El Bosque is Back

The all mighty Guatemala El Bosque is back where it belongs : in our Anfim grinder (of the week).
Last year number 3 of the year.
And Isabelle's coffee for the Barista finals.

This new crop Guatemalan is roasted by Knopes. Still a bit too fresh today, but all the other coffees are sold out so we gonna pull some shots for you anyhow.

Watch out : this one is not for sale yet. No panic though ; it's a 7 kilo sample bag. The coffee should be back in larger quantity's in two weeks.

Here some Joost Leopold El Bosque cupping notes, crop 2009 (Dutch) :

Geur van de bonen: vol, zoet, romige vanille
Uiterlijk van de bonen: egaal, gelijkmatig, middelgebrand (vlak voor de 2e krak)
Geur van de gemalen koffie: vlezig, als paté, doet denken aan Kopi Luwak, aards, warm en vertrouwd
Aroma (geur van de natte koffie): honing, zoet, caramel, marshmellows op de bbq, crema catelana ( gebrande suiker)

Smaak van de hete espresso: vol, zoet, veel body, stevig, lichte afdronk van gepofte kastanjes

Smaak van de koude espresso: fruitiger; zoete dadels

Waardering: 9

Daterra Bruzzi Reserve 2008

By accident we found an old Daterra Bruzzi penta box (vac packed Brazilian coffee). Almost 2 years old, but on medium-light roast its surprisingly well balanced. Nice experiment and very succesful, so already finished up today.

But no panic, I have lots of goodies in the (Knopes) roaster tomorrow. On display by the weekend.

Sorry for the Harrar lovers; again we are going to run out of stock in a couple of days. The good news is that we will replace it with the almighty Rwanda Musasa for 2 or 3 weeks. Not bad at all.

Coffee in New York : New List

People keep asking for New York coffee houses.
Here a very nice list.

Coffee Roasting Basics - Color Changes

As new born roasters (or almost); it's time to start informing you a bit on roasting profiles and stuff.
This excellent video comes from Sweet Maria's.

Koffie wordt Duurder (Dutch)

Ja, heel veel prijsstijgingen in ruwe bonen. Pffff.

Hier artikel (GVA).

en hier (Laatste Nieuws).
en op Koffienieuws!

En ja, ook wij zullen moeten volgen.
Maar kom, de House Blend steeg laatste 2 jaar maar 1x en onze Ethiopische koffie's staan al een jaar of 5 op hetzelfde niveau. Niet echt klagen dus.

Why You Should Hate Coffee Blogs

I found, euh ... Friso found, this interesting new Blog.

It's for the more 'advanced' coffee lovers.

Curious?
Click this.

Hopefully this blog will keep on living.

Mark Weinberger Special

This man Mark rolled in the bar in 2006.
Nobody knew where he came from, nobody knew what he did.

For years he came in on hot summer days to drink espresso's, semi-sweet soda's and a cappuccino left and right, meanwhile playing on his Sony laptop and smoking Verellen vanilla cigars.
Strange dude indeed, but he was very liked by all other clients, except for the cigar smoke of course :-)

Last year we were waiting for him to come back from his winter holidays. His habit was going off for skiing for a couple of months and come back by spring.
No Mark to be seen for the full summer.
Yes we missed him.

And by the time we were really woried we read this article online.

'Our' Mark seemed to be one of America's most wanted 'criminals'. Serious? Yes.
The days he arrived in Antwerp he was on the run. He had several cases running against him and while he was in Greece, at what seemed to be his last trip as a free man, he took off.
And ended up at ... Caffenation, home of the brave.

Our weeks espresso blend is made to remember his days at the bar.
A blend of Malabar, Yirgacheffe and a part of Costa Rica. A Mark Weinberger Special.

Probably in jail for the rest of his life, but tasty in a cup today.

Espresso Martini

For years I'm telling cocktail bar owners and the local cocktail men/women to put an Espresso Martini on their menu.

I'm still surprised why they mostly refuse to do it.
I think it's a fantastic drink.
Of course you need to know how to make a decent espresso first. That's something we handled before. Underneath the link a nice recipe for an Espresso Martini. Shake it out!

Interview Michael Phillips

You want to know more about the new World Barista Champ? Click here.

Best Aeropress Method of the World

It took a while - I don't know why - to bring our World Championship Aeropress recipe to you. But finally here it comes.

Again a look at the preparations and the final in England.

Jeff and I were searching to get out the most of the Washed Yirgacheffe from Square Mile Roasters.
After hours and hours of experimenting and tasting we come up with the following :

Grind : One bit finer then filter. On Ditting : 4.

Water serving temperature : tough one. We trained at 80, but then competed in the finals at 82°C. Jeff thought the roast was very fresh and needed 85, but I thought that was dangerous. He went for something in the middle.

Volume of coffee : 20 grams. A classic cut for us; a lot for a 20cl drink maybe.

Then the brewing :
Before the actual brew we decided to make a blind press to heat up the plastic of the press, the cup and rinse the paper filter.

We first take the filter and filter holder off and reverse the press. 20 grams is ground in a stainless steel cup (this is non static, except for the lightest of ground!!) and we use a funnel to keep things clean.
As pouring device we went for the Buono Kettle. This allows you to pour slowly and, this way, control the blooming. We often see an uncontrolled blooming while pouring too much water too fast.
We pour the water very slow and keep on rotating the base to make sure all coffee grounds brews well. This takes about 30 seconds.

We screw on the filter and wait 60 seconds. By this time all coffee is well agitated and it's time to turn things into pressing position.

We go now for a very slow press.

After almost (another) 60 seconds we stop just before or just on the moment of the hissing sound. The last bit of water is very oily and bitter.

Get rid of the Aeropress and serve your cup.

From the 6 judges, 3 of them thought this cup was the best. 3 others pick Marie's cup. The head judge Tim V came in between to take a final decision. He thought Marie's press was a tad cleaner.
Surprise came later when I heard about her technique : 80° (served with the Buono), same semi fine grind, 16 grams of coffee and the same steeping time.
Seen the fact both recipes are very close and scored as high ; it may be seen, for this coffee, as the perfect way of getting a 'perfect' cup.

(photo by Tim Varney and also thank you Tim for the very good organisation)

Echte Columbiaanse Koffiehuizen (Dutch)

Standaard Video.
Dank u Pieter.

Caffenation House Blend Edition Summer 10

It's a while ago we said something about our main blend, the House Blend.

It's stable since a month and we're very happy about it.
For €14,00 we offer one kilo of coffee excitement.
Main component is the all mighty Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. Add on equal parts of Guatemala Antigua Panchoy and a conventional Brazil. And finish off with 10% Indonesian Sulawesi Celebes Blue Toraja.

It's an espresso blend, but more then ever suitable for filter, press and iced coffee's, due to the higher percentage of Yirgacheffe.

Plenty of body (thank you Panchoy & Blue Toraja), a vibrant mid with acidity peaks and a very long finish.

The only problem we notice is in the blending.
When blended before roasting the espresso is bold, but very flat.
Blending after (individual) roasting gives the punch and details. Very big difference. We're playing with the idea of blending all bags of House Blend post roast, but this is going to weight seriously on the price.
Wait and see....