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Africa
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| Acidity is a key term when describing coffees, and it refers to the lively, sparkling, tingling, crisp characteristics of high grown coffees aside from objective pH factors. | |
| Body is the sensation of coffees' weight and feel on your tongue. Ranging from watery and thin through light, medium, and heavy. Sometimes also described with textural terms such as velvety, syrupy, and silky. | |
| Aroma is the smell of coffee. Our most discerning sense is that of smell, which accounts for most of our ability to taste. If your coffee doesn't smell good it won't taste good. | |
| Flavor is the overall impression of aroma, acidity, and body. Often the general sense of flavor intensity is modified with specific attributes such as mellow, mild ,strong, robust, fruity, spicy, sweet, nutty, earthy, and winy. | |
| Bitter is the somewhat carbony and cocoa-like quality of coffee. Present to a mild or medium degree in all coffees it is augmented by roasting beans to the darker degrees. | |
| Mocha is the most misunderstood word in coffee vernacular. Mocha has always referred to coffee. In baking it refers to coffee flavoring -- sometimes, but not always, in conjunction with chocolate. The term originates with the port of Mocha in Yemen whose surrounding regions produced many of the finest coffees in the world. The rich, full bodied, sweet coffees from this area were referred to as Mochas. Today the term is used to indicate coffees from the Arabian region, coffees produced by trees imported from that region, and coffees whose characteristics are akin to the region's famous coffees. | |
| Espresso is an often misused and misunderstood term. In Italian it means fast; it also is the name of the beverage created by forcing water, under pressure, through finely ground coffee. Espresso is traditionally brewed with darkly roasted coffees, creating the misnomer espresso roast, leading to (egads!) requests for a pound of espresso. By all means break free from the yoke of tradition and try any of our coffees in your espresso maker. | |
| Varietal is the term used to designate unblended coffees. Blends, on the other hand, combine varietals to form new balances of flavor and complex tastes. |
Here are the grinds we offer, from finest to coarsest:
| Turkish grind for use in an ibrik. | |
| Espresso for electric espresso makers. | |
| Melitta for stovetop espresso, and melitta-type paper cone filters, such as Krups and Braun use. | |
| Sock for coffee socks, cloth and nylon filters, and gold-tone filters -- often used in Spanish coffees. | |
| Gold for gold filters. | |
| Chemex for Chemex and auto-drip makers using a paper basket filter, such as Mr. Coffee. | |
| Electric perk for electric percolators and party urns. | |
| Plunge for plunge pot, french press, or Bodum makers. | |
| Stove top for stove top perk, open pot, or cowboy coffee. | |
| Toddy for cold water extraction. |
Roasting coffee is tantamount to coaxing the butterfly from the cocoon. It is one part science, one part art, and one part magic. However, there are no set industry standards for roasting, creating much confusion for the consumer. One purveyor's French Roast is another's Italian.
All one really needs to know is the longer you roast a bean, the darker it gets. The darker it gets, the more the character of the roast is tasted. Each roasting degree imparts more of a toasted, carmelized, carbony flavor. This depth of flavor often masquerades as strength. It is important, however, to note that the darker the coffee, the lighter the body.
Lightest to darkest, our roasts are:
Brown Our standard roast at the "Bean" is medium to light brown in color and the bean has no oils visible on the surface. It is variously called: Brown Roast, American Roast and City Roast. We favor this roast because of its ability to let the nuances of varietals' characteristics shine through, letting each varietal's subtle concerto play in your mouth without being drowned out by the louder bass qualities of the darker roasts. Our varietals are roasted Brown unless otherwise indicated.
City We also offer some Full City Roasts, which we call City Roast for simplicity's sake. Roasted just a bit longer, the bean is a shade darker brown in color and the oil is just beginning to show on the surface. The roast participates a little more in the overall flavor of the bean with a warm toasted quality.
Vienna Our Vienna Roast is the lightest of what would be considered the dark roasts. The bean is a rich brown color with a reddish cast. The bean's oils cover the surface. The body of the coffee is still very much in the foreground.
French French Roast is our middle dark roast. The color is very dark brown and the beans are very shiny with oil. The flavor of the roast is now in the foreground, with the body and acidity of the bean much less apparent.
Italian The darkest of our roasts is Italian. The bean is almost black and glossy. Its flavor is smoky and intense. Body and acidity are very light, being replaced by deep carbony "char".
Blending the great varietals is a chance to improve on what the sun, the soil and the rain have given us. It lets you compose a symphony of flavors, an art form of balances and contrasts.
While others may offer a selection of blended coffees, at the Leaf & Bean we do our blending to order, selecting and weighing each component individually. This means that we can offer you an almost infinite variety of blends, adjusting the ratios of ingredients to your individual taste.
After you've established your preferences, you might find that the ideal cup still eludes you. If so, then custom blending is the next step. Maybe you feel that your coffee needs a touch of dark roast, or a hint of flavored coffee. Or it could be that your French Roast needs taming. At Leaf & Bean, we custom blend thousands of pounds of coffee every year; you can be sure that, whatever your personal requirements for the flawless cup, we can help you realize them ounce by ounce.
Specialty blends, on the other hand, are those few coffees that we purchase which are blended before they come to us. While we treat them as though they were varietals, often blending them with other coffees and selling them in as small an increment as a quarter pound, it is important to note that they are indicative of the marriage of varietal flavors.
Let's start off with a little dose of the truth: decaffeinated coffee, regardless of the processing used, is different from fully caffeinated coffee. Its body is somewhat thinner and its flavor not quite as full. You may combat this by choosing a darker and stronger coffee for your decaf selections than you would in your caffeinated choices.
There are also differences in processing. Until the mid 1970's, all commercial coffee was decaffeinated using organic solvents such as methylene chloride. Many consumers have become wary of these solvents' potential health and environmental risks. Swiss Water Process decaffeination uses only water and a carbon filter to remove caffeine. This method is costly, requiring two pounds of superior gourmet coffees to yield one pound of decaf.
Our customers think the result is worth it. All of our decaffeinated coffees, except Illy Caffe, are Swiss Water Processed. A final note -- due to availability, some decaf versions of our blends are composed of different coffees than their regular counterparts. In all cases we remain as true to taste as possible.
The best cup of coffee is one brewed from just roasted, freshly ground beans. You must decide if the flavor differences of buying beans several times a week and grinding them prior to brewing outweigh the convience of buying in greater quantities or having your coffee ground by us. These are decisions that you and your taste buds must make together.
Whatever you decide, how you store your coffee is crucial to preserving flavor. Guard against the three flavor thieves: moisture, heat, and oxygen. We strongly recommend that you store your coffee in a glass or ceramic container with a rubber gasket for an air and moisture tight seal. Use a jar that is appropriate for the amount of coffee you are storing, since the less air in the jar, the better.
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