Coffee Thoughts

Posted on

A Barista in Khartoum

A Barista in Khartoum ? OK ! For those who skipped geography classes, Khartoum is the capital city of Sudan – the largest country by surface area in Africa and the city where the longest river in the World, the River Nile flows through as one. enough about geography and back to coffee, which I am assuming you enjoy. I recently had the opportunity with work to visit Khartoum for a few days and of course, I did some previous research before hand to find out if it was possible to get some coffee from any reputable cafes, et voila ! (French for Eureka ! or Hey ! what do you know) the famous Indian coffee chain, Barista, opened their first shop in Africa in Khartoum, Sudan in 2008. Barista are naturally big in India but are also making a name for themselves in Dubai (see my post of 5 September 2008), so despite a very busy schedule, I manage to stop over for a late lunch at the Barista Cafe in the posh part of Khartoum, called Riyad, not far from the airport. The shop is housed in a large villa and is quite spacious with air condition of course. There’s also an upstairs and an outside garden, which I assume would be ideal in the evening if you are drinking ice cold coffee drinks, because the average temperature for winter is around 26C (around 80F). They also have satellite TV is available on large flat screens dotted around the shop. It’s a popular place for foreigners and the rich Sudanese to hang out, with an espresso costing about $4.

 

As it was the first time I was having anything that resemabled coffee on my trip, I first ordered an Espresso Macchiato to get that espresso fix with a dash of frothed milk. As someone who takes their coffee seriously or as a bit of a coffee snub, as my wife calls me, I ignored the barista’s advice to sit down and wait for my coffee, insisting rather that I would like to watch. Well ! what do you know, after watching the barista tamp my freshly ground coffee weakly, I called out and said something like ” Hey ! you need to tamp with a bit more pressure than that please, etc….”. The lead barista, who I later found out is based in Dubai and from Nepal, saw that this was a bit of a serious customer and decided to take over. The good thing about Barisat with regards to variety is that they try and source and serve beans from all over the planet and so during my visit, they were serving arabica beans from Cuba. Now how’s that for a line “I’m drinking Italian espresso macchiato made with Cuban arabica coffee in Khartoum, Sudan” – now didn’t I say coffee was the drink of the escapist. Anyway the coffee was abit bold in that it had a full taste and the frothed milk just complimented it.

But ! as this was probably going to be my only chance of getting coffee within my 4 day stay, I thought ” I would like some more coffee” after all an espresso macchiato is like an appetiser for those of us who drink doppios (double espressos) all the time. So I decided to order just straight coffee to accompany my chocolate doughnut.

This time, I was able to sample the real taste of the Cuban coffee, which was strong and so I defintley got my caffeine fix. I planned again to visit in the morning to try and get a take-away cappuccino but wasn’t successful in my endeavours. In any case, if you do happen to go to Khartoum or know someone who is going (more likely as they have many United Nations staff there), then recommend the Barista Cafe for that little bit of escapism.

Posted on

Light a Candle for…..

 

Light a candle for America… No ! Seriously, light a candle for COFFEE. These coffee candles are from America – whatever next you may ask ? but my sister sent me these from America, bought from a store called White Barn (New York), apparently famous for making lovely candles. As soon as she saw these, she thought “my bro would love these”, she bought me a whole bunch and sent them over to Austria. They’ve got lots of flavours like Caramel Java Latte, Double Mocha Espresso, Java and even Chai Latte & they smell really nice too.

So, if you are inviting people over for lunch or dinner and don’t want to waste your lovely coffee by grinding it to extract the aroma just to get the right ambience, then buy a bunch of these, light them up and hey presto, everyone get ready for coffee, after dinner of course. I haven’t seen these type of candles in Europe, but if I find anything similar, I’ll write about them too – why do we always miss out on this side of the Atlantic.

In any case, if you know of anyone popping over to America to take advantage of the relatively low dollar exchange rate, then ask them to look for these and impress your family and friends with this special find. It may also work in cafes, where you may want to light them up to erase some of the foody smell to preserve a real sweet cafe ambience – just a thought and if you use it, tell them to check out my blog and website too – spread the love of coffee.

