Alterra Coffee Roasters News

Alterra Coffee Wauwatosa Opening September 23

Alterra Coffee's newest location will open Sunday, September 23. Located in the heart of Wauwatosa at the corner of Swan Blvd. and North Ave., Alterra will make a great addition to the Lockers Pointe complex.
Alterra Coffee "Tosa" will be open 7 days a week from 6:30am to 9pm and is located at:
9125 W. North Avenue
Suite 101
Wauwatosa, WI 53226
414-259-7948
Alterra Cafes map and directions

As with all of Alterra's cafes, Alterra Tosa will have a complete line of espresso, tea, coffee and blender drinks as well as the always-fresh bakery delivered daily from Alterra Baking Company.

Alterra Coffee Now Open in Grafton!

Visit our newest Alterra café, now open in historic Grafton, Wisconsin.  Our first retail store outside of Milwaukee County is located just one block from the banks of the Milwaukee River, where 12th Avenue meets Washington Street.  Come hang out in our café, or take a drink to go and check out our new neighbors Grafton Ski & Cyclery and Vino 100. 

Address:
1211 Washington Street
Grafton, Wisconsin 53024 (map)

Phone: (262) 377-5183

Store Hours:
Monday through Saturday 6:00am – 9:00pm
Sundays 7:00am – 9:00pm

Alterra in Grafton features a complete menu with a variety of breakfast items, salads, soups, and sandwiches…and of course, all of our favorite goodies from Alterra Baking Company.  (We strongly recommend the Baked Oatmeal with blueberries and peaches.)

Click here to view the full menu!

ACR Mountain Bike Team Member Wins in Arizona!

If you happen to be at our Prospect Avenue café on Thursdays at around 5pm during the warmer months, you’ll see a handful of cycle enthusiasts all geared up in orange and black.  These caffeine-fueled riders are part of the Alterra Mountain Bike Race Team, a group known not only for riding and racing but also for their strong tradition of community service.  Since 1996, the ACR Team has promoted positive cycling habits while staying committed to organizations like the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin, Boys & Girls Clubs,  and the Friends of the Hank Aaron State Trail. 

On Sunday, April 1st, one member of the ACR team, Mike Phillips, took his first victory in 2007 while representing the Midwest (and Alterra) at the NOVA Desert Classic Opener in Arizona.  This was Mike’s first national race at the semi-pro level, and despite 90˚ heat and a few bumps along the way (no pun intended), he still made Wisconsin proud! 

The stage race began with a time trial on Friday (complete with two falls and a trip to the hospital), followed by the “Super D” downhill race on Saturday, and ended with a 48-mile cross-country race on Sunday.  Mike’s dedication, training, and hard work paid off when he took first place in the cross-country event and placed first in the overall stage race.  Congratulations, Mike, and have a great season!

Check out photos, a play-by-play of the race, and more on Mike Phillips’ blog.

Ride with Team Alterra!

Join Team Alterra for the 27th annual Miller Lite Ride for the Arts, scheduled for the morning of Sunday, June 3rd. This year Alterra is the exclusive sponsor of the 15-Mile Route in addition to being the coffee sponsor for the second year in a row.  The 15-Mile Route will pass through the Historic Third Ward and Bay View neighborhoods on the way to St. Francis, where riders will loop back and end at the Summerfest grounds.   Riders will pass the Alterra Foundry café in the Fifth Ward both ways, just in case they didn't get enough free coffee at the start line.

The Ride for the Arts is an annual fundraiser benefiting the United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF), one of the largest performing arts funds in the entire country. Currently 36 organizations and groups receive funding from UPAF, including several Alterra community partners: the Florentine Opera, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Alterra has been an advocate for both the performing arts and bicycling for years, so we're thrilled to be a sponsor of this event.

As part of our sponsorship, we've created a company team and are inviting our customers to ride with us. The only way to join Team Alterra is by registering on the Ride for the Arts Web site, www.millerliteride.com.  Select Alterra Coffee Roasters in the drop-down menu as your team, enter alterra as the team password, and proceed to the payment section.

