Esperimento Caffe: A Rewarding Coffee Journey

Sorry for being away from this blog for such a long period of time. It has been a busy year working on our home based coffee lab project. The result has been fulfilling, after seeing more and more residents and students of the local community of Kampar, Perak being educated about hand craft specialty coffee, and not to mention the unexpected, overwhelming supports received throughout our lab's 1 whole year of operation in this small neighbourhood, which population is comprised of 99% of university undergraduates. 

Besides the growth of customers base, our equipments and knowledge of coffee grow substantially as well. From last year's CAFFA (Coffee and Art Fringe Festival Asia 2013) to this year's, it has been a complete 1 year cycle of hard work, practice, learning, studying and communicating through coffee. We are grateful to have all the help and guidance by coffee professionals and friends. It has been a rich and rewarding experience and my crew and I are very excited to look forward to the further development of our lab in the near future! Cheers to good coffee, partnership and friends!

Our first version poster

Our second version poster

We started with mini workshop of coffee appreciation

Our first P.O.C (Pour Over Competition) 2013

Charity Drive to aid the Water & Toilet Organization

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Our baker is also our barista

Mini Barista Jam

Late afternoon coffee tasting session: Espresso Lab, One Utama

The afternoon weather was surprisingly chilly that we hardly felt the usual afternoon heat. The collywobbles in my stomach gave me a sudden crave for a perfect, warm cup of coffee. So, we mutually agreed to have our coffee tasting and bonding session at the Espresso Lab, situated in the old wing of One Utama shopping mall.

I joined the queue to place my order right after we reached while the others settled down. We ordered affogato, caffe latte and chemex from a friendly female barista at the counter. As their milk based coffee is served with double shot, we switched the caffe latte into single shot, which we don't want it to be too harsh. For the chemex, they had only the El Salvador beans for this week, so no luck, that was our only choice.

I attentively watched the barista who was preparing the chemex for the brew. He told me that the beans were quite old, so he will use 24 grams of beans to make it up. It was quite satisfying that the barista was really careful in controlling the temperature and grinding the beans, he even let me smell the aroma of the beans before and after grinding it. Turns out this barista was quite skillful compared to the previous ones. He told me about the perfect temperature of water (88-90°C), mass of beans and the taste profile for El Salvador in detail.

The tasting time was kind of awkward as he insisted on staying until I tried the coffee he made. The temperature of the coffee was perfect, and the taste of El Salvador was, no doubt, fruity (slight acidity) with mild sweetness left in the throat after draining the cup. It was a medium- light body cup, and the aftertaste was mild. I, of course, praised the barista for his skillful technique and his care about coffee.

I know I'm quite bias, focusing only on the chemex, so here comes the review about the milk based coffee. The affogato was fantastic, as the espresso was rich and perfect, it blended well with the vanilla ice cream and bits of nuts. The caffe latte was rather too milky for me, it was not really my cup of coffee.

The process of observing the hand brew and talking about coffee was fun. Again, coffee made my day.

The barista brewing the El Salvador, chemex using the Hario Buono long tip kettle.

Urbean: An Unexpected Cup

Our initial plan of visiting the new Espresso Lab outlet at Avenue K turned out to be quite unexpected, with the discovery of a new, cozy looking cafe right beside it. And thanks to the friendly and handsome barista at the counter, Fergus Tighe, and the gorgeous looking cafe owner,  Sher Lynn, we decided to skip Espresso Lab for this time (sorry Espresso Lab :P ).

"Comfortable" is not exactly the best word to describe this cafe. I would prefer the word cozy instead, as it feels like our secret hideout, with our favourite indie tunes, streamed directly from Spotify, on their sleek Retina display Macbook Pro. After taking our first sip on our single shot espresso, we are absolutely in love! The espresso is well extracted, with good crema. The texture of the espresso is, I would say, creamy, with the taste of caramel, chocolate and brown sugar (quite close to what has been described by the barista, as having the taste of "crème caramel, brown sugar, and milk chocolate"). They source their beans from Common Man Coffee Roasters, Singapore, and their house blend is known as 22 Martin, which consist of 66% of Veer Attikan from India and 22% from Don Pepe Estate from Panama. 

