The tasting notes: “Red currant aroma. Floral brightness. Sweet notes of aged bourbon & molasses.” The Cup of Excellence rewards barista skill, of course, but you have to start with a good bean, and this far exceeded my expectations. I was parceling out beans like bits of gold on mornings with important business.

I also returned to a couple of standbys — Grumpy’s Heartbreaker espresso, always right on the money, and the house espresso at Joe the Art of Coffee. In my office, I used the Aeropress to make cups of another Honduran bean, Finca La Tina from Joe, with good results.

I have noticed a few new coffee shops opening their doors around Manhattan, so I hope to try a few new places. Alas, B. Koffie, home of the French press in a cup, closed its doors a while back, so Hell’s Kitchen again lacks a boutique coffee experience. (The beans came from La Columbe.)

My family was traveling elsewhere, and New York had not yet fallen into the drippy hot torpor that has marked recent days. I rode down the west side a bit, diverted to to the Hudson River trail, then passed through TriBeCa, Chinatown, SoHo and my old East Village stomping grounds before chugging up the East Side — a loop of sorts.

I made a pass by La Colombe Torrefaction, but I had already tried beans from there via B. Koffie, so I decided to check out Kaffe 1668, one of the shops highlighted in The Times a couple of months ago.

Coffee Guatemala Antigua Los Volcanes

Purchased July 3 at Kaffe 1668, 275 Greenwich St., TriBeCa.

Roasted on June 27 by Plowshares Coffee Roasters of Hillburn, N.Y.

Description Creamy body; delicate, clean acidity; milk chocolate and orange citrus; smooth, sweet, dry finish.

In the cup I picked out this particular coffee because I had not tried anything from this roaster before. In the shop, I had a coffee brewed expertly by the cup in a Clover press. That was a Panama variety from Denver-based Novo. Full bodied, and smooth, with a milk chocolate flavor, this coffee was delicious, as anything brewed in an $11,000 machine should be. I drank it hot, because that’s how I like coffee, though it would have been a good day for cold brew, which was also available.

The shop, located across from a Whole Foods, adds some style and ambiance to an otherwise mall-like block of sterility downtown. The front opens out on the street, and there are interesting light fixtures and a communal wood table, where I sat. I was able to lock my bike within view on a low fence around a tree, and there was more ample bike parking across the street near the Whole Foods.

There’s free WiFi with your purchase, which I used to browse the shop’s Web site, with its entertaining cartoons. As best I can tell, Kaffe 1668 doesn’t have its own roaster, but features beans from Intelligentsia and other high-end roasters like Novo.

I left with a bag of this Guatemalan strapped to my bike. The bag itself is an impressive bit of green-ish technology, made from paper with a ziplock that can be resealed.

Plowshares, which has an excellent Web site, gives this description: “Los Volcanes coffee is grown in the valley’s rich volcanic soils that were formed by the three volcanoes (Agua, Acatenango, Fuego)… Most of the coffee here is cultivated at 1,500 – 1,700 meters above sea level which helps gives this coffee a pronounced acidity that is clean but not overpowering.” The Antigua valley is a prime coffee growing region about 40 kilometers from the city of that name in Guatemala, according to Plowshares. The beans with this name come from 34 growers who banded together in a cooperative in 2000.

I have been drinking a regular cup or two brewed at home every morning for the last couple of weeks. I don’t have any complaint about it, but it hasn’t been bowling me over. It does pass my no-milk test, which means it is not overly acidic to my taste. The citrus didn’t overwhelm me, which is sometimes a complaint I have with the single-origin coffees promoted by many coffee aficionados. It is remarkably light-bodied and smooth, which is good on these sweltering days, though I tend to prefer a fuller flavor and more than a trace of chocolate.

Still, it was well worth the ride.

Since I am still dabbling with social media, I also documented this trip on Foursquare and Posterous. And now I am promoting this WordPress blog post on Facebook and Twitter. On some level, I suppose this is a longer, multi-platform version of the classic Twitter update, “I am eating a sandwich.”

(Yes, I am drinking a cup of coffee.)

I try not to be that guy, but it’s getting harder.

Coffee Organic Peruvian French Roast

Purchased June 19 at McNulty’s Tea & Coffee, 109 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village

In the cup Despite its prominence in Zagat ratings and elsewhere, I was not familiar with this shop when I stumbled upon it quite by chance a couple of weeks ago, on my way with my family to hear a friend read his flash fiction at the Path Cafe (also a neat little place; Christopher Street has a lot of them). I ordered a half pound of chocolate-covered peanuts — delicious — and a half-pound of this coffee.

McNulty’s — a retailer, not really a place to drink coffee — seems to have steadfastly resisted the modern trend of sharing every little secret with its customers. The Web site makes much of its history (founded in 1895), the old time feel of the shop, the exotic mystery of imported products: “Immediately upon entering the shop, one’s senses are delighted by the many aromas of coffees and teas from around the world. Sacks of coffee and chests of tea with obscure markings from far away lands are visible everywhere. Even the bins, chests, and scales, with which these products are stored and handled, date back to the previous century.”

The service was polite, if a bit distracted, and my impression was that more effort was devoted to displays of tea than coffee. My beans (and the chocolate-covered nuts) were weighed in the old-fashioned scale.

I inquired about the roaster and was told with a shrug that the shop used an unnamed roaster in Long Island City, Queens. Presumably the beans had been roasted recently.

Many coffee sellers now offer tasting notes as florid and adjective-rich as wine descriptions, but there was none of that at McNulty’s. The country of origin was listed, and in some cases beans were described as organic or free trade. No details were offered about the specific growers. I didn’t realize how hooked I have become on knowing this information, even though I am not an expert who can make useful judgments based on it.

This is in some respects just a difference in marketing. A place like McNulty’s relies on the mystery and mystique of foreign lands. A roaster like Intelligentsia and shops Stumptown andCafe Grumpy appeal to a different type of consumer.

This type of customer is obsessed — perhaps too much so — with authenticity. For these consumers, coffee is no longer an exotic product arriving by ship from third-world places with unusual names. Knowing the details of origin improves the taste. Coffee is also a product with a politics, a mix of foreign policy, economics and environmentalism. Knowing something about how it arrived in the cup is important to some people.

So how was the Organic Peruvian French Roast? It was merely O.K. Maybe I picked the wrong bean. I’ve been drinking this as a regular Americano for the most part. Light in the mouth, maybe a bit of a citrus kick at the end, some bitterness, a trace of nuts — hard to say for sure, I’m not a coffee taster. It was not captivating, but not overpowering, either. Just coffee. I guess I’m looking for something more interesting these days. Data.

Inside Third Rail Coffee at 240 Sullivan St. in Greenwich Village.

This is a quickie coffee post, dashed off while watching the U.S.-England World Cup match and discussing the propriety of promiscuously using “tweet” in news articles.

First, a word about B. Koffie‘s Yirgacheffe and Kenya French Mission offerings. Kudos to La Columbe, the roaster. I sampled the latter and refilled my Mason jar with the former on a May 29 visit. Both were tasty and in line with the descriptions on the boards.

Read my earlier post about this Hell’s Kitchen shop, a relative newcomer to the neighborhood.

On June 6, I found myself near Washington Square Park for the Wrs. orld Science Fair and in need of coffee. It was a short walk to Third Rail Coffee, which offers beans from Intelligentsia, one of my favorite roasters.

A friend encouraged me to try the “cold brew,” a form of iced coffee (Stumptown offers it too, but I haven’t tried it). To brew coffee this way, you soak the beans overnight in room-temperature water. Some say cold brew — also known as “cold press” coffee — is less acidic and easier on the stomach, while others seem to think it offers a bigger caffeine punch.

I drink hot coffee year-round, but I’m not above switching to iced coffee at this time of year. I’ll probably have to try cold brew again. It was delicious, but this one experience was not enough for me to conclude anything.

Third Rail is a cute shop, comfortable, humming with traffic (see the photo at the top of the post). This was my first visit, and I expect I’ll be back.

The coffee scene is taking off in New York. (I am slowly making my way down the list of top coffee shops in that TImes article; see my post on Birch Coffee.) It’s going to be a great summer.