Posted on

I’m Drinking Mocca Mocca…

Mocca, Mocca – reminiscent of the original mocha from Yemen, which I am glad to say that my experience of drinking this type of mocca was absolutely amazing and delicious. Alt Wien in Vienna have just started stocking a bio or organic version made up of a mix of coffees from Central America from more than one region, which I guess must be a mix from Costa Rica, Guatemala and Nicaragua but they were not divulging. At first I was a little bit sceptical wondering what kind of taste I was going to get and was swiftly rebutted by the smell and versatility of the bean as it was quick to find the right grind. Here ! I’ll share a really quick way to find the right grind, so that you don’t waste loadsa (English cockney slang for lots of) coffee when trying to find the right 23-25 second grind for extracting espresso. See the pic below;

I noticed that the granules should not be completely flat and linear – there should be a little bit of “clumping”. If you grind and the machine spurts out too quickly, then you will get lots of powder everywhere – that’s your first warning. Counter this by making the grind a little bit finer until you see some clumps. I am aware that this is ideal for my less than $300 machine, but perhaps for the $1,000 stuff, this might be different as the granules should be completely uniform to get all those wonderful tastes in a cup of coffee.

As an avid drinker of espresso, although I naturally found the Mocca sweetish, it was not as bold as I would like, but when mixed with milk, it was scrumptious. Also, the smell and the colours are so rich, they just typify coffee to the max, see below for colour but not smell…..

Still on the coffee style, the crema was just amazingly thick and I took a few shots to show you how wonderful it was from the top. The sugar took well over 10 seconds to drop through the crema cloud

This coffee bean refused to sink and I had to remove it before drinking. I think the colours are just amazing and this is the thickest crema I’ve got so far this year.

And of course, as it is ideal with an espresso milk based drink like cappuccino, the velvety smooth micro-foam milk just worked and was visually pleasing to the eye.

Here, I’m just trying something different to make my cappuccino look good before it makes contact with my lips and tummy.

Anyway, if you can find it, try a mocca coffee. They are still very rare and upon my return to Alt Wien to buy another 500g bag, there wasn’t any, sadly to say, but I was promised that more would be in the following week.

Mocca Ciao !

Posted on

New Theme, New Dream..

I’m in the middle of trying to change the look of my blog and luckily the guy who sits a floor above me at work was really helpful and assisted me in trying to load up this new more coffee-like theme – I hope you like it ? But as I get used to this, I’d like to leave my latest favourite pic with you, called Espresso Dream, so until my soon to be posted next blog, dream of espresso……

 

Posted on

Coffee News….

Coffee News 

I’ve decided to add another category to my blog, aptly called “Coffee News”.

OK, so what is new from my travels and observations that may be of interest to you. Starting from closer to home, Vienna – you will be sad to know that the favourite coffee shop, Mocca Club, is sort of no more. Well ! they still exist but the previous owner, Jo, has left, along with her SCAE expertise and tender coffee touch that the quality of coffee production has, let’s say, not kept up with my expectations.

Now for some good news and for this, we are off to London. For those of us in London, there are two exciting things. Flat White have opened another coffee shop in Soho called Milk Bar – Cameron, the owner, preferred to avoid the coffee chain thing and decided to give it another name, which still sounds cool. Anyway, you can find Milk Bar, equipped with a black customized La Marzocco FB-70 espresso machine, on 3 Bateman Street. I haven’t been there yet and I must confess, I walked past it when I was looking for it and just went right back to the original Flat White, but God willing, I hope to check it out next time I’m in London.

You will also be glad to know that 2008 and 2007 World Barista Champions, Stephen Morrissey and James Hoffmann respectively, have finally opened their coffee company, Square Mile Coffee Roasters. At the moment they are focusing on selling coffee on line and there are no plans for a coffee shop yet. You can visit them in the heart of London but you will have to make an appointment first – a bit serious, but these guys are really serious about coffee. Just visit their website on http://shop.squaremilecoffee.com/  and you will see what I mean. I wish I could order coffee, but this is restricted to the boundaries of the UK for the moment. In any case, during my last visit to Flat White, they were testing out one of the square miles special blends.

