I love the Vacuum Pot. I love the clarity of the brew, and for certain coffees, it is the best way, I think, to make coffee, bringing out certain nuances that in other methods become lost.
But there’s a downside. It can easily bring a feeling that it is more science experiment than sensual esperience… enter the Syphon Project from Jacob Forrest. I close up, even emotional view of the meticulous process of making syphon coffee. he gorgeously shot the entire process close-up. Just watch…
The Syphon Project from Jacob Forrest on Vimeo.
Grower: Oscar & Olga Mendez
Farm: Finca Genesis
Origin/Region: Lourdes de Naranjo, Costa Rica
Processing: Miel
Description
Crisp, clear jasmine and cane sugar aromatics dart among light nuts and sunflower seeds. Slight bodied, with a gentle, but substantial finish. The structure is a bit like what I imagine something built a group of Dozers would be: crisp, ordered, layered, almost airy, but sweet and compelling; a crisp spiny fruity tang that sits neat with the basic structure. Brisk apple (braeburn, fuji) and grape skin.
Grower: Maximino Gutierrez
Farm: Finca Florestales
Origin/Region: Tolimo, Columbia
Processing: Wet Process Varietal: Caturra
Description
For years, I’ve cupped past Columbian coffees – not because they haven’t been good, some have been excellent, but because I only keep a relatively small selection of coffees at any one time and they have lacked a distinguishing quality that separated them from the other good and excellent coffees. So I bought other coffees.
But this one, grown by Maximino Gutierrez, is different than that. Possibly because it so cleanly caught my memory of first drinking good coffee. There’s a peculiar, subtle coffee-ness in it that encourages its flavors gently on the palete. Nuts – pistachio in particular – bring a buttery sweetness, tentatively salty, floated by sweet rose aromatics. This isn’t the more boastfully acidulous and structured coffees that I normally gravitate towards, but more like gracefully balanced Rwandan.
Lot: (Aged) Peaberry ’07 Crop
Origin: Lintong, Sumatra
Processing: Aged (’07 Crop) Varietal: ?
Description
This’ll lower you into the soil, and wrap you with loamy goodness. Carefully stored for the past 3 years to develop a pretty unique coffee, it’s earthy, deeply peppered with woody cardamon, burnt caramel and brown sugar. It’s intense and lovely all at the same time. Aged coffees are a treat for me that hasn’t been much available for several years and am pretty excited about this little bit. Quite a treat for those who love the deeper, richer coffees.
*Limited availability
Grower: Duhingekawa Women’s Coop
Origin: Rushashi, Rwanda
Processing: Wet Process Varietal: Bourbon
Description
Here is one of those seasonally appropriate coffees, perfect as sun begins creeping around the clouds… earlier and earlier till you’re actually waking up sun sunlight. A touch of moist chill hangs still, but it’s a hopeful moment, where the comfort in the evenness of pralines and hazelnut flavors balance almost exactly with the highly structured, acidulous, tart-like sweetness. Jazz apples at their peak. White Peaches. This isn’t a dance of complexity, but rather a perfect arrangement of what is great about having both natures in a coffee. It wakes you up gently, but with purpose. And that’s what I am loving about this coffee. It’s gentle, exacting. An easy-going perfectionist.
Additional Notes
The Abakundakawa Cooperative mills coffee at the Rushahsi washing station. This particular lot is separated by the Duhingekawa Women’s Group.
Grower: Haille Gebre
Lot: ‘Maduro’
Origin: Guji, Sidamo, Ethiopia (Organic)
Processing: Dry Process Varietal: Heirloom varietals
Description
I was listening to Spanish Guitarist Federico Aubele a few nights ago, and it struck me then that this was the tension that I feel in this coffee. There is unboasting beauty, subtle and mellow, but there’s also a sense of urgency that weaves through it… From the dry ground coffee, there’s clear, fresh cacao powder aromatics leaping forward. You’d think it should keep on and build on that intensity, but begin steeping, and the aroma turns more mellow, more like buttered toast. Sip, and the rich spices like clove, ceylon cinnamon, and a bit of mace makes is seem Mediterranean. Then pops the ripe huckleberries and fruit – a sweet cantaloupe-like richness, with plum and fully ripe stone fruit. Butterscotch, agave syrup follow close on the tails of everything else.For so much fruit, the acidity is well integrated by easily distinct flavors that finish proud and strong.
Additional Notes
Located in a remote area of the Sidamo district called Shakisso, on the Guji zone, largely known for large gold mines – an area of open conflict between growers and miners [what is the nature of this, history?]. For this lot, Haille Gebre has overseen the harvesting of only crimson-purple cherries, deeper than the typically red ripe indications – likely the impetus for the moniker ‘Maduro’ or Mature.
The daily rhythm of grinding for the press in anticipation of thick, rich, and even chewy, coffee has given way – perhaps because of possibly because of these endlessly recurring spring rains – to a strong desire for the cleanliness and clarity of a finer grind and a glass filter. This is a place where the discernment of favors and the aromatic nuances drift more like maple tree propellers falling through cloudless, bright sun than forcing themselves up through fine loam.
Certainly, there are beauties in both methods, of course. The press pot is wonderful for those mornings where the winter rain or snow is hanging heavily over the edge of the roof just as the late morning sun is warming it into an even heavier slop… in those moments, I need a coffee that can withstand the slushy plop as it slips over the gutter onto the front stoop. But when the desire for spring and summer rolls around, the feeling I want in the morning is fresh liveliness… and it’s the vac pot that can deliver.
Here is an acknowledgment that coffee, very much like all other agricultural (seasonal) products, are the result of keen human endeavors. That the distance between consumers and producers has obscured any clear appreciation of the stories it takes to bring anything of quality to the world.
It’s a call to slow your pace and appreciate where your morning ritual has come from, who it has come from, and take into account it’s place in the world.
You can find out more at the links below.
Slow Coffee
The Institute of Slowness
Kudos to 1000 Faces Coffee. It’s awesome to see this sort of involvement in coffee culture.
It’s been a super full week – taxes and other things – so it’s been difficult to make up some shortfall from Sunday’s roasting. So this morning pulled out a bit of the Aged Sumatra that I roasted a week and a half ago… this coffee has legs. Although it doesn’t have the freshness that it did a week ago, it hasn’t lost it’s depth either. Very very nice.
Aged. First cupping of a three year old coffee and I’m so happy with it. After a week of cupping good and decent coffees, with only one or two standouts, this one is a clear choice for me.
Intense, thick, pepper and spice – cardomon, brown sugar, burnt caramel, and a deep woody-earthy dry-chocolate base.
The roast could be brought a slight bit more – just touching second crack – to bring the caramelization out more, but other than that I am happy with the balance.
Be sure to give it 3 days rest.
Oh, and it lingers.
