Catching Up on Coffee: Helsar de Zarcero

I was too busy for blogging these many weeks, but I was drinking coffee, and so my record here will have a gap. There was a roast from Verve that was quite tasty but is no longer available, and I made it through a couple of rough weeks with the delicious Peet's Holiday Blend, which my wife carried back from Los Angeles. She was spending some time there with her mother, who was ill but recovering, Then Nancy died unexpectedly from a stroke just before Thanksgiving. With that and all the other troubles this year, 2009 will not go down in our memory as a good year.

On the positive side, I returned to a more regular practice of zazen, sitting meditation, which has a calming effect though I do not appear to have gotten any closer to being a bodhisattva. In this age of sleep deprivation, a secret to staying awake on the cushion is strong coffee. Like this one. Coffee: Helsar de Zarcero, West Valley, Llano Bonito de Naranjo Micro-region, Costa Rica.

Roasted: Dec. 11 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Dec. 12 at Grumpy's Chelsea location at 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description "Medium, creamy body. Fresh blackberry aroma & mellow acidity. Finishing with honeycomb sweetness."

In the Cup As I mentioned earlier this fall, Grumpy has started roasting its own beans, a positive development. (The Chelsea shop is also offering classes, something a few of its competitors have been doing for a while).

This coffee is fresh, and tasty, and pretty much matches the creamy description on the bag, reprinted above. It's an excellent coffee, though lacking a certain something that keeps it off my "wow" list. I've tried it as a regular coffee and an espresso, brewing at home. Yesterday I filled a thermos full of nearly the last of it, and took it to my daughter's gymnastics class. It was deeply satisfying to pour a full mug and watch the kids. I am a little surprised to be running out already. Either I'm drinking more coffee than usual, or these bags are lighter than I realized. Luckily I also bought a bag of the Finca El Carmen from El Salvador, another variety the chain is roasting these days. I may not get around to blogging that one separately, but the bag promises nutty undertones, a sweet citrus aroma and "effervescent sweetness with dark chocolate finish."

According to Grumpy's informative site, the Helsar de Zarcero is 100 percent Caturra, aquapulped and sun-dried. The coffee comes from a "micromill" started by three families (now 10 are involved) in Costa Rica "with the goal of adding value and providing traceability to the high quality coffee grown on their land." The farm uses sustainable agriculture practices, including the use of organic fertlizers that are "fermented on-site by mixing coffee cherry pulp and molasses, along with mined zinc, boron, and other minerals. Micro-organisms are cultured from soil collected on nearby mountains and added to the natural fertilizer in order to provide disease protection to the coffee plants.”

I bet it's warm there right now.

Here in New York City, the snow is still fresh and white, after the snowpocalypse rolled through on Saturday. I'm at home sipping the last of this coffee, while my wife works quietly elsewhere in the apartment and our daughter is off sledding in Central Park with friends. I hope to get back to reading "Buddha's Brain," by Rick Hanson, or "Chronic City," by Jonathan Lethem, the two books I've sworn to finish before year's end. There's a hush over the city, except for the taxi whistles of a hotel doorman below, and a hush is over the city, and I'm pleased to steal this quiet moment to fire up the blog. I don't really know who reads this, apart from a few Twitter followers and friends, but let's hope together for a better 2010.

A Few Days With Peet's JR Reserve

When it comes to coffee quests, vacations and traveling pose both opportunities and challenges. On the West Coast, where I am visiting friends and relatives this month, it is a chance for me to sample selections from Peet's Coffee and Teas. In December, I enjoyed the Sumatra and Aged Sumatra. This week, upon arriving in Los Angeles, I bought what was billed as a high-end blend -- JR Reserve -- and a heavily promoted single-source bean from Costa Rica. More on that one later. Name Peet's JR Reserve Blend

Origin Blend, unknown.

Roasted June 17, 2009.

Purchased June 27 at Peet’s Coffee and Tea, 12215 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, Ca.

Description "An exquisite blend of full-bodied coffees with exceptionally complex flavors revealing hints of spiciness and chocolate." Ranked as full bodied and bright.

In the Cup I had a slight premonition of trouble when the harried fellow at the counter had to check to see if the shop had any JR Reserve Blend left in the shop. At $25 for a half pound, it was easily the most expensive selection on the menu.

When they finally dug something up, the roasting date on the bag gave me pause. Peet's likes to boast on its Web site that nothing for sale was roasted more than a couple of days earlier. Exceptions are the specialty blends like this one:

JR Reserve Blend was created by our roastmaster emeritus, Jim Reynolds, a widely-respected coffee expert with perhaps the most discerning palate in the specialty coffee industry. We asked Jim to create this unique blend to his exacting specifications from rare lots that satisfy him.

To ensure freshness, Reserve coffees are available in limited quantities, and roasted to order only once a week on Wednesdays.

