Daniel's World of Coffee

I Should Have Been a Funk Singer (Coffee of the Week)

Here's part two of my visit to the CEL. And yes, I sing on this video, inspired by coffee. If you can't understand my hyper-excited babbling at the end, I'm saying, "Thanks Intelligentsia... Thanks Geoff Watts... Thanks Kenyan Coffee Producers!"

This is my coffee of the week, incidentally. Hands down.

Part one of my visit to the CEL here.

If you don't know what the heck I was singing about during the making of the Chemex, Stephen Morrissey's cool Chemex video here.

Not the same Gichathaini Kenya, but another fresh Kenya from Intelligentsia here.

Scott Rao's book here.

Don't forget to drink lots of coffee before you go out tonight, and Happy New Year everybody!

Coffee of the Week: Cappuccino at Vivace on Broadway

Seattle coffee fiends — in fact, coffee fiends around the world — are already well aware of the gaping hole left in local — global — coffee culture when the original Vivace roasterie location was finally torn down. Sound Transit is putting in a light rail station where Vivace once stood. The train hasn't been built yet, but they've cleared out the lot, tearing down several local businesses.

Vivace had some lead time, and an innovative leader in David Schomer, and they've already opened a new store on the other end of the block, in addition to the one down by the REI.

But for a Seattle native, there's nothing quite like the Vivace Sidewalk Bar on Broadway. An hour ago I stopped by in the middle of running errands all over town. It's a grey, misty, miserable, cold, dark day in Seattle (a "mizzy" one, as my sister puts it). The kind that drives non-natives crazy, but which I happen to relish. Still the cold and rain and darkness can get you down. Which is why we have ta-daaaaa! the best sidewalk espresso in North America.

True professional baristas making you true espresso beverages. It's tucked into a little stand just between a couple of retail spots. Just a warm, red little space without even a door. Just step in under the awning from the rain, order your drink, and two world-class baristas make your cappucccino with speed and aplomb.

I had a cappuccino today, and a conversation with barista, Teal, an old friend of mine. It really made my day. Now that the sun is setting at 4:23 pm, I'm back in my house doing a little work on the Ethiopia project, and this cappuccino's making everything all right in my universe.

So there you have it, Vivace's classic cappuccino, this week's Coffee of the Week.

Coffee of the Week: Macchiato at Zoka, Kirkland (Updated)

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday. I did!

I wanted to do two things with my Coffee of the Week posts, acknowledge the best roasters, growers, importers, and baristas who enliven my every week, and to give myself a venue for spouting off on different topics. So while I have a desire to write about new and interesting things I haven't covered in the past, I'm just going to have to repeat myself this week: the Zoka Kirkland store is fantastic.

As I mentioned before, I have been going there quite a bit and have yet to get a single sub-par cup. Contrast this with another Seattle area coffee shop with a good reputation which will remain nameless where I went recently and had a terrible cup of coffee. This hasn't ever happened to me at Zoka. Everything is up to snuff every time. I don't even really think about it anymore. I just walk in, get my coffee, and walk out happy.

This week the coffee that made me happiest was a caffé macchiato I had there on a gloomy, rainy Tuesday afternoon.

I'm talking about a small, northwest-style macchiato that is served in a tulip cup with an ounce and a half of espresso and wet steamed milk poured to the brim. (Just to clear it up... since there are so many wildly different versions of the macchiato out there... a topic for another post.) Kyle Glanville used to say that the macchiato was the purest expression of the barista's art. The espresso forms the biggest part of the flavor, and so your shots have to be perfect. There's no room for hiding less-than-delicious espresso like people sometimes do in a 16 ounce monster vanilla latte.

But a good macchiato is tougher than making a good espresso, because you also need to nail the milk just right. Put those two basic elements together in their most basic, naked form, and you have the macchiato. When a macchiato is bad, it's really bad; and when it's good, it's really good.

Well, my macchiato was really good. Once again I didn't get the barista's name, but everyone there has been great. I'm officially relocating to the west side of Lake Washington in about three days, so I suppose this will be the last time I write about Zoka Kirkland for a while. Certainly it makes coming out to this side of the lake to visit my family just a little bit more pleasurable. Thanks and kudos to them.

Coffee of the Week: Salty Coffee

The last week I was in Ethiopia I spent a few days visiting the mills of farmer cooperatives in Sidama and Yirgacheffe.

Most of my time was taken up with lengthy meetings with the cooprative committee members and union representatives, explaining to them our program, asking their blessing and participation, and listening to their comments and questions. But we also found time to visit the milling stations of these co-ops, where coffee cherries are brought to be pulped, washed and dried.

