Category: Bean Talk – Coffees

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The Ross Droplet Technique: Spraying your beans

I’m not sure whether it’s me getting older that lends me to the skeptical side of new innovations in coffee, BUT I must confess that after watching countless videos on Instagram of people spraying the coffee beans with water before grinding them, I wasn’t convinced, until!!!

Perhaps in my defense, I tend to approach new things with skepticism until I have done some research, listened to people I respect and then assess whether it brings any benefit to me or addressed some concern that I had. So, in this vein two things happened.

I watched a video by non-other than James Hoffmann explaining how he makes espresso and was intrigued and secondly, I read an article on how this new trend of spraying coffee beans before drinking them either for espresso or filter, actually had an impact on TASTE. Now for me, taste is king. If something new comes onto the market but doesn’t affect my taste buds positively, then I’m not going to follow it blindly.

EspressO

However, there is a third reason – the concept of convenience. I have noticed for years and perhaps now that I live in hot and humid Dubai that grinding beans is indeed messy, which sometimes translates itself to a messy extraction process for espresso. So, when I started experimenting with spraying my beans, I noticed that this messy coffee dust phenomenon didn’t occur after grinding beans for both filter and espresso preparation.

So, what did the article say from a scientific point of view about the Ross Droplet Technique (the techie name for it and title of this post) ? I will paraphrase some excerpts from a CNN article, which is based on a study by some researchers at the University of Oregon.

First up, the study confirmed that the primary reason for spraying beans was to reduce the static mess of coffee dust during the grinding process. Apparently, some coffee geeks had been doing this for a while.

Secondly, it was discovered that water helped to remove idle coffee grounds inside the grinder. Now, old coffee bits inside a coffee grinder are heavily frowned upon, why? Because they get stale and can affect the taste of coffee. So, if water can reduce this wastage and remove old coffee, then the ground coffee coming out should theoretically be all the coffee you put in the hopper. This is more important for espresso brewing because with a smaller grind, it is more difficult for water to touch every ounce of ground coffee during the process. 

Thirdly, by spraying a few water droplet before you grind, it was believed that this water reduced friction inside the grinder as well as cooling the heat of grinding the beans – NOW, anything that adds heat to grinding beans affects taste, so this could be the reason why it is believed that TASTE was improved.

Another discovery was that spraying beans resulted in an additional 10% yield of coffee – so you get more coffee. 

Now I must confess I haven’t noticed any huge leaps in taste but definitely there is less mess and less coffee hanging around inside my grinders. 

Read the full story here.

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I’M DRINKING A MUNCHIE ESPRESSO

Wow! wow! wow! I don’t even know where to start… BUT here we go.

First of all what is a munchie espresso?

It’s a Colombian Anaberoic honey processed, castillo varietal coffee, grown at 1,700m and produced by Andrés Quiceno and Julio Madrid on La Riviera Farm in Risaralda, Colombia, with a taste profile of…. wait for it…..

Pineapple . Coconut. New York Cheesecake. Hazelnut and Butter

Roasted by Pirates of Coffee in Toronto, Canada, part of their Loco (Spanish for crazy as in mad) series.

Now for the coffee geek part….

“The Honey Culturing, Anaerobic process involves using fermentation starters and the unique natural flavours that come from fruits and aromatic plants, allowing for new sensory profiles to be developed by mixed fermentations between the starters and traditional coffee fermentation processes.” source: Pirates of Coffee website 

So, what anaerobic processing in coffee?

Anaerobic fermentation is a coffee processing method where coffee is fermented in pressurized sealed tanks deprived of oxygen. This lack of oxygen produces distinct acids, lactic acids for example, that create a different and distinct flavor profile for the coffee. (source: JBC roasters).

In short, every coffee goes through some sort of fermentation as soon as it is picked before it is dried “naturally” in the sun or “washed”. If a coffee is anaerobic natural, it is fermented in barrels with its skin on, but if it is washed, it is fermented in barrels without its skin on. Honey process has some skin on during the fermentation process. This means that the anaerobic method “affects” the natural process of fermentation by throwing the beans straight into a barrel without air for hours and sometimes days.

You may have seen “72 hour anaerobic process”. Now, sometimes these barrels may have dried fruit in them, which means the coffee absorbs those enzymes and taste profiles, which can be preserved and roasted delicately by an expert coffee roaster to enhance the taste.

sounds confusing ?

Yes it is a bit, BUT this type of method means that you can get some crazy types of coffee. So in short when this coffee was prepared it was not entirely unusual to get coconut, pineapple, etc coming through.

So, did I taste these ?

