Best Coffee Beans I Have Tasted in 2017

1. El Salvador Finca San Francisco Santa Ana, Coffee Collective, Copenhagen 

2. Rwanda Mahembe Nyamasheke, Workshop Coffee, London

3. Burundi Kibingo, Square Mile Coffee Roasters, London

4. Kenya Nyeri Giakanja, Tim Wendelboe, Oslo

5. Costa Rica Alejo Castro, Great Coffee, Aarhus

6. Ethiopia Diima Natural lot#3 Gigessa Guji, Supreme Roastworks, Oslo

7. Ethiopia Beloya Israel Degfa, Drop Coffee Roasters, Stockholm

8. Ethiopia Adado Shara Guanga, Probador Colectiva, Istanbul

9. Ethiopia Sidamo, Fabrica Coffee Roasters, Lisbon

10. Ethiopia Kochere Chelektu, Stooker, Amsterdam

Tim Wendelboe, Oslo, Kenya Giakanja

There comes the post for probably the most famous Nordic specialty coffee spot, Tim Wendelboe. I guess it won't be overestimation if I say that he is one of the key names behind the current state of roasting profiles in specialty coffee business in especially in Europe and people dealing with light roasts and nuances around it. It was a break moment between heavy and multi-directional rain showers of Oslo when I decided to walk the way of around 3 kilometers from my hotel in city center. The unique façade -which really looks like a gourmet kitchen entrance indeed- opens into a single cozy room full of coffee people one of whose corners is allocated with a roasting machine. There are some passages to other small rooms which I think are used to pack the beans and prepare the posts throughout the Europe. TW is continuously delivering coffee to professionals as well as home consumers over subscription. The bar had always been busy and the queue had always been long when I was there. When I managed to order I asked for the tasting menu of 4 brewings for 4 different beans which is indeed suitable for 2 people. It was too much for me but I could easily find someone else there to share this impressive tasting session with me. As far as I can see TW only uses aeropress for brewing. Two Honduras in the first set is followed by another table for a Geisha variety next to a Kenya. Well, the beans, the brewings, the serving styles... They were all great. The elegant acidity was there in all cups with no clue of unwanted sourness or unnecessary heaviness. The details and layers in flavours were really beautiful. The clarity was impressive especially for aeropress.

Kenya Giakanja made the biggest impact and I carried a 250 grams package with me on my way back home, where I tried my reference recipes for aeropress, V60 and kalita wave brewings. My best cup was in V60 12/200gr. Aeropress was better with a little bit coarser setting in the grinder compared to my reference. The specific flavours of these beans are rose hips and red berries. Adding the inevitable tea-like background for Kenya beans in general, the output was a like a very high-end floral tea. I am really looking forward to trying other beans from this amazing place as soon as possible.          

Great Coffee, Aarhus, Costa Rica - Alejo Castro

Aarhus is not close to Copenhagen, so you need to have solid reasons to see this nice and cosy city if you are in a vacation in the capital of Denmark, which already have a lot of highlights to do and to be seen. Meeting Soren Stiller Markussen, as the owner of the Great Coffee in Aarhus, was one of the main reasons I visited the city by taking the 3 hours train trip from Copenhagen back and forth. We did not arrange a meeting with him, so I find myself very lucky for having found him there and tasted great samples directly from him. Costa Rica, Alejo Castro is advised directly by Soren, who emphasized these beans as honey processed, special and rare ones. We tried a V60 brew of this Costa Rica as well as a heavenly espresso extract from an El Salvador. I recommend every coffee enthusiasts go there and talk to Soren about coffee. The way the coffee bar designed, the precision in recipes and the way he serves and explains his coffee are all parts of a complete specialty coffee experience.

Costa Rica Alejo Castro became the package that I carried back to home for my own trials. Citrus and a slight bit of hibiscus flavors were more dominant in my reference V60 recipe for 12/200 gr. A kalita brew with 12/225 gr with 95 degree Celsius water was more balanced with caramel background, being my favourite for these great beans. I am really looking forward to getting some more samples from Great Coffee to brew at home.    

    

Coffee Collective, Copenhagen, El Salvador Santa Ana, Finca San Francisco

Being a very important specialty coffee center in Europe, Coffee Collective is one of the main destinations on my Scandinavia trip. Coffee Collective have four locations in Copenhagen but not with a chain style. I tried each and every one mostly to try the consistency level of brewing bars of this highly acclaimed brand. To be honest, I stayed speechless against the level of standardization of cups including several nuances which are not easy to be controlled indeed. I tried several beans but the highlight was the El Salvador San Francisco Santa Ana and the espresso 1 blend of beans from Guatemala and Kenya. The strawberry and apricot flavors of Kalita brewed El Salvador San Francisco was totally mind boggling.  Considering that there are also solid hints of complex passion fruit aroma, the roaster is indeed a master magician in this case, creating an African-like layered texture from a non-African coffee.  

