December 24, 2014
Kona Coffee? Round Two
The family gathered around for a pre-Christmas meal. A meal is a good way to get their attention, producing the opportunity for some coffee analysis.
On the table was coffee from Kailua-Kona, from Ka'au, from the Hamakua Coast, and even from Kauai, not to mention the "Seattle Mountain" coffee from Costco. I had a good time explaining to anyone who would listen where all these locations were, and why they might make a difference to coffee quality. I don't think anyone was listening much, though.
Erhard opened up looking pretty expert, as he bypassed any confusing brewing by just eating some beans. He declared the Costco one to be very freshly roasted, which was true. Chewing on the same Seattle beans, Marius declared with some consternation "I smell smoke". Indeed the Seattle sample was black and glossy, something Erhard identified as a local fad.
I'm afraid I failed to produce consistent samples of all (or any) of the coffees. But, I did throw a few out there. For the Hamakua, Marius began with faint praise, branding it "inoffensive". Later he sounded a little like the coffee experts, identifying traces of "caramel and chocolate".
When brewed up, the Seattle produced universal cries of "I smell fish", and "Burned". People were serious about the fish. Some smelled my fingers to make sure that I was not shucking shrimp in the back, before preparing the samples.
Somehow, I lost the confidence of the group in terms of preparing samples, and gave over to Melissa. Melissa pointed out the best way to use a French Press, and in fact her version of the Samurai Prime, from Kona, got the best reviews. This is due then, either to the coffee or to the method, so the result is inconclusive. Even so, murmurings of "rich" and "nice" came from Erhard. On the other hand, my notes seem to record the words "mud" and "nuts", so who knows what it means.
It was then Marius who mentioned that whatever the various qualities, it was nice to be sampling actual coffee. He conjured up the time before the Wall came down, when real coffee was rare in his former home of Leipzig. Then. a chicory based preparation was used, and it was called, truly, "Muckefuck".
Wikipedia suggests that the name might derive from the French "mocca faux". Whatever, this immediately brought to mind our bicycle visit to Fucking, Austria. Needless to say, we got distracted with this one, had a great time, but never did return to serious coffee analysis!
In summary - none of the coffees sampled in Kona, in Seattle, or in Cobble Hill made a strong impression. Certainly, none of us detected anything that would warrant the prices being asked for this stuff. So if you go to Hawaii, maybe save your money and spend it back home on lattes in a nice coffee shop, preferably with free wifi!
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