Standart Magazine - LInk

Ditta Artigianale Specialty Coffee - Link

Duck Rabbit Coffee - Link

The Kalita Wave - Link

Fellow Ode

Chris's Brew

15g Ground Coffee

250 grams brewed Coffee

204 degrees F

Mentioned in this episode:

Refined Taste with Dario & Chris

Weekly Live show where comedians Dario Joseph and Chris Thompson talk and laugh with representatives of Rochester, New York’s food and drink scene.

Joe Bean Roasters

Joe Bean Coffee - Coffee that lifts everyone. https://shop.joebeanroasters.com

All right, guys, welcome back to the Level up podcast.

I'm Aaron Pascucci, as always, and today I am joined by producer Chris Lindstrom.

How's everybody doing today?

Our friend Wade is working diligently on his personal endeavors there.

Yeah, it's really exciting to see the.

See the new shop open.

AM FM coffee.

Really nice little spot.

I got a chance to stop in.

So congrats to Wade and the whole team with Aporia and AM fm.

Yes, the old Fuego coffee shop.

Absolutely.

Back in the day.

So