The decor gave me a warm feeling right away. True, you’re not going to find a half-dozen varieties of obscure single origin coffees from as many countries, as you would a couple of blocks away, but there are chairs and stools, something Stumptown eschews. And food. And wine. And beer. And a lending library upstairs.

Coffee Birch Blend

Purchased June 4 at Birch Coffee, 7 E. 27th St. (between Fifth and Madison Avenues), Flatiron District

Roasted Within the week by Coffee Labs Roasters of Tarrytown, N.Y.

Description “A well-balanced cup with pleasant smokey walnut undertones, and milk chocolate dipped cherries accompanied by a refined finish.” A blend of Nicaraguan, Guatemalan and Indian monsooned Malabar coffees.

In the Cup Birch offered just three coffees — the signature blend described above, “Emma’s espresso” and a decaf. A simple user experience with limited choices, as if Steve Jobs had designed it.

I started with a shot of the espresso, which was served in the thick, muddy style that has become fashionable.

It was a perfectly fine, with a nutty flavor, and the advertised bittersweet chocolate, with more emphasis on the bitter than the sweet. Then I had a cup of the Birch Blend (no milk), which was a revelation.

Perhaps I had been primed at that point by the cozy atmosphere, but it was a sublime cup of coffee. It certainly delivered a smokey something, in a smooth and light package with chocolate behind it, no bitterness, and a gentle finish. I was ready to buy a T-shirt and move into the library.

As at most high-end coffee shops in New York that take service seriously, the baristas here are fast, friendly and polite, and the owner himself happened to wait on me when I asked to buy beans, telling me the details about the blend and roast. (No special treatment: On trips like this, I never identify myself as anything more than just a customer who likes coffee, which is what I am.)

Before this, I had not focused my attention on “Monsooned Malabar” coffee, one type of bean in the blend.

The name refers to a practice on the West Coast Malabar section of India, where beans are exposed to monsoon winds repeatedly during the curing process. The humidity helps to create a distinctive flavor, including a hint of chocolate, according to various sources.

These coffees are said to be more potent and pungent, sharper, than other Indian coffees, which tend to be mellow. But in this case, thanks perhaps to the Latin American beans, there’s no trace of overpowering flavors in the Birch Blend.

The result is something special.

A day later, I am at home, polishing off this blog post and an Americano made from the blend, wishing Birch Coffee happened to be closer to my usual daily travels and thinking of reasons to head back to the neighborhood. (Well, it is a couple of doors down from the Museum of Sex.)

Now comes B. Koffie.

The new shop drew a fair amount of attention when it opened earlier this year as the first place to offer a disposable a French-press-to-go cup.

I went to see that and try it out, but I was more interested in the selection of single-origin beans, all imported from Africa.

The beans are sold in Mason jars, the ones made by the Ball Corp., the type that my parents used to use for canning preserves, sauces and pickles.

If you return the jar for a refill, you get a discount, the barista told me.

Coffee Rwanda Rwabisindu

Purchased May 16 at B. Koffie, 370 West 51st St., between 8th and 9th Avenue, closer to 9th.

Description According to the hand-lettered chalkboard (pictured): “Chocolate tones, jasmine, fruit and nuts.”

In the Cup: This was a smooth, rich and delicious coffee, prepared as an espresso and an Americano at home. It seemed fresh, though I don’t know the roaster or roasting date, or the precise origin, presumably a cooperative associated with the Rwabisindu washing station. I was in a hurry on my visit, so I forgot to ask about those details, and they were not posted.

[Update: I was told on a later visit that the beans were imported and roasted by the Philadelphia-based La Columbe Torrefaction, which also has its own shop in SoHo.]

The little shop on West 51st Street is easy to miss on the south side of the street. When I visited, there was no sign out front, the overhang said something about an electronics shop, and I almost walked by. Inside, there are no seats, but the decor is pleasing, and the staff was patient and helpful.

According to the shop’s Web site, B. Koffie was created by Tanya Hira and her partner Roberto Passon. The Xpress lid is a clever gimmick, a disposable contraption designed by Jeff Baccetti of Smartcup.

The barista put the ground coffee in the bottom and poured in the piping hot water. I waited four minutes and then pushed the plunger down until it clicked.

This results in a considerably fresher cup of coffee than something that has been sitting around the shop.

And I mean it about the piping hot part — I walked several blocks before the cup was cool enough to drink.

I think I still prefer the precision that a skilled barista can get from a Clover, and I generally don’t mind the wait. When I go back, I think I’ll try an espresso pulled from the shop’s FAEMA E61 espresso maker, which seems to be a fetish object for some coffee geeks.

But the real reason to visit B. Koffie is the coffee, of course. And now that the Mason jar is empty, it’s time to take a stroll over for a refill. (Update: I did just that and also gave the French press cup another try, with a smooth and smoky Ethiopian Yergacheffe that satisfied].

A good coffee shop is all about atmosphere. And the atmosphere is one reason that I’ve tried to like the Joe Art of Coffee chain. They really make an effort.

Paintings and other one-of-a-kind art on the wall. Barista classes. Cute little signs describing bits of coffee lore. Cupping notes on the bags. The last time I sampled some beans here, very early in my coffee quest, I was disappointed. Lately Joe has been popping up on best-of lists, so it was long past time to give Joe another chance, and now I’m glad I did.

One important change: Joe has switched to a new roasting partner, Ecco Caffe in California, since my visit last year. A good roast makes all the difference. The retooling landed the shop on this best-of-New-York coffee list by The Times.

Coffees Brazil Serra do Bone, Brazil Fazenda Sertãozinho and Seasonal House Blend

Roasted Late April by Ecco Caffe

Purchased May 3 at Joe the Art of Coffee, 405 West 23rd St.

In the cup Ah, Brazil. When it comes to old school coffee, I’ve come to think there’s nothing like beans from Brazil. Cue the Sinatra. “They put coffee in the coffee in Brazil.”

On the morning I visited, the featured coffee was from Brazil, the Serra de Bone.

The tasting note said: “Malted chocolate and praline with a balanced acidity and a creamy, caramel finish to yield an approachable cup.” It was so delicious and amazing that it didn’t even bother me that one guy was sprawled with stuff across all three chairs in the window of the shop.

I decided to go heavy on the Brazilian flavors with the two bags of beans that I bought.

The seasonal house blend (Mogiana from Brazil, Tingo Maria from Peru) lived up to its tasting notes: “Cocoa-nosed sweetness with lovely tones of brown sugar and a lingering honey finish for an elegant and approachable cup.”

That’s a description right up my alley, and this didn’t disappoint me. For the past couple of weeks, I made this at home as both espresso and Americanos.

At the office, using my Aeropress, I have been enjoying the Fazenda Sertãozinho.

The bag described it as “drenched in rich, dark chocolate. Tons of sugarcane, caramel, Satsuma tangerine, honey, vanilla and malted milk imbue this with an elegant and approachable sweetness.” I didn’t pick up much tangerine, but this is accurate.

Another nice thing about my Joe experience: The bags are generous with 12 ounces of beans, and not overpriced — generally $11 to $13 per bag.

Maybe I got lucky. Maybe the tasting notes were spot-on (despite the overuse of “approachable.”) Maybe I should thank Ecco Caffe or the nation of Brazil.

But it is rather rare for me to buy three coffees in one place and like them all.

Of the three, I like the Fazenda Sertãozinho best, and wish I had some at home right now. Alas, the bag is sitting in a cupboard in the office.

There is one exception that stands out in this wasteland: Empire Coffee & Tea, on Ninth Avenue, about a block north of the Port Authority.

I wandered over there on my lunch break not too long ago, had a latte and picked up some beans for home and the office.

Coffees Columbian Supreme Italian espresso and Obama Blend

Roasted Late March or early April.

Purchased April 5 at Empire Coffee & Tea, 568 Ninth Avenue, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.

Description The espresso was recommended to me as rich and full bodied but not too strong. The Obama sign said it was a “smooth, hopeful, confident blend of African, Indonesian and Hawaiian coffees.”

In the cup I had no idea that Empire had such a long history until I started researching this post. A worker at the store, when I asked if the beans were fresh, said his owner had roasted them upstate that week, and that the outfit had only one other store, in Hoboken. Its Web site claims the shop has been on Ninth Avenue for more than 90 years — since 1908.

