February/March 2021 Newsletter
We're lucky to be living in Australia during these tumultuous times. It appears we've come through the pandemic relatively unscathed compared to most of the world…
We're lucky to be living in Australia during these tumultuous times. It appears we've come through the pandemic relatively unscathed compared to most of the world, and if we can avoid various levels of government lapsing into stupidity this state should continue.
Living as we do on an island continent at the bottom of the world definitely has its advantages, but it does come with a few downsides. The major one is that anything we can't grow or make ourselves has to be shipped in, usually by sea. And right now, sea freight has become both more expensive and less reliable, at the same time as importers try to catch up with inventories run down during the pandemic.
This has lead to an industry wide shortage of green beans. In the effort to rebuild stocks, the local importers are tending to concentrate more on the "bread and butter" bulk beans and less on the more rarefied high end green coffees. Great for roasters who mostly sell to supermarkets and cafes, painful for specialty roasters like us.
Which leads me to yet another substitution on our list of beans. For at least the next few months there will be no more Ethiopian Harar. We will be replacing the Harar with the somewhat more refined (and more expensive) Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Dry Process Grade 3, but won't be increasing our selling price. As I said in the brief January newsletter, these replacements are just something we'll have to get used to.
As I also said in January, I've been mining the stocks of local green coffee supporters for undiscovered gems, and I've managed to find a beauty! Harking back to the September 2020 newsletter when I discussed the various methods of processing coffee cherries to enhance the ultimate flavours of the beans, this month's special coffee is the first coffee we've seen processed by carbonic maceration.
The process was originally developed for wine making. Instead of adding a yeast inoculate to the grape juice after crushing, whole grapes were placed in a sealed vessel under a blanket of carbon dioxide (the "carbonic" or "anaerobic" bit) and fermented from the inside out. A similar process is used for coffee cherries (with added water). Since the fermentation process uses enzymes rather than yeast it doesn't consume the natural sugars, resulting in increased sweetness and body and reduced tannins and bitterness.
The other distinguishing feature of this coffee is that it's the Pacas varietal, a Bourbon offshoot noted for its rich flavour. The coffee is the Honduras San Vincente Evin Moreno Anaerobic Washed Arabica V.Pacas, abbreviated to:
$68.00/kg
This is the sweetest coffee I have ever tasted. It starts with an immediate Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar) front palate note through to a caramel mid palate and finishes with a strong creamy malt and molasses body. I would score it an easy 89. The only reason it would not rate higher is the absolute absence of bitters and tannins in the aftertaste, leaving it slightly unbalanced towards the sweeter side.
Finally a quick reminder that we're now running a "real time" stock control system, accurate to 250g. When we run out of a coffee you can get a situation where you can order 1x 250g but not 500g.
Until April
Alan
January 2021 Newsletter - We’re Back!
Right, we're back. Under normal circumstances about half our customers would be away, but this year I suspect at least 90% of you are still at home. So instead of slowly ramping up to full supply levels we'll be going flat out from Monday onwards…
Right, we're back! Under normal circumstances about half our customers would be away, but this year I suspect at least 90% of you are still at home. So instead of slowly ramping up to full supply levels we'll be going flat out from Monday onwards.
One of the major difficulties in the coming year is going to be keeping our current lineup of beans in stock. There are enormous problems with international shipping at present, and sea freight rates have tripled. This has led to extensive disruptions for the local green coffee suppliers and shortages of many critical origins. However, rather than moaning and complaining about beans that are unavailable we'll be upping our cupping rate with whatever we can get our hands on to hopefully uncover some hidden gems.
To that end we now have a new organic coffee: Organic Peru SHB.
Cupping notes are: "Front palate berry acidity, medium body with a cacao and nut finish, well balanced throughout."
The first roast of our new crop Café de Cuba is also now in stock, a bit more intense than the old crop.
It's highly likely you'll see a fair few more changes on our list as the year goes on, not so much the various countries of origin but the plantations and varietals within the countries.
Until February
Alan
November-December 2020 Newsletter
What a year it's been! Now that we are finally out of lockdown I
suspect that we're all looking forward to a happier Yule season..
What a year it's been! Now that we are finally out of lockdown I suspect that we're all looking forward to a happier Yule season.
Australia Post seems to be operating with even longer delivery delays than a couple of months ago, which doesn't bode well for Christmas delivery times. The latest official word from them is that Standard Post should be in the mail by the 12th of December, and Express Post by the 21st of December, if you want it to arrive by the 24th. Based on the delays we are currently seeing I would add another 3 or 4 days in advance of that.
Our own last chance for shipping will be orders placed before 8.30 a.m. Monday 21st December. The usual stock rundown warning applies and we'll be filling the last minute orders with whatever coffees we have left. We'll reopen the order pages on Friday 8th January and begin shipping on Monday 11th January 2021.
One of the unforseen consequences of lockdown is that quite a few people stayed in and bought espresso machines. This in turn has led to me getting a heap of questions about why they weren't getting the results they expected.
Some of the questions were easy to answer, "Use more coffee, use the double basket, yes, you do need to tamp!" but by far the most common answer was "Buy a decent grinder." The hardest thing to answer was "What do you recommend?"
As it turns out, not a lot. Finding a decent espresso grinder which is in stock seems to be a bit of a chore. The basic Sunbeam, Baratza and Lelit grinders are all out of stock. The only grinder I could recommend for immediate purchase was the venerable Rancilio Rocky, not cheap or “cutting edge" but certainly reliable.
Of course, if you have a spare $2000 lying around there are a lot more choices, but for a much more reasonable $300 to $400 I'd buy a basic Lelit, Ascaso, Isomac or Iberital conical. They are all the same grinder under the skin, are incredibly noisy and last forever. If only they were in stock! A decent grinder cures a heap of espresso woes, including too bitter, too sour, not enough crema etc. by enabling easy adjustment of shot doses, times and volumes.
The compostable coffee bags met your approval by 50 to 1. We've received a couple of sample bags and currently have them in the compost bin to see what happens, just so that we can guarantee you're getting value for money if we go ahead with them.
Finally there's our Christmas special coffee:
$68 Per Kilogram
Strong
The full name of this coffee is Ethiopian Guji Uraga Grade 1 Yellow Honey. As such it's a rare example of a coffee which isn't either washed or dry processed, the traditional methods used in Ethiopia.
