This month's cupping of forty-two coffees from seventeen southern California roasters hints at a drama that is currently enlivening the coffee scenes of other American metropolises: Newer, smaller roasting companies that put more focus on medium-roasted small lots of precisely sourced coffees are pressing older, often larger companies that produce darker-roasted versions of more generic origins
SEARCH RESULTS
Yemen Haraaz Supreme
A dry-processed or "natural" coffee, meaning the beans were dried inside the fruit rather than after the fruit has been removed, as is the case with wet-processed or "washed" coffees. Haraz is a celebrated coffee growing region in north-central Yemen, west of the capital of San'a. Although Ethiopia is the botanical home of Coffea arabica, Yemen introduced the beverage to the rest of the world in
North Bird Espresso
Certified organic, this is the "Winter 2010" version of a seasonally changing espresso blend, this time combining coffees from Africa and Indonesia. Based in the San Diego area, Bird Rock Coffee Roasters is a retailer and wholesaler that focuses on organic and socially responsible coffees. Visit www.birdrockcoffee.com or call 858-551-1707 for more information.
Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Harfusa
Certified organically grown. Their tendency to high-toned floral and citrus sweetness has made the wet-processed coffees of the Yirgacheffe region, a lush range of hills in southern Ethiopia, among the world's most distinctive. Based in the San Diego area, Bird Rock Coffee Roasters is a retailer and wholesaler that focuses on organic and socially responsible coffees. Visit www.birdrockcoffee.com
Indonesia Blue Batak Peaberry
Blue Batak is a particularly refined version of the traditional style of fruity, earthy Sumatra coffee. This sample consists entirely of peaberries, a kind of bean that results when the coffee fruit develops only a single, oval bean rather than the usual pair of flat-sided beans. Peaberries produce a somewhat different (often better) cup than normal beans from the same crop, from which they may or
Ethiopia Sidamo Amaro Gayo
Certified organically grown, this coffee is processed with great care by Ethiopia's only female coffee mill owner, Asnakech Thomas, who pays high prices for ripe cherry from smallholders in Ethiopia's Amaro region. This Sidamo appears to be a "natural" or dry-processed, meaning the beans/seeds were dried inside the fruit, producing a flavor profile that is lower-toned with deeper, wine-and
Colombia Las Mingas Micro-Lot – Anival Gomez
La Mingas is a program set up by coffee exporter Virmax Cafe, designed to promote direct trade relationships between quality-minded Colombian coffee growers and importers and roasters in coffee consuming countries. Based in the San Diego area, Bird Rock Coffee Roasters is a retailer and wholesaler that focuses on organic and socially responsible coffees. Visit www.birdrockcoffee.com or call
Exotic Procedures in Far Places: Aged, Monsooned and Luwaked Coffees
This month we review two of the world's more exotic coffee types - monsooned coffees from India and aged coffees from Sumatra - together with the novelty kopi luwak, a coffee famously processed via the digestive tract of a coffee-fruit-eating mammal, and, perhaps understandably given the procedures involved, currently the world's most expensive coffee. Monsooned and aged coffees are both