At the moment, only cakes and some light pastries could be seen in the cafe. But according to Sher Lynn, the owner of the cafe, in the next few weeks, more food will be included in the menu, like homemade soups, gourmet sandwiches, healthy and innovative salads, and pasta with modern twists. For cakes, their personal favourite would be their red velvet and banana cakes. Those amazing cakes they are serving are made by Tokyo Pastry.

Though we didn't really get to try their pastries, but we both love their coffee and the relaxing ambiance of the cafe. Will definitely drop by again next time!

Location: UC level, Avenue K, just near the exit of the LRT station. (Avenue K is just opposite Suria KLCC).

A special note from the owner: The cafe is connected to Spotify, a music streaming service; so if there are any tunes you would like to hear when you visit the cafe, just let them know.  :)

It's Roasting Time!!!

We were at RAW (Real and Wholesome) again. But this time we were covering about the roasting session. Though we had served numerous cups of coffee during our coffee appreciation workshop, most of our readers and customers have no idea how the coffee beans are roasted. So, since most of you guys haven't witness the process of roasting, we have made a video featuring Susan, the roaster of RAW cafe, roasting a batch of Sumatra Mandheling, right in the cafe itself.

Beans cooling down

Raw beans

A special thanks to Susan for walking me through the whole roasting process

Mandheling espresso

Besides the roasting session, we had also sampled a cup of single origin (Mandheling) espresso expertly brewed by RAW's barista with the state of the art Kees Van der Westen Mirage lever machine. The espresso had a chocolatey and syrupy aftertaste, awesome!

Red Espresso

After enjoying our organic mixed salad, we also sampled a cup of red espresso, made of rooibos tea (caffeine free and antioxidant rich!), brewed the same way as ordinary espresso. It tasted earthy and sweet at the same time, with a hint of slight citrusy). What astonished us was the thick layer of crema like substance on the surface of the red espresso!

This trip was truly meaningful, and we hope our readers would love it the same way we did!

Accidental Encounter of CAFFA

It's coincidence that we ended up at Malaysia first coffee expo. Coffee Art and Fringe Festival Asia (CAFFA) was sponsored by Nescafe, Dankoff, Degayo, Coffex, Soyfresh, Eciatto, etc. Well, since the media has done their job reporting about the event, I will just be describing some of my worthy experience and encounters over there (So, it's gonna be short, lol).

Well, the festival is not quite a large one, with only about two rolls of booths represented by different companies. The first we visited was Dankoff, the leading coffee specialist in Malaysia. They demonstrated pour over method at the counter which attracted quite some customers to try their coffee, they also showcase their classic gold Victoria Arduino Athena lever machine by Nuovo Simonelli. Another booth would be from Barista Guild Asia, coffee education specialist. Their baristas did quite a good aeropress demo and offered SCAE certified courses for coffee lovers who would love to take coffee making as their future career. Their uniforms looks cool too! The other booths we visited were Coffee Stain by Joseph (they served us ice drip coffee, which they had made for 8 hours just for the expo; their senior trainer is super awesome!), Coffex (the macho looking barista served us ristretto with the company's sleek Kees van der Westen Speedster espresso machine, which tasted damn amazing!!!!!), Degayo (they served coffee from Tobing Estate, Aceh, Indonesia), and they did a roasting demo using their home made roaster modified using a hair dryer and baker's oven. And guess who I met?!!! The celebrated coffee blogger and My Espresso Cafe owner, KF Chan!!! I have been a reader of his blog for so long, but this was my first time meeting him in person! I took the opportunity to consult him about his opinion of how a good cup of espresso should be. Okay, let's come back to the booths. Departure Lounge, a well received cafe located right in the Solaris Dutamas, also served us good cappuccino with their milk white SanRemo semi-auto machine and grinder. Next of course, would be my personal favourite, Espresso Lab!!! At the booth, they showed off their Gene Cafe mini roaster, as well as a selection of green beans, which are available for purchase if anyone has a roaster at home. Besides all the local roasters and cafe, the famous Italian "illy" was also there, brewing milk based coffee for people who like their page (took me some time to get into their page using the barista's Samsung smartphone, got distracted by the cup of cappuccino they brewed for me, haha). They were using La Marzocco Strada EP lever machine, which has two cool gear box like lever handle, it even has USB for easy firmware update (to us, their coffee tasted typically illy, with chocolatey and sweet taste, with slight bitterness). As for Eciatto, we don't really fancy their Musetti blend, so didn't really try their coffee.

