Soho Espresso "Best of Five" giveaway - Page 2

[miKe mcKoffee]

Thanks Soho for sponsoring this contest. I've enjoyed (or rather am enjoying) both the Black Cat & Paladino. As a long time avid home roaster I likely would never have tried them! This contest may well have served it's advertising purpose for a highly unlikely sector, home roaster me. Won't become a "regular", but just may occasionally pop over to order a couple pounds from another two previously unbeknownst to my palate espresso blends from the many excellent Artisan Roasters around the country.

TIP: Entering will increase your chances of winning.

Whether Dan counts that feable tip towards the final two is yet to be seen. (Of course, I can't win again anyway.)

[HB]

Mike, thanks for helping the inexplicably reticent membership, we finally have five entries. With your two entries and my third, only Henry and Jeremy were left to battle for the prize. Although Jeremy has Henry beat on calories, his makes at least the fourth dessert-related entry, allowing Henry to easily skate by with his "(hopefully) helpful advice".

Congratulations Henry, you are the final Soho Espresso winner! Please contact Andrew Fair to claim your prize. We'll want to hear what you select and what you think of the coffees.

Thanks again to Soho for sponsoring the Best of Five!

[hbuchtel]

Well, whada ya know, Soho is willing to ship the beans all the way over here, in 4-6 days, no less!

This is really great for me. I learned how to roast and make coffee over the internet, and although text and photos work for communicating technique, they fall short when it comes to communicating about another very important aspect of espresso I really don't know what other people are tasting!

I wrote to Vic from Soho about this and he had the following reply-

Since you'd like to sample many espressos, I have a proposal for you. Many of our roasters permit us to repackage their espresso in smaller, 8-ounce packs. ( . . . ) If we can send you five blends, I think your taste buds will be happily calibrated!

Black Cat is a standard among baristas, so I'd recommend it. Caffe D'Arte does Italian-style espresso better than the roasteries in Italy, in my humble opinion, so you can't go wrong with one of either Firenze (Northern Italian, i.e., lighter roast) or Taormina (Southern Italian, i.e., darker roast). If you'd prefer five 8-ounces samples to two 1-pound bags, I'd vary up the growing region of the beans. In particular, I'd add some blends that use lots of African beans and bring out berry notes. I might pick two from: Doma's Ruby (organic), Novo's Tawar Rouge, Thanksgiving's Sidamo, or Zoka's Tangletown. After that, I think you're down to a last sample. Having in mind whether you're drinking with or without milk (some of the descriptions say "great in lattes", for example), flip through the selections from roasters you've never tried, and pick one of their "flagship" or top-rated blends. This is a bit like throwing a dart at a dartboard, but you're not blindfolded, because we've selected only the finest espresso blends from the best roasters. So you'll get something great.

I know I'd have a ton of fun on a Saturday with my machine and samples like these! Maybe some folks at HB would recommend a different slate of five for calibrating your palatte. Coming up with a "tour of espresso" in 5 blends is worth mulling over.

I'm going to take his advice

Black Cat, Caffe D'arte's Firenze and Taormina, Doma- Ruby (blueberries!), Thanksgiving's Sidamo (lemons!).

Boy am I looking forward to getting that package!

Henry

[hbuchtel]

I picked up my package from Soho this morning and the timing couldn't have been better as I just ran out of home-roasted! The package was sent out last week saturday (Oct. 28th). New York to Changsha in 9 days ain't bad!

Here's what I'm looking at-

Thanksgiving Sidamo 10/16
Caffe D'arte Firenze 10/19
Caffe D'arte Taormina 10/19
Intelligentsia Black Cat 10/23
Doma ruby's organic 10/23

I've decided to open one package (sealed w/ one-way valves) at a time to preserve freshness. I'll have less opportunity to compare them side-by-side this way, but on the bright side I'll have enough time to get to know each blend. This might actually be a better way for me to compare the blends as I'll have a deeper impression of each one.

Even though it has a later roast date, the Doma, which came in it's original valve-less bag, is what I've been drinking today. My initial impressions are not as positive as I expected, initial spicy-bitter giving way to a curious 'empty' lingering aftertaste. Very interesting, but where are my blueberries? Any suggestions?

Henry

[HB]

What?!? Apparently I forgot your location when picking the winner. For the record, the contest rules stated:

FINE PRINT: To participate in the above (the "Contest"), you must be at least 18 years old and a U.S. resident of the 48 lower states (due to shipping costs).

It was very generous of Soho Espresso to overlook that oversight!

[sohoespresso]

It was our pleasure to send out the beans. We know how tough it is to find good espresso in China, and it was a fun challenge for us to provide a good sampler of beans. We do international shipping regularly, so there was no problem. Henry - please let us know your thoughts when all the beans have been tried.

[timo888]

Very interesting, but where are my blueberries? Any suggestions?

Slightly finer grind and a higher temp.

Regards
Timo

[hbuchtel]

Thanks again to the guys at Soho and to Dan for his oversight! I'm really appreciating this opportunity.