Yes! that’s why I’m writing about it. I never thought that it was possible, but in short, I definitely tasted coconut with milk based coffee like a flat white or cappuccino and picked up pineapple acidity too. There was a buttery mouthfeel which I guess resembles NY Cheesecake but I wouldn’t say that I picked up the vanilla and lemon zest notes typical of a classic chessecake.

Nevertheless, I won’t be forgetting this coffee anytime soon.

I first encountered it at the World of Coffee Dubai (see last post) when I was offered a piccolo at the Toga Coffee stand and even before I tasted it, the smell of coconut blew me away. I then knew that I had to buy this coffee and to my pleasant surprise I met the head roaster, Abbas, who guided me through their website , where I bought the last one – I’m truly blessed.

I brewed this coffee every day till it ran out and shared it with my wife and a friend so that they too could enjoy my experience – after all good things in life should be shared.

Well done to the coffee farmers, the coffee roaster for selecting and roasting this coffee like this and to all those involved in letting me enjoying this wonderful coffee.

YUMMY MUNCHIE.

If you live in the UAE, their coffees are offered at Toga in Sharjah and if you are in North America, definitely visit their website and order this and lots of wonderfully funky coffee they offer.

https://piratesofcoffee.com

It’s always LOVE
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I’m Drinking THREE Coffee

And no, that isn’t a typo. Three Coffee Roasters are a Dubai based specialty coffee roasting coffee company, who tend to specialise in “funky” coffee and by that I mean that they push the boundaries in sourcing anaerobic, macerated, 90+ and rare coffees and then roasting them that make you say wow! once you sip them.

So, it came as a I surprise to me when I was scrolling through my instagram feed that I saw Drew – their New Zealander Co-Founder and General Manager talking about their espresso coffees. Upon further inspection on their website I was pleasantly surprised to see that they offered non-funky single estate and blends. I confess, although I don’t mind pushing my taste buds to the limit – always up for the challenge – with some things like espresso and espresso with milk, for me, its a no! no!. I don’t mind something unusual in my milk based espresso like macadamia , dark berries, vanilla, cinnamon, with hints of dark chocolate, caramel, etc BUT I don’t really want high acidity, peach, grapefruit and strawberries with milk.

So, when I came across Colombia La Esperanza Washed – Made for Milk, Ethiopia Hambela and Lazy Daze, all for espresso and milk based – I was excited and placed an order.

Before I describe my taste bud experience, a detour.

A few things I noticed about Three Coffee espresso offerings;

*The aroma – wow!

*The long lasting taste – admirable

*Ease of puling shots – stressless, except the Ethiopia Hambela (more on that later).

My first brew was the Colombia La Esperanza – made for milk. Upon opening the bag, wow! the aroma and yes it smelt of milk chocolate. It was great with milk and probably my fave of the batch.

I savoured it a little longer but trying the others before finishing this.

Next up, the Lazy Daze – a mix of “A mix of washed, natural and anaerobic coffees from Brazil, Indonesia, Rwanda, Guatemala and Colombia”, so expect something unusual.

Another aromatic experience that lasted right to the end of the bag and the long lasting taste after every brew stopped me from eating anything it afterwards for at least an hour to savour the taste, yum.

Now, Hambela.. Ethiopia, Ethiopia. where do I start? In fact when I tired to brew this first as an espresso, it was a disaster – nothing came out, so I thought perhaps I bought the wrong roast type – filter instead of espresso and so I actually brewed it on the Hario V60 and on the Aeropress

BUT then I thought let me go back to Drew on instagram. He shared rather helpfully that the beans are lot more denser, so I need to grind a lot more coarser than the other beans, which I did.

When I tried it as a milk based espresso drink – I must confess the first experience was wow, wow, wow! yes three times of wow! BUT after the first brew I didn’t get that easily.

Perhaps because of the plus 40C temperature in Dubai the brewing experience was temperamental and when rushing out in the morning, I couldn’t afford to keep wasting shots, so I settled on a 18g, 30g out – more hints of dark berries and dark chocolate.

If you are excited by what you read, then visit http://Three Coffee to place an order and I’m not getting any commission.

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I’m Drinking the Sweetest Filter Coffee I ever had

I just got back from London and bought a few coffee bags from some London coffee roasters and first up on the filter was for Caravan Coffee Roasters. I selected a natural from Guatemala from their filter selection because I always find naturals more intriguing and especially more so from Central America, as naturals are quite rare from this part of the coffee growing world.

