The Coffee Beanery: For the More Discriminating Coffee Aficionados…

First, don’t be mistaken this cafe for the “other” coffee shop, because the way they brew coffee is really something very exceptional. This café is one of Cravings’ creative extensions of its beverage line. For some who are familiar with TCB well, they are one and the same. But the management would want to place The Coffee Beanery among distinct coffee drinkers who take coffee a little more special than usual. 

Last week, I was fortunate to be invited to attend a special coffee appreciation day at The Coffee Beanery, katipunan. The master baristas immersed us in the different types of how a coffee is prepared and each one captures a different kind of blend, strength and sophistication which only a real coffee drinker can appreciate. The drinking session was more like of a wine appreciation. The Coffee Beanery baristas presented the three kinds of approaches and equipment in making the best coffee. 

POUR-OVER:

The Pour-over approach is one of the most common way of preparing a gourmet coffee, because it’s just like how a simple percolator works. But in this approach, instead of a percolator regulating the hot-pouring of water on the grounded beans, it is the barista who regulates this with correct precision, manually. In this approach, a barista can regulate the amount of water thus controlling the strength of the coffee as preferred by the costumer. In a percolator, often times gets residue of grounded beans in the pot, but through manual pouring, a barista can carefully control its flow. 

AERO-PRESS:

The Aero-press is like a French-press type but this one is more compact. The aero-press is more like an over-sized syringed with an air-tight plunger. This type of coffee maker can squeeze out all the flavors of the beans. But one can regulate this in the earlier part of the preparation which is the stirring. The longer you stir, the stronger the coffee will come out. The barista instructed us to stir only for 10 seconds, any longer will give the coffee a much bolder flavor and body. 

SIPHON:

Among the three, the Siphon style is the most complicated one to prepare. This requires a bit of “Chemistry lab” action where a barista will use a Bunsen burner to heat up the flask. Among the three, this one also is the most tedious one to do. It will take a newbie several tries to get the right boldness and right flavor. But the whole process is so fun and exciting to do. So if you order a coffee via Siphon, you will need a little patience because this will take more time to do. 

After the presentation, the master baritas called for three volunteers to get the chance to experience to try preparing gourmet coffee using the three approaches. I was task to do the Aero-Press style. It was really a challenging experience because everything needs to be precise including the amount of beans and water ratio needed to get the perfect balance of flavor. In the end, my coffee preparation turned out to be okay and passed the standards of the master baristas.  

Sophistication is what defines The Coffee Beanery. Coffee drinking enthusiasts would know better the right type of coffee to be served. Each month, they feature two different kinds of beans and they highlight all the best beans in the world. This month, they offer Argentinian Beans and Kenyan.