February 2010 – From Coffee With Love

I’ve decided to add a new category as I launch myself into the Cape Town and South Africa coffee scene, to be called “Coffee Roasters”. I was thinking, if you are new to a new city and are really craving not only good coffee, but somewhere to buy good coffee, it can be stomach wrenching – I am speaking from experience in my new home city of Cape Town. So, imagine my joy in late December, when the bags of coffee I carried over from Europe had run out and I stumbled across a shop, wreaking with the smell of freshly roasted coffee. Of course I walked in, spotting a coffee roaster tucked into the back and someone behind a coffee bar offering me free coffee to taste, “God relieved me of my distress”. Where was I ? Deluxe Coffeeworks. Well ! actually I have been thinking, but I have never asked, where did that name come from and I thought about breaking the name into a phrase ” Deluxe coffee works” Get it ? Well ! Good coffee works, but bad doesn’t. OK, I’m digressing. So, who are they ? Currently there’s Carl, Nick and Judd. Judd, originally from New Zealand, was also trained there at Cafe Supreme and from what he is doing in this new establishment, he obviously learnt well. They’ve only been up and running since 2009 and already have a following and a growing client base amongst some top cafes and restaurants in Cape Town. Their plan is to focus entirely on wholesale coffee sales but lucky for us, you can pop into their roastery cum shop on Church Street, which is very centrally located and they would gladly serve you any espresso based drink at a fantastic price.

The other bonus of course, is that you can also buy freshly roasted arabica beans to take home with you, packed in organic looking brown bags by the kilo or shiny 250g bags. They can also grind it for you if you prefer and they sell little gadgets like milk frothing jugs and Bialetti’s version of the French Press. The guys at Deluxe Coffeeworks are really easy to talk to and if you’ve got some time to spare, drop in and chat about coffee, Cape Town and life. Naturally, I’ve tried their coffees, which I tend to find is very aromatic. My current favourite is their organic espresso blend,

but their espresso blend is also very nice, blending well with milk and displaying chooclate and nutty tastes.

I’ve currently got one of their experimental blends at home, which is a mixture of Kenyan and Ecuadorian arabic coffee beans. I find it a bit spicy, bordering on licorice in taste and very distinctive as an espresso.

I was also lucky enough to be invited to an espresso tasting session of single origin coffees a few weeks back, which ranged from a very strong Kenyan espresso to easy-to-drink and very mass appealing Guatemalan arabica. So, definitely worth a visit before they completely close their doors to the walking public, but if you’ve got a cafe or restaurant in the Cape Town area, check them out as a possible supplier and they ain’t paying me to say that.

This is absolutely disgraceful – 8 weeks without blogging – I hold my head in shame but I do have a great excuse… I’ve moved to Cape Town, one of my favourite foodie city to open a coffee (but of course) and cake/sandwich shop. It’s been challenging trying to settle in without easy access to communication like internet. In any case I’ve been really busy with checking out the coffee and cafe scene and it is quite exciting. However more on that next time, as this is supposed to be about Autumn Espresso.

Yes ! It is a bit strange to talk about autumn, as it’s mid-winter in the northern hemisphere and mid-summer in the southern hemisphere – it’s like 25C outside as I write. So, I guess to compromise for my readers in both hemispheres so that no one gets left out, it is apt that I should talk about a coffee that was roasted and blended to typify the season in between, Autumn of course. OK ! I got this bag of Autumn Espresso during the northern hemisphere season, back in late October/early November but didn’t get the chance to share my experience.

It’s roasted by Square Mile Coffee in London and reminds you of the Autumn mainly because of the roasted hazlenut and caramel and toffee tastes that dominate. There is a hint of chocolate of course, but this comes out more when you make it as an espresso milk based drink like a Cappuccino or Caffe Latte.

Just love the pics of these coffees as I was really getting into studying my digital SLR and playing around with different concepts like Aperture, so that I could use the camera to bring out the best of the coffee, especially as these were taken on wet, windy and cloudy Autumn days. I must confess I cannot remember where the coffees were sourced from, but being a fan of Square Mile since they started in 2008 I can almost say for certain that there was some Central American arabica thrown in, probably from Guatemala and/or Ecuador. You’ll have to wait another 9 months for this to be available again on the market and if you can get your hands on some, go for it.