CREMA

Just realized we haven’t posted or even said hello since August! Sorry about that. We’ve got great news, our fall drinks are a big hit. Oops, the menu in the picture says “Peregrino” …the drink is the Pelligrino… it means pilgrim! It’s made with real pumpkin and our own homemade syrup. It’s like drinking a pumpkin pie. The Lavender Macchiato is a huge hit also. Questions? Leave a comment.

We’ve got a deck! Big thanks to Chris and Christian for doing one heck of a job.

You may not want to sit outside now but in a few weeks the deck will be a great place to sit and take in the city view.

In other news, we have a bunch of new ceramic mugs just in, new tumblers, new tshirts (not shown – new woman’s t’s too!) and have you tried the new Pistolas de Espresso? Exclusively roasted for CREMA by Drew Brews, check it out next time you’re in.

We’ve got a Bunn grinder for sale, interested? Let us know.

Have you had a CREMA Car Bomb yet?

– PENDING –

Close enough for your own coffee IV! Next door available for immediate rent, 875sq ft, $850/mth.

Please read our Craigslist ad before responding, thanks: http://tr.im/u9Sf

Wow, what a title for a blog post, but couldn’t come up with anything better. It has been a while. We’ve been busy, like usual! But these days you’re most likely to catch us on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr (add photos to our Flickr pool) and oh, working on a our new espresso blend! Speaking of, we need a name for it, want to name it? It’s sweet, with dark chocolate notes and ripe blueberries. I can taste it now.

We’ve been busy. How does anyone keep up with Twitter, Facebook, myspace, yada yada yada….

Anyway, here’s some pix from our recent exploration on the west coast. We found an awesome little, only open a month, coffee shop on Post street. It’s called, Farm:Table, everything they serve is sourced locally and baked by them. So the next time you’re in San Francisco check ‘em out.

Our very own Barista, Logan, has taken to the road again with Roman Candle, a band that lives up to its name and will rock your socks off (what?). We are huge Roman Candle fans, isn’t everyone? Enough shameless rocker promotion and on to Logan’s third report from the road (first Barista Rocker report).

———–

“Des Moines. I used to pronounce it “dez moy nays” when I was a kid and then was shocked when I found out (sometime in middle school) that it wasn’t a city in Idaho. probably shouldn’t be broadcasting this, but it’s the truth. We’re playing a place called the Vaudeville Mews tonight here. This is a great little club in a great town – at least as far as we’re concerned – the local paper here, “the register” named our first record the best of the year in 2002 when it came out. And since it was the only paper nationwide to do so, we feel like there must be some sort of connection between us and this place…

Friday, May 15 is national bike to work day. Dust off those old pedals and head on into work the healthy way, hit up CREMA on the way for a free drip coffee.

Find more information such as routes and meet up points at www.WalkBikeNashville.org.

Our very own Barista, Logan, has taken to the road again with Roman Candle, a band that lives up to its name and will rock your socks off (what?). We are huge Roman Candle fans, isn’t everyone? Enough shameless rocker promotion and on to Logan’s second report from the road (first Barista Rocker report).

———–

“As Alice Cooper says in Wayne’s World, Milwaukee is pronounced ‘mill-e-wah-que which is Algonquin for the good land.’ And he’s totally right. This town surprises me every time I come up here. It’s clean, well-planned, and the people are really nice. I’m sitting at Alterra coffee on S. 1st st waiting to go to soundcheck, and the coffee here is actually really nice. So far I have ordered a double espresso and some drip coffee. The espresso is actually a lot like our (Drew’s Brews) Zappia blend. Although the shop here has a La Marzocco (older model) machine with normal portafilters, the crema on these shots were really nice and golden brown with even a touch of ‘tiger striping’ visible on top. The taste was really bright and citrusy, but not bitter or to acidic. Really good balance with a soft weight to it – seemed to have been properly dosed and tamped. Timshel had a cappuccino and really liked hers also. As far as method and technique goes – I really didn’t see anything out of the ordinary or new. The typical hand leveling, and tamping (although the Batista did use a few knocks to increase the dose).

