Your Custom Text Here
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.)
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.
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.)
I have a new device. No, not that device. Or that one. No, this is a Nespresso Aerocinno. 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.
I don't remember how I first came across the Aeropress, but as soon as I saw it, I wanted it. I had been looking for a way to make coffee -- espresso in particular -- in my office without creating a lot of mess. For the past few weeks, I have discovered that something like this is possible. No longer am I the slave to the stale, vaguely machine-flavored Illy served upstairs in the cafeteria or the over-roasted swill found in the Starbucks shops of Midtown Manhattan. 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.
Here's a great New York Times article last week by Oliver Strand about the growth of the culinary coffee scene in New York City. Check out the map of New York coffee bars that "not only produce extraordinary coffee at the highest standards, but also do so with consistency, day after day."
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
Panama El Salvador at the locally owned chain's Chelsea shop.
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.
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 found myself on a fool's errand trying
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.
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.
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 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.
Name Monte Crisol, Coope Palmares
Origin West Valley, Costa Rica
Roasted June 14 by 49th Parallel in Burnaby, British Columbia
Purchased June 20 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.
Description From the menu: "Medium body with hints of nuts, caramel and red berries."
In the Cup I gravitated to this bean because it was from Costa Rica, and I had yet to try any coffees from that country as part of this coffee quest. Later, I could not find the coffee listed under this name at the site of 49th Parallel, a Vancouver-area coffee roaster. Based on reviews and listings elsewhere, it seems to be a single-origin coffee. Coope palmeres (sometimes the words are run together) seems to be a coffee co-op representing several small growers. Here is a bit of information from the site hawaiianorganic:
This dense little "Tica", the creme of the crema, and is mountain grown, above 1,600 meters, and hails from Coopepalmares, a coffee coop which represents 1,500 small lot parcels in and around the Las Palmares region of Costa Rica. This coffee has delightful bright citrus tones with slight coco hidden in the background. Medium bodied, medium acidity allow one to enjoy naked... The coffee that is... not necessarily you!?
I'm not really sure what that means. But drinking this as an espresso or a regular cup of coffee was a perfectly pleasant experience. It was a little rich and thick in the finish perhaps, almost oily, and I would say the caramel was stronger than any bright citrus. It served me well through the week, and I am almost done with it. I found it to be quite aromatic, and the odor permeated my cloth bag by the time I got it home from the dinner party. It didn't bowl me over, but it was certainly acceptable and did the job required of it each morning.
By the way, I kept misreading the name as "Cristol" with a T, and that tempted me into the cheap word play in the headline. This would never pass muster as a headline in the newspaper, because it does not "work both ways." In other words, for good word play, as opposed to dumb puns, the phrase should fit the piece no matter which way you read it. But this post has nothing to do with that old book about revenge for a false imprisonment, which I remember from my youth.
But since this is a blog, I can fiddle around and break a few rules as I please. Sue me.
Somewhere in there I helped my daughter build a replica of Brandenburg Gate out of wood and clay for a school project. I found myself drinking cups of espresso every morning in rapid succession. I was surprised to find this morning that I was nearly out of this latest selection, without having set down my impressions.
Name Los Inmortales
Origin El Borbollon, Finca Malacara, Santa Ana, El Salvador.
Roasted June 9 by Intelligentsia.
Purchased June 13 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.
Description "Poised and articulate with a sustaining sweetness. Notes of white grape and apple assist the acidity as the cup finishes with turbinado sugar," reads the bag.
In the Cup I picked up this bag of beans on my way to an "Iron Chef" competition at friends' co-op in Chelsea. The woman ahead of me in line at Grumpy was also buying a bag, skeptical about the fruit flavors. She said she was not a big fan of fruit overtones in coffee, and I have to agree, but I decided to give this a try.
The Iron Chef party was an elaborate affair with multiple courses, judges and appreciative crowd, including children running wild from apartment to apartment. Fresh tomatoes were the mystery ingredient in every dish from the martinis to the dessert. That can be tricky, since tomatoes at this time of year can be a little green and not quite in their prime, I was told.
The food was great, and the week was a whirlwind, from the school project to Twitter-Twitter-Twitter to the other obsessions, including all the iPhone mania and my attempt to find a good netbook (more on that later, perhaps). I have good memories of the espressos I made from this bean all week, moments captured looking out the kitchen window, on my way to something else. Sweet, rich, a good coffee, a strong candidate in my ongoing quest for the perfect cup.
I did not have much time to research Los Inmortales, or its possible relationship to this Cup of Excellence winner from Finca Malacara. That would at least suggest a good pedigree. (I also stumbled across this ironic Iranian coincidence regarding "The Immortals.")
Intelligentsia gives this extended description on its site:
Poised and articulate in its expression, Los Inmortales characterizes grace and refinement in a glassy clean cup. The sweetness is nectar-like and threaded through the entire taste experience while the acidity curtsies to notes of white grape and apple. The silky mouthfeel glides into a gentle finish of roasted hazelnuts and turbinado sugar.
