Papua New Guinea
I have to say that October is a beautiful month. Cooler weather (well, maybe next week anyway), brilliantly colored trees, and for this San Francisco Giants fan, playoff baseball. I also had the joy of watching my son playing ball this week. Despite the black eye from a wild pitch, he had a great time. My apologies for the blurry header picture–I forgot my camera and had to resort to my phone.
Pouring a cup of Papua New Guinea
I know that whenever we feature a coffee from Papua New Guinea I talk about my mother. She is a teacher in an international school there, and I certainly know most of my PNG facts because of her. Papua New Guinea is a country with extreme topography. This makes internal infrastructure difficult, and airplanes are the principal means of transportation around much of the country.
Despite these difficulties, and the fact that there are hundreds of different ethnic groups and over eight hundred indigenous languages (can you imagine?), coffee continues to be grown and processed in Papua New Guinea. It is quite a feat to get this quality of coffee to the market.
This week’s coffee is a flat-bean, as opposed to the peaberry that we have often featured. This simply means that the normal two beans grow inside each cherry. Each bean thus has a flat side, where they face each other.
We brewed up a French press of this coffee today, and the overwhelming comment was that it had Indian spice flavors, predominantly cardamom. As it cools you taste more of a lingering acidity and a mild nuttiness.
Sometimes a light roast coffee has such subtle flavors that someone whose palate is accustomed to a darker roast misses the nuances. I think that even a dark roast lover could taste the vibrant spice notes in this bean. You can come in and try a cup on us using the code challenges overcome* this week.
I hope that you are each enjoying your October. One bright side of the drought we are experiencing is that there are so many opportunities to be outdoors. Hopefully we’ll have more rain soon, but in the meantime, savor these beautiful fall days, and drink good coffee. Cheers!
–Holly Fike
*Code good for one free 12 ounce cup of Papua New Guinea. Code expires on 10.16.14. Limit one free cup per customer please. Valid only at Carolines Coffee Roasters, 128 S. Auburn Street, Grass Valley, CA. Code/Offer has no cash value.