So by the time I went back for more of the sweet-tooth yellow icatu, it was sold out, alas. I am tempted to order some directly in bulk from the roaster, Ritual of San Francisco. I may yet, though that would be admitting my quest was at an end, and, of course, given the ephemeral and perishable nature of coffee beans, not to mention existence itself, that is not likely. I could have bought more of the oddly tea-flavored selection from Guatemala, or even the standard Heartbreaker espresso I started all this with, but I’m not ready to repeat myself yet. Onward to the new, this time a direct-trade bean from Colombia.
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Archive for February, 2009
Shots of Heliconias From Finca Santuario
February 28, 2009A Week of Sweet Tooth Yellow Icatu
February 21, 2009
In my seemingly never-ending quest for the perfect home-made espresso, I was stopped short last weekend by a bean that came incredibly close. I just didn’t have time to write about it, so I’ve been drinking it all week, alternating with this oddly tea-like but delicious coffee from Barismo that seems better suited to what the non-Americans call a cup of American coffee. Which can be a lovely beverage, no matter what the snobs say.
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Analyzing an Experiment in Blogging
February 21, 2009
Since October I’ve been experimenting here with some personal blogging. Why, you might ask, when I already blog at my job? Isn’t that a busman’s holiday? Perhaps. But I had plunked down money for this domain, and I had some ideas and obsessions to explore that didn’t fit in with my work. And I also wanted to conduct a few experiments.
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A Tea-Flavored Cup From Nimac Kapeh
February 15, 2009
I’ve come to appreciate sellers and roasters who blog about their single-source culinary coffees, giving some background on the beans, how they found them, who grew them. So it was that I learned that “Nimac Kapeh” is (reputedly) a Mayan phrase that means “the place of coffee.”
As I have hinted before, my personal Nimac Kapeh is Café Grumpy on 20th Street in Chelsea, which is where I found myself again on Thursday after my daughter and I were thwarted on a trip to a nearby knitting store, which was closed. I picked up two bags of beans, including this one.
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From the Aptly Named Wondo Worka
February 7, 2009
Yes, I’m coffee-blogging again.
After ambiguously adequate experiences with single-source beans from Starbucks and Joe the Art of Coffee, I high-tailed it back to my regular source of beans this week.
I’m sorry to report that the Costa Rican coffee from Starbucks remained bitter until the bitter end. I finally mixed it up with the last of the Indian Mysore, which made them both somewhat passable, because I hate to waste beans. But it was a chore. A change was in order.
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Men Polishing Their Silver
February 4, 2009Several years ago, I was on a suburban commuter train in warmer weather, and I overheard a man who claimed to be a psychiatrist, a big man festooned with silver rings and bracelets, sweating in a suit, talking with an incongruous companion, a tattooed young woman in a skirt. He told her he sometimes worked in a clinic where there were currently 20 men claiming to be Jesus. O.K., I thought, sure, right. Nice round number. I’ve heard that joke.
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An Abrupt Farewell to Pacific Echo
February 1, 2009
Restaurants come and go, especially in New York, and I usually don’t get attached to them or mourn them, but this sudden departure hurts a bit. For several years, Pacific Echo was the reliable little place around the corner for a Saturday night dinner. It was the first place my daughter learned to sit down and behave in a restaurant. This was where she learned to love California roll, edamame and green tea ice cream.
When we first started going there several years ago, we kept going back for the seafood sate and the special rolls that did not use seaweed — something that I had been told to avoid for obscure medical reasons involving a drug interaction with blood thinners. My wife, not always in the mood for sushi, became a fan of a particular marinated tofu dish.
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A Couple of Shots of F. W. Tres Rio Bella Vista
February 1, 2009
In my defense, I live in a neighborhood that has more square feet under the control of Starbucks than it has space devoted to food markets, bank branches or even Duane Reade drugstores. There is just one independent coffee shop, several blocks away, and it serves bad coffee. Plus, it was cold last night, 20 degrees, and the Starbucks was right there, still open, as we walked back from dinner, having just learned that our favorite sushi joint had gone out of business. And I remembered that a relative had given me a $200 Starbucks gift card more than a year ago, and it still had some money left. I needed some beans, having nearly run out of the Indian Mysore. And who knows, if a Starbucks bean turns out to be the object of my quest, that would be convenient.
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