Ethiopia Mordecofe Natural Process

It seems like Four Barrel is really hitting its stride when it comes to roasting fresh coffee beans. I am currently enjoying their Ethiopia Mordecofe Natural Process and it's showing wonderful blueberry and apricot notes and a striking citrus-like acidity. In the past, their coffees seemed tired and roasted at levels that didn't fully show their best flavors.

Natural process means the coffee cherry fruit was left attached to the bean (as opposed to being removed as is more typical in the washed process) and as a result, the coffee has more funky fruit flavors that might have been gone otherwise. Though interestingly enough, the acidity remains, which tends to be muted when made in this manor.

So far I've prepared this coffee in an inverted aeropress, french press, and in espresso form. My only attempt at pulling this coffee was a failure, I choked my poor Gaggia, requiring 56 seconds to get maybe half the amount of a single shot. So I'll retry that soon and figure out how to properly dial this thing in (still, the espresso I got tasted great with steamed milk - the blueberry flavor shown through like a spotlight in fog). I liked this as a french press, but overall the flavors seemed muted a bit. The inverted aeropress version I'm drinking this morning is the best preparation so far - bright acidity, wonderfully sharp flavors, and a nice clean cup.

Priced at $13, Four Barrel describes this coffee's taste as "Intense strawberry throughout, blueberry and apricot jam, passion fruit, apricot, and vanilla cookie."

Four Barrel Ethiopia Sidamo Mordecofe

My appreciation for Four Barrel Coffee continues to climb the more I visit their shop on Valencia and 16th St. in San Francisco. Initially wowed by the atmosphere, machinery and great minds behind the shop's concept during my first visit in August 2008, subsequent trips have left me disappointed with the quality of the beans that I bought to brew at home. While the desserts are fantastic (chocolate and salt donut=yum) and in cafe espresso-based drinks are nice, some of the beans just seemed tired, over-roasted or plain boring.

But I'm an optimist. So I went back and picked up a bag of the Ethiopia Sidamo Mordecofe, which was roasted on Nov. 9. The coffee, priced at $12.50, is organic and direct trade. Four Barrel's tasting notes described it as: "A clean tea-like body, with bergamot aroma, notes of raspberry lemonade, and a peachy acidity."

I was really impressed with this bag. Showing best in a pour over, I definitely found it to have a tea-like flavor, followed by blueberries, some floral and earthy components, and a finish that hinted of oranges and a bit of lavender. Wonderful coffee and great price, definitely worth picking up.

Four Barrel Duncan Estate Micro Lot #2 (Panama)

Following my recent good experience with Four Barrel's Ethiopian Wondo Harfusa, I went back for something different, something from South America that would be complex and light.

I picked up the Duncan Estate Micro Lot #2 from Panama for $13.50. I was pretty sure I tried coffees from this farm in the past (I think during a trip to Stumptown a few years ago) and remembered liking it very much, so I wanted to give it another go.

Four Barrel describes this organic, direct trade coffee like this: "Linden dominates the overall flavor of the cup from fragrance through finish and is accompanied by notes of kumquat, key lime, strawberry and evergreen."

My initial run at this coffee in a French press was a disaster. Tasted lots of pencil shavings and led, which are signs of old beans (the coffee itself was roasted a few days prior to my brewing it, but they could have still sat around for a long time in jute bags, losing their liveliness). There was some tropical fruit underneath the other layers, but overall it wasn't a pleasant experience.

I next brewed this in an inverted Aeropress, and got the same thing off the bat. "Just tastes old," I wrote in my notes. As the liquid cooled, I found some milk chocolate notes as well as kiwi, and something like a hibiscus tea flavor.

As an espresso, this coffee had a little more life, showing dried fruits, prominently cherries. Still, I'd say pass on this one.

Four Barrel Ethiopian Wondo Harfusa

I've been drinking a lot of coffee from Ritual and Barefoot lately, so I decided to switch things up and buy a bag of beans from Four Barrel (although they get their beans from Portland's Stumptown and Sweet Maria's, according to ManSeekingCoffee).

Four Barrel Coffee has been around for almost a year now, and I've visited several times, often during my lunch break, for espressos and the occasional Dynamo donut. You can see my postings about them here.

I was a little hesitant to buy beans from them after reading ManSeekingCoffee's pronouncement in March that their roasting has yet to live up to expectations, and that basically he prefers Stumptown's versions better. Still, it's been a few months and thought I'd play around with a bag for a few weeks and see what I got.

During previous trips, I didn't see roast dates on the bags, but they all have them now, which is an important piece of information for the coffee buyer to know. Freshness is so critical for coffee to be good, and I'm realizing that it's not just about the roast date, but the age of the beans themselves. I've pretty much ended my brief, torrent love affair with Blue Bottle after purchasing numerous bags of beans for home brewing, only to find they've all seemed dead inside. Nothing but stale, pencil shaving flavors. No acidity, no life, despite the fact they they were all roasted within a week of my purchase. I still like to get an occasional shot from their new cafe in the Ferry Building because of their cool lever machine and the convenience factor for me (I work a few blocks away), but I no longer get their beans for home because they don't seem to refresh their stocks enough or keep their green beans fresh.

Anyway, I went to Four Barrel a few weeks ago and wanted something lemony, something powerful. So I picked up their Ethiopian Wondo Harfusa for $12.50. As Four Barrel's website is just a front page right now, I couldn't get any additional info about the beans, but there is info on Stumptown's site.

Here's what Stumptown had to say: "Our lot was traditionally fermented for more than 24 hours, washed and left to dry in the sun on raised beds for more than a week. Wondo Harfusa is pure essence of hibiscus in fragrance followed with ripe red fruit flavors of raspberry, red currant and red cherry that finish in classic Yirgacheffe style with distinct notes of black tea."

I toyed around with different preparations for a week or so and found the inverted Aeropress to extract the best flavors. Very complex coffee, with a nutty, buttery taste to start, developing into jasmine/floral tea and ending with stone fruit flavors. The coffee had a light body and muted acidity. As a pour over, I got more nuts in the finish - hazelnut and macadamia nuts.

If you enjoy tea-like coffees, this is one to try. I haven't had Stumptown's version, so I can't compare it, but overall I liked it and will be exploring some more Four Barrel offerings in the future.

Four Barrel Ethiopian Yirgaceffe Kocherie

Four Barrel in San Francisco's Mission District just opened less than a month ago and is repackaging beans from Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Portland, Oregon, until they start roasting their own. I couldn't find this particular coffee on Stumptown's site and was wondering if someone had simply misspelled Koratie, which both stores sell. But I did some Internet searching and found other Ethiopian coffees with the name Kocherie - apparently it's a region in Sidamo in the Kore district (I'm cribbing here from Victrola's description of a similar coffee). It's washed, unlike the Koratie, which is natural, or dry processed.

In a pour over, the Kocherie was a dead ringer for Darjeeling tea, with a lithe mouthfeel and astringent and spicy flavors in the mouth. On the nose I got that black tea scent as well as a candied fruit, something like those chewy, sugar coated orange slices candy that you pick up from a convenience store, two for $1.

In a french press, the coffee was largely the same, with a rounder mouth feel. I pulled this as a shot, but wasn't really blown away by it.

There was no obvious signs of a roast date on the package. I say obvious because there are two lines on the bottom that could, could be "11" though there's no month next to it. The guy at the desk said they got a shipment of coffee on the 17th, so that's when he thought they were roasted. The beans seem fresh, so it wasn't an issue, but it's still nice to know when they were roasted.

Four Barrel Revisited

I finally was able to drag my friend Tara down to Four Barrel during lunch yesterday. She liked the cappuccino, but said she thought Blue Bottle's was better.

I had a double shot of Stumptown's Hairbender, and it was similar to last time, though maybe a bit less syrupy in its mouthfeel.

I was also inspired to try a chocolate donut after reading Man Seeking Coffee's description of one from Dynamo Donuts (Four Barrel sells their donuts, and Dynamo sells Four Barrel's coffee).

It was indeed a delicious, chocolately sponge cake with a nice, slightly spicy frosting on top. But for me, I'll always love Ma's Donuts in New Bedford, Mass., where I grew up.

Think small, dense hard cake topped with a chocolate mocha frosting (my personal favorite) or big, sugar coated donuts filled with jelly, as soft as a feather pillow to the bite. The blog New England Bites has a nice review with pictures here.

Ma's Donuts is the type of local bakery where if you don't get in line before 6 a.m. on a Sunday, you're not likely to find much on the shelves by the time you make it to the cash register. Seriously. People line up before it opens. I've shown up at 8 a.m. thinking I'd have a good chance to score a bag of my favorites, only to leave in anguish. The donuts are just that good.