The staff was quite polite and helpful. There was a wide selection. I was put off a little by the storage of the beans in open bags so close to the door. A friend of mine worries about dust and grime from Ninth Avenue settling on the open bags. But that strikes me as overly finicky. I’m sure that any growing, roasting and drying operation would give a consumer pause.

But if you’re expecting precise labels listing roasting dates, the names of the plantations, precise varieties, growing elevation and other particulars of the coffee origins, you won’t find it at this shop. The prices are certainly more economical than the high-toned coffee snob shops downtown. For the same price you pay for a sealed, light bag at some outfits, you can get a generous pound of beans here.

I had the shop grind the Obama for use in the Aeropress, and have been enjoying it in my office for most of the month, just running out the other day. The name is a bit gimmicky, but it sounded like an interesting blend, and I found it to be a pleasing, rich flavor, smooth and not at all acidic.

I took the Columbian espresso home as whole beans, where I enjoyed it each morning. It was a smooth, rich, satisfying, relatively mild coffee, just right for my taste.

I’m glad I remembered this place was there, and I’ll certainly be stopping back.

I saw one at a friend’s house on a trip to Los Angeles last winter. This thing is amazing. Usually I’m content to take my espresso or coffee straight, but every once in a while I want some foam and froth.

I have managed to steam and froth milk with various steam-shooting attachments on espresso machines over the years, but it was usually a big mess, and the results were mixed.

And try as I might, I could never get soy milk to froth at all, which was sad for my wife, who doesn’t use dairy but likes a decaf cappucino every now and then.

So my family gave me one of these for my birthday last month.

It’s a revelation. It purrs quietly. It whisks up some hot (or cold) foam in a matter of seconds. It is easy to clean up. And it works fine with soy milk.

I’m drinking a fine soy cap right now, listening to a Pandora station on my new iToy and writing this post.

Mmm, creamy and foamy.

The iPad can’t do that!

But I have another problem. I’ve run out of coffee. And that takes me to this week’s selection — the last drop is going down the hatch.

Coffee Monserrate, Huila, Columbia

Roasted March 14 by Café Grumpy in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Purchased March 16 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description “Hazelnut aroma, butterscotch sweetness, smooth body and ripe red apple brightness. Caturra & Typica. Washed, sun-dried. Producer: Grupo Asociativo Productores del Nuevo Milenio”

In the cup This is a perfectly fine but ultimately undistinguished coffee in my mind, but I’ll admit to being a little distracted this week. I’ve had it at home in the Jura and at work in the Aeropress (it is better than the previous selection for that). I’ve never been a big Hazelnut fan, associating it with the worst sort of break-room or gas-station coffee. This is nothing like that flavored stuff. It is just a hint. The butterscotch sweetness and smooth mouthfeel saves the whole thing. And of course, much of the time I have been drowning it in foam and milk, so I can’t really be trusted to give it a fair assessment. I do love the Aerocinno.

One note: A small amount of milk is enough to make foam for a few drinks, so it’s good to have company when you use it. I will have to experiment before I learn to draw little pictures in the cup the way pro baristas do.

So I just made this cappuccino and a decaf latte for my wife (using the Novo decaf — sure, we have plenty of that left). We’re listening to Pandora’s iPad app play a Phish song (“Contact”) while I blog this (on my MacBook Air — I don’t see the tablet working for my workflow even on this simple blog, which still requires simple picture uploads and easy typing, but I’ll discuss the iPad’s limitations in a future post).

I guess I’ll have to tear myself away from my new toy(s) and ride my bike to get some more beans today.

Using air pressure, the press extracts delicious “espresso” (not really) from two scoops of finely ground coffee. Top it off with hot water, and you have an Americano. So far I’ve had the best results with the Kenyan Gatomboya from Stumptown and the Novo Decaf Espresso carried by Cafe Grumpy. I heat the water to 175 degrees Farenheit using this Breville electric kettle, served up in these supposedly unbreakable glass mugs.

Coffee Fazenda Chapadão de Ferro (Patrocínio, Cerrado Region, Brazil)

Roasted March 14 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased March 16 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description “Juicy and sweet cup with notes of vanilla, almonds and milk chocolate. Tropical fruit brightness & a floral finish. Award-winning farm rich with volcanic soil owned by Ruvaldo Delarisse.”

In the Cup This is a fine coffee, though it has those floral and fruit finishes that sometimes annoy me (it’s a personal thing). It was tolerable as an espresso at home in the Jura automatic machine, but I was less impressed with this bean in the Aeropress. (Update: I should also note that fans of the Aeropress have found some better ways to prepare coffee with it than in the official instructions, and that this is really a high-quality filtered coffee, not an espresso. A hat tip to Christian, down in the comments.)

As an Americano, this Grumpy Brazilian is less overpowering, so I can only conclude that this has to do with temperature or the method of extraction.

Of course, many coffee snobs think that some coffees are never meant to be prepared as espresso.

Certainly, not all beans are recommended for preparation at the lower temperature that Aeropress recommends in its directions.

My next experiment with the Aeropress will be with a bean more suitable for this, perhaps something from Intelligentsia.

The promotional copy for the Aeropress bills it as “the best coffee maker X ever owned” and a source of coffee nirvana that makes better “espresso” than many a machine. It is certainly better than a lot of mediocre coffee I’ve had in restaurants. (Read more about the promotional language in these Aeropress tips from Sweet Maria’s.)

The coolest part: When you’re done, you can eject the grounds cleanly in puck form into the trash. A quick rinse cleans it. Far better than the mess I usually make cleaning a French press.

The first shots I made with this device — not using this Brazilian bean — were indeed exquisite. But the results do vary, perhaps because of the beans, how well I manage to press the coffee, the temperature of the water (which I have to estimate based on two-thirds the time it takes for a full boil) and so forth. Some of the alternative methods suggest an upside-down brewing method that keeps the water from seeping through the grounds too quickly.

But in a coffee wasteland like Midtown, the device is a life saver on a drowsy afternoon — and a source of amusement for the coworkers who are not yet bored with watching me demonstrate it.

Now if only I were not surrounded by so many tea drinkers.

Roasted Feb. 18 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Feb. 24 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description “Violet and raisin aromatics open the flavor gates to perfectly clean notes of plum, black cherry and orange zest that are complimented by a syrupy body.”

In the Cup I wanted to like this coffee more, because beans from Burundi in East Africa are apparently a rarity.

This direct-trade coffee from the Kayanza province did not really work for me as an espresso, perhaps because the fruit notes were simply too intense when it was prepared that way. I’m not a big fan of bright and shiny fruit flavors in coffee.

This was much better as Americano, smooth and pleasant, easy to drink without milk.

Stumptown says: “Bwayi is one of the pearls in our East African Direct Trade program. We’ve been working closely with this group of farmers over the past three years. In addition to improved cherry selection and a return to double fermentation, a la the Kenyan style, we’ve now installed a pre-drying stage to the Bwayi process. This addition has given the coffee’s mouth feel pronounced depth. Our quality control team cupped through each day of the harvest to construct this lot of coffee.”

The Drinks With Nathan blog has some more interesting detail about the coffee growing scene in Burundi. A poor economy has made the country late to the specialty coffee game, but the farmers have benefited from a Stumptown-supported program that supplies bikes to them and growers in neighboring Rwanda.
Thumpology also points to some resources about Burundi coffees.

Several of my favorites are listed — Cafe Grumpy, Stumptown, Ninth Street Espresso, Joe…

Enjoy. Yes, I work at the paper, but I had nothing to do with it. I was pleasantly surprised to see it. Maybe I’ll expand my espresso quest this spring and bike to them all, starting with the ones in Manhattan.

Before I get to the latest installment of my endless coffee quest, I must mourn the end of my brief reign as a Twitter list maven. At the start of this week, I made the mistake of using the latest crashy build of Firefox while playing around on the Tlists site with my lists.

Because of a glitch, several of my lists, including the Linkers list, which had 1,940 followers and was among the top Twitter lists, briefly became “private” and shed all followers in the blink of an eye.

