November 2021 Newsletter
Turmoil is probably the mildest description of the coffee trade right now. We've had frost damage to the crops in Brazil, logistics problems in Colombia and Vietnam and the largest rise in container shipping costs in history. Right now it costs more to ship commodity coffees from Asia to the USA than the value of the beans in the container. Coupled with pandemic induced labour shortages it's a wonder that any new crop coffees are being shipped at all.
Still, they are managing to trickle in, one costly container at a time and far beyond their original expected arrival dates. One such container has finally arrived, a much awaited shipment from Costa Rica. Inside were a number of "experimental" coffees from various growing areas in Costa Rica. These coffees were not processed by the normal washed or honey (miel) methods but were instead either dry processed (natural) or carbonic maceration processed (anaerobic).
We've cupped our way through them and it's pretty clear, both from their quality and their prices, that these coffees are the best of the best. They are also in very short supply; we've only been able to get a very small amount of this month's special and even less of next month's. Considering these will be the second and third most expensive coffees we've ever offered, that's probably just as well.
(The most expensive was the Panama Gesha a few years ago, and to my palate both of these coffees are better!)
So this month's special is
$96 Per Kilogram
Medium/Strong
The sweet aroma follows through into a fruity acidity, an intense mid palate and a sweet grape and prunes (think shiraz) finish.
Altogether a bold, complex and spectacular coffee worthy of its 90 cupping score.
I called the aroma "Marzipan", Marc says it's plums and sugar. The sweet aroma follows through into a fruity acidity, an intense mid palate and a sweet grape and prunes (think shiraz) finish. Altogether a bold, complex and spectacular coffee worthy of its 90 cupping score.
Last month I saw an interesting question posted in the Home-Barista coffee forum, which was "Why is the E-61 brew group still so popular with domestic machine manufacturers?" For general information the E-61 group is the large chunk of shiny chromed brass on the front of high end machines including models from ECM, Lelit, Rocket, Vibiemme and more.
The group was invented by Faema in 1961 so it's 60 years old, and you might expect that a better group would be invented in that timespan. In truth, there probably have been, but so far none with the same visual appeal, operational simplicity and ease of repair.
The visual appeal (big shining streamlined hunk of chrome) is easy, as is the purely mechanical operation. There is a single lever with 3 possible positions, all the way down to brew, half way up for pre-infusion and all the way up for pressure release and off.
That this is accomplished with a simple system of cams, springs and washers regulating the water flow is remarkable. It also makes it easy to repair. The only real skill required to fully refurbish an E-61 group is the ability to use a spanner.
One thing to be aware of if you have an E-61 machine is that it was both much copied and also slightly adapted by different manufacturers, so while the way it works remains constant, some of the internal components have slight differences in size and shape.
You need to know which version of the group you have before ordering spare parts.
Until next month
Alan
