Red mountain ～ Pea berry

Beans: Red mountain, Pea berry 
Roaster: Bean's Tei
Roasting Degree: Dark
Origin: Nyeri, Kenya

 【Flavor scale】
Mildness: 2
Bitterness: 3
Richness: 5
Aroma: 5
Acidity: 2
Sweetness: 3
※Grade 1 to 5

【Impression】
Citrus top note with dark chocolate like cacao aroma as mid/bottom note,  medium body with simple, clear flavor, sweetness as a long lasting after taste, strong Earthy feeling.  Soothing and light texture, nutty, almonds chocolate like mild sweetness as core flavor,  harmonized with a bit of bitterness, no acidity detected.  Well developed and harmonized flavor.

Good for Morning and afternoon break coffee w/o cream and sugar.

Beans Tei

Walking along Takakura street, a green sun-shade catches your eyes together with beautiful aroma stimulate your olfactory sensation.  Beans Tei is KIOSK type coffee roaster at Shijyo, Kyoto.  Located near Nishiki-Ichiba, a traditional and historical marketplace in Kyoto, some may expect "Tradition" and "History" behind this roaster.  According to one of shop staff, this roaster has founded in 1990's, 1994 from their HP, which is considered relatively new in both this historical city and Japanese Cafe history.   Although this roaster is pretty new, it's merged into atmosphere of Nishiki, sitting there silently.  Beans Tei @  Shijyo is very small and hidden, cozy and friendly.  This Kiosk offers a Cup of coffee, so it will be fun to grab a cup here to explore the town.  

As other 90's coffee roasters, Beans Tei  also follows "trend" of 3rd wavers; Specialty, single origin.  There are some micro farmers as well as COE, cup of excellence.  Roasting technique and degrees closely resemble to Seattle style, but has a tip of a traditional Japanese light roasting and flavor sensitive "Blending" techniques.  Understanding roasting machine capabilities, their roasting technique is high.  Also, their flavor, their blending technique, is good enough considering the price.  The price range at Beans Tei is around JPY 450 to around 550 per 100g, quite reasonable price setting for both Specialty coffee beans and Shijyo, the down town Kyoto.    

My recommendation for first timers is Special Blend, reasonable and flavorful coffee best for paper brew.

Dominica Ramon Rodoriguez

Beans:  Ramon Rodoriguez
Roaster: Beans Tei 
Roast: Medium
Area: Juncalito, Santiago province,Altura, El Cibao, Dominican Republic
                   Ramon Rodriguez Estate
Altitude: 1200m
Variety: Caturra、Typica
Grade:  N/A
Screen:  N/A
Processing method: Wet

 【Impression】
Light Citrus as a top note on crispy Oats like aroma, Nutty and Chocolaty sweetness with hazelnuts like spicy flavor, medium body, light touch refreshing bitterness as aftertaste.  A tint of  lemony acidity touches shortly on top, mild and mellow layer of sweetness stays as core flavor.
Black is recommended to enjoy this flavor-full and well-balanced cup with a piece of  Marron glacé. 

This beans expresses full characteristics of Cibao Altura coffee, lower acidity and higher quality contributed by higher altitude with  ample rainfall.  The Dominican Specialty coffee are generally known as full body, moderate to light acidity, rich aroma, and earthy tones, and, of all these, Cibao Altura coffee has much less acidity to emphasize rich mellow flavor.   




【Note: Dominican Coffee】
The main varietal grown in Dominican Republic is the Typica, about 90%, and the Arabica, about 10%, including Bourbon, Catuai, Caturra, and Mundo Novo, a hybrid of Caturra.  The Dominican Coffee retains and exhibits characteristics of classic caribbean coffees, well-balanced, among all others such as Jamaican and Puerto Rican, which due to processing methods.  
Dominican Republic is on the list of one of the finest coffee country which produces CEO specialty beans from established seven growing areas:  Cibao, Barahona, Noroeste, Neyba, Sierra Sur, Sierra Occidental, and Sierra Central.  In those areas, coffee tends to elevate acidity with altitudes.   Basically, the Dominican beans are composed with full-bodied, rich aroma, earthy spice flavor, and mild to light acidity varied by growing altitudes.   

