An Opinion About Blue Batak

IMG_0116It is a little known fact that coffee improves your objectivity as a journalist. O.K., I'm kidding. 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.

Sweet on Finca La Folie

I found myself on a fool's errand tryingIMG_0104 to research this coffee, suggesting that it has already sold out. And, as so often happens, I got distracted wandering the Internet. The seller, Ritual Roasters has a great video tutorial about espresso, using a French press, the Clover and other topics. I was hooked after the first one, in which the barista explains the wide variety in espresso flavors, even with the same beans, and he compares the intensity of espresso to the slap in the face of whiskey. I never thought I'd have this much fun watching videos of coffee geeks do their thing. Name Finca La Folie

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.

Coming Back Around to the Flor Azul

IMG_0103This direct-trade variety from Nicaragua was one of the earliest culinary coffees I wrote about on this blog, back in November 2008, when I first started to systematically evaluate the beans I was trying. 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.

Grown Near a Glacier in Kenya

IMG_7880I write this during a long Labor Day weekend, as we're trying to grab the last few strands of summer: A few last bike rides, wrapping up some reading, paying a visit to the Spa Castle in Queens, and more. This has not been the greatest couple of months. The economy is still in turmoil, of course, and there's a lot of fear and uncertainty in the news business. At home, we have been coping with some illnesses in my wife's extended family. 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.

El Balsamo-Quetzaltepec, That's a Mouthful

IMG_7875A coffee-obsessed blogger bought three bags of beans at once, one sunny day in August. One of those bags is still nearly full. One is about half-full. And one is completely empty. This is the story of that one, which sits next to my computer, taunting me with a rich, thick aroma of beans that are no more. 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.

A Shot of Koke

IMG_7874So I was all ready to write about this espresso a couple of weeks ago, but then I lost Internet service at home for a week. Long story, not very interesting, but it was an inauspicious start with Verizon DSL service. For many years I paid Earthlink for DSL on top of my Verizon phone line, but the phone company finally found the price point that made me switch. Unfortunately, they did something to the line right away that cut off the Earthlink service before sending me the modem. Then there was trouble on the line, yada yada. I said it was boring. On to the coffee, one of three varieties I bought here in New York. Name: Koke

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.

The Black Cat From Bolivia

IMG_0815What happens if, in a quest for a perfect shot of espresso, you actually find it, or something close? For one thing, perhaps like a fine wine, you can never be sure the next year's vintage will be as good. And your taste and preferences might change. Of course, my quest was mainly a conceit to try a bunch of coffees and blog about them. 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.

There Goes the Turtle

IMG_0812This is the second of the three coffees I bought about a month ago on a trip to the Silver Lake outpost of Intelligentsia in Los Angeles and have been enjoying in the weeks since. (Earlier, I wrote about Itzamna from Guatemala.) I was guzzling this, both as espresso and regular coffee, and it was my impression that it worked better as a regular cup. The name translates as "the turtle," and, alas, this "in season" offering may be sold out now. I'll have to savor the last bit left in the bag. Name La Tortuga

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.

Named for Itzamna, 'God of Nectar'

IMG_0807After neglecting my blogging for a while, I figured I ought to make note of three excellent coffees from Intelligentsia in Los Angeles that I have been drinking over the past month or so. On a vacation trip in early July to visit family, we made a detour over to Silver Lake, where I bought a mug and a few different bags of single-source beans. I packed them in my suitcase and returned to New York (carrying coals to New Castle in a sense, since some local shops carry Intelligentsia selections). First up is the selection from Guatemala. Name Itzamna

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."

IMG_0810In 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.

A Few Days With Peet's JR Reserve

IMG_7820 When it comes to coffee quests, vacations and traveling pose both opportunities and challenges. On the West Coast, where I am visiting friends and relatives this month, it is a chance for me to sample selections from Peet's Coffee and Teas. In December, I enjoyed the Sumatra and Aged Sumatra. This week, upon arriving in Los Angeles, I bought what was billed as a high-end blend -- JR Reserve -- and a heavily promoted single-source bean from Costa Rica. More on that one later. Name Peet's JR Reserve Blend

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.

