Monday, September 27, 2010

We Are Wendelboe


Bex and Devlin brews while Jeremy reads Coffee with Tim Wendelboe.

Bex is back from the Nordic Barista Cup and she's brought back a few goodies with her: a bottle of Cascara beer, some Nordic Barista Cup Cupping Cups, coffee from Stockfleth's, coffee from Tim Wendelboe and the Tim Wendelboe Coffee Book.

When she left for Norway, I sent her off with one command: "Go forth, seek Wendelboe, and take lots of pictures!"

The report: coffee in a reserved and refined environment, iced coffee in martini glasses, iced cappuccino via a spindle mixer and two chairs.

Two chairs??? Really??

That Wendelboe... the things he gets away with... Two chairs....hmph!

With the book in hand and a bag of Mugaga Kenya coffee, we start brewing. Evidently, Kenyan coffees are Tim's favorite. Evidently, he writes that statement three times in his book. Evidently, Tim likes Kenya.




According to the label, this coffee comes from the Kiamabara factory in Nyeri, Kenya and features SL28 and SL34 varietals of arabica coffee, with "Vasket" (I have no idea what that means). Harvested in January 2010 and roasted September 21st. Tim's coffees are uniformly good and while I can't say I've had a lot of his coffees, everything that I've sampled from Tim Wendelboe (the company and not necessarily the man) has been very good indeed. Like that Ethiopian he had last year that was searingly good.

With Chemex and Coffee with Tim Wendelboe in hand we start brewing.

The Kenya is fruity, bright and a bit tannic. It seriously reminds me of cascara tea. It's likeable and tasty but is quite a departure from other Kenyans I've tried recently. Vastly different than Counter Culture's Thiriku, the Mugaga is decidedly on the fruit but more like the dried cascara fruit than a berry kind of fruit.

Tomorrow, it will be time to sample that Panama Hacienda Esmeralda from Stockfleth's - that is, unless my staff has drank it all by then...