Which's London Coffee Shop Review

Taste

Our undercover expert sampled coffee in each of the big three.

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• Taste

Our expert was not impressed with Starbucks's americano

To test the quality and taste, we sent Whittard coffee buyer and taster Giles Hilton to a Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Caffé Nero in central London.

Giles ordered two popular coffees – an americano and a cappuccino – in each shop. He rated them for appearance and temperature, taste and overall satisfaction.

Americano

According to Giles, a good americano should contain a single shot of espresso topped up with a third to a half cup of hot water. But he felt that the americanos he ordered contained too much water.

Starbucks was the worst offender. Giles thought that the cup had too much water, which resulted in a ‘faint coffee taste’. Costa’s was also a little oversized and ‘weak’. Giles liked Caffé Nero’s americano the best, although still a ‘bit watery’, it was ‘on the right track’.

Cappuccino

The ideal cappuccino should be a third coffee, a third milk and a third froth.

Giles thought that both Costa and Caffé Nero served a good cappuccino. Starbucks’s offering was only satisfactory and, while it tasted ‘nice’, was spoilt by being ‘too long’ and having too much froth.

Giles liked Costa’s cappuccino, saying that it was ‘correctly presented and well balanced’. However, Caffé Nero’s cappuccino was his favourite. According to Giles, it was ‘the most professional of the three’.

Cupping Kenya Kirinyaga

Crust
Originally uploaded by PeaberryPicker

This nice photo from Milkboy (thanks) brings me with today's activities. After 1 hour of blending, grinding and delivering our freshest beans i was pulling shot after shot, and pouring cappa after latte at our Oever bar.
Then meeting with a friend for his new to start espresso bar in the centre of town!
And Laurent from Efico to see what beans we may expect in the harbour of Antwerp the next couple of months. Exciting.
And now time for cupping ; yes it slowed down at the bar and no better way to end the day with a couple of prime cups. :-)

And what a coffee to cup!!!!!
Jeff took along a bag of Terroir Kenya Kirinyaga from the Mamuto farm.
This 5000 ft altitude coffee was the first ever to score a +95 at their cupping table. Of course ours was a not that fresh, but we can understand.
It was very powerfull, certainly for a Kenyan. Very full flavor and a fruityness that's almost not comparable. Black cherry, Black currant and Black berry ; a lot!

More info from the Terroir site :

Farmer: Walter Paul and Muthoni Mathagu

Region: Kirinyaga
Altitude: 5,000 ft.
Rainfall: Low to moderate+
Soil: Volcanic loam
Arabica variety: 95% Bourbon Sl 28 and SL 34, 5% Ruiru 11
Size of Farm: 21 acres total; 13 acres of coffee
Roast: Full Flavor

Please Note:
Terroir will return an additional $2 directly to the farmer, Walter Paul Mathagu, for every bag of Mamuto sold at $20.95.

Please click here to view more images of this coffee farm.

who do you want making your coffee?

who do you want making your coffee?
Originally uploaded by Mr. phelps

Zoka Roastery link.

Brazil Inglaterra Special Fazenda Toca da Onca

Where else then at Hasbean we can pick up great American Coffee Beans?
There's a great story behind this coffee with the most incredible name ever, but more important it tastes great.

Before getting into cupping details, i have to tell you how difficult it feels for me to transpond the cupping notes into the espresso story. Most of these fruity and complex beans do really well on press, filter, chemex, eva solo and for the professionals on Clover, but the espresso story always seems to be a totally different one. And it's the acidity that's troubling me. Where we find perfect balance in the cupping, the acidity takes over and ruins it in our espresso. Of course no machine or Barista is perfect and probably someone, somewhere is able to get more out of it, but we are so often disappointed with the lack of balance...
What we tasted on espresso was nice mouthfeel (why Stephen thinks it's FANTASTIC?), raisins, a bit of caramel and lots of roasted nuts, but too much of their skin taste. Like the skin of Walnuts that's overpowering and ruin the sweet oily deep taste of what's laying underneath.

At the cupping table we had an incredible cup of coffee, with great balance and a palate comparable with the Colombia Esperanza.

To finish i would strongly recommend this coffee to all of you, but i guess it's overpriced for espresso, unless you're fond of the more acidic ones.
More info on the Hasbean website.


We offer as our espresso of the week the Ethiopian Djimmah. This bean is known for their wild and strong taste and that's what it gives. Very closeby Robusta is this one. We often notice the Djimmah is not very stable one bag or crop compared to another, but we found a good one. We had better before though and keep on searching that perfect Djimmah, meanwhile enjoying this one, a bit comparable with the better Sumatra's.

Vandoag is't

There's a new place in town.
And the name is the title above. Yes not really under standable for someone outside of town.

Forget about it and let's focus on what they do.

Gilles is the owner and a devoted Caffenation fan. We met 7 years ago when he helped me to find people to interim for the fitness industry. And now i'm helping him to run this new espresso bar.

It's at the corner of the prince and princess street, nearby the UFSIA university and therefor packed with students. Yes packed it is, when school's out. School's out for Gilles and a first class Latte star, Half and Half, Cappuccino, straight Espresso shot or one of the other drinks on the menu.







His set up tells you a lot about the way of thinking.
Faema Smart two group. Faema grinder, two Macap's, a 58 flat Reg Barber and a clock to check the extraction times, 26 seconds split is the goal, and he's doing it! Nice materials and attitude to start up with.

Besides of all this coffee craze you can enjoy freshly melted chocolate drinks, fresh tea's or a slice of home made pie.
Check it out!

Core 77 Siphon Brewing Article

Siphoning the perfect cup of coffee

Posted by: Jeannie Choe on Wednesday, January 23 2008

Siphoning works for stealing gasoline and moving cash into secret bank accounts, but it's apparently the way to go if you're searching for that perfect cup of coffee. The Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco has recently acquired a $20,000 imported Japanese siphon bar (above) after years of attempts. This halogen-powered coffee contraption is currently the only one of its kind in the U.S. The high-tech, $11,000 Clover siphon brewer makes only one cup at a time but depends way less on the barista than the aforementioned siphon bar, resulting in a consistently tailored cup every time. There are about 200 Clovers around the world but Starbucks just bought 2, so if you're a fanatic now, prepare to feel less special.

Designed by three Stanford graduates, it lets the user program every feature of the brewing process, including temperature, water dose and extraction time. (It even has an Ethernet connection that can feed a complete record of its configurations to a Web database.) Not only is each cup brewed to order, but the way each cup is brewed can be tailored to a particular bean -- light or dark roast, acidic or sweet, and so on.

image : Peter DaSilva for NYT

Thanks Pieter for the link.

If anyone else finds something interesting online ; drop me a line.

Bodum Columbia Press

This is my Bodum Columbia Double wall coffee maker, stainless steel 0,35l/12oz.
State of the art French Press Pot. This was a left over from my Bodum stock. Of course it was not my first Press, but it is definitely my best.
Nice design, good press, fantastic thermal conditions and easy to clean.

The Daterra tasted very full although I don't think this bean is the perfect one for the press, cause it's missing a bit of acidity and fruitiness, certainly on the roast we need for the espresso machine.
I made two pots. One Saturday eve, the same day with fresh ground. And today, four days later, with the same ground, and yes again the difference in taste between both was remarkable. Less detail and much more bitterness today.
So please people, any system you use, get yourself a grinder and drink it all ways with freshly ground.
An advantage with the French Press is you can easily use a hand mill since you need a coarse grind. And a hand mill is very reasonable prized and easy to store. I guess Zassenhaus is a brand to recommend. Or Bodum, again.
Good luck.