Alas, after some consultation, there seems to be nothing Tlists or Twitter can do. (But I am grateful that the Tlists folks are trying to help with a prominent placement of my list on their home page).

So if you enjoyed that list, or if you would like to have 100 top linkers and retweeters (as selected by me) comb the Web looking for interesting stuff for you, then please follow it on Twitter. Given all that is going on in the world, this is not particularly important.

Only about 70 people have bothered to re-follow the list as of today, which makes me question the whole Twitter list concept anyway.

It was obviously not an essential part of the experience for those 1,940 people who signed up when Twitter lists were the hot, new thing. And that sounds about right. Some news organizations are using the lists for useful crowd-sourcing efforts around news events like earthquakes, but for most people a list is a personal matter. Still, I put a lot of work into that one over a period of months, and people say they like it.

Others are more upset about this than I am. I credit my equanimity to years of sitting meditation and the soothing effects of high-quality coffee. Which reminds me…

Coffee Kenya Gatomboya

Roasted Feb. 21 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Feb. 24 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description “This classic Kenya profile moves seamlessly from a creamy apricot aroma to rhubarb pie, black cherry, fruit punch and a clean chocolate finish.”

In the Cup Yes, it’s back to Stumptown, where the prices are high, there are no chairs, business is cash-only and the coffee is delicious. I walked through a brisk snowy Manhattan landscape to get there, picking up this coffee and another that I’ll write about later.

The Thumpology blog reports that the Gatomboya cooperative is made up of 700 small coffee growers at high altitudes in Kenya. You can read all the coffee-porn details at the link.

I don’t know that I caught much in the way of apricot, rhubarb or cherry and fruit tastes in the many cups of this that I have consumed black in the last couple of weeks. But it is creamy, with a sweet finish, and this coffee goes down easy, letting you forget troubles, for a little while.

I’m sure that the people who worked hard to pick, wash, dry, roast and ship these beans have more serious things to worry about than the destruction of a Twitter list. And that reminds me, why the hell haven’t I created a coffee list? I should get on that.

Coffee Coopac Cooperative, Gisenyi Region, Rwanda

Roasted: Feb. 3 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Feb. 7 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description The bag says: “Floral aroma leads to notes of pineapple, vanilla, and red currants. Sweet key-lime brightness to the finish.”

In the Cup I picked this up on Super Bowl Sunday after spending some time soaking and sweating out toxins at Spa Castle in Queens (great place for grownups and kids).
I would normally have been put off by the complicated description, but I had tried a few cups of this in the shop. The fact that I’m running out of it after just a week speaks to its appeal.

“This coffee is grown on the volcanic mountain slopes in the Western Province of Rwanda and comes to us from the Coopac Cooperative. Washed Bourbon varietal,” the Grumpy site says (this is one of the small chain’s own roasts). There’s more detail at the cooperative’s Web site.

The crema on top is particularly foamy, and whatever there might be of pineapple, currants and key lime is subtle. Sure, you can smell that if you stick your nose in the mug, but on the tongue you don’t pick up much in the way of fruitiness. Even the hint of vanilla did not seem particularly pronounced. This was a rich, delicious, substantial cup from start to finish. It still appears to be on the menu at Grumpy, so if you’re wondering what to try, go for it — and leave out the milk.

Coffee: Fazenda Sertaozinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Roasted: Jan. 17 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Jan. 21 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description: “Dark sweet plum aromatics open into a full-bodied cup. Notes of earthy toasted almond and sugar cane. Pleasant brightness in the finish.”

In the Cup: I have to confess something first. I’ve been drinking less espresso and coffee in general lately, opting for green tea, after reading something or other extolling not only its health benefits but its supposed tendency to deliver a lower, steadier dose of caffeine with fewer peaks and valleys. Ye gads, the coffee blogger has become a tea drinker! But it actually makes me appreciate the coffee more.

Green tea is always the same (in my opinion), and it’s an acquired taste, not nearly as pleasant as regular black tea or the various herbal types. But high-end culinary coffees seem to have endless variety. While I lean toward the sweet and nutty varieties, and much prefer a sugary finish, I’ve come to appreciate what coffee tasters call brightness — so long as it’s not too bright. This coffee had just about the right amount. And I must say, as a bit of a traditionalist, I’ve never been disappointed by any bean from Brazil. Is this coffee amazing? Did it knock my socks off? I may have grown a little jaded in my coffee quest, so I’d have to say no. But it’s certainly delicious, and delivers what the bag says it will.

Also, kudos to Grumpy for including a link to information about the farm, something more coffee Web sites should do. Located in a mountainous region, it has 160 employees and produces on average 720,000 kilograms of beans per year. There’s a whole lot of coffee in Brazil.

Grumpy is an old standby by now for me, and of course it’s great the little chain is now roasting its own beans, but I’ll probably be venturing out again to Stumptown and other venues once the weather gets warmer, and I feel like getting on the bike again. If anyone has any suggestions, fire away.

On the positive side, I returned to a more regular practice of zazen, sitting meditation, which has a calming effect though I do not appear to have gotten any closer to being a bodhisattva. In this age of sleep deprivation, a secret to staying awake on the cushion is strong coffee. Like this one.

Coffee: Helsar de Zarcero, West Valley, Llano Bonito de Naranjo Micro-region, Costa Rica.

Roasted: Dec. 11 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Dec. 12 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location at 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description “Medium, creamy body. Fresh blackberry aroma & mellow acidity. Finishing with honeycomb sweetness.”

In the Cup As I mentioned earlier this fall, Grumpy has started roasting its own beans, a positive development. (The Chelsea shop is also offering classes, something a few of its competitors have been doing for a while).

This coffee is fresh, and tasty, and pretty much matches the creamy description on the bag, reprinted above. It’s an excellent coffee, though lacking a certain something that keeps it off my “wow” list. I’ve tried it as a regular coffee and an espresso, brewing at home. Yesterday I filled a thermos full of nearly the last of it, and took it to my daughter’s gymnastics class. It was deeply satisfying to pour a full mug and watch the kids. I am a little surprised to be running out already. Either I’m drinking more coffee than usual, or these bags are lighter than I realized. Luckily I also bought a bag of the Finca El Carmen from El Salvador, another variety the chain is roasting these days. I may not get around to blogging that one separately, but the bag promises nutty undertones, a sweet citrus aroma and “effervescent sweetness with dark chocolate finish.”

According to Grumpy’s informative site, the Helsar de Zarcero is 100 percent Caturra, aquapulped and sun-dried. The coffee comes from a “micromill” started by three families (now 10 are involved) in Costa Rica “with the goal of adding value and providing traceability to the high quality coffee grown on their land.” The farm uses sustainable agriculture practices, including the use of organic fertlizers that are “fermented on-site by mixing coffee cherry pulp and molasses, along with mined zinc, boron, and other minerals. Micro-organisms are cultured from soil collected on nearby mountains and added to the natural fertilizer in order to provide disease protection to the coffee plants.”

I bet it’s warm there right now.

Here in New York City, the snow is still fresh and white, after the snowpocalypse rolled through on Saturday. I’m at home sipping the last of this coffee, while my wife works quietly elsewhere in the apartment and our daughter is off sledding in Central Park with friends. I hope to get back to reading “Buddha’s Brain,” by Rick Hanson, or “Chronic City,” by Jonathan Lethem, the two books I’ve sworn to finish before year’s end. There’s a hush over the city, except for the taxi whistles of a hotel doorman below, and a hush is over the city, and I’m pleased to steal this quiet moment to fire up the blog. I don’t really know who reads this, apart from a few Twitter followers and friends, but let’s hope together for a better 2010.

I’m happy to see all the local culinary coffee purveyors step up their games lately. Perhaps the arrival of Stumptown has something to do with that. Now if only a few more of them creep uptown into the 30s, 40s and 50s, a section of Manhattan that remains a Starbucks-dominated wasteland.

Name: Finca Chichupac

Origin: Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala

Roasted Nov. 3 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Nov. 9 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location at 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description “Candy apple aroma leads to a full-bodied cup. Granny smith apple brightness rounded out by caramelized brown sugar sweetness.”

