Oh deary me!
Words cannot convey to you how brilliant yesterday actually was. Having the entire weekend off is really starting to reveal its merits.
At 6am I jumped on Jethro and sped down Flinders street, took a left and made it just in time to cup with Toshi and Kris at St. Ali. Everything is so different there now, its kind of like when you move away from home and your parents re-arrange your bedroom so that you don’t recognize it anymore.
The Cachoeira was a standout, a balanced body with massive amount of peanuts. The Natural we cupped was also beautiful with berries and sweetness. Mexican Altura was great with big coca notes at the finish. The Blue Batak they had was also very interesting. We all thought it was the Lintong. Oh how wrong we were!
I settled in with the Saturday paper after that and ate the most enormous breakfast in the history of poached eggs. Tried some Rwandan through the machine and tasted their new espresso blend. It was all so lovely.
Jumped on Jethro again to make it back into the city and got a sneak peak of the new place. It hasn’t got a roof now but you can surely see the large amounts of potential. Plus there is the whole bonus of how ridiculously close to my house it is. Totally ace.
Then it was time for a coffee epiphany. We lined up a few things on the cupping table, the Muchoki Peaberry from Square Mile, which we have had in before that displayed a whole lot more snow peas than this standout from the fellas in London. We also had the El Portillo with lovely fudge notes from the same place.
Next in line was where things really hit a hight note. The fragrance was of limes, coconut, apricot and amazing sweetness. The cup was even more astounding, as if someone had spiked what we were slurping. MD really nailed it on this one, it was one of the most spectacular things I have ever tasted. Of course it was the Esmerelda.
Next up were three from Monmouth, who are also from London but to tell you the truth, I was just a little spoiled from then on and kept returning to cup number three.
We did another line up, which included some washed Sidamo, Nicaraguan Natural that we had roasted up and some Kenyans from Russ at Source and Hazel in Sydney.
I finished it all with a quiet coffee in the corner, had some lovely lunch at Sweet Source in Carlton and spent the rest of the afternoon trawling second hand book shops.
If only it had rained, it would have been 100% perfect. Oh well, theres always Sunday.
