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...