The Coffee of Monte Crisol

IMG_0011I bought this coffee on Father's Day, before my daughter and her friends cooked the dads a delicious dinner of salmon, salad, fruit salad and other good stuff. It had been raining in New York City for days, but the sun came out briefly. I bought this instead of the first place winner in the Cup of Excellence, the Fazenda Kaquend, from Brazil, roasted by Ritual Roasters in San Francisco, which my favorite Chelsea cafe was offering for an astounding but perhaps understandable $35 per bag. Instead, I bought a bag of these less expensive beans from Costa Rica for about half that. I ordered a cup of the Brazilian to go, and it was delicious. But as I walked, about half way up the block to the friends' apartment where we were having dinner, I was drenched in a sudden downpour, so I don't remember much more about that cup. Oh, well.

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.

Los Inmortales in a Bag

IMG_0002It has been a week for obsessions, from Twitter to a new addiction, Plants vs. Zombies. The first was the subject of a two-day conference where I was a panelist, even as social media played a role in the Iranian election unrest. The other is the latest computer game that has consumed too much time of the 9-year-old and, um, others, in our household. It is amusing and addictive. If you play it you will never look at mushrooms or vegetable gardening in quite the same way again.

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.

Late Night, With Wondo Harfusa

IMG_0737These days, I seem to be on a musical nostalgia tour. A couple of weeks ago, it was The Dead. Then last night, my wife and I found ourselves in the crowd for They MIght Be Giants at Le Poisson Rouge, on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. The crowd of people in button-downed shirts and khaki was enthusiastic. But it did not have the same energy we recalled from the late 1990s, when the band could fill the Bowery Ballroom, and nerdy fans sat in circles in the line outside singing angst-ridden lyrics they knew by heart. That was long before the band transformed itself a Grammy-winning act for children known for TV and movie theme songs. Anyway, the last thing I did before leaving the apartment was to pull another shot of this coffee, from the Yerga Cheffe region of Ethiopia. It kept me bouncing. Name: Wondo Harfusa

Origin: Yerga Cheffe, Ethiopia.

Roasted: May 18 by Verve Coffee Roasters, Santa Cruz, Ca.

Purchased: May 25 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description: One account: "begins with a hibiscus aroma followed by ripe red fruit flavors of raspberry, red currant and cherry finishing with notes of black tea."

In the cup: In this ongoing inquiry, I've been intrigued by the coffees from this region (notably Wondo Worko). And I know I'm in for a treat whenever I see the Verve Roasters bag at Grumpy.

I tend to be suspicious of "fruit flavors" in coffee descriptions, but these tend to be just traces. In most cases, the underlying flavor is coffee, a category unto itself. That said, I personally think fruit and flower notes can sometimes overpower a coffee, making for a tasting experience that is unpleasant. I can happily report that is not the case with Wondo Harfusa. You can definitely find the ripe cherry and raspberry under the coffee, but it works with the whole. More and more I find I enjoy tasting for these secondary flavors more than I ever expected when I started learning about culinary coffee. Before long, this will probably turn me into the worst sort of coffee snob.

But for now, I'm enjoying my third shot of espresso of the morning and early afternoon, having been up a little too late (after the opener by Mixel Pixel and the somewhat short TMBG set, we headed over to another place in the Village, Cafe Vivaldi, for some more music, and drinks). I thought about finding a way to segue back to the show, maybe with some coffee-related lyrics. Something about getting older, and holding onto the moment, and all that. (I didn't even mention the helicopters overhead and the motorcade tying up traffic. Barack and Michelle Obama were also having a date that started with dinner in the neighborhood.)

For now I'm content to just let the coffee do its job: Wake me up.

