Ah it’s good to be home!
I took a morning bike ride yesterday in search of Groundworks coffee but somehow ended up on Abbot Kinney in Venice. AK is adorned with several chic retail stores, cafes, and “organic herb” shops that one can spend an afternoon or two exploring. I landed in Equator Cafe, which is inside a book store called, wait for it…… Equator Books. EC serves organic coffee from Bay Area based Bluebottle Coffee Company. I got the Bella Donavan, the “wool sweater” or go-to Bluebottle blend.
EC has a very manual brewing process that I think really bring out the characters of the coffee. Instead of the standard drip or a french press, EC uses a drip-cup-thing. Yes, that’s the official term for this brewing process. Basically the contraption uses a cup with a hole on the bottom. You place a filter in the cup, add the grinds, add a bit of water to soak the grinds, wait, add more water and let the coffee drip like a standard drip coffee maker. Whew. I should have taken a picture of this contraption.
I almost feel like it’s sacrilege to say that Bella tastes like SBUX’s daily brew, but it does. Bella however is so much cleaner tasting and the flavors are more distinct. I bought a bag of the Yirg, a medium roast Ethiopian bean. The beans look smaller than the Kona beans so I used fuller teaspoons to get enough grinds. The coffee is pretty good. It is light and smooth… although it seems like everything my coffee maker makes turns out fairly light.