November 2009 – From Coffee With Love

Doesn’t it look lovely ? Yes ! It’s another simple espresso recipe, for which you need to extract a good espresso, following all the rules of course and just top it with freshly whipped cream. I’ve got one of those flashy ISI Whippers, which basically makes fresh cream in an instant by placing single cream into a siphon and adding some gas through a specially made canister for the ISI Siphon (made famous by World renowned chefs like Ferren Adria – you’ll only know of him if you are a mad foodie). In any case, most cafes now have ISI Siphons, even Starbucks, as it is so easy to use when making coffee that requires whipped cream. You may also wish to know that ISI is actually an Austrian company and that the first place to serve coffee with cream was in….. Vienna, capital of Austria.

You can also top it with chocolate sprinkles. Espresso Tazza D’Oro of course is a very Italian name, which has something to do with gold (oro), but this drink has another more famous name, Espresso Con Panna. It’s just that I like the way its not so famous name sounds, very flashy and Italian indeed, so one more time ESPRESSO TAZZA D ORO, Ciao bellissima caffe.

That’s the way I’d like to describe the coffees I got from Espresso Lab, Cape Town, when I visited a few weeks ago. Of course I drank them a while back, but these are just my notes on my experience. Actually, Espresso Lab describe their espresso blend as “a complex blend bringing out blackcurrant licorice and chocolate flavours with a snappy finish”, so I’m just agreeing with them. There’s no doubt it had a complex taste and I really got to taste the chocolate flavours with a snappy finish, but I can’t vouch for the blackcurrant one.

In any case, the espresso blend consists of arabic beans from Brazil, Costa Rica and Ethiopia, so it really is a blend, mixing three different regions. Yes ! Costa Rica is not in South America, but in Central America. For me, it still confirms that I really enjoy an espresso blend when it has Brazilian arabica beans added, so I was pleased with the espresso, when I got it right. And on that last note, I want to go back to the word “complex”. Using all the techniques of making espresso including timing the pour, this coffee rarely followed the rules. Yes ! out of a 250g bag, which equates to about 16 cups of coffee for me (I only drink double espressos and that happens twice a day and I am assuming 15g of coffee per double cup – complex isn’t it ?), and after adjusting for the 30ml of espresso in 25-28 seconds, I only got about 7 good espressos. Of course everytime the pour wasn’t consistent with the rules, I adjusted the settings, then it will work in the morning and not in the afternoon and vice versa, hmmmm ! I guess better luck next time and perhaps a bigger bag of 500g to do lots of tweaking until I get a pour right every other time. So enough of the rambling and on to the other coffee.

Sometimes it is said “after struggle comes ease” and so it was with their Rwandan blend. Initially, I bought this to satisfy my daily thirst for “real” coffee when I was in Cape Town, extracting it for French Press in the mornings and evenings, however, without proper scales to measure the exact dosage, I just thought “OK ! not bad”, however, on return to Vienna, I got the scales out and made it in my lovely Bodum Colombia and Wow ! what a difference. Who said tools don’t work ? It definitely did on this occasion because it was such a lovely brew and the one word that instantly came to mind was… “REFRESHING”. On tastes, I got the red berries and fruity flavours, which I think really make French press coffee wonderful for the palate.

Au revoir.