Comfortable Slippers and Loveliness

Episode 44

Coffee:El Salvador Finca La Fany Bourbon
Special Notes: Santa Ana Region 100% bourbon
Cup Profile: Sweet, caramel, creamy, great mouthfeel, great espresso

For an explanation of the title you will need to watch this weeks InMyMug.  This is another coffee that I like rather than love.  It is incredibly sweet, making it the perfect coffee for someone trying to wean themselves off of sugar.  For me however, I actually found it too sweet and had I not made it myself would have wondered whether it had somehow been contaminated, perhaps by a dirty spoon.  I think the fact I couldn’t bring myself to drink a cup of coffee with sugar in actually inhibited my enjoyment.

Other than the sweetness, this coffee is very nicely balanced,  light and big bodied.  As Steve mentioned, this is not a showy coffee, but it is a very drinkable everyday coffee. 

I think I will be drinking mostly espresso this week, as I am hoping that the sweetness will be much more welcome there than in the French Press.  I have been ignoring espresso for these write-ups for a while now as I find too much of what I end up tasting is down to my barista skills or lack thereof, but if I find myself having any strong feelings one way or the other with this coffee as espresso, I might come back and add to this post.

UPDATE: I did indeed drink the remainder of this coffee as espresso, and towards the end of the week not only had I drunk some stonking espresso, but I had also started to get a taste for the sweetness in it.  I suspect it would still be too sweet for me brewed, but the fact that my tastes are evolving as I expose myself to these coffees is just great

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.

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.

Colombia La Manuela (Ep29)

Wow, what a great coffee to get things started, probably not my normal style, but one I really enjoyed thinking a bit about. I guess the 2 main reasons I want to do this are to keep a record of which coffees I enjoy, and also to get me thinking more about the coffees I am drinking which will hopefully enhance the experience. Anyway, I don't want to turn this post into an essay, so onto the coffee.

Aroma of the beans (snozzer time)

As Steve noted, there is a real pea-like aroma. I definitely picked up yellow split peas, or perhaps lentils. It's something I have not picked up on before with other coffees, so hopefully not just something I got through the power of suggestion.

Aroma of the ground

The peas have disappeared and been replaced with a light sweetness, and a promise of acidity. Not something I can come up with a good analogy for (this is my first time, be gentle), but clearly a very different aroma from before.

And finally the coffee itself!

A very mellow aroma, almost bland even. It's certainly not a punch in your face. And the taste is similar. In espresso I was very surprised to get a real dark roast flavour from what is clearly a lightly roasted bean, but for me, it was the good of a dark roast without the bad. Very little bitterness, with a really good balance of sweetness and acidity. In terms of flavour I think this is what I thought great coffee tasted like before I encountered the world of speciality coffee via an office move that meant Monmouth coffee was the nearest decent coffee shop (sorry for walking past you Cafe Nero). The only negative I found was a slight bitterness to the aftertaste

I guess where I am going with this is that the taste of this coffee while pleasing is nothing special. Where this coffee really shines is in it's mouth feel. It doesn't come through massively in an espresso, but turn it into an americano and the sensation is just beautiful. Steve mentioned toffee, I think I would go with caramel, or to lose the plot in over-specificity, the caramel layer of an ice-cream Mars Bar. Anyway back to reality, there is a real sensation of a rich velvety coating being left on the mouth, something which really makes this coffee stand out.

I should probably investigate more brewing methods for the future, but since I am still very much learning the craft of espresso making, I have been choosing to immerse myself fully into that method. I suspect the rich velvetyness that came through in the americano will be even more of a factor in a french press or similar.

Summary

Overall, this is a very nice coffee, although not one that has blown my socks off. I suspect that if I had not being trying ot start this blog, this coffee would have passed me by without making much of an impact. As it is, this is definitely one I would be interested in coming back to in the future, particularly if I ever start to play with different brewing methods. I also wonder whether this coffee might be a good base for a blend, although I know nothing about how/why blends work. I just like this idea of the texture of this coffee combined with the chocolatey vanilla tastes I particularly like.

I'm probably not going to score coffees as a regular thing, but since I haven't fully decided the format yet, and also I think this is a really good baseline coffee, I am going to give it a very solid 7 out of 10.