My final piece is just to update you on the coffee scene in Dubai. There’s now a Dean & DeLuca coffee shop. for those of us who do not know about Dean & DeLuca, they are a famous New York coffee shop, which I have been informed featured in a popular US sitcom for many years. Anyway, click on http://www.deandeluca.com/ for more info. They are located at Old Town Commercial market in Burj Dubai, near the tallest building in the World.

Also new in Dubai is the famous Canadian coffee franchise, Cafe Supreme, located in the same area as Dean&DeLuca in Dubai – how’s that for a bit of competition. I haven’t been to either of these but they seem to offer a different perspective to the coffee scene in Dubai.

Posted on

I’m Drinking El Salvador Pacamara

About a month ago, on my way back from holiday, I stopped over in London and naturally went over to my favourite bean bazaar or specialist coffee roaster – HR Higgins, Duke Street, London and stocked up on more coffee.

I was lucky enough to be offered one of their new beans, El Salvador Pacamara. Trusting the salesman on this occasion, I took two 250g bags, as they do two types of roasts, medium dark, which I usually find goes well with milk-based espresso drinks and very dark roasted, which is lovely for espresso (shhh ! don’t share the secret).

Pacamara Bags 

On return to Vienna, I was pleasantly surprised by the versatility of the 2 roasts. Sure enough, my predictions matched my expectation in that the medium-to-dark version was lovely as a cappuccino and the very dark version was nice as an espresso, but more importantly for my coffee grinder, I didn’t really have to fiddle about with the grind switch for both types of coffee. Am I making sense ? If not, I’m going to have to get a little bit tekky (technical) here. In short, I’ve discovered that you cannot use the same grind setting for a medium dark roast and a very dark roast coffee to get the ideal espresso shot (i.e 23-27 seconds depending on what book you read). The secret is…… well ! perhaps not a secret for pros, is that you need a finer setting for very dark roasts. So for example, if you usually grind your coffee on say dial 7 for a medium dark coffee, with dial 1 being the finest (like powder and usually for Turkish style coffee) and dial 10 or above being like clumps (usually for French Press), then when you come to grind a dark roast coffee, you need to use a shorter dial, like 6 or 5 to get the same grind. For me, on my previous coffee grinder, it was easy, but my new coffee grinder is a bit of a pain as there are no dial settings – you just turn the knob, after wasting about 30 grammes of coffee until you get the right grind, but I’ll save more of that headache for another post God willing.

Extracting Pacamara

Anyway back to El Salvador Pacamara. For espresso, I found it light and sweetish. I could taste the sweetness at the tip of my tongue – perhaps my palate is getting more sophisticated to all the speciality roasted Arabica coffee I keep throwing down my mouth 3 times a day. Excuse the pic below – I was still playing with my new digital SLR camera and the flash was a bit too bright. The richness of the colour can be seen in the pic above during extraction.

Pacamara Doppio 

Naturally, I kept the medium-to-dark roasted coffee for my morning fixes of cappuccinos and the sweetish taste contrasted well with the smooth silky sweetish frothed milk that accompanied it. Excuse my latte art, still trying to get there….

Pacamara Latte 

In summary, I thought that the bean was well rounded and very versatile, easily adaptable for both types of espresso drinks (with and without milk). The taste is not over powering and “bold” and reminds me of the typical Central American coffee (just in case you were wondering where El Salvador is, it is in Central America). It is not as acidic as the champions of Central America – Costa Rica and Guatemala, but still worth a buy and I’m sure your non-coffee mad friends will find it pleasant to drink too. So get out there and try some coffee from El Salvador.

Posted on

Looking for Crema in Dubai

Wow ! it’s already been a month since my last post, which is way over my target of a weekly post but my excuse, if I can get away with one, is that it was family holiday season and we went again to Dubai – the kids and wife insisted.

