Tuesday, May 16, 2006


the everyday espresso

woke up this morning and it was frankly autumnal -- gray, chilly, rainy. lower manhattan had vanished in a cloud of oyster-colored fog.

it was beautiful actually. and it inspired me to fire up my italian princess, silvia, to make some of the everyday espresso from yesterday.

got your scaa flavor wheel handy? whaddya mean, you don't have it as a mousepad?

as mentioned yesterday, i'm calling this roast level vienna. i believe the coffee is now 5 days old.

the first thing i'd like to say here is that this espresso is crema central -- it truly does create the espresso porn seen in colin's pic. i pulled the shot as a 30-second triple in a single-spout portafilter, which caused the crema to glob up and actually overflow the sides of spout channel!

putting my demitasse spoon into the cup, the crema and coffee clung tenaciously to the back. i'd call this body buttery, for sure; other people might mistake it for heavy-weight motor oil.

the fragrance of the dry grounds had a heavy roast note, due to the dark color of the coffee, which as long-time readers know is darker that what i usually drink.

the taste of the brew was bitter and pungent (i felt in the center-rear of the tongue), while the aromas in the coffee were decidedly turpeny, warming, and smoky. i think this is great coffee for cappuccino, and i drank it as such without sugar.

the warm and smoke cut nicely through the milk. i also tried a second pull of this as an americano, which didn't work for me.

i think cappuccino is definitely the way to go with sara's coffee! thanks again, sara.

it will be very interesting to see how this coffee develops in a couple of days. . .

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