After reading a post from James back in Jan, I was quite intrigued with how this might translate to our local specialty coffee scene. I picked the most popular blend from each of the following cafes who are roasting their own beans with descriptors found either on their coffee bags or from their website.

• Papa Palheta
• Oriole Coffee
• Toby's Estate Asia
• Liberty Coffee
• Bettr Barista
• Highlander Coffee

The predominant tastes of "chocolatey" & "nutty" probably didn't come too much as a surprise considering milk based drinks forms the majority of the drinks consumed locally, and they are fairly neutral to most locals' taste palettes. Compare that with what the US market has to offer and the flavours of the coffees available locally start to look somewhat - lacking. Could this be due to just a better grasp of how their coffees taste like and putting it in words or simply a case of local roasters preferring to create blends that generally suit the locals' taste?

Note that this list is on the light side as I have chosen the above 6 roasters as examples. Other roasters not listed here is probably due to the lack of available information regarding the blend taste.

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the 1st country on our road trip through Central America, and definitely one of the most memorable. from the fairly rustic village of Tacuba where we jumped down canyons of waterfalls to tasting our favourite local pupusas, we hitched on the local "chicken bus" with our 50L backpacks and travelled with the natives to Santa Ana, the biggest coffee producing region in the country before snaking back into the hustle and bustle of the capital, San Salvador. we planted our first coffee trees and toured the biggest coffee cooperative in the country. meeting 2011 world's barista champion was definitely a highlight but speaking to the folks behind Viva Espresso was just as enlightening.

a picture speaks a thousand words (or at least i hope mine does), so enjoy the following photos that were taken in this lovely country.

El Salvador gallery on flickr

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We hit the flight trail again last week, with a short trip to Seoul for their annual Cafe Show, which incorporates the country's barista championship. I've never been to Korea but I've heard from many about how one can find a cafe at every turn of a street. Let me remind you that these are not your usual chain outlets (although they do have a lot of those too), but rather small independent cafes. What's even more amazing is that you will probably find a small coffee roaster to welcome you by the entrance or the cashier in many of these indie cafes. Unfortunately I spent a majority of my time within the coffee show or attending seminars but on the few occasions that I tried the coffees, I have to say it's very much a hit and miss experience. In fact, my advice to anyone who is really keen get a good cup will probably find one by avoiding those that has a small roaster proudly sitting within the compounds of the shop space.

Going back to the show, I thought I was really impressed by the size and turnout. Most major brands are represented and coffee roasters seem to be one of the hottest item on the grounds, with Probat been the only notable absence. La Marzocco was represented strongly with a huge booth in the middle of the tradeshow. Hario and Kalita battle it out over at the manual brew counters, attracting lines of crowd queuing to taste the brews. Coffee origin countries were present in full force as well, especially the Central American countries, Brazil, Ethiopia, India and Indonesia. Home brewers and roasters were clearly on the minds of many of the exhibitors as many of their products were targeting this growing market.

As usual, it was a time to catch up with coffee friends from all over the world and got to know new ones, and we look forward to seeing you somewhere soon in 2012.

Seoul Cafe Show gallery on flickr

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I have been procrastinating for the longest time ever to continue on from my last post where I left off after leaving arguably the US capital of indie cafes. arriving in SF, I can see why so many people rave about this city, describing it as one of the best cities in America to live in - people, culture, arts, architecture, beautiful weather (if it doesn't fog up), and a thriving coffee culture. we were blessed with amazing sunshine during our stay although the thermometer did plummet quite drastically once the sun is hidden below the horizon.

very much enjoyed my first Pride day, watching naked men and boobies sashay in front of thousands of spectators. but nothing makes me happier than to finally visit one of my favourite coffeeshops - Sightglass, incredible outfit that these guys are building, which was only couple of weeks away from opening when we dropped by. Four Barrel, Ritual, Blue Bottle were the other usual suspects as we continued our coffee trail.

3 days after, we picked up a rented car early in the morning and floored the accelerator towards Las Vegas, through Yosemite National Park, which was warm and sunny at the base, but covered with 2 feet of snow on the top! don't think i covered that many miles in a single day ever in my life!