Honey ("Miel") processing was originally a Central American development, but modern information availability means that coffee farmers the world over are able to tap into interesting ways to improve their coffees. This is the first such coffee from Ethiopia that we've seen.
The result is a spectacular coffee with an intense jasmine and honey aroma, cleansing citric acidity on the front palate followed by a creamy mid-palate body and a milk chocolate aftertaste. I rate it a solid 90, the only one this year.
Have a safe and happy holiday season, we'll be back to you in January.
Alan
Quick October Update
Not a newsletter as such, this is a quick update to let you know of some forced changes and new opportunities.
First, supply chain disruptions mean that we can't get any Kenya AA green coffee for a few months. We’ll be temporarily substituting this in our range with Tanzania AA, which has a similar flavour profile.
My cupping notes versus the Kenya read "Slightly less acidity on the front palate but a fuller body through the middle palate. Aftertaste is less blackcurrant and more pineapple. Overall smooth and quite aromatic."
The next item is something new. We now have access to compostable (as opposed to recyclable) coffee bags in 250g and 500g capacities. These bags will biodegrade in home compost heaps and landfills. The only issue is that they're somewhat expensive, so even when we absorb some of the extra cost it would still add about 50 cents per bag overall. Please let us know if you're interested. If we get enough positive feedback we'll give them a shot.
Australia Post's delivery schedules for Standard Post just keep stretching every day, however Express Post remains a very speedy proposition. Please remember that the reason we need a valid email address with your order is so we can send you both a Tax Invoice (required by law) and a parcel tracking number. This at least means you have some idea of when your coffee will arrive.
Nature VS. Nurture: September - October 2020 Newsletter
Coffee can have variety of flavours, some due to nature and some to nurture…
Coffee can have variety of flavours, some due to nature and some to nurture.
There are at least 900 species of Coffea, but the commercially important ones are Coffea Canephora (Robusta) and Coffea Arabica. On a world scale the dollar value, production and consumption of Arabica exceeds that of Robusta by a third. On a flavour scale there's no competition, Arabica wins outright.
And over 90% of that huge quantity of Arabica coffee is still descended from Baba Budan's original seven seeds. The rest is "Native" coffee grown mostly in Ethiopia and Yemen, although experiments with Ethiopian varietals (e.g. Gesha) are ongoing in most Arabica producing countries. This is as much to introduce more genetic variation as it is to discover the next Gesha.
The Arabica genome is terribly limited. Most of the more disease resistant and higher yielding varietals have been interbred with Robusta, with consequent loss of flavour. The hope is that the addition of wild coffee genes will improve disease resistance, yield and taste, as well as produce new and exciting flavours.
The other way to produce new flavours is to change the way the ripe coffee cherries are processed. Traditional processing in Yemen simply spreads the cherries in a single layer on a flat surface (often a house roof) and lets them dry in the sun. The dried skin and fruit is then husked off the green beans and kept to make a sort of tea, known as qishr or cascara, and the beans are further dried then hand winnowed to remove the parchment layer. This is called Dry or Natural processing. Flavour results are generally "fruity".
All the other processing methods rely on pulping the coffee cherries first to split and remove the skins and some of the sweet gooey fruit, known as mucilage. Spreading the pulped cherries out to dry results in "Pulped Natural" or "Honey/Miel" beans which when fully dry undergo mechanical cleaning and parchment removal. Flavours tend to be intense and sweet.
Fermenting the pulped cherries in water then removing the skin, mucilage and parchment while wet and sun drying the beans is "Giling Basah" processing. This is more or less exclusive to Sumatra, and results in earthy flavours and a heavy body.
Finally there is fully fermenting the cherries so that all the skin and mucilage comes off, drying the beans either with the sun or mechanically, then storing them with the parchment on. The parchment is then removed mechanically. This is "Wet Processing" or "Washing." Flavours tend towards clean, pure coffee taste and higher acidity.
Right now people are experimenting with the fermentation stage by using various types of yeast, or eliminating oxygen (anaerobic fermentation) or fermenting whole un-pulped cherries in sealed vessels (carbonic maceration.) They can get excellent results (as with the yeast fermented Burundi last year) but consistency is a problem. So, instead, this month's special is a "Natural" process coffee.
Until November,
Alan
$60 Per Kilogram
Medium
Shimmering strawberry acidity up front with a medium body and a creamy butter and malt finish.
Fully: Nicaragua SHG* Rancho Alegre - Red Catuai - Natural Arabica
Red Catuai is (via a complex family tree and many mutations) a descendant of the "Seven Seeds".
*SHG = “Strictly High Grown”
Marc’s Notes
I hope everyone’s enjoying this series of more in-depth articles that we’re asking Dad to write. We’ve got several more in the pipeline, but if there’s a particular area of coffee knowledge that you feel needs further exploration, feel free to reach out!
Regarding AusPost shipping - Express Post remains the best way to ensure speedy delivery of your coffee right now, as Standard Post is proving slightly inconsistent when it comes to delivery times (5-21 days based on our July/August data). Read more.
Cheers,
Marc
July-August 2020 Newsletter
Retirement, alas, is not all it's cracked up to be…
Retirement, alas, is not all it's cracked up to be. Or it wouldn't be, if I was actually retired. Instead of floating languidly down a tropical river sipping cocktails with little umbrellas in them, I've been fossicking in cardboard boxes with 30 years accumulation of espresso machine spare parts. And shivering my way through the usual cold Melbourne winter.
Marc and I have got the website and ordering systems up and running, and fairly well tuned. He now wants me to do a series of articles distilling the experience I've gained in 35 years in the coffee industry. Which I wouldn't mind doing, especially if I was writing them while on the deck of the boat floating languidly etc.etc.
Travel restrictions having put paid to that, I've been trying to clear out all the junk that's built up over the years, and rediscovered the jumble of machine spare parts left over when my technician retired. Later this month we'll be putting up a new webpage, initially just with parts for the Lelit PL041 and 042 and the PL53 grinder. These will be, in Real Estate parlance, "priced to sell", but remember that it's a list of bits and pieces rather than a comprehensive supply. The reason it's taking a bit of time to do is including the GST so that we can stay in line with the ATO.
