Cupping session at La Torrefazione

The cupping today at La Torre was great. The place is just what Helsinki has been waiting for - trendy and stylish but still cosy. Fresh colours, nice seats and the best part, (hopefully) suberb coffee. Today's special coffee was something rather rare and expensive and very tasty - Hacienda Esmeralda from Panama. That particular coffee has been chosen as the best coffee in the world several times. The price per kilo is quite ridiculous, about 300€. This Panaman coffee was roasted by Stumptown Roasters, Portland, Oregon, US. Great taste, sweet and balanced. Somehow I can't remember any specific notes as nothing came through very distinctively. Although it was a cupping session, we drank the whole cup and then also from the table next to us... Hey, you don't very often get a chance to taste something quite like that!


I make most of my coffee at home using Aeropress. Great invention but as everything in this business, challenging to use. One might thought that it wouldn't be that hard to use something as simple as that. Not at all. The first cuppa of Aero I drank was at Johan & Nyström. So smooth and balanced, something I haven't been able to achieve at home, yet. I tried to check some info on the Internet but everybody gives different tips... So, as usually, one must experiment.

I'm not sure if I should say this aloud, but I don't have a grinder at home - yet. Some purists might be a bit upset: "A coffee enthusiast who doesn't own a grinder?!" Benjamin offered my one. Good deal but I'm not sure if I need professional level grinder at home... Even affordable one.

Square Mile Roastery's web shop is fascinating. They have so many interesting coffees there. I discussed about that with Benjamin and he had an explanation. Located in London, one of the best coffee-cities in world, they have everything at hand. Knowledge, good markets for fresh coffee and especially Mercanta, a coffee-hunter company. Kaffa also orders their coffee from there. James and Anette, owners of SMR, can just hop into their van ( I guess they have one ) and take a trip to Mercanta and buy of some interesting coffee. The advantage in being Londoner is that they can buy only one sack where as Kaffa has to order many of them. No wonder they have all that stuff. Those lucky bastards...

Cascara

Last few drops of Juice were consumed today... I did some shopping to recover from that grief. SMR had Mauritan Cascara from El Salvador. What, you ask. Dried skins of the coffee cherries that you brew like tea. Thay say that it contains lots and lots of caffeine because coffee uses it as insect repellent. Most of it is stored in the cherry. Looking forward to get to taste it.