Catching Up on Coffee: Helsar de Zarcero

December 20, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Coffee!

I was too busy for blogging these many weeks, but I was drinking coffee, and so my record here will have a gap. There was a roast from Verve that was quite tasty but is no longer available, and I made it through a couple of rough weeks with the delicious Peet's Holiday Blend, which my wife carried back from Los Angeles. She was spending some time there with her mother, who was ill but recovering, Then Nancy died unexpectedly from a stroke just before Thanksgiving. With that and all the other troubles this year, 2009 will not go down in our memory as a good year.

A Guatemalan Roast From Grumpy

November 15, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Coffee!, New York

Interesting things seem to be happening at one of my favorite New York coffee haunts, Café Grumpy. For one thing, the shop's official blog is looking flashier and busier. And Grumpy -- which turned me on to many of the best roasters in the country (Intelligentsia, Verve, Barismo, and Ritual) -- is now roasting selected coffees of its own at its Brooklyn location. I missed the Kenyan roast, but there still seemed to be an ample supply of this Finca Chichupac selection from Guatemala as well as a Finca Carmen from PanamaEl Salvador at the locally owned chain's Chelsea shop.

An Opinion About Blue Batak

September 28, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Blogging, Coffee!, Social Media

It is a little known fact that coffee improves your objectivity as a journalist. O.K., I'm kidding. I don't believe in "objectivity" and usually avoid the word. It sounds like an impossible God-like standard. Most people who use that term are setting up a straw man. I prefer terms like balance, neutrality, fairness. And conventional newspaper journalism can certainly reach conclusions, so long as they are supported by evidence, and qualified.

Coming Back Around to the Flor Azul

September 13, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Coffee!

This direct-trade variety from Nicaragua was one of the earliest culinary coffees I wrote about on this blog, back in November 2008, when I first started to systematically evaluate the beans I was trying. Back then, I thought I knew a fair amount about coffee, but I really didn't know anything. My knowledge was limited to some basic presumptions I had about the geographic origins of various coffees. I didn't know much about individual growers or roasters. That level of detail was not readily available on the Web or on packaging until this third-wave era of coffee geekery with its focus on elevations, how beans are grown, dried and roasted, and the precise temperature settings on super-expensive coffee-making equipment. It used to be the specifics of coffee bean origins were known only to buyers, tasters and really obsessed fans.

El Balsamo-Quetzaltepec, That's a Mouthful

August 30, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Coffee!, New York

A coffee-obsessed blogger bought three bags of beans at once, one sunny day in August. One of those bags is still nearly full. One is about half-full. And one is completely empty. This is the story of that one, which sits next to my computer, taunting me with a rich, thick aroma of beans that are no more. A couple of weeks ago, I asked what would happen if someone on the quest for a perfect shot of espresso coffee found what he was looking for? The prize-winning Black Cat from Bolivia roasted by Intelligentsia came close. And there have been a few others that I would put on that list. The sweet-tooth yellow Icatu comes to mind. When you can still remember a coffee you had six months ago, either it was good coffee, or you have an uncontrolled obsession. Maybe both.

Late Night, With Wondo Harfusa

May 31, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Coffee!, New York

These days, I seem to be on a musical nostalgia tour. A couple of weeks ago, it was The Dead. Then last night, my wife and I found ourselves in the crowd for They MIght Be Giants at Le Poisson Rouge, on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. The crowd of people in button-downed shirts and khaki was enthusiastic. But it did not have the same energy we recalled from the late 1990s, when the band could fill the Bowery Ballroom, and nerdy fans sat in circles in the line outside singing angst-ridden lyrics they knew by heart. That was long before the band transformed itself a Grammy-winning act for children known for TV and movie theme songs. Anyway, the last thing I did before leaving the apartment was to pull another shot of this coffee, from the Yerga Cheffe region of Ethiopia. It kept me bouncing.

From the Aptly Named Wondo Worka

February 07, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Coffee!

Yes, I'm coffee-blogging again. After ambiguously adequate experiences with single-source beans from Starbucks and Joe the Art of Coffee, I high-tailed it back to my regular source of beans this week.

Several Shots of Finca Santa Isabel's Best

January 17, 2009 by Patrick LaForge in Coffee!

This felt like a long week. A lot of meetings. My daughter had her first round of standardized testing at school. Two reporters I rely on the most at work took some days off. Then a plane ditched in the Hudson. We blogged, twittered, stayed up late. It was the rare big story with a happy ending. Way back on Sunday I had bought this bag of beans and, even before the crash landing, I was making myself three fast espresso shots with the Jura to jolt myself awake each morning before rushing out the door. That did not allow much time for contemplation of how these beans compared to the others I've sampled and written about. Name: Finca Santa Isabel (Rainforest Alliance). Origin: Mountaintop plantation by the above name in Santa Rosa, Guatemala. Roasted: Jan. 6 by Verve Coffee Roasters, Santa Cruz, Calif. Purchased: Jan. 10 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Description: None on the plain brown bag. But this Cup of Excellence entry described a related batch as solid, well-balanced, with good acidity, clean and sweet. The Pour: This morning, with a small amount of the bag left, I took the time to savor a shot for the first time this week. A nice layer of crema on top. My impressions from the week are confirmed: a full-bodied, tasty shot. No fruity flavors. Not overpowering. No bite or unpleasant aftertaste. Pleasant. Probably what most people would think of when you say coffee. It reminds me of the Poker Face Espresso, a blend that also had some Guatemalan beans, as well as the serviceable Heartbreaker.

According to this account, the beans -- principally Canturra and Catuai, both from the Arabica coffee family -- are grown in volcanic soil in the ideal climate, then hand-sorted a couple of times in a water process before being sun-dried on special patios. Mmmm, sounds crafty. Then there's the "innovative two-step fermentation, which results in a smoother, cleaner cup." I don't know that I buy into much coffee hype, but they do seem to be doing something right. I'm still looking for something a little richer and smoother, in my quest for an ideal cup. I also wonder if the longer delay from the roasting to my cup has had any effect.

I'm probably going to miss it when I turn to the Rwandan beans that I also bought last Sunday. That bag remains sealed in a cool place, but the bag promises a "cider currant" flavor. What was I thinking? I'll stick with the Finca Santa Rosa today and try that tomorrow.