I guess that's it! There goes my short description of the event. We didn't really had the opportunity to attend any of the coffee talk due to our busy schedule, but we did had 3 espresso, 1 ristretto, 3 cappuccino, 1 caffe latte (done by accident), 1 cup of aeropress, 1 Kalita wave dripper coffee, and 1 clever dripper coffee. Result? Half drunk and heavy headache the next day!!!

LOL, Nescafe is main sponsor??? 

Coffee Experiment: Extraction and Tasting

The day abruptly turned into a meaningful and fascinating one when we decided to brew ourselves a bright cup of joe, using the newly unpacked Ethopia Yirgacheffe beans which were still fresh. The brewing method we used is hand drip, with the Hario V60 dripper and paper filter. Our coffee adventure also includes the long tip kettle that we used to control the water flow which leads to a balanced extraction.

Brewing through drip brew produced a clear cup of coffee, as the sediments are trapped in the paper filter. The technique we used is by circling around the coffee ground slowly and steadily (which is to prevent overflow) and to ensure an even extraction.We tried our best to produce a great cuppa by controlling the temperature of the hot water and observing the bubbles produced attentively when the water is poured. It was absolutely a clean cup of coffee as we observed the color of the extraction that drips slowly into the coffee server.

We settled down when the coffee was served, both anxious to taste the coffee we brewed. We could smell the aroma of coffee around the space as we took the first sip of our coffee. It was considered a bright cup with a fruity (more like citrusy) taste and slight bitterness. We had slices of homemade mooncakes while we slowly drained the cup and talked about coffee with the presence of coffee music that lingered around the atmosphere.

Minutes later, we tried brewing the second extraction of the coffee using a different technique, which is pouring the hot water slowly into the middle of the coffee ground. We must be very patient and observant as we must ensure the water to seep through the coffee ground and paper filter slowly instead of pouring a large amount of hot water non stop. The second extraction was a success too, as it produced a brighter cup which we can hardly taste the bitterness of the coffee. We both concluded that the second extraction tastes more like the coffee produced through the syphon method.

Paper Drip Coffee Experiment

The Mid Autumn Festival is approaching, and we got some good moon cakes from relatives, so we think that it is a good time to unpack our fresh Ethopia Yirgacheffe beans that was bought few days back. The brewing method we used is paper drip / hand drip, with my Hario V60 dripper and paper filter. We also start training with the gorgeous looking long tip kettle. 

The pour over technique we tried was designed by Horiguchi Coffee, from Japan. It is done by circling around coffee ground in slow motion, allowing the ground to immerse in the hot water thoroughly for longer period, thus releasing the original flavour of the beans. The water temperature is approximately 93 degree celsius. 

The extraction is quite successful, and we manage to identify the distinctive fruity taste of the beans. The coffee is quite bright, with upper mid level of acidity, sweet and fruity at the same. There's no bitterness in the coffee. We noticed that it matches the taste of our lotus flavoured moon cake, resulting in a taste of chocolate on our tastebuds. 

Tonight is an amazing night, Happy Mid Autumn Festival peeps!!!