I rarely eat donuts anymore (as a kid they were like crack to me, with my dad buying a dozen seemingly every weekend for me and my friends) but the Dynamo chocolate was a nice break from my boycott.

Four Barrel

"I want to be sedated," Joey Ramone sings from a record player as I walked into Four Barrel, a new cafe in the Mission. I was thinking the exact opposite, "I'm here to be caffinated." Still a bit jittery from my morning cup, I had come by to check out the hot new center of coffeegeekdom and risk possible heart explosion by drinking both a double espresso and one of their single-coffee offerings.

Four Barrel, a project of one of the co-founders of Ritual Coffee Roasters, Jeremy Tooker, has received a lot of buzz from blogs such as Eater and Man Seeking Coffee. I arrived slightly before noon, expecting a mob scene similar to what Blue Bottle's Mint Plaza had its first day (think lines out the door, coffee luminaries lingering over the siphon bar) but only about two dozen people were there. Perhaps this is due to the cafe not garnering a section front spread in the New York Times, as Blue Bottle did. Oh well, my gain, I guess.

Four Barrel's space is huge, its a long, open warehouse-looking building that has an industrial sensibility with concrete floors and exposed wooden-beam ceilings. Small tables for two or four line one wall, with additional seating at long tables along the shop's street-facing windows. The front half of the cafe is for customers, the back half is where one roaster currently sits, with another reportedly set to join it. There's some art on the walls, but the real attraction is what's behind the shoehorn-shaped main bar in the center of the space.

Four Barrel has two La Marzocco Mistrals, with three-group heads each. These beasts are sexy. Like, Ferrari sexy. Grrrrr....you can imagine them purring as you approach the counter. They were also stocked with naked portafiliters, which allow you to witness the beauty that is crema bubbling and streaming out of the machine. You can't just walk into any old restaurant supply store and buy a Mistral, you have to order them individually from Italy. A poster on Coffeed.com said this is a mid-life crisis machine. I agree -- forgo the corvette and splurge on one of these babies, and you won't need Viagra.

Moving along swiftly, as my friend Cath would say after an awkward exposition, the coffee is supplied by Stumptown. They're using Stumptown's Hair Bender espresso blend in the Mistals. I was hoping to try some single-origin espresso, but they're not offering that yet.

Hair Bender is a blend of five different coffees from the three major growing regions of the world, according to Stumptown's website. It the small cup it smelled a bit woody, and I was getting some else really funky, like Thai spices. Not sure if my brain was just quitting on me, but it had a very unique aroma that smelled like a Thai dish, like some sort of basil-garlic meal. Maybe I was totally misreading this, and perhaps your giggling and thinking, "this douchebag is just making stuff up" but it's what I wrote down in my notebook at the time, so therefore it must be true. In the mouth, this blend has a chewy sweetness and a chocolate milk consistency. No bitterness at all.

I also ordered a cup of French press coffee. They were only offering the El Salvador Los Planes. This cup had a satisfying fruit finish, maybe melon, or sweet green grapes. A touch of pencil shavings.

After letting these coffees linger on my tongue for a bit, I walked over to the main bar area to drop off my mugs, and spotted Tooker, bouncing an infant on the counter. He said he hopes to do cuppings in a few weeks when he has more employees, and a large stand near the front of the cafe will eventually have a express French press lane, as well as individual presses for different coffee offerings. I almost asked if I could work there. I seriously wanted to hop over the counter and go to town on one of those Mistrals, just try working with a real machine for once, and see how I could do. Instead, after mumbling about the coffee offerings, I asked about the Clover, whether he'd want one here after having it at Ritual.

"I hated the Clover," he said. "Made it taste too much like tea."

After that, with the coffee and espresso starting to kick in, I felt an overwhelming urge to run the 2-miles back to my office, and took my coffee in a cup to go. (This feeling didn't wear off anytime soon, in fact, it's more than 12 hours later as I'm tying this, unable to sleep, at 2a.m.)

This is a nice cafe and if it does develop into a place where coffee aficionados can come by and learn more about the beans they buy, develop their cupping skills, and try some excellent coffees in ways they haven't before, then Four Barrel will certainly stand out among the budding crowd of specialty roasters here in the SF Bay.