Coffee Tastings

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This past Monday (June 3, 2013), I went to a coffee seminar at the East Olive Way Starbucks.  Coffee-Master-In-Training Josh and Certified-Coffee Master Donna walked us through several pairings.  Here’s what we tasted:

• Starbucks Cafe Verona with La Boulange Chocolate Molten Lava Cake
• Rogue Dead Guy Ale with La Boulange Ham and Cheese Croissant
• La Boulange Wheat Spinach Croissant with House Blend or a chardonnay

First off, Olive Way had a great turn out for this event!  Many more than usual.  I had to wonder if the beer and wine helped with that.

Verona with Chocolate Molten Lava Cake:

I enjoyed this pairing, but I pretty much always enjoy Verona coffee.  This small Chocolate Molten Cake is somehow very rich.  I never feel like I want more than just one bite.  Verona is very full-bodied, even when made on the Clover.  It lingers in the mouth, and the caramelization and sweetness to it become more pronounced with the very rich chocolate dessert.  Verona has a lot of lingering flavor, and I thought that the molten chocolate cake gave the coffee a certain smoothness to it.

Rogue Dead Guy Ale with Ham and Cheese Croissant:

I didn’t really participate in this pairing other than eating some of the ham and cheese croissant, but there’s no doubt, the Rogue Dead Guy Ale was a hit.  I’m not sure I can explain it, but the sight of a nice ale in Starbucks sample cups still strikes me as humorous:

The ham and cheese croissant is delicious:

As I understand it, the Rogue Dead Guy Ale pairs with the buttery-ness of the cheese and highlights creamy flavors of the croissant.  I paired the ham and cheese croissant with the House Blend coffee, which I thought was a pretty good pairing.  The roast profile of the coffee brings out the smokiness of the ham.  By the way, I think it would be an excellent option to try pairing a very bold coffee, such as Yukon Blend, with the ham and cheese croissant.

Wheat Spinach Croissant with House Blend or Ferrari-Carano Chardonnay:

I didn’t really participate in this pairing, though, it was pretty clear that everyone around me loved it with the chardonnay.  As I understand it, the wheat spinach is prepared with a cream sauce that uses a touch of white wine in the recipe.  And the oakiness of the wine complements the earthiness of the wheat.  Next time you are at an Evenings Starbucks, try this pairing and tell me what you think!

By the way, the chardonnay was consumed from a special wine glass that is made just for Starbucks: Riedel Wine Glasses at Starbucks.  If you can walk out of an Evenings Starbucks with one of these wine glasses in your hands, that is a rare and collectible item!  I think they were for sale when they were newly-introduced to the stores, but I’m not sure that they’re still sold at Starbucks.  The stores definitely still use them though.

Here’s the rest of the photos from this coffee event at East Olive Way Starbucks.  You can see that a good time was had by all!

Thank you Josh and Donna for the fabulous event!

(You can read about other coffee seminars by clicking here – there have been many Olive Way events, and I’ve produced blog articles about many of them.  It’s fun to go back and look at past coffee tastings.)

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Right now, on StarbucksStore.com, there is a gem of an online-exclusive coffee:  It is the Reserve Guatemala Finca Los Caballitos.  Sourced from a single farm in Guatemala, there were not large enough quantities of it to offer to all Reserve Starbucks stores.  I ordered a bag of it, and dashed to the East Olive Way Starbucks, enlisting the help of Coffee Master Jess for a mini coffee tasting.

Click here to find the Guatemala Finca Los Caballitos on StarbucksStore.com.

I have decided that I genuinely love an excellent single-origin, small batch Guatemalan coffee.  Lemon and dark chocolate notes are sometimes the hallmark of such coffees, similar to the flavor notes of the ever-popular Casi Cielo.  This Guatemala Finca Los Caballitos is squarely a medium roast profile, and medium bodied coffee.  The beans themselves are deliciously aromatic with bittersweet chocolate aroma.  I definitely got the lemon notes from the brewed coffee.  Jess brewed this on the Clover on the same setting that would be used for the Guatemala Finca Medina coffee.

I brought in some La Boulange goodies to try with this coffee.  These La Boulange treats are the kind of treats that would be normally sold at the actual La Boulange stores in San Francisco, however they were part of a gift bag that I received from Starbucks during a special La Boulange tasting event last week.  Jess and I paired La Boulange Lemon Nuage cookies with the Guatemala Finca Los Caballitos:

I enjoyed the Lemon Nuage cookies with the Guatemala Finca Los Caballitos.  I thought that the lemon notes really came alive with this very lemony cookie.  Jess had thought that the cookies were almost a little bit too sweet for this coffee, though I disagreed with her!  If you are in San Francisco and you can try these lemon cookies, you should!

