I have so much damn coffee now.
Gesha flight has arrived from Apollon, needs to rest another 2 weeks.
S&W orders have arrived. One I’ll probably start brewing with tomorrow and the other I’ll rest about a month.
Thanks for the recs!
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I’m not sure if it’s even possible to get the good stuff. I’d imagine that pretty much all of the best coffee produced there is exported green and what you’ll mostly be facing is touristy trap stuff like Cafe Britt. Unless, of course, you’re planning on contacting Hacienda La Minita or a similar specialty estate and traveling 90 minutes south of San Jose, but I’m pretty sure that’s not on your itinerary.
Taste results are in…
PTC: 
Thiourea: 
(extremely mild though)
Sodium Benzoate: 
(seemed faintly sweeter than control paper)
Pretty sure I could get them blind most of the time, but it’s so faint that I wouldn’t have known that it wasn’t just a slightly different kind of paper as opposed to a chemical. That means definitely not a super taster homozygote, probably a heterozygote with a mild tasting phenotype. I was able to test my parents this weekend and my dad couldn’t taste it at all, but my mom is a super taster that made some terrible faces and said PTC and thiourea are two of the most disgusting things she’s ever tasted.
I need to order some of those tiny Zip-Loc bags to put the papers in before I start shipping out to people.
Thanks. Unfortunately I’m not surprised. Guess I’ll focus my taste buds on rainforest fruits.
What is your itinerary? I might have found you some cafes worth hitting. Their version of Starbucks is called Cafe Britt which you’ll most likely encounter. It’s a trap because it’s all dark roasts with huge markups for coffee that probably costs $2/lb or less. Here are a few places that are gonna be better if you can get to them:
It’s owned by a two-time national barista champion who represented CR at the WBC. She’s from a coffee family and is heavily involved from bean to cup. I found her on the Cup of Excellence website where she (as a farm / producer) has multiple high scores including a gesha that broke 90, which is very high on COE. Usually 91 is about the top score:
This farm is owned by Maria Auxiliadora Bonilla Solis who is also co-owner of the Don Mayo Mill.
Not too far away is this place, another farm/producer with a customer-facing cafe in Heredia. They’ve also placed highly in COE. Looks like they have some amazing food there too.
https://www.cafebrumasdelzurqui.cr/en
If you’re heading further south into the actual coffee-producing regions, this cafe seems to get praise (formerly known as Mutute):
This is another farm to cup cafe and translating that page basically spells out the exact problem I was saying:
In Costa Rica our clients have the opportunity to taste and buy a true export coffee origin 100% Tarrazú.
Really seems like what they’re saying here is that this is the real stuff that usually gets exported to these other rich countries listed above, not the fake stuff you’ll get at Cafe Britt. Their menu is legit, especially the filter section. They will brew you a filter coffee in your choice of Chemex, French press, Aeropress, V60, “blasted,” siphon, and Vandal (whatever that is). Their V60 is ₡1850 or $2.99.
Thanks for this. We’re generally further northwest (we fly into Liberia), but we have enough time that I think we can possibly swing south for one of these. Otherwise our main stays are in the La Fortuna and Tamarindo areas.
I’ll take a look. Might not hurt to shoot one of those places an email and ask them where the good coffee is in the areas you’re visiting.
Yeah, I’ve been overwhelmed with work and haven’t had a chance to be especially proactive but I’ll definitely start hassling people for info once we arrive.
A couple random things I’ve seen today…
Yeah it’s another mystery coffee thing but there’s a discord associated with and there’s plenty of talk beyond mystery coffee.
https://onyxcoffeelab.com/products/2022-coffee-advent-calendar
Onyx has a coffee advent calendar with unique offerings for 24 days. It’s 2 oz bags, so 48 oz total for $175. That’s steep imo but the concept is actually amazing and I’d love to be able to get something like this every time I order if the price was under control. One effect I truly believe in is that new coffees really pop more the first time I try them, but then my palate quickly adjusts and I don’t get as much of an “oh wow” factor after a few brews.
I’ve seen a lot of talk about regrinding before, mostly for espresso and not really for filter coffee. Cliffs are that it increases fines and reduces boulders, and BH found in that article above that their shots were better regrinding, an apparent paradox given the grind distributions and extractions. I might try this for filter since I have an oddball grinder that is amazing in the coarse range, but with the adjustment that I remove as many fines as possible before the regrind.
There’s a completely different concept in that Hoffmann video which is something I’ve been experimenting with lately, and that’s the feed rate. I read something where guy claimed his Fuji was more consistent only feeding X amount coffee at a time, and that too much “overwhelmed” the grinder and produced more inconsistent results. Only problem is controlling that rate on the Fuji isn’t simple–I’m currently doing it by hand, slowly opening the shutter in stages, but some kind of funnel would be way more consistent.
Had my first cup of coffee and now on my second cup of tea. Highly recommend David’s Teas. The English breakfast tea is fantastic.
Ever? What was it?
$12/lb Caffe Vita from Costco. The Nanopresso delivered another perfect cup. Also highly recommended.
:obama_notbad:
S&W has a pink bourbon up for $16.95 / lb. for those of you curious to try it at a non insane price.
You probably need to buy two coffees for the shipping to make sense but don’t think you can really go wrong with any of them.
Are you talking about automatic machines? What is your budget?
Few hundred dollars. I don’t want to pay for diminishing returns. Moccamaster looks pretty solid?
Yeah Moccamaster is the only thing I’d recommend if you’re paying that much, and it has more to due with it being an evergreen model that can last for decades with parts / support that won’t get rugged. In terms of price, I think <$260 should be your target with $200 being possible. Don’t forget to buy some white Moccamaster filters because it only comes with a few.
You’ll need to figure out which model you want since there are some subtle differences. Tell me if you need advice on that. The best thing about Moccamaster that really surprised me is that it brews coffee very fast, and it’s because the water reaches temperature almost instantaneously.
As far as cup quality goes, just put your faith in the fact that they pass the SCAA home brewer certification which is more rigorous than you probably realize for hitting extraction yield% and TDS%. See items 4 through 7 here:
http://www.scaa.org/PDF/SCAA_Certification_Req_Home_Brewer.pdf
There’s a little bit of wiggle room for brew hacking depending on which model you get. I have the KBGV Select which has a half-carafe switch (V) that slows the water flow rate. It also has the automatic valve (G), so I pull the carafe at the beginning of the brew to get an immersion bloom going, sort of like using a Clever dripper / Hario Switch. Also removing the basket cover plate should change the thermal profile of the slurry temp slightly.
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