Burj al Arab coffee 

Last year I wrote a summary on drinking coffee in Dubai, which was really like a summary of drinking coffee in one mall. This time, I tried to broaden my horizons by visiting a few more malls but still failed to visit some cafes outside the mall perimeter – next time God willing. Following on from some advise given by a coffee pro – “don’t bother tasting espresso style coffee from coffee chains because it is always going to be badly prepared”, I initially only ordered what could be called Americanos and just “normal” filter coffee. For a while it satisfied my caffeine thirst, but then I thought, it’s been over one week without espresso and decided to risk it.

A few pointers before telling you about my experience. Firstly, I only visited cafes with semi-automatic machines and not pure automatic ones (witness Starbucks), where the barista just pushes a button and hopes for the best. Secondly, and I was called a snub for this by my wife – insist that the barista cleans the machine before making your coffee. Usually, old coffee is left in the portafilter, emptied and without cleaning the old dried stale coffee, what is supposed to be fresh coffee is ground and placed into the portafilter before placing into the group head without cleaning the machine – Yuk! On this occasion, I insisted every time that the barista empty the old coffee, flush it out with hot water and also clean the group head with hot water. Finally, I insisted that they tamp the ground beans. You would think that with these key pointers, some sort of espresso will come out, but sadly this was not the case – why ? I think it falls under the best known two classical mistakes – serving non-fresh coffee with an inaccurate grind setting. From the taste of the majority of the coffee I had, freshness was compromised by far, because, even if the coffee is fresh and the grind setting is inaccurate, you will smell the aroma and the coffee, although bitter in taste, will still have some sort of fresh taste. I didn’t even go there with milk based drinks because badly frothed milk is usually burnt and gives me indigestion – Snubbish ? No ! I’m just trying to get what I paid for and not mess up my stomach.

Anyway to the shops. One thing I noticed now is that some more of the cafes have now started trying to tamp. At the Tea Merchants, Burjuman Mall, I noticed a La Marzocco machine and an expensive Mahl Konig Grind-on-Demand coffee grinder, but sadly, as you can see from the picture, after insisting on cleaning the machine, etc the crema was still very thing and lasted about a minute but the taste told me more – not very fresh.

Tea Merchants Espresso 

The baristas, however, were very amused by my tips on cleaning the machine and tamping the coffee.

Having looked down on coffee chains and there are everywhere, I decided to try a popular one in Dubai, who boasted about the “Italian taste”, so I went to the aptly named Barista – which is actually an Indian coffee chain. At their shop in the Dubai Festival City (nice shops and water way) I was impressed by their preparation techniques and most of all by the taste – it did have an “Italian taste” after all, as they proudly displayed that their coffee is roasted in Milan.

Barista Espresso 

In all, I told them that their espresso was the best I had tasted in Dubai. I also caught, surprisingly of all, one of the baristi having a go at latte art… hmmmm !

One more success story was the espresso I had on my last day at the Dubai International Financial Centre in the Testa Rossa Caffe. I decided not to fuss about how the coffee would be made – I was too hungry to run over to the bar. However, perhaps my reputation had preceded me as I watched the barista, clean the machine, flush out the group head, grind the coffee and tamp. I was impressed and although the coffee had some crema, the taste was not as sharp as the one I had at Barista.

Testa Rossa Espresso 

I’m still looking for real crema and that authentic espresso taste in Dubai – land of the malls, flashy cars, famous hotels and indoor ski slope, but that will have to be on another occasion God willing if I return. I’ve just got to leave you with one incident – On another occasion on this trip, I decided to try an espresso at a Dubai based coffee chain and after warning the barista that I write on coffee, he boasted that his colleague could make really good espresso, so I thought why not. In chatting to him, I went a step further, “so ! what sort of coffee do you use in your blend and where is your coffee from ?” “Canada” was the reply and I thought “Oh no it doesn’t, they don’t grow coffee in Canada” but I decided to keep that embarrassing revelation to myself and just smiled – I then knew I was in for a surprise. Needless to say my suspicions were confirmed and that is why I have a story and not a picture of what was advertised as an espresso. I think they need really good coffee in Dubai to match their plans to become one of the top destinations in the World…. still looking.

