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Tasting Blog: Ethiopia Sidamo Haile Selassie by La Grange Coffee Roasters
Written by Lee Sill on Jul 7th, 2010
A few months back we came up with the idea to start writing regular blogs that would feature different roasters from around Louisville, the Midwest, and even nationally that we felt were doing great things in coffee. Like we stated in the first blog, we hope that we are able to bring exposure to these roasters, and we love tasting new coffees!
La Grange Coffee Roasters is the work of Chris Cockrell of La Grange, Kentucky, an historic railroad town in Oldham County, just outside of the metropolitan area of Louisville. The folks here at Prima know Chris very well, as he stops by the office from time to time to talk roasting, brew methods, or to kindly drop off a bag or two of coffee!
You can find Chris and the crew of LGCR at the La Grange Farmers Market every Saturday morning from May through October in downtown La Grange. What is so great about what LGCR is doing is the focus to educate the community on coffee, from the farm to the cup. I remember Chris telling us stories of letting folks taste a freshly roasted coffee just days off roast, and comparing it to a several month old coffee, and noting the difference. You will also find examples on the table of green coffee, and the same coffee roasted, so that people can get a visual of coffee beyond the dark fines of store bought coffees they may be accustomed to at home.
We have had several of Chris' roasts either in the office, at home, or at the Bashes in town. Most recently we were able to enjoy some dry processed Haile Selassie from the Sidamo region of Ethiopia, taken to probably around a City + to Full City roast. We first brewed for the office in a Chemex, at 60 grams to a liter, at around 200 degrees. This was an incredibly sweet coffee, a classic Sidamo. The aroma was one of the more enjoyable I have experienced, with sweet cinnamon and nutmeg, like a fresh baked pie. This coffee had notes of cardamon and fructose sweetness in the beginning, but as it cooled strawberries, peaches, and various dried fruits came to the forefront.
We had a great time with this coffee. We had some great syphons with parameters of 370 ml to 28 grams at 202 degrees that brought out more spice from the coffee; I tried an aeropress at about 20 grams to 300 ml with a 45 second dwell time which produced a very clean cup with more clarity on the fruit notes, and we pulled some excellent shots of espresso about six days off roast that were surprisingly great shots; fruit bombs, yet not too bright. We were also able to test out the Bunn Trifecta using the Haile Selassie, and after some tinkering to find the right parameters, really enjoyed our cups.
La Grange Coffee Roasters is a great representation of the exciting things going on recently in Louisville coffee. If you haven't had the chance to make it out to La Grange on a Saturday morning, do yourself a favor and grab an iced v60, perfect for a hot Kentucky summer morning! For more information about Chris and La Grange, check out their website here.
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It can be difficult in the world of specialty coffee to find a brewer that not only looks fantastic but also produces a fantastic product. Eva Solo has done an exceptional job of combining both elements into the Cafe Solo. The Solo seems a little strange upon first glance for the very reason that it may be the first coffee brewer of its kind: one that is clothed. The designers at Eva Solo had the ingenious idea of using the same material that keeps divers warm (neoprene) and wrapping it around the glass carafe... thus keeping the coffee hot during the 4 minute brewing period.
Not only are its looks something to take seriously, but the Solo's coffee is not to be underestimated. Because of its use of "total immersion" brewing (similar to that of a french press), the grounds are evenly and completely submersed in water. This provides extraction that is difficult to achieve by other methods of brewing. It is advisable, however, that once the 4 minutes of extraction is complete, the coffee should be immediately served or transferred into a thermal pot (we recommend one of the Zojirushi carafes). This will prevent over-extraction from taking place which results in a bitter tasting coffee.
The Cafe Solo is unquestionably a unique and exceptional specialty coffee manual brewer. Because of its simple usability and superior design, the Cafe Solo is a force to be reckoned with in the specialty coffee world. -
Compak is a company dedicated to quality and craft. Their newest endeavor is a line of espresso grinders that raises the bar on control and efficiency. Aptly named "Fresh" for its innovative design and functionality, these grinders were created from conversations with baristas around the world and from the experience of a company that has been around for over 50 years. The K-10 Fresh offers a number of innovative features including: the ability to pre-set the the dosing time for a single and double shot to within a tenth of a second, manual push-button doser that keeps time of amount dosed on the digital display, and a completely new dosing system, electronics and control system. Also, the electronic display shows the selected grinding point, a configurable warning to change the burrs, promotional message with your logo, shot counter, and multi-language display.
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Hario Skerton grinder is handy for manual home and travel grinding, it can also be slightly more cumbersome for an extended road trip where only a small amount of grinding will be done (for a more detailed comparison of the two grinders, check out this blog post: Hario Skerton vs. Mini Mill). For those trips (or homes) where a minimal amount of grinding is needed, the Hario Mini Mill Slim is the perfect grinding solution. The Mini Mill employs adjustable conical ceramic burrs for grinding any of the wide range of grinds employed in today’s coffee market. It can effortlessly handle 24 grams of anything from fine espresso to a coarse French Press setting. Because of its lightweight (0.5 lbs) and sleek plastic body, the Mini Mill easily fits into small carrying bags and suitcases without adding a lot of extra weight. This, in conjunction with the Aerobie AeroPress coffee maker, has the propensity to make excellent coffee anywhere hot water and fresh beans are available.
The Hario Mini Mill is a traveling coffee enthusiast’s dream come true.... and with its ability to grind to the fine quality needed for espresso, it can be paired with a hand-held travel espresso maker such as the mypressi TWIST (and an excellent choice of beans) to achieve a quality rivaling the product found in many high-end espresso machines. Whether the need is grinding beans for a french press, Aeropress, or mypressi, the Mini Mill Slim is the perfect travel solution.
Customer Reviews
Thanks for the way cool write
Thanks for the way cool write up Lee. You guys are the best! keep up the good work!
Anytime man! We love what
Anytime man! We love what you guys are doing!
Lee - I can't say enough
Lee - I can't say enough about the increase in web traffic because of this article. I do truly thank you for the thoughtfulness and kindness shown to my wife and me and our little business. We are getting closer to making the big leap every day...