That Old Time Coffee on Christopher Street

When you step into McNulty's Tea & Coffee in the West Village, you feel as though you are stepping into another era of coffee, when specialty shops like this were the main purveyors of gourmet beans from around the world. In that respect, it reminds me of Empire Coffee or Porto Rico Importing Co. These business date to a time before the Web and radical transparency about everything from the type of bean to the name of the farmer to the altitude to the date and location of the roasting. The newest culinary coffee shops have fed the obsessiveness of many coffee fans, the type of people who want to know the precise temperature and pressure used to brew a cup of espresso.

I try not to be that guy, but it's getting harder.

Coffee Organic Peruvian French Roast

Purchased June 19 at McNulty's Tea & Coffee, 109 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village

In the cup Despite its prominence in Zagat ratings and elsewhere, I was not familiar with this shop when I stumbled upon it quite by chance a couple of weeks ago, on my way with my family to hear a friend read his flash fiction at the Path Cafe (also a neat little place; Christopher Street has a lot of them). I ordered a half pound of chocolate-covered peanuts -- delicious -- and a half-pound of this coffee.

McNulty's -- a retailer, not really a place to drink coffee -- seems to have steadfastly resisted the modern trend of sharing every little secret with its customers. The Web site makes much of its history (founded in 1895), the old time feel of the shop, the exotic mystery of imported products: "Immediately upon entering the shop, one’s senses are delighted by the many aromas of coffees and teas from around the world. Sacks of coffee and chests of tea with obscure markings from far away lands are visible everywhere. Even the bins, chests, and scales, with which these products are stored and handled, date back to the previous century."

The service was polite, if a bit distracted, and my impression was that more effort was devoted to displays of tea than coffee. My beans (and the chocolate-covered nuts) were weighed in the old-fashioned scale.

I inquired about the roaster and was told with a shrug that the shop used an unnamed roaster in Long Island City, Queens. Presumably the beans had been roasted recently.

Many coffee sellers now offer tasting notes as florid and adjective-rich as wine descriptions, but there was none of that at McNulty's. The country of origin was listed, and in some cases beans were described as organic or free trade. No details were offered about the specific growers. I didn't realize how hooked I have become on knowing this information, even though I am not an expert who can make useful judgments based on it.

This is in some respects just a difference in marketing. A place like McNulty's relies on the mystery and mystique of foreign lands. A roaster like Intelligentsia and shops Stumptown andCafe Grumpy appeal to a different type of consumer.

This type of customer is obsessed -- perhaps too much so -- with authenticity. For these consumers, coffee is no longer an exotic product arriving by ship from third-world places with unusual names. Knowing the details of origin improves the taste. Coffee is also a product with a politics, a mix of foreign policy, economics and environmentalism. Knowing something about how it arrived in the cup is important to some people.

So how was the Organic Peruvian French Roast? It was merely O.K. Maybe I picked the wrong bean. I've been drinking this as a regular Americano for the most part. Light in the mouth, maybe a bit of a citrus kick at the end, some bitterness, a trace of nuts -- hard to say for sure, I'm not a coffee taster. It was not captivating, but not overpowering, either. Just coffee. I guess I'm looking for something more interesting these days. Data.

Coffee, Hot and Cold

Inside Third Rail Coffee at 240 Sullivan St. in Greenwich Village. This is a quickie coffee post, dashed off while watching the U.S.-England World Cup match and discussing the propriety of promiscuously using "tweet" in news articles. First, a word about B. Koffie's Yirgacheffe and Kenya French Mission offerings. Kudos to La Columbe, the roaster. I sampled the latter and refilled my Mason jar with the former on a May 29 visit. Both were tasty and in line with the descriptions on the boards.

Read my earlier post about this Hell's Kitchen shop, a relative newcomer to the neighborhood.

On June 6, I found myself near Washington Square Park for the Wrs. orld Science Fair and in need of coffee. It was a short walk to Third Rail Coffee, which offers beans from Intelligentsia, one of my favorite roasters.

A friend encouraged me to try the "cold brew," a form of iced coffee (Stumptown offers it too, but I haven't tried it). To brew coffee this way, you soak the beans overnight in room-temperature water. Some say cold brew -- also known as "cold press" coffee -- is less acidic and easier on the stomach, while others seem to think it offers a bigger caffeine punch.

I drink hot coffee year-round, but I'm not above switching to iced coffee at this time of year. I'll probably have to try cold brew again. It was delicious, but this one experience was not enough for me to conclude anything.

Third Rail is a cute shop, comfortable, humming with traffic (see the photo at the top of the post). This was my first visit, and I expect I'll be back.

The coffee scene is taking off in New York. (I am slowly making my way down the list of top coffee shops in that TImes article; see my post on Birch Coffee.) It's going to be a great summer.

