Renaming my Brand: Readers Thoughts

First up, I’m grateful to my almost 100 subscribers to my blog and that’s why I’d like to invite you to participate in helping me choose my coffee brand.

So, I’ve been think a while about my coffee brand. Trust me it’s taking me several hours and I’ve been back and forth with the tried and tested and the newish.

Looking through how I think about coffee and communicate about coffee, three words come to me LOVE, PASSION, ESCAPE.

FOR LOVE, ❤️ this usually starts with infatuation, where you want to know more and justify your infatuation and whether it resides in LOVE. For coffee, this was the start of my journey. I wanted to know why my taste buds where experiencing this delight.

FOR PASSION, 🧡 this was the next phase as the organ of the word relates to suffering. It was the point of no compromise in getting the best coffee possible. First with buying the best gadgets and then with only visiting certain cafes and if you were pulled into a commercial chain to drink coffee, yes, I would prefer water rather than compromise and let my taste buds suffer.

For ESCAPE, ✈️ it was the drink of the escapist, as the drinker escapes from reality into the surreal of new taste experiences, evident on their tongues. THIS is why my first coffee shop 12 years ago, was called ESCAPE CAFFE. To escape with your taste buds required flight and I love wings but also pay homage to the Italians – hence CAFFE (coffee in Italian) and not CAFE (French) and also an espresso cup.

Part 2? You may be wondering what was Part 1. Well, part 1 was when I had my coffee shop, ESCAPE CAFFE in Cape Town from September 2010 until February 2012. That’s when I moved my whole family to another part of the world to set yup my ideal coffee shop.

Fast forward ⏩ to 2021 and….

Well, I believe that when you pursue your dreams, God puts people in your life to help you complete the journey.

So, when I first met Shehzeen and MD of @sippybeans, Dubai in October 2020 and she asked how can we collaborate after talking coffee for about one hour, I said “why don’t we release a coffee line together” and she said “why not” 🕺🏽 now, who said dreams don’t come true. 🎉

So far we’ve released 2 coffees, available exclusively on https://sippybeans.com/search?type=product&q=Lameen of course. Thanks once again sippy for believing in me and being part of my journey.

Looking forward to realizing our coffee dreams together and God willing more coffees 😌
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You may be asking why a Filter Blend ?

I recall when I was growing up and how my mum instilled in us the concept of never throwing food away.

Fast forward to 30+ years later and I’m a coffee geek. So when I get to the end of a coffee, do I throw it away or just mix it in with the new?

Hands up for this who guessed right – yes, I still can’t throw food items away, especially coffee – after all when you source great coffee weekly and can’t wait to brew it and enjoy it, how can I be so careless to throw some good beans away – I can’t

So, when I was thinking about the Filter version of my coffee, it was natural for me to think of a Filter Blend. Even the roaster asked me, “but why?” and I was like “why not?” – too scared to tell him my childhood fear, 🤷🏽‍♂️ Ha! I was also aware that square mile coffee have also recently started a filter blend for filter coffee.

So, here we are, the FILTER BLEND …. coming soon to your fave UAE based coffee platform, SIPPY and my partners and as a homage to Africa, it’s comprised of two special African coffees naturally.

Launching soon: my filter blend

It’s almost here…. The FILTER BLEND of my coffee line in collaboration with @sippybeans . We did the tasting two weeks ago and I presented it at an exclusive event recently.

The blend combines the bold flavours of berries, fruit and medium acidity with an unforgettable aroma that I search for when I prepare coffee daily using @hariov60 ..😋 I can’t wait to share it with you so that you can tell me what you think but it’ll soon be in the market.

Truly exciting I must say this coffee dream of mine. Dream big and be bold 😉

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.

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

Enjoy!