vietnamese weasel coffee

It's been a while...

It's been a bit, but we've been sampling a few different coffees over the past few weeks.

The standout is one that is almost gone from Intelligentsia, but worth mentioning. If you are near a shop and can grab some, do. You will thank me for it later.

Los Inmortales, El Salvador.

Intelligentsia's selectors and roasters have once again delivered an outstanding bean.

Like previous choices it has a very strong but good smell from opening the bag through grinding and brewing.

The coffee is described by Intelli as being "transparent". I call it smooth. It's mellow with a kind of brown sugar edge throughout the whole experience. It actually develops more flavor as it cools down. For a while it was the only iced coffee offered at the Venice shop. And for good reason. This coffee is almost devoid of bitter, with a slight roasted taste on the back end. No acidity to speak of.

I created Lotto a cold brew of it using the aeropress yesterday, and he said it was mellow.
I'll add my cold brew description as a comment to this entry.

I usually like my coffee hot, when it cools down I add hot water to get it back up to drinking temperature. But on this one I started to drink some that was lukewarm, and I ended up draining the rest of the cup, over half of it, in a few seconds. It was really good.

coffee in a box

so I had lunch with BlahblahBen, MrBill, and DanB today at the food court inside of Mitsuwa of Torrance. As is typical with all food court food, we were overwhelmed by the MSG content of the food. Im not anti-preservative, i just like it in moderation. After lunch, we perused the cold beverage section of the Mitsuwa and found this box. We bought the sugar free version of this. We drank it back at the office with a cup of ice and sugar. It's ok, and it's cold, but it's not something i'd like to sit on my back porch on a hot summer day with. This is the stuff you'd drink if you were going hiking, and needed a caffine and sugar rush. you need plenty of cream and sugar to smooth this puppy out.

Coffee Confidential

On the plane from LAX to Hong Kong, I was perusing the various TV shows they had on demand. They had two episodes of a really cool series on coffee. It tours the world from coffee farms in Africa to drinking different kinds of coffee from Vietnam to Europe as well as barista and cupping competition. It was really cool. Unfortunately, it's only in Cantonese because its a Hong Kong TV show.

Intelligentsia Venice

So Blahblahben, Mr Bill, EspressoFrap and I made a trip out to Intelligentsia Venice a week or so back. The shop is located on Abbot-Kinney road, in the heart of Venice. It's surrounded by hipster botiques and cool cafe's, so we knew that we were in intelligentisa neighborhood. Parking in front of the store was difficult to come by, but fortunately, at Mr Bill's advice, we found plenty of parking in the back. The first pic is of from the rear entrace of the shop.

The layout of this place was a little bit confusing. There were numerous stations from which we can order our coffee from. We didnt know whether where to line up to begin the whole experience. We followed our herd mentality and got at the end of the longest queue that we could see (at the front of the building). Apparently, the pastry display is our starting point (see pic 3). From there, a traffic cop will direct you to the next available barista who will take your order. Since there were 4 of us in our group, we were all served by the same barista. We all had the Kenyan, while blahblahben had the Los Inmortales, El Salvador. They brewed our coffees in the Clover coffee makers (see pic 2), which are now owned by Starbucks. The one downside of the experience was that our barista got blahblahben's order wrong.

Inside the store, they sold their seasonal coffee offerings, of course. But in addition, they also sold various coffee wares: coffee makers, grinders, they even sold the toddy system, which is pretty neat (this is the cold brewing system).

Overall, the experience at Intelligentsia Venice was okay. a little bit confusing in terms of ordering, but coffee was good.

New Coffee Maker

Brewmatic (click here)

Duel of the Ethiopians.

So today we have on one side Intelligentsia's Kurimi, Ethiopa Yirgacheffe, and on the other the Counter Culture Ethiopa, Shakisso-Sidamo.

I did a taste review on the CC a few days ago. Today I have both of them, and will taste test them.

As was mentioned in the comments on the previous tasting, the CC has a very acidic/sour aftertaste that pops up. And it's been consistent. I tried modifying the grind size, the brew time, and the water temperature, and the after taste remained through it all.

The intelligentsia, on the first brew was totally devoid of the acidity of the CC. I'm going to need another cup or two to nail down the best grind/time/temp. The first cup was pretty mellow. All the way through. I think that there is a bit more flavor that can be extracted.

So for now the Intelli is getting the nod, just because I don't have a strong sour taste in my mouth for minutes after drinking it. And the fragrance of the Intelli is also better than the CC.