Posted on

How Can You Tell if Your Beans are too Fresh ?

This is like a follow up to my blog post of 7 March 2008 called “how can you tell if your beans are fresh“. In summary to that previous post, I gave some pointers on what coffee looks like when it is fresh and extracted. Now, it probably seems like a contradiction when I say”how can you tell if your coffee is too fresh ?” Very Fresh  Again, the short answer is that you cannot just tell by looking at it – see above.  You will have to wait until you get home and try and pull an espresso or use another brewing method. In any case, I recently fell victim to this scenario and really the warning bells should have been ringing when I asked the roaster at Alt Wien when the beans were roasted – his answer “a few hours ago” OK! I thought, I should really be happy about this but I recently read that very fresh beans need to “de-gas” before they are ready for drinking. In short, when you roast green beans you are changing the chemical and physical attributes of the coffee bean but the coffee bean needs time to adjust to its changed attribute after being exposed to very high temperatures. What happens is that gases that have attached themselves to the bean need to “come off” so that the bean can return to some sort of natural state – have I lost you ? Perhaps, because I think I have lost myself too. Really, I’m just trying to summarize the chemical stuff that happens to coffee beans after they have been roasted in as simple a way that I can. There’s also some problems with dark roasted coffee beans, where the oil on the bean can be “too oily” leaving oil sediments on your machine.  In short, the coffee beans basically need to “de-gas” or let off some steam literally. I hinted at this to the Alt Wien Roaster and he replied “it’s OK in a domestic machine but for a commercial machine, the beans need to de-gas for at least one week” so I’m thinking, a domestic machine -Yes ! I have one of those, but my machine has some commercial parts (E61 Group head and lots of real brass, etc). I trust him and I pay the price. Sure, the beans smelt really fresh but my first problem was in trying to get the right grind for pulling a shot of espresso in 23-25 seconds.  Then I was wondering as the coffee was coming out, why it was bubbly and making lots of hissing noise. So, the first sign is that the espresso shot will have many bubbles – some sort of chemical reaction (see below). Too Fresh Espresso   I also noticed that once extracted, the coffee was lightish in colour despite the right time for extraction;  Too Fresh  The final straw was of course the taste test – the coffee was sour around the middle part of your tongue. Now, as you know, really fresh coffee that has been taken care of should not taste bitter or sour, so that got nme thinking – what’s wrong ? I tried stuff like leaving the beans out all night in a big metallic bowl so that they could let off steam, but that didn’t work. I tried another brewing method, French Press, but still the taste was sour. Then I thought, based on stuff that I had read, to leave the beans in their bag for about a week. I was bordering on being mad, because to compensate for my ever increasing coffee appetite, I decided to buy a 500g bag for the first time. In trying to apply my general culinary skills to the situation, I thought, if the bean could talk, perhaps it would say “hey ! I’ve just been exposed to 450 F, let me cool down a bit before you get the best out of me”. It’s almost like trying to toast freshly baked bread – it’s going to burn a lot quicker. In any case, not being a chemist, I thought there’s some sort of proper chemical explanation for this. Anyway, I’m glad to report that after leaving the beans for a week in their original bag, well sealed, with no exposure to air, there was a big difference. Firstly, although the coffee may not have smelt as nice as earlier, it was now easier to find the right grind setting for a 23-25 second pull for an espresso and the colour was back to dark reddish crema – see below;    Fresh Espresso  Also, good for latte art and impressing your friends (OK ! I’m joking about the last).    Fresh Latte  So next time your coffee roaster tells you the coffee is really fresh, ask them how fresh. A few days can be good, say 3 days, but I have learnt that the mistake made by the roaster was putting the fresh beans into a sealed vacuum bag immediately after roasting as opposed to letting them de-gas by their own. If it is freshly roasted, it should be left alone and not bagged up.  I can even say now, as I am drinking this coffee (Organic Bolivian)that after about 10 days the coffee is even better, especially for espresso – the sweetish taste is back. Ciao

Posted on

I’m Drinking…..