What can I say, I'm a sucker for sweet coffees that have a creamy or silky mouthfeel (what a word) with a hint of sugar, caramel or chocolate. The acidity is kept in check, and the flavors progress from a slight hint of fruit -- grape, apple, maybe, or something vaguely tropical, that hovers in the back of the throat -- to a warm, rich finish that goes down smoothly and sweetly.
It makes you want to pour another shot. Which I have just done. And now the beans are nearly all gone, and I must make a trip to get some more. It will be a Father's Day present to myself.
Origin: Farmer/producer is listed as Camilo Merizalde of Finca Santuario, in the Cauca region.
Roasted: Feb. 17 by Intelligentsia.
Purchased: Feb. 25 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.
Description: "Gentle and transparent, this lot shows the delicate nature of the Bourbon varietal. Cherry and apple lend crispness to the acidity while caramel glides in the finish," according to the Grumpy label.
The Pour: Not long after picking up this bag of beans on Wednesday, I learned that my uncle, a retired firefighter, had died in his 80s in the Boston area. He was not a coffee connoisseur, but during his good long life he did appreciate a well-cooked meal, a well-made wine and a good pour of single-malt scotch, so I think he might have understood this obsession. I can see him and my father in my mind's eye, tasting a savory dish or sipping a single malt with some satisfaction on many a Christmas break, which we often spent with my mother's side of the family. That older generation is dying out -- my uncle was one of the last -- and we cousins all have our own families scattered across the country now. Nothing lasts. It's hard to get that through our thick heads when we are caught up in the day to day grind. That's why it is good to just sit down and really focus on one thing for a while, either a point on the wall or a good cup of espresso.
So what about this bean? It's not bad. I do catch the cherry and apple, though flavors like that are always a little disconcerting to me, even now. The finish is smooth, not acidic. I guess that's the caramel notion, or perhaps something else. Intelligentsia's tasting notes differ slightly from the bag, listing a licorice root and milk chocolate flavor, refined acidity and a finish of sweet dried fruit and nuttiness, "almost candy-like in its sweetness." I didn't really pick up on any chocolate, or candy-like sweetness for that matter, but that description of the finish seems accurate. My perception may change as I continue to drink it this week, as I seem open to the power of suggestion in these matters.
Have I mentioned that I love coffee blogs? Here is what Geoff Watts of Intelligentsia, the roaster, has to say about this coffee, a botanic varietal known as Heliconias from a lot at Finca Santuario. It is rare for a farm to be able to separate a single, tiny variety so precisely. But this farm was started in 2000 by a Cali native and Purdue graduate named Camilo Merizalde.
That's unusual in itself. The odds were against starting a new coffee plantation, as Watts tells the story, "given that the global coffee market was already mired in the most serious and sustained depression we’ve seen this century, with prices far below even basic costs of production in most cases. When considering where to invest, coffee production would not even appear on most economists’ lists."
Mr. Merizalde bought land in Cauca, just outside of Popayan, that was ideal for growing coffee, at elevations of 1820 to 2000 meters. It was nearly barren land used for grazing cattle. The blog post details how he created a sustainable farm with the help of experts in biodiversity. About the beans he chose:
Rather than pick the high-yielding, easier to grow varieties widely available in Colombia (Caturra, Catuai, Variadad Colombia), he chose varieties known for their ability to produce sensational tasting coffee seeds. Old Typica and Bourbon stocks, including the original Bourbon Pointu from Reunion Island, are generally less productive and more fragile than the hybrids that are often being planted these days, but they have a much higher ceiling when it comes to cup quality. He then planted them separately, keeping each lot restricted to one type so that the different varieties could be easily segregated during harvest.
So this is a coffee with a story, one that is well worth reading in full. [April 15 update: Sadly, the link no longer works. But there is an updated pdf about the farm on the site.]
Prepared as an espresso, the Heliconias seems a little lighter than I generally like, not nearly as rich, smooth or sweet as the Guatemalan Yellow Icatu. I guess I had grown a little too attached to that. I'll have to work on the non-attachment, as this is a fine, fine coffee in its own right. May all the cups you drink this week be as good.
Origin: Campos Altos, Brazil, in the Cerrado region
Roasted: Feb. 9 by Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco
Purchased: Feb. 14 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.
Description: "The aroma of this espresso carries the shot, with ripe and fruity notes of lychee and concord grape, and a cherry soda sweetness emerges before a subtle dark chocolate finishes the shot," Ritual reports on its Web site.
The Pour: When I first tasted it, I thought, this is the shot I've been looking for. It was the chocolate-like finish, not overpoweringly sweet, but smooth and delicious. No bitterness whatsoever. I'll take the taster's word on the cherry soda (see those Coffee Song lyrics below), but it must be just a hint. A strong flavor like that would be a turnoff to me -- though cherries and chocolate is a great combination. Anyway, the description might lead you to think this is more like a hot chocolate, and that is not the case. It's a coffee that a coffee lover should love. Hm, I seem to be gushing. And I am definitely heading back downtown to see if there's any more left.