A Couple of Shots of Soma by Barismo

IMG_0733It was a beautiful Memorial Day in New York, and I was getting down to the dregs of the bowl where I throw the leftover beans from my coffee experiments. It was starting to taste a little too much like the bitter Starbucks mistake from quite a while back. I took a bike ride down to my favorite indie coffee shop, Café Grumpy, using the newish Ninth Avenue lane, encountering just one illegally parked delivery truck that forced me to divert awkwardly into the street. On the way back, up the older Sixth Avenue lane, it was a nightmare of hazards -- cabs veering into the lane to get fares, jaywalkers, wrong-way cyclists and bladers, and, incredibly, a row of half a dozen police squad cars parked neatly in the lane in Herald Square. The N.Y.P.D. does what it pleases.

I'll note that 21st Street also has a great bike lane, except on Grumpy's block, where the police personal vehicles are parked at a slant. There's also a lack of good places to lock a bike. But I managed. There was quite a selection of beans waiting for me, including a big supply of Intelligentsia's delicious Micay Finca Santuario, but the white bag of this guest espresso from Barismo caught my eye. Name: Soma espresso

Origin: A blend: 75% Guatemala Finca Cardenas, 10% Guatemela Nimac Kapeh, 15% Kenya Kiandu.

Roasted: May 20 by Barismo of Arlington, Ma.

Purchased: May 25 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description: According to Barismo's site: "Syrupy body and silky mature fruits. Thick and complex yet balanced. An espresso that exemplifies the character of its components but melds in harmony. From a light cask conditioned wine note to a syrupy body with a dash of mellow cocoa."

In the cup: My coffee quest was derailed in recent weeks by a variety of things -- work obligations, mainly, and no time to pick up some quality beans.

I've enjoyed every coffee I've had from Barismo, and this was no exception. When I got home and finished showering, I made a fresh shot of this (I had bought another coffee, but stuck that in storage for now). I should note that I did not replicate the precise instructions on the bag: "Pull 19 grams in a double basket for 26 to 28 seconds at 198 degrees Fahrenheit totaling 1.25 ounces." Basically, a smaller volume shot and a high temperature. I used my lazy Barista method, which is dictated by the lazy automated Jura machine that I own. It does the job, but I could be accused of "noodling around" in a manner that compromises quality for convenience. Guilty as charged.

The shot had a foamy creme -- almost like a head on beer. It was definitely syrupy and silky, and I'll have to take a rain check. I couldn't pick them up. Not that I cared much. Barismo's blog says there should be "deep red flecking and a heavy mouth feel." I didn't really see the flecking, but it was definitely a heavy espresso, which I like. It was a good espresso, and the components do blend together nicely. I made a second shot and definitely picked up the wine note and mellow cocoa. Barismo selections tend to grow on me as I drink them, and I think this one will follow the same pattern.

It certainly erased my irritation with some of the cycling obstacles on the trip down to Chelsea.

This was a good ending for a beautiful sunny weekend of cycling solo and with my daughter and some romping about with friends. As I was writing the date above, I was reminded that this was my mother's birthday. It had somehow slipped by me. I guess it was fitting to mark it with two of my favorite rituals, a ride through the city and shots of espresso from her native state of Massachusetts (born and raised in North Cambridge). Rest in peace, Catherine Gallagher LaForge, May 25, 1924 to March 26, 1985.

Shots of Alphabet City, the Espresso

img_0621It was a busy week of catching up at work after vacation, then a busier weekend that included a children's birthday party by the Hudson River, with volunteer activities to benefit the Children for Children Foundation. Then last night it was off to Madison Square Garden for The Dead. It was a great show, musically. There were certainly some aging hippies in the crowd, but most of the audience had a middle-aged suburban feel to it. A lot of people who might have been dancing in the hallways and aisles 20 years ago seemed content to sit in their seats and suck on plastic bottles of Budweiser.