A Guatemalan Roast From Grumpy

Interesting things seem to be happening at one of my favorite New York coffee haunts, Café Grumpy. For one thing, the shop's official blog is looking flashier and busier. And Grumpy -- which turned me on to many of the best roasters in the country (Intelligentsia, Verve, Barismo, and Ritual) -- is now roasting selected coffees of its own at its Brooklyn location. I missed the Kenyan roast, but there still seemed to be an ample supply of this Finca Chichupac selection from Guatemala as well as a Finca Carmen from Panama El Salvador at the locally owned chain's Chelsea shop.

I'm happy to see all the local culinary coffee purveyors step up their games lately. Perhaps the arrival of Stumptown has something to do with that. Now if only a few more of them creep uptown into the 30s, 40s and 50s, a section of Manhattan that remains a Starbucks-dominated wasteland. Name: Finca Chichupac

Origin: Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala

Roasted Nov. 3 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Nov. 9 at Grumpy's Chelsea location at 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description "Candy apple aroma leads to a full-bodied cup. Granny smith apple brightness rounded out by caramelized brown sugar sweetness."

In the cup It stands to reason that a shop that has proven to be such a good judge of others' coffees would roast a fine one of its own. My only gripe is the lack of other documentation on the Grumpy site, apart from the short and sweet, "Autumn we love you." Indeed. But through the power of the Internet, I did find this brief interview on YouTube with Julián Alquejay of Finca Chichupac at last year's Cup of Excellence. The plantation is owned by 13 families in a region with a horrific history of government-directed mass murder and genocide of the Mayan population in the 1980s. Here is an article on the continuing legacy of that time and the civil war that ended in 1996.

Right now Grumpy is offering two of its own roasts, this Guatemalan and a second from Finca Carmen in Panama (presumably from the same farm as this Stumptown selection). I decided to go with Guatemala, and I'm glad I did.

I definitely caught the candy apple aroma, especially when drinking this as a regular coffee. It also makes a great espresso, and I thought I detected a bit of nut, not mentioned in the official tasting description above. The sweet finish definitely takes the edge off the fruity brightness. It's a great cup of joe.

That does not leave me any less conflicted, sampling these nuanced flavors, made from beans grown in an impoverished nation near former killing fields, as I sit in my comfortable apartment in the middle of the richest city in North America, far from the .bullets and butchers of men. Such thoughts certainly puts one's own petty troubles in perspective, at least.

A Return to Guatemala via Stumptown

I've enjoyed a number of Guatemalan coffees -- the Finca La Folie from Ritual Roasters, Itzamna from Intelligentsia, the Nimac Kapeh and the Soma blend from Barismo -- so I picked up these beans on another side trip to Stumptown's Manhattan location at the Ace Hotel in the 20s. As always, the service was fast and pleasant, and I received a complimentary coffee because I was buying beans. (I was also playing around with Foursquare and its iPhone app, and discovered that there's a fierce battle to become "mayor" of this location.) Name Finca El Injerto

Origin: Huehuetenango, Guatemala

Roasted: Sept. 24 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Sept. 28 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description From the label: "A jasmine fragrance is met with flavors of Dutch chocolate, roast almonds, meyer lemon, plum and a chamomile tea finish."

In the cup Finca El Injerto has fierce partisans in the coffee world. I had received at least one heads up on Twitter to be on the lookout for it. The official blog Thumpology says this is the first farm that had a Direct Trade relationship with Stumptown. A Bourbon variety, this coffee is grown in a region of Guatemala just south of the Mexican border by Arturo Aguirre and his son. Here is an gorgeous video showing how the Aguirres grow their coffee (I love Stumptown geeks). This bean -- billed as the most popular coffee roasted and sold by Stumptown year after year -- is not to be confused with the Cup of Excellence winner Pacamera from the same farm, which I'm now interested in trying.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been drinking this as both regular coffee and espresso. It's pretty good. There was a slight bitterness, a flavor I couldn't place, that was off-putting at first, but quickly forgotten. Did I pick up a fragrance of jasmine mutating into chocolate and almonds and finishing with a tea-like grace? Oh, I don't know. I still find these descriptions rather precious and embarrassing. I guess I should get over that. I do like it, and there is a hint of nuts and chocolate, though not nearly as sweet as I tend to prefer. I have no idea what a meyer lemon and plum might taste like, and there's definitely a tea-like something in there, which reminded me ofNimac Kapeh (the tea flavor was much stronger in that coffee).

I've had coffees I enjoyed more (I think I liked Stumptown's Montes de Oro more, for example), from other regions, from Intelligentsia and other roasters, but this is definitely far superior to most of the swill out there. I wish there were more locations, since this one is a little off my regular path. I'l definitely drop by Stumptown again -- and I look forward to writing about the other coffee I picked up -- but I'll never be its Foursquare mayor, alas.