Later on I hope to include a few odds and sods for the Silvia and Rocky, the Lelit PL Plus and the laScala Butterfly, but since most of the stuff is Lelit bits we're starting with them.
Now, onward to some of the "experience" bit. The history of coffee tends to emphasise the spread of coffee in the west, starting with bags of beans left behind when the Turks retreated from the siege of Vienna in 1683. In fact, there was already a thriving coffee culture in Venice (Italy) at this time, and the first licensed Venetian coffee house opened in the same year.
However, coffee and coffee houses were well known in the Islamic world by 1510. Coffee was a popular and profitable product from Cairo in Egypt to Mecca in Arabia to Constantinople in Turkey. That's why coffee growing, production and shipping were limited to Yemen, and the (then) Arabians protected their monopoly jealously.
The monopoly was broken in 1695 when Indian Sufi mystic Baba Budan smuggled out seven seeds following his pilgrimage to Mecca, allegedly in his beard. These were planted outside a temple in Chikmalagur, and there are still coffee plants directly descended from these 1695 plantings, growing in the same area.
Coffee seeds from this area were spread to Indonesia by Dutch traders, and from there became the basis for most of the Arabica coffee grown worldwide. DNA studies indicate that both Typica and Bourbon traits originated from the "seven seeds."
It's only recently that it's been possible to get hold of these heirloom coffees processed in the original way. The introduction of the East India Company and British coffee planters in the early 1800's meant that "native" coffee processing methods were set aside in favour of "modern" washing stations. Unfortunately this didn't do much for the flavour, producing clean but bland coffees mostly used for blending, quite unlike this month's special.
$56 Per Kilogram
Medium
Shimmering sweet acidity with notes of cinnamon and cloves in the middle palate, medium body and a burnt sugar finish.
New Coffee Alert!
To replace our recently retired Organic Ethiopian Sidamo we’ve tracked down another great ACO Certified organic bean for you to try! Introducing the Organic Sumatra Gayo!
To replace our recently retired Organic Ethiopian Sidamo we’ve tracked down another great ACO Certified organic bean for you to try!
$55 Per Kilogram
Strong
Rich and full-bodied, with berry and spice notes through the mid palate and a lingering dark chocolate finish.
This coffee is an ACO Certified Organic product
As with all small-harvest organic coffees, this will be available for as long as we can get it, then it won’t be.
On a side note, we’re a couple weeks into the roll-out of the new website. Is everything working OK for everyone? Are there any features you’d like us to implement? Let us know here.
Until next time,
Marc
A Changing World
Brewing your own coffee at home is almost as easy as using instant coffee, and the end result tastes heaps better…
"The world is changed. ... I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost." With apologies to Tolkien, this is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today. I firmly believe that the economic and social costs of the pandemic will reverberate for the balance of my lifetime.
Many hospitality industry venues such as cafes, bars, restaurants and hotels are currently closed. A lot of them will never reopen. Right now this is shattering supply chains all the way from farm to table. Much of what we eat and drink relies on a continuity of steps from production to consumption, and the retailers at the end point are in lockdown.
The sheer volume of coffee consumed by Australian cafes and restaurants will probably take years to recover, which in turn affects roasters (still in business but hurting) and green coffee importers. Multiply this by the whole world and it starts to look a lot like the oil industry, with the people at the bottom (coffee farmers) suffering from surplus production and lowered prices.
The social effects may take a lot longer to sort themselves out, but I suspect we're going to come out of this in a much more "back to basics" inclined world. In a time of high unemployment and reduced incomes it might be a long while before the $4.50 takeaway Café Latte makes a comeback.
I've certainly picked up a bunch of new customers, many of them new to brewing at home. It looks like my retirement will be somewhat delayed, and my post-retirement celebratory trip is cancelled until further notice. Fortunately my son Marc and his partner have taken over much of the heavy lifting physical portions of my job. What I will be doing as part of the "back to basics" thing is writing a set of "how to brew" guides, starting with plunger brewing.
For those of you who have forgotten, my instructions are:
If possible, use freshly roasted and ground coffee. Grind should be coarser than for filter but not as coarse as for percolator.
Use 10 grams of coffee per 180ml of water. Add the correct amount of coffee to your plunger.
Boil your water. Allow to stand 30 seconds then pour carefully over the coffee. If your coffee is fresh it should bubble and foam up, this is called the Bloom. Depending on the size of your plunger, allow 1-3cm at the top of the plunger so the bloom doesn't overflow during the next step.
Then take a suitable spoon (wooden if you've got a glass jug) and stir for 90 seconds, making sure you submerge all the coffee including the bloom. v) Insert the filter, slide the lid down the shaft, then push the filter about 2cm under the surface.
Wait 30 seconds, then plunge all the way with a slow, steady pressure. If your grind is a bit too fine and you encounter resistance, pull the plunger up 2cm, wait a second, then press down again. Serve immediately.
This month’s special is:
$52 Per Kilogram
Strong
A complex tropical fruit front palate with a smooth sweet mid palate and a long cedar wood smoke & praline finish
And yes, the tasting notes come from Marc, who is more used to tasting whisky than coffee!
The new website should be fully operational sometime this month. There may be a 24 hour period when it's down as we move the domain, but that should be all.
Until July,
Alan
Espresso Roots
It looks like the future of Coffee for Connoisseurs is now assured…
It looks like the future of Coffee for Connoisseurs is now assured.
My son Marcus is already in the beverage industry as a part owner of a bar in Gertrude St. Fitzroy, a Melbourne inner suburb, called "Ends & Means". He and his partner will gradually be taking over the physical running of the coffee business in the next few months, leading up to my official retirement at the end of June.
I'll still be on call for the occasional consultancy but will no longer be involved in the day-to-day running. Marc has considerable form in the coffee business, having first been introduced to it at the age of 3 weeks. Some really long term customers may still remember him sitting up in his high chair clipped on to the end of the counter in our original shop.
There is still a very large heap of form filling, accountancy and legal stuff to wade through but practically speaking most of the daily stuff is now in Marc's hands.
