The Cherry Project

18/08/2021

#17/100 coffee note.

I wish I can tell you how good is this coffee.

Coffee #17/100 featuring Ethiopia Sasaba roasted by Bonanza Coffee , a natural processed mixed heirloom coffee from this producer Tsegay Hagos Tesfeye. Probably one of the coffee that I know best as it was my competition coffee back in 2017- the most intensive competition routine that I’ve ever designed.

When I’m tasting this coffee, it’s still that damn good as usual. It’s delicate, structure, with notes of strawberry cream and milk chocolate. Oh please don’t bother with the filters, go with espresso, with the addition of milk it just transform into a whole new sensation.

I’m not sure I’m drinking the coffee or tasting the memory. Oh my .

16/06/2021

#16/100 coffee note.

To blend or not to blend?

I can’t deny that ‘blend’ usually gives an impression of ‘cheap coffee’, in terms of quality and price. But in fact, that’s taking way more work and effort to create a good blend. I enjoy drinking espresso blend as it’s balance and harmony…basically everything that you’d ask for in a comfortable daily coffee. However, is it all blend working the same way?

Coffee #16/100 featuring Pathfinder blend roasted by Origin Coffee Roasters , their signature blend of El Salvador,Kenya & China. With the combination of these origins and mixed varietals of Pola, SL28, SL32, Ruiru 11 & Catimor, it was surprisingly good on it’s own or even on milk! It’s clean and sweet and full of flavours!

Previously been tasting quite a lot of espresso blend from different roastery in EU/UK, just to see how far coffee blend can go as we have more limitation in terms of price range. I have to be honest that I do enjoy the blend from this UK based coffee roastery a lot, changing the way of how I see coffee blend. A blend may not be necessary to taste robust or right on your face, it can be gentle and flavourful too. Not forgetting about their amazing packaging as well, beautifully design box and coffee info card!

So, to blend or not to blend?

10/06/2021

Coffee?

Another day at home with my coffee.First video with this , handheld hence it was shaking as hell./ https://www.instagram.com/mrsfongg/https://www.faceboo...

03/05/2021

#15/100 coffee note.

I knew I should have updated with all those amazing coffees that I’ve been drinking recently.

Coffee 15/100 featuring Bolivia Takes Gesha roasted by Coffee Collective. I always enjoy coffee from Bolivia very much, high altitude which gives the coffee beautiful acidity with good sweetness which are so unique from this region.

Coffee in the sky. That’s how we called them.

28/03/2021

#14/100 coffee note.

Finally putting up the coffee that I’ve been drinking recently.

Coffee #14/100 featuring Burundi Gahahe washing station, a washed process red bourbon grown at 1800masl, roasted by one of my favourite roastery Nømad Coffee Lab&Shop based in Barcelona. A very sweet and floral cup which very different from my coffee experience from this region. Very prominent notes of orange blossom, mandarin, raspberry (the very ripe one) and lingering sugar cane sweetness til the end.

On a little experiment on filter paper, CAFEC_japan 0.22mm & Sibarist. This version of Cafec filter paper claimed to highlight on the body and sweetness of coffee, which also recommend for medium roast coffee; Sibarist claimed to give a fast flow, which allows you to go finer and extract more. You may read more on their differences but I’m just gonna share my experience here with the filter papers.

As default, I brewed 20gm of coffee on a Cafec Flower dripper, grinding on Fellow ODE size 4, water temperature 95’C and water TDS around 88ppm. Total brewing time for Cafec was almost 4mins where for Sibarist was sitting at around 2min25sec. Both reflected on a pretty different cup quality, but not in the bad way. For Cafec cup, it was toward a higher sweetness and body kind of cup quality, taste more of brown sugar and milk chocolate in the cup with juicy mouthfeel. On the other hand, the fast flow of Sibarist produced a cleaner and mellow cup quality, good structure and great sweetness, tasted more aromatic notes as compared to the earlier cup. Yet it tends to taste lower body and hint of under-extracted notes as I didn’t change the grind size according to its faster flow rate. Overall both cups are still very enjoyable, the different thickness of filter papers would allow us to have more flexibility in brewing different coffee accordingly. Not forgetting 8 times difference in the price point too.

