five years

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surely this can’t last

The veritable deluge of awesome coffee continues.

Saturday comes around, another crawl … but where to go …?

We arrived at Hazel’s and peered at the little orange card displaying the day’s pour-over offerings … Ooh! Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley … Ooh ooh! Panama La Esmeralda #5 … Is this for real?! We can drink BOTH of them right now? The IMV … strawberries (less cream this time) … juicy, succulent … delicious … And the Esmeralda … floral, violets but deeper tones as well … ah … IMV … Esmeralda … IMV … Esmeralda … seriously … how good is this?!! Oh right, espresso … PNG Elimbari … meaty, but honey sweet … punchy … (insert bonus catch up with Mark & Jess here; once Mark realised who I was … hahaha!).

awesomeness1

Another café, and another awesome Sidamo. Mecca this time and a syphon-brewed something-starting-with-B. Those boys are killing it there; the last three visits have yielded simply excellent syphon-brewed Sidamos and I like! (Celebrity spotting incident #1 - Paul “World Barista Champ 03″ Bassett).

By now, we were hungry, so we headed to the obvious next stop - The Source. A ham, cheddar and chutney sambo, and it’s back into the coffee. Espressoland now; Lucky 7 first (spice, jasmine tea, dark chocolate - Dan, shut up!), then the Guatemala CoE #22 Finca La Perla (oddly fishy aromatic to begin with, but a really clean and balanced shot, very nice). (Celebrity spotting incident #2 - George Gregan and a macchiato).

Yeah, one of these days I’ll post about something slightly more interesting and meaningful …

Barista Zeke

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something to think about

According to that terribly reliable source of information that is Wikipedia …

Each year, about 7.8 million tons of coffee is produced, worldwide.

And yet only 5.5 million tons of coffee is consumed.

Hmmm … more thoughts coming soon … once I find more reliable information sources

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do you remember …

… your best coffee-related experience?

Hit me with your top five(ish): What was it? Where was it? And why was it so awesome?

It could be the greatest shot you ever had, a most amazing filter brew, the coolest café you’ve ever been in, or just the most fun you’ve ever had messing with coffee.

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mercanta @ the source

Have you ever woken up, still tired from a late night out, and wondered, did last night really happen or did I dream it? Well, that’s pretty much where I am this morning.

Goodness knows how, but last night I was able to attend a presentation and cupping put on by Mercanta and melbourne coffee merchants at The Source. The presentation was to do with specialty v. commodity coffee, and was one of the most illuminating sessions on coffee I’ve ever attended. I’m sure some random thoughts will come later, I have a lot going on in my head right now and I need to do some more reading/researching before I expound on it all. For now I leave you with this … the green/red lines are to do with commodity coffee prices, the blue one is Fair Trade (grr … I will give my two cents on this later), and the purple one zig-zagging up up UP is Cup of Excellence.

After this, we were able to cup ten of some of the amazing coffees Mercanta are offering.

The ones that stood out for me where #6, #7, and #8, which, if I’m not mistaken, were: #6 Ethiopian Harrar Rayan Highlands; #7 Guatemala CoE #22 Finca La Perla; #8 Sumatran Takengon Aceh.

All photos courtesy of the lovely Emily Oak. View them all here. And check out The Source write-up. Oh, and Luca’s post on the Melb edition.

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covering new grounds

Another coffee crawl, this time through The Shire. I promise, no hobbit jokes are to follow.

Well, actually we started with an old favie that is not in the Shire. Coffee Alchemy. Hazel and Adam served us some some delightful Kenya French Mish pour-over (so HOT right now) to start with. The French Mish is pretty amazing, especially once it cools and “turns”. Mmm … the roast tomatoey-ness becomes sweet florals … I love this as pour-over soooo much. We also had a couple of espressi: an Aussie MTE Bin 35 that was just so interesting and different and complex and bassy; and a peanutty, sweet Brasil Rondomuñho.

Then we headed south to White Horse Coffee (Flora St, Sutherland) who are at present being supplied by Mecca Espresso. We shot some pretty good ’spro, and then had more awesome pour-over (have I mentioned I’m slightly obsessed with brewed coffee at the moment?). The first pour-over we tried was a Guatemalan San Pedro, which was (this will sound insane, I guess you had to be there) masculine, musky, graphite, and black. We then had an absolutely outstanding Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Idido Misty Valley which was purple, with berries, cream, and eucalyptus - seriously, we actually had that eucayptusy-menthol feeling afterwards (I’m not entirely sure why I’m tasting colours at the moment, but they make sense as descriptors in my head).

Next stop was Grind Espresso Bar (Surf Rd, Cronulla) who are serving up ’spro roasted by the fellas at Single Origin Roasters. I’m sure it’s great, but by the time we got there, I was so overloaded on coffee that I really didn’t enjoy the few sips I forced down. I’m sure they must have the goods, as they seem to have somewhat of a cult following; the walls are plastered with photos of people all over the world holding up the ‘I’d rather be at Grind’ slogan.

The final stop was HAM (Harry and Mario, Gerrale St, Cronulla). By then I’d given up on ’spro and stuck to my third favie drink (Phoenix Organic Cola). However, I have it on reasonably good authority that it was the pick of the Sutherland region ’spros today . The coffee is roasted by Paul Bassett and Instaurator. Not entirely sure how that works, but hey, with those two names behind it, I’m sure it’s top-notch. I’d like to go back there soon - preferably with less coffee in my system*.

*Before aspersions are cast on my coffee drinking ability, I should like to point out it is not the caffeine that causes me such a struggle. And I am NOT going soft.

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les aventures d’anniversaire

To celebrate my birthday earlier this month, I decided it would only be right to drink copious quantities of exceptionally good coffee. So I grabbed a few good friends and headed for two of my favourite places.

First stop was The Source, and some seriously tasty pour-over Kenya French Mission (so HOT right now), as well as some very delicious shots of their Lucky 7 house blend.

The food there is pretty darn yummy as well; I had a fig and prosciutto salad that was quite excellent. And their muffins are the best!

We had to restrain ourselves from drinking too much coffee, given the next step in our adventure …

Cupping @ Hazel’s. Oh yeah.

Hazel had very kindly agreed to let us swamp the Cauldron for the afternoon. It was an absolute blast!

First up we were treated to a delightful brew of cold, filtered Sidamo Dale.

The to the cupping table, where our spoons were greeted with the Sidamo Dale, Kenya French Mission, Costa Rica something-or-other (Hazel?), and Brasil Rondomuñho.

All four were quite excellent, I personally can’t go past the Dale or the French Mish, they’re awesome. It’s pushing my memory, but the Dale was citrus and berries and floral, the French Mish, deeper, roast tomatoes, sweet … Hmm, the memories have faded sadly … The Costa Rica, I recall, was clean and nice, and got more interesting as it cooled … And the Rondo - peanut butter sandwiches, unhulled peanuts …

Espresso was the next course, beginning with … a tin of Illy. Just out of curiosity really. It was rank: chemically, dark, bitter, acrid and incredibly unpleasant. After that we needed some sweet, sweet espressi, and Adam (I tell you what, that guy has a wicked stockfleth’s happening) and Hazel obliged, pulling us some Brasil Cachoeira, and the Dale. Mmm Dale … so HOT right now. (Incidently, I have been drinking a bag of Cachoeira this week, and it is great, very interesting. Full of orange peel, nice acidity, bright but not overly so. In milk, the oranges were more like those orange cream biscuits).

We then traipsed back home for a few drinks (and a particularly lovely, minerally 2004 Cave Historique, Hospices de Strasbourg Alsace Grand Cru Riesling), with a few more friends. Quite a lovely birthday really. I’m a lucky girl.

Immense thanks to everyone who made it such a brilliant day

I should have posted on this earlier so that I remembered more details. Oh well.

I also should have taken my camera on the day. I know Jess took some snaps, so I’m sure some will appear here soon-ish.

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new books

I love books. I love coffee. And so I really, really love books about coffee.

The Coffee Cupper’s Handbook by Ted Lingle, only came today, and I can not wait to read it cover-to-cover. Looks brilliant.

The Various Flavours of Coffee by Anthony Capella is strangely related to the Lingle book, even though it’s a work of fiction. It’s essentially a romance novel (and a particularly explicit one, I must say) about a poet who is commissioned to develop a language to describe and characterise coffee flavours. I’ve never read anything with such a surfeit of sensory detail.

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