This batch had been roasted about 10 days earlier. I took it back to my in-laws' and found the French press I had stashed there on a previous visit. Here is where things can get complicated. I prefer espresso, but I can't easily travel with an espresso maker. I also like the guaranteed no-muss no-fuss push-button consistency that comes with my Jura at home. Here I had to do some trial and error with the press and the scoops and the water and the timing. My daughter timed each brew for 4 minutes in the press with her iPod Nano. She also shot some video of me extemporizing in the kitchen. This is vacation, whoo hoo.

I was struck by the variety of the reviews of this blend from customers and employees at the Peet's site.

It is described as smooth and bright, spicy, rich, woodsy, earthy, with bittersweet chocolate notes, some citrus, etc. Quite a grab bag.

My experience: It is deep, smooth, rich, with little or no acidity. This is probably a highly satisfying cup for someone not looking for any surprises. But I have had richer, smoother cups. I didn't really catch much in the way of a spicy finish, or any of the berry citrus flavors, all mentioned in several reviews. It was definitely a balanced cup from start to end, and I think the people raving about it are those seeking a certain consistency and mellowness. It is certainly far better than the bold, bitter offerings of Starbucks and the like. I like the smooth, mellow taste, but I also tend to prefer flavors that are a bit nuttier than this, with stronger hints of sweetness, caramel and chocolate. Even a strong fruit and berry citrus flavor might be preferable in some ways. I don't know if the older roasting date would have had any effect on the freshness or subtler flavors.

After a few days, I have taken to mixing this blend with a bit of milk or soy milk, and the vanilla in the latter complements the flavor of the coffee nicely. The richness really seems to be accentuated. This would make a good daily cup, except for the expense. This half-pound is almost gone. I have paid far less for better blends and single-origin coffees. But I do understand its appeal, and it might have appealed to me before I started trying some of the more exotic varieties on this quest.

Update, July 29: The Costa Rican beans mentioned above were heavily displayed and being sold at an attractive price. It was a mellow and acceptable selection, but nothing special. I did make a side trip to Intelligentsia Coffee in Silverlake, and hope to write more about the beans I bought there, which I took home to New York and have been enjoying for much of July.

A Mug of Peet's Sumatra Coffee

Making good coffee when traveling is a hassle, especially if you are staying with people who don't make it regularly, as is my current situation. So my search for the perfect shot has been somewhat disrupted. I went down to the Valley, as they call it here, and found a Peet's Coffee and Tea on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. My coffee geek friends from the West Coast have always sworn by Peet's. The list of beans on the wall was heavy on citrus-y flavors, and I asked for something richer, nuttier. The staff concluded that I should go with something Indonesian. I settled on this and had them grind it for use in a drip coffee maker. I took it back to where we were staying, and then my troubles began. Name: Peet's Sumatra

Geographic Origin: Sumatra, Indonesia.

Description: Nothing on the bag, but the Peet's Web site says: "Very full body, very concentrated flavor. Sweet, slightly earthy, herbal nuances... It's not the most refined or elegant coffee you can drink, but its gutsy and earthy richness is very seductive." It's a longtime standard at Peet's.

Date Purchased: Dec. 27.

Date Roasted: Unknown, but presumably Dec. 26 or Dec. 27 based on this promise on the bag: "We roast six days a week to fill the daily orders from our stores... We don't store our roasted coffee. Coffee we roast today will be in our stores... the next business day."

Source: Peet's Coffee and Tea, 12215 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, Ca.

The Pour: Our hosts had a couple of old drip coffee makers up on a shelf. Emphasis on old. And dusty. So when I got around to making coffee this morning, the first one did not function properly, and the water overflowed the plastic gold filter. The second one could not be compelled to push water through the filter. So it was back down the hill to buy a French press, a Bodum Chambord, at Peet's. This was my preferred method of making coffee before I bought the fancy automatic espresso maker I use at home. I also bought another pound of coffee, this time "Aged Sumatra," with a rough grind for a French press. In the confusion of re-learning how to make coffee this way, I ended up using the finer grind plain Sumatra for the drip machines. It worked out OK, though I did have some difficulty pressing down, which the French press instructions had warned about. I'll try the other grind tomorrow. After some trial and error, I had a good cup. The flavor was deep, rich, as promised, with a slightly bitter aftertaste (I may have made it too strong). It had a full, smooth body, quite pleasant. No citrus or hints of berry and so forth, as promised. I added a bit of soy milk to take the edge off.

Effects: It also took the edge off my mood, which had been aggravated by the broken drip coffee makers and the extra trip down the hill. I stopped growling at people and decided to do this blog post, even though I'm supposedly on vacation, because this is my strange idea of a good time. I look forward to comparing this cup to the Aged Sumatra tomorrow. Here's a little more detail from the Peet's site about the growing process:

Sumatra is another classic Indonesian coffee but totally different from Java. Java's coffees are grown on estates and processed by the washed method; Sumatra's coffees are grown by small landholders who may only have a few trees on their property, and they are processed by the dry method. The ripe coffee cherries are pulped by hand and spread in the sun to dry rather than being rinsed in water overnight. The net result of dry-processed coffee is very heavy body and very full flavor.