No one who knows Stockholm will be surprised I fell back in love with kaffe & kaka on a family visit there in October. But everyone who knows me will wonder how I fell out with the combo of coffee and cake in the first place. [Read more...]
Krazy for Kaffe & Kaka
6 December 2010 By 3 Comments
Penny University a London shrine to filter coffee
If you want to see a Londoner famous for his temperature control get a little hot and bothered, just tell James Hoffmann in the most noncommittal tone you can muster you thought one of his featured brews from Square Mile Coffee Roasters was “fine” or “okay”. Better still, tell the 2007 World Barista Champion that, upon reflection, you suppose his coffee shop in London’s Shoreditch, Penny University, “fills a hole”.
“Ambivalence,” says Hoffmann, “is a terrible thing”.
Conversely, saying you positively hate his prized Blackburn Estate coffee from Tanzania is likelier than not to make him smile and get his attention. A puritanical shrine to brewed coffee that deprives its would-be disciples of espresso, milk and sugar, Penny University is meant to provoke. And so Hoffmann will take a “definitely hate” over a “sort of like” any day, even if devotion and love are the rightful responses to this groundbreaking, unplugged, pop-up coffee shop. [Read more...]
3 June 2010 By 9 Comments
When is a cappuccino like a blueberry muffin?
Before returning to London from New York I sent this Tweet from El Beit coffee bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (map):
If there’s any doubt the character of a Ethiopia Sidamo can cut through milk, El Beit’s blueberry muffin of a cappuccino ends it.
A few minutes later I received this facebook message from my sister-in-law Sharon Baumgold:
Please forgive my ignorance – how can a cappuccino also be a blueberry muffin?
Fair question. Guess I got a little carried away with myself. But there are aromatic notes suggestive of blueberries within many examples of Ethiopia Sidamo. Hints of black cherry or lemon may also detected. When this Sidamo’s aroma was extracted into a single origin espresso and then combined with the sweetness of beautifully textured steamed milk, the effect reminded me of a blueberry muffin. [Read more...]
19 March 2009 By 3 Comments
