fshusband (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fshusband) wrote,@ 2008-04-17 10:49:00 |
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mirrors and razorblades
Okay, so my addiction requires ibriks and presses and bialettis rather than mirrors and razorblades, but damn...I found a coffee dealer in Kolonaki called Coffees. Just beans, no liquid coffee, like Starbucks' first couple of stores 25+ years ago.
My favorite growing region for coffee is Ethiopia (with Indonesia a close second, and the rest of East Africa/Arabia right behind that), and they have an Ethiopian coffee. It's roasted to a very light city roast...the chaff is still in a papery form it's so lightly roasted. I thought I'd see how it compares to the SBUX roast of taking the coffee right to the edge of an espresso roast. The SBUX claim is that this unlocks more flavor, burns away all the excess water and such. I'd have to agree. The very light roast of a very good coffee isn't bad as such, at least it isn't sour and bitter like a light roast of average or bad coffee, but there was no flavor. You could tell it was coffee, but the sweet, fruity, lemony, berry-y characteristic of Ethiopian coffees wasn't there.
So what's an addict to do? Well hike the mile and a half or so back to Coffees, get 500 grams of espresso roast to add to the Ethiopian (we'll see if that brings anything out). But while there, I saw that they have a Java with a nice dark roast. Indonesia being my second favorite, I decided to pick up 200 grams of that, too. When I bought the Ethiopian, I picked up a couple hundred grams of finely powdered coffee to make Greek coffee (or Turkish or Albanian, depending on your specific prejudices), and that has been wonderful.
And the cost? Well...$2-3/lb more than you'd pay at Starbucks in the States for whole bean, but competitive with the prices for grocery-store branded coffees here.
Okay, so my addiction requires ibriks and presses and bialettis rather than mirrors and razorblades, but damn...I found a coffee dealer in Kolonaki called Coffees. Just beans, no liquid coffee, like Starbucks' first couple of stores 25+ years ago.
My favorite growing region for coffee is Ethiopia (with Indonesia a close second, and the rest of East Africa/Arabia right behind that), and they have an Ethiopian coffee. It's roasted to a very light city roast...the chaff is still in a papery form it's so lightly roasted. I thought I'd see how it compares to the SBUX roast of taking the coffee right to the edge of an espresso roast. The SBUX claim is that this unlocks more flavor, burns away all the excess water and such. I'd have to agree. The very light roast of a very good coffee isn't bad as such, at least it isn't sour and bitter like a light roast of average or bad coffee, but there was no flavor. You could tell it was coffee, but the sweet, fruity, lemony, berry-y characteristic of Ethiopian coffees wasn't there.
So what's an addict to do? Well hike the mile and a half or so back to Coffees, get 500 grams of espresso roast to add to the Ethiopian (we'll see if that brings anything out). But while there, I saw that they have a Java with a nice dark roast. Indonesia being my second favorite, I decided to pick up 200 grams of that, too. When I bought the Ethiopian, I picked up a couple hundred grams of finely powdered coffee to make Greek coffee (or Turkish or Albanian, depending on your specific prejudices), and that has been wonderful.
And the cost? Well...$2-3/lb more than you'd pay at Starbucks in the States for whole bean, but competitive with the prices for grocery-store branded coffees here.
