I wonder how many times Ken Nye tasted Alphabet City Blend as espresso when he decided to carry it at 9th St Espresso. After all, it’s his own custom blend, so there couldn’t possibly have been anyplace for him to go and try it. And from the “sound of it”: http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/fresh-intelligentsia/ he decided to make the switch before he tried it, and then tasted and tweaked the components of the coffee with Intelligentsia to get to the final product. Sure, an experienced coffee professional will, to a certain extent, be able to translate coffee taste and quality from the cupping table to espresso, but as any good barista will tell you, it takes time living and working with an espresso to get the most out of it.
Alphabet City is currently a blend of two Brazils, a newish American trope. Italians would never recognize a two bean all Brazil blend as espresso: Traditional Italian espresso is generally a blend of beans (usually 3 or more) from different countries. Like the Alphabet City blend, Madcap’s Third Coast espresso blend is also made up of two Brazil’s. Intelligentsia’s Black Cat has been, over the last few years a blend of Brazil’s, with a washed component from another origin to add high notes. The comparison between these three coffees is very interesting.
Alphabet City and Third Coast taste like The Black Cat From Four Years Ago (all capitals, because it’s kind of legendary – people really loved the Black Cat from then, but for all anyone knows, people are going to remember todays’ Black Cat the same way). A lot of big chocolate, with some fruit jam: Third Coast is all grape jelly, while the Alphabet City has a lot of plum on it.
Personally, I have a soft spot for that style of American espresso. Lovely as a ristretto, and as an ultra-micro-mini ristretto (.5-.75oz) it produces a clean, elegant and refined beverage that is full of flavor and syrupy texture. In a cappuccino (I tried it competition style, half a double, and the requisite amount of textured milk), it is sweet with a soft winey character (Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, e.g.).
Our supply of Alphabet city is all gone now, but we will definitely be serving it again.
James who has a knack for making excellent coffee choices recommended we order some of this coffee for the shop to be served both as drip and espresso.
Our reaction to the idea of an Ethiopian Harrar: Hell yes!!! What serious (or seriously pretending) coffee drinker says no to a highly touted Ethiopian. This is coffee from it’s roots, it’s birthplace, and rather than one of those beautiful floral Yirgacheffes we are talking about a Harrar the wild child of Ethiopia. Rustic, earthy, fruity coffee.
The verdict: Excellent. Brewed in a clever this was a rich earthy complex beverage. Milk chocolate and caramel with a slightly nutty quality. It did have some crisp fruity acidity but more to the point all of this complexity was achieved in a very balanced and clean manner with a nice finish. Wow!!! For all those old fashioned coffee drinkers who want a good heavy bodied coffee expressed through the third wave lens this is for you. The fusion of old and new.
A four bean blend (Ethiopia, Panama, Colombia, and Guatemala), this coffee really sparked our imaginations about the range of possibilities in espresso. Smooth bodied with notes of raisins and cherries and a slight touch of caramel it is like drinking a cup of rich fruit where the sugars linger in your mouth.
James pulled us a few shots (short and long) for comparison. As a short 1 oz pour the coffee faired particularly well. A complex profile with a nice full body there was just enough acidity to balance the fruit sugars. While it was probably too concentrated for some people this group tends to like those beyond ristretto shots.
In a more standard 2 oz pour the body was definitely thinner however the fruit had a chance to expand giving a wider spectrum of flavor. In this longer pour the raisins were toned down and we experienced more of the cherry and banana fruits.
Both renditions of the coffee were very impressive and this is certainly a very serious espresso but what was perhaps the most striking to us is how distinctive this blend is. The fruit leather quality in the cup is quite unique and while I would hesitate to use such lofty wine descriptors like opulent I was reminded, as I savored the residual fruit sugar in my mouth, of the sweet grape like California reds such as Pride Mountain Cabernet.
One of the the things that I have thought a lot about as a barista trainer is the difference between extraction and concentration. Extraction is how much of the solubles present in the bean makes it into the cup. Concentration is how many solubles are present in the cup. While these two concepts are related, the relationship is complicated. Bad coffee is often both over-extracted and under-concentrated. Both extraction and concentration have different effects on how taste is perceived.
Over-concentration is rare, but you get it sometimes. If you’ve ever tried to drink correctly made cold-brew before it gets watered for iced coffee, you’ve tasted it. Or rather, you’ve failed to taste much, but then the cup just opens up when you put some water in it. Some say this about Scotch whisky too.
Anyway, we were lucky enough to have Kasey from PT’s Coffee drop by and taste some coffees with us and leave some samples. Currently, we have the Sidamo Ardi Natural roasted for drip and for espresso. So that’s two ways already.
Anyway, one of the owners, Stefan, suggested that he really liked the Ardi natural as a drip, and it was the one of a very few drip coffee that he’d really ever enjoyed – but that the espresso version was just missing something. From my vantage point, it tasted like single origin espresso, and really quite good for a Sidamo as espresso. Anyway, I tried a little experiment. I ran the same shot (as best as I could replicate a shot) but poured it into 3.5 oz of water. Everything immediately opened up. It was delicious. So my favorite way to serve that Ardi Natural? A very tiny Americano.
We have just a little bit of it left, we’ll be serving it in the next couple of days (Sunday or Monday). By the time you get here, we’ll probably be out of the drip. But do try the Ardi Natural Americano.
This has been a long time coming, but I didn’t really want to publicize it until I was altogether sure that it was going to happen. It’s happening, tomorrow, at 7 am at 1644 N Damen. I’m the barista trainer there, and the owners have basically empowered me to do whatever I want to do with the coffee and with the training. So the coffee is going to be as good as I want it to be. And I want really, really good coffee.
Yesterday and today, I had a little training minicamp, where we did the obvious taste everything on the menu, but I also led everyone through a tasting of citrus fruit (navel oranges, tangerines, clementines, mineolas, blood oranges, kumquats, and yuzu juice). With the basic navel orange, I went ahead and cut out some zest and then some pith along with. The exercise was to get everyone to take the taste less for granted, and to start focusing on descriptions. Plus citrus occurs in coffee over and over again, just like chocolate, which we also tasted through. I went through 4 kinds of Scharffen Berger, a 41, 62, 70, & 82 cacao content in order. Chocolate and citrus are nice things to say about how a coffee tastes, but I want the staff to be able to talk more specifically about it. Just when people thought I was being really overly nice to them for the tasting exercises, I made them all put a spoonful of cocoa powder in their mouths. Ew.
But it was worth it, because my trainees are becoming super adventurous about saying what they taste in the coffees, and they’re starting to trust their palettes. One thing that Rick Bayless once said which really stuck with me was that as a chef (or really even as a line cook) the basic function of your job is tasting things over and over again. The way you make sure your coffee (or even your hot potato/cold potato) tastes good is by tasting it. Gasp.
But that’s just it. I need the staff to be confident in their palates because I can’t be there every moment the shop is open. It’s really not hard, it’s just a matter of caring and paying attention. Really!
[reprinted from my personal blog]
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