Vegas was just a pitstop for us to head into Death Valley the following morning, spending the entire day exploring America's lowest, driest and hottest, an incredible area of 7,800km². The scenery can get quite boring after a while, but if you are someone who is in any bit interested in landscape and history, making your way here is definitely worth the time and effort.

we spent another night in Vegas without visiting a single casino (we did have to walk through one to get to the reception) and headed out further south the following day towards the Grand Canyon. no words are appropriate to describe what stands in front of us when one arrive at the valley - millions of years of geological evolution just beneath your feet, only a trip there yourself will do any justice to this amazing natural wonder of the world.

next stop: El Salvador!

flickr gallery

note: i accidently deleted all the pics taken from the day i left SF till we arrive in Grand Canyon. i was that pissed with myself that i kept putting away to continue to write about the trip. that explains why i have nothing of Death Valley, Yosemite & Vegas to show.

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3hrs in, we whizzed into rodeway hotel & inn, a motel just outside of Portland international airport where we will be flying out from 3 days after. no time for mount st helen on the way in as the clouds were gathering fast from the pacific (at one point, we were contemplating to visit the town of Forks, made famous by Bella, Jacob & the Cullens). Portland was also known as the stump town as it was a major logging town many years back and the remains of the trees after they were cut gave rise to the nickname.

we dropped off our luggage, freshened up and drove into city centre. parking in the city was conveniently free after 6pm and is useful for those who rent cars like we do. we headed over to Public Domain, a cafe recommended by Jason when we visited him @slayerespresso. within was not one but 2 espresso machines, a synesso as well as a slayer, back to back, supported by 6 mazzer robur grinders - apparently its up to the barista on shift to decide which machine to pull the shots during off peak. beans were roasted offsite at another location.

this was the first, by the 3rd day, we would have visited Ristretto Roasters, Cellar Door Coffee, Water Avenue, Heart Roasters, Stumptown Coffee roastery on division st & Coava coffee. the latter are also the guys behind the metal Kone filters that have been gaining popularity amongst the coffee geeks around the world. Keith of Coava brewed a Guatemala Xeucalvitz & Kenya Ibonia Peaberry on the Kone which tasted simply delicious!

in between our coffee adventures, we managed to stroll the trails of Tryon Creek park & Powell Butte Nature Park, as well as a walk in the biggest rose garden that i have come across. quenching my thirst, we headed for a free tour of Widmer brewery, a local beer maker. as of most brewery tours, one of the highlight has to be tasting of the different beers, which was thoroughly enjoyed by the group. highly recommended if you happen to be in the city in the near future.

one of the city highlights was a bunch of food trucks that operates in the city centre clouded under controversy but continues to serve affordable yummy food ranging from the east to the usual western fare. we loved it so much that we headed there on 2 noons and had tucked into our takeaways in a park diagonally across.

after we returned the car prior to checking in our luggage at the airport, we headed straight back into the city on the train shuttle (which turned out to be free journey to and fro as the ticketing machines were all broken on that day) to check out Barista - one of the few cafes that seem to enjoy plenty of success serving out coffee from multiple roasters, similar to RBC of New York. located in the old warehouse district of the city, the area is full of character with refurbished old buildings overlooking cobbled streets.

with our caffeine fix sorted, we headed back to the airport to catch our flight into San Francisco.

a slideshow of the Pacific Northwest

a coffee map of Portland

View a coffee map of Portland in a larger map

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my experience with the world of brewing coffee cold has been far and few. tried my hand using a pyrex iwaki cold drip some time back but tweaked my formula by using ice cubes instead of water to slow down the flow to a trickling minimum. the result is a surprising concoction, which i shared with a few lucky peeps over at the steeping room, that taste incredibly smooth and velvety, mimicking the taste of whisky, extremely enjoyable on a hot stuffy day.

recently i came across Stephen Morrisey's formula, commonly used the same way by companies selling cold brews, bottled and chilled them before selling them in supermarkets overseas. extremely simple stuff for anyone to get your hands dirty at home but interesting enough for one to spend enough time to tweak the formula such that it taste great to you. i recommend you to use light roasted beans rather than darker roast profiles to avoid the bitterness that might come through in the brew. heavy bodied and earthy/herbal beans may also result in musky and fermenty tastes with a very distinct mouldy smell. that said, try and let me know if you feel likewise, our preferences are always different.

anyway, my receipe:

• El Salvador San Carlos 90g, grind to drip coffee size
• 870ml (my jar was too small to fill anymore!) of room temperature water (ideally filtered to remove chloride taste)
• stir until all coffee grounds are incorporated into the water. no more stirring after
• cover and wait for 13 hours
• strain the brew with fine mesh and store in fridge
• add ice and serve without diluting

ENJOY!