Would have spend more time on testing the range of filter papers that sitting at home.
Any experience on those? I’d love to know! :D

21/02/2021

#13/100 coffee note.

I love grocery shopping and it’s always fun to check out what’s new on the shelf in the instant coffee world. I used to have this pride of being in specialty coffee and turn my nose up on commercial coffee or chain stores, having this thought that they are both very different world. What a silly me. Perhaps they’re still in two different world, the world of coffee or caffeine, but what’s coffee without caffeine? It’s like drinking wine. You’re tasting the flavour and enjoying the tipsiness in a glass, or else you’d just go for some juices if you’re not into the benefit of alcohol.

Talking about the lazy days… when you ran out of your coffee beans, or lazy to work on your hand grinder, or craving for a quick coffee rush. I can’t deny how approachable are instant coffee nowadays which allow you to bring the cafe's coffee experience back home. I do have a range of instant coffee sitting on my kitchen rack (my husband still enjoy instant coffee sometimes while working from home, because he often finished my freshly brewed coffee too fast to avoid missing the best experience, or he just can’t help to finish it too quickly without noticing. Instant coffee will allow him to have better control of speed on his caffeine intake. Too complicated yes I know.)

Coffee #13/100 featuring coffees from We Are Little's. Trying their Italian Rich Roast blend and Colombia Excelso Antioquia, freeze-dried arabica coffee, the cup quality is pretty impressive for instant coffee. The Italian rich roast is definitely great for milk coffee, suitable people love to make a black coffee with a dash of milk, enough boldness to balance up with milk but not too roasty. The Colombian was surprising good for a lazy black. I was surprised to taste some decent acidity and sweetness which I won’t expect in instant coffee.

Would love to check out their other coffee and chocolate offerings too!

02/02/2021

#12/100 coffee note.

One of the very important reason of working in coffee is, I’m not gonna spend that much of money on coffee bean (I’m sorry), well I’m talking about those fancy (rare and expensive) coffee beans, you get what I mean. But it’s always lovely to receive coffee gifts like this!

Coffee 12/100 featuring Panama Ninety Plus Gesha Estate(!) roasted by Dublin based Imbibe Coffee Roaster, Perci Gesha(!) varietal processed in Heat controlled fermentation(?). Rated with 96 points(!), it belongs to the very top (and expensive) of the world coffee scene. I chose to brew it with CAFEC_japan’s TH-3 filter paper which helps to highlight the balance & flavour in coffee. (Somehow I guess most of the coffee are not roasted/calibrated for Sibarist filter paper, or maybe I’m not calibrated to it’s brewing style and screwed up my previous brews).

It reminds me the feeling of drinking fresh cacao juice at Ning’s cacao farm. It’s so juicy and not too over-fermented kind of cacao nibs flavour, with a wonderful fruity background of pomegranate and green apple. It’s so sweet! Like super sweet with very soft mouthfeel. When it slightly cool down, I tasted more fruity notes like asian pear, Kyoho grape and dried fruits.. golden raisin and dried fig. Medium body with medium high sweetness and a syrupy mouthfeel….lingering with some high quality SO dark chocolate. It’s so intense, so clean, so complex and structure. I know it sounds crazy (maybe little bit overrated too) and hubby said it reminds him of running in the cacao farm while he was a kid.

I’m still not sold on this but definitely worth to be mentioned in my coffee bible. Anyone wanna get me more 90+?

16/01/2021

#11/100 coffee note.

It’s always true happiness to receive coffee beans, especially when it’s from home! I must say that I was a bit bias looking at the label and tasting notes…I’m definitely not cacao nibs kind of person, if you know what I mean in terms of coffee. But I was blown away!

