As a lover of the coffee experience, part and parcel of the journey is identifying where you can expand your knowledge and expand what you already know. As such, it is becoming more and more apparent that when I go to Mecca King St, I am being led to an understanding a brand new world.
As an example, when I ducked into Mecca today (to escape the dreaded world of conference coffee) I ordered the single origin of the day, a Kenya (insert specific variety here – missed it when they told me), and while it was a coffee that I had already tried a number of times as both espresso and pour over, the barista saw that as a challenge and really went to town bringing out the most from the coffee.
Started with checking the cup temp to make sure it was not too hot, nor too cold. Out came the scale to measure the dose precisely, to weigh the cups, and then weigh the extraction. Out came the mobile phone with the timer to hit a sweet spot (which because he missed the 2 second window he threw the first two attempts out). Before giving me the coffee he stirred the coffee to make sure that the coffee was well balanced….. and then…..
Well while the first coffee was dissolving in my mouth, spreading brightness and a touch of nuttiness around, the barista said “hang on a sec… let me try it again, but this time slightly coarser”. And so the process started al again. and the difference was amazing!! By just changing one of the variables, the espresso suddenly became more open and the aroma compared to the first coffee was supercharged. I was like a concentrated pour over and extremely delicious!
So what can I say, the experience of going to a cafe where passion about coffee and the skill to back it up is self evident, is a bloody good thing!!
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