Anyway, during the past month I had an opportunity to taste an "espresso" made on commercial equipment to the recipe set out in the "Systematically Improving Espresso" study, i.e. coarser grind, lower dose, lower pressure, faster extraction.
The resultant drink had good, simple flavour clarity but to me lacked one important espresso attribute, the rich, unctuous body which coats the palate and lingers after the shot. In fact it reminded me more of an Aeropress brew than anything else. It was smooth, mild and inoffensive, and bore absolutely no resemblance to an original Italian espresso.
It's important to remember that espresso was originally just the method used to make caffe, and what we recognise as modern espresso was first produced by Achille Gaggia in 1948 and was called Crema Caffe. Cream coffee referred to the rich layer of crema produced by the spring lever machine invented by Gaggia.
Before this invention "espresso" machines were basically giant moka pots, forcing steam driven boiling water through coffee at low pressure. It was the higher (6 - 9 bar) pressure and 92⁰C temperature achieved by lever machines which extracted and emulsified the oils necessary for crema. The coffee oils also
produced the heavy body and mouth coating flavour.
The popularity of Crema Caffe compared to the bitter, thin, tannic drek made by the older machines was also driven by the Italian palate. We forget that the majority of Italian espresso drinkers were also chain smokers, and their cigarettes were the equivalent of unfiltered Camels or Gauloises. Cue the nuked taste buds. The thick texture and penetrating flavour combined with the tiny drink and low
price to make espresso successful.
The beans used were blends of cheap Brazils, Ethiopian naturals and West African Robustas. Rich flavour, huge body and a certain amount of bitterness (good for the digestion) were appreciated. Sugar was (and still is) added as a matter of course. Subtle hints of fruit, nut or flower were totally ignored, and mostly still are. So-called 3rd, 4th and 5th wave espressos have drifted a long way from the original.
This month's special is one of our most requested of all time:
$60 Per Kilogram
Strong
Our most requested special of all time. Properly Costa Rica Coope Tarrazu Tirra Estate Red Honey. As usual it offers the most intense “pure coffee” flavour experience.
Next newsletter should be May (although there might be a short note before that if we get the website rebuild finished).
Alan
Change Is On The Way
Good news for all those people who've been wondering where their
next (coffee) fix is coming from…
Good news for all those people who've been wondering where their next (coffee) fix is coming from. While I will still be retiring as of 30th June, Coffee for Connoisseurs will continue on for the foreseeable future, under new ownership. There will be more about this in the next newsletter, by which time we hope to have all the annoying accountant and lawyer details settled.
There will of course be changes to follow, among them a site redesign and a reworking of the order pages to bring them up to date for both security and functionality. One change which is already in effect is an alteration to our postage rates, and (for Melbourne customers) the removal of the local courier option.
These changes are not caused by the new ownership, but by external forces. Our local courier company has been taken over by a worldwide firm, and the prepaid satchel service we've used for the last 20 years has been discontinued.
On the upside, Australia Post has changed the weight limits on their parcel post and express post satchels to 5kg, regardless of the satchel size. Our limits are set by how much coffee we can actually fit inside a satchel. For the "small" satchels, this is 1000g. The larger satchels can fit 2500g. The appropriate changes have been made to the order pages, and those customers who regularly order in 500g or 1kg amounts will see their postage costs reduced. For customers used to the courier service, we'll be using up our stock of prepaid satchels but they'll probably be gone by the end of the week.
Another forced change is our Certified Organic bean offering. Organic coffees are as ephemeral as some of our microlot special coffees. As growing conditions, weather, pest and disease problems vary from year to year, so do the available organic beans. Coffee farming is such a chancy endeavour that most farmers will choose having a harvestable crop over maintaining organic certification, so an organic coffee available this year may very well be gone next year.
The special for this month replaces the Organic Honduras Recinos, and is:
Organic Ethiopian Sidamo
$55.00/kg
Soft peach and apple acidity in the front palate with an intense pure coffee taste throughout and a bittersweet finish.
Finally, there's been a fair bit of publicity about a group of Australian scientists and baristas who claim to have worked out the recipe for the "perfect" espresso. And, at the same time, the lowest cost (for the brewer) espresso, in terms of time and raw materials. Having read the study I have some serious doubts about its applicability to real life, but that's probably just me.
I am always wary of any claims of perfection when they relate to the way things taste, because I'm well aware of the way people's tastes differ. I've cupped thousands of coffees over the last 30-plus years and found probably 15 or so that rated a "Wow! Perfect!" and every single one of them tasted different.
At the same time at least one of my fellow cuppers completely disagreed with my assessment at the time, which just goes to show that taste is a very individual thing. I'll be discussing a lot more about the espresso study, the parameters involved and the history of espresso in the April/May newsletter.
Until next time
Alan
November-December 2019 Newsletter
Until next year!
Holiday closing dates will be as follows:
LAST ROAST will be on Wednesday 18th DECEMBER 2019.
LAST SHIPPING DAY & CLOSE will be Friday 20th DECEMBER 2019.
REOPEN on Tuesday 7th JANUARY 2020.
As per our usual practice, customers are reminded that we will be running our stocks of roasted coffee down to zero, and late orders may be filled by whatever coffees are available, not what you actually ordered. This means that we cannot guarantee the contents of orders after Wednesday the 18th, so what you get may be more or less a lucky dip.
Given the usual shipping chaos that engulfs both the post and couriers, early ordering is advised. Based on past years some of the orders shipped on the Friday won't arrive until next year. Also, a reminder that due to the volume of orders we may take a couple of days to roast and ship, instead of our usual next day timeframe.
There won't be a January special coffee but I'll try to organise a brief January newsletter as soon as we're up to speed. As usual at this time of the year, this month's special coffee is meant to be really special. Unlike last year, when my bulk supply of green coffee wasn't up to scratch, this year's special was even better than the sample. I'd easily rate it as a 92, the highest scoring coffee I've seen for a few years.
The Christmas special (available right now!) is Colombian Tres Dragones @ $72.00/kg
It has a powerful upfront strawberry acidity which is balanced by a rich creamy mid palate. The finish is velvety smooth with pronounced chocolate tones.
M-m-mm, strawberries, chocolate and cream, what more could you ask for?
