Last night, I strolled down the beer aisle of my local grocer hoping to find the perfect beer for the all-important Labor Day BBQ, the last official cook-out weekend of summer. A mild APA and a crisp kolsch were the main stars in my mind for a great farewell to the dog days of summer, but glance after glance into the cooler only led to stacks of orange. It's late August, but already, the great season and dominance of the pumpkin is upon us.

Fear not, Kaldi's is hear to help you navigate through the fall craze of flavor. Leading the charge is our newest favorite, DaVinci Pumpkin Pie Sauce. A couple pumps of this magic into a latte and you'll have the post-apple-picking crowd abuzz with caffeine and fall nostalgia. For years, we struggled to find the best combinations of flavor for the coveted Pumpkin Latte, and then last fall a sample of DaVinci showed up in the mail and the entire staff was amazed at its functional simplicity and perfect pumpkin flavor.

Feel like a little more spice in your fall menu? Try our Monin Maple Spice syrup. Add the Pumpkin Sauce to a chai. Or, get crazy and feature a Carrot Cake Latte with our DaVinci Carrot Cake syrup. Of course, if flavored coffee is your thing, we'll still be offering Pumpkin Pie Spice coffee.

We'll be here ready to take your order, get you a new pump and help you contemplate recipes. And once the snow begins to fall, we'll be ready with our mint, gingerbread and chocolate.

At the end of June, Kaldi's hired a new roaster, Joe Marrocco. Over the last couple of months he has been busy learning the craft under the wings of our talented roasting staff. I sat down with him today to chat about his experience thus far.

Mike: When did you first get into specialty coffee?
Joe: My love for specialty coffee started via a trip to Nicaragua's Segovia region with a group that helped set up a Fair Trade co-op.

Mike: Describe your first professional coffee experience?
Joe: I managed and worked at Grace Cafe in Cape Girardeau, Missouri for 2.5 years. Grace's is a third wave coffee shop - maybe the first in southern Missouri.

Mike: What has been the best part of roasting so far?
Joe: Getting to know each coffee more intimately and gaining a more in-depth knowledge of coffee in general. I love the cupping table. I love educating the customers when they come in. I look forward to doing more of that in the future.

Mike: What has been the most unexpected part?
Joe: The physical labor load.

Mike: What are you doing about it?
Joe: Stretching a lot. I got a new pair of ergonomic shoes.

Mike: What have you been working on in the last week?
Joe: I've just started to roast origin coffees on the small roaster, but I'm spending most of my time so far on the big roaster roasting blends.

Mike: What was the first step of your training?
Joe: Andrew [Timko] had me get on the big roaster and had me keep track of the degrees per 15 seconds and noticed how each coffee would vary based on the coffee's or blends' density. This helped me learn how different coffees take on heat according to their density.

Mike: What's the one thing most people don't understand about roasting?
Joe: It's the perfect balance between art and science. It's very technically precise and you have to use your senses the whole time. You have to be seeing, smelling and listening to the coffee the entire time

Mike: What are your goals as a roaster?
Joe: I don't think I'll ever reach the goal of fully understanding coffee. My goal is to continue to become more knowledgeable each day and to do my part of bring "third wave" coffee to St. Louis and the Midwest. I love educating the public about what coffee truly has to offer.

Mike: What does it offer?
Joe: Caffeine. (laughter) Each coffee - dependent upon where it's grown, the soil it's grown in, how the farmer takes care of it, how much water it takes on, etc. - has particular flavor profiles that meld together in extraordinary ways. It has much more depth and diversity than wine and you can drink it while you work.
Mike: And operate heavy machinery like a coffee roaster...
Joe: Each coffee offers a conversation. It would be too intimate to walk up to a stranger and ask her to share a cup of wine, but asking her to a cup of coffee isn't too hard. Every cup needs to be shared. You never drink a good cup of coffee without telling someone about it.

Above, Joe Marrocco hits his first crack.

Matt Cole, a barista at our Chesterfield coffeehouse, was recently the first barista to complete the "Master" portion of our barista training program. One of the requirements of the "Master" level is to write an article on a coffee related topic. Since Matt was the first barista through the official program, we asked him to write the following article summarizing the highlights of the training.

When I first began at Kaldi’s, I thought that I had a general knowledge of coffee and barista culture as a whole. I had worked in a few other cafés in the past and was confident in my skills. But when I was introduced to the training program I realized that I still had a lot to learn.

I began my training in the cafés with some of the lead baristas. I was shown basic operations of the machine and how to execute the drinks on the menu. This was the beginning of my apprentice training at Kaldi’s. I was then introduced to the roaster. I was quite impressed. Our location downtown off of Vandeventer houses two drum roasters, a maintenance area, and an inventory to supply over 400 wholesale customers with a full training facility and the main offices. During my training at the roaster I got my first introduction to how coffee is grown, processed, graded and then shipped to us as green coffee.

I returned to the cafés with all that I had learned and began to prepare for the Certification Level Training. This level of training was more in depth than any other program I had been exposed to and was comparable to guidelines used in barista competitions. It consisted of measuring the amount of coffee I was dosing to draw shots, checking my consistency with milk temperatures, and testing my efficiency with setting the grind.

Throughout the training process on the espresso machine itself, I was also attending cuppings. This was very helpful in teaching me what to look for in a good cup of coffee. I was able to differentiate between levels of body and acidity in coffees as well as pick up on subtle characteristics in the coffee that I would not normally be aware of.

After working in the cafés for a while and continuing to advance in my skills as a barista, I began to prepare for the Master Barista Level Training. This level of training was above and beyond any normal training and skills a barista would experience in the cafés. I began the training with learning how to maintain the machine. I was shown how to adjust the back boiler pressure, pump pressure and how to adjust the pressure release valve for the front boiler. I was also shown all the parts of the machine and their functions.

As part of my Master Barista Training I was invited to host cuppings. I was able to go to the different cafés and teach the baristas about finding different characteristics in coffees as I had learned in the past. I was also able to train how to roast coffee. I spent a day at our roaster and was able to roast a batch of our house blend with the help of our top roasters.

In completing the training program, I have learned a great deal about the coffee industry, from the farmers, to the roaster and finally to the barista. I now understand the time and dedication that is put into making the perfect cup of coffee.