What on earth does this taste of???

Episode 37

Coffee: Indonesian Sidkaland
Special Notes: Cupping Notes to be decided by InMyMug Subscribers
Cup Profile:

This is the first one of these I have written up while drinking the coffee for the first time in a while, something I have been meaning to get back into the habit of doing.  I am also watching the InMyMug episode live too, and it is a good one to have chosen to do this.  Steve has set a challenge to viewers to taste this coffee and then send him our feedback to create the tasting notes.  So here goes

The first thing you notice on opening the bag is a great waft of sickly sweet fruit.  Being nice I would describe it as strawberry yoghurt or banana chips.  Rancid fruit also springs to mind though.  Interestingly this aroma is much stronger at a distance with a close-up sniff producing a more normal smell. 

Drinking the coffee produces more unusual sensations.  An almost tea-like texture, very thin and lacking in creaminess (sorry, I don’t know a word for lack of creaminess.  perhaps low viscosity?).  In terms of taste the words are not easy to find.  I did some slurping and actually said out loud “what was that?”, and I have no idea. 

OK, I have cracked out the espresso now, and it is bright and acidic, and the banana is back again although less severe.  There is also something unusual in the background which I also picked up in the aroma.  If I hadn’t got it in the aroma I would have assumed it was a problem with the extraction, and perhaps it still was, but there is a burnt note there, perhaps like the burnt crust on toast, or even a bit like burnt crackling.  That is definitely the dominant aftertaste for me now too, almost as though by putting a name to it I am noticing it more.

Definitely an interesting combination of flavours going on there, although probably more for the experience than for he actual taste.  I didn’t think it was going to work at all in espresso when I tasted the brewed, so I really surprised myself.  I can’t imagine it working in a milk based drink though, although I am sure I will give it a go at some point.

A Rudolph Steiner inspired coffee?

Episode 36

Coffee: Brazil Cafe Ita Bahia
Special Notes: Bio Dymanic Certification UK6
Cup Profile: Sweet Chocolate, with a smooth body and a smooth aftertaste.  A little hint of walnut with a lovely long finish

So this weeks coffee is biodynamic.  While I am definitely not a fan of Anthroposophy from the brief reading I have done, I like the idea of treating a farm holistically and so caring for the soil, the crop and the workers in a way that is sustainable and ethical.  The fact I like this from a capitalist rather than mystical standpoint would probably not go down well with advocates though.

This is a nice sweet coffee, with a lovely mouth feel.  I made one of my nicest cappuccinos ever with this coffee, as it really brought out a sweetness and creaminess that I would challenge anyone who doesn’t like coffee because it is too bitter to make this claim here.  While I think the farm has wasted their time planting according to lunar cycles, I do think that they have made a very pleasant although not world beating coffee.

Red or Yellow? They both look brown to me!

Episode 35

Something a bit special this week.  Two coffees from the same farm, giving a chance to taste the difference between two varietals. 

Type 1

Coffee: Guatemala El Bosque Red Bourbon
Special Notes: Oops, what happened to the bag?
Cup Profile: Oops, what happened to the bag?

Type 2

Coffee: Guatemala El Bosque Yellow Bourbon
Special Notes: Oops, what happened to the bag?
Cup Profile: Oops, what happened to the bag?

This was my first ever attempt at comparing two coffees directly, and while it was a very interesting experience I found it posed some interesting challenges in terms of coming up with good descriptors.  The reason I started doing this blog was to challenge my taste buds, and to maximise my coffee drinking experience, so on that front job done.

What I don’t have at the end of this week is a good description of either coffee.  I found once I started comparing them that it was very difficult to think of one except in terms of the other.  However what I did find is that there is a significant difference in the coffees produced from these beans even though they have been grown on the same farm and processed using the same process.  I think this in itself is a bit of a breakthrough for me.  I will now be looking for red and yellow bourbons and looking to see whether the differences between these two coffees can be found across different farms and different countries.

Perhaps one day in the future I will find myself in a coffee shop asking “have you got any yellow bourbon” rather than “have you got any ethiopian” which has always seemed like a bit of a stab in the dark and is perhaps as inappropriate as asking for wine by asking for anything French.

Anyway, to get back to the coffee again, there is only one conclusion to be drawn, the yellow bourbon is in my opinion streaks ahead of the red.  It was cleaner, more balanced, smoother, had better mouth feel.  Basically in any way I could think of to compare, I preferred the yellow.  Of course the yellow is the one that is impossible to get, so obviously that is the one I prefer. 

It will be interesting to learn whether I think that yellow is “better” than red, or whether this is just a result produced by the specific circumstances on the farm.  I don’t know if I would be rushing out and planting masses of yellow bourbon just yet (even if my opinion is the norm, which it may of course not be),  and I have no idea whether this is even feasible in terms of how many years of crop would be lost to the change, but definitely something I would be tempted to do if I owned a farm, as I can’t help tinkering.  It’s probably lucky I don’t really.

Weighing things up

The two areas of my espresso making where I haven’t been happy thus far, are dosing and temperature control.  At some point in the future I will be installing a PID to my machine, but for now I am contenting myself with playing with dosing. 

Given that my kitchen scales had a precision of 2g, I definitely needed to buy some new equipment.  After a bit of research, I found that the best option for my needs was a cheap as chips pocket balance off of EBay.  For a mere £8 I got a balance that measures down to 0.1g, and although for the price I am suspicious of how accurate it is, it certainly seems consistent which is what really matters.

