20180806 Ideaology Coffee Sharing

Ideaology Present Beans - Ethiopia Guji Natural Processing for Coffee Sharing Participants

My colleagues are coffee lovers. They recommended me coffee beans roasted by Ideaology. But I didn't have chance to buy some beans from Ideaology. My colleagues found that Ideaology was going to hold a coffee sharing session and ask me to join. I promptly participated. I did a quick research on facebook and found that there are some linkings between Ideaology and Barista Caffe. Then, I realized that the owner of Ideaology may be 1st barista who gave me the coffee class. Some of the teachings from him was still burnt on my heart up to now. On the advertisment, beans from Ethiopia Guji, Bolivia and Brazil was listed for this sharing. I didn't expect too much for the following reasons:

1. Ethiopia is always recommended from coffee shops and I have tried that for so many times
2. I heard that there can be some interesting coffee from Bolivia. However, last time I tried it in a local coffee shop and it failed to impress me. So, I expect probability will play the major role.
3. Though Brazil is the largest exporter of coffee in the world, it is known for commercial coffee rather than specialty coffee. You can seldom find interesting cup from Brazil

However, the sharing session did come with somethings out of my expectation. I didn't expect it came with free beans from the three origins. I was late and only Ethiopia was left so I had no choice.  The sharing session was carefully designed to really share the coffee experience that you may extract from Ideaology beans.

All the beans were brewed by the owner of Ideaology. I am sure he is very experienced. I heard from other barista that he was the very first group of barista to import the specialty coffee idea into Hong Kong. So, somehow, the coffee culture in Hong Kong was built up by him. 

2 sets of the 3 beans were roasted, 1st set for 1minute and 2nd set for 1.5 minutes. 1 minute was the time for the 1st crack of beans has completed, 1.5-minute was the time between 1st crack and 2nd crack. The 2 sets were brewed by Clever Coffee Dripper. And they really tasted very different from each other. What a pity that I didn't take notes for the tastes and I barely remember the differences in details.

In general, 1-minute roasting preserves the flavors of the origin with the only exception of Bolivia. Bolivia tasted more interesting for 1.5-minute roasting. There was character in the acidity of Bolivia for 1.5-minute roast. 1.5-minute roast of Brazil tasted dirty and with some earth flavors though you may find it nutty.

Ideaology Sharing Pour Over: Left Ethiopia 1-minute, Middle Bolivia 1.5-minute and Right Brazil 1-minute

After the 1st Clever Dripper rough tasting session, the 2nd pour over session began. This is the most inspiring session of the day. The owner of the Ideaology employed the very classic pouring technique. He ran in circle from centre to the edge and then back to centre with very consistent speed and path. He controlled the water flow rate with very high accuracy. The flow rate and radius of the water flow remained constant. With such a high level pour over skills, the tastes of the 3 cups were very distinct:

1. Ethiopia Guji tasted really like strawberries. This was my first time to experience such level of distinct fruity flavors and strawberries in coffee.
2. Bolivia really tasted like passion fruits. 
3. Brazil really tasted like grape juice. The flavors were like grapes and the mouthfeel was like juice. But you could not find it nutty like common Brazil beans

Ideaology Sharing by Siphon Method

3rd session was the siphon session, Ethiopia and Bolivia were brewed. During the early days when I started to take coffee seriously and learn, I liked siphon. Of course, that was not due to taste, that was due to the classy looking of the equipment. I learnt that siphon coffee is no different from pour over method but generally serves hotter cups. Since then, I didn't expect too much from siphon method. In this session, I could sense the same from the owner and understood the excitements of the participants viewing the brewing process by siphon method. The outcome was as usual. The cup was hot and the characters of the beans were not so sound. As far as I understood, due to the rapid rising temperature in siphon, it is comparatively difficult to control the brewing temperature compared with pour over. Yet, even you did the brewing perfectly, the taste you extracted would not be superior than the taste you obtained from pour over method. However, you may need to handle fire in siphon method and to be very concentrated during the brewing process. This means dangers and tiring for barista.

In case you wanna experience Ideaology Beans, you may visit the coffee shop below:

PS: I tried 2 brews by V60 and Kalita wave at home for Ethiopia Guji using the owner's brewing methods and failed to extract strawberries flavor. There is still a long way to go for my own brewing techniques.