"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

It’s been exciting to see the increasing interest by home enthusiasts in regional varieties. In the not too distant past, many of my discussions with coffee enthusiasts pertained to how to make a basic coffee and which coffees tasted the “best”. Now, discussions with enthusiastic drinkers are more along the lines of the amazing shot they pulled last week and how much they enjoyed the last harvest of some of the more rare and unusual beans they’ve managed to track down somewhere on the internet.

There is no doubt that thanks to the programs run by the likes of the West Australian Barista Academy there has been a massive shift in people’s understanding and appreciation of coffee. There has also been a fundamental shift in our understanding of the science of extraction particularly in respect to brewing temps — which has in turn given us a greater opportunity to explore coffee’s like we’ve never done before

Historically — probably because of it’s proximity to the USA and Brazils’ huge production volumes, most articles on coffees have tended to focus on coffee from the Americas — mention South America and most people think coffee. Mention coffee and most people think South America. Mention Africa and coffee is hardly mentioned. Mention African coffee’s and conversation seems limited to Kenya and Ethiopia.

In October last year I spent four weeks exploring Central Southern Africa. Better, more stable economic and political times in many of the countries previously dogged by war and dictatorship have lead to the emergence of healthier investment into industries such as coffee — and wow, the results have been amazing.

Historically, some of the world’s most distinctive coffees have been grown in East Africa along a long north-south axis that starts at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and concludes in Zimbabwe in southern Africa, along the way encompassing the highlands of, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania and other less prominent origins like Zambia and Malawi — until now!

Since my recent trip, my radar has become reasonably fixated on the new generation of Zambians and Malawians. The sample of coffees I’ve recently tasted from Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe herald a new era in African coffees — and it should be something that all coffee drinkers should be excited about.

At a medium roast and a brew temp of 98°C (on the Synesso Sabre), the espresso’s manifestation in the cup is best described as delicate and clean — with layer upon layer of subtle floral notes buried beneath the initial burst of bright acidity on the first slurp. In milk, sweet caramel notes start to become more pronounced but some of the floral character of the coffee, although not lost starts to become a little harder to find.

I suspect that there may be some eyebrows raised at the brew temps we were using for the evaluation but we extracted right through from the 87°C mark to 99°C and we found that the flavour and tactile balance was at its best at 98°C.

I like these coffees. They are different enough to grab my attention while being really deliciously drinkable at the same time — because, at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.