Bloggle

Despite my aspirations I have yet to get my espresso machine — A.K.A. Miss Silvia — tuned up and ready to claim her long-coveted counter space. I suspect my claim of eminent kitchen counter domain is still in the appellate court of domestic bliss, and herself sits as chief justice on that bench. (I remain confident she can be bribed with a well-prepared chocolate cappuccino.)

Meanwhile this presents something of a quandary. I now have two coffees awaiting review that in one way or another demand espresso preparation: one being specifically blended for espresso, and another that I understand really shows its stuff only when pulled as a single-origin shot. What to do?

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I’ve recently written about my new-found appreciation for Colombian coffee — a growing region I’d long written off as an example of style over substance; marketing over matter. The past few weeks I’ve had not only opportunity to eat most of my prior sour words, but also the sweet pleasure of some fine Colombian coffees with which to wash them down. And this one… well, it’s the sweetest yet.

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When we cupped the Colombia First Harvest Cup of Excellence coffees in April, the number 3 lot — La Virginia — wasn’t on the table. It was, at 48 bags of coffee, quite a large offering as as auction lots go, and far more than we could offer through our Special Reserve program. So it seemed only reasonable at the time to not include it in an already large field of coffees. Reasonable, maybe… but a cryin’ shame, ’cause thanks to Andrew Barnett at Ecco Caffe I’ve discovered that the La Virginia is a stunning cup.

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Jason Anderson and Sharon Grossman, husband and wife co-proprietors of Coffee Emergency, launched into the specialty coffee trade a scant two years ago and quickly made a splash. Code Brown — their signature espresso blend — wowed the Coffee Geek espressorati; no mean feat, that. It’s all the more remarkable given the fledgling company was still working its way out of the nest… they’d just revved up a mobile espresso van and were still roasting their coffee in tiny batches on a gas grill. (Something not altogether unlike like this.)

I get the impression that these folks haven’t let their early success go to their head. Their web site is spare and simple; so’s their shop. Just the same, they continue to pile on the accolades, and recently received a whopping 93 from Kenneth Davids for their Colombian Inza Cauca.

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