Toward the end of the night, I was thinking more about bedtime than the music never stopping, despite a couple of quick shots of this Intelligentsia espresso blend before the show. I've been drinking it all week.

Let's resume the coffee quest.

Name: Alphabet City Blend

Origin: Direct trade from Brazil

Roasted: April 6 or 9 Intelligentsia.

Purchased: April 13 at Ninth Street Espresso, Chelsea Market, 75 Ninth Avenue, between 15th and 16th Streets.

Description: "This classic, syrupy espresso features flavors of toasted almond and milk chocolate and a gentle citrus flourish in the finish."

In the Cup: Ninth Street Espresso switched to this coffee as its espresso blend in March. The name refers to the shop's main location -- the neighborhood with avenues named by letter (Avenues A, B and C) on the East Side of Manhattan that is sometimes described these days as part of the East Village or the Lower East Side.

Back in the 1980s, when I briefly fancied myself a Deadhead, Alphabet City referred to a scary, rundown area of junkies and crime. Now it's place of condos, indie bars and little shops, and a cute name for coffee. So it goes.

img_0623The coffee is described as a mix of Acaia, Icatu, Catuai, Rubi, Tupi, and Catucai beans grown at 950 to 1350 meters above sea level. Ninth Street's owner, Kenneth Nye, told The Times that Alphabet City Blend is a riff on Intelligentsia’s benchmark espresso, Black Cat, but that the blend would be adjusted soon. Here things get tricky, as there appears to be no single Black Cat espresso, and the blend is continually being adjusted. (See Ken's comment below; he says this blend is all Brazilian).

I don't think it's stretching a metaphor to compare this arcane world to that of Deadheads who used to argue about every variation of songs and set lists back in the old days. Trying to find information online about the relationship of these espresso blends was difficult.

The Black Cat project is related to Intelligentsia, but it has its own site and explains its mission here:

The Black Cat Project™ is by design a pursuit of something we’ll never catch: the perfect espresso in all of its manifestations. But that doesn’t mean we’ll ever stop chasing it. This project is rooted in our belief that espresso brewing is still coffee brewing and that only the best coffees can make the best espressos. We want to push the boundaries on flavor. We want you to experience amazing single origin, Micro-Lot and seasonal espressos with truly distinct flavor profiles that reach far beyond “chocolate” or “caramel”.

If this is close to Black Cat Classic, then this blog post explains the origins of that blend, at least as it stood in October, when this bag was roasted.

The blogger at Black Cat appears to be Kyle Glanville, director of espresso for Intelligentsia, and he explains that blend's origins here:

Brazil, Fazenda Santa Alina (Pulped natural yellow bourbon). Grown in the Grama Valley just outside Pocos de Caldas on the border of Minas Gerais and Sao Paolo state. The Grama Valley is blessed with volcanic soil, solid altitude, and a tremendous amount of sweet, yellow bourbon coffees.

El Salvador, El Borbollon (washed bourbon). This coffee was purchased as part of our “Los Inmortales” project and proves to be a ridiculously perfect compliment to the buttery caramel character of the Santa Alina, dropping in some fresh coffee cherry, citrus, and a floral, heady aroma.

You can expect the Cat to taste a little amped up recently due to the arrival of the new crop Brazil. Deep chocolate, caramel, cherries and citrus. Complete and sweet, just the way I like it.

So, to the Alphabet City tasting. Syrupy, check. Toasted almond, yeah, maybe. Milk chocolate, definitely. Citrus flourish at the finish, I guess so. Someone has been up to some interesting alchemy here, and it may be worth a trip to NInth Street to see how the fresher stuff tastes now, if the formula has been jiggered. It's a great espresso. The greatest espresso ever? This juror is not ready to vote on that. It is certainly the kind of thick, sweet cup, without distracting floral and citrus oddities, that I like as a regular shot. And it's better than 99 percent of what most people accept as good espresso at corporate chains.

