Our last Vintage Mixer was full of the unexpected: sitting across from a stranger whom you realized grew up in a town near where you grew up, finding someone who shares your love for red wine, or actually tasting coffee and liking it without any added cream and sugar.  These were just a few of the comments I heard from folks who came to our first Vintage Mixer Coffee and Pastry Tasting.

Folks, many of which had never met before, sat around a long communal table to taste, smell and experience coffee brewed by one of the best barista’s in town, Levi Rogers.  Levi’s roots are in Colorado and most recently Portland where he fell in love with the culture surrounding coffee. He now works at a local coffee shop in Salt Lake and has started to roast his own beans out of a transformed barbecue grill. Keep your eyes open for his coffee brand, La Barba. Once he starts selling to the public, I promise you’ll want to try it. Not only did he share with all of the guests a bag of his freshly roasted beans to take home, throughout the morning he shared with us how to taste coffee, how to read a coffee bag, what the best methods to brew coffee are, and where to get the best coffee in town.  Most of us wake up every morning to a cup of fresh coffee yet we know so little about it.

We sipped on coffees that are made at the best roasters all over the country. No Brow Coffee  supplied us with Heart and Ritual coffees, while Salt Lake Roasting Company provided an their own Ethiopian blend as well as an espresso blend.

And what’s coffee without a pastry to go with it?!
The grand pastry table:

(vintage suitcases and percolator rented from Abode)

As we sat and learned about our favorite morning addiction, all the while getting overly caffeinated, we also tasted some of the best pastries in town.  We had a wide variety of pastries, from the award winning mysteriously flakey pastry, the Kouing Aman from Les Madeleines, to a delicate lavender infused honey scone from The Rose Establishment and lovely fruit tartlets from Salt Lake Roasting Company.

Everyone had their own favorite tastes of the morning but people left still talking about the Kouing Aman, a local pastry that has made it’s way to national recognition by way of the Food Network on Road Tested with the Neelys and The Best Thing I Ever Ate. It is made from 83% French-style butter producing a crunchy, salted caramel on the outside yet a gooey flakey inside. Several folks at the tasting renamed this delicious yet hard to pronounce pastry simply, ‘the queen,’ which I thought was very fitting.

Another highlight of the pastries were these small, one-bite Gougeres, made with fresh thyme, garlic, and three types of cheese from The Rose Establishment.  They are traditionally served alongside wine or beer but we found they were a great partner to a cup of strong black coffee. The Rose Estblishment just came out with their own pastry line so we were all excited to sample their latest products!

Gougere from The Rose Establishment

And a closer look…

The purpose of every Vintage Mixer is to gather a group of people around new and interesting food and drink. We also desire for every tasting we help orchestrate to have an even greater vision. This event’s goal was to raise money for a non-profit called First Descents. The mission of First Descents is to offer young adults fighting cancer an outdoor adventure  experience of a lifetime. These adventures are designed to enable them to climb, paddle, and surf beyond their diagnosis, defy their cancer, reclaim their lives and connect with others doing the same. All proceeds of the morning went to this noble cause.

We are especially grateful to all of the local companies who donated pastries and coffee to make this morning delicious and successful for First Descents.  A very very special thanks to:
La Barba Coffee & Levi Rogers
The Rose Establishment
Les Madeleines
No Brow Coffee 
Salt Lake Roasting Company