This coffee is one of the very few special lots that fall outside the standard Colombian processing guidelines. Strict laws were passed in the late 1890's in order to regulate the quality of coffees exported from Colombia. Fundamentally, all Colombian coffee for export had to be washed Arabica, with the beans graded according to size.
The reputation for quality and consistency led to Colombian coffee being regarded as the benchmark against which all other coffees were
measured. It also led to the greatest coffee marketing campaign of the 20th Century, Juan Valdez and his donkey, which established Colombian coffee in the minds of American consumers all the way up to the White House.
What makes the Tres Dragones special is that it's a natural, i.e. dry processed Colombian. As with the rest of the world, Colombia has realised that the various methods used to process coffee cherries can lead to big improvements in flavour. (e.g. The Burundi Yeast Fermented.) With commodity coffee prices so depressed, it makes sense to aim for excellent prices for specialty lots, and increase the types and amounts of specialty coffees on offer.
Finally, for those worried about my impending retirement I hope to have more news in the New Year. Have a safe and happy holiday season!
Until next year
Alan
The Christmas special (available right now!) is Colombian Tres Dragones @ $72.00/kg
It has a powerful upfront strawberry acidity which is balanced by a rich creamy mid palate. The finish is velvety smooth with pronounced chocolate tones.
M-m-mm, strawberries, chocolate and cream, what more could you ask for?
This coffee is one of the very few special lots that fall outside the standard Colombian processing guidelines. Strict laws were passed in the late 1890's in order to regulate the quality of coffees exported from Colombia. Fundamentally, all Colombian coffee for export had to be washed Arabica, with the beans graded according to size.
The reputation for quality and consistency led to Colombian coffee being regarded as the benchmark against which all other coffees were measured. It also led to the greatest coffee marketing campaign of the 20th Century, Juan Valdez and his donkey, which established Colombian coffee in the minds of American consumers all the way up to the White House.
What makes the Tres Dragones special is that it's a natural, i.e. dry processed Colombian. As with the rest of the world, Colombia has realised that the various methods used to process coffee cherries can lead to big improvements in flavour. (e.g. The Burundi YeastFermented.) With commodity coffee prices so depressed, it makes sense to aim for excellent prices for specialty lots, and increase the types and amounts of specialty coffees on offer.
Finally, for those worried about my impending retirement I hope to have more news in the New Year. Have a safe and happy holiday season!
Until next year
Alan
And Now The End Is Near...
And now the end is near...and it is…
And now the end is near...and it is. I'll be retiring from Coffee for Connoisseurs at the end of this financial year, that is 30th June 2020 at the latest. That will represent a total of 35 years working in the coffee industry, which I reckon is enough for anyone.
At this point I have no idea of what will be happening with Coffee for Connoisseurs as a business. There have been several "Expressions of Interest" but as yet there have been no concrete proposals for someone else to take over from me. I do guarantee that service will continue as usual up until June, no matter what happens.
As for why I'm retiring, the main reason is simply that I'm old. Lumping 60kg green coffee bags around and standing next to a hot roasting machine on 35 degree days has taken its toll, and I'm well past normal retirement age. Most of my contemporaries in the business are long gone, and in some of the family concerns I'm now dealing with the grandchildren of my original friends.
The coffee industry has also changed. These days about a third of all the "non-soluble" coffee sold in the domestic market is in capsules. Ten years ago that figure was less than 5%.
Based on the current trends, within the next 10 years over half of all the roasted coffee consumed in households will be enclosed in capsules. These trends have affected all facets of the "domestic" coffee markets, from the sales of simple brewers like plungers and moka pots to home espresso machines.
Fortunately for me this revolution came about at the same time as I was ready to start winding down, which allowed me to simplify things down to my current position. In the vein of more simplification, the newsletter will now be bi-monthly instead of monthly. I've been putting out the newsletters for over 20 years now and I really don't have much left to say about coffee. There will still be a special, though, and this one's a beauty.
El Salavador Los Luchadores Pacamara
$55.00/kg
This is a Pacas/Maragogype hybrid. It has a sweet creamy front palate with mild acidity, a toast and butterscotch middle palate and a really smooth soft finish.
Until next time
Alan
American Fake Food
The United States of America has always been at the forefront of the
"Fake Food" movement…
The United States of America has always been at the forefront of the "Fake Food" movement. If you start at "Non-Dairy Creamer", move on through "Cheese Whizz", take a detour through "Dairy Whip" (may contain milk products) in spray cans, you can eventually arrive at those orange plastic slices used as cheese on hamburgers. And that's just the milk aisle.
When you get into the "Snacks" department things can get really strange. There are many so called "Snack Foods" out there that are entirely constructed of starch, salt, synthetic sugars and fats and various texturing and flavouring chemicals ... and the starch and the salt can both be manufactured themselves. Ditto many so-called "Soft Drinks". A stroll down the aisle in most supermarkets, which generally has crunchy deep fried starches on one side and carbonated sweet flavoured water on the other can be quite instructive. Reading the ingredient labels can be a horrifying experience when you know what some of the raw materials are.
Well, now a couple of Americans have invented a synthetic coffee. A Food Chemist, Jarret Stopforth, and an Entrepreneur (covers a multitude of sins) Andy Kleitsch have started a company called Atomo. In their own words, they've produced a coffee substitute made from "dozens of compounds found in food", including caffeine.
From the little that I've seen published so far they've run some impromptu taste tests but have had no formal contacts with recognised coffee industry experts. So there is no real indication of how good or bad the taste, aroma etc. actually is. One thing that is implied but not made explicit is that it is a soluble beverage, that is an instant coffee analogue. Tasting better than instant, or even most American drip coffee, is not a high bar to pass over.
Then there is the whole constructed from chemicals thing. "Scientific Studies" have generally gone from claiming that things directly cause cancer to saying "May increase the risk of cancer by x%", making the studies harder to refute and ensuring the provision of funding for more research. However, I'd give odds that at least one of the chemicals involved would already be known to cause cancer in rats.
I'm pretty sure that if it does turn out to be a success there'll be that other American fixture, the lawyer, queuing up to sue someone as soon as possible. It's the American Way!
The best way to get improved coffee flavour is of course to drink better coffee, which is exactly what this month's special is about. It's the most requested repeat special we have.
Costa Rica Tarrazu Miel
$55.00/kg
The full name is Costa Rica Tarrazu Coopedota R.L. SHB Honey Microlot, and it has the usual magnificent balance of taste and intensity that you expect.
And finally a reminder that we'll be away in August for my late brother-in-law's memorial. When you have 3 brothers, 2 sisters and innumerable spouses, offspring, cousins and other relatives it's a pretty big deal.
We will close down on Friday 9th August and reopen on Monday 26th August. Hopefully this will be the last trip for some time, and at least it won't be spent visiting hospitals. The next newsletter will be in September.
Until then
Alan.
Too Much Coffee From Brazil
Green coffee prices are at a 12 year low, following a bumper crop
year for Brazil…
Green coffee prices are at a 12 year low, following a bumper crop year for Brazil, which is of course the world's biggest coffee producer. The flow-on effect of this is severe problems for the other coffee producing countries around the world. In simple terms, coffee farmers outside Brazil are producing at a loss.
The reason Brazilian farmers can produce so much at such a low cost is their high level of automation. Their plantations are designed for mechanical processing from the subsoil up. Irrigation, soil conditioning and crop spacing are all in place before a tree is planted, and this whole approach flows through to cultivation, picking, processing and shipping.
The 25,000,000 coffee farmers outside Brazil are mostly smallholders, with a few hectares of crop. They are more or less at the mercy of the commodity coffee market. Which is another problem in itself. ALL of the "glut" of coffee is commodity coffee, low to medium quality beans with cupping scores between 70 to 80 points. This market is at the mercy of Futures Traders operating on the New York Board of Trade, speculators who determine world prices without ever touching a green bean.
A small farmer with a crop that is predominantly commodity coffee may choose to just stop growing coffee and convert to another crop, or walk off the farm altogether. Throw in the effects of climate change on crop yields and the extra expenses for fungicides, pesticides and fertilizers and it's a wonder how many persist.
Farmers who have had the intelligence and resources to enter the specialty coffee market are generally doing much better. Outside of Brazil specialty prices have trended upwards rather than falling, as more roasters try to make an impact with better qualiyy coffees. Coffees at the high end of the specialty range, 85 points and up, are getting both more expensive and harder to find as competition for them increases.
Happily for us the lower prices inside Brazil have spread to some of the specialty coffees produced outside the mechanised system. Getting hold of the very best Brazilian coffees is normally an expensive proposition, not least because of the Cup of Excellence auctions pushing up the prices. This month's special is a mutant typica bean first identified in the late 19th century. Its mutant super powers include a particular smooth, rich favour profile, and a super large size. It is, of course
Brazil Maragogype
$66.00/kg
My tasting notes read: "Baking cake aroma, absolutely smooth, full bodied flavour with low to medium acidity, clean, sweet finish."
Maragogype coffee was first discovered near the town of the same name in the Bahia region of Brazil, and that is where this coffee comes from. I've been aware of it for over 30 years but have never been able to get hold of any, until now. After the discovery the varietal was cultivated in Colombia, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico, but with the coffee rust epidemic in 2014 all those sources appear to gone.
This is in fact the first time I've been able to buy a decent Maragogype at any price since early 2015, and once the current price drop is over, I doubt I'll see it again.
Until next month
Alan
April 2019 Newsletter
Apologies for my late return to work…
Apologies for my late return to work. My brother-in-law Eric passed away in late March. He was the first of our generation to die among my and my wife's families. His death meant drastic rearrangement of travel plans and unavoidable delays in returning to Australia. Normally, when I take a break I actually return two or three days beforehand so I can organise roasting and shipping as soon as we reopen. Since we arrived Monday 8th a.m. I'm scrambling to catch up and we'll hopefully be fully back in business by Thursday 11th a.m. Meanwhile, coffees will be up on the order page as fast as I can roast them.
Anyway, since I had a lot of "Hurry up and waiting" to do I managed to acquire a unique "Special" coffee.
For the last 200 or so years "Washed" coffees have been processed by lightly crushing coffee cherries then submerging them in water and allowing them to ferment. The fermentation process loosens the cherry skins and the mucilage that surrounds the actual coffee beans, so that further washing in clean water leaves only the beans.
In a similar fashion to wine grapes, the fermentation relies on the natural wild yeasts present on the cherry skins. And, in a similar fashion to wine grapes, growers have started to experiment with selected yeast strains in order to improve the flavour. The jury is still out on whether controlled fermentation can improve all coffees, but there is no doubt it does make a significant taste difference to some of them.
So, this, and probably next month's special is a Yeast Fermented (YF) coffee, the first I've ever offered.
Burundi YF Kibingo
$66.00/kg
Upfront flavour of spiced bread and orange zest with distinctive fruity acidity and a long sweet finish.
We will be travelling again in August for a couple of weeks to attend a memorial service with the rest of Eric's far-flung family, including several who couldn't organise things in time to get to the funeral.
Until next month
Alan.
December 2018 Newsletter
Holiday closing dates will be as follows…
Holiday closing dates will be as follows:
LAST ROAST will be on Monday 17th DECEMBER 2018.
LAST SHIPPING DAY & CLOSE will be Wednesday 19th DECEMBER 2018.
REOPEN on Tuesday 8th JANUARY 2019.
Goods shipped on the Wednesday may arrive before Christmas, but we wouldn't bet on it. A couple of couriers have suggested that Friday the 14th would be the most practical cut off point, even for Express Post.
As per our usual practice, customers are reminded that we will be running our stocks of roasted coffee down to zero, and late orders may be filled by whatever coffees are available, not what you actually ordered. This means that we cannot guarantee the contents of orders after Monday the 17th. Given the usual shipping chaos that engulfs both the post and couriers, early ordering is advised. Based on past years some of the orders shipped on the Wednesday won't arrive until next year. Also, a reminder that due to the volume of orders we may take a couple of days to roast and ship, instead of our usual next day timeframe.
There won't be a January special coffee but I'll try to organise a brief January newsletter as soon as we're up to speed. As usual at this time of the year, this month's special coffee was meant to be really special. Unfortunately when it arrived it was nowhere near as good as it should have been. The basic flavour structures were all still there but the intensity had evaporated. What was meant to be a 90+ Ethiopian Yirgacheffe now rated 82 to 83.
So, after a bit of a scramble, the Christmas special is
Ethiopian Sidamo Arroressa
$55.00/kg
This coffee is in very much the same category as the original was meant to be. Being a washed and fermented coffee it's less on the "fruity" side and more on the "coffee" side of the taste spectrum, just like a classic Yirgacheffe.
It has a pronounced lemon and chocolate aroma with tingling lemony acidity in the front palate, a creamy mid palate and an intense malt and cocoa finish.
The original green coffee problem is not unknown, if not all that common. There are many possible problems between shipping and arrival, and it may be that, due to unknown factors, the green coffee simply "aged" at a faster than normal rate.
Under ordinary conditions a basic green coffee will gradually lose flavour intensity over time, depending on storage conditions. Some of the more delicate and expensive beans such as Panama Geisha may start to change within less than 6 months. The main problem is always what to do with the coffee that's not up to its original specification.
Fortunately I have an "In-House" solution. My son has recently opened his own bar in Fitzroy, a Melbourne inner city suburb, see www.endsandmeans.com.au
The Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Chelichele will be turned into a concentrated cold extract to make a world's first single origin
Espresso Martini. This is after he created the first clear Espresso Martini for his former employer, see https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4829050/Melbourne-bar- creates-clear-espresso-martini.html so it should be good!
Until next year
Alan
November 2018 Newsletter
This month's newsletter is a bit of a mish-mash of topics. First, there's the sad news that Bialetti SRL, inventors and manufacturers of the original moka pot, are on the verge of bankruptcy. Renato Bialetti invented the octagonal aluminium coffee maker in 1933, in the middle of the Great Depression. In the decades before 9-bar espresso was a thing, it enabled thrifty Italians to produce café quality coffee at home.
The increasing use of capsule machines for fast, convenient espresso has decimated the market for the old fashioned moka pots and domestic espresso machines. At a time when coffee consumption is on the rise, sales of roasted coffee for domestic use have dropped precipitously. All the extra consumption is going into cafes and capsules.
Unfortunately for Bialetti they were more or less a one trick pony, although they did sell over 100 million moka pots. They never really diversified into other areas, and the rapid changes to the market caught up with them.
In the USA the FDA has decided to block the requirement that coffee (beans, ground and brewed) come with cancer warnings in California. I wrote about this in the April 2018 newsletter, and also my opinion of the lawsuit that led to the requirement: "That these lawsuits, which are at heart the attempted and actual legalised extortion of money from large companies, can go ahead and even succeed says a lot about the state of the USA these days."
It seems that someone in the FDA has used a commonsense approach and decided that any unproven potential problems with coffee are outweighed by the proven potential benefits. Now the happy news is that coffee is considered somewhat preventative for dementia, may prevent some cancers and is known to improve liver function. The FDA has stated that "strong and consistent evidence shows that in healthy adults moderate coffee consumption is not associated with an increased risk of major chronic diseases, such as cancer, or premature death, and some evidence suggests that coffee consumption may decrease the risk of certain cancers. The federal government, not California, is the nation's expert on food safety and labelling."
Now on to this month's special, which is very special indeed. One of the flavour attributes of coffee is "Winey", that is, tasting the coffee reminds you of a particular wine. It's a fairly rare attribute, but unusually prominent in this coffee:
Kenya AA Kii
$64.00/kg
The winey analogy is that of an un-oaked chardonnay. This coffee has a dried apricot and almonds aroma, and opens with a distinct white peach acidity. This persists through a complex stone fruit mid palate and a full creamy body to a persistent peach aftertaste.
This is the best Kenyan coffee I have ever tasted (and after 33 years in the business, that's saying quite a bit.) Most Kenyas, including our normal Kenya AA, have a recognisable blackcurrant overtone, and tend to vary along a spectrum of acidity and intensity but with the same basic taste. This one is so out of the box that I couldn't have picked it as a Kenyan in a blind cupping, but is superb anyway.
The only problem is the very limited quantity. I was going to ration it, but with December and our equally excellent Christmas coffee coming up so quickly decided not to.
Until next month
Alan
October 2018 Newsletter
Coffee prices are much in the news lately. Bumper crops in Brazil and Vietnam have driven down coffee futures to 12 year lows. Which is surprising, since even with bumper crops the demand for Arabica beans (which excludes robusta from Vietnam) is only slightly less than the current supply.
What needs to be understood is that coffee futures prices are part of the commodity coffee market, which is based in New York and more or less under the control of half a dozen major companies. Commodities Futures (including coffee) are financial instruments rather than the real goods they are supposed to be based on. There is a similar Exchange for robusta coffees based in London.
The reason that a bumper crop in Brazil can have such a huge effect on prices, even though it only creates a tiny excess in supply, is quality (or the lack of it.) Commodity coffee is just that. The overwhelming majority of green coffee produced each year is pretty average stuff, to put it mildly. It's used to make instant coffee, coffee flavourings, supermarket coffee, coffee pods and capsules and cheap café blends etc.
Its "best" feature is that regardless of where it's produced it more or less all tastes the same, which makes price the only reason to prefer one origin over another. So when there is more coffee for sale than buyers for it, the lowest price always wins.
There is also a market for medium quality coffees with somewhat more distinctive origin characters. The prices for these coffees have historically been based on the "C" (commodity) market price plus a fixed markup. An example would be a generic Colombian coffee priced at "C + $0.50" per pound. When the commodity price drops, so do the prices of these coffees, which are used in the vast majority of commercial espresso blends.
This doesn't mean that the price of a café latte will drop, since the effect on the cost of the coffee per cup would be at most a couple of cents. If you think about it, most cafes pay around $35.00/kg for medium quality blends, for a cost per cup of say 35 cents. A 10% reduction in wholesale price would only mean a 3 cent reduction in cost per cup.
Specialty coffees, the kinds that you the customers drink, are totally unaffected by "C" prices. Demand for specialty beans always exceeds supply, and roasters have to compete to get hold of them. With the growth of the specialty market and more roasters chasing better coffees, the prices are more likely to go up than down. If you take the auction prices of Panama Gesha beans as an example, they have increased every year as more roasters vie for the limited amounts available.
One of the drivers for the "Farmgate" and "Direct Trade" movements is to ensure that the coffee farmers get the bulk of these increased prices, as with this month's special.
Back in July I promised a "spectacular organic coffee" and that's precisely what this month's special is. We're down to the last 10kg of Timor Maubisse green, and this coffee will take the place of the Timor.
Organic Honduras Recinos
$54.00/kg
Front palate orange zest acidity with a smooth body and a nutty chocolate finish.
The full name of this coffee is FLO-Fairtrade Organic Honduras Selin Edgardo Recinos SHG (COCAFELOL) Natural Microlot, in other words organic, Fairtrade and definitely NOT a commodity coffee.
Until next month
Alan
September 2018 Newsletter
I'm back, fit as a fiddle. Admittedly an old fiddle with a battered body, saggy strings and stiff pegs, but still working. My profound thanks to all those that sent me best wishes. During my enforced absence I took the time to catch up with the news of the greater commercial coffee world, since anything was better than the news media frenzy surrounding the latest Canberra coup.
Most of the coffee news was taken up by a series of mergers and acquisitions in Europe and USA by JAB Holdings (see the November 2015 newsletter). They have added many more companies since then, including Krispy Kreme, the doughnut company. Their latest expression of interest was in the gigantic Illy coffee empire, but being a family owned company it wasn't for sale.
Then just last week Coca Cola bought the UK based Costa Coffee chain. Then Nestle also expressed interest in acquiring Illy, should the family ever wish to sell. The indicated price was somewhere north of 1.5 Billion U.S. dollars, or 3 times the current turnover.
What appears to be happening is a giant consolidation at the top end of the coffee food chain. The reasoning behind the consolidation would appear to be the reduction in the amount of coffee directly consumed "at home". This reduction has been more than compensated by the volume of coffee consumed in shops, restaurants and cafes. The overall quantity of coffee consumed per capita worldwide is increasing every year.
So if you want a major share of this market it makes sense to develop a vertical market strategy, integrating purchasing and roasting with end use food and café outlets. It's more or less trying to build the next Starbucks on a world scale by buying up existing well known brands, rather than introducing a new franchise. There's a heap of cash behind the JAB and Coke acquisitions but only time will show how successfully the overall structures turn out. Coke does have experience with Grinders in Australia.
Having sorted the coffee news, the rest of my time was occupied looking for a September monthly special, so without further ado here it is:
Costa Rica Tarrazu Tirra
$58.00/kg
The full description is Costa Rica "SHB" Coope Tarrazu Tirra Estate Natural Microlot - Natural Processed Arabica, and it's a coffee that would have been flat out impossible only 20 years ago.
Back then experiments with the Miel "honey processed" semi washed coffees were in their infancy. All Costa Rican arabica coffees were "washed" to remove skin, pulp and mucilage before being laid out to dry. This prevented moulds and fungi from attacking and ruining the green beans. Learning how to leave the pulp on the beans without encouraging fungal growth in the humid tropical climate was a major advance.
"Natural" coffees where beans are allowed to dry out within the coffee cherry were the province of dry climate producers like Ethiopia, Yemen and Brazil. Producing a "natural" in Costa Rican conditions is a recent development that has resulted in the most intense coffee I've ever tasted from this region.
It has a fruity melon and cherry aroma which translates into a similar front palate, huge mid palate body and flavour and a nice sweet marmalade acidity in the finish, altogether a remarkable coffee.
Until next month
Alan
July 2018 Newsletter
The end of our machine era has arrived. My service tech has retired to sunny Barletta (Italy) and is not missing Melbourne's currently wintry climes at all. I've inherited whatever Rancilio and Lelit etc. spares he had (not many) so if you need a part feel free to enquire. Even if we can't help we can probably suggest a supplier. We won't be doing any repairs or maintenance from now on, but again we may be able to suggest who can help.
You may have noticed that this month's newsletter is quite late. In fact, this is a combined July and August newsletter as I'll be taking a couple of weeks off in August. We'll be closed from MONDAY 6th August until THURSDAY 23rd August. Unfortunately a lifetime of wear & tear has caught up with my right knee and a bit of post operative downtime is recommended. I'll send out a short reminder at the end of this month so that no one forgets.
There won't be an August Newsletter or an August special coffee, so if you fancy something different you'll have to have a shot at this month's special. It's a tiny amount of an experimental lot from India.
Indian Gesha/HBT Cross
$50.00/kg
Subtle front palate lemon acidity melds into mid palate smooth caramels and a long vanilla finish.
The purpose of the cross was to try and combine the Gesha flavours with the disease resistance of Hybrido de Timor. Certainly the fine acidity of the Gesha comes through, but the floral and tea tastes do not, and it's too early to tell about the disease resistance. Still, it's an interesting coffee which rates in the high 80's.
Speaking of health issues, there has been some research released suggesting that 6 cups of coffee a day can help to prolong your life. Personally, I'd take this suggestion with a substantial serving of salt. I believe the research involved to be on a par with that suggesting that tiny amounts of alcohol can cause cancer and/or birth defects. As with fad diets, superfoods and supplements, consuming a lot of anything is unlikely to be good for you.
On the other hand, moderate consumption of some of the pleasurable things in life, like coffee, chocolate and red wine, is certain to improve your outlook if not your health. And a better temperament and reduced stress may in turn lead to a longer life.
In today's newspaper there was an opinion piece by James Le Fanu of the London Telegraph decrying the majority of the "studies" and referring back to a definitive survey of doctors from the late 1950's. The results were clear: smoke over 20 cigarettes a day and you have 25 times more chance of lung cancer. Drink 4 glasses of wine a day and not only live longer but cut your chance of heart attack by over 40%. I suspect moderate coffee (and tea) consumption does aid survival a bit. In my case my morning coffee gives me the alertness and reflexes to survive the freeway and its manic B-Double truck drivers!
There will be a few changes to our list of available coffees in the near future coinciding with the arrivals of new crop beans. In particular we'll be cutting back to one New Guinea bean (the Tungei Peaberry) and towards Christmas we're hoping to get hold of a spectacular organic coffee. Since Java Arabica now seems to be unobtainable the Mocha Java Blend will be discontinued around mid-September (unless I can get some more Java, the Mocha isn't a problem.)
Until September
Alan