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if you have tried to buy coffee equipment on the internet, the likelihood is that you will have come across Espressoparts, based in Olympia (roughly 45min drive from Seattle. these guys not only retail everything that a cafe or coffee enthusiast will need but their real specialties really lie in repair and refurbishment of coffee related machines. situated beside Olympia roasting company, its a corner shop that houses a reception and cupping/training room in the front and a warehouse at the rear stocked full of accessories from chemax to hario to boiler replacements for your espresso machine. after i read what they did for the LM GS2 machine for intelligensia, i was really looking forward to visiting them since im in this part of the world.

Michael 'panda' Fernandez was very kind to show us around upon hearing our purpose and also gave us sneak peep into a few vintage machines that they are refurbishing. Sarah Dooley joined us after and we had a wonderful chat on machines, pressure profiling, VST baskets, doserless vs doser grinders...the list goes on...so much so that I even got a parking ticket, my first in US, for going beyond my paid period.

on our way out, Michael suggested, "hey, i'm going to do some cupping in 30min, you guys are free to join me if you have some time". "you bet!" I replied as panda suggested that we head down to a food truck down the street to grab some nice and cheap tacos.

back from lunch, Sarah and Michael were just setting up for the cupping session as I drool over the coffees that we are to taste shortly; intelligentsia, stumptown, heart roasters, water avenue coffee and a couple around the seattle/portland region. but for me, the most exciting beans that i can't wait to taste comes from the trio of handsome roasters. michael was one of the lucky 40 of the original wager1.0 (I was one of the 40 as well until I had to take myself out of the program after I confirmed my trip) who gets to taste 4 of the very first coffees from these guys. this has to be the most enjoyable cupping I had, tasting coffees side by side with industry stalwarts like mike and sarah. 9 extrodinary coffees, we sipped, slurped and even brewed more coffees of particular ones that we enjoyed - stumptown's gatomboya from Kenya and handsome's finca genesis of Costa Rica got our vote for the tastiest of the afternoon.

we were introduced to oliver of olympia roasting after and had a quick tour round the roasting facilities, chatted about coffees and offered more coffees to taste.

as I drove down I-5 South, I can't help but smiled at the parking ticket, for it's probably one that I will remember for a long time.

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See the full gallery on Posterous

coffee brewed traditionally in costa rica called chorreador de café by the locals. bet you have not seen bread toasted in such a way anymore.

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the space needle, original Starbucks store from 1971, the sprawling Redmond campus of my former employer, legendary Mount St Helen...ok, in truth, the trip wasn't planned in particular to visit any of the above but rather to pay homage to the northwest coffee culture. i look to the US specialty coffee scene because they do not stay stagnant but continuously push the boundaries on how they can bring better coffees to consumers and sustain the producers. it's bridging that gap of telling the story of the bean to cup.

sadly, the city centre is blanketed by heaps of coffee chain outlets leaving only a couple of the notable ones which we visited, including Victrola Coffee, Vivace Coffee & Cafe. for our orders, we usually shoot for alternative brewing methods where possible but do go for something different once in a while, eg. we tried the cold drip at Cafe Vita whilst admiring their massive roasting/packing operations behind a glass panel. as the birthplace of the world's biggest coffee chain, I can't help but wonder if the roast profiles are influenced by the preferred tastes of the locals - all of them seem to tilt towards a darker roast (except Stumptown which we visited only in Portland). don't take me wrong, they still taste good, especially when one is to compare with what we get back home. we even paid a visit to Lighthouse Roasters in Freemont where Duane Sorensen was last seen working before he started Stumptown towards the end of last century. surrounded by residential blocks, it exhibited a strong local community feel and hangout place. did i mention the lovely gothot roaster inside?

after a life changing experience drinking a coffee brewed on a clover machine couple of years ago, which have seen mass indie cafes ditching this clever gadget for the manual hand pour after Howard Schultz bought over the company, I had to try it again when I found one in a Starbucks outlet. alas, the cup was not to be the one I disappointedly ditched it after 3 sips - taste, confirm, double confirm.

we took a bus back to city centre and peeped at the space needle from beneath and strolled along the waterfront before visiting the touristy pike's place market where tourists hang around for a salmon to be thrown around and starbucks' 1972 1st outlet. the rings of the cash tills will even put Macy's to shame.