Taste of Agua Preta From Carmo de Minas

img_0692Earlier this week, my quest for a perfect cup of home-made coffee took me to Chelsea Market, where I picked up this direct-trade coffee from the outpost of Ninth Street Espresso at the market. This was part of my at-home vacation, or staycation, which mostly entailed watching my daughter do gymnastics; taking her to a bookstore, a tea house, and a museum; reading some books; sharing fresh Belgian beer with some friends; working out; updating my Twitter status; and, of course, drinking coffee. Name: Agua Preta, Brazil.

Origin: Produced by Antonio Pereira de Castro and Glaucio Pinto of Fazenda Tijuco Preto in the Carmo de Minas region of Brazil.

Roasted: April 6 or8 by Intelligentsia.

Purchased: April 13 at Ninth Street Espresso, Chelsea Market, 75 Ninth Avenue, between 15th and 16th Streets.

Description: "A silky yet buoyant mouthfeel combines with notes of brown sugar and caramel to create an exquisitely delectable cup. A tamed acidity allows for notes of fudge to blossom right before the buttery finish."

In the cup: I was at first taken aback by what appeared to be a very old roasting date, which I just found in very tiny type on the price tag. But Ken Nye of Ninth Street Espresso has corrected me in the comments, noting that I was probably misreading the tag and that no coffees he sells are older than 12 days. I'm sorry I doubted. The coffee certainly tasted fresh.

This Yellow Catuai was grown at 1200 meters and harvested in August. Here is an excerpt from the tasting notes from Kyle Glanville, director of espresso at the roaster (full PDF is here):

Agua Preta is our first DT Brazilian coffee for filter, and this first lot comes from Fazenda Tijuco Preto, itself a two-time finalist in the Cup of Excellence competitions. Tijuco Preto is blessed with natural springs and a high-altitude plateau that makes harvesting cherries an efficient and easy task. This pulped natural coffee offers striking balance and drinkability with soft acidity, a perfect cup for a lazy morning with the paper.

Well, where to begin. I've been drinking this as espresso for much of the week. This morning I tried it as a regular coffee. Setting aside my ambivalence about the term "mouth feel,' it was definitely silky in both cases. I don't know about buoyant. The acidity is low, though the espressos were slightly more acidic. The hints of chocolate, caramel and fudge were there, more or less, especially in the espresso version, but the finish -- I guess it is buttery -- it is most noticeable in the filter version for some reason. Is "buttery" really the right word? Oh, I suppose. It's a tasty cup of joe.

Another Fine Coffee From Finca Santuario

img_0676I'm on vacation from the job that pays the bills this week, but vacationing is hard work, especially since our daughter is off from school and my wife has to work. I need many shots of espresso to keep up my stamina. On Monday, I hustled my daughter off to a playdate, then wandered off on a chilly but sunny day to the Ninth Street Espresso outpost in Chelsea Market. I was on a specific mission: All of NInth Street's coffees are roasted by Intelligentsia, which has a roasting lab but no shops in New York. I had been pleased with several Intelligentsia "guest" coffees purchased at Cafe Grumpy, including this Colombian. I'll have more on the results of the expedition later. How did this bean fare in my ongoing coffee quest? Name: Micay, Finca Santuario

Origin: Cauca, Colombia

Roasted: March 31 by Intelligentsia

Purchased: April 5 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description: "Almost candy-like in its sweetness, notes of licorice root and milk chocolate sustain the acidity as a finish of tart dried fruit and praline linger pleasantly."

In the cup: For the last several days, this Colombian single-source bean has been loaded up in the Jura and ready to go. I've had it as an espresso and as a regular coffee, no milk. It's hard to say which I prefer more. It seems sweeter as an espresso, though I'm not sure I agree with the "candy-like" description the bag, which is just as well. I've certainly tasted coffees with more of a hint of chocolate than this, and too much fruit aftertaste, but this goes down smoothly and pleasantly from start to finish.

