What kind of coffee are you drinking (and how do you brew it)?
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
On a recent trip to Portland, in need of a late-afternoon caffeine fix, I stopped by Coava Coffee Roasters for a cup of coffee.
It wasn’t all the talk of the Kone that lured me to Coava. (At this point, I’m not spending $50 on a filter for the Chemex coffee maker, because I don’t have a Chemex.) It was the recommendation of a taxi driver. Who better to trust in matters of coffee than a guy who rails against Wal-Mart and the Pearl District and works 12-hour night shifts? Besides, I was already up to my eyeballs in Stumptown.
One thing led to another and I ended up buying a couple of bags of beans to wedge into my carry-on: 500 grams of Kieni Kenya roasted on Jan. 14, according to the packaging. (And yeah, by the time I got back to L.A. my sweaters smelled like coffee.)
So that’s what I’ve been drinking lately, though I get a lot more acidity in my cup than the one I had at Coava (with the same beans). I admit that most of the time I still brew with a French press; I’m just too harried to do my own pour-overs (see below) first thing in the morning when I’m getting ready to go to work. I do occasionally use my Aeropress. But the guys behind Coava -- Matt Higgins and Keith Gehrke -- are now developing the Kone funnel, a sleek full-immersion glass brewer with a steel base that looks as if it might belong in a 19th century lab. And I want one.
-- Betty Hallock
Photos, from top: Kieni Kenya coffee beans; a pour-over at Coava; a macchiato. Credit: Betty Hallock