I brewed La Nueva Natural Guatemala on the Hario V60 as I have missed… yes, I had missed brewing coffee on a V60 for two weeks. Using a menu of

  • 15.3 g freshly ground coffee on my Wilfa Grinder
  • 94C on my fellow EKG kettle
  • First pour of 43ml
  • Wait for 40 seconds
  • Second pour all the way to 227ml of water

I decided to serve myself using a glass cup as opposed to a ceramic. I guess I thought I’d like to accentuate the sweetness of this cup as much as possible and yes I was comely taken aback.

My first sip just blew my taste buds away with the poignant sweetness, almost white sugar like, with hints of caramel. It was so sweet that I was just sitting down for a few seconds wandering if I had added something to the cup by mistake.

The bag mentions taste notes of brioche ( the classic sweet French bread, using lots of eggs and butter with sugar), flaked almonds and blueberry.

For me,

🔵 it was more like a sweeter berry (blueberries aren’t that sweet)

🔵 white sugar with hints of caramel 😋

On the second day, I served myself the coffee in a ceramic cup, and then the notes were more balanced, with cane type sugar and darker berries … perhaps blueberry 🫐

If you’re in the UK, I strongly encourage you to order this one of a kind sweet coffee (link above) as Caravan usually offer free delivery for orders over GBP20 and deliver very fast, based on when the UK was in the EU and I used to order to Vienna.

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Have you ever been to a Coffee Roastery in a Mall?

Well, the answer for me is YES… and perhaps I should add, only in Dubai.

Just last week, I was meeting a friend at the Galleria Mall in al Barsha, Dubai (the neighbourhood behind the Mall of the Emirates – the one with the ski slope) and upon entering I saw a coffee shop, La Gente.

La Gente Dubai

Always the sceptical coffee snob, I decided to pop my head in, where I saw a Synesso machine to my right, lots of roasted coffee in retail bags, coupled with their black and grey marble interior. On the left they have seating on high tables but they also have seats outside the coffee shop. I then walked further in and spotted this….

Probat 12kg

A Probat (think, Mercedes of coffee roasters and yes, it’s made in Germany). Impressed I promptly asked “do you actually roast coffee in this machine in this mall?” and they replied “yes sir”. So, I thought “I can’t really come in here, quiz them and not order coffee”. So as soon as my friend joined me, we went for it together with some cakes… blueberry, ummm!.

First up, they have a variety of coffee on order. For espresso, they had a Brazil, which my friend took and then I asked them for their house blend… Brazil, Ethiopia and Costa Rica… aha! now this might not seem exciting to you BUT for me it was, why ?

Lets rewind to 2008-2009 – this was the era of espresso blends – the time before single origin was even thought off for espresso.

so, fast forward to 2022 and the main reasons why I was excited by this blend is because this exact combination was indeed the flavour of the years back then, because you used

Brazil for body, crema and chocolate and nut

Costa Rica for acidity

Ethiopia for fruitiness

so, now guess what I ordered …

A cortado using their house blend of course, with some kind of seahorse on the latte art design.

Yes, it was flavourful as I got to sample a mirage of fruit, medium acidity and hints of almond and dark chocolate.

If I’m ever at that end of Dubai again, I’ll try their filter blend options, for which they were offering three options.. see below

La Gente brew bar

Apparently they have three branches, Galleria Mall, where I went, Eden House and Motorworks.

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The Myth of Freshly Roasted Coffee Part 2: The Taste Test

Welcome to Part 2 of this myth busting series about Freshly Roasted Coffee… the real test, which relates to how does coffee roasted several months ago, taste. Even though coffee can still smell fantastic, does it taste good too? Have you always been told that after 3-4 weeks of a coffee being roasted it won’t taste nice? A side note – did you know that according to the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), 80% of our taste is reliant on our smell ? Well 🤔 here’s a video debunking that myth as I now prepare and taste a coffee roasted 4 months ago, an Ethiopian coffee roasted for Mokha 1450 – a cafe in Dubai, which I was gifted by its proprietor , Garfield.

My recipe was

15g of freshly ground coffee

225ml of 95C hot filtered water (I use 95C with a ceramic V60 because the ceramic will extract some of the heat – another tip from an expert)

Pour for 50g and then the remaining 175g

Timed pour around 3 minutes max

Have you encountered any other coffee myths that you would like to bust?

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The Myth of Freshly Roasted Coffee: Part 1 – the Smell Test

Have you always been told that after coffee has been roasted, it is only good for about 3-4 weeks and that it will being to smell rancid and the you might as well throw it away or serve it to your guests who don’t really care about good coffee ?

Yes, we know that coffee is roasted from fresh berries and that like all fresh things they won’t last long BUT once roasted is there something we might have missed… some chemical or perhaps biological process that we are not privy too that may just about bust that myth.

