joe van gogh

my mom sent me some awesome coffees from my hometown of durham,nc.
the name of the roaster is joe van gogh. it's all fairtrade and mostly organic and i'll tell you, the coffee is incredible. she sent some guatemala and some costa rica and some sumatra that i did not try because i pretty much always hate indonesian coffees. the costa rica was sweet and had some maple syrup and some tangy citrus. very very tasty. and the guatemala was smooth and chocolatey and spicey at the finish. if you're ever in the triangle area, look up joe van gogh. i wish i had gone to the shop they have on duke campus, but as a rule i avoid duke campus like the plague. my mom went in there and started talking about how her daughter is a coffeegeek/barista and the owner got really excited and told her to tell me that i was invited to come to the roasting works when i'm in town next. which is typical NC fashion; invite the relative of a complete stranger into your home/workplace/bedroom.

on other topics of coffee news..... we did the african coffee cupping today. it was pretty cool. we "cupped" batdorf & bronson's kenya AA, ethiopia sidamo, ethiopia harrar, yemen, and kenya peaberry. i made french presses of each and had a "calibration table" that had a bunch of stuff that would get everyone's noses and palates ready for tasting the nuances in the coffees. strawberries, blueberries, currants, scotch, lapsong souchong, jasmine, molasses, lemon zest and butterscotch. yum. it was a great cupping, even though we didnt do the traditional sniff/sniff/break/taste/talk/sniff/taste cupping, it was good to facilitate discussion in another way. taking away the technical aspects of the cupping helped us talk mroe about the coffee than about the method of the cupping, which was way cool.

anyway. till next time.

october events

please come to tazza d'oro these days for good times and great coffee.

october 23rd- an african coffee cupping. this is open to the public. we will have a variety of african coffees to taste along with a "calibration" table to get everyone's olfactory nerves in sync.

october 29th- a Halloween themed latte art throwdown. $5 to enter. freepour only.each competitor gets one attempt at making a beautiful 12 oz double latte in the first round ( 4 minutes each) and then in the second round the top 5 scoring lattes from the first round will get one more chance to out-do each other. there will be no "warm-ups" or "second tries". what you pour is what is judged. we will have some kind of food and refreshments. call the shop if you have any questions . 412-478-8533

NC day two

we woke up and ate a very belabored breakfast and late breakfast at mom's. had some of the batdorf and bronson organic nicaragua isabelia with our tofu scramble and toast. very delish. went through chapel hill on our way to asheville and killed some time at surplus sid's which is such an awesome military surplus store. thought about stopping somewhere to get a quick cup before the drive but said "fuggit " and got on the road. we eventually touched down in asheville around 7. we had seen some epic sunset on our way but we were unbelievably hungry so immediately set out for rosetta's, which has the BEST food in all of asheville. got the peanut butter tofu,greens, sweet potato fries and gravy. so good. and then went over to izzy's to see dean and make plans for meeting up after he finished work. walked around and showed randy my old haunts, ran into some people i hadnt seen in years. it turns out that dean lives right next to the dripolator's new location on biltmore ave. and i resolved to get a capp there in the morning. the driploator carries counter culture which seems to have a sort of monoculture here in NC. instead of a capp i got a cup of drip mexico organic which was chocolatey and spicy. yummy. we wokred our way over to the tupelo honey cafe for breakfast. earlier i had made the joke that asheville is the place to go if you like having some hot girl serve you organic eggs first thing in the morning. there are like 10 breakfast only restaurants in town. but still with the saturation of breakfast joints there is still an almost hour long wait for a table at tupelo when we arrive. but we do it anyway. we got the biscuits with milk gravy and soysage, goat cheese grits and fried green tomatoes with more biscuits and peach butter. so good. when were sufficiently stuffed we went to izzy's to get a cappucino from dean, which was tremedous . i love izzy's.i love asheville. moreoever, i love good food. we're home now and ready to get back to work.

NC day one

the flights down here were pretty horrible. cramped seating,drunk moms, screaming children. but being greeted by my mom at the airport was good. i was so happy to see her and her partner. got back to her house to see that the kitchen had been completely remodeled with solid marble counter tops and stainless steel everything plus bamboo flooring. very posh and very comfortable to snack in!
we woke up friday morning with the intention of a) getting a good cup of coffee and b)taking care of the business i came down here for.
the first part was a lot harder than it sounds. i really wanted to go to this place called 3cups, that i'd never been to before ( check out their website www.3cups.net). it sounded and looked exactly what i was looking for in a cup of coffee. unfortunately they were closed. boo! then my mom recommended that we go to shadetree coffee on erwin road, which looked like it was permanently closed. boo! so we walked over to the building that she works in to the coffee shop they have on the bottom floor. port city java. upon walking, i noticed their fully automatic e(X)presso machine. i order an organic sumatra coffee. it had no syrupy body whatsoever. it was bland and i dont think that they used the standard 2 tablespoons per 6 oz of water rule. boo!
we gave up on getting coffee and focused on records and thrift stores which this area has a plentiful array of, but stumbled upon parker & otis where the old fowler's grocery used to be. the lady working the coffee bar had a great knowledge of the counter culture coffees and sold me 4 1/4 pounds of different coffees to take back to pittsburgh.she also made me a cappucino which was very tasty but the milk was steamed in the old way, not the microfoam way and was a bit dry for my liking. but eh. i was satisfied after having looked allover for a decent cup all day.
after dinner at watts grocery, an all local foods restaurant on broad st., we went to caffe driade for some coffee after some more record shopping. the guy behind the counter suggested the tanzania in a press pot and i took the bait. it was really delicious. it was light in body and mouthfeel, with some really nice floral aromatics. some serious dried apricots and cherry flavor notes with a robust tobacco note to finish. a great cup of coffee. i almost walked away with the tiny 12 oz bodum they had handed over to me, but my guilt got the best of me. it would have been a great souvenir from the day that coffee was not to be had.
later we discovered that we had missed a public cupping @ the counter culture roasting works earlier in the day. for that i am kicking myself, but now i know what to look forward to next time i visit: avoid coffeeshops in durham, full stop. only go to driade and go to the cuppings @ CCC fridays @ 10am.

regular?

just fyi- "regular" is not a size of cup.
thanks,sugartits.

i'm heading down south for a few days, to durham,nc and asheville. expect updates of coffee i have consumed. hopefully i'll get pictures too. if i can get another camera in the next 24 hours.