I probably visited about 10 such mills in four days. One of the most memorable stops was at the Wottolna Butulma cooperative mill in Aleta Wondo. When we arrived at the mill, the workers were taking their mid-morning break. Coffee is prepared for the workers in the traditional style. A woman (always a woman) roasts the coffee over coals, then the coffee is ground using a mortar and pestle, and boiled in a traditional urn. When it's ready, the woman pours it out into small cups which are passed around to all the workers.

I had heard before of the salted coffee sometimes drunk in Ethiopia, but I in all my travels here, I had never tasted it. When we sat down to join the workers for their coffee break, I was warned that it would be salty. In fact, I was offered a cup without salt, sensitive as they were to my faranji tastes.

To which I said, "Hell no! I want the salty stuff."

Well, it was SALTY. The cup is like an espresso cup, and they put a whole teaspoon of salt in there. It was actually kinda good, though it made me very thirsty. My Ethiopian agriculturalist friend later told me he was impressed with the quality of the coffee they had served. All I could think was, "How on earth could you evaluate the coffee? All I could taste was the salt."

But that's the nature of trying new things. Other people are more accustomed to certain things, and they can "taste past" something that stops me dead. It's like when I have to teach people to really taste and evaluate espresso for the first time.

Anyway, it was a memorable morning, and like I said, the coffee was actually pretty tasty. So I'm making it my Coffee of the Week.

Coffee of the Week: Pure East Harar Coffee

For the last day of our cupping class last week, we spent the day focusing on coffees from Harar itself. On the final cupping table were three clean, specialty-grade coffees from this region. If you drink Harar coffees in the United States, you might get the impression that it's one monolithic region. Certainly the coffees are almost always simply billed as "Ethiopian" or "Ethiopian Harrar." I can't recall ever seeing a bag of roasted coffee that offered more information than that. Of course, this is usually not the roaster's fault. It can be difficult to get more specific information about geographical origins here.

Nevertheless, there is a noticeable difference between East Harar and West Harar, one that the coffee professionals here have no trouble distinguishing. Also included under the umbrella of "Harar" coffees are coffees from the regions of Bale and Arsi. If you look at a map of Ethiopia, you can see just how far these regions are from the central areas surrounding Harar city and Dire Dawa. These coffees get exporter as "Harar," but the locals often consider them to be separate origins.

Of the three coffees on that final table, one was from East Harar, one from West Harar, and one from Arsi. Most of the cuppers, myself included, gave all these coffees a score of 80 or above, qualifying them as "specialty grade." I very much enjoyed the West Harar coffee, and found the Arsi coffee to be perfectly fine.

But it was the East Harar coffee that truly stood out. This is the magical flavor profile that buyers in the States are so desirous of, and so frustrated about when they cannot find it. Think blueberries, cherries, chocolate. The mouthfeel is rich and creamy, and the flavors relatively heavy, but the acidity still has a bright clarity that enlivens the whole cup. The aroma notes I wrote included toast, honey, caramel, and the aforementioned berries and chocolate. I'm a pretty harsh grader most of the time, but this coffee was to me a solid 89.

Most of the class agreed. I had a conversation today with a friend here about not wanting to ignore the very good quality that comes out of West Harar and Arsi. There are some excellent specialty grade coffees to be had from this region, and they are at risk of being overshadowed by East Harar, which would be a shame. But I have to give credit where credit is due. The East Harar coffee is indeed special. My few sips from the cupping cup I had of it were the most memorable sips I have had in a week of excellent coffee here.

So there you have it, the gem-like quality of East Harar coffee, this week's coffee of the week.

Coffee of the Week: Colombia at Zoka Kirkland ... Plus the Funniest Word in Coffee

Yesterday I wrote...

The real star of my visits to Zoka, however, has been the Colombia single-origin brewed coffee. Served as a pour-over cup of drip coffee, the cup I had on Saturday morning was a top twenty in my life kind of coffee. One of the most cherry-rich coffees I have ever had. All the best characteristics of high-grown Colombians with none of the nasty biting greenness or dirtiness. Deep, deep sweet chocolate and about three kinds of cherry flavors. I did not want that cup to end. Lucky for me, Zoka is just a few blocks from where I am staying, and the Colombia is still on the menu.

So it should come as no surprise that the Coffee of the Week is indeed the Colombia Villarica Cup of Excellence as they are serving it at the Zoka in Kirkland. I stopped by for another cup last night. Wowsers! Great stuff.

To add to my description a bit, I'd can say that beyond the cherry-bomb nature of this coffee it has a very smooth, even, and full-yet-not-heavy mouthfeel. Buttery in sensation, if not in taste. Zoka's website says, "Beginning with an aroma of jasmine, this Colombia opens up to a delicate balance of sweet and savory with mango leading into dark chocolate mace."