In the cup It stands to reason that a shop that has proven to be such a good judge of others’ coffees would roast a fine one of its own. My only gripe is the lack of other documentation on the Grumpy site, apart from the short and sweet, “Autumn we love you.” Indeed. But through the power of the Internet, I did find this brief interview on YouTube with Julián Alquejay of Finca Chichupac at last year’s Cup of Excellence. The plantation is owned by 13 families in a region with a horrific history of government-directed mass murder and genocide of the Mayan population in the 1980s. Here is an article on the continuing legacy of that time and the civil war that ended in 1996.

Right now Grumpy is offering two of its own roasts, this Guatemalan and a second from Finca Carmen in Panama (presumably from the same farm as this Stumptown selection). I decided to go with Guatemala, and I’m glad I did.

I definitely caught the candy apple aroma, especially when drinking this as a regular coffee. It also makes a great espresso, and I thought I detected a bit of nut, not mentioned in the official tasting description above. The sweet finish definitely takes the edge off the fruity brightness. It’s a great cup of joe.

That does not leave me any less conflicted, sampling these nuanced flavors, made from beans grown in an impoverished nation near former killing fields, as I sit in my comfortable apartment in the middle of the richest city in North America, far from the .bullets and butchers of men. Such thoughts certainly puts one’s own petty troubles in perspective, at least.

Name Panama Carmen Estate

Origin 1700-1850 meters above sea level at the estate, caturra and typica varieties

Roasted: Sept. 24 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Sept. 28 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description “Extremely floral in the fragrance, sweet milk chocolate, notes of meyer lemon, mandarin orange and blackberry.”

In the Cup Again with the meyer lemon, which is apparently a favorite descriptive term of Stumptown’s tasters. For a couple of weeks, this bean has been my steeze. Whatever that means. Here are more details from Stumptown:

Carlos Aguilera’s Carmen Estate is a perennial top 5 finisher at the Best of Panama cupping event held each year to showcase the absolute finest coffees from around the country. His focus on perfect cherry selection, cleanliness in his mill and even drying sets his coffee at the top of the pack. This year’s lot comes from isolated areas of Carmen Estate that range between 1700 and 1850 meters above sea level. It is a 50/50 split of Caturra and Typica varietals which combine to form a sweet and complex varietal blend.

I’ve mainly had it as an espresso. I’ve seen a reference online to this coffee as “crisp and clean, like blackberries steeped in water.” It was the favorite of my much more sophisticated fellow coffee-blogger at Man Seeking Coffee. (His description: “light, floral, chocolate, lime.”) As anyone who bothers to read my coffee ramblings knows, it’s the notes of chocolate, the nuts, the richness, that draw me in, and while I’m not a big fan of overpowering floral and fruit notes, I like them just fine when they are well-balanced. That is the case with this coffee.

Day after day, I have been downing shots of this without complaint. A sweet cup. It is light, goes down easy, dances on the tongue. Am I in love? Ah, not entirely, but it’s good coffee, and I’d try it again. This is the fourth Stumptown coffee I’ve sampled since the shop opened in Midtown — Montes de Oro, Blue Batak and Finca el Injerto were the others. So now I’m definitely a believer in the church of Stumptown. If I had a choice I’d still take the Montes de Oro, but this is a close second.

By the way, I heartily recommend this GQ article on the best coffees in the country, which features some familiar names for anyone who has been following my quest here: not only Stumptown, but Ninth Street Espresso, Ritual Roasters and Intelligentsia, among others. It is easy to imagine a coffee quest across America.

Origin: Huehuetenango, Guatemala

Roasted: Sept. 24 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Sept. 28 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description From the label: “A jasmine fragrance is met with flavors of Dutch chocolate, roast almonds, meyer lemon, plum and a chamomile tea finish.”

In the cup Finca El Injerto has fierce partisans in the coffee world. I had received at least one heads up on Twitter to be on the lookout for it. The official blog Thumpology says this is the first farm that had a Direct Trade relationship with Stumptown. A Bourbon variety, this coffee is grown in a region of Guatemala just south of the Mexican border by Arturo Aguirre and his son. Here is an gorgeous video showing how the Aguirres grow their coffee (I love Stumptown geeks). This bean — billed as the most popular coffee roasted and sold by Stumptown year after year — is not to be confused with the Cup of Excellence winner Pacamera from the same farm, which I’m now interested in trying.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been drinking this as both regular coffee and espresso. It’s pretty good. There was a slight bitterness, a flavor I couldn’t place, that was off-putting at first, but quickly forgotten. Did I pick up a fragrance of jasmine mutating into chocolate and almonds and finishing with a tea-like grace? Oh, I don’t know. I still find these descriptions rather precious and embarrassing. I guess I should get over that. I do like it, and there is a hint of nuts and chocolate, though not nearly as sweet as I tend to prefer. I have no idea what a meyer lemon and plum might taste like, and there’s definitely a tea-like something in there, which reminded me ofNimac Kapeh (the tea flavor was much stronger in that coffee).

I’ve had coffees I enjoyed more (I think I liked Stumptown’s Montes de Oro more, for example), from other regions, from Intelligentsia and other roasters, but this is definitely far superior to most of the swill out there. I wish there were more locations, since this one is a little off my regular path. I’l definitely drop by Stumptown again — and I look forward to writing about the other coffee I picked up — but I’ll never be its Foursquare mayor, alas.

I don’t believe in “objectivity” and usually avoid the word. It sounds like an impossible God-like standard. Most people who use that term are setting up a straw man. I prefer terms like balance, neutrality, fairness. And conventional newspaper journalism can certainly reach conclusions, so long as they are supported by evidence, and qualified.

This just happens to be a topic on my mind and in my Twitter stream. The fairness/objectivity debate is in the air.

I work for a news organization that promises fairness and ethics. Like Buddhist enlightenment and perfection in general, they may not be attainable. The value to the reader comes from aiming for the worthy goal, without fear or favor, bias or prejudice. Even the best newspapers print corrections every day, but they still set accuracy as the standard. We don’t give up because perfect accuracy is unattainable.

A journalist who expresses political opinions risks abandoning the habit of keeping an open mind, risks losing the audience and access to sources that might give a more well-rounded picture of the debate, whatever it might be.

There’s a risk that a decided mind is a closed one that overlooks facts and lacks empathy for all sides in a contested debate. Reserving judgment is a sound habit for a political journalist, and others who cover controversial topics.

For these reasons, I don’t share my political opinions, when I have them. Most traditional journalists are the same. The work should speak for itself. A great reporter should be able to cover an atheists’ convention or a Christian revival without drawing complaints of bias from any quarter and without revealing any beliefs about God. Who cares about one person’s opinion, really? Opinions are plentiful and easy to come by. Reporting is hard work. It is a higher calling than argument and persuasion.

But we’re here to talk about coffee. I have opinions about it. No contradiction there. I don’t have a problem passing judgment on coffee, the quality of books and writing, TV shows, the usefulness of gadgets and other topics. For one thing, my day job does not involve reporting about or critiquing these things. They also fall in the realm of inconsequential opinions, right up there with “nice weather” and “you look great.” So let’s return to my coffee quest.

Name Blue Batak

Origin Mandheling, Sumatra

Roasted Sept. 1 by Verve Coffee Roasters of Santa Cruz.

Purchased Sept. 4 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description Chocolate and caramel biscuit tones, earthy graham-cracker graininess, citrus, dried pineapple and plum, tree bark, cinnamon stick, etc. (see below).

In the Cup The Verve Web site, alas, still seems to be a work in progress. All I know about Sumatra and Blue Batak are from this entry at Sweet Maria’s:

We offer the top grade, specially-prepared Lintong coffees as Blue Batak in honor of the Toba Batak people. Blue Batak is a near-zero defect preparation, without the usual split beans, broken pieces and crud found in standard Sumatras. It is carefully density sorted and triple-hand-sorted. The dry fragrance has chocolate and caramel biscuit tones, but with a slight earthy and graham cracker graininess. Surprising fruits come forward in the wet aroma, even a momentary whiff of citrus, pineapple, dried plum, fig. It’s got great rustic sweetness, aromatic tree bark, cinnamon stick, black tea, and mulling spice in the finish. The body is a bit lighter than the Onan Ganjang micro-lot we have as a sister lot, even though they come from areas that are very close to each other. It also has less of the herbal notes found in other Lintong coffees, which I think makes it a better choice for use in espresso.

