Coffee, anyone?

-
During my visit to the Madrid Fusión Manila 2017, I chanced upon a coffee-tasting session hosted by Chit Juan. You know, the Chit Juan! She used to be the CEO of Figaro, who now is what is known as a social entrepreneur. More importantly, for the purposes of my visit to this coffee-tasting session, she leads the Philippine Coffee Board and is one of the experts on the nuances of flavours in that cup of joe.

As I took my seat, I noticed that the participants were provided with granola bars and other healthy goodies (goodbye junk food!) that would help cleanse our palates in between coffee samples... after all, coffee is known for its strong flavours. As someone with very sensitive taste receptors (which make bitter food and drink, like coffee, taste extra bitter for me), the bits of side munchies might not be enough to cleanse my palate.

What I needed was lots and lots of water. Thankfully, a bottle of water was given to each participant. I was finally able to rest easy.

And so as the program started, we were introduced to different types of coffee. I learned that there are coffee varieties that grow best in the uplands, such as the Coffea arabica varietals (also known as the "mountain coffee"). During the session, we were presented with three samples of arabica coffee: the Catimor variety (harvested in Davao), the Typica variety (with regular beans, sourced from Benguet), and Typica peaberry beans (the shape of the coffee beans are different from regular coffee beans because of a mutation).



As a rice taster, the tasting opportunity was something that I couldn't pass without taking notes about the flavours I perceived during the session. It was fascinating to note that the peaberry tasted very differently from the Catimor (naturally because they are different varieties) and the Typica regular beans (which is strange because they're from the same variety). However, I could hardly say that the peaberry really is the best among the three because I had to consider the way the samples were prepared.

And this was the point when I just had to raise my hand to ask Chit about the effects of the preparation to the taste and texture of the coffee. After all, Catimor and Typical regular beans were cooked in a coffee maker (the regular drip coffee) while the peaberry (which, I had the impression, was precious to the coffee enthusiasts because these beans are extremely rare) was prepared using the Hario V60 coffee brewer. Apparently, using the V60 allows the ground beans to aerate and the added air causes the beans to release more flavour and aromas... leading to a more tasty and a unique coffee-drinking experience. Imagine perceiving citrusy flavours while drinking coffee!

While thinking about what I learned, I couldn't help but think that the Filipinos have journeyed a long distance... from drinking dissolved powdered coffee mixed with creamer and sugar, they have now reached a level of sophistication that has elevated coffee drinking into an art form. V60 is one; preparing cappuccinos with "latte art". 



Cool, huh? It's almost tempting to not drink the coffee and just take a whole lot of Instagram-ready photos.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in Bagu
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma
Read more