dinner was surprisingly fab-delicious as we enjoyed steaming hot original burritos from legendary Mama's mexican kitchen along belltown - highly recommended, a short walk from our lodging at seattle city hostel, where each room is graffitied by a local artist.

next day, we visited the folks who build the pretty amazing Slayer espresso machines, asked heaps of questions, toured the factory and invited to pull couple of shots from it - the experience was...priceless! thanks to Jason & Molly for their great hospitality.

next up - Synesso factory, a 15 min bus ride from the Slayer peeps. the factory was surprisingly smallish as i always had an impression of a huge outfit cranking out machines one after the other. Ann brought us through rows and rows of new machines entirely assembled by hand before founder Mark walked over to explain the new features on the latest machines. with so much knowledge packed into my tiny head after visits to 2 of the world's best espresso machines seem too much to handle, or was it the endless espressos, I wonder...

the following day, we picked up our rental car from Dollar and drove south for Portland but a detour to Olympia turned out to be one of the most memorable experience on this trip...

more pictures can be found over on my flickr stream.

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in 2 weeks, we managed to whisk through 6 cities in America, including Phoenix which we arrived just before sunset and stayed overnight in a dodgy motel just to take our flight out to El Salvador via Dallas. a summary post will probably be appropriate to avoid boring anyone reading to sleep but that will also mean much of the details will be filtered. will break the blog appropriately so  that the post doesn't get agonisingly long but feel free to drop me a line if you like to find out anything more about the trip.

NY ::

stayed with a Mexican friend and his Japanese wife in upper west side, which is alot quieter than the midtown east that we have been very familiar with. much of our meals were planned on meeting old friends from jiamin's days working in the city. in between, we were pretty obsessed to visit some of the newer cafe/roastery that have opened in last 2 years.

Blue Bottle newest outfit is located in a old warehouse in Williamsburg, apparently just  diagonally across from Toby's Estate branch in the city, which unfortunately was not ready at the time of our trip. Oslo  coffee not far from Blue Bottle also seems to roast their own coffees but they probably have another site as it turned out to be a cafe only when we visited.

Stumptown upped the ante by opening a roastery in Red Hook, which is open to public on weekends serving almost all different alternative brewing methods. similar to any of their cafes, alot of though process have been put into the design and layout of the place, especially to retain bits of the rustic neighbourhood feel.

RBC in TriBeCa is another of the new kid on the block (actually they have been around for almost a year) with the 1st Slayer espresso machine in the east coast and plenty of other brew methods available. 3rd Rail Coffee near NYU was much smaller than any of the places mentioned above but seems cosily small to be a hit with the students nearby yearning for a good cup. Old timers such as cafe grumpy and Joe also made their presence felt by opening up new outlets in the city. non-cafes are also starting to take coffees more seriously. restaurants such as Vandaag invited top roasters/baristas from Tim Windleboe, Coffee Collective, Ecco coffee and Intelligentsia to showcase their best beans in a 1 day coffee tasting session to highlight the level of emphasis that they are putting on coffee. enough described abouth the coffee scene but if you happen to be in the city and is looking for a good place to enjoy your cuppa, this compiled map might prove handy. if you are making that trip to red hook, make sure you check out the food trucks around red hook park selling Latin American varieties.

one highlight of this trip has to be a walk along the entire high line, a derelict section of old rail tracks used in the 1930s which has since been transformed into a lovely park hanging above the city. we only got to know about the exhibitionist side associated with the high line from a friend we met after.

next post :: the Pacific Northwest

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3 former world barista champions, 1 former world cup tasting champion & 7 super delicious coffees (3 Kenyas, 1 Brazil, 1 Costa Rica, 1 El Salvador, 1 Guatemala), all under 1 roof @Vandaag - how much better can you get?

Vandaag NYC
103 2nd Avenue NY 10003

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in case you happen to be around the locations that i will be passing by, do drop me a message to catch up over coffees. at least i know there is a carnival awaiting me in london.