To be honest this test that you will now see on this video was just something I came across with three coffees this year. Prior to my experience which I share here with a friend and fellow coffee geek, Naveed (see his blog https://theneedforcoffee.com …) I must confess I would usually not drink coffee after it has been roasted 4 weeks prior to my consumption – I hasten to add that I don’t usually buy coffee in bulk but in small batches as and when I need to drink it – which as you know if at least three times a day. However, of late, I have tended to have a lot of coffee in my house (as if that was ever a bad thing) and on this occasion, I got a bit crazy buying too much that I could drink within a reasonable “roast date” time so I found myself trying to drink lots of coffee before my self imposed 4 week Roast date.

However, as I share with you on this video, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that for three coffees, not only was the smell pleasant for my nostrils but as you will find out in Part 2, pleasant to drink too. Okay, I have to do a song and dance (my wife’s expression) here, because one of them is my filter roast – the drink of the escapist – featuring Uganda and Burundi, which I have to confess I didn’t like upon its delivery – roasted 2 days before. I then decided to leave it and try and brew it a few weeks later…

Have you had the same experience before ?

What do you think may explain this wonderful phenomenon ?

Please feel free to share your experiences ?

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Launching My Espresso Blend

I’m so excited to let you know that on 2 March 2021 I launched my first ESPRESSO BLEND coffee in collaboration with Sippy Beans of Dubai, UAE. I always believe that if you are really passionate about something and try your best to persevere with faith and determination to live your dream, you will experience it in some way. This isn’t my first journey of living my dream as you know, because back in 2009, I moved to Cape Town to open up my first coffee shop, called Escape Caffe, which I eventually sold for multiple personal reasons in early 2013.

So, when in October 2020, upon just moving to Dubai, I met with Shehzeen of Sippy Beans (a Dubai based online coffee retailer) I was asked, after talking about coffee for hours, she asked how we could work together, I dared to say, because I had dreamt about it and wanted to articulate it for REAL, that “can we launch a coffee brand using From Coffee With Love”, she said YES almost immediately. Now, who said that dreams don’t come true.

You may be wondering why I have called the espresso blend the “drink of the escapist”, so check my video here to experience my excitement.

In short, we worked with one of Dubai’s premier coffee roasters and after having tasted about 10 different blends, I knew that just one sip of what would be become my first espresso blend was all I needed. It just hit the spot, it was so unusual for me and I knew it was a bit unconventional, like LOVE of course, something that cannot be easily explained.

As I usually drink my espresso based drinks with milk, you’ll find hints of chocolate, spicy vanilla, with medium/low acidity and a long lasting caramel taste – so you’ll be looking forward to your next cup.

I always believe that you should follow your passion and pursue your dreams with perseverance as you never know who God will place in your path to make that dream a reality.

Thanks to my wife and my kids for believing in me and being patient when I went to cafes and grilled baristas about their coffee preparation. Thanks to Sippy for putting their trust in launching this blend with me. Looking forward to developing the filter blend soon God willing.

At present the coffee can be ordered using this link https://sippybeans.com/products/lameen-abdul-malik-custom-espresso-blend?variant=39251631931495

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Thank You Butterworth & Son Coffee Roasters

You’ve probably heard me many times elaborate about how blessed I am. Blessed to be introduced to the coffee bean by its Creator and I can’t even count how many times I’ve had a wonderful coffee experiences, let alone the amount of times I’ve been given free coffee (there are many reasons for this). And the blessings continue.

So a few weeks ago, or is that months now, one of the baristi (plural for barista in Italian) from Butterworth & Son Coffee Roasters Lauren Small (aka I am the Anxious Barista on Instagram) reached out to me on Instagram and wanted to know if I would like to taste their coffees. Having researched them – yes I do this because I have been offered free coffee before BUT if I don’t think I’m going to have a pleasant experience, I decline – I politely accepted. However, as I had just moved to Dubai, I was concerned that it would cost a lot for them to send me about 1kg of coffee in terms of postage and registered delivery/courier charges but Lauren was insistent, so I succumbed. In any case, after one failed attempt, I decided it was far much easier to have Lauren send it to my brother in London who would then pass it onto our daughter, who would be visiting Dubai in mid-December and voila! just one day before she was due to leave, it arrived…. The things you do for coffee eh! Nevertheless, another blessing.

Not only did I receive coffee from them, they selected a very diverse group of coffee spanning the coffee world, two Africans, one central American and one South American – that sounded strange as I wrote that. Now, off to the coffees.

Colombia Washed

From reading the taste profile, I knew that this would be good for espresso and it was. I even invited a friend over to share the experience and well what did it taste like….

