Sweet guy no more
I’m a changed man.
It’s been nearly three weeks since I last put sugar in my coffee. So it appears I’m a changed man. Hopefully for good.
But I have to confess that a couple of times since then, when I had to drink coffee in some cafes outside home, I had to put sugar and cream in my coffee. Those were a few times that I just had to force myself to drink coffee for the caffeine.
Since reading a lot about coffee about three years ago, I learned that coffee snobs — the coffee drinkers who roast their own beans usually from the world’s best coffee growing regions — drink their coffee black. No sugar, no cream. For them, putting anything on their coffee is sacrilege.
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A pink plunger, a milk frother and a moka pot
Got lucky once more with Brockenhaus, that surplus shop selling items from Switzerland and other European countries, with branches in Cagayan de Oro and Ozamiz.
We dropped by their Cagyaan de Oro branch last Tuesday, and I found these three items.
Left, is a, um, pink 8-cup Bodum French press. I already got enough French presses, and I’m no fan of the color pink (I can guess my coffee will taste differently, hehe), but I got it just the same. I’m only after the glass carafe, just in case mine breaks. A friend wants the pink, so I’d trade that if she can get me another Bodum, we’ll just trade the pink case. Notice that there are also 2 Bodum coffee scoops. Not that I need them, coz I use a digital scale to measure my coffee to be brewed in a French press. But nice to have. It was priced at P168.
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Moka Kadir blend for fiesta!
Time to celebrate, as my city is celebrating its fiesta in honor of its patron, St. Michael the Archangel. Just timely that I have one great blend for the occasion — SweetMaria’s Moka Kadir Blend. Courtesy of Michelle, my cousin Tipoy’s wife, who asked me to give her a one-on-one tutorial on basic photography. They’re from California, on vacation for the fiesta and to celebrate the first birthday of their daughter Ariana.
The big day is tomorrow, and there’s a lot of reasons to celebrate — Dad just came home from the hospital, our daughter Kara also came home from college, after dealing with the floods in Manila.
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Behmor drum on my rotisserie
The fine-mesh Behmor drum. I love those blades stirring the beans more for a more even roast.
I’ve played around with various coffee roasters. But my roaster of choice now is the oven toaster with rotisserie.
Because I could not buy a drum for it, I had the drum made by a local tinsmith. But I wasn’t happy with the workmanship — too heavy, looks ugly, some damage on the screen that some holes are too big. It’s so difficult to close the lid to pour the green beans in, and difficult to open to pour the roasted beans into the colander, especially with hot temperatures. So aside from the rotisserie, I also use my old Whirley Pop popcorn popper for smaller beans from Ethiopia and Yemen.
But then I ordered the drum for the Behmor from Sweet Marias. Particularly, the small grid drum, so I would have no problem with the small beans.
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Chinese coffee beans
My first time ever to try Chinese coffee!
China, we all know, is a H-U-G-E country. Some of its parts are in the colder part of the globe with snow during winter. So coffee just can’t grow there. I’ve been to Beijing once, towards the end of winter, and I still remember our guide saying, “It’s a beautiful morning. It’s warm.” And it’s something like 5 degrees Celsius! In the evening we were like -5 Celsius, we had to run from the bus to the auditorium where they hold those acrobat shows.
But on China’s southern part, it’s warm there, so coffee can grow in that tropical part. The province of Yunnan, in particular, has been known for its coffee. But China, like my beloved Philippines, is just not in the world coffee map yet. Maybe they’re not exporting yet, or maybe they’re not producing good enough coffee yet.
So I was so excited when my high school classmate Linda L. sent me a kilo of Yunnan beans, which she said she liked when she roasted it herself. (The package, sent via post office, actually also contained a smaller bag with supposedly Hawaiian Kona beans. But I doubt it’s true Kona, coz it was sold at a much cheaper price. I’ll test the “Kona” later …)
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My travel coffee paraphernalia
I’m now on the third week of a month-long photographic assignment all over the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), all five provinces of them — Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-tawi.
I may be on the road for so long a time, and it’s tiring work with frequent travel on the worst roads and on the worst boats. But coffee helps me along the way, and I’m still enjoying my specialty coffee. How? I brought with me my coffee gear!
Aside from my clothes in a big travel bag and my camera gear in a LowePro backpack, I brought along another backpack containing my coffee paraphernalia.
What’s in the bag?
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Coffe party in Davao with Mindanao Bob
On a business trip in Davao City last week, I had the chance to drop by Mindanao Bob’s place, and had another coffee party with friends!
BobM roasted Rwanda COE, Kenya Gethumbwini, Sumatra Aceh, Ethiopia Yirgacheffee, Tanzania Blackburn Estate and I brought some Kalinga beans.
I slept pretty well after that. 
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Coffee party once more
I felt I was in France during the coffee party I hosted this afternoon, what with four French speakers in the house. Mathieu (rightmost), after leaving Iligan only last December with the end of his term as a volunteer helping farmers in the mountains, came back for a short vacation. His replacement is Jean-Baptiste (2nd from left). Fr. Henri (2nd from right) is from Cameroon, a French-speaking country. Beside him is Marc, a French-American. And the three of us BisDaks (with Mabel and Sharon). Hmm … looks like someone is missing here, some guy that should be seated beside the girl on the left. 
We could only have Ethiopia Harrar and Kenya Gethumbwini, then we got drunk. 
Beans from Kalinga-Apayao
Kalinga beans roasted
Whoa, been over a month since my last post. Was busy working on a project, a mini-coffee table book (no, nothing to do with coffee, hehe), so I was out of town most of the time. (If you’re curious what that project is, see the PDF file here. Warning: that’s 3.5mb, so your computer may freeze for a few seconds until all is downloaded. So it might be wise for you to right-click on the link, save it to your PC and read with Adobe Reader or Mac’s Preview, instead of looking at it from inside the browser.)
Last month I traded beans with a friend, a fellow roaster here in Iligan. Half a pound of my favorite Ethiopian Harrar, and 2 kinds of Peppo’s green beans he got from a food fair in Manila. Both are from up north, in the Cordilleras I suppose.
One coffee I didn’t bother remembering, coz it really sucked. I can’t drink it at all.
But the other one, from Kalinga-Apayao, I liked. Not in the league of specialty grade you can buy from online shops. But if I’m out of cash, I can drink this coffee every day.
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The Aeropress inverted method revisited
The polyester felt filter for the Aeorpress is thick!
Thanks to Steve A, one of the few readers of this blog, I finally got to try the filter medium suggested by the inventor of the Aeropress inverted method. Verdict: Looks like I’m back to Aeropressing.
I was brewing with the inverted method for a while, but using an inferior filter I found from a textile store. There were still some fine grinds that get past the filter, but lesser than the French press. I reverted back to using the French press after a coffee session in Davao with my sangay MindanaoBob, and after that I acquired quite an inventory of French presses of various brands and sizes. But still, the fine grinds at the bottom of the cup that pass through the French press’s metal filter bothers me a bit.
Then I got this filter medium for the hacked Aeropress — a five-micron polyester filter felt from McMaster. Almost no grinds at all, almost as clean as using paper filter, but with all the oils and flavor you can get from the French press. To give you an idea what exactly is this — you asthmatics, or those with asthmatics in the family, if you have a nebulizer at home, there’s a small (smaller than a coin) round filter where the air goes out where you insert the plastic tube; that’s polyester felt.
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