So — no crud — got that? That’s quite a laundry list of flavors. I can’t speak to the tree bark, but there was a finish of black tea and certainly a sweetness. I liked this coffee quite a bit, as I often do when there’s a hint of chocolate and caramel. I mostly drank it as an espresso. No crud. (Here’s some more information about the Dutch term Mandehling)

Good coffee. Nice weather. You look great.

Origin 1600 meters above sea level, Guatemala

Roasted Sept. 1 by Ritual Coffee Roasters of San Francisco.

Purchased Sept. 4 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description “Cocoa, dried apricots, molasses.”

In the Cup I regret that this review is not as timely as it could have been. This was one of three types of beans I bought on that trip to Grumpy earlier this month, including the Flor Azul from Intelligentsia and a selection from Verve that remains unopened (I’ll be turning to that in the coming week). I was distracted by this side trip to Stumptown’s new Manhattan store and finished the Costa Rican beans I bought there before returning to this excellent Guatemalan selection.

As I mentioned, there is no information about this selection at the Ritual site, which is selling a different coffee from Guatemala, Finca La Merced. I’m a big fan of the roaster’s monthly Sweet Tooth series, but I don’t think this was a part of it. The Finca La Folie bag says the producer is Hermanas Penny (variety is bourbon). So if anyone has a link, add it in the comments.

The flavor is as advertised. In espresso, the apricot is stronger than in a regular cup, but the cocoa and molasses are the strongest flavors, and make for a delicious coffee. I have enough beans left for about four more cups of espresso, and I look forward to a pleasant weekend. I hope you enjoy yours, too.

Back then, I thought I knew a fair amount about coffee, but I really didn’t know anything. My knowledge was limited to some basic presumptions I had about the geographic origins of various coffees. I didn’t know much about individual growers or roasters. That level of detail was not readily available on the Web or on packaging until this third-wave era of coffee geekery with its focus on elevations, how beans are grown, dried and roasted, and the precise temperature settings on super-expensive coffee-making equipment.

It used to be the specifics of coffee bean origins were known only to buyers, tasters and really obsessed fans. Maybe I’m turning into one of the latter, but I still have a lot to learn about the topic. I doubt I’ll ever be an expert. I don’t have the palate, or the patience, or the equipment. But when I saw that the Flor Azul was in season again, I was curious if my impressions of it had changed.

Name Flor Azul

Origin Las Brumas Cooperative in the Jinotega, Matagalapa region of Nicaragua.

Roasted Aug. 25 by Intelligentsia.

Purchased Sept. 4 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description Direct trade. Caturra, Catui grown at 1200-1550 meters. From the Web: “Flor Azul lays bare a flawless cup; clean and composed. Notes of melon fruit and apples express themselves affably in the forefront, hinting slightly toward citrus. The acidity plays a supporting role—adding lift to the mouthfeel as Swiss chocolate comes through in the finish.”

In the cup The first time around, I think I mostly drank this as a regular coffee, drowned in soy milk, having found it too weird in general, and certainly too strong as espresso, my preferred way to take coffee. We were also having some water problems in our building last fall, and I had a cold. So many excuses. This time around, I tried it again as an espresso and as a regular cup of coffee.

It is certainly a challenging taste, lighter-bodied than I like and coming on strong first with flavors I guess are the melon and apple, but I’ve never been good at identifying those notes in a coffee. These seem to be notes that a lot of pro tasters value, but I still find it a bit weird in coffee. The reported chocolate finish was very slight to my taste.

So, this remains a complicated coffee for me, and while I recognize it as something good, and unusual, it’s not something I can bring myself to drink every day. It’s more of an interesting change of pace, but not something I will go out of my way to find again.

(Luckily, I have some other tasty selections I’m trying, roasted by Ritual and Verve, that I bought at Grumpy on the same day, and the excellent Montes de Oro from Stumptown.)

So, this was not an aha coffee. But that’s OK. When you get down to the drinking, coffee is still a matter of personal taste. I’m learning that you can recognize something as good, of high quality, without loving it. I know there are a lot of people who enjoy Flor Azul, judging by some of the sell-side raves online, and it can be a way to jolt people with a new idea of what coffee can be, but this is not a selection I would want to drink with any regularity.

The service was great. This is not one of those places where people linger over laptops. There are no chairs, which keeps people from lingering too long. Diner’s Journal declares the shop’s style to be distinctly New York.

My wife ordered a soy decaf latte, which she declared to be just fine. She’s not a big coffee fan.

I had a house espresso, which was tasty and as good as shots pulled at Cafe Grumpy and Ninth Street Espresso, my other favorite Manhattan coffee haunts. Was it better? No, sorry, Stumptown fans. Something else was missing: Unlike in Portland, the beans are not roasted on the premises. Stumptown imports the beans and roasts them locally in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

I ended up spending my last dollar on this bag of beans from Costa Rica, because Stumptown wasn’t taking credit cards. Dudes, nobody carries money in New York anymore.

Name Montes de Oro

Origin: San Pablo de Tarrazu, Costa Rica

Roasted: Sept. 6 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Sept. 11 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description From the excellent, detailed Stumptown Web site (includes video): “Rainier cherry and clementine orange flavors meld harmoniously with sweet notes of honey, caramel and milk chocolate.”

In the cup There was no real description on the bag, so I went with my gut, having had good experiences with Costa Rican coffees (tthough not always). I definitely got lucky. First of all, if you’ve read my past entries, you’ll know I tend to have a sweet tooth when it comes to coffee.

This coffee is delicious and left me feeling warm on this chilly, damp Saturday morning before I took my daughter to her gymnastics class, where I’m taking advantage of the free WiFi at Chelsea Piers upstairs to write this post during the class. I have a great view of my kid walking backward on the balance beam. I’m also playing Calexico on the iPhone because the chattering parents around me are making me a little nuts. My multitasking life.

Stumptown reports: “The producers behind Montes de Oro, Emilio and Laura Gamboa, cultivate their coffee in San Pablo de Tarrazu. Emilio personally oversees the processing each and every night of the harvest. He ensures strictly ripe cherry and fully washes it with INGESEC technology. The coffee is gently dried on African beds, which provides time for sugar development.” Oh, just go watch the video.

Other reviewers of this coffee, including the 2008 vintage, have described it as fruitier — pineapple, thistle and kiwi? Maybe a little clementine orange in there? I didn’t pick up on any of that. Maybe those flavors come out in a regular coffee. I made this as espresso in the Jura and was grooving on the caramel, honey and chocolate. Sweet, but not too sweet.

I highly recommend this one, and I guess I’ll have to leave some extra time now and then for another side trip to Stumptown to try some of the others. They had a whole assortment.

So it has not always been easy to focus on coffee, though my blog quest can be a welcome distraction. This coffee in particular came and went before I had a chance to fully appreciate it. I bought it at the same time as the Koke from Barismo and Verve’s El Balamo-Quetzaltepec from El Salvador.

Name Kenya Kirimara

Origin: Nyeri, Kenya

Roasted: Aug. 10 by Novo Coffee in Denver.

Purchased: Aug. 16 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description From the bag: “Full body, hints of citrus, toasted nut, slight black currant.”

In the cup After a long sojourn with the coffees of Latin America, I return to Africa for this coffee. I drank this mostly as an espresso.

Kirimara is a small family-run estate on the lower slopes of Mount Kenya, at an altitude of 1,760 meters. The coffee is grown in the volcanic soil, then hand-picked and sun-dried.

The name translates roughly from Kikuyu as “near a glacier,” and was given to the place by the original British settler who planted the coffee bushes facing the glacier off the peak Batian of Mount Kenya.

and the farm has a a fairly sophisticated marketing Web site.

It even offers helicopter tours for those who wish to visit:

An unforgettable experience will take you to one of the world’s highest national parks, 400 square kilometers of forest and more than thirty jewel-like lakes. The twin peaks of Batian and Nelion crown Mount Kenya, the bulk of which straddles the equator

Here’s a photo slide show.

The tasting notes on the bag and at Novo’s site put the words to what I experienced.