Coffee 11/100 featuring Colombia Sierra Nevada Delagua Coffee Paradise Lot 8, a Natural Anaerobic processed Castillo varietal, roasted by my well grown baby JWC Roastery based in Malaysia. Tasting notes of Apple, Starfruit, Banana sweetness, Cacao nibs aftertaste…I can imagine very fermenty and pungent flavours from this coffee, but I can’t hide my happiness since I opened the bag.

The dry aroma of the coffee grounds was so perfumy so fragrant so floral so fruity! Brewing this first cup on a kalita, everything was so mesmerizing from the aroma to flavours to tactile and finishing. I was expecting some dissapointment to kick in when the coffee cooling down, but I can’t find any! The cacao nib was not very disturbing, and I love the sweetness with juicy and syrupy tactile sensation. Sipping this coffee with my roaster and both of us were enjoying this coffee so much, although he thought this is not the usual kind of coffee to my preference, indeed, but who can say no to good quality coffee?

13/01/2021

The transparency is playing a big part in sustainable coffee chain. How transparent can your business go? Here's another yearly report from a roastery based in Germany. Cheers!

10/01/2021

#10/100 coffee note.

Surprised Christmas coffee box gift sent by my secret Santa from home! Always fancy about good packaging and great branding story…they’ve been doing great and looking good, so here we are!

Coffee 10/100 featuring El Salvador Finca La Montañita roasted by Cloud Picker Coffee Roasters. To be honest I was looking forward to this coffee as it’s their special pick for this Christmas season, and it was good! This is a medium roast washed processed pacas & Pacamara, with tasting notes of roast chestnut, chocolate truffle, nougat…definitely a warm and sweet coffee for this cold winter!

Always being delighted with how much effort that people would dedicate into making their goods looking good and tasting great!

03/01/2021

I've been asking what's the impact of climate change in specialty coffee or the coffee industry as a whole. Other than affecting the coffee production which translate to less profitable for farmer...not even cover the cost, the most heartache part is we gonna miss way lots of coffee varietals/ coffee flavours which still waiting to be discovered. Some might say it's not affecting much for specialty grade coffee as they're usually required to grow at high altitude. We have a choice of what we want to drink, but not all coffee farmers has a choice of what they can grow.

It's becoming harder and harder to grow. Sources and Additional Reading:Andres Guhl http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0003960/guhl_a.pdfhttps://revistas.uniandes.edu...

28/12/2020

#9/100 coffee note.

Loves and hates about this coffee. I’m so blessed to taste this coffee alongside with range of distinguish competition grade coffee selections sharing these beautiful coffee on cupping protocols. The dry aroma of this coffee was…complex...too complex to my liking, I thought. But the lychee…florals…tropical fruits notes which were so big that wouldn’t allow me to ignore its appearance.

Coffee 9/100 featuring Colombia Cerro Azul roasted by no stranger again Malaysia based The HUB, a Natural processed Gesha from Granja La Esperanza farm. Compliment from high altitude of 1700-2000masl and microclimate weather to this coffee, Cerro Azul has successful putting their name on world coffee map with dedication work they’ve put in the farm through the years. Sipping on this coffee was a joy. I was looking at the coffee taster wheel while cupping this coffee and it just hit the tropical fruit notes without any doubt: Lychee, star fruit, tamarind, passion fruit, and the sweetness reminds me of pineapple, mango, kiwi…then honey and florals that keep coming back in every sips.

Fun fact while cupping with my European friend in sharing our different cupping protocol. Usually I start pouring hot water around 94’C, breaking crust at 4mins and start tasting coffee at 8mins which is around 70’C, revisit second round at about 50’C and wait til it’s cool down at roughly 30’C…which is about 25min for a cupping session. In this way I can pick up aromatic flavours while it’s hot, understand its consistency through temperature changes and the key characters and even flavour notes. However, my friend Peter told me that usually he only start tasting coffee while it’s cool down. Unlike most asian people, it’s easier for western/ European people to has better taste sensitivity when it’s not as warm, based on genetic variation in taste perceptions. (I’m still trying to find more article on this, share with me if you know any!)

Oh and of course, lychee. It’s always a pain in the ass whenever I describe lychee in coffee. If you know what I’m saying.