December 2018 Newsletter
Holiday closing dates will be as follows:
LAST ROAST will be on Monday 17th DECEMBER 2018.
LAST SHIPPING DAY & CLOSE will be Wednesday 19th DECEMBER 2018.
REOPEN on Tuesday 8th JANUARY 2019.
Goods shipped on the Wednesday may arrive before Christmas, but we wouldn't bet on it. A couple of couriers have suggested that Friday the 14th would be the most practical cut off point, even for Express Post.
As per our usual practice, customers are reminded that we will be running our stocks of roasted coffee down to zero, and late orders may be filled by whatever coffees are available, not what you actually ordered. This means that we cannot guarantee the contents of orders after Monday the 17th. Given the usual shipping chaos that engulfs both the post and couriers, early ordering is advised. Based on past years some of the orders shipped on the Wednesday won't arrive until next year. Also, a reminder that due to the volume of orders we may take a couple of days to roast and ship, instead of our usual next day timeframe.
There won't be a January special coffee but I'll try to organise a brief January newsletter as soon as we're up to speed. As usual at this time of the year, this month's special coffee was meant to be really special. Unfortunately when it arrived it was nowhere near as good as it should have been. The basic flavour structures were all still there but the intensity had evaporated. What was meant to be a 90+ Ethiopian Yirgacheffe now rated 82 to 83.
So, after a bit of a scramble, the Christmas special is
Ethiopian Sidamo Arroressa
$55.00/kg
This coffee is in very much the same category as the original was meant to be. Being a washed and fermented coffee it's less on the "fruity" side and more on the "coffee" side of the taste spectrum, just like a classic Yirgacheffe.
It has a pronounced lemon and chocolate aroma with tingling lemony acidity in the front palate, a creamy mid palate and an intense malt and cocoa finish.
The original green coffee problem is not unknown, if not all that common. There are many possible problems between shipping and arrival, and it may be that, due to unknown factors, the green coffee simply "aged" at a faster than normal rate.
Under ordinary conditions a basic green coffee will gradually lose flavour intensity over time, depending on storage conditions. Some of the more delicate and expensive beans such as Panama Geisha may start to change within less than 6 months. The main problem is always what to do with the coffee that's not up to its original specification.
Fortunately I have an "In-House" solution. My son has recently opened his own bar in Fitzroy, a Melbourne inner city suburb, see www.endsandmeans.com.au
The Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Chelichele will be turned into a concentrated cold extract to make a world's first single origin
Espresso Martini. This is after he created the first clear Espresso Martini for his former employer, see https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4829050/Melbourne-bar- creates-clear-espresso-martini.html so it should be good!
Until next year
Alan
