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.

Me, I had always been the sweet guy. Before coffee, I was into hot chocolate for breakfast, those Swiss Miss packs you buy off grocery shelves. Couldn’t help it, I was sweet. I wasn’t into cream, though, unless I drink bad coffee elsewhere that wasn’t my brew.

But I made several attempts to veer away from sugar. After a day or two, I always returned to being the sweet guy.

I was into brown crystal sugar for a long time. Then moved on to Muscovado.

Well, looks like I’ve changed, and I’m hoping this is final.

It’s a pity coz a friend, Kitoy, just gave me what’ supposed to be “coco sugar.” Supposedly healthier than the usual sugar, even my Muscovado. But, nah, Kitz, only the ants will enjoy this sugar. Or maybe some visitors who come for my coffee parties.

Sometimes there’s this temptation to put sugar. Some kind of a withdrawal symptom. But so far so good.

When I drink tea, it has always been without sugar. So why not coffee?

Without the sugar, I get to appreciate the distinct flavor of each coffee variety. I’ve gone this far of brewing the best brew the world has to offer – buying my green beans from faraway lands, roasting them on my own – might as well go all the way.

The down side is, I’d now insist on having only the best coffee, not just “good enough” coffee. Otherwise, I’d just go back to being the sweet guy once more.

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.

Middle, at first I thought it’s yet another French press, coz it’s so similar to my Bodum Chambord. But the filter is different, and it’s shorter. To my surprise, it’s a Chambord milk frother! Perfect for home-made latte or cappuccino. I already have a battery-operated Aerolatte Chinese copy, but this looks so cool. Priced at P250.  $40 online.

Right, is a 6-cup stainless steel moka pot from Bialetti, the coffeemaker of choice in the homes of coffee country Italy. I already have the aluminum version, which I don’t use, but is nice to look at in my coffee rack. But this stainless steel version is recommended by SweetMarias, supposedly better, with a better food-grade material. Maybe time to explore this brewer some more! Priced at P680.

Total should be P1,098, and that’s already a bargain, considering that the moka pot alone is already almost $50. After a few haggling, I got all of them for P825!

Kape ta bay!!!

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.

This is how SM’s Tom describes the Moka Kadir blend: “This is a powerful blend of coffees from the Red Sea area, from Yemeni coffees on one side, and Ethiopian coffees on the other…. It incorporates three excellent dry-processed coffees that contribute to a huge body, strong bittersweet chocolate roast-taste, and intense fruity aromatics.”

If I can name my top three favorite coffees, this would be one of those, including the Harrar Bagersh from Ethiopia and the Yemen Mokhas. Shows my bias for the Ethiopian and Yemen coffees. Coffee, after all, originated in these areas.

Ahh … life is good!

Kape ta bay!

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.

I had the drum modified in a friend’s machine shop, so it now fits my Imarlfex oven toaster perfectly.

The edges of the drum, as modified in the machine shop so they would perfectly fit my rotisserie.

Wow!

I used to tell myself I should buy the 220v version of the Behmor once it comes out (for a long time it was only available in 110v), but that longing has disappeared. The 220v was released a couple of months back, but why would I need one when my rotisserie is now working the way I want it? Besides, at $299, that’s equivalent to maybe a year’s worth of specialty grade green coffee beans.

Hopefully, this will be the roaster I’d be using all the time, with big beans or small. Except of course during power outage, for I’d be using the Whirley Pop on a gas range for that.

A more even roast, using Colombia Monserrate beans.

My roasts are more even now. When I was using that primitive drum, some beans would drop on the oven’s base, or would get stuck on the large holes of the screen. Thus, they would be roasted way ahead than the rest, and would start popping much earlier, confusing me as to when the cracks started and ended.

Maybe the DIY drum was too heavy too, damaging the oven toaster’s motor a few times. I’m hoping it won’t happen again.

In the meantime … kape ta bay!!!

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 …)

So three days ago, after being away for a month for some project, I roasted the Yunnan after I roasted some Sumatra Aceh and local Bobok beans.

The next morning, something like 8 hours after roast, I brewed it on my Aeropress. But … uh-oh … I didn’t like it at all. No body nor spirit. No punch, it doesn’t bite my tongue. So I let it rest for another day. Brewed again this morning, I’m still not happy.

Not that I’m totally dismissing Chinese coffee. I’m sure there should be some great beans there. Maybe when the specialty coffee industry start going to China to try cupping coffees from Yunnan, maybe they’ll discover some gem there.

China, as we know, now dominates the world economy. It can be a good manufacturer when it wants to. It makes  your Ipods, your laptops, your cellphones, and your other luxury items. And once it exports specialty-grade coffee, I’d like to see how it could affect the coffee market.

Meantime, no Chinese coffee for me …

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?

• AeroPress kit. This is my coffee maker of choice during travels. It’s made of plastic, so it won’t break no matter what you do. It brews coffee in less than a minute. It’s easy to cleanup, soap not needed, just running water.
• 3D AromaPlus blade grinder. I use a Bodum burr grinder at home, but you can’t bring a grinder that bulky and heavy for travel. Since I use a coffee maker with paper filter, a cheapo blade grinder can do the job.
• Porcelain cup and teaspoon.
• Hometech electric water heater
• Muscovado sugar in small individual packets
• And of course, roasted coffee beans in foil bags with one-way valve. Shown in photo is an Ethiopia Sidamo.

When I left Iligan last Aug. 9, I had a pound of Colombia Monserrate and half a pound of Sumatra Aceh coffees. If I were alone, that may have been enough. But I invite friends for coffee along the way, so all those beans were gone by the end of the second week. Glad that MindanaoBob was kind enough to let me roast in his kitchen so I’d have coffee along the way. So now I have some Ethiopian Sidamo, and yet another Ethiopian coffee that we’re not sure what exactly, but still tasted like a Sidamo.

So there, I’m hoping I’d have enough beans till the end of this shoot.

Kape ta bay!!!

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.

That's Doc Debbie getting a serving from MindanaoBob.

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.

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.

I suspect this must be last year’s harvest, coz they looked too dried up. And when roasted, there’s this mixture of light and dark beans, so maybe these are beans from various farms/farmers and then all combined together. I’m also surprised why this coffee produces a lot of bloom when brewed, even days after roast. Unusual.

Peppo later let me buy 2 kilos from his stash. Maybe I’ll get 5 more from the vendor in Kalinga, and watch the next crops. If you’re interested, the supplier is Nor-Ref Food Products-Kalinga Brew of Tabuk City, Kalinga-Apayao.

Here’s how they look raw …

Raw Kalinga beans

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.

No need to repeat what Rasqal, the inverted method inventor, has detailed in his blog entry. But I want to emphasize a couple of points …

1 - File enough of the Aeropress’s bayonet mounts so that, with the thick filter medium, the cap locks well with the body. At first I thought just about 1/8” of grip would be good enough. Then when I pressed hard, the cap was disengaged from the body, and it was one hot mess, the water and the grinds spilling all over. So I filed some more, up to a point where I get about half an inch of grip.

2 - In cutting the polyester felt filter, make it slightly bigger than the stock filter paper that comes with the Aeropress. At first I cut exactly same size (didn’t listen to the advice!!!), so I wasted that filter. When putting the cap the inverted way, the filter fell off. I only have the 12×12” filter medium for now, so I wasted one precious filter.

I should order more of this filter. They have 36×36” available and cheap. This filter is reusable. But up to how many times, that I’ll find out.

Kape ta bay!