Monday, August 30, 2004


wheedling works

as devoted readers know, i practiced my wheedling abilities and wa-llah! the rare nepal coffee from gillies arrived. i had thought it would be similar to an indian pearl mountain.

in some ways it superficially is, and in other ways, i was so wrong. as i usually advise, drag out your cupping handbook and scaa flavor wheel, because we're doing the full linglese.

the washed arabica nepal i cupped is a light medium-roast coffee, no oil at all; what some might call a high city roast, but not quite full city.

this round, mild coffee has a light-medium body and a scarce brightness, more than an espresso blend, but not much. i think the variety of this lot is caturra.

the fragrance of the dry grounds struck me a decidedly floral, what some might call tea rose or wintergreen. when slurped, i was struck by 2 unusual flavors: a sweet nuttiness, like roasted cashews and a cereal maltiness that i related to kasha.

this last i had never experienced in any coffee before. i talked to don schoenholt about this.

he didn't feel kasha was a good descriptor; he preferred cabbge-y, as in that taste you get when you chew grated sweet cabbage for a long time. further, instead of cashew, he preferred brazil nut.

but we agree there's a distinctive nuttiness that's not the usual almond, walnut, hazelnut, etc. you generally experience in many more common coffees.

i dislike cabbage, so that didn't work for me, personally. we're still talking this particular note through. . . .

i first tried this coffee in the vac pot, and that was an error. it completely lost its body. no good.

the nepal is better in a cafetiére (a.k.a. french press). with a tablespoon of light cream and a pinch of brown sugar, it gains a more vanilla syrup-like aftertaste.

a distinctive and original coffee; extremely interesting. check it out if you're interested in rare origins!

posted by fortune | 8:36 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments