Sunday, July 10, 2022


sidamo, the original coffee

who needs to brush your hair in the morning when you have the chance to cup coffee? especially when the coffee is k.'s ethiopian sidamo. sidamo is said to be the original home of coffee, and the people have tended coffee trees since before 900 c.e., although most credit the yemeni with first growing coffee for commerce. ukers says that early ethiopians blended coffee cherries with tallow into a paste for yummy snacks, as well as fermented them into a wine. devoted readers may recall that when this coffee was a few hours out of the roaster, i happened to toss it into my yoga bag and carry it to my normal vinyasa class. at which point i was surrounded by yoginis (including 2 who are genuine, fearsome-type new york lawyers!) demanding beans. luckily it was after class, so the clamor was pleasant and mellow; the lawyers had fortunately already stowed their shark teeth dentures in their purses. this clearly came about because the sidamo has the purest "fresh coffee" scent i've smelled in a long time. simply mouth-watering. i'm going to declare the roast on this washed, grade 2, euro prep coffee medium-viennese. and after the usual cupping procedure, i'm ready to call this rich, scrumptious coffee. it's a hummingbird. not a standard linglese term i know. but i want to describe how this smooth-bodied sidamo hovers between piquant when hot and tangy when cooler. it darts around the edge between blushingly bright and lightly winey. the fragrance of the dry grounds was all about rose, rose, rose. in fact, i rather felt as if i'd been sent a dozen bulgarian stems, the kind that grow only in one valley on the whole earth. . . the sniff-n-slurp registered unsulphured dry turkish apricot, maple syrup, as well as that subset of the chocolate-y vanilla thing lingle calls "swiss," which reminds me of a delicate créme caramel. sometimes you'll find a lemon/grapefruit/ mandarin/pineapple feeling in ethiopians; or a berry sensation. i myself found roses, apricots, vanilla. who could complain? one roaster of my acquaintance says he thinks of sidamo as mostly a blending coffee. but k's sidamo is a fine coffee on its own: no dramatic citrus; rather an enticing little gift. just as wonderful and romantic as a pair of pearl earrings in a robin's-egg blue box adorned with a wide soft satin white bow. . .   

posted by fortune | 9:58 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments