I fell in love with coffee back in 2005 and decided to read as much as possible about it and learn from top experts like WBC winners like James Hoffmann. After amassing a lot of knowledge I decided to start my own blog in 2007. In 2010, I showed my love, by moving to Cape Town (it looked nice) to open my coffee shop, Escape Caffe. It was tough to start but as soon as my wife persuaded me to let everyone one know one of my secrets, we broke even. why ? it was the only coffee shop in the World owned by a Nobel Peace Prize winner, which I won with my colleagues at the UN-IAEA in 2005, plus a food writer told everyone that I and the best cheesecake in Cape Town. I've now moved to Dubai to start my next coffee adventure, so let me know if you want to collaborate. Until then check my blog and instagram.
I had the pleasure of visiting coffee expert extraordinaire Johanna Wechlesberger of Vienna School of Coffee last Wednesday (1 July 2020) and she gave me a Honduran 90 hour anaerobic fermented coffee, which she was roasting right in front of me on the Ikawa (wish list) to try out. As I was rushing back home, Jo gave me 15 grammes. So, just after 3 hours I cupped (tasted) the coffee using a French Press as recommended by Jo – who am I to argue.
Tastes – easy on the stomach, hints of lemon acidity, molasses and caramel came through. Watch the video for the oral experience.
Here’s the video below, with a link from my Instagram page (as WordPress sadly is not allowing me to load videos)
About 10 years ago, I packed up from Europe and headed to Cape Town, South Africa to set up a cafe, one of my dreams. There are many lessons I learnt on that journey but here I wanted to share with you in a short video the 3 lessons I learnt, which can be applicable for all you aspiring entrepreneurs.
 This week’s coffee hails from Rwanda-Umusazi, a coffee of the red bourbon variety, grown at 1,900mroasted for Balthasar, my fave coffee shop in Vienna. It was actually recommended to me by one of the baristi, who used this coffee last ear for a competition. It features the 72 hour fermented coffee processing method again, which almost guarantees a delicious fruity experience. So, I’m using the Hario V60 for this video, but I’ve adjusted the recipe somewhat. Typically, I would use about 15g of freshly ground coffee with about 240ml of 95C boilng hot water, but I found that when I increased the amount of coffee to 16.5C for the Hario V60 filter brewing method , I had the wow factor – what a fruit bomb, with berries, grapefruit acidity and hints of caramel in the middle of my tongue – In fact I’m drinking it now as I write this, yummy.
To summarise; 16.5g freshly ground coffee 95C 245ml hot water Hario V60 Hario V60 filter wet with hot water Makes about 235ml delicious coffee Yummy!
It’s one of those questions purist ponder on. Why? Because taste is king. If anything gets in the way of diluting that taste experience then get rid of it. However I think we should employ a middle ground. If something gets in the way of taste let’s try and understand it and make it better. So here are the steps to great #latteart milk based drinks;
Make great #espresso,
Froth great microfoam (the frothed milk with tiny bubbles you cannot really see)
A good latte artist ( I didn’t say a good barista for obvious reasons).
Easy? Well, a Purist may have another opinion. Does the bitter crema on top of great espresso affect the first taste?
Sometimes you can have a great cappuccino, latte or flat white with bad looking latte art (I confess). A middle ground would be to mix the espresso beforehand or what my previous barista used to do, pour a little bit of milk, stir it with the crema and continue pouring your latte art.
Before signing off, you should know that in marketing people fall in love with what they see first, so sight, smell and taste could influence your taste experience.
If you blink, you might miss it, but the taste will last longer than a few minutes. So, this weeks coffee features, Caravan Coffee’s Special Bru filter coffee released to celebrate their 10 year anniversary – in my previous post I gave an extensive background on caravan and how I first heard of them and still admire them till today. Now, the coffee.
Coffee at home
So, I’m using the Hario V60 for this video, but I’ve adjusted the recipe somewhat. Typically, I would use about 15g of freshly ground coffee with about 240ml of 95C boilng hot water, but I found that when I used this recipe I wasn’t getting the punchy fruity notes I desired, so I increased the amount of coffee by 2g, to 17C for both the aeropress and Hario V60 filter brewing methods and wow! I got them. However, it was on the Hario V60 that I had the slightly more pleasant experience, with berry and citrus undertones and a taste of delicate milk chocolate. The perfect way to end the day (as I’m fasting there’s not daytime video).
