Bloggle

In which I make some progress… and in so doing change my mind.

I have long asserted that I don’t much care to assign numbers to coffee, and for a host of reasons. First among these is that origin coffee is altogether unique stuff. It speaks of where it was grown — lush cloudforests filled with exotic birdsong to treacherously steep volcanic slopes to shade-dappled hills above vast, beast-covered plains. Its flavors and aromas reflect the soil, the rain, the sun and the care of its grower.

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From two years ago today in Bloggle’s wayback archive…

For her morning cup, herself brewed some of Green Mountain’s Wild Mountain Blueberry, which as flavored coffees go, doesn’t suck. This is not faint praise, but my own inner struggle with flavored coffees. [Yes, I know folks have been flavoring beans since time began… but too many flavored coffees strike me as so much potpourri.] And then, herself kind soul that she is brewed some of ye ol’ Mocha Java of Yore for my to-go cup.

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“You’ve already won me over-in spite of me. So don’t be alarmed if I fall head over feet. And don’t be surprised if I love you for all that you are. I couldn’t help it — it’s all your fault.”
– Alanis Morissette

I’m back at the roaster after too long away, working my way through a care package just arrived from Sweet Maria’s. First on my roast list, a dry-processed Ethiopian Sidamo. This bean is Fair Trade Certified and Organic, and it bears a familiar name — Oromia — the same coop that processes the Fair Trade Organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe we roast at Green Mountain.

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I’ll admit some prejudice — not altogether unwarranted — against Colombian coffee. Let’s face it, we’ve *all* been told for years now how Colombian coffee is mountain-grown; that only the ripest beans are picked by Juan Valdez (and his faithful little burro). And even while the Colombian Coffee Federation was feeding us this hugely successful marketing campaign they were rounding up beans from all over and carting them to vast processing mills and creating a single, homogeneous flavor profile. And we consumers were most all of us buying our 100% Colombian coffee — the best coffee in the world, mind you — pre-ground in its little red vacuum-packed can and we were satisfied, perhaps… if a little underwhelmed.

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In celebration of the hottest day of the year so far, here’s a chilly double-dip into the Bloggle wayback pages appropriately entitled, Summer Coolers.

I’ve long been ambivalent of flavored coffees. I tend toward the naturally nuanced flavors of a single-origin cup, or the many-layered flavors of a …

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Time is short. I’m left either to write an unbearably long article that hasn’t enjoyed the sundry benefits of editing (1)… or to take another approach. Let’s call it, review Haiku.

Peet’s Viennese Blend

Mahogany-hued –
While it’s lovingly crafted,
Its finish is lost.

Intelligentsia Coffee’s Nepenthe Organic Blend

Its fragrance beckons,
Distilled, yet sweetly assured.
Like a vintage port.

Boca Java’s Sumatran Sunset

Earthy? No, barnyard…
And not a civet in sight.
Not recommended.

(1) In the vein of Blaise Pascal’s, “I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

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