Chocolate but of course, especially when brewing it as my daily cappuccino. After a few days, you would be pleased to know that it never disappointed and always tasted like chocolate. Now how’s that for consistency and a good way to start the day.

Guatemala Honey Process

This one, I must confess was a bit tricky as I brewed it both as an espresso and as a filter (aeropress and HarioV60). I started off brewing this as an espresso and picked up hints of apricot but the Colombia (above) was so good as an espresso based coffee, that I moved over to brewing this solely as a filter, either on an aeropress or Hario V60, where I picked up hints of winey dried fruits.

Kenya Peaberry Washed

Now, it’s getting exciting. If you know me, you would know that I usually get excited about Kenyan coffees but I should probably add that Lauren, I presume, didn’t know that I love Kenyan coffees. Typically, Kenyan coffees when roasted right and of course brewed right tend to have traditional taste profiles of dark berries and this one obviously had that.

However what stood out for me when brewed this on a Hario V60 was the hints of lime and mint. Now you may be wondering, why Lime and Mint? but before you judge, it was not overpowering at all. It was like after you had the first sip, then there was this delicate flower taste of lime and mint afterwards. As the coffee got older and the days went by, the mint dominated and the lime diminished but nevertheless it was a truly pleasant experience all the way to the last bag… sigh.

Rwanda Natural

I think I’ve saved the best for last. The experience with this coffee was further enhanced by my desire to start using my Chemex, which was given to me by my former colleagues as a leaving present way back in November 2019. I know, why did it take this long to use it ? but that’s another conversation. Prior to using the Chemex for the first time, I asked Lauren for their recipes (yes, each coffee shop has a recipe for how they brew their coffee per method, well serious coffee shops do). In this way, I wanted to ensure that I was brewing not just this coffee but the others too, using their recipe. In fact after this disclosure I have now amended how I brew Hario V60 to 20g with 300ml water.

Okay, so back to the Rwanda and the Chemex, now that could be a good movie title

Using their recipe of 300ml to 20g of coffee and my new Hario scales (thanks to my wife), I really enjoyed the process.

slow mo coffee drip

And how about the taste? Okay I may not have picked up strawberries and cream but Plum, medium citrus acidity and hints of buttery caramel were predominant. It was such a pleasant experience that I mainly brewed this coffee on the Chemex, despite its average brewing time of 5-6 minutes. On the Hario V60 and aeropress it was still nice but not as delicious as on the Chemex. In fact Lauren had recommended trying this as an espresso but I couldn’t take the risk of wasting 40-60 grammes of this delectable coffee during the espresso adjustment process, so I just stuck to the safer process of filter brew.

I just checked their website prior to writing this piece and sadly for you they don’t have this coffee anymore. Don’t worry, I empathise with you too as I had my last brew of this coffee early last month.

Just before I finish, kindly note that this is not paid sponsorship and I don’t get any money for bragging about my wonderful tastebud experience.

I’m not sure about the background of Butterworth and Son, who are based in St Edmunds, UK but I know that they do good tea too and from my experience, good coffee as well. I definitely recommend them and you have to love their artwork on there bags too.

To check them out and order coffee and teas, check them out here https://butterworthandson.co.uk

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Coffee of the Week: Square Mile Kenya Muchagara

Looking through Square Mile Coffee‘s instagram feed, it suddenly dawned on me that because of all the pandemic fiasco, I haven’t ordered coffee from them for several months. In part, this was due to my desire to support local coffee roasters in Vienna but I was also worried that if I ordered coffee from London, it might take several days to 2 weeks before I get my coffee, as post offices were using the excuse of covid to delay delivery. How wrong I was, because I actually got my coffee faster than pre-lockdown days. So, naturally I was delighted when they arrived a few days after I placed my order.

Included with my usual 2 bags of espresso and one of filter, was a gift, a 30g of a Kenyan coffee from Muchagara in Kenya’s Kirinyaga county. The first thing I noticed was the smell – WOW!, wow! wow! – probably the best smelling coffee I’ve smelt all year. Aware that I only had 2 opportunities to make this coffee, I made sure that I really measured them well. First up, I tried it on the aeropress, using 14g, which was more like blackcurrant BUT I knew that for me, brewing it on the Hario V60 would be the real test.

Using the remaining 16.5g (I got an additional 0.5g – yay!) with 250ml 95C hot water with my dear wife filming, Here’s my experience – to conclude…. ah that smell….

I picked up a bit of the cherry and some type of caramel sweetness and hints of citrus acidity.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDg_DbRBU3e/