We noticed that this coffee has a little darker profile, and a little bit bigger body than the Guatemala Finca Medina, a current Reserve Starbucks offering.  Paired with a Chocolate Spice Biscotti, it started out nicely with the chocolate notes pairing well with this coffee, but with spice notes overpowering it at the end.  We also tried it with the classic Starbucks brownie, and I thought that was a fine pairing.  It gave the coffee a little more creaminess to it.

Basically, every cup of coffee that I have had from this coffee has been awesome.

Today, (May 26, 2013) I took some Guatemala Finca Los Caballitos to the Fourth and Union Starbucks.  The shift supervisor, Mark, was eager to try it, and we had great conversations as I hung out at his store for a while.  We paired this coffee with the chocolate croissant made by La Boulange – and I thought this was the best pairing yet.  Definitely, a lot of chocolate notes came out in the coffee, and the buttery-ness of the croissant gave the coffee some fullness, somewhat diminishing its clean finish.

Here are some random photos from these two coffee tastings for Finca Los Caballitos – Thank you Jess at Olive Way Starbucks, and Mark at Fourth and Union Starbucks!  As always, click onto the photos to make them larger.

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Starbucks Burundi Ngozi Reserve coffee is here!  I have been to two coffee seminars for this new Reserve offering:

May 18, 2013 – 7th and Pike Starbucks:

On May 18 , 2013, I went to a coffee tasting lead by Coffee-Master-In-Training Amber, at the 7th and Pike Starbucks.  There were about five people in attendance (and one of them was another customer who just happened to be curious and wanted to jump in).

The Burundi coffee is an African, wash-processed coffee.  I think Starbucks is classifying this coffee as a medium coffee, but it’s a pretty light and mild coffee to me.  It has a light body in the mouth, and a clean taste.  The aroma has some blackberry notes in it.  As to the flavor of the coffee, two of our group commented on it having a little bit of a honey flavor.  The thing to know about this coffee is that it has remarkably pronounced black tea flavors to it.  There is very little roastiness or roast profile to it, and there’s a lot of origin flavors.

One thing we did was tried the Burundi side by side with brewed Tazo Awake tea.  This was ingenuous.  The Burundi almost seemed a little astringent side by side with Awake.  I recommend giving this a try for a really interesting coffee tasting experience.  You can really see how Burundi has overlapping flavors with black tea.

We also tried this coffee with a cinnamon chip scone.  I think the scone was supposed to bring out complex cinnamony flavors to the coffee, but to be honest, I thought the scone was a little too over-powering for this coffee.

Burundi is definitely something that is rare and exotic for coffee connoisseurs.  Actually, this is exactly what the Reserve program hopes to do: give customers a chance to try the rare and exotic coffees!

Here are just a few more photos:

May 20, 2013 – East Olive Way Starbucks:

I went to a second coffee event for Burundi, held at the East Olive Way Starbucks.  Coffee-Master-In-Training Danielle walked us through this event.  It was very interesting to try this coffee both Clover brewed, and made via a French press.  I often underestimate the powerful difference brew method makes to how a coffee will taste.  The Burundi is much spicier and fuller when made with a French press.

We paired the Burundi with the Salted Chocolate Almond bites at Starbucks, and immediately, several people commented that the “salty” aspect of the chocolate bite brought out the “chai” notes of the coffee.  I thought that the rich chocolate gave this coffee a little bit of creaminess to it.  It still had a fairly clean finish, even when made on a press.  One person commented that she really tastes the Burundi in the middle of her mouth.  (One of the four steps of a coffee tasting is to “locate.”  It’s one step that sometimes gets overlooked, but this is good coffee to keep “locate” in mind, as you try it.  Just as a reminder:  1) Smell 2) Slurp 3) Locate and 4) Describe.)

If you get the chance, pick up a bag and carefully read the side of the packaging for the Burundi.  It’s very rare for an African coffee to come from a female-dominated and operated coffee farms.  Burundi tends to have very small farms, and then farmers bring their coffee cherries to central washing stations organized by coffee trading groups.

This coffee comes to you from a coffee trader named Marie-Chantel Nicahoruru, who coordinates the washing stations, facilitates best coffee growing practices, and operates as the primary coffee trader for about 2,000 very small coffee farms, many of which are indeed owned and operated by women.  Marie’s business operations in Burundi are remarkably unique as coffee farming in Africa is strongly a male-dominated business.

Try pairing this coffee with cinnamon, baking spices, and black tea flavors.  This can also complement chocolate, as we experienced with the chocolate covered almonds.

Enjoy your coffee, from Marie’s table to yours …

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If you enjoy reading about coffee tastings, I recommend that scroll through the Coffee Tastings category on this site.

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