk and froth.

Take a look at Lokesh's blog if you get a chance. I think its pretty cool and we need to tweek his idea some and use it in the coffee bar, what do you think?   

      

New Logo For Moko Coffee & Tea

I've been working on a new logo with the help of my little sister. Here is the newest design we've come up, what do you think?

I bet you think that this is something I should have come up with months ago but it's just not going to work that way. Moko is a work in progress. We're never going to be as slick as a corporate store or even a single operator who has worked out all the details months or even years in advance. Sometimes I wish I had worked out all the details but I don't have the time - it's a compromise. One thing I have refused to compromise is the quality of the coffee and the food. What would be the point?

A little background on the logo. When I look at it now it reminds me of a logo that I vaguely remember from one of the modern art museums somewhere, but I didn't think of that till now. The original concept developed when I was in Starbucks and I was looking at the cup and the cup clutch ( the cardboard that slips over the cup) and of course the mermaid logo is on it. For some reason that got me to thinking about what Bruce Milletto said at CoffeeFest in Chicago this Winter. He said that when you design your logo try to make it look like the opposite  of your competitors. Without getting into if I'm ever going to be competition to Starbucks that was the inspiration, if you will.  Bruce gave some examples and one of them was that John Deere made green tractors so Allis Chalmers tractors are painted red.

The Starbucks logo is green and round and the Moko logo is red and square. Pretty simple really and I think it looks good. 

   

Allow Us To Introduce Ourselves

Moko is the goal we set for ourselves three years ago. We wanted to assemble a team of servers with experience as well as a passion for coffee. We enjoyed coffee at many of Greater Cleveland’s great coffee houses. We cracked the books to stay current with coffee production, availability and quality. Then we looked for the perfect location to present you with what we believe is the finest cup of coffee in town.

Ah, location, location, location! What could be better than Playhouse Square?

Playhouse Square is Cleveland’s Great Intersection, with theater, restaurants, WCPN/WVIZ, hotels, offices and it’s just down the street from Cleveland State University.

If it sounds as if we’re proud, we are, but we need one more part to a wonderful puzzle: You.

Allow me to extend to you a warm welcome to Moko.

--- Mike Donnelly, Proprietor