Coming back to the espresso 1 blend, the acidic and crispy hit at the first second followed by a balanced and soft finish was really impressive. This was probably the one and only blend that I accepted as something from specialty coffee world so far. For me the most impressive location was the one in the Godthabsvej, which also looks like the headquarter - where I also came across a cupping session held as a part of a training for the new baristas, showing again their care about the education on coffee professionals. They also let me get some sips from several new beans they put recently on their shelves including a Panama Geisha.

The open bar style of Torvehallerne location in this open market area and the newly opened cosy and pub-like place in Kristen Berniko are again must see places for Coffee Collective.    

The package that I carried from my Coffee Collective surely belong to the amazing El Salvador San Francisco Santa Ana beans and I did my best to try it in several methods. Coffee Collective is mostly using Kalita Wave 155 for brewing at their serve. I also managed to get real good and sweet extracts from V60 with these beans applying my reference method 12/200gr 12/40 grind with 95 degree in 2:20, however it looks like the best result was again from Kalita 185 15/225gr 16/40 grind with 97 degree in 2:30. My trials produced a little bit more acidic results compared to what they brewed in Copenhagen probably because of the calcium content in Dutch water but still the fruitiness in the coffee was just amazing in all trials.   

     

La Cabra, Aarhus - Kenya Kapsokisio

I visited La Cabra in a very rainy day of the Aarhus, the cosy university city of Denmark. Impressively full with people, the wooden dominant ambience of the place welcomes you in a gentle manner also by spraying some sour dough bread smells into your face right after the entrance. Minimal espresso bar is seperate than the one for the brewing, whose background is supported by a shelf full of the almost cubic cartonette packages of specialty beans roasted by La Cabra. It was not easy to choose among several options there but we tried two different beans (Kenya Kapsokisio and Guatemala Domingo) for two different brews in aeropress and one single shot espresso. The impressive parts were Kenya Kapsokisio's espresso shot matched with some bread and butter and Guatemala Domingo's brew. They are mostly using aeropress and kalita for brewings and the recipe used in aeropress there was based on coarse grind level, shorter immersion time and lower temperature.

I carried some samples from Kenya Kapsokisio back to home to try it myself on some brewings. As usual, I first tried my reference method for V60 - fine grind, 95-97 degree celcius, stir at bloom, pour in 3 steps, 2:20 in total. As expected depending on the trial at the coffee bar itself, it was a little bit on the overwhelming side so I passed to aeropress trying to do something between La Cabra's recipe and my reference recipe in Aeropress, which is again on the finer grind size, longer immersion time and higher temperature. The result was better but I was not satisfied enough also with the aeropress. So I found what I am looking for back in V60 with a little bit coarser grind (14/40 in Baratza Virtuoso) and 94 degree celcius, keeping the rest as in my reference. The apple was really dominant at this last trial and this is exactly how an elegant acidity should be. The slight winey impression is softened as the temperature decreased and the cup is balanced in time. Certainly, a very impressive coffee... 

Some Trials for Turkish Style Coffee Brewing

This time some obsessions on Turkish style coffee brewing... A grinding level around espresso is applied to 7 grams of some fresh natural processed Brasilian beans from one of local roasteries here in Eindhoven, namely Bean Brothers. The initial temperature of the 70 grams of water is set to 60 degree celsius and the heat source is set so that the total brewing time is 2:20. Even though it all started with beans from Ethiopia and Yemen back in very old times, the Turkish coffee turns out to be labeled by a certain taste/aroma/flavour of some Brasilian beans from a not very qualified variety and region indeed - mostly because of economical reasons and purposes. So this is a nice experiment to see the results with a higher quality and more controllable parameters. The traditional methods applied currently in Turkey generally start with cold water and a very fine grind, mostly in order to increase the extraction rate since the coffee is usually stored as ground. It is not so easy to apply the same rules when the definition of the coffee beans are changed. For your information, the brewing recipe is based on Turgay Yıldızlı - one of the cezve/ibrik champions - and my cezve is produced by Soy from Turkey.

10 (+ 1) Best Coffee Beans I Have Tasted in 2016

1. Rwanda Huye Mountain, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, New York 

2. Ethiopia Nano Challa, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, New York 

3. Ethiopia Bifdu Gudina, Five Elephant, Berlin

4. Kenya Kamwangi AA Kirinyaga, Drop Coffee Roasters, Stockholm

5. Ethiopia Burtukaana Lot 2 Adola, Probador Colectiva, İstanbul

6. Costa Rica Finca La Cueste, Probador Colectiva, İstanbul
7. Ethiopia Kochere, Probador Colectiva, İstanbul

8. Ethiopia Wote Yirgacheffe, Aslı Yaman - LOL Coffee Roasters, İstanbul

9. Kenya Thunguri AA Kronotrop, İstanbul

10. Colombia Aromas Del Sur, Kronotrop, İstanbul

11. Colombia Rio Blanco, Cauca, Stielman Koffiebranders, Rotterdam