Having received the balance, the first thing I wanted to do was get used to the consistency.  I started with 17g as my dose, and started pulling some pretty decent shots.  The one thing that became very apparent at this point was that I was getting the occasional sour shot caused by not having the machine up to temperature.  I have since  been more careful to leave the machine on for longer before brewing to ensure that it is properly heated up.  In order to increase the consistency, I have now switched to having espresso days, and French press days.  This means that I can leave the machine on all day to get the temperature stability, and also means that I don’t have to worry about changing over grind settings (which leads to changes in dose due to left over grinds)

Now that I had the basics under control, I wanted to start playing, as my consistent 17g shot was not anything more than acceptable.  My first attempt was down to 14g, and one click finer on the grinder.  This definitely produced something more interesting, but I struggled with consistency, which seemed to be down to poor distribution of the grinds.  Next attempt was 15g, which was much more satisfactory.  Consistency was much improved, and suddenly the coffee for the week became a different animal.

Of course then the next batch of coffee turns up, and suddenly the equilibrium has been upset again.  This weeks batch is actually two coffees, a red and a yellow bourbon.  The yellow is working out OK at 15g, but the red is massively acidic, and is definitely not right.  The machine is warming up as I write this, so time for further experiments.  I’m thinking 16g is next, although having had a quick look around the www.home-barista.com forums today, I probably will try at least one 12g shot.

Close but no cigar

Episode 34

Coffee: Cuba Serrano Superior
Special Notes: Cuban rare coffee
Cup Profile: Great body, smoothness with a hint of roasted nuts and a spicy kick

I want to keep these posts about the coffee, so there will be one short post about this coffee, and then a small tome about my parameter tweaking.

I thought this coffee was OK, but it didn’t blow my world.  I wasn’t sure about it from the cup profile, as I don’t tend to associate body and smoothness, and I hate nuts!  As it turns out I pretty much agree with the profile,  as it wasn’t that overpowering full bodied taste that I couldn’t associate with smooth, yet was still bold and rounded.

Where I was less keen was that for me the nuttiness tended a bit close to muddiness, or woodiness perhaps, although that was something that did vary from cup to cup.  I was also hoping for a bit more punch in the spicy note.  It was certainly there, but I just wanted more of it.

All in all, I certainly did enjoy it, even if it wasn’t my favourite, and I did get better results with it towards the end of the week in espresso, as I started to play with dosing (more about that in the next post).

Coffee and sweat don’t mix

This title probably not true for those who roast their own coffee, but I think the main thing I learnt this week was that I don’t love espresso when it is too hot.  One of the reasons I started doing this blog was to better understand my taste in coffee, and in doing so increase my enjoyment of it.  This week has been the first that I have found myself drinking the coffee because I knew I had to get through it, rather than trying to drink less because I was running out.

This has lead to me playing around with my “recipes” or perhaps “rituals” is a better word.  I think that one of the great things about coffee is that I get to take part in the creative process whereas when drinking wine for instance the experience is much more passive.

I think it is a real shame that so few people in the UK currently realise just how good coffee can be.  I have some ideas on how I would like to evangelise on the subject that I may develop over the next few months if I don’t run out of steam.  But given that I have been struggling to keep up with a schedule of one blog post a week, I don’t want to promise too much too soon.

Oops I’m Late, Time for a Double Update – Part 2

Episode 33

Coffee: Brazil Fazenda Lagoa Mundo Novo Natural 2008-2009
Special Notes: Sul De Minas, Minas Gerais
Cup Profile: Low toned acidity with a tasty hint of spice and cocoa. Date or fig dipped in sugar with a chewy texture

Back to a much more sensible coffee this week, and a very nice one at that. It’s been a few weeks since I tasted chocolate in my coffee, and it was a welcome return. I would get bored of this sort of coffee if drinking every week I think, but I instantly found myself drawn to eating chocolate while drinking this as espresso, and luckily I had some around.

This coffee also works well in the French press, giving a nice balanced coffee.  I can’t say that I got fig dipped in sugar, but perhaps that is just me.  The spiciness was spot on though, and I don’t think I ever made a bad cup of this coffee.  This was a definite change from last week where I had as many misses as hits.  But then perhaps the highs weren’t quite so high either.

Oops I’m Late, Time for a Double Update – Part 1

Episode 32

Wow, I’ve really fallen behind. Here are the last 2 weeks updates in one go. Hopefully I am back on track after this.

Coffee: Ethiopia Zege Lake Tana
Special Notes: Lake Tana
Cup Profile: Clean, Transparent, Lemons, funky, boozy, wild

I think the cup profile says a lot about what to expect with this coffee. Basically it is a bit nuts. I wrestled with it all week as an espresso, and couldn’t get any consistency with it at all. It felt like the potential of the beans was quite special, but I could somehow never capture that in the cup. The first shot of it I had was probably the closest although that was so bright and acidic I think it was under-extracted but the intensity of flavours after that initial hit were intense. I got a real cherry brandy hit with a warmth and spiciness that really did make it seem as though there must be some alcohol in there.

In the French Press, I found this to be a very enjoyable coffee, although again more fickle than most. In fact I used that to help me play with the parameters of my method a bit, and managed to improve things slightly I think.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of making this coffee and trying to get the best out of it more than I enjoyed drinking it. I’m not sure if that is because I failed in getting the best out of it, or because it just wasn’t my bag. It would definitely be one I would like to see again at some time in the future, just not too soon!