(While poking around on the Web, I found some blog reviews of an earlier crop of beans from the same farm.)
Ritual is promising that 2009 will be the year of the "Sweet Tooth Espressos,"
San Francisco is notoriously a city of coffee fanatics, which from time to time makes me wish I lived there (alas, the journalism opportunities are not so great). I can only hope that Grumpy orders more as the year continues. (More on how Ritual roasts).
Here is what Ritual says about Fazenda Esperança:
Produced by the Souza family--João and Tiago--in Campos Altos, Brasil, this coffee is specially roasted for espresso preparation. Their farm, Fazenda Esperança, is located in Brasil's Cerrado eco-region, known for its exceptional natural, or sun-dried, coffees--made possible by the particularly arid climate. After the Yellow Icatu trees are harvested, the coffee fruit naturally dries on concrete patios until it can be easily hulled off of the coffee bean. Because of the extra contact time that the bean has with the fruit, the coffee absorbs more sugar, which is evident in the shot.
It is not clear to me if this is the same Souza family. But doesn't that just make you love the Web? I must admit to being a sucker for these descriptions of hand-crafted coffee processes.
Now, how does that Sinatra coffee song go?
Way down among Brazilians Coffee beans grow by the billions So they've got to find those extra cups to fill They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil
You can't get cherry soda cause they've got to fill that quota And the way things are I'll bet they never will They've got a zillion tons of coffee in Brazil
I'm in Los Angeles with the family this week, visiting the in-laws. I booked the flight kind of late and decided to try Virgin America, which had been getting a lot of hype for its geeky amenities and Jetblue-style business model. The only way I could get three seats together on Virgin was to pay extra for the roomier bulkhead seats, the so-called Main Cabin Select, which came with "unlimited" food and media, a sort of discount business class. The flight was pleasant and as enjoyable as JetBlue, but the geek reality has not yet caught up with the hype. For example, the much-discussed on-board Internet was not available on our flight. (I've yet to see Jetblue's version of these services, either). So while the airline's Red touch-screen media console showed options for e-mail and Web surfing, those features were disabled. It was possible to chat with other seats, but my traveling companions showed no interest and as far as I could tell nobody else was using the system. And while there was a cool remote with each seat, in the bulkhead you had to lean forward quite a bit to use the touchscreen, which was set in the wall.
The satellite TV channel selection was about the same as JetBlue's, with some premium choices (HBO's "Entourage," a Bill Maher comedy special, etc.) and films for adults (I watched "Hancock") and kids (my daughter watched "Wall-E" again). I did not bother figuring out the parental controls, preferring to issue commands in person.
I made a brief effort to play one of the video games with the seat-remote, but gave up after finding lame graphics and needless complexity. I'm sure a kid could have figured it out, but my kid stuck to the games on her Nano. (Update: She has informed me that she did in fact try one of the games. Her review: "You were supposed to get to the top of this tower, with this little green guy who could shoot fire, but it was really hard because there were little things flying at you. You couldn't really go anywhere, because you kept getting knocked over by this little thingie. You had to jump a giant gap. I tried it for 12 lives and I couldn't figure it out at all.")
The seats were big and comfortable, and nobody had a problem with my frequent standing, stretching and walking around (I have a genetic predisposition to blood clots, which can be brought on by air travel and prolonged sitting in cramped spaces). The aisle seemed narrower than on other planes, but perhaps that was my imagination. In any event, passersby kept bumping me, and I am sorry to report that I did the same to others.
Instead of offering the usual snacks or meal service, Virgin lets you order drinks, snacks and small meals using the Red touchscreen.
A few minutes later, a flight attendant shows up with the order (the selections were slightly better than the JetBlue snack packs).
Also unlike JetBlue, Virgin America has first-class seats [video]. Other than the bulkhead partition, there is no aisle curtain separating those passengers from the rabble, however. In the bulkhead, we had a good view of first class (see picture at right), which had its own bathroom, bigger seats, better food and Red screens that were adjustable in some way. I was amused by the similarity to "Wall-E" -- the robotic console-equipped floating easy chairs that kept the humans supplied with a steady diet of Big Gulp-type drinks and media. Virgin America first class did not look as comfortable as the Wall-E spaceship.
This train of thought made me focus on my own consumption, so I powered up Zenbe Lists, one of my favorite iPhone apps, and kept track of my intake for the flight:
I can only hope this was all helpful to the economy, if not the environment. I'm just doing my part. The flight was pleasant and relatively quiet, which made it bearable to endure the mysterious, hourlong wait at the Avis rental car center that followed at LAX, pictured at right.
Things I didn't do:
