mie

i spent some time this week trying to figure out accurate measures for french press brewing. i would be straight out lying if i said that sailing season is coming up soon here in norway. nevertheless, KAFFAs roast master mr b just volunteered to crew this summer on the biggest over night regatta in the world with robert and myself. so far in life, that's about the only time a year i actually delve into french press brewing and the best thing i can say, is that it's freshly brewed coffee. we race. our boat is made for racing. there's no pantry so the only hot meals we can make is what we mix with boiling water while tacking down the oslo fjord. and with the entire quality control - and roasting department of KAFFA supervising, i want to make good coffee times on board. the other reason i'm interested in the fine arts of french press brewing is that i'm obsessing with the paper tainted flavour all filter brewing methods are adding. but the sailing story seemed more fun.

trying to figure out french press, i've watched youtube videos and read about different techniques. after my visits on the west coast in the us of a i am tired of the conundrum : filter brewed awful coffee or top quality coffee french press brewed. my norwegian palate being used to the cleanliness of a filter brew, the french press technique most often used is as far as i've seen "old style" - resulting in a particular unclean mouthfeel and sediments sitting forever and ever adding bitterness and all the coffee oils on the walls of your stolen ritual mug while you eat your bread pudding at tartine. james hoffman, tim wendelboe and other nerds had long discussions about different techniques on their blogs - skimming and / or breaking and then pressing on their blogs and coffeed.

i was pleased to discover how the skimming took away bitterness and the not-so-pleasant mouthfeel. i've also had good luck in pouring water, letting it sit for a minute, stirring and then leave with a lid for three more minutes before skimming (not breaking) and pressing. so today, i spent some time in KAFFAbutikk serving french press brewed guatemala el injerto, pacamara and i even sold a few more bags of coffee. the french press is my newest coffee friend.

during my 10th year in oslo, i have felt that oslove several times: watching the city from the fjord on a quiet summer night after a late swim, and yesterday afternoon: skiing in a winter wonderland. bliss!

back to reality, i've sample roasted the cup of excellence samples from brasil, lots of samples from bahía and minas gerais that's on the cupping table all week. it was a pleasant surprise coming into the lab this afternoon when robert had made a blend out of the naturals from bahía and pulled shots of them. super sweet, but of course you can not cup or drink naturals from brasil without thinking about whether you like the concept or not. a clean cup is for me the most important criteria for natural processed coffees and a nice acidity to balance the sweetness. more about the results after some more cupping later this week.

the roastery is constantly working on the espresso blends, and right now it's the caffe forte blend that's under serious supervision. mr b, the roast master, and the rest of us, are constantly cupping and changing the blends, thinking that the forte blend should be even darker and fuller - it's a blend that has historically consisted of the same coffees as crescendo, but roasted through 2nd crack. however, we have serious plans to change the components and make crescendo (dropped at the crescendo of 2nd crack) even lighter putting more florals and citric notes into it by adding new components. right now forte is a blend of two caturras: panama don pepe (from boquete) and colombia buenos aires (from pitalito), a pacamara from guatemala el injerto (huehuetenango) and a washed ethiopia sidamo processed by adem bedane at kombo (referred to as ethipia sidamo adem kombo). so many things to think about when labeling coffees and most of us have a long way to go to get it right.

it is absolutely no secret that this year has been my best year in coffee so far. i've visited more coffee producing countries, made more friends and developed as a cupper and gained a better understanding of coffee and the trade all in all.

better, i've been part of training more ehtusiastic and skilled baristas (who often seemingly also are messaristas, but we have 2009 to deal with that). java barista håkon placed 2nd in the norwegian bc, kaffa bought josé ordones' entire production of finca buenos aires when there was no coe first harvest in colombia this year. right now, sr ordones is picking and processing only caturras for us. soon, we'll have new crop from colombia arriving - we bought several micro lots through the las mingas project and all of them are amazing coffees. and in vacuum. yay!

the year of vacuum. during the year, i've had lots of discussions about green storage with roasters, exporters, importers and producers. when visiting boquete in panama, casa ruíz generously hosted a cupping where different storing methods was put on the table. air tight, light tight, vacuum, no vacuum, plastic bins...from that cupping, i am sure that light is just as damaging to greens as air.

the year of the b - word. there's been discussions about what a barista should be, or what people should be called if not baristas. i don't know the answer to that question, but i do know that there's some kind of atlantic gap here where i enjoy the idea of the original use of the word - a bartender in italian. and yes, bartenders do work with espresso in italy. however, they are also bar professionals, making drinks, serving food, hosting. i like it, and i like the word. and i don't like changes, but this time, i don't think the sulution is changing the word, but maybe how the people hired as baristas are perfoming in their job. and i got to be the last 2008 cover girl of barista magazine so maybe i am a barista, too.

happy new year. and peace on earth!

long time, no blogging. but i've been busy! i can just as well be honest about my thing for christmas. i love it! when i was 21 i stopped going "home" to my parents for christmas, and since then i've celebrated in many different ways. the most important thing of all for me during these years; there are no rules! first of all, my favorite christmas preparation is cooking rice porridge for all of the incredible java and mocca baristas, and having them over for a small get-together before christmas. there's also this awful rule about that night, no other songs than christmas songs can be played. so no holiday music allowed until then, and after that - it's a mess...this year, i've also snuggled up with friends and family drinking apple gløgg. the traditional scandinavian gløgg is a version of glühwein, red wine spiced up and served wine (see klaus thomsens brilliant blog post post about danish gløgg). apple gløgg includes your best apple juice with different spices. heat slowly and spice even further with a dash of bourbon before serving. you can choose pretty much any spice you like, but classical christmas spices are cloves, ginger and cinnamon. far better than the red wine gløgg. and better for your head the next day.

next step for christmas preparations is to make sure you have fresh flowers in house, candles, and that you will make more cookies than anyone can ever eat up. favorites are ginger bread in different shapes - and a house of ginger bread. every year, i make a kind of white cookies which is very common up north in norway, they're just really sweet and not spicy at all, but i make them because children and my dad loves them. except from these two versions of traditional cookies (you're supposed to make 7 different kinds if you're a true christmas aficionado, but i can assure you neither of the 7 most common ones are very tasty, just old fashioned). so i've got two traditional down and five more explorative to go while i drink up my apple gløgg. this year i'm making biscotti, sarah bernards, honey cake, chocolate cake and a cake called kransekake.

for the 24th, which is the night for food and gifts here in norway, i've been eating pork all my life. with various company of family and friends and various side dishes. it's very common to have rice porridge early on the 24th, which makes sure you're stuffed the rest of the day anyways. this year, i will be celebrating with my parents who serve: tart shells with sea food. rib of pork with potatoes, sauerkraut, gravy, fresh pineapple and dried fruits. almond ice cream with cloudberries for dessert. same procedure as every year. for the years i spent without my parents and still demanding pork ribs - robert has been thinking a lot about doing a fresher version of the pig. with all that fat you really want some acidity to balance it. by the time we got to the 24th, the pig had been swimming in orange juice, cloves, ginger, chili and garlic. one year, we had only a salad with anchovies on the side. what i think is more important than the food in itself, is to remember to bring the hostess champagne, and for all the grease in pork ribs you really need some nice acidity. this year i have a few bottles left of agrapart blanc des blancs 1996 and at least one is reserved for christmas eve. but for back up i have a riesling from nahe, just in case.

java, mocca and kaffa customers (and even colleagues within the coffee business) have been thinking and wondering about christmas coffee for quite some time now. so i ask them, "what kind of coffee would you like to be your christmas coffee?" i won't start a discussion about that now, because i can not think about any roastery i know of who is still doing holiday blends where the content is various coffees of unknown origins. however, the perfect varietal for christmas is pacamara. we have a spicy guatemala el injerto pacamara (the varietal they took 1st place in cup of excellence this year). nice acidity with lots of sweet citric notes, cloves, milk chocolate. and el salvador finca el porvenir (which was judged to a 3rd place in el salvador coe). intense florals in the aroma, but as for the flavor profile - it tastes a lot like hot chocolate. for now, happy holidays. and peace on earth!

a documentary about fair trade was shown on the state channel last night, and debates will follow tonight. finally. you can watch the documentary in norwegian here.


documentary about tea trade. riot in noruega tonight.
this is a previous post about fair trade i wrote a while ago.

years ago, when part of my coffee fascination was about equipment just as much as the coffee in itself - i purchased a beautiful antique vacuum pot in a thrift shop. i started figuring it out just recently - in lieu with my 50s house wife style cake baking. the design is simple and has been done in countless variations. two glass bulbs placed on top of each other - the upper for ground coffee and the lower for water. in addition, the upper bulb has a rubber valve to keep the grounds where they are supposed to be while brewing and after. as water is starting to boil, the pressure forces the water into the upper bulb - it will stay there with the grounds until the pressure falls by the temperature being lowered. the cooling makes the air contract and this creates a vacuum in the lower bulb. coffee is sucked back into the lower chamber and tada! the lower bulb is full of fresh brewed coffee.

now, that's the easy part. and for me it seems like this might be the perfect way of coffee brewing - no paper, only coffee and water together. let the puzzle begin! i started by using some known parameters for brewing - around 50g per liter of water. however, there is always some water left in the lower chamber that will be mixed with the ready brewed coffee. therefore, some over dosing is necessary - around 60g per liter of water has been a better dosage. yes yes, i've only been using KAFFA coffee, and so far i've been experimenting with a pacamara from el salvador finca el porvenir coe # 3. creamy. milk chocolate. orange blossoms. yum. i use the universal grind i've mentioned before - coarser than what most people think of as appropriate for filter brewing, finer than for a french press. after a while it became obvious that the water should be boiled in a kettle and then used in the vacuum pot - i'm too impatient to wait forever for a small glass flame heating the water slowly. too slow! when the water from the lower chamber is pressured into the coffee in the upper chamber, i turn down the gas. the point is to have enough heat to have the residual water simmering, but you also have to keep the brewing coffee in the upper chamber from boiling. i gently stir the coffee into the water, supervises the temperature for 3,5 to 4 minutes and then turn off the gas. the view of the ready brewed coffee pouring down is creating enthusiasm i've never experienced with any filter method. maybe i'm also excited because so far, the results has been somewhat different from brew to brew - but i'm improving the method for every brew i make and that's why i'm still doing it. never perfect. never done.