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have been really silent on my blog for a while, 9 months or so to be exact. not since my last trip to Bali did i have the time to update on travels. so when we chanced upon the opportunity to fly cheap to Tokyo, it was simply not to be missed. much have been heard, reported and discussed about the situation after the tsunami and nuclear meltdown but this could never been a better time to visit the country. one would be equally impressed by how the japanese continue to get on with their usual lives.

this being my first and quite last minute trip, i wasn't quite prepared on what to expect or plan, but mainly wanted to get away from singapore after an immensely intense past 10 months. we seemed intent to hunt down good ramen shops when we are hungry and sniff out the best coffee shops when thirsty. besides a day trip out to Hakone, we literally stayed out of all the touristy places including the shrines, malls, parks.

on a related note, i was really wowed by the service rendered by most if not everybody whom i came across. people who took my ramen order, folks at the cashier whom i made a mess of by canceling my order after swiping my credit card or the hosts whom attended to us at the guest house in Hakone. these people are not your typical young and educated learners but comprised alot of the silver generation of population who continues to defy their belying age. but there is one thing that they all have in common - great customer service. coming from a very customer-facing role and industry, i can't help but wonder how and why customer service back home in Singapore is so average if not bad, but more importantly, how we can make improvements from current.

note: photos are still been uploaded, so do bear with me but if you can't wait, head over to flickr

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a brand new beginning...

1st greens...

this is making me so very proud, huge credit to my dad for taking great care to them during my long absence away from home too

a pictorial view of the seed to seedling shot @papapalheta

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interrupting my Bali adventures with a few photos to share. managed to sneak in some time today to take a few shots of the newly customised teakwood Synesso Cyncra 3 group machine that we have been using at Papa Palheta for the past 2 months. has been a beautiful machine to work with, it has just got even sexier with this new makeover.

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after an early start, we headed off from the southern tip of Ungasan, Bali. it was another 3 hours before we reached the village of Pupuan where we stopped for a quick taste of the local coffee, commonly known as Kopi Bali. the drive was not easy, especially when you are not a local, challenging even for someone as experienced like Mr Tan who has been coming back to this beautiful island over the past 15 years.

i have been planning to visit a real coffee plantation for over the a year after i decided to get more serious about the 2nd most traded commodity in the world. chanced upon the opportunity to visit one finally when i found out that Mr Tan had a piece of land which he had leased to help a local farmer to grow coffee - what better way to help than to provide the tools for the people to 'fish' for themselves. this is just one of his many philanthropic contributions which he has involved in giving back to the local community.

another hour after the pit stop at Pupuan, we arrived in the village of Busungbiu Singaraja and wasted no time heading straight into the mountains immediately as dark clouds loom in the horizon. along the way, villagers were carrying their harvests such as cacao and coffee cherries from the day out on their lands. the 20min journey was punctuated by our constant pauses to admire at the Coffea canephora or commonly known as Robusta, that were growing on either sides of the rocky path.

the aim of our visit was several folds, top of the list was to see how the farm has been doing after 3 years of activity by the farmer Ketut. in real terms, Mr Tan was keen to find out how his coffee trees have been maturing but more importantly, to see for himself if this arrangement has made a difference to the life of Ketut and his family to sustain their lives.

secondly, we wanted to take this opportunity to visit a single origin as part of our efforts to reduce the relationship between what we do in Singapore to how the beans are grown and harvested by the coffee farmers. although i have to emphasize that this is applicable in this instance as we only use Arabica beans, meaning that Mr Tan is unable to use these beans from his own farm, with the local market been the only viable option.

another 20min crossing a creek and climbing up a steep narrow mud path brought us to the 1 hectare of land where 650 Robusta trees are maturing to a nice height with many bearing the the cherries. along the way, we were notified that the family cow has just given birth to a new baby calf whose legs were so weak that they could barely get used to taking the weight of the newborn. i can only imagine how difficult it is for the farmers to carry loads after loads of coffee on the head going up and down the this tricky trail.

back at the family hut, we asked to see the green beans that have been pulped, processed and dried. it was quite obvious that there were very little efforts to pick only the perfectly sized and perfectly ripe cherries, which can result in very distinct taste degradation of the cup of coffee coming from it. the coffee brewed from the beans tasted distinctly burnt with very minute hints of sweetness coming through in the finish, which was probably the one disappointment that we took away from the trip.

after munching down few organic corns kindly prepared by the family, we rushed off as the first drops of rain started to come down on us. grabbing one umbrella, a poncho and few banana leaves, we scrambled down the mountain, hoping to escape the downpour, only to end up every single one of us, completely drenched by the time we got back to the van. we were just glad that we did not have to end up swimming across a river before the village that had swell from ankle high at the start of our journey, until thigh-deep by the time we crossed it on our way out. despite soaking from top to bottom, most if not all, were simply too happy and exhilarated from our first coffee plantation visit!

stay tuned for my next update to Kintamani single origin.

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