If you register on-line by Wednesday, April 25th, your 2007 Ride for the Arts t-shirt will have the Alterra logo printed on the back. Please note that t-shirts and registration packets must be picked up at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts downtown between May 28th and June 2nd and not at an Alterra retail location.

For more information, please send an e-mail to alterra@alterracoffee.com. We look forward to riding with you!

Alterra Trainer Featured in Barista Magazine

In just a few short years, a subculture has evolved in the specialty coffee industry that focuses on baristas and their craft. The barista, the technical name for someone who operates an espresso machine, is a respected career in many European countries, especially Italy where the first shots of espresso were pulled in the early 1900s. Given the relatively short history of specialty coffee in the U.S., however, many early baristas were young 20-somethings who couldn't tell a macchiato from a mocha.

Since then, baristas (or baristi, the proper plural form in Italian) in the U.S. have elevated their skills in pursuit of espresso perfection. They've started a nationwide network called the Barista Guild of America, organized and hosted barista "jams" and "throwdowns," and entered into regional, national, and international competitions. To serve this continuously growing community, Barista Magazine began publication two years ago and quickly has become the proverbial bible for baristas around the country (and world).

The cover of the February/March 2007 issue of Barista Magazine features Alterra's very own Barista Training Specialist, Scott Lucey. In addition to training our wholesale accounts and café employees, Scott is active in the barista scene. He served as a technical judge in the 2006 U.S. Barista Championship in Charlotte, NC, has placed in the finals of the Millrock Latte Art Competitions at the past two Coffee Fests, and will enter the 2007 U.S. Barista Championship in Long Beach, CA, in early May. Just last month he made his very first trip to "origin" (i.e., a coffee-producing country) and spent a week in El Salvador with fellow baristas from Idaho and Washington, DC.

Scott's passion for espresso and the barista profession (some might say geekiness) is a reflection of our collective commitment to sourcing, roasting, and serving great coffees.

Alterra Is Art!

We like to think that the allure of our cafes comes largely from the design elements, color schemes, etc. that we employ to create a unique retail environment.  It came as somewhat of a surprise, however, to discover that one of our loyal customers has found artistic inspiration in everyday items like our paper napkins, java jackets, and printed menus.

An art teacher at Nicolet High School in suburban Glendale, WI, for 21 years, Patricia Leeson paints and produces pottery, fabric wall pieces, and collages.  She was initially drawn to create her Alterra pieces because of the "wonderful coffee, food, and good times" she and her family have experienced at Alterra.  Patricia states, "My husband and I are very interested in interior design and very much enjoy the atmosphere at Alterra.  One day, while sipping a cup of coffee and thinking about demonstrating the concept of collage to my students, I was inspired by the atmosphere and the graphics that surrounded me.  I also had spent time thinking about how the population, whether teenagers or adults, have shifted their meeting and 'hang-outs' to coffee shops (over bars).  It's a good thing.  We have become a 'coffee culture'." 

Her Alterra-inspired works, titled "Coffee Culture - Ode to Alterra," consist of two 2-dimensional collages and a chair.  According to Patricia, they are "themed designs that use repeated existing commercial graphics to create fine art studies to represent a statement about our 'coffee culture'."  The chair was auctioned this past Saturday, Feb. 17th at a fund-raising event, "You Gotta Have Art," to benefit the Cedarburg Cultural Center.

Thanks for allowing us to serve as your inspiration, Patricia!

New Café at Bayshore Town Center Opens 11/20!

The wait is almost over.  After months of hard work and planning, our newest café is nearing completion to bring even more strong coffee to Glendale!

The Alterra café at Bayshore Town Center  will open on Monday, November 20th, complementing our existing kiosk inside the mall. Located in the Town Square District (near Devon Seafood Grill), the new café will offer our full drink menu as well as soups, salads, sandwiches, and baked goods.  It is the most recent addition to the growing number of Alterra locations but will also reinforce the roots of our company: Bayshore Mall was the site of our very first retail location, which opened in 1994.

Address: 5735 N. Bayshore Drive
                 Glendale, WI 53217
Phone:  414.967.5754
Hours: 7am-10pm (daily)

Alterra Latte Artists in Seattle Competition

For the uninitiated, latte art refers to the design created when an espresso-based drink is given an artistic, crowning touch. Popular designs include hearts and rosettas, which are formed using precise movements while pouring milk into an espresso base.

The espresso and steamed milk were flying in our cafes recently as baristas geared up for latte art competitions in the Pacific Northwest as well as here at Alterra. Let’s all tip our hats and tampers to barista trainers Justin Teisl and Scott Lucey who just returned from Coffee Fest in Seattle, Washington. They represented Alterra at the Millrock Latte Art Competition held on October 27th and 28th, earning results that made us proud.  Justin once again took second place in the competition while Scott poured his way to the finals.

A bit closer to home, Alterra employees participated in the very first in-house monthly latte art contest. Baristas from our cafes submitted photos of their best pours via e-mail. Congratulations to our October winner, Marie Busalacchi from the Prospect Avenue café, who took the first-place prize for her design.

If you would like to see more pictures from Coffee Fest, click here to visit Scott Lucey's flickr site.

Alterra: Coffee of Olympians

Not often does an Olympic medalist make a special trip to visit your cafe, but last Thursday, October 26th, we had the honor of hosting Dede Demet Barry, her husband Michael Barry, and their young son Liam.  Dede was born and raised in Milwaukee and grew up just a couple of blocks from our headquarters on Prospect Avenue (incidentally, she was in my older sister's high school class).  She started speedskating competitively as a child and picked up cycling as a cross-training activity, but she became so successful with the latter that she decided to focus exclusively on it while in college.

Dede's accomplishments are too many to list here, but perhaps the one for which she's best known is her silver medal in the women's time trial at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.  She retired afterwards but is still active in the cycling community, and Michael continues to race at the elite level - he recently switched from the Discovery Channel team to T-Mobile and is also a member of the Canadian national team.  This past summer Dede's mother, Margadette, e-mailed out of the blue to let us know that both Dede and Michael listed Alterra on the links page of their respective Web sites.  Mrs. Demet put me in touch with Dede herself, so I invited her and Michael to stop by during their next visit to Milwaukee.  She called on Thursday afternoon to say they were in town and less than an hour later they walked into the cafe.

I had never met an Olympian before, but both Dede and Michael were extremely friendly, casual, and - best of all - very interested in coffee.  We had a nice conversation and I gave Michael a tour of the roasting area while Dede chatted with Ward (a cycling enthusiast himself) and kept an eye on Liam, who seemed to enjoy wobbling in between tables and chairs.  You can learn more about them on their Web sites: www.dedebarry.com and www.michaelbarry.ca.

P.S. In case you were wondering what cyclists drink, both Dede and Michael ordered single-shot decaf cappuccinos (Liam had apple juice) and left with a couple of pounds of whole-bean organic coffee to take back to their home in Girona, Spain.

2006 Nicaragua Cup of Excellence Coffees Have Arrived!

And what exactly is a Cup of Excellence coffee? 

According to the Cup of Excellence Web site, it is “a strict competition that selects the very best coffee produced in that country for that particular year. These winning coffees are chosen by a select group of national and international cuppers and are cupped at least five different times during the competition process. The final winners are awarded the prestigious Cup of Excellence® and sold to the highest bidder during an Internet auction.”

This means great things for farmers like Mario Vilchez Urbina of La Santísima, who said, “I am very interest[ed] to continue working in the quality of coffee because I know that this will bring greater benefits to the farm, my family and the workers. I am sure of the quality of my coffee. For that reason I am motivated to continue participating in the Cup of Excellence…”

After cupping all of the winning coffee from the Nicaragua CoE this year, we decided that “La Santísima” was our favorite.  The super-dense acidity screams cherries, cherries, and more cherries, while flavors suggesting cocoa and caramelized sugar complement the medium body.   

We are happy to have this exceptional coffee available at alterracoffee.com, as well as in our cafes from Monday November 6th through Sunday the 12th as the Coffee of the Week (10% off!).   To learn more about La Santísima and see other photos of Mario Vilchez Urbina and his farm, please click here.

Follow this link to see more photos of the intensive cupping sessions held here at Alterra to determine our favorite lot.