This direct-trade and in-season coffee is a Bourbon grown at 1,900 meters or so above sea level and harvested last summer in the Cauca region of Colombia at Finca Santuario, a plantation operated by Camilo Merizalde, which I wrote about earlier. His beans seem to be a favorite of other coffee bloggers. Regrettably, the Intelligentsia blog post about Mr. Merizalde's farm and methods, quoted in my earlier review of his Heliconias variety, seems to have vanished from the roaster's blog. But you can find an updated version [also in pdf] (with pictures) with the Micay description:

This coffee marks the first time that we are offering two different botanic varietials from the same farm. This is a rare opportunity since it is not possible to separate most coffees in this way. Many farms are basically monocultures, with 80 percent or more of the crop coming from a single variety. On others with greater diversity, coffee varieties are usually not separated well enough in the field to allow for individual/selective harvesting. On smaller farms, even when varieties are well identified and separated, the volumes are just too tiny to be workable as individual lots.

So, one farm, two great coffees. I'll keep an eye out for more from Finca Santuario. And Intelligentsia is fast converting me into a believer in its experts' ability to find great coffees. My Ninth Street expedition this week yielded a couple of other beans from this roaster, a direct trade coffee from Brazil and Intelligentsia's "Alphabet City" espresso blend. More on them later this week.

This Is Chapadao de Ferro (Microlot 494)

img_0643This has not been a good month for my coffee-blogging. We had some distracting news at the office, then a couple of weeks ago, I was laid low by a burning lump of fire in my throat that turned out to be strep. My daughter and eight other kids in her class, plus the teacher and some parents, probably came down with it too. It took a while to shake that, and the cure was in some ways worse than the illness, but I finally seem to be on the mend. At least I got some reading done. So I wasn't drinking as much coffee, and I still had quite a supply of the Ecuadorean beans from Whole Foods. About a week ago, though, I stopped by Cafe Grumpy with my daughter and was pleased to see some selections that were right up my alley. This is the first of the two. Name: Chapadão de Ferro - Microlot 494

Origin: Patrocinio, Brasil

Roasted: March 31 by Ritual Coffee Roasters

Purchased: April 5 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description: "Clean and sweet, with beautiful acidity and flavors of butterscotch, dutch cocoa, and dried fruits."

In the cup: I was drinking this as an espresso most of the week, and had not been particularly impressed. But it was a lousy, busy week so I started fresh day with a regular cup, no milk. First I had to clean the Jura machine, which demands attention every 200 coffees or so. I dropped the white pill in the top and went through the rinsing procedure to get rid of coffee oil buildup. This may have affected the flavor of the espressos last week.

Here is the marketing pitch from RItual:

In the center of an extinct volcano in Patrocinio, Brasil, Ruvaldo Delarisse produces this natural, or sun-dried, coffee 1200 meters above sea level. The soil at Chapadão de Ferro is uniquely rich in iron, rendering the farm’s name (“Plateau of Iron”), as well as a flavor that is similarly unique to Cerrado, the eco-region. Ruvaldo sun-dries the coffee fruit off of the bean on concrete patios, which helps develop both body and sweetness in this coffee.

The Plateau of Iron, now that's a phrase to conjure with. Its a good coffee. It's not knocking my socks off. It's typical coffee acidity is easy to take (is that the "beautiful" part?) and maybe there is indeed a hint of cocoa (that is what caught my attention on the Grumpy menu). Butterscotch? I wasn't getting it. Dried fruits? Not really. I guess I remain something of a barbarian without a refined coffee palate. I found myself wishing I had instead picked up the single origin espresso from El Salvador -- Finca la Ponderosa microlot roasted by Verve -- that I had tried in the shop when I bought this. The barista pulled a shot that was funky, muddy and tasted like the side of a mountain, but I loved it. It was perfect for that moment, anyway. Still, this Brazilian is perfectly acceptable, better than most coffee you could get anywhere and better than many beans I have reviewed on the blog. I can't wait to try the other coffee I bought and have kept sealed in deep cool storage -- a Colombian bean roasted by Intelligentsia. Perhaps tomorrow.