Coming Back Around to the Flor Azul

This direct-trade variety from Nicaragua was one of the earliest culinary coffees I wrote about on this blog, back in November 2008, when I first started to systematically evaluate the beans I was trying. Back then, I thought I knew a fair amount about coffee, but I really didn't know anything. My knowledge was limited to some basic presumptions I had about the geographic origins of various coffees. I didn't know much about individual growers or roasters. That level of detail was not readily available on the Web or on packaging until this third-wave era of coffee geekery with its focus on elevations, how beans are grown, dried and roasted, and the precise temperature settings on super-expensive coffee-making equipment. It used to be the specifics of coffee bean origins were known only to buyers, tasters and really obsessed fans. Maybe I'm turning into one of the latter, but I still have a lot to learn about the topic. I doubt I'll ever be an expert. I don't have the palate, or the patience, or the equipment. But when I saw that the Flor Azul was in season again, I was curious if my impressions of it had changed.

Name Flor Azul

Origin Las Brumas Cooperative in the Jinotega, Matagalapa region of Nicaragua.

Roasted Aug. 25 by Intelligentsia.

Purchased Sept. 4 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description Direct trade. Caturra, Catui grown at 1200-1550 meters. From the Web: "Flor Azul lays bare a flawless cup; clean and composed. Notes of melon fruit and apples express themselves affably in the forefront, hinting slightly toward citrus. The acidity plays a supporting role—adding lift to the mouthfeel as Swiss chocolate comes through in the finish."

In the cup The first time around, I think I mostly drank this as a regular coffee, drowned in soy milk, having found it too weird in general, and certainly too strong as espresso, my preferred way to take coffee. We were also having some water problems in our building last fall, and I had a cold. So many excuses. This time around, I tried it again as an espresso and as a regular cup of coffee.

It is certainly a challenging taste, lighter-bodied than I like and coming on strong first with flavors I guess are the melon and apple, but I've never been good at identifying those notes in a coffee. These seem to be notes that a lot of pro tasters value, but I still find it a bit weird in coffee. The reported chocolate finish was very slight to my taste.

So, this remains a complicated coffee for me, and while I recognize it as something good, and unusual, it's not something I can bring myself to drink every day. It's more of an interesting change of pace, but not something I will go out of my way to find again.

(Luckily, I have some other tasty selections I'm trying, roasted by Ritual and Verve, that I bought at Grumpy on the same day, and the excellent Montes de Oro from Stumptown.)

So, this was not an aha coffee. But that's OK. When you get down to the drinking, coffee is still a matter of personal taste. I'm learning that you can recognize something as good, of high quality, without loving it. I know there are a lot of people who enjoy Flor Azul, judging by some of the sell-side raves online, and it can be a way to jolt people with a new idea of what coffee can be, but this is not a selection I would want to drink with any regularity.

El Balsamo-Quetzaltepec, That's a Mouthful

A coffee-obsessed blogger bought three bags of beans at once, one sunny day in August. One of those bags is still nearly full. One is about half-full. And one is completely empty. This is the story of that one, which sits next to my computer, taunting me with a rich, thick aroma of beans that are no more. A couple of weeks ago, I asked what would happen if someone on the quest for a perfect shot of espresso coffee found what he was looking for? The prize-winning Black Cat from Bolivia roasted by Intelligentsia came close. And there have been a few others that I would put on that list. The sweet-tooth yellow Icatu comes to mind. When you can still remember a coffee you had six months ago, either it was good coffee, or you have an uncontrolled obsession. Maybe both.

What this coffee from El Salvador has in common with that one is the same roaster, Verve, in Santa Cruz, which has a maddeningly minimalist Web site. So finding information has been tricky. Name El Balsamo-Quetzaltepec

Origin: 100 percent Bourbon variety, Finca San Eduardo, El Salvador

Roasted: Aug. 11 by Verve Coffee Roasters, Santa Cruz, Ca.

Purchased: Aug. 16 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description One account: "Has a nectar, clean, creamy body, juicy, ripe, honeyed, lemon, complex acidity."

In the cup This is the second coffee from El Salvador that I've tried in recent months -- the other was Los Inmortales from Intelligentsia -- and I'm impressed.

It's tough to find much information online. A search yields brief mentions in retail listings or Spanish-only sites. [Update: See the comments for informative links from a reader.]

Grumpy doesn't have much information on its Web site, either, about this particular coffee. One can only hope that Verve's promised site upgrade will be coming soon, though I guess if I had to choose, I'd rather the roaster focus on making great coffee rather than blog design.

The description above, from a Scranton cafe's Facebook page (yes, people are selling coffee on Facebook!), sounds about right.

This is a creamy sweet coffee, like the yellow Icatu. I found myself drinking shot after shot of it, until the last bean was gone, today. The Barismo Koke suffered in the comparison (an unfair one, since it's going for a completely different taste experience). For more information about Salvadoran coffees and Bourbon varieties in particular, this page at Sweet Maria's has some good information (a few years old now).

