May 2011 Newsletter
We're Baa-a-ck. A quick trip to the UK via Helsinki (Finland) and a conference in London occupied most of our time away, but we did manage to get in a week's holiday in the Cotswolds. Since I usually get only 2 weeks holiday a year the break was much appreciated! As you would expect I study the coffee culture wherever I go. Finland was interesting, the Finns have the highest per capita coffee consumption in the world, at 12 kilos per person per year! Much of this is percolator or filter coffee, served at roughly double the strength you get in the USA, but espresso is making inroads as well. The climate (it's the first time I've ever been to a place where the sea was frozen) obviously has a lot to do with it. The quality of the coffee served ranges from good to excellent, regardless of the brewing methods involved. All the baristas I saw at work had solid technique to back up the drink quality. The UK, on the other hand ... not so much. The only decent barista- pulled shot I had there came from an Aussie. I did manage to get some other acceptable coffees, but they were all "push button", from either superauto, pod or capsule machines. As I have said before, these types of machines are steadily taking over portions of the "traditional" espresso market, all throughout Europe. What I haven't said before is that some of these "espresso systems" are actually starting to achieve acceptable results. In particular, the commercial version of the Nespresso system, which uses foil pods (rather than the expensive little metal capsules) makes a drinkable espresso. The foil pod seems to preserve the coffee far better than ordinary pod packaging. Certainly I never detected any trace of stale coffee flavours from the Nespressos I tasted, unlike coffees from other pod systems and superautos. I would actually go so far as to recommend this system for office use. It's clean, quick and relatively foolproof. The milk delivery system isn't as good, producing a hot aerated froth rather than true microfoam, but it's OK given the overall standard of the drink involved. This month there won't be a "special" coffee, since I haven't had time to do the necessary roasting and cupping involved. I thought I'd point you towards the new entrants on our list of coffees instead; any of these would have rated a "special" appearance under normal circumstances. We've still got about a week's worth of
Yemen Mokha Ismaili
$60.00/kg
Then you might like to try the Organic Nepal Terai $44.00/kg This is the organic version of the Nepal Terali Supreme we offered last year, and tastes identical, or the Café de Cuba Peaberry $48.00/kg which is a slightly sweeter and more intense version of our "normal" Cuban coffee. Even our current decaff offering is new. Due to a worldwide shortage of Colombian coffee we are now using Swiss Water Decaffeinated Ethiopian Sidamo beans, which result in a somewhat fruitier coffee than the Colombian, with some chocolate overtones in the aftertaste. Until next month Alan
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