Todoroki Coffee

 New Coffee tour in 2011.
 Sample from Todoroki-coffee in Chofu, Tokyo.

Todoroki-coffee's sample order  has flexibility


Todoroki-coffee's sample order  has flexibility in choice, whereas most of coffee roasters has redy-to-go type sample sets. I could choose 2 types of beans from the list, 100g each. Maxum order for sample shipping is 2 sets, so my order was made 2 sets, 400g total. 



Since they have nice celection of Organically grown coffee beans, I picked Peru and Colombia together with Brazil and Panama. 

Paca-Mara ~ El Injerto Farm

 Roaster: Koruri Coffee
 Roast Level: City Roast
 Washed

 Beans: Pacamara, El Injerto Farm, Guatemara

Pacamara is hybrid of Pacas and Maragogype, unique to El Salvador. Succeeding Maragogype DNA, Pacamara is bigger than usual, about double size of usual beans.


Taste of this beans is sweet and dark, nuts like taste, with touch of sourness. They are also highly graded for its uniqueness in Cup of Excellence and appreciated for its aroma similar to Geisha.

A cup brewed with paper filter, I tasted bitterness but couldn't feel sweetness. Maragogype is the best of my favorite beans, so I was expecting, maybe, too much. Taste of coffee beans is combination of roaster and farmer, since brewer is always same...me.
Well, I will try Cffee press and update my impression later...

The picture left is comparison to show the size of Pacamara.  Left is standard size of Arabica, Brazil Burbon, and Right is Pacamara.    

San Jose Farm



Arovor: San Jose

 Roaster: Soichiro Kaji Arovor Coffee
 Roasting Degree: Cinamon - City (?)
 Area of production:
    Dipilito, Departamento de Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua

TasteData: 
Sweetness/Flavor 3.5, Sourness/Richiness 3 (in 5 level chart)

【Roaster's Comment】
Silky chocolate like sweetness together with touch of flowery fragrance and sourness. (From AROVOR website)


【Impression】
Pouring hot water, ground coffee beans grew with foam like a mushroom. Aroma was rather bitter for cinnamon roast, but first tone hit my sense was bitterness. Although the tastes chart grade sourness lower, I taste strong sourness as base tone. I tried a café press as well, but my impression was sour and light taste.  

My preference is dark and strong coffee, so maybe roast level was weaker. Lighter roast level, such as cinnamon roast, enables us to taste “beans” rather than roast, so I assume touch of sweetness will come if they are roasted a little darker.

Arovor is a coined word consisting of Flavor and Aroma, according to the web.  As they said, freshly roasted beans entertained me more than anything when the bag was opened. 

Ethiopia Natural

Beans: Ethiopian Natural

Roaster: Koruri-Coffee

Roasting degree: Light Medium

Area/Origin: Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Variety: Abyssinica, Ethiopian native varietal

Process: Natural

Grade: G3

【Roaster's Comment】

The core value of Ethiopian Natural is its aroma.  To maximize the value, roasting degree is lither medium; pull out from roaster when mellow fruits aroma stands out.

Most of Ethiopian Coffee are Native Ethiopian variety naturally grown in the woods and cultivated by micro size farmers.  Ethiopia Natural is named after the processing method, Natural processing, and has unique aroma with sweet flavor of well matured fruits.

 
【Impression】
Light airy body, mild texture, tropical fruits like soothing aroma.  Fresh sweetness of Star-fruit and Bartlett pear, light acidity of orange, bitterness from roasting, clear and mellow aroma to finish.  Sharp flavored coffee with light acidity in shot aftertaste. 

Good for hot summer morning coffee.  May work as a refreshment in the afternoon after a long and tense meeting on mid-week.  

Favorite food pairing: NY cheese cake with blood orange source, or raspberry source.  

El Pedregal Farm

 

Costa Rica: El Pedregal farm

Roaster: Hiroshi Doi
Roasting Level: Full city

【Comment From Web】
Flowery flagrance. Touch of citrus with hidden with chocolaty sweetness, together with buttery mildness. (Translated)

El Pedregal Farm is a small size family farm located about altitude 1645m of Tarrazu area.


【Impression】
According to a Doi coffee’s 5-scale radar chart, this beans is graded 4 in Sourness/Sweetness/flagrance, 2 in bitterness, and 2 in richness.  Hwever, brewed by paper filter, sourness stands out sharply enough to kill bitterness in base tone. I prefer to serve this coffee thinner only in the morning.

Second Cup:
Cinnamony spicy flavor.  Light body, mild flavor, Muscat like aroma, and clear body.  Sweetness similar to fully matured Apricot as first impression followed by deep bitterness hidden in bottom, which quickly passes by with each sip.


Clock wise from the top:
Aroma/Body/Sourness/Bitterness/Sweetness

Allegro Coffee Company

 

allegro coffee:Italian roast

 This was also Christmas treat from Kumi.


Dark roast, Italian type, but light taste.

Allegro Coffee roasters
She mentioned allegro coffee roasters, sold at Wholefoods, which carries good enough quality and gave me bags, sooo kind!, as Christmas gifts.

Italian roast: This gives rich and strong impression even using a hand drip with paper filter. A French press also makes a strong and bitter cup just like Espresso, but taste of coffee becomes a bit oily. Good with MILK, cafe latte.

For food pairing, Chocolate cookies, Ganache or a piece of chocolate cake, TOPS!.

I miss Strong dark roast American coffee... 

CAFE DE L'MBRE ～ the legend

 

CAFE DE L'MBRE: Tanzania


Finally, I had chance to visit cafe of my dream around X'mas of 2010 and to taste coffee of the legend.

CAFE DE L'MBRE is outstanding coffee roaster for its history as well as its unique coffee beans.

The beans they carries are so called aged beans or old coffee.  Coffee beans are stored in the storage with stable temperature for years.  There are millions of critique, so I will leave any evaluation and explanation of the beans to them.

All I say here is L'mbre's coffee is eye-opening.

I loved taste at cafe and loved even at home.  I bought 100g each of Blend and Tanzania and blew at home, which extremely carming and mild.

L'mbre has over 50 yrs of history.  Mr. Sekiguchi, the founder of L'mbre has been running this business with principles which firmly built into this Cafe, which impressed me more than anything.



CAFE DE L'MBRE: BLEND



Last few years, there are series of specially coffee houses/roasters opened all over Japan serving single farm/origin new crops.  The Cup of excellence has quickly gained its popularity now and there are number of coffee roaster/cafe serves and sells beans so called speciality coffee.  But, I think this booming popularity reminds me of investors on Art in "bubble ara"...

As coffee lover, I am happy to find wide range of choices both beans and roasters, but sometimes wonder where we are really heading to.



Jun Blend

 The very first ship of Arover coffee, Jun Blend, touched me with a little sourness .

 Level of roast: Cinamon ~ city

According to their web site, this has level 3 of richness, and level 2 of flavor, sourness and sweetness in level 5 mesurment.

I prefer different richness, maybe which is called darkness, but taste of this blend reminds me very much of coffee at Japanese old type cafe, Kissa-ten,