For this fortnight's exclusive Fresh Crop content, Anthony shares his recipes for brewing our Colombia Marcos Ramos.
Marcos Ramos’ beautiful fruit is grown in what is now known as Gaitania, Planadas, Tolima in Colombia. The ancient name for this region was Tala, Bocanegra, meaning something like the ankle/heel/foot, and the black-mouth. Presumably this relates to its situation in the foot-hills, and the black mouth refers to the bottom of the valley.
There’s a rich and fraught history to this region, but I’ll halt the diversion and veer back toward the coffee.
Caitie from our team in Noosa introduced this coffee last time, so I’m reluctant to cover the same ground, you can find her write-up here.
So, the Cofinet team (thank you Carlos, Filipe and the rest of the crew!) have brought us Marcos’ outstanding Caturra (it’s sits like this in the coffee family tree: Arabica>Bourbon>Caturra) and I personally couldn’t be happier.
There’s a relatively typical journey for curious coffee drinkers, especially those who work with coffee day in, day out: You may be drawn in by the subtle complexity, realising that not all coffees are cared for and produced equally.
Then at some point the subtle complexity is eclipsed by the explicit freight-train of funk and flavour you find in the world of, let’s say, naturally processed African coffee. But “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”, that is, this engenders a whole new appreciation for the refined, the restrained, the subtle.
That’s a one-way ticket to Colombia, and Marcos’ coffee exemplifies this perfectly. Whatever it is you do when you are drinking coffee; work, rest, play, contemplate, you could drink a litre of this and not realise, but once you reflect on it, you’ll discover only that it is perfect.
I’m sharing a plunger recipe with you because there is a simple beauty to brewing this way and it can be enjoyed anywhere.
It’s the chosen method by my wife every morning before she’s off to teach, and my friends whenever we’re out camping. Second to cupping a coffee, this is the most you can exclude yourself from the process, and let the coffee be what it is.
Plunger Recipe:
Make sure you've got:
Preparation
Boil the water and use it to heat your plunger, decanter and cup. Empty the now heated plunger and put in your ground coffee.
Method
00:00
Pour the boiled water over the coffee and put the lid back on your plunger. Give it a lil swirl, don’t go crazy, just make sure it’s all wet.
00:30
Listen to “Golden Years” by David Bowie.
It’s a magnificent song, and once you’re done dancing you’ll notice that it’s just gone 4 minutes, and it’s now time to plunge.
04:00
Plunge the coffee slowly. Decant brew into another carafe.
Drink it.
Marvel.
Espresso Recipe:
Dose: 22.5g on very fine setting
Yield: 40g out
Time: 32 seconds
Ratio: 1:1.78
Note: This espresso recipe is developed on a commercial coffee machine.Please use this as a guide to aid in achieving your desired flavour preference. If you are unable to reproduce the exact result on your home machine, don’t panic, an alternative is to simply adjust your recipe using the ratio, so it works best for your set up.
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