To summarise;
17g freshly ground coffee 95C 245ml hot water Hario V60 Hario V60 filter wet with hot water Makes about 235ml delicious coffee
I just wanted to share with you my heartfelt gratitude to the team of Feedspot for giving me not one but two accolades;
Top 30 Austrian Blogs (because I live in Austria)
Top 100 coffee blogs in the World
I really appreciate this. As you know I just want to share my love of coffee with you and I too hope that you will fall in love with coffee – the most celebrated beverage in the World.
I take this accolades as an encouragement to do more and so I promise to post more on this blog to match my more regular outage on instagram too.
So, this weeks coffee of the week comes from Caravan Roastery in London. Before I delve into my experience and the video, a short history about them. In short Caravan have been around for many years, and I remember when I heard about their venture into London and how excited I was, but sadly I was already running my cafe in Cape Town. Nevertheless, I dreamt about visiting their cafe cum roastery in Exmouth Street, so much so that I often used to peruse their menu for ideas. In fact, I even have a confession or two. I amended my menu card to resemble theirs and furthermore, I added a new item to my menu, something back then I had never seen before, avocado toast with chilli flakes – very popular now of course.
In any case, I finally visited them a few years back, but it wasn’t until last year that I re-discovered their coffees once more based on their strategy to focus a lot more on coffee – they still have 5 restaurants with delicious looking menus. I must say that they have a great online coffee shop and they constantly have great deals. Usually, if I order, I get my coffees within the week and even better than that, they don’t ship just freshly roasted coffee. Does that sound strange ? Well, it doesn’t because when you order coffee, you want to start brewing it straight away and almost all but 2 roasteries (Caravan are one of them) always send you coffees that are too fresh to brew. Plus I love the little postcard containing info on the coffee.
So, last week, I finally received a huge , yes huge at 1kg of Daily – their espresso blend, which has a nice aroma. Watch the full video below for more.
The coffee of the week celebrates once again, Vienna based Roaster extraordinaire, Johanna Wechlesberger roastery, Die Roesterin – this time it’s a Honduran Coffee, macerated (another word for fermentation) for 72 Hours.
I know that sounds strange. In fact I had to search what kind of process this was. In summary, the coffee undergoes a 72 hour fermentation process, before it is aired naturally for about 40 days, before it’s green for roasting. You can imagine that such a method will defiantly lead to some kind of different taste profile and it did.
Here, I’m using an AEROPRESS, with the following;
14.5g freshly grinded coffee
93C brewing temperature
212.5 ml of hot water
See methodology in my video and let me know how you brew your coffee using an aeropress.
With this method, the coffee was amazing – like a party in my tongue, tropical fruits and medium acidity came to play, with a long aftertaste around the middle of my tongue.
I just wanted to let yo know that I’ve been having problems uploading the video above for 3 days, so I’ve decided to share the link with Instagram.
The coffee of the week celebrates Vienna based Roaster extraordinaire, Johanna Wechlesberger roastery, Die Roesterin espresso blend, LIKMI Espresso blend, consisting of Brazilian and Rwandan arabica coffee beans. Here, I’m using a Profitec 700 Espresso machine, with the following;
19g freshly grinded coffee
94C brewing temperature
Brewed at 22 seconds to make a double espresso
See methodology in my video and let me know your espresso hacks.
With this method, the espresso coffee was medium citrus acidity and caramel and with milk, it has hints of milk chocolate, with a long aftertaste around the back of my tongue.
You can order this delicious espresso which comes in a 333g bag from https://dieroesterin.at
Here’s my first video of my new series, coffee of the week, in which I share with you which of the coffees I had during my week that impressed me the most, whether as a filter brew or as an espresso.
My first video celebrating the impressive Kenyan coffee I got at Nightjar, Dubai. Here, I’m using Hario V60, based loosely on the James Hoffmann’smethod;
15g freshly grinded coffee
245ml 95C water
Hario V60 with filter paper made wet with some hot water
See methodology in my video and let me know your Hario V60 method.
With this method, the coffee was really fruity with dark berries, citrus acidity and full bodied, with a long aftertaste round the middle of my tongue.Â
From Coffee With Love 