Sunday, March 26, 2006


excuse the formatting, again

second day in a row i can't log in, so please, for the second day in a
row, do forgive the formatting of this mail-in post. thank you in
advance for your patience, dear readers.

today i began my morning with the delicious, never-fail dancing goat
blend from jessica at batdorf. i've been drinking this coffee for quite
some time now, and feel like i know it very well.

like all coffee blends, scott -- the roastmaster at batdorf -- has to
tweak it from time to time, due to supply issues, or taste issues of the
current coffees on hand, etc. etc. today i particularly thought i
noticed that the coffee seemed a little more blueberry-tasting than
usual.

yummy! that's a good thing! keep that up scott!

long-time readers know i love blue-tasting coffees. . .and citrus
coffees too.

speaking of citrus, let's talk about about the coffee i switched to this
afternoon -- andrew b's prize-winning cup of excellence brazil sao
benedito.

scroll down to friday to see my first take on this wonderful bean. of
course, i had to brew it in the chemex.

and then i had to try it black, as well as with cream and sugar. and
then i had to try it as turkish, which i always drink black.

compared to the french press, i usually grind a littler finer for drip
(the chemex), and a little finer still for the vac pot. for this coffee,
i kept my chemex grind at the same grade i used for the press.

i made this coffee in the chemex at oren's proportion: 2 oz. ground
coffee by weight / 26 oz. water. and i thought it really benefited from
it.

i prefer the sao benedito in the chemex to the press, i really do. at
day 5 with that grind, the coffee had a very beautiful and unusual
character, i thought.

call me crazy, but i really did find a lovely aroma, a floral-citrus
aroma that reminded me very much of a japanese fruit called yuzu.

check out wikipedia if you're not familiar with yuzu -- i know it only
from the floral scent. how so?

it's the perfume used to scent the brand of japanese hair products of
which i'm so fond! (japanese people apparently associate this
flower/fruit with cleanliness, purity, and good luck, which is why they
use it in many body products.)

when i first caught this in the coffee, i had to stop myself to make
sure i wasn't smelling my own hair. but no, i think this floral-citrus
thing is in the coffee; it's like a mandarin orange but flowery.

after coming back from yoga, after i made this week's pizza sauce, i
brewed some up turkish.
and surprisingly, it made a very nice turkish cup as well.

i say surprising, because i generally think wine-y coffees like harrars
or yemens make the best turkish. but this brazil was fabulous too.

of course turkish coffee is ground very fine -- and the citrus scent was
easily detectable as i was grinding it. while of course i wouldn't
recommend using such a spectacular coffee only for turkish, i was really
happy at what a great cup it made.

i just love this floral, citrus, roasted-almond coffee. i can see why it
cupped so highly at the competition!

the chemex gave it a lovely body too, almost as nice as the press did on
friday.i would definitely call this a medium-thick coffee, a very light
syrup, that clings to the back of the demitasse spoon for an instant
before it pools to fall in glistening, perfect drops.

a great coffee, highly recommended. tomorrow i'll make it in the vac
pot. . .

posted by fortune | 3:43 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 2 comments