A picture’s worth a thousands words, or is that granuals of granola? Whatever, all we know is this stuff is like a rock concert in your mouth. Add a cup of coffee and you’ve got yourself a dance party with electronic music and light show, a rave in your mouth… this is what happens when you try to put words to a picture.

What is this drink? We’re not quite sure ourselves. Somewhere in the scientific field of customer collaboration/experimentation this wild concoction was birthed. In the picture at left a man is rumored to be drinking the very first CREMA Carbomb. He was later ticketed on I65 South for going 95mph, when questioned further he spoke in a hushed jabber and was unable to explain how he could run so fast.

Whatever it is, it’s giving twitterer’s the jitters. Some more photos. Have you had one? Send us your CREMA Carbomb photo.

Our very own Barista, Logan, has taken to the road again with Roman Candle, a band that lives up to its name and will rock your socks off (what?). We are huge Roman Candle fans, isn’t everyone? Enough shameless rocker promotion and on to the purpose of this post. 

Our Barista at Large will be reporting from the road as they (Roman Candle if you missed it) trudge across the these United States on tour. The next time you’re in, say Rock Island (huh?) Illinois (the “s” is silent), simply hit up CREMA-coffee.com for our Barista at Large review and recommendation for the best shop in your knack ‘o da woods.

So, without further ado, here is Logan’s first report from the road…

“This was a double espresso I received in a town that will remain nameless last night. The cup is totally full FYI (about 6 ounces). “

From the editor: a properly extracted espresso shot is typically around 1oz, not much more… need we say more? Ok we will, there’s more to coffee than pushing buttons on a mysterious shiny machine. It is an art and passion for the best coffees, specialty coffee, the experience. Quality, education, passion, knowledge, artistery all count. 

* hey, nice shirt rocker boi, where’d you get that? Only $18? Right on.

We traveled to the Specialty Coffee Association (SCAA) and World Barista Championship (WBC) in Atlanta this weekend. Wow, a caffeinated time had by all! We met a lot of  great people and drank espresso from the best. The specialty coffee industry is a very creative, diverse and passionate group of talented craftsman – from roasters to baristas. One of the highlights was having the opportunity to interact with past world champion baristas, at the WBC espresso bar we experienced the magic ability of James Hoffman, ‘07 WBC Champ. James was experimenting with Krispy Kreme donuts and espresso, need we say more. Well, actually there is more in that to come, wink, wink. Another high point was the chance to get our hands on the Slayer, a new espresso machine sure to live up to its name.

It was an excellent adventure, you should come with us next year. Until then check out all our photos HERE and relive our weekend at Twitter.com/cremacrema.

This is my bike, it used to be old and uncool. It was one stop from the bicycle graveyard. But now it’s like new!

Thanks Halcyon Bike Shop!

Yo, long time no post. We’re still here, just been busy!

If its always been your dream to live downtown in one of those swanky flats here’s your chance to get a first hand look. We attended the Nashville Downtown Home Tour last year and loved the experience!

That’s the headline from a travel article about Nashville in the Guardian, a UK paper, that describes Nashville appropriately as “the shiney belt buckle of the Bible belt.” I hate self promotion as much as you but must say I found it very interesting that this article mentions us, all the way across the big lake! Well, not only us. Anywho, it’s a fun read. Look for the CREMA mention on page three, kindly disregard the others :)

Got an idea? Send it to us here: ideas@crema-coffee.com

We have a stellar staff, don’t you think? Each brings their own unique attitude, talent and unmatched love for coffee. Our lineup includes rock stars and a dog… get to know us on our new Peeps page.

In other news, “economists are baffled by the phenomenon” of local businesses growing while corporations shrink. Thank you for “carefully choosing” to spend locally. Read the whole story in today’s Tennessean, “Home-grown coffee shops prosper as Starbucks struggles.”