Apparently, El Salvador used to have a poor reputation compared to the rest of Central and Latin America, but I'm inclined to try more coffees from there, especially from a a quality roaster like Verve or Intelligentsia. And I'll keep an eye out for this grower, Finca San Eduardo.

The Black Cat From Bolivia

What happens if, in a quest for a perfect shot of espresso, you actually find it, or something close? For one thing, perhaps like a fine wine, you can never be sure the next year's vintage will be as good. And your taste and preferences might change. Of course, my quest was mainly a conceit to try a bunch of coffees and blog about them. I didn't expect to actually find something so far superior to the rest. But the third bean I brought back from Intelligentsia in L.A. this July came close. Alas, I just drank the last shot. Name: Black Cat Single Origin Espresso, Anjilanaka, Bolivia

Origin Bourbon, caturra, typica grown at 1700 to 1900 meters, produced by Agricaby, in Bolivia.

Roasted June 30 by Intelligentsia Coffee.

Purchased July 5 at Intelligentsia Coffee Silver Lake Coffee Bar, 3922 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Description "The espresso that helped Mike Phillips win the 2009 USBC Flavor notes of green grapes and figs give way to a juicy acidity and crisp finish."

In the Cup It would be tempting to declare my quest at an end, because this was the smoothest espresso I've ever tasted. The flavor was perfectly balanced. Not bitter. Not overly sweet. No distracting fruit flavors. It took me a long time to even recognize what the bag called a "juicy acidity and crisp finish" -- though, it was there, finally, in the last few drops.

The folks at Volta Coffee in Gainesville, Fla., described it this way: "It is an entirely different beast when developed as an espresso shot. Taken as a ristretto shot, the Anjilanaka has a malty-caramel sweetness ahead of a bright mango tartness. As a cappuccino or latte, the Anjilanaka takes on a profound almond-walnut flavor." Twenty-five cents extra! That Web site has a pretty good definition of what separates an espresso from other roasts. I'm not a stickler, but there it is.

This was the second espresso I've reviewed related to The Black Cat Project. The signature blend at Ninth Street Espresso in the East Village, Alphabet City, is a riff on the Black Cat collection of espressos.

This coffee came in a very small black bag. And its disappearance from the Black Cat listings on the Intelligentsia Web site suggests that it is no longer for sale this season.

About the label: Who is Mike Phillips? What is the USBC? He represented the Chicago headquarters of Intelligentsia at the United States Barista Championships, which he won with this coffee. Intelligentsia baristas also won fourth and fifth place spots. There's video.

As Man Seeking Coffee explains, it was more a matter of presentation than the coffee itself, but the victory was nonetheless good news for Bolivia, a company with extreme elevations and transportation issues.

So I found the perfect coffee. My one regret is that I brewed it exclusively as espresso and didn't try it as a regular cup.

And now I need to find something else to drink until it comes around again. Onward.

There Goes the Turtle

This is the second of the three coffees I bought about a month ago on a trip to the Silver Lake outpost of Intelligentsia in Los Angeles and have been enjoying in the weeks since. (Earlier, I wrote about Itzamna from Guatemala.) I was guzzling this, both as espresso and regular coffee, and it was my impression that it worked better as a regular cup. The name translates as "the turtle," and, alas, this "in season" offering may be sold out now. I'll have to savor the last bit left in the bag. Name La Tortuga

Origin Finca La Tina, farm of Don Fabio Caballero and Moises Herrerra, in the Mogola, Marcala region of Honduras.

Roasted July 2, 2009.

Purchased July 5 at Intelligentsia Coffee Silver Lake Coffee Bar, 3922 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Description A catuai grown at 1550 to 1670 meters. The bag says this is "tangy and buoyant, with orange and butterscotch notes, and a finish of sweet cane sugar."

In the Cup This is certainly tangier than the Guatemalan Itzamna, but it has a lingering sweet aftertaste. There's a silky feel to it, and I picked up the butterscotch as well, but not the "subtle notes of tamarind" mentioned in the buyer's report. This might be a little challenging for those who do not care for complicated coffees with hints of fruit; that would be the orange. It is an acquired taste, and I would not have cared for this at the start of my coffee-blogging quest.

I drank most of this in mid-July on my return to New York. I had nearly finished the bag but saved a little to compare when I finally got around to blogging. This coffee is also purchased direct trade from the grower, and carries Intelligentsia’s “In Season” sticker, which is explained here.

(This coffee no longer seems to be listed at the Intelligentsia site, which suggests it might be sold out. According to the Google cache of the page, "La Tortuga keeps getting better every year. For 2009, not only has the Caballero family improved their drying processes, Intelligentsia financed the coffee ourselves which means that it arrived earlier than ever before. Last year we released this coffee on July 3rd. Launching it on May 22nd means that we are getting it to you six weeks earlier. This is the promise of Intelligentsia In Season.")