The coffee didn’t bowl me over, but it has a pleasing, subtle flavor. The strongest flavor to me was the toasted nut, with the citrus/currant just a hint in the background. This might be a good coffee to share with friends who are interested in trying high-quality coffee but are not yet ready for exotic or overpowering flavors.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked what would happen if someone on the quest for a perfect shot of espresso coffee found what he was looking for? The prize-winning Black Cat from Bolivia roasted by Intelligentsia came close. And there have been a few others that I would put on that list. The sweet-tooth yellow Icatu comes to mind. When you can still remember a coffee you had six months ago, either it was good coffee, or you have an uncontrolled obsession. Maybe both.

What this coffee from El Salvador has in common with that one is the same roaster, Verve, in Santa Cruz, which has a maddeningly minimalist Web site. So finding information has been tricky.

Name El Balsamo-Quetzaltepec

Origin: 100 percent Bourbon variety, Finca San Eduardo, El Salvador

Roasted: Aug. 11 by Verve Coffee Roasters, Santa Cruz, Ca.

Purchased: Aug. 16 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description One account: “Has a nectar, clean, creamy body, juicy, ripe, honeyed, lemon, complex acidity.”

In the cup This is the second coffee from El Salvador that I’ve tried in recent months — the other was Los Inmortales from Intelligentsia — and I’m impressed.

It’s tough to find much information online. A search yields brief mentions in retail listings or Spanish-only sites. [Update: See the comments for informative links from a reader.]

Grumpy doesn’t have much information on its Web site, either, about this particular coffee. One can only hope that Verve’s promised site upgrade will be coming soon, though I guess if I had to choose, I’d rather the roaster focus on making great coffee rather than blog design.

The description above, from a Scranton cafe’s Facebook page (yes, people are selling coffee on Facebook!), sounds about right.

This is a creamy sweet coffee, like the yellow Icatu. I found myself drinking shot after shot of it, until the last bean was gone, today. The Barismo Koke suffered in the comparison (an unfair one, since it’s going for a completely different taste experience). For more information about Salvadoran coffees and Bourbon varieties in particular, this page at Sweet Maria’s has some good information (a few years old now).

Apparently, El Salvador used to have a poor reputation compared to the rest of Central and Latin America, but I’m inclined to try more coffees from there, especially from a a quality roaster like Verve or Intelligentsia. And I’ll keep an eye out for this grower, Finca San Eduardo.

Origin: 100 % Ethiopia Yergacheffe

Roasted: Aug. 11 by Barismo of Arlington, Ma.

Purchased: Aug. 16 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description: According to Barismo’s site: “A delicate floral perfume lends itself to a darjeeling tea and soft caramel hot cup. Lime citrus notes add a liveliness that mingles with the aromatics in a rewarding and balanced cup.”

In the cup: The barista at Grumpy made me the first shot, and perhaps that ruined me for the rest of this coffee. I’ve never been able to quite replicate the way they pull their shots — full of flavor, almost like a splash of mud sometimes. It’s probably the way the espresso is meant to be experienced, and I can’t quite replicate that at home (instructions on bag: “pull: 16g for 25sec at 200.5 degrees F, totaling 2oz”), since I don’t own a $2,500-plus Clover that lets you precisely set time and temperature. (I’ll add that it was nothing like the Wondo Worka Yergacheffe I tried several months ago.)

That said, it’s a bit much for a daily drink. I’ve never been a big fan of overpowering floral and fruit notes in my coffee, and this espresso has more of that than I’d care to sample frequently. The description above matched my experience, for the most part.  It is certainly a good coffee (Barismo calls it part of its “grand cru” series, an effort to upgrade the quality of espresso). It was something to sample when I was looking for a change of pace, a different taste, not something I felt like drinking three shots in a row, which tends to be a morning ritual lately.

But if you prefer your espressos on the lighter side, shiny and floral and citrus-y, with unusual aftertastes, you might just like this one, if you can get a pro to make it. I found myself favoring the selections from Verve and Novo roasters that I also bought on this trip. I’ll blog about those next when I get a free moment.

I didn’t expect to actually find something so far superior to the rest. But the third bean I brought back from Intelligentsia in L.A. this July came close. Alas, I just drank the last shot.

Name: Black Cat Single Origin Espresso, Anjilanaka, Bolivia

Origin Bourbon, caturra, typica grown at 1700 to 1900 meters, produced by Agricaby, in Bolivia.

Roasted June 30 by Intelligentsia Coffee.

Purchased July 5 at Intelligentsia Coffee Silver Lake Coffee Bar, 3922 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Description “The espresso that helped Mike Phillips win the 2009 USBC Flavor notes of green grapes and figs give way to a juicy acidity and crisp finish.”

In the Cup It would be tempting to declare my quest at an end, because this was the smoothest espresso I’ve ever tasted. The flavor was perfectly balanced. Not bitter. Not overly sweet. No distracting fruit flavors. It took me a long time to even recognize what the bag called a “juicy acidity and crisp finish” — though, it was there, finally, in the last few drops.

The folks at Volta Coffee in Gainesville, Fla., described it this way: “It is an entirely different beast when developed as an espresso shot. Taken as a ristretto shot, the Anjilanaka has a malty-caramel sweetness ahead of a bright mango tartness. As a cappuccino or latte, the Anjilanaka takes on a profound almond-walnut flavor.” Twenty-five cents extra! That Web site has a pretty good definition of what separates an espresso from other roasts. I’m not a stickler, but there it is.

This was the second espresso I’ve reviewed related to The Black Cat Project. The signature blend at Ninth Street Espresso in the East Village, Alphabet City, is a riff on the Black Cat collection of espressos.

This coffee came in a very small black bag. And its disappearance from the Black Cat listings on the Intelligentsia Web site suggests that it is no longer for sale this season.

About the label: Who is Mike Phillips? What is the USBC? He represented the Chicago headquarters of Intelligentsia at the United States Barista Championships, which he won with this coffee. Intelligentsia baristas also won fourth and fifth place spots. There’s video.

As Man Seeking Coffee explains, it was more a matter of presentation than the coffee itself, but the victory was nonetheless good news for Bolivia, a company with extreme elevations and transportation issues.

So I found the perfect coffee. My one regret is that I brewed it exclusively as espresso and didn’t try it as a regular cup.

And now I need to find something else to drink until it comes around again. Onward.

Origin Finca La Tina, farm of Don Fabio Caballero and Moises Herrerra, in the Mogola, Marcala region of Honduras.

Roasted July 2, 2009.

Purchased July 5 at Intelligentsia Coffee Silver Lake Coffee Bar, 3922 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Description A catuai grown at 1550 to 1670 meters. The bag says this is “tangy and buoyant, with orange and butterscotch notes, and a finish of sweet cane sugar.”

In the Cup This is certainly tangier than the Guatemalan Itzamna, but it has a lingering sweet aftertaste. There’s a silky feel to it, and I picked up the butterscotch as well, but not the “subtle notes of tamarind” mentioned in the buyer’s report. This might be a little challenging for those who do not care for complicated coffees with hints of fruit; that would be the orange. It is an acquired taste, and I would not have cared for this at the start of my coffee-blogging quest.

I drank most of this in mid-July on my return to New York. I had nearly finished the bag but saved a little to compare when I finally got around to blogging. This coffee is also purchased direct trade from the grower, and carries Intelligentsia’s “In Season” sticker, which is explained here.

(This coffee no longer seems to be listed at the Intelligentsia site, which suggests it might be sold out. According to the Google cache of the page, “La Tortuga keeps getting better every year. For 2009, not only has the Caballero family improved their drying processes, Intelligentsia financed the coffee ourselves which means that it arrived earlier than ever before. Last year we released this coffee on July 3rd. Launching it on May 22nd means that we are getting it to you six weeks earlier. This is the promise of Intelligentsia In Season.”)

An excerpt from the report by Intelligentsia’s chief buyer, Geoff Watts:

In 2006 Intelligentsia contracted the exclusive rights to the annual coffee production of Fabio Caballero’s “La Tina” farm. This is the first farm Don Fabio owned, which he inherited from his mother-in-law. The land first entered the family in 1930, making it their only 3rd generation farm parcel. Don Fabio also believes that the genetic purity of the original heirloom varietals planted on the farm adds to its quality. It also has the historic privilege as being the first coffee farm in Mogola region of Honduras.

