gourmet – Life After Coffee

White Mountain Gourmet Coffee – Coffee Review

White Mountain Gourmet Coffee is a small coffee roaster in New Hampshire and since one of their cafes is local to me in Concord I decided to give them a try.

The cafe is well stocked with White Mountain coffee and has a full espresso bar, some food and a fair amount of seating. I picked out a couple coffees I wanted to try and asked the worker at the cafe to suggest a couple more. Service was good and I was ready to try out their coffee with 4 half-pound bags of single-origin coffee.

The first of White Mountain’s coffees I tried was their El Salvador Peaberry. This is a pleasant, full bodied coffee with a sweet flavor. Though not overly complex this coffee is very pleasant in the cup and has a nice long finish.

The Zimbabwe AA was also rich and flavorful. Somewhat more complex than the El Salvador this coffee has some brighter tones and good depth. Another rich, full-bodied offering, the Sumatra Mandheling had little acidity and a clean finish.

White Mountain’s Papua New Guinea is a nice, slightly earthy coffee. This coffee’s slight acidity is pleasantly balanced by a sweet flavor.

I specifically sought out rich, full bodied coffees to try, but all of my trials were regular roast. I found the regular roast to make a sufficiently rich coffee, but most of their coffees are offered as a dark roast as well. White Mountain has a long list of single-origin, blended and flavored coffees but my preference, as reflected in my sampling choices is to the single-origin.

All the coffees I tried from White Mountain Gourmet Coffee were excellent and I look forward to trying more of their offerings. While I am fortunate enough to be near one of their cafes White Mountain coffee is also available via mail order from their website.

dining, food, coffee, review, drink, beverage, gourmet

Kopi Luwak Coffee – Try It Again for the Second Time

Another cup of poop please…

Well, the coffee has been ground and is just about done brewing. Soon it will be ready to be consumed… again.

Yup, that’s right. This coffee’s already been eaten by a cute little critter called the luwak. For more detail on that, check out my article The Straight Poop on Kopi Luwak

AnimalCoffee.com specializes in this rarest of all coffee and was nice enough to send me a sample since I’d never tried it.

The out-of-the-box experience on this coffee is unbelievable. It shipped from Indonesia packed in bubble wrap, cardboard, then paper. The entire package (as pictured here, click on the thumb for a larger image) comes in a sharp looking wooden box with a Luwak Coffee plaque, a lucite paperweight, a card describing the Luwak Coffee process, and a package of the coffee. The whole experience tells me I’m about to try something very exclusive.

The smell of the bean was earthier than other coffees. There’s a complexity to it which I hope is an indication of how it will taste in the cup.

Well, the coffee is brewed and it’s tasting time. I’m trying it with half-and-half and sugar. The flavor is strong and complex, but without the bitterness usually associated with coffees that are this rich. There is a pleasant earthy flavor I cannot quite place. I can honestly say it stands apart from every other coffee I’ve ever had.

The bouquet has a lot to do with the flavor of this coffee. While I’m at a loss to describe it, it is very plesant and quite unusual. I’m trying it black now, and even in the absence of sugar there is not even a hint of bitterness.

The aftertaste dissipates quickly much like a pure Hawaiian Kona. It’s a smooth finish with a slight nuttiness to it. The perfect finish to the perfect cup. Both with cream and sugar, as well as black this is an outstanding cup of coffee.

Final Thoughts

This is one of the best, most unique coffees I’ve ever had. If you or someone you know are the type of person who seeks out the best coffee in town, have tried dozens of mail-order coffees and are always on the lookout for something unique, AnimalCoffee.com has just the treat for you.

With the steep price this will no doubt remain a rare treat, but with gift boxes starting at $20 this is the ultimate coffee gift. With a great presentation, outstanding flavor, and bragging rights for trying the rarest and most expensive coffee in the world it’s the perfect gift for the coffee connoisseur.

If you don’t want to spend the $100+ per pound for coffee for your office you should get a quote on coffee service from www.coffeeforless.com! Get your office coffee delivered right to your office!

Kopi Luwak, Paperweights and URLs

After writing about Kopi Luwak Coffee and specifically AnimalCoffee.com and their sweet paperweights and Luwak Coffee gift boxes I got an email from Troy Davis of AnimalCoffee.com thanking me for the exposure and graciously offering to send me a sample of Luwak Coffee.

I naturally accepted and offered the suggestion that he should put his site name on the paperweight somewhere.

Troy responded:

I did consider having the URL of my site put inside the paperweights and key rings however both are made in a tiny hut in a fairly remote village in west Sumatra.

I kid you not.

If you had any idea of the time and trouble I have been through just in getting those items as they are now, of a standard that is acceptable to me; I am loathe to further complicate things. It is difficult for me to explain to the people in the village why I want to collect cat poo, have it encased in resin, and insisting it be done neatly. They think I’m insane but I pay well.

I am very amused. I suppose these are the challenges you face in the cat poo business.

Yesterday I received a small package from Indonesia. Inside a layer of tape, paper, cardboard and bubble wrap I found a wooden box with a metal plaq on top. Within that was a card with the story of Luwak coffee, a luwak coffee paperweight and a quarter pound of Luwak Coffee. What a great presentation.

I’m holding off until tomorrow (Saturday) to try this so I can enjoy it while I’m not driving, but the coffee smells fantastic. Thanks for sending me the coffee Troy!

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