KAF Switches Coffee Supplier and Updates Menu
The other day at KAF, I ordered my usual caffeine fix: a small dark roast.
“Bold,” the woman behind the register remarked as she labeled the small white cup with a sharpie.
I guess it is a pretty bold drink order, I thought, shrugging nonchalantly as I stepped aside. My smugness was dispelled a moment later when I heard the student behind me ask for a medium roast, an order which was translated as “mild” to the staff working the coffee machine.
As it turns out, the new names are not ratings of beverage choices (though I would still feel a little judged if mine were called a “small mild”), but one of the many changes KAF has made to its menu. The café recently switched from Vermont Coffee Company to Karma Coffee Roasters, a move that KAF PR Manager Terri Rosenstock said will allow for more efficient and higher quality brewing.
“The reasoning for this was our desire to partner with a small roaster that could roast to order, which allows us to provide ‘just in time’ quality for grinding and brewing,” Rosenstock said.
John Tunnicliffe, director of Camelot, King Arthur’s flagship campus in Norwich, Vt., said that the change was ethically motivated as well. Karma, which advertises its coffee as “socially-responsible,” is a fair-trade roaster.
“That’s important to us,” Tunnicliffe said. “It’s part of the ethics of King Arthur Flour. We’re always looking for new vendors and partnerships where we can see the sourcing all the way through the chain.”
Before partnering with Karma in November, KAF employees taste-tested the new coffee. One of the company’s goals was to come up with two flavor profiles that would be more distinctive than their predecessors, the old “medium” and “dark” roasts, Tunnicliffe said.
“What we wanted to do by working with Karma was to bring focus to the process of brewing coffee at the highest level,” Tunnicliffe said.
The result was the selection of the “bold” and “mild” brews, in addition to an espresso and decaf blend with a flavor profile similar to that of the mild roast. Despite the changes, some KAF patrons said they hadn’t noticed any difference in flavor.
“I tried the mild roast,” Bianca Jackson ’15 said. “I couldn’t tell that they’d changed it. It kind of tasted the same.”
Rosenstock said that due to requests for more savory options, the café will introduce a few more items to its food menu later this month. KAF, which stopped selling sandwiches as a result of limited production capacity at its Norwich location, reintroduced an old favorite, the brie and apple baguette, at the beginning of the term. The swarms of hungry customers in line at KAF on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays — the days when the sandwich is available — are a testament to its popularity.
“We’re happy that we’ve been able to have enough production capacity to be able to offer the choice of a sandwich,” Tunnicliffe said. “The response has been great from all.”
Tunnicliffe said that the company hopes to someday expand its production capacity to offer more sandwich options, though unfortunately for grilled lemon chicken salad sandwich lovers like myself, those plans have not yet materialized.
In the meantime, KAF connoisseurs can treat themselves to freshly baked pizzas, an item added to the menu in the fall which has been “gathering momentum,” according to Tunnicliffe. Customers can order pizzas during the week to have delivered to the library on Friday afternoons, hot and fresh out of the kitchen in Norwich – an offer that’s especially appealing as temperatures drop below zero and the walk to FoCo feels just a little too far.
Tunnicliffe expressed enthusiasm for KAF’s relationship with the Dartmouth community and emphasized the company’s openness to suggestions from its café customers.
“All our staff at Baker-Berry really enjoy working with students and faculty,” Tunnicliffe said. “We love getting feedback.”