An excerpt from the report by Intelligentsia's chief buyer, Geoff Watts:

In 2006 Intelligentsia contracted the exclusive rights to the annual coffee production of Fabio Caballero’s “La Tina” farm. This is the first farm Don Fabio owned, which he inherited from his mother-in-law. The land first entered the family in 1930, making it their only 3rd generation farm parcel. Don Fabio also believes that the genetic purity of the original heirloom varietals planted on the farm adds to its quality. It also has the historic privilege as being the first coffee farm in Mogola region of Honduras.

At over 5,400 feet, La Tina farm is one of the highest farms in Honduras. The views are breathtaking, and there is no doubt that this piece of land is a wonderful place to grow coffee. Of course, growing the coffee is really just one step in many that lead to a great cup. The preservation of the quality that nature produces is as important in the equation as the actual growth. The sequence of events that take place after picking, beginning the moment that the cherry leaves the tree, help to define the difference between an “artisan coffee farmer” and a “harvester.” Don Fabio and his son-in-law Moises Herrera are artisan farmers. The reason they’ve had so much success in comparison to many of their neighbors has less to do with the quality of the land than it does the quality of the workmanship and the amount of investment that the Caballero family has been willing to make in their coffee operation. The fact that they do their own wet-milling gives them an advantage as well. They have the ability to control quality all the way to dry parchment....

This year we added a focus on maintaining lower temperatures in the mechanical dryers in order to reduce any leeching of organic materials from the coffees during the drying process. We also took steps to streamline the logistics from farm to port, which is a huge consideration when thinking about the preservation of coffee quality. In Honduras this is especially critical as most of the coffee milling takes place in San Pedro Sula, a city that for much of the year has at least two things in common with Chicago in July—high temperatures and heavy humidity. Unfortunately for producers, these are two of the biggest enemies of coffee quality and longevity. Both can dramatically reduce the vibrancy and shelf life of coffee. Imagine a gorgeous flower wilting into a lifeless, drooping eyesore and you’ve got an idea of what often happens to coffees that spend too much time in San Pedro. To combat this problem we orchestrated a tight relay-race that saw the coffee moved from Marcala to San Pedro, milled immediately in waiting machine, stashed in special bags with very low permeability, and packed into an insulated container... The shipping date was booked in advance of milling and once the coffee was prepped it left immediately for port to begin its journey to the US.

Alas, it looks like I'll have to wait until next year to try La Tortuga again.

Named for Itzamna, 'God of Nectar'

After neglecting my blogging for a while, I figured I ought to make note of three excellent coffees from Intelligentsia in Los Angeles that I have been drinking over the past month or so. On a vacation trip in early July to visit family, we made a detour over to Silver Lake, where I bought a mug and a few different bags of single-source beans. I packed them in my suitcase and returned to New York (carrying coals to New Castle in a sense, since some local shops carry Intelligentsia selections). First up is the selection from Guatemala. Name Itzamna

Origin Finca Maravilla (farm of Mauricio Rosales), in Huehuetenango region of Guatemala.

Roasted July 2, 2009.

Purchased July 5 at Intelligentsia Coffee Silver Lake Coffee Bar, 3922 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles.

Description "Gilded by a citrus acidity, flavors of fruit punch and caramel provide structure. The complexity of the cup elevates into a finish of Swiss chocolate."

In the Cup When I read a description like that, my first reaction is still, "Oh, come on." But I have learned to look for any mention of caramel or chocolate, with good results. The coffees with these descriptions don't necessarily taste like a cup of hot chocolate, but those words tend to suggest something smooth, rich or sweet. Citrus and fruit flavor descriptions tend to signal a more complicated flavor experience.

There also tends to be a difference between a regular cup of Joe and the same coffee as espresso. I tend to favor espresso, but I tried this and the other beans I picked up both ways. I won't beat around the bush: This is a marvelous coffee, and I have spent many a morning swirling it around in my mouth trying to pick out all the flavors mentioned above. I get quite a bit of something chocolate, and not too much fruit or citrus to be overpowering. So this was a case where the label on the bag did not lead me astray, and as usual Intelligentsia was selling fresh, roasted beans.

I bought an Intelligentsia mug while I was at it (above).

All of the coffees I bought on this little trip were excellent, and I would probably rank this one in third place against the selections from Honduras and Bolivia. But that's quibbling. It's pretty amazing stuff.

Here's a little more about this coffee-growing region of Guatemala from Sweet Maria's, which contends that consumers can have beneficial political and economic effect by buying from small, co-op single-lot growers.

This coffee is a Bourbon/Caturra grown at 1500 to 1850 meters above sea level. It is purchased direct trade from the grower, and carries Intelligentsia's "In Season" sticker, which is explained here and in this case means the coffee was harvested from January to April. Mr. Rosales is described someone dedicated to his workers and the environment (there's more in this pdf, including notes by Geoff Watts, the company's coffee buyer).