A Pound of Organic Espindola From Ecuador

img_0631I happened to find myself in a Whole Foods store a week ago and noticed the wide coffee selection. Not being able to help myself, I picked up some single-source beans from Ecuador. For much of the week, I have been drinking it, mostly as espresso, alternating with the pricier Kenyan beans from an indie shop that I wrote about last week as part ofmy ongoing coffee quest. This has kept me alert through a few hours of an extracurricular project, listening to the audiobook version of "Shantaram," by David Gregory McDonald, a potboiler set in India. (It was a MacBreak Weekly pick from Andy Ihnatko). Listening to fiction is harder work than nonfiction, and this book, though entertaining and well-narrated in many accents by the award-winning Humphrey Bower, stretches to 43 hours and 3 minutes (I'm in the third hour). Coffee is needed to get through it.

Name: Organic Ecuador Espindola

Origin: Procafeq cooperative in southern Ecuador

Roasted: March 8 by Allegro Coffee

Purchased: March 8 at Whole Foods Market, Chelsea.

Description: "Perfectly balanced and beautifully complex with aromatic notes of sweet marmalade, brown sugar, lavender and honey."

Tasting notes: Apart from the audiobook, my other cultural achievements this week were to Twitter far too much and get started on clearing the TiVo of "24," "Big Love," "Battlestar Galactica," and the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer showdown. I also made it to the 45-minutes-too-long film "Watchmen. While I was at that, I missed a Tyra-Banks related melee in my own neighborhood at a hotel visible from our kitchen window.

img_0633So it was quite a week. A week that called for coffee. And despite excessive consumption of it, I still dozed off in the middle of Will Ferrell's Bush impression on HBO last night. But it's a new day, and time to actually log my impressions of this particular coffee.

It is rare to find an actual bargain at Whole Foods, so I was pleased by the price, which was cheaper than the prices for single-source culinary beans at local indie shops. I was also pleasantly surprised to see the roasting date was the same day I was in the Whole Foods. Maybe that was just luck. Usually there has been some kind of lag time, and I have come to decide that freshness does count. The coffee geeks on the Web seem to concede that Whole Foods does a good job with its roasting partners, including Allegro. Allegro's Web site does not offer the sort of idiosyncratic tasting notes I've come to enjoy from other roasters, it did supply some details:

Espindola is produced by the 311 members of the Procafeq cooperative, one of the five associations that make up Ecuador’s small southern coffee federation. The coffee plots are a blend of Typica, Bourbon, and Caturra varietals handpicked and wet milled on each farm, although one group of 15 families collectively mills their coffee cherry at a centralized mill. After milling, the beans are fully sun dried and rested before being sent to the Federation’s new dry mill in Catamaya for hulling, sorting, and quality evaluation.

For good measure, Allegro promises to donate $10,000 to help with irrigation projects this year. As noted here before, one important part of coffee marketing is to persuade the consumer that this is not just about enjoying good coffee, but also helping the local growers in an environmentally sound way. This marketing technique was practically invented by Whole Foods. So check that box.

Let's get down to business. This coffee certainly tasted fresh. But it was lacking in something. It was not particularly sweet, and I have spent much of the week searching for the sweet marmalade, brown sugar and other traces. It is a rather simple coffee, pleasant, smooth, no bitterness. I would almost say a bit of a sour apple finish if I knew anything about these things. The main experience is of a decent, ordinary cup of coffee or shot of espresso. Perhaps this is what Allegro means by "perfectly balanced." I would not by any means call it "beautifully complex." Not once during the week has it caused me to stop and wonder, "What was that? That was interesting." It has simply done the job. It transported me nowhere except out the door. I've come to expect something more unusual in coffee these days. I'll certainly try other Allegro beans, but when this is gone, I won't seek out this particular variety again.