One year ago, Jan 28th, we opened the door to our little shop tucked away in an old diesel engine repair garage. What most would call a shady and mostly forgotten historic hill in the heart of music city we discovered potential. So it was with a bit of trepidation, a few shots of espresso – and a few more after that, and a belief that YOU were like us, we opened the door and yelled “come on in.” In stepped Carrington Fox, we’re not sure who was more excited!

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months and here we are approaching one year of celebrating coffee with YOU. Nashville is full of coffee enthusiasts seeking an authentic coffee experience and we are so glad we’ve found each other. We are proud to be YOUR coffee shop. Let’s celebrate, free brewed coffee and endless refills all day (7AM – 7PM) this Wed, Jan 28th!

Mon – Frid :7AM – 7PM
Saturday: 8:30AM – 5PM
Sunday: not open, even caffeinated people need a break :)

The first CREMA Christmas event raised over $800 for Safe Haven! That’s a big deal for a small shop. And we have many to thank - just a quick nod to all that made this possible, most importantly our talented artists, Sara-bellum (a.ka. the parking fair), Margie, and Rachael W., and least but not last YOU – it was you that made this a success with your purchases and donations.

We set an aggressive goal of $2,900, this amount underwrites the cost of a family becoming successful graduates of Safe Haven’s Mended Hearts program from start to finish. Working with our upcoming artists we will continue to donate until we reach it and we will continue to accept donations, in store or check by mail made out to Safe Haven, or you might even commission one of the artists and ask that a portion of the sale be donated  - see our artist page for links to their bio and contact info – we’re sure they’d love it.

What did you think about this event? Leave us a comment. 

Happy new year to all! 

—- 

Two CREMA notes: 

1) To better serve your addiction we are expanding our hours, beginning January 12 our new hours will be:

Monday-Friday 7am-7pm
Saturday 8:30am-5pm

2) Become a fan of CREMA on Facebook! Do it now >>

p.s. the new biz next door is GroovySoup – for all your web needs, they’ll get ya groovin’ in a hurry.

Our hours will be a little different over the next week, so here it goes:

Christmas Eve 12/24 7am-12pm
CREMA will be closed from 12/25-12/28
12/29-12/31 7:30am-2pm
New Year’s Day-closed

Back to normal January 2.

Steve Martin in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.

This special post goes out to Jack and John, who if they keep their word will now “come in wearing ballerina dresses and sing old show tunes.”

Hey John, Take-it-easy :)

NoiseTrade.com is our choice when we’re jonesing to fill our ears with Nashville’s best – it’s “fair trade music.” Listen to NoiseTrade Co-Founder Derek Webb’s interview tapped at CREMA for NPR’s Music City Remixed story. Thanks for the mention Mr. Webb!

Go Titans!

Click the image or CREMA Christmas tab at top to learn more.

A quick shout out for our friends Joy and Claudia who taught us tricks of making the finest Italian pasta we’ve had in these here United States. We had the privilege of attending Joy and Claudie’s first Italian cooking class and it was amazing.

Check out their blog, The Joy of Cooking and join their email list to be the first to know about upcoming classes, join the list.

First a bit of shameless commerce, we got mugs! $7.95 each and a free cup of coffee with purchase. Get them while supplies last (ah, the ole’ urgency sucker punch, as if we couldn’t order more…).

We now move to the question you’ve been pondering since childhood, the age old question “What is crema?”  Sleep well for we have your answer…

What is Crema? Did we mispell cream? No, it is a real word. Crema is the thick, golden-brown foam that develops in the filter and encrusts the top of an espresso serving. Crema gives espresso its complexity, depth of flavor and texture. Crema is the single most important indicator of espresso quality.

Proper emulsification of water and oil is what produces proper Crema. Dr. Joseph Josuma, a leading espresso expert states, “Crema markedly alters an espresso in terms of its mouth feel, density, viscosity, wetting power, and foam-forming ability, making it the single most important indicator of espresso quality. If there is no crema, it means the oils have not been emulsified, and hence it is not an espresso.”