Ethiopia

Beans: Ethiopia 
Roaster: Iwashi Coffee, Kyoto


This was the choice of the day by the owner/roaster on Jan. 15.


Lemony aroma, very light and smooth, nutty, matured sweetness as a top, clear bitterness lay underneath, seer bitter-sweetness as a   short lasting aftertaste.  Fruity, Well-balanced flavor.  Finely  polished pearly sweetness and mildness with moderate chocolaty sweetness.


With a very little information given about this coffee beans, following are assumptions from its flavor/aroma: Sidamo, washed, Medium roast...perhaps, by 5KG German gas roaster.

Iwashi Coffee

Iwashi Coffee in Kyoto.

Friend of mine told me to go there for some reason, so I walked to there along Nishi-oji St..

For "real" coffee lovers, I recommend this roaster with maybe the same reason as my friend's!


Iwashi Coffee is very small coffee roaster which has one big table with 4 to 6 seats.  We certainly enjoy a cup, Hand-brewed, there.

Amazingly, a cup of freshly hand brewed, flavorful and aroma-ful, coffee only costs us JPY200!!


As "Coffee geek" roasters always do, this roaster has series of coffee goods, hand grinders, pots, hand-brew goods and so on.


There are several freshly roasted coffee beans, JPY500/100g.

    

Nakagawa Komugi-ten

Here is the best Boulangerie in Kyoto.
It'll be maybe in top five fantastic Boulangerie in this country so far.
Just try their freshly baked baguette without saying anything.  Any complaints will be accepted if you have some.

Located near Shimogamo shrine, quiet and natural, Nakagawa Komugi-ten welcomes you with stimulating aroma of freshly baked bread together with beautiful heartwarming smile of Mr. & Mrs. Nakagawa.  This bakery uses organic wheat and freshly milled flowers.  They mill just exact amount of wheat to bake everyday so that flavor of breads has depth and sweetness.

It is often say that Kyoto is the place to enjoy Boulangerie, but there are no evidence to support that urban legend.  Nakagawa komugi-ten is one of rare case so far to suggest maybe there are possibility to make Kyoto as the city for Bread lovers.  Certainly, there are numbers of family bakeries in town. Some streets have a bakery every 10m, which is unusual density we see in other places like Osaka.  They are not only OLD fashioned family bakery, but also very fashionable, cozy, artisan type, which carries often natural yeast or sour dough bread. 
Some of them says, "Learn Baking and pastry-making in France", "in Germany", or "in Belgique."  Some also, "Trained famous XXXXX in Tokyo for XXyears."  However, talented baker cannot be identified by the sing they carry. Wonderful taste can be improved by their enthusiasm to crate something impressive or to re-create the taste in their memory only with their talents and techniques.  It is easy to understand this post when you visit this bakery.

poco dolce

The Artistic Chocolate from San Francisco !!

The finest flavor comes from the finest ingredients enhanced with the finest chocolatier!   

  

Located on 3rd Street, near "Dogpatch", one of "keep your eye on" area in SF, "poco dolce" proves chocolate as Art.  Their Hand made Artisan Dark Chocolate harmonizes with signature toffee created by the finest quality ingredients.  Covered with smooth layer of chocolate, this chocolate covered toffees replace your image of chocolate, may need to say American chocolates even in such foodie town like SF...  Nothing more to say except, "TRY THEM".  Flavor impression can be proved only with real experience.  The photo comes from my the first experience of poco dolce in September 2011, and about year later, I have bought....hum...how many?  Out of all product they have, my recommendation is Toffees.  Their toffees satisfy your thirst for sweets and make the best combination with any kind of coffee!