My shots of Ruby's Organic are now very heavy on the chocolate (baker's chocolate?) as a result (I believe) of a coarser grind. Yesterday I was wondering why my kitchen smelt of chocolate and I traced it to the pucks in the wastebasket!

I am still eager for these blueberries I've heard so much about, will try your suggestion Timo. Picking a brew temp is no problem with a gravity lever you know

Henry

[hbuchtel]

Boy am I learning a lot!

Fer example, the Sidamo from Thanksgiving enjoys being pulled long, it just gets brighter and brighter!

Cafe D'arte's Taormina, on the other hand, I've found easy to overextract. Short and intense seems to be the way to go. The crema looks and feels lovely, but I think it is the robusta component that I'm not really appreciating.

The two coffees above are on opposite ends of the roast spectrum, and I've had to give up dosing by weight as I was accustomed to. Volume is king now.

I'm learning to understand roaster's descriptions as well

A heavy body with a long savory finish. It is sweet and lively with jasmine floral notes and a hint of lemon.

The "lemon" in the Sidamo (for me) is not so much the taste of lemon, but rather the expansive, 'fresh air' feeling that comes with it. I'm not getting much body, but this could be related to the machine/technique I'm using.

[timo888]

Volume is king now.

And temperature is his lovely consort


If you click on this image, you will be shown a high-res image (~800k) so you can see close-up the differences in roast depth:


Intelligentsia Black Cat * Zoka Paladino * Barefoot Redwood

Regards
Timo

[timo888]

I've pulled two shots with the Zoka, both on the Cremina. Both very tasty. The second was a few degrees cooler (can't say how much) and you would never know they came from the same roast. Absolutely different in their tastes.

This makes me want to develop a machine with the smallest possible single shot volume and 1° F. control over brew temperature. Then I can pull three or four shots in a row and drink them all, starting cool and moving up the temperature scale.

Regards
Timo

[hbuchtel]

This makes me want to develop a machine with the smallest possible single shot volume and 1° F. control over brew temperature. Then I can pull three or four shots in a row and drink them all, starting cool and moving up the temperature scale.

That is a cool idea . . . could this be the answer?

Honestly my technique (machine-specific and general) needs to get a lot better (an understatement) before I would appreciate having single digit control over temperature . . . but it is funny to think that a gravity-fed lever offers more control then a GS3!

If nobody minds I'll continue my under-qualified review of the blends I received

I was starting to appreciate the warmth of the Taormina blend (especially in milk) when I ran into the drop-off of the aging process- in the space of one day it went from good to undrinkable! (this was about 10 days after opening the bag). It lost its balance and the spicy(like raw ginger is spicy)-bitter front was overwhelming.

These two days the Black Cat has given me something different each time, but generally it seems very well integrated, with no particular flavors standing out. While in the mouth it is very good and strong, then fades away quite rapidly. Contrasts to the Sidamo (or the Yunnan SO I am used to) which doesn't give such a good first impression but develops and lingers on for ages...

Brings to mind a recent discussion about how in cupping and competitions the aftertaste is often not really evaluated and in some cases treated as something to be gotten rid of via spring water/alcohol/crackers.

Henry

[timo888]

Now that Micro-President is one small shot of espresso :!:
Hard to source o-rings I suspect.

Henry, I'm sure your tastebuds are up to the 1°F challenge. But if you think not, how about 3°? You could run some brewing experiments on your Caravel. You could start out at 205F and pull successively cooler.

Regards
Timo

[hbuchtel]

Henry, I'm sure your tastebuds are up to the 1°F challenge. But if you think not, how about 3°? You could run some brewing experiments on your Caravel. You could start out at 205F and pull successively cooler.

Regards
Timo

Timo, I would probably taste the difference, but it would be hard to say what is accounted for by the temperature and what is a result of small inconsistencies in my technique . . . but this feels like a long-term hobby so I'm sure it'll come.

Henry

[jasonmolinari]

How long does an order usually take ship from Soho? I ordered monday, and my order still says "pending" not even paid....i emailed them directly this morning, but haven't heard back. I was kind of planning on having this coffee soon.

[HB]

According to their website, it ships right away:

We ship within one business day of your order. If that won't happen, we'll send you an e-mail describing the nature and length of the delay.

We ship around the globe and offer a variety of carriers and services. Please contact us with any requests or instructions about shipping. The privacy of our customers is of utmost importance to us. Under no circumstances will we share your personal data with anyone.

It's possible the Thanksgiving holiday may have caused a delay because roasters had short schedules last week.

[sohoespresso]

Hi Dan,

You are indeed correct. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, some of our orders have been delayed to ensure that our customers get the most fresh beans possible. This glitch has been fixed and will not affect any future orders.

[hbuchtel]

I finished the last of the Black Cat about two weeks ago and have gotten back into roasting.

Trying all those great coffees was a real education. I now know what a robusta blend tastes like, what people mean by 'chocolate' in a blend, the un-balanced delicacy of a good SO . . .

Talking on the internet is cool, but some physical contact makes it so much more meaningful!

Thanks again to Soho and HB for the contest,

Henry