After a thread a week or so ago I decided to add some decaf coffees.

This is Black and White’s Hambela Natural, an ethyl acetate decaf grown and processed in Ethopia and then decaffeinated in Germany.

This is a very young coffee, roasted last week, but I am impatient. I used a pretty typical V60 recipe. The drawdown was a little long even accounting for a long bloom, over 4 minutes, so I’ll need to grind a bit coarser going forward. Extraction is pretty close, so to compensate for the quicker brew I’ll go up a hair on temp from 92 to probably 94.

The coffee itself has bite from its youth, but interesting flavor notes are showing. Cocoa, cranberry, tart cherry. Not a lot of natural sweetness, but I think that has more to do with the age and me needing to refine my brew. I’m not sure it’s remarkable enough that I’d favor it going forward over their standard decaf, but we’ll see. Black and White, in its usual style, does have a funkier decaf among its rotating options that I haven’t tried.

This is Black Acres Roastery’s Colombia Aponte Honey process coffee. Black Acres supplies Trader Joe’s, so it’s easy to find this across much of the US. This bag has a best by date of November 26th and is drinking well right now.

This is a pretty dark roasted coffee, per the bag and visually. V60 brew, ground a bit coarser than usual, 4.0 on an Ode 1 with the upgraded burrs, and started with the water at 85c. I don’t think I could dial it in better, the coffee doesn’t have much more to give. Total drawdown time was three minutes almost on the dot.

This coffee has a lot of natural sweetness. Decent acidity, some overripe fruit (figs, dates, something like that) on the palate. Once it cooled to warm a little almond paper bitterness came out, nothing aggressive. At room temp, more bitterness, more fruit, and finally some cocoa powder. It does not drink like a typical heavy roast.

Trader Joe’s does an incredible job at stocking small selections of good enthusiast product. Their wine selection is staggering and their coffee is solid. It’s also well priced; dollar for dollar this is the best coffee I’ve bought in a long time. Pretty good overall.

My morning coffee today is Booberry, from Brandywine. Roasted in mid-March, this is the last of the bag.

10.1g of coffee, since that’s what I had left. 30 second bloom, two 60g additions of water. Drawdown finished around 2:40.

This is a berry cofermented blend from Colombia. Sometimes these go too far, but the berry in this was pleasant. It had a lot of natural sweetness, noticeable slightly underripe blueberry flavor, mild acidity. The roast was very light, I mostly get the beans. This brew was very good, but at this age the flavor was starting to fade.

I bought this as part of a Friday 13th mystery coffee series, which was pretty great. I also bought a peach coferment at the same time that was incredible.

Link to the bear cup: www.amazon.com/dp/B01EVI5R7C

I appreciate the direction this community is taking, so:

Today’s afternoon brew is Promethium Coffee, French Laundry, roasted early in July. I don’t need the caffeine so it’s light, 9 grams of coffee. Hario V60 brew, using their standard papers, 40 second bloom using 30g water, 40g water in ten seconds, 10 second rest, repeat until I hit 154 grams. Total brew at the end of drawdown took just under 3 minutes.

This is a solid example of high end coffee. It’s pretty clean, with a tea-like astringency. Good balance of acidity. And unlike some high elevation light roasts it’s still discernibly coffee, it isn’t too lean and the roast comes through. My first two brews of it had a bit more depth, using a full 15g. Overall a good afternoon pick me up.

I don’t know in what way this yeast inoculation is supposed to be remarkable.

I opened a bottle of good shiraz and I needed something to eat with it, so I knocked together a little pasta.

Yield is two hefty servings, plus a bit for leftovers.

• 100 g bacon, diced
• 200 g mushrooms, split into bite sizes
• 1/2 onion, julienned
• 30 g gochujang
• 30 g tomato paste
• 20 g sesame oil
• Splash of red wine. You’ll figure it out.
• 3 green onions, sliced
• 10 g butter
• 150 g pappardelle pasta

In a thick bottomed pan, render bacon on medium heat until barely browned, not yet fully cooked.

Add mushrooms, tossing to coat in the bacon fat. Sweat the mushrooms until they are soft, cooking out the water in the mushrooms.

Bring 2L of water to a boil for the pasta.

Add the onions and increase heat to begin sautéing. Once the onions have softened and are starting to color, add the tomato paste, gochujang, and sesame oil and gently sauté.

Begin boiling pasta.

Once the tomato and pepper pastes begin to caramelize, deglaze with a splash of red wine. Add the butter and green onion. Toss to coat.

Once the pasta is al dente, ladle 50 g of pasta water into the sauce and stir to mix. Move the pasta to the sauce to finish cooking. Add additional pasta water if needed to thin the sauce.

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I really, really love gochujang. It’s cheap, stores well, and it’s so rich. If I need a little oomph while cooking at home I know gochujang, tahini, and miso paste have my back.

If I had some on hand I’d have used a Korean style pork. I also considered liver sausage; I might make a version of this in two days with a nice liver pudding I have in the freezer.

I could have skipped the green onion in favor of a little more yellow onion. The color didn’t come through. But I had them, so I used them.

This rocked. One of the best off the cuff meals I’ve ever made.

Mushroom galette with farmer’s cheese, onion, and dandelion greens. I ate it with a vin de France from La Rocalière, in northern Rhône, which was better than my dough. Flavor on the dough was nice, texture was decent to good, but I’d have been smart to use an egg wash.

I was cold, so I made soup.

I’m fascinated by the regional variation in borscht. It’s as much a concept as it is a food. This one is vegetarian, using parsnips, potatoes, carrots, onion, and of course the most ideal of ingredients, beets. For the stock I used parsnip, mirepoix, fennel, bay leaves, garlic, and peppercorns. Finished with a dill yoghurt sauce.

Borscht has no right being as good as it is. Sweet? With my savory? But fifteen million babushkas are right.