I'll be the first to say that I'm not familiar enough with mace to pick that out. I never really got the jasmine either... sometimes those lighter aroma notes are more obvious to the person doing the preparation than they are to the final consumer (something for all baristas to keep in mind!). I can definitely see the mango; this is a sweeeeeeet coffee. Delicate balance? Sweet and savory? Chocolate? Check, check, and check mate. Very chocolatey.

(Incidentally, when you click on the Villarica from Zoka's main page, it blurbs "balanced with black cherry and dried apricot notes..." and then there's no mention of these flavors on the actual page. I found that curious because the cherries hit me so hard, I thought that would be splashed all over the page.)

Okay, okay, so... if you are anything like me, reading other people's descriptions of coffees (or wines, or foods of any kind) when you don't have the actual coffee in front of you, makes your eyes glaze over faster than C-Span on a Tuesday morning. Ever get the feeling people are just listing flavor notes to prove that they can sound just as silly as the next person?

Nahhh... I kid. But seriously, it can get kind of boring. And while there's nothing more that I like in life than a cup of coffee like the one I am reviewing here, and while the flavor is a huge part of it (the most important part), there's always another story behind every cup. And that's where things get really interesting. So let's take a look at this funny-looking contraption on the left here, shall we?

Meet the desmucilaginador. That's right, the desmucilaginador. Or if English is more your game, the demucilaginator (de-mucilager?). There, is that easier?

It means "mucilage-taker-offer" and it's revolutionizing coffee production as we speak. We can learn from Zoka's description of this fine Colombian coffee that this coffee was prepared with a desmucilaginador. What does this mean? It has to do with processing, that crucial stage where millers take the fruit off the coffee and get it down to it's dry, green stage.

Traditionally in Latin America, machines take off the skins, then the fruit is fermented for 12 - 36 hours to loosen the pulp, which is then washed away. This is a water- and labor-intensive practice. And there is a high likelihood of error. Over-fermentation can ruin the coffee.

Desmuciliginadors are machines that take off the entire pulp at once, getting the coffee right down to the parchment phase. These are fairly new machines. They require an order of magnitude less water to operate, and they are available in all different sizes, so that big millers or tiny hillside farmers can use them. The distribution of these machines is just starting to get off the ground, so they are still remarkably rare. To begin with, while relatively affordable, they are still a huge investment for farmers and millers that are already operating on very thin margins. But I have seen them in operation in Ecuador and in El Salvador, and everyone I talk to who has one loves it.

The quality of the coffee produced this way speaks for itself. This method has its own pitfalls, as all methods do. No free lunch in coffee. But on the whole, the desmuciliginador is a fantastic development in coffee. Super high quality coffee, 100% scalable to the particular operation, and a development that could save millions upon millions of gallons of fresh water a year. The leading producer of this style of machines, that I am aware of, is Penagos, from Colombia.

These are the developments that don't get noticed at the coffee shop-level, or the blog-level. But these are the developments that truly change the structure of an industry. Try some of this cherry bomb coffee if you want to experience just how great technological progress can taste!

Coffee of the Week: Espresso at the Synesso booth from David Schomer

The best coffee I had at all of Coffee Fest last week, and therefore last week's Coffee of the Week was a shot of espresso I had on the trade show floor on Friday afternoon.

I had this espresso at the Synesso booth. Synesso is a manufacturer of fine, state-of-the-art, hand-built espresso machines here in Seattle. The second-ever unit they built of their signature Cyncra model sits in Victrola Coffee on 15th Ave, where I got my start as a barista. I did some tech training at their plant in south Seattle with owners Mark Barnett and Sandy Schneiter. Mark and Sandy and everyone at Synesso are all great people.

When I moved to New York to help with the Manhattan Café Grumpy location, we installed one of the first Synessos on the whole East Coast. Mark did a lot of hand-holding over the phone for me as we frantically got everything ready for the big opening.

Many years ago, at my first-ever Coffee Fest I actually pulled shots of espresso at their demonstration booth. Back then, the temperature stability and digital control (not to mention the cool steam wand activators) that Synesso pioneered was a brand new thing. At this show, I got to be the one tasting the shots, and pulling the shots were none other than my good friend Jeremy Summer. I met Jeremy years ago when he was working for Hotwire coffee. Now Jeremy builds machines for Synesso! So cool... he's got a hand with technical stuff that I just don't. Plus he plays nice music.

Alongside Jeremy was a man who should need no introduction, industry legend David Schomer. I'll leave it up to you to follow that link or google the man yourself. Now that I'm in Seattle for a bit, maybe I'll take time out and do a Coffee Person post on David, who really deserves his own post.

Anyway, David was making shots of his own espresso there on Mark, Sandy, and Jeremy's tricked out machine. It was sweet, mellow, nutty, and very flavorful. Right off the first sip it had the flavor of baker's chocolate and walnut skins, then immediately it settled down and gave me a rich, buttery, and sweet overall sensation. Did the fact that the shot had such an inimitable pedigree influence my experience? Perhaps. I will admit that both David and Jeremy were all smiles that day. If, on top of their expertise and their skill, on top of the actual flavor characteristics of the coffee, I was tasting a little bit of the legend and the reputation, well then... both men have earned it.

