Orange - Round 3

With a two and oh record, we refused to admit defeat and went for another go at an old foe: orange zest. First we tried a plain shot with our new found method of coating the bottom of the holder with the ground up spice. It clearly had potential but wasn't quite there yet. Though pleasant enough to drink, I still found it a bit oily and somewhat raw. A little too much like the taste you get when you bite into an orange peel for my liking, especially in the aftertaste.

Next we tried to temper that intensity by turning the shot into a macchiato, or adding a bit of micro foamed milk to it. It tempered the raw flavour alright, but a bit too much. I found the brew quite subtle, as if it were merely orange scented rather than infused. Floral is a good word. Hoping for a creamsicle air to it, I was a bit disappointed. The texture and mouth-feel of the macchiato was quite nice and creamy but the flavour just wasn't there.

But the day wasn't done yet. One last attempt to salvage the essence of orange came with the addition of chocolate to the brew. A bit of chocolate syrup to the bottom of the espresso cup changed everything. In fact, it was a world of difference. At first sip, I made as close to a squeal noise as this baritone's voice is capable of making. Delightful!

The chocolate rounded out the middle of the palate, mitigating the force of the zest. The sweetness toyed with the tip of my tongue as the orange flavour danced around its middle. It reminds me of what I imagine a chocolate orange would taste like if it were made by a master swiss chocolatier. The only downside was the aftertaste. I'm not sure if it was a throwback from earlier shots, but I definitely still had a patch of that raw oil clinging to my taste buds for some time after the last drop. I don't care if adding chocolate is virtually cheating, this one is going into the win pile.

Cayenne Chocolate Espresso

You know when you suddenly run into a good friend in an unexpected place and it turns your day around for the better? That's what a cayenne espresso infusion is like, but with chocolate! You taste the chocolate first at the front of your palate, the familiar espresso second in the middle, and then the cayenne donkey punches you in the back of the throat a couple seconds later. If you don't know what a donkey punch is, don't look it up, just take it at face value.

Without the chocolate, the infusion was a little one-two note for my liking. If you like spicy it was still good, but the chocolate put it over the edge. I was pleased with how well the flavour of the pepper came through, spiciness aside. The fragrant, floral, almost rosy notes came bursting through the thick coffee curtains as if to say, "Hey! Look at me! I'm here now." Most of the seeds were removed in an attempt to allay the spiciness, and it was a good thing I did. The sudden burn in the gullet around the two second mark was pleasantly surprising for a spice nut like me, like the wave of a dear friend across the street in the corner of your eye. Even Brian enjoyed it, and he is, as he put it, "not a spice guy."

My friend and partner in music crime, Marc, has a backyard garden at his place on College street. He grew and dried these particular cayenne peppers. I don't know if that makes them taste better, but it can't hurt. If anything, it makes this cuppa joe more of a local brew than it already was. Just a small spattering at the bottom of the holder was all it took to make a surprising, intriguing, full flavoured shot.

For me, the sweet chocolate flavour rounded out and balanced the intensity of the shot and the pepper. This blend was also tasted by a coffee connoisseur by the name of Rick who has a political/coffee blog found here. He found the infusion "surprising", and said that it tasted better than a chili brew he had at last year's Toronto Barista Championship. What a compliment! After only a week I wouldn't consider myself a barista, but Brian is certainly a master of his craft. I am definitely looking forward to seeing how this infusion comes together.

Freaky Friday 13th Medley

Today's mixture is something of a hodgepodge. At first it was going to be lightly toasted walnuts but my mortar & pestle teamed up to turn them into more of a sticky butter than a powder. So I added some cocoa powder to loosen it up and a quarter orange of leftover peel. It doesn't smell nearly as potent as any of the other experimental ingredients tried so far, but I was banking on the oils working together to coat the palate in a swirl of lingering flavours.

There was definitely a swirl, though the flavours didn't stand out as much as I would have liked. The orange was completely lost, but that was to be expected. The walnut and chocolate were there but not in any readily describable way. Muddled is a word. Indistinct is another. The addition of sugar brought them marginally forward to the middle of the tongue, but didn't make them any more pronounced as they did with the fennel seed.

The flavour was great, and definitely different from just the espresso alone, but I wouldn't have been able to identify any individual component from the mix. Brian likened this effect to a good cocktail, such as a long island iced tea. There are several liquors in it but they blend together in such a way as to create a new taste, barely recognizable as the original elements. I think this is a good way of thinking about it. We decided this compound warrants further testing but not as an espresso shot, perhaps as a cappuccino or macchiato.

Flavour possibilities I thought of today:
sweet red pepper
mint
curry (?)