April 2017 Newsletter
Some customers have asked me why the March newsletter was so late. The simple answer is that I was waiting for the arrival of the monthly special coffee. It takes a great deal of planning (and quite often a fair amount of pleading and grovelling) to get hold of many of the specials that we offer. In the case of the Colombia Red Honey Bourbon, it took around 2 years from the time I first tasted the coffee, and at the end of the process the boat it was on was a few days late.
A couple of days at the end of a long process like that is pretty minor, but it puts into perspective the difficulties we experience by being at the bottom of the world as far as shipping coffee goes. Just getting hold of green coffee samples of prospective specials is hard enough, as the growth of the specialty coffee industry over the last 20 years has made things much more competitive, even within Australia. This month's special was actually supposed to be a somewhat yummy Brazilian Maragogype, shared with a couple of other roasters, but what finally arrived was only 80kg of green coffee, which is simply not enough to supply even half of my customers.
I suspect we were heartily gazumped by a USA roaster willing to pay more at origin, and the coffee we thought we were getting never even got close to the shipping container. As Samuel Goldwyn (the G in MGM, back in the days when movie studios were run by people and not conglomerates) once said, "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on!"
Of course, for each disappointment there's also an unexpected success. Sharp eyed customers may have noted the disappearance of PNG Tungei Peaberry from our list of coffees. By chance this month's special is also a PNG coffee, and I was able to get hold of some Peaberry in the same delivery, so it has reappeared. Many of the monthly specials arrive this way, a bag or two added to a container of other coffees.
"Honey" processing, also known as "Pulped Natural" and "Semi-washed" has become more popular as it has spread to most coffee origins in the last 10 years, after first being used in Central America. However, until recently I had never seen it used for coffees from Kenya or New Guinea. I still haven't seen a Kenyan Honey coffee, but this month's special is our first example of a PNG one.
PNG Suavee Aro Honey
$48.00/kg
The only realistic description of this coffee is rich and smooth. It has a full bodied, rich, smooth flavour across the whole palate, and reminds me very much of a Twymans Old Tavern Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee I cupped several years ago. Thankfully, without the hefty price tag!
Finally, a bit of advice for those of you still using the Quaha and Imat espresso machines we sold you over 10 (and in some cases 15) years ago. I've been able to keep quite a few of these machines running using old or scavenged parts, but the supply is more or less exhausted. As with other old machinery, it's still possible to import or fabricate parts, but only at exorbitant cost. It doesn't make much sense to spend 3 to 4 hundred dollars to repair a machine that cost $700 in the first place, so I'd suggest it's time to upgrade.
As I recommended in the September 2016 newsletter, the best value is still the Breville Dual Boiler 920S, particularly when purchased on special during upcoming stocktake sales.
Until next month
Alan