At over 5,400 feet, La Tina farm is one of the highest farms in Honduras. The views are breathtaking, and there is no doubt that this piece of land is a wonderful place to grow coffee. Of course, growing the coffee is really just one step in many that lead to a great cup. The preservation of the quality that nature produces is as important in the equation as the actual growth. The sequence of events that take place after picking, beginning the moment that the cherry leaves the tree, help to define the difference between an “artisan
coffee farmer” and a “harvester.” Don Fabio and his son-in-law Moises Herrera are artisan farmers. The reason they’ve had so much success in comparison to many of their neighbors has less to do with the quality of the land than it does the quality of the
workmanship and the amount of investment that the Caballero family has been willing to make in their coffee operation. The fact that they do their own wet-milling gives them an advantage as well. They have the ability to control quality all the way to dry parchment….

This year we added a focus on maintaining lower temperatures in the mechanical dryers in order to reduce any leeching of organic materials from the coffees during the drying process. We also took steps to streamline the logistics from farm to port, which is a huge consideration when thinking about the preservation of coffee quality. In Honduras this is especially critical as most of the coffee milling takes place in San Pedro Sula, a city that for much of the year has at least two things in common with Chicago in July—high
temperatures and heavy humidity. Unfortunately for producers, these are two of the biggest enemies of coffee quality and longevity. Both can dramatically reduce the vibrancy and shelf life of coffee. Imagine a gorgeous flower wilting into a lifeless, drooping eyesore and you’ve got an idea of what often happens to coffees that spend too much time in San Pedro. To combat this problem we orchestrated a tight relay-race that saw the coffee moved from Marcala to San Pedro, milled immediately in waiting machine, stashed in special bags with very low permeability, and packed into an insulated container… The shipping date was booked in advance of milling and once the coffee was prepped it left
immediately for port to begin its journey to the US.

Alas, it looks like I’ll have to wait until next year to try La Tortuga again.

Origin Finca Maravilla (farm of Mauricio Rosales), in Huehuetenango region of Guatemala.

Roasted July 2, 2009.

Purchased July 5 at Intelligentsia Coffee Silver Lake Coffee Bar, 3922 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Description “Gilded by a citrus acidity, flavors of fruit punch and caramel provide structure. The complexity of the cup elevates into a finish of Swiss chocolate.”

In the Cup When I read a description like that, my first reaction is still, “Oh, come on.” But I have learned to look for any mention of caramel or chocolate, with good results. The coffees with these descriptions don’t necessarily taste like a cup of hot chocolate, but those words tend to suggest something smooth, rich or sweet. Citrus and fruit flavor descriptions tend to signal a more complicated flavor experience.

There also tends to be a difference between a regular cup of Joe and the same coffee as espresso. I tend to favor espresso, but I tried this and the other beans I picked up both ways. I won’t beat around the bush: This is a marvelous coffee, and I have spent many a morning swirling it around in my mouth trying to pick out all the flavors mentioned above. I get quite a bit of something chocolate, and not too much fruit or citrus to be overpowering. So this was a case where the label on the bag did not lead me astray, and as usual Intelligentsia was selling fresh, roasted beans.

I bought an Intelligentsia mug while I was at it (above).

All of the coffees I bought on this little trip were excellent, and I would probably rank this one in third place against the selections from Honduras and Bolivia. But that’s quibbling. It’s pretty amazing stuff.

Here’s a little more about this coffee-growing region of Guatemala from Sweet Maria’s, which contends that consumers can have beneficial political and economic effect by buying from small, co-op single-lot growers.

This coffee is a Bourbon/Caturra grown at 1500 to 1850 meters above sea level. It is purchased direct trade from the grower, and carries Intelligentsia’s “In Season” sticker, which is explained here and in this case means the coffee was harvested from January to April. Mr. Rosales is described someone dedicated to his workers and the environment (there’s more in this pdf, including notes by Geoff Watts, the company’s coffee buyer).

Watts writes that this might be the best coffee from this grower he’s ever had, noting the long tradition of coffee expertise in this area where more than half of the people have are of Mayan descent and have been growing coffee for generations. “Coffees from La Maravilla (HueHue) bring an energetic ripe fruit acidity to Itzamna,” he writes. “This farm was the first to meet the requirements of Direct Trade status, and we’ve had a close relationship for over six years now. This season Mauricio finished constructing new housing for the temporary workers, and we celebrated with a post-harvest party at the farm for all the pickers and their families.”

About the name, he explains:

Itzamna is the creator-deity whose name can be rendered ‘god of nectar’ and was the harbinger of culture, cacao, and maize to the Mayans in ancient lore. We chose the name Itzamna for this offering because we like what he stands
for. He is a beloved deity from Mayan mythology, credited with creating many of the things that make life worth living. He introduced farming and science. And he was always known to be kind and protective towards humans, no mean streak whatsoever. In other words, he is the man. We can only suppose that he has a profound love for coffee as well.”

So now you know. The sad part is, the bag is almost empty.

Origin Blend, unknown.

Roasted June 17, 2009.

Purchased June 27 at Peet’s Coffee and Tea, 12215 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, Ca.

Description “An exquisite blend of full-bodied coffees with exceptionally complex flavors revealing hints of spiciness and chocolate.” Ranked as full bodied and bright.

In the Cup I had a slight premonition of trouble when the harried fellow at the counter had to check to see if the shop had any JR Reserve Blend left in the shop. At $25 for a half pound, it was easily the most expensive selection on the menu.

When they finally dug something up, the roasting date on the bag gave me pause. Peet’s likes to boast on its Web site that nothing for sale was roasted more than a couple of days earlier. Exceptions are the specialty blends like this one:

JR Reserve Blend was created by our roastmaster emeritus, Jim Reynolds, a widely-respected coffee expert with perhaps the most discerning palate in the specialty coffee industry. We asked Jim to create this unique blend to his exacting specifications from rare lots that satisfy him.

To ensure freshness, Reserve coffees are available in limited quantities, and roasted to order only once a week on Wednesdays.

This batch had been roasted about 10 days earlier. I took it back to my in-laws’ and found the French press I had stashed there on a previous visit. Here is where things can get complicated. I prefer espresso, but I can’t easily travel with an espresso maker. I also like the guaranteed no-muss no-fuss push-button consistency that comes with my Jura at home. Here I had to do some trial and error with the press and the scoops and the water and the timing. My daughter timed each brew for 4 minutes in the press with her iPod Nano. She also shot some video of me extemporizing in the kitchen. This is vacation, whoo hoo.

I was struck by the variety of the reviews of this blend from customers and employees at the Peet’s site.

It is described as smooth and bright, spicy, rich, woodsy, earthy, with bittersweet chocolate notes, some citrus, etc. Quite a grab bag.

My experience: It is deep, smooth, rich, with little or no acidity. This is probably a highly satisfying cup for someone not looking for any surprises. But I have had richer, smoother cups. I didn’t really catch much in the way of a spicy finish, or any of the berry citrus flavors, all mentioned in several reviews. It was definitely a balanced cup from start to end, and I think the people raving about it are those seeking a certain consistency and mellowness. It is certainly far better than the bold, bitter offerings of Starbucks and the like. I like the smooth, mellow taste, but I also tend to prefer flavors that are a bit nuttier than this, with stronger hints of sweetness, caramel and chocolate. Even a strong fruit and berry citrus flavor might be preferable in some ways. I don’t know if the older roasting date would have had any effect on the freshness or subtler flavors.

After a few days, I have taken to mixing this blend with a bit of milk or soy milk, and the vanilla in the latter complements the flavor of the coffee nicely. The richness really seems to be accentuated. This would make a good daily cup, except for the expense. This half-pound is almost gone. I have paid far less for better blends and single-origin coffees. But I do understand its appeal, and it might have appealed to me before I started trying some of the more exotic varieties on this quest.

Update, July 29: The Costa Rican beans mentioned above were heavily displayed and being sold at an attractive price. It was a mellow and acceptable selection, but nothing special. I did make a side trip to Intelligentsia Coffee in Silverlake, and hope to write more about the beans I bought there, which I took home to New York and have been enjoying for much of July.