I guess I’ve missed my self-imposed target of writing a post (or blogging) at least once a week to keep this blog as fresh as possible but, it’s been quite a bit hectic at work. Anyway, back to work on coffee.

I’m DRINKING….. Organic Bolivian beans, recently bought from my current favourite place to buy fresh coffee, Alt Wien, off the Naschmarkt in central Vienna (Austria). It’s quite aromatic and once extracted is lightish in colour compared to what I’m used to for espresso. Although it smells sweetish, it has a light sour taste that kind of hits you after a few sips.Bolivian Espresso 

Nevertheless, I find that it compliments milk based drinks well, provided of course that the milk has been properly frothed to bring out the sweetish milk elements and not the burn your mouth bubbly stuff we still suffer from in most cafes. I recently served this coffee to some friends that came over for dinner and although one thought it strong after dinner, the other was very complimentary with a puzzled expression, wondering how he would be able to drink coffee again in a cafe in Vienna after the double espresso I served him. Well I guess it was worth spending hundreds of Euros then if I get that kind of compliment. I also tested the coffee using the French Press method, which was nice for the afternoon – pleasant and light, which held its taste in my new Bodum Columbia pot for a few hours. As you should know me by now, I love variety in food and drink, so my weekly trips to Alt Wien naturally involve me buying more than one type of coffee. I think I’m going to have to change that routine to twice a week but with a larger purchase of coffee, perhaps 500g bags, because I’ve recently noticed that I am finishing 250g all by myself in under one week.

Anyway I digress, Alt Wien have recently introduced a new Malawian Arabica, with a very African name, Malawian Mzuzu. I just finished my Bolivian coffee last night and was able to try the Malawian this morning as a cappuccino, so my thoughts should be fresh. I find this coffee good for holding its taste with milk based drinks. It has a bit of a bold taste that holds its own so to speak and can be characterised with a chocolate tone and an intense taste.Malawian Mzuzu 

So, as you can see above, I prefer it with milk as a cappuccino or as an espresso macchiato. In using the French Press method, it is quite bold and good as a digestive after a heavy lunch or to boost you up in the morning.

However, I’ve saved the best for last. I must admit and perhaps I will loose credibility for this, but I’ve never been impressed with Kenyan coffee. That was until about a few weeks ago when Reinhold of Espresso Solutions (see blog on La Marzocco GB5) returned from the WBC in Copenhagen and gave me a 200g bag of freshly roasted Kenyan AA beans, roasted by none other than the famous American coffee roasters and cafe, Stumptown (see http://stumptowncoffee.com/) – they started in Portland, Oregon and are now famous amongst coffee connoisseurs. Investigating their website, I see that this Kenyan AA is properly called Kenya Gatina Peaberry. OK ! Time for some coffee facts – a typical Kenyan peaberry is a type of coffee that unusually has one beans inside the cherry fruit as opposed to the normal two. OK ! Back to the coffee – the first thing I noticed was the “Wow” factor in the aroma – even my 6 year old son was like “that smells really nice Daddy..” You can imagine – I just couldn’t wait to try it out and I was not disappointed – If I was to give an award of best coffee that I have prepared this year, it would be for this – I drank this coffee almost one month ago and I can still remember the feeling, that’s how good it was.  Anyway, it had a fruity and smooth mouthfeel and was wonderful as an espresso. You’ve got to have two cups, because one is not enough…Kenyan Espressos

I also loved the colour – it just seemed “just right”. Needless to say I was sad when it was finished. If I could order from Stumptown, I would, but naturally they only ship in the US, so all those lucky American reading this blog who have not heard of Stumptown, check their website out and spoil yourself by ordering some coffee from them (I’m adding them to my blogroll)  They are not paying me to do this, but when you come across some good stuff, it’s good to share the knowledge.

Delicious !