Monday, September 06, 2004


organic panic!

after spending the morning brushing up on italian coffee culture and its customs, i turned my attention to the third of mark inman's taylor maid espresso blends.

today i had the time to do a proper cupping, but then i realized that since i hadn't cupped the a-go-go or the occidental, it wouldn't be fair to cup just this one. so i sampled it as brewed espresso as i had the others.

once again, i'm going to ask all you readers to arm yourselves with the scaa flavor wheel, your copy of scaa chief ted lingle's cupping handbook, and if possible, your nez du café. i am going to be speaking the great linglese. . .

the espresso "organic panic!" is a shade-grown, certified organic blend. it's not quite as darkly roasted as mark's other blends -- looking at this one with care, instead of being full oil, the beans exhibit large patches of oil.

so i'm calling this high vienna to low espresso, or a dark medium-dark roast. it's important up front to note that this blend, unlike the others, contains robusta.

many people like robusta in their espresso; in general, i do not -- actually i'm rather strongly anti-robusta. however, it is a common addition, esp. in italy.

adding robusta to espresso not only increases its caffeine content, but also changes its properties as a drink. robusta offers a different particle-size distribution than does arabica when ground, which affects how the coffee packs in the portafilter and how it pours.

robusta also increases the crema of the espresso and makes it last longer. another interesting point about robusta is that some claim robusta prefers a slightly different temperature range for brewing than does arabica.

unfortunately however, most robustas are poorly grown and possess negative off-flavors. i have also been told that even high-quality robusta naturally contains more bitter-type compounds than arabica.

a small percentage of high-quality robusta can be added to espresso without harming the flavor noticeably and will offer benefits to the drink's body and crema, its fans say.

the robusta vs. arabica argument is a hot one, and i can't settle it here. i just want to note that the panic! contains robusta and continue with the description. . . .

let's start with the bouquet. the panic! offers a bay leaf or coriander seed fragrance in its dry grounds, along with what i thought was a slight earthy note. i checked this bit of earth against the nez du café to make sure.

when slurped as a brewed espresso, the panic! also presented flavors of black-strap molasses, a turpeny, basalmic thing i'm going to call juniper berry, and a little hint of smoke.

as a dark roast coffee, it does offer a pleasantly pungent bitter taste, like a dark stout. i'm dubbing it more alkaline than creosol.

no doubt the panic is a rich coffee, with an intensely syrupy body, very buttery. it coated the back of demitasse spoon thickly and didn't drip off at all.

as you would expect of a robusta espresso, the crema was thick, dark, and abundant. it nearly overflowed my shot glass and lasted on its own a good 15 mins.!

in this way it reminded me very much of the famed cult espresso, dr. john's josuma coffee malabar gold. except of course the malabar gold has an aged woody quality absent in the panic!

mark inman told me he made this high-octane espresso for his edgy friends who race bicycles as an extreme sport. if you know mark at all, you understand he loves bikes.

if you're a fan of the highly jazzed lavazza super crema and such, you'll definitely prefer the organic panic! it's a superior coffee.

even i found that i could indeed drink this espresso without sugar, which surprised me. . .but the caffeine hit! look out!

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