We chose CREMA as our name because it represents our primary goal, excellence in quality. Our passion for the best quality in coffee, espresso and service is proudly rooted in our Italian heritage. So is our love for pizza we suspect.

We believe that smaller, traditional European sized beverages highlight the taste of espresso. Few Americans have tasted genuine Italian-style espresso, even though specialty coffee purveyors bode high quality, many Baristas are ill trained to craft a truly Italian experience. We want to change that.

At CREMA, we guarantee that every espresso has been properly extracted. Our Baristas have gone through intensive training and continue to grow in their skills. At CREMA we are always looking for ways to perfect our coffee and espresso. We hope you enjoy sharing in this experience, your satisfaction is our delight.

Rob Wilds of NPT’s program Tennessee Crossroads, profiles Drew Park, a Nashville coffee craftsman who is dedicated to brewing a better brew.

places, foods and events that makeTennessee Crossroads travels the highways and byways of Tennessee, highlighting the personalities, crafts, Tennessee special and its character unique.

Check out the video by clicking image to the left, and view episode 18.

Bring your spooky self and gnarly coffee stained teeth this Friday to CREMA! There could be a special appearance by Joe the plumber (if we can find the little bugger, keeps gettin’ lost, he’s invisible you know).

This (at left) is a pre-release of our ad launching in the Nashville Scene tomorrow. I always thought it would be fun to “pre-release” something, and since I’m not going to be a musician anytime soon… this is all I got.

Warm the taste buds with our Mayan Hot Chocolate, view the newsletter announcing our contribution to global warming (join the list). If you so happen to be in the mood to blow your taste buds to oblivion tempt us to spice it accordingly! See what Mr. Ridley had to say.

Hey, did you notice that the Copper Kettle is about to open? They’re just a hundred feet north of us, in the shadow of everyone’s favorite new pawn shop, show ‘em some love (like that will be hard to do).

Program note: to the weirdo who takes pleasure in snapping off the tops of our freshly planted flowers – by a notebook, rent a season of My Name is Earl and take notes you little freak.

In a rare moment of unity today, McCain & Obama agreed to promote free brewed coffee for anyone that presents their I Voted sticker at the capital of great espresso and coffee, CREMA.

Wear your I Voted sticker into CREMA and receive a free brewed coffee from now until the election is over. Vote for your candidate… or yourself (lord help us!)… whatever, just vote!

So Joe, Joe the plumber, if you’re out there we’ve got a little immediate tax relief for you, even if it is a simple free coffee – it is Nashville’s best cup, if we may say so ourselves.

Did you see our add (left) in the Scene?

By the way, never do THIS, even if it is an emergency… it doesn’t turn out well – just trust us.

The traveling master of coffee for the Ringling Bros. Circus stopped in! We’d been waiting for his visit for weeks, we just find him fascinating. Read more about Circus Coffee at www.circuscoffee.com.

We’ve added Mocha Brownies to the menu today, just thought you’d want to know, they are yummy!

If you missed the email, just in time for cold weather we’ve begun serving our Signature Mayan Hot Chocolate.

Just what the neighborhood needed… Really? Do you think we can pawn all the single serving empty beer cans left on our lot? Amazing… really? really? really?

In partnership with Drew’s Brews, Nashville’s roaster extraordinaire, we showed up for the Willie Nelson concert ready to feed the caffeine frenzy. Not sure what to expect, we were surprised at our popularity! Our limited power supply and one drip brewer couldn’t keep up with the Willie crowd, but we learned quickly how to serve a large crowd and are ready to cater your next event.

The trailer is 50’s model that has been meticulously gutted and rebuilt with coffee and espresso stained wood, truly a labor of love by Drew and friends.

Thanks to Paul Rinkes at http://rinkesphotography.com for the snapping this photo. Find a few of our own here, sorry none of Willie – we were too busy making coffee!

Also serving Willie was Mas Tacos, an idea so “simple, so obvious, so brilliant, so…diabolical!…that I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it first” as Jack referred to it on the Nashville Scene Bites blog. We couldn’t wait to try Teresa’s brilliant idea and were not disappointed.

A friend passed this along, a coffee grounds powered truck! Could we be the key to the renewable energy crisis?

CREMA will open early this Saturday, 7AM, to serve the volunteers and runners of the Nashville Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Learn more about the Race for the Cure Nashville here and about the organization here.

Never been to CREMA? We’re just a stones throw from the Titans stadium and the Schermerhorn. Here’s a map.

Kristen Foster wrote a nice little story on my journey to creating CREMA over at the new hip chick magazine her nashville. Check it out: CREMA of the crop.

Speaking of hip folks, head over to the Nashvillest blog and check out what guest blogger Jon Arnold has to say about CREMA. The Nashvillest is an entertaing-must-ad-this-to-your-rss reading list. Check it out: the Nashvillest.

While you’re surfing, check out these photos Dave has snapped at CREMA, he’s making a small fortune seling them over at istockphoto.com. Nice work Dave! Check them out.

While I’m on a roll here with links, here’s one of our favorite new blogs, Soapbox Musings, she “gets it” and also wrote a few kinds words about CREMA,  “…the best cappuchino I have had since returning to the States…it’s as close to an Italian morning as I’m going to get in quite some time.” Read the whole post.

Look for a short article about CREMA in the Tennessean’s Weekend paper by Dana Kopp Franklin. Dana spoke to us about our new extended hours during Titans games and more importantly our new exclusive CREMA Espresso blend – created by us in the CREMA Coffee Lab, a secret hidden layer in the belly of Nashvegas. Ok, I made that up, but we did create it and it is hand roasted to perfection by Drew’s Brews so you know it’s good!

Dana writes, “…Lehman who takes a seriously gourmet approach to coffee has added a second variety of espresso brew… now she and her co-workers have designed CREMA Espresso Blend, uniting beans from two different Ethiopian regions with a little Indonesian coffee.”

Our new CREMA Espresso Blend is in addition to our standard Zappia Family Espresso blend, you now have a choice between two great espresso blends for your Cortado, Cuban, or Americano!

Click the picture or here to read the article.

Please note that the CREMA Espresso 101 class this Saturday is all booked. Stay tuned if you’re interested in a follow up, we’re planning a video for those who miss the class. It will be posted as a CREMA College of Coffee video on our YouTube channel.

Our itty bitty ads in the Nashville Scene. Have you seen them? Did you visit us because of them? Tell us

Quick huddle team: go long for the hail Mary, cut a short button hook at the 10 yrd, and hit us – we’re open! Now get in the game. Go Titans!

CREMA is open Sunday’s 9AM – 12PM on Titan’s home game days.

(Did that make any sense to anyone?)

We will be open tomorrow for the first Titans game of the season! Is it really fall already? Where did Aug go.

Our hours will be 9AM -NOON.

We will be selling parking for the game, customers are welcome to park in the front lot.

Go Titans!

There’s not much we love more than coffee, except mac n cheese! It is most tasty!

Rumored to arrive next week in our latest email newsletter, the cheesey goodness arrived earlier than expected from the Sweet 16th Bakery… today! If you missed our September email newsletter here’s a copy: CREMA September 2008 Newsletter (join the list here)

Also mentioned in our email newsletter, “CREMA unleashes new coffees in September.” We’ll be featuring a new espresso blend as well as a few coffees exclusive to CREMA from Drew Brews. Click the Newsletter link above to read more about these new beans!

“The 19th Annual Best of Nashville® Readers’ Poll gives you the opportunity to choose who belongs in Nashville’s gallery of masterpieces.” (Nashville Scene)

How about givin’ us a thumbs up? Choose CREMA as Nashville’s best coffee house, on page four of the online Readers’ Poll. Vote for CREMA now!

We are CREMA and we approved this message.