There you have it... last week's Coffee of the Week!

Coffee of the Week: Pacamara from Finca El Carmen, El Salvador

Last Wednesday I held a cupping that included some pacamaras that I was raving about. My two favorites in the session, which was half-blind (I knew which coffees were pacamaras and which bourbons, but did not know the farms until I later looked at my cheat sheet), were both from Finca El Carmen in the San Vicente region of El Salvador.

El Carmen is on a volcano called Volcán Chinchontepec (which, roughly translated from the Nahuatl tongue means "Mountain Shaped Like Breasts" and no, I am not making that up.). This is an absolutely beautiful place which I visited on my last trip to El Salvador in February.

The producers at El Carmen are taking really remarkable care of their coffee. Pacamara in micro-lots like this is a relatively new endeavor for them. From the high profile that pacamaras are starting to get, you might get the impression that they represent a big proportion of the Salvadoran coffee export each year. But in reality, it's somewhere around 1%. Just one percent! But demand is sky-high, both in the States, and around the world. There's really nothing quite like a pacamara from El Salvador; and El Carmen is producing some of the very best.

What is a pacamara? Well, it's a hybrid coffee plant. Just like a merlot grape yields different flavors than a cabarent franc grape, different coffee varietals give you different coffee flavors. Pacamara is a unique blend of two varietals. One half of pacamara is the pacas varietal, itself a mutation of the more widespread bourbon varietal. Pacas is un café muy El Salvador, named for a member of the well-known Pacas family of coffee people and sharing many of the characteristics of the sweet, luscious bourbon. The other half comes from the maragogype line, best known as the "elephant bean" coffee for it's huge leaves, fruit, and beans. Blend these two together and you get Pacas-Maragogype, or paca-mara.

Pacamaras are true artisan coffees. They have strange, exotic, yet pleasing aromatics and tastes. They can also vary noticeably in size and shape. This makes them a challenge to roast, though well worth the effort.

In the two El Carmen samples that wowed me last Wednesday, I noticed a perfect foundation of chocolatey sweetness and medium acidity. What made these two stand out for me, though, was an incredible buttery richness coupled with a strongly prevalent herbal characteristics. These coffees were like a really luscious, creamy, sinful dessert you might get at a French restaurant. If you have never tried it, there's really nothing like a great pacamara.

These coffees are not commercially available... yet! Some savvy roaster is going to snap them up and offer them soon. When I find out who buys these coffees, I'll be sure to post it here so the rest of you can try them. (As a side note, I'll actually be cupping more El Sal pacamaras in about a week or so... if you are in the Seattle area, stay tuned because I will make an announcement about that, and you can come cup them for yourself.)

So there you have it. Pacamara samples from Finca El Carmen. This week's Coffee of the Week!

Coffee of the Week: Espresso at Third Rail

(this week's header: experimental coffee hybrid seedlings in El Salvador)

I drink so many great cups of coffee every week, I thought it would be a fun idea to introduce a "Coffee of the Week" feature to the blog. Every week I will choose one memorable cup that I had and write it up here. This could be an espresso or cappuccino or cup of drip coffee at a coffee shop. It might be something I discovered on the cupping table. It could just be a nice cup I drank at home while watching the Seahawks administering a beatdown on the hated Rams.

I got this idea while having an espresso at Third Rail Coffee in Manhattan. So it's only right that said espresso be the inaugural World of Coffee, Coffee of the Week.

Saturday afternoon I stopped by this brand new shop on Sullivan Street near NYU. The owner, Humberto Ricardo, was one of the very earliest members of the New York Coffee Society. He and longtime New York City barista world fixture Dan Griffin have been working together a long time too, and Dan now helps out Humberto with Third Rail.

It's a small shop, but very well designed, with lots of light and beautiful small touches. They rotate in different coffees from different roasters for their brewed coffee offerings.

Humberto was in the shop when I stopped in, and he made me a dead-perfect shot of Black Cat espresso. As you know if you read this blog, I have practiced a lot with the Black Cat in the last year or so, and I've rarely made shots that were as spot-on as Humberto's. It was sweet, chocolately, nutty, slightly fruity, sweet, smooth, and oh yes, sweet. Color me very impressed.

Plus it came with the friendly faces and environment. A little perfect pick-me-up on a rainy Saturday afternoon in crowded New York City. That espresso is exactly the kind of thing that made me want to go into coffee in the first place. This week's Coffee of the Week! Thanks Humberto!

Photo by Liz Clayton:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/latteart/ / CC BY-NC 2.0