Watts writes that this might be the best coffee from this grower he's ever had, noting the long tradition of coffee expertise in this area where more than half of the people have are of Mayan descent and have been growing coffee for generations. "Coffees from La Maravilla (HueHue) bring an energetic ripe fruit acidity to Itzamna," he writes. "This farm was the first to meet the requirements of Direct Trade status, and we’ve had a close relationship for over six years now. This season Mauricio finished constructing new housing for the temporary workers, and we celebrated with a post-harvest party at the farm for all the pickers and their families."

About the name, he explains:

Itzamna is the creator-deity whose name can be rendered 'god of nectar' and was the harbinger of culture, cacao, and maize to the Mayans in ancient lore. We chose the name Itzamna for this offering because we like what he stands for. He is a beloved deity from Mayan mythology, credited with creating many of the things that make life worth living. He introduced farming and science. And he was always known to be kind and protective towards humans, no mean streak whatsoever. In other words, he is the man. We can only suppose that he has a profound love for coffee as well."

So now you know. The sad part is, the bag is almost empty.

Los Inmortales in a Bag

It has been a week for obsessions, from Twitter to a new addiction, Plants vs. Zombies. The first was the subject of a two-day conference where I was a panelist, even as social media played a role in the Iranian election unrest. The other is the latest computer game that has consumed too much time of the 9-year-old and, um, others, in our household. It is amusing and addictive. If you play it you will never look at mushrooms or vegetable gardening in quite the same way again.

Somewhere in there I helped my daughter build a replica of Brandenburg Gate out of wood and clay for a school project. I found myself drinking cups of espresso every morning in rapid succession. I was surprised to find this morning that I was nearly out of this latest selection, without having set down my impressions.

Name Los Inmortales

Origin El Borbollon, Finca Malacara, Santa Ana, El Salvador.

Roasted June 9 by Intelligentsia.

Purchased June 13 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description "Poised and articulate with a sustaining sweetness. Notes of white grape and apple assist the acidity as the cup finishes with turbinado sugar," reads the bag.

In the Cup I picked up this bag of beans on my way to an "Iron Chef" competition at friends' co-op in Chelsea. The woman ahead of me in line at Grumpy was also buying a bag, skeptical about the fruit flavors. She said she was not a big fan of fruit overtones in coffee, and I have to agree, but I decided to give this a try.

The Iron Chef party was an elaborate affair with multiple courses, judges and appreciative crowd, including children running wild from apartment to apartment. Fresh tomatoes were the mystery ingredient in every dish from the martinis to the dessert. That can be tricky, since tomatoes at this time of year can be a little green and not quite in their prime, I was told.

The food was great, and the week was a whirlwind, from the school project to Twitter-Twitter-Twitter to the other obsessions, including all the iPhone mania and my attempt to find a good netbook (more on that later, perhaps). I have good memories of the espressos I made from this bean all week, moments captured looking out the kitchen window, on my way to something else. Sweet, rich, a good coffee, a strong candidate in my ongoing quest for the perfect cup.

I did not have much time to research Los Inmortales, or its possible relationship to this Cup of Excellence winner from Finca Malacara. That would at least suggest a good pedigree. (I also stumbled across this ironic Iranian coincidence regarding "The Immortals.")

Intelligentsia gives this extended description on its site:

Poised and articulate in its expression, Los Inmortales characterizes grace and refinement in a glassy clean cup. The sweetness is nectar-like and threaded through the entire taste experience while the acidity curtsies to notes of white grape and apple. The silky mouthfeel glides into a gentle finish of roasted hazelnuts and turbinado sugar.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for sweet coffees that have a creamy or silky mouthfeel (what a word) with a hint of sugar, caramel or chocolate. The acidity is kept in check, and the flavors progress from a slight hint of fruit -- grape, apple, maybe, or something vaguely tropical, that hovers in the back of the throat -- to a warm, rich finish that goes down smoothly and sweetly.

It makes you want to pour another shot. Which I have just done. And now the beans are nearly all gone, and I must make a trip to get some more. It will be a Father's Day present to myself.

Shots of Alphabet City, the Espresso

It was a busy week of catching up at work after vacation, then a busier weekend that included a children's birthday party by the Hudson River, with volunteer activities to benefit the Children for Children Foundation. Then last night it was off to Madison Square Garden for The Dead. It was a great show, musically. There were certainly some aging hippies in the crowd, but most of the audience had a middle-aged suburban feel to it. A lot of people who might have been dancing in the hallways and aisles 20 years ago seemed content to sit in their seats and suck on plastic bottles of Budweiser.

Toward the end of the night, I was thinking more about bedtime than the music never stopping, despite a couple of quick shots of this Intelligentsia espresso blend before the show. I've been drinking it all week.

Let's resume the coffee quest.

Name: Alphabet City Blend

Origin: Direct trade from Brazil

Roasted: April 6 or 9 Intelligentsia.

Purchased: April 13 at Ninth Street Espresso, Chelsea Market, 75 Ninth Avenue, between 15th and 16th Streets.

Description: "This classic, syrupy espresso features flavors of toasted almond and milk chocolate and a gentle citrus flourish in the finish."

In the Cup: Ninth Street Espresso switched to this coffee as its espresso blend in March. The name refers to the shop's main location -- the neighborhood with avenues named by letter (Avenues A, B and C) on the East Side of Manhattan that is sometimes described these days as part of the East Village or the Lower East Side.

Back in the 1980s, when I briefly fancied myself a Deadhead, Alphabet City referred to a scary, rundown area of junkies and crime. Now it's place of condos, indie bars and little shops, and a cute name for coffee. So it goes.

The coffee is described as a mix of Acaia, Icatu, Catuai, Rubi, Tupi, and Catucai beans grown at 950 to 1350 meters above sea level. Ninth Street's owner, Kenneth Nye, told The Times that Alphabet City Blend is a riff on Intelligentsia’s benchmark espresso, Black Cat, but that the blend would be adjusted soon. Here things get tricky, as there appears to be no single Black Cat espresso, and the blend is continually being adjusted. (See Ken's comment below; he says this blend is all Brazilian).

I don't think it's stretching a metaphor to compare this arcane world to that of Deadheads who used to argue about every variation of songs and set lists back in the old days. Trying to find information online about the relationship of these espresso blends was difficult.

The Black Cat project is related to Intelligentsia, but it has its own site and explains its mission here:

The Black Cat Project™ is by design a pursuit of something we’ll never catch: the perfect espresso in all of its manifestations. But that doesn’t mean we’ll ever stop chasing it. This project is rooted in our belief that espresso brewing is still coffee brewing and that only the best coffees can make the best espressos. We want to push the boundaries on flavor. We want you to experience amazing single origin, Micro-Lot and seasonal espressos with truly distinct flavor profiles that reach far beyond “chocolate” or “caramel”.

If this is close to Black Cat Classic, then this blog post explains the origins of that blend, at least as it stood in October, when this bag was roasted.

The blogger at Black Cat appears to be Kyle Glanville, director of espresso for Intelligentsia, and he explains that blend's origins here:

Brazil, Fazenda Santa Alina (Pulped natural yellow bourbon). Grown in the Grama Valley just outside Pocos de Caldas on the border of Minas Gerais and Sao Paolo state. The Grama Valley is blessed with volcanic soil, solid altitude, and a tremendous amount of sweet, yellow bourbon coffees.

El Salvador, El Borbollon (washed bourbon). This coffee was purchased as part of our “Los Inmortales” project and proves to be a ridiculously perfect compliment to the buttery caramel character of the Santa Alina, dropping in some fresh coffee cherry, citrus, and a floral, heady aroma.

You can expect the Cat to taste a little amped up recently due to the arrival of the new crop Brazil. Deep chocolate, caramel, cherries and citrus. Complete and sweet, just the way I like it.

So, to the Alphabet City tasting. Syrupy, check. Toasted almond, yeah, maybe. Milk chocolate, definitely. Citrus flourish at the finish, I guess so. Someone has been up to some interesting alchemy here, and it may be worth a trip to NInth Street to see how the fresher stuff tastes now, if the formula has been jiggered. It's a great espresso. The greatest espresso ever? This juror is not ready to vote on that. It is certainly the kind of thick, sweet cup, without distracting floral and citrus oddities, that I like as a regular shot. And it's better than 99 percent of what most people accept as good espresso at corporate chains.

Another Fine Coffee From Finca Santuario

I'm on vacation from the job that pays the bills this week, but vacationing is hard work, especially since our daughter is off from school and my wife has to work. I need many shots of espresso to keep up my stamina. On Monday, I hustled my daughter off to a playdate, then wandered off on a chilly but sunny day to the Ninth Street Espresso outpost in Chelsea Market. I was on a specific mission: All of NInth Street's coffees are roasted by Intelligentsia, which has a roasting lab but no shops in New York. I had been pleased with several Intelligentsia "guest" coffees purchased at Cafe Grumpy, including this Colombian. I'll have more on the results of the expedition later. How did this bean fare in my ongoing coffee quest? Name: Micay, Finca Santuario

Origin: Cauca, Colombia

Roasted: March 31 by Intelligentsia

Purchased: April 5 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description: "Almost candy-like in its sweetness, notes of licorice root and milk chocolate sustain the acidity as a finish of tart dried fruit and praline linger pleasantly."

In the cup: For the last several days, this Colombian single-source bean has been loaded up in the Jura and ready to go. I've had it as an espresso and as a regular coffee, no milk. It's hard to say which I prefer more. It seems sweeter as an espresso, though I'm not sure I agree with the "candy-like" description the bag, which is just as well. I've certainly tasted coffees with more of a hint of chocolate than this, and too much fruit aftertaste, but this goes down smoothly and pleasantly from start to finish.

This direct-trade and in-season coffee is a Bourbon grown at 1,900 meters or so above sea level and harvested last summer in the Cauca region of Colombia at Finca Santuario, a plantation operated by Camilo Merizalde, which I wrote about earlier. His beans seem to be a favorite of other coffee bloggers. Regrettably, the Intelligentsia blog post about Mr. Merizalde's farm and methods, quoted in my earlier review of his Heliconias variety, seems to have vanished from the roaster's blog. But you can find an updated version [also in pdf] (with pictures) with the Micay description:

This coffee marks the first time that we are offering two different botanic varietials from the same farm. This is a rare opportunity since it is not possible to separate most coffees in this way. Many farms are basically monocultures, with 80 percent or more of the crop coming from a single variety. On others with greater diversity, coffee varieties are usually not separated well enough in the field to allow for individual/selective harvesting. On smaller farms, even when varieties are well identified and separated, the volumes are just too tiny to be workable as individual lots.

So, one farm, two great coffees. I'll keep an eye out for more from Finca Santuario. And Intelligentsia is fast converting me into a believer in its experts' ability to find great coffees. My Ninth Street expedition this week yielded a couple of other beans from this roaster, a direct trade coffee from Brazil and Intelligentsia's "Alphabet City" espresso blend. More on them later this week.

From the Thunguri Auction Lot in Kenya

Ah, the signs of spring -- Turbotax, Daylight Saving Time and warmer weather. What better time to jump-start a moribund blog? I've been kicking around some ideas for posts. For example, I am really grooving on the new Kindle for iPhone application. It is amazing to be reading a book on one device then have the phone call the same text up to the page where I left off. And the updated New York Times iPhone app is snappier than the original, which had grown slower and frustrating with new phone firmware updates. Now I can get depressing economic news right in my hand in a matter of seconds.

I also wanted to blog about some ideas I've been having about Twitter, and how to build a useful and effective personal network, but those thoughts haven't gelled yet.

In the end, it all comes back to coffee, without which nothing happens, especially on this blog. Name: Thunguri

Origin: Ndaorini Cooperative, Nyeri District, Kenya, harvested from November to January at 1850-2100 meters above sea level.

Roasted: Feb. 24 by Intelligentsia.

Purchased: March 4 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description: The bag declares, "There's nothing like it. WIth citrus fruit, lemongras and tropical fruit notes, this coffee remains one of the most recognizable and inspiring of our offerings." More extensive tasting notes at Intelligentsia elaborate: "Flavor: Jasmine, currant, guava. Acidity: Citrus-like, mellow. Finish: Soft, nougat, dark chocolate." The roaster also promises the coffee can leave one "speechless with wonder."

The Pour: Once again, I'm reminded of wine-tasting metaphors. That's quite a range of flavors, and this coffee certainly defies precision in description. In my quest for the perfect shot, I have not been a big fan of flowery citrus flavors, but I've come to see words like "currant," "mellow," "nougat" and "dark chocolate" as indicators of something special.

The pitch from Intelligentsia's expert, Geoff Watts, suggests the coffee has a broad appeal (and serves a good economic cause): "Its broad-ranging appeal is certain to excite the taste buds of both the adventuresome and casual sipper. This lot was purchased through Kenya’s newly opened 'Second Window,' which extends communication and purchasing privileges directly from the grower to the roaster." (I've noted before that much of coffee marketing is explicitly progressive in its politics. It's not just a beverage. It's a foreign policy.)

Watts gives a detailed description of Kenyan growing conditions and traditions, then explains that a mandatory auction system in Kenya allows roasters to purchase beans in single lots "at prices three to four times higher than the best coffees in other countries."

Because of local corruption, the extra money does not always end up in the pockets of the farmers, making their operations barely sustainable, he writes. This lot was purchased under an official "second window" that allows for direct relationships between growers and buyers. Watts, who is heading back there to meet with farmers this year, says the new system is under fierce debate.

I remember drinking a lot of Kenyan coffee, long before the current culinary coffee movement took off, and enjoying it. At $14 per half-pound, this was an expensive bag of beans, and the exotic-sounding description gave me some trepidation. When I first opened the bag, I was hit full in the face with a rich, delicious aroma.

I made a few shots of espresso, enjoying it while pondering the tax paperwork I had put off longer than usual. There was a hint of fruit, but the shot was mostly smooth, rich and almost sweet. (I do think I still prefer the sweet tooth Yellow Icatu from Ritual that I tried out a couple of weeks back, so perhaps that has become my new benchmark.)

Was I left speechless with wonder? Not really. Was I inspired to start on those other blog posts? Sadly, no.

The weather is too nice, and the taxes still aren't finished. But I have spent a pleasant number of minutes trying to figure out exactly what I'm tasting here. And reading about the tough lives of the Kenyan farmers who got it to my cup puts our economic troubles in perspective too.