Tuesday, May 11, 2004


sulawesi, where the people live in ships. . .

despite the fact that k's fresh ethiopian poured its delicious, intoxicating perfume out into the atmosphere so strongly women from my yoga class were begging me to surrender the beans lest they mug me at mat-point, i decided to be fair and review oren's sulawesi today.

it's about 2 or 3 days older than k's sidamo, so i felt i had to get to it while still fresh. i must begin with a disclaimer: i have a long-time, built-in prejudice in favor of sulawesi.

this is the first specialty coffee i ever drank, from peets, made for me by the late zenshin and poet philip whalen. not everyone likes it; many regard it as inferior to the more sophisticated sumatras.

or as a long-time bccy pal remarks: "oh. . . sulawesi? nice island. wasn't there a fad for that in berzerkley in the 70s?" long-time readers can guess that actually i'm rather fond of the charming folk in the old people's republic, not that it's actually like that anymore.

i used to love to go to the park and fly hand-built kites, which were made by a crazed russian with a penchant for pushkin. (i've lost track of him; however, i think you can still find hand-built kites here.)

but back to this "natural" sulawesi toraja, double-picked, grade 1. coffee. focus!

once again, despite my best intentions, life overwhelmed me and i didn't get to formally cup this "full city-plus" coffee in the morning.

nevertheless, this coffee comes out the cafetiére (as per yesterday) an ultra-sweet, mellow, low-brightness coffee (but with perhaps a touch more going on here than yesterday's sumatra), with a voluptuous body. it's naturally so "sticky" that when some drips on the saucer, the cup glues to the plate!

i had to wash 'em in hot water to separate the cup and fit it in the dishwasher. . .

as for the bouquet, this full sulawesi just smelled perfectly like sulawesi, giving me the entire proust-type experience. the dry grounds remind me exactly of thai opal basil.

then the whole caramelly, syrupy, chocolate-y, dutch dark cocoa thing runs over you. . .in fact, i really can't talk about this cup very well.

all i can think of is how the kite looked like a stained glass window in the sky. and the first poem whalen ever read to me:

"THE DILEMMA OF THE OCCASION IS"

She says she's funny-looking
She can't decide on hair nor clothes.
There are too many shoes to wear.
Almost every downtown corner
Displays crippled, sick and dirty people
Beat and tromped on. Others look
For what to look at, watch to see
If they are noticed
Where to spend all this money.

"THAT GUY WAS CHECKING ME OUT!"
______________________________

"SO MUCH FOR YOU, MR BUMF***"

Too many shoes
Those are not the ones.

in the end, i gave up half of the sidamo to my friends the yoginis. as k himself says, "gotta share the wealth."

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