More Coffee

20 APRIL 2006

I'VE GONE A BIT SQUIRRELY because I haven’t been efficient with my coffee bean ordering recently and the Colombia, Cauca Los Sauces, beans that I had delayed ordering and only ordered last week from Massachusetts haven’t arrived in Sherman Oaks, California via Priority Mail yet. So I’ll probably have to go back to using UPS even though Priority Mail can sometimes get my beans here in two days from Massachusetts versus the guaranteed four of UPS. But when Priority Mail goes missing—it’s missing. It's not as trackable as UPS.

I'm down to two days’ worth tops of my BOH (beans on hand), which, it must be said, isn’t my favorite bean anyway. Yes, it’s organic and all and ordering it made me feel righteous; but I just don’t like the taste that much. It’s a blend (do you hear me?) and not the single-orgin type bean that I usually buy. I buy country of origin, single farm, and even micro-lot. So the coffee I've been drinking recently is not the Colombian bean that I order from Massachusetts and certainly not the organic Yirgacheffe Hamma Cooperative bean that I crave but is no longer available and besides it’s $25 a pound.

Maybe the Massachusetts order will arrive today. I’ve placed two more (UPS) orders from Massachusetts in the last few days (Brazil, Daterra and a Roaster’s Choice) just in case the order that I placed last week really is missing.

Yesterday, I was so—what word did I use?—squirrely over the possibility of having NBOH (no beans on hand) that I made an emergency trip to Peet’s in Studio City (I knew better) and asked the young coffee expert what beans he would recommend in that I liked single-origin beans and a light roast. “New Guinea,” he said. “Definitely New Guinea.” Right.

So I went along with his suggestion and bought a pound of New Guinea whole bean without really examining the beans and got the beans home; and, yes, I did now have plenty of BOH (beans on hand) but they were so roasted, so-over roasted, that when I made a cup and tasted it I could not tell if the beans were from New Guinea or New Jersey.

Peet’s equals undifferentiated dark roast. I’m sorry, but it’s true. A nice staff and pleasant surroundings there in Studio City and they do make a fine espresso, but Jesus does Peet’s over-roast! Okay, so it’s not the place across the street that it’s so déclassé to mention with haut café people except that it, Starbucks, has done so much to raise CA (coffee awareness) even while selling so much milk and sugar and glop.

Just listen to me. How did this happen? No, not my coffee bean crisis itself, a matter of inefficiency and cheap red wine, but my talking about it this way? Coffee, coffee beans. Single-origin, country of origin, blends. And making it. I haven't really talked about making my daily cups or (you might want to take a walk) making espresso.

God, do I go on. Catherine will not listen to me anymore about coffee. You know that bit that is seen so much on bad TV with the fingers in the ears and the na-na-na-na and blubbering the lips to drown out whatever the other person is saying? That’s what Cathy does when I start talking about coffee.

Well, I’m sorry; but I’ve always liked good coffee. Hell, my father liked good coffee. In the 1950s in Gadsden, the hell, Alabama, he would grind A&P Eight O’Clock at the store; and then when blade grinders came out he immediately bought one so that he could grind his coffee beans at home. Maybe it was that scent of freshly ground coffee wafting up from our kitchen as I was struggling out of bed and adolescence that has so influenced me.

And my mother liked good coffee. “Jimmie!" (My father was Jimmie.) "Jimmie! Where’s my coffee?” A drag on a Viceroy. “I need my coffee.”

I’ll explore all this genetic coffee business and maybe just some (god help us) plain old genetic business in future entries, and I also want to essay the matter of attempting to find a decent micro-roaster in Los Angeles; but right now I’m calling Massachusetts. See if they can dig up that USPS Priority Mail seventy-five character tracking number. See if my Colombia, Los Sauces has reached Oklahoma yet.###

6 April 2006

WATCH THIS SPACE

I don't mean that literally, that about "watch this space." Think of the dutiful citizens on city streets who have been institutionalized for having followed that dictum. A man standing in a road, looking up at a billboard. The same man, a different man, a woman, looking at the back of a bus bench. "Watch this space."

What I mean is that I wish you a great cup of coffee today and hope for your return to see updates here on future days. I'll post coffeesque—if not Kafkaesque—information here on a somewhat regular basis. Watch this space.

I love coffee. I'm drinking a cup of Colombian as I write. From Terroir Coffee Company. (No, this is not a sponsored site; I receive not one bean.) "Region: Cauca, Los Sauces," the label says. Wonderful coffee.

Another coffee that I've enjoyed came from Sacred Grounds Coffee Company in Arcata, California. That coffee was from Ethiopia: Yirgacheffe, Hamma Cooperative. Organic. A spectacular coffee, unlike any coffee I've ever tasted. And a scent of berries.

Great service, too, from both Terroir and Sacred Grounds.

I've learned how to make a more than decent cup out of following advice offered on the web. There are several great coffee sites out there. Like Sweet Maria's and Coffee Geek and Coffee Review. And out of spending a bit of time here and there over the years and listening to good advice, I have bought a Rancilio Silvia espresso maker and tend to make a good cup of espresso frequently. (I made the cup of espresso that's pictured here and Catherine Roberts Leach made the photograph.) I also have a Rocky Rancilio grinder. Art and science. A pure heart. Patience.

What else? My standard, morning and afternoon, cup of coffee is made with a Chemex Brewer. There's a bit of a trick there too. Art and science. I soak the unbleached filter with hot water before adding the freshly ground coffee. That's to remove the odor and taste of the paper filter. Freshly ground. I use that same Rancilio Rocky grinder for my grinding. The water should not be boiling when it's poured.

I think that I'll stop with that; I'm not an expert. It's better to listen to the boys and girls of the sites above. I love coffee. I should also mention, even mention again, the places where I buy coffee, whole bean. I buy from stores that care about the people who farm coffee and that pay a fair price for their labor. Goodpeople: Sacred Grounds, Intelligentsia and Terroir. Economics and ecology. Same Greek root.

I don't think that I'll apologize for that little bit of etymology. Could be annoying; could be pedantic. I'm sitting here with my coffee—good even when it's cooled—and I enjoy thinking about words. I have a subscription to the Oxford English Dictionary online. It's a little expensive, around three-hundred per year. But well worth it.

Like—you know what's coming—good coffee. I'll try to work in a few more etymologies, over the coming days. As I drink my coffee. And they won't necessarily relate to our beverage either. "Sarcophagus," for example, has its etymology in Greek words meaning "flesh" and "eating." Hope you've had your coffee.

"Posh" did not derive from "port out, starboard home." The OED tells me its origin is obscure. And while I'm at it, the Chinese character for "crisis" is not composed of elements signifying " danger" and "opportunity." And that's from Prof. Victor H. Mair at the University of Pennsylvania.

Watch this space for that kind of information and more about coffee. I'd really like to sit with you at a non-yup coffee bar, where we could have an interesting conversation about all kinds of things. I might mention Coffee Kids to you. It's a non-profit that helps coffee-growing families around the world. I'm wearing their baseball cap as I write.

And one of us, for god's sake, should say something about the further desecration of network news. Katie Couric. Katie. Run it by. Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer, Katie Couric. And don't tell me that I'm sexist. I like Elizabeth Vargas and Gloria Borger, two of the best folks in TV news. Think Gloria had a chance? Of course not. Gloria has an interesting face.

Watch this space. But not literally.###