Totally Caffenation (feel)

Culinary Arts & Cooking S : Coffee Blogs Guide

Culinary Arts Schools and Cooking Schools

We're listed, again. Woohoo!

Funny SBux-Church Vid

Koffiejuf Blog (Dutch)

Alsmaar leuker wordt die blog van Moniek Smit, met nu een mooi artikel over de Specialty Coffee wereld.... en de niet-Specialty Coffee wereld zeg maar.

Keep it up Juf.

Ethiopian Coffee

For us there's just one country that really matters : Ethiopia!

Fans of Caffenation know we have a special heart for lots of coffee's from this country, the birth place of the finest Arabica's in the world.
About 35% of our yearly roasts are Ethiopian. In the first place Yirgacheffe, but also Sidamo, Harrar, Limu and a couple of other well known regions produce the best a man can get.

This week Ethiopia's newest crop saw daylight at our roastery.
We roasted a first batch of our Conventional Yirga and Sidamo.

First cup results yesterday showed great finesse.
The Sidamo had nice sweet & sour balance, and a tropical touch. Not our best Sidamo ever, but still very enjoyable.
The Yirgacheffe was something different. We brewed a couple of cups. First one had a strong chocolate smell and tasted like papaya and Napoleon lemon candy. Cooling down the flower notes appeared. Fantastic.
The second cup was surprisingly different and tasted more like those overwhelming natural Ethiopians we tasted earlier on.
Idido Misty Valley before and the Chelba Union coffee last year two name a few.
Since a couple of years we're dreaming of bringing tastes like that into Caffenation bags and I have the feeling we almost arrived.

Another Ethiopian fan is Daniel Humphries.
Last years he was helping Intelli training Barista's - that's how we met - and also with Willem Boot teaching coffee professionals about the do and don't in coffee roasting at the Boot Academy in San Fran.

And now we have the guide :

The one and only Daniel Humphries has helped Boot Coffee compile an essential, enormous Ethiopian Coffee Guide. Available to download for free.

This is a complete guide to understanding Ethiopian coffee, from production, to processing, to buying and selling. It includes phone numbers and emails of all the major cooperative unions and exporters, logistical information about buying Ethiopian coffee (and coffee in general). It even has an extended section showing the morphology of different coffee beans from different regions of Ethiopia (with astonishing high-resolution pictures).

Best Belgian Aeropress Recipes

The two finalists did a great job with our Rwanda Rwabisindu filter roast (well done Caffenation Roasting team).
Most remarkable was the totaly different technique.

Charlene won with this one :
Take 15 gram of relatively fine ground (in between filter and espresso)
Water temp = 85°c
Pre wet the filter with a lot of hot water
Set the (pre heated) Aeropress, placing the funnel in normal standing position (no reversed!)
First give it a 30" bloom
Then pour in slowly the rest of the water (22cl in total) in 30", right in the middle
Then press for 30". Stop before the 'sissing' sound

very simple and good. clean, bright, well balanced. top job!

Marc came in second with this one :
Take 20,5 gram of relatively coarse ground (6,5 on a big Ditting)
Water temp = 81°c
Use a Coava Disk 008 and preheat both filter and Aeropress
Place the Aeropress in reversed (inverted) position
Pour 75 grams of water. This for 15" while turning the press
Let it bloom for 15"
Pour 165 grams of water. This for 30" while turning the press
Put the cap on, swirl quickly and give it a little rest
Press for approximately 50"
Stirr
Let it cool down a bit
Drink

a bit more difficult, but more body, very sweat and creamy. i could drink this one for hours.

very difficult to pick a favourite, so just try both at home!

Oh yes. Also a warm hand to all other contestants, not forgetting christophe and simon, the other semi finalists.

Thanks Charlene and Marc for the info and good luck to everybody with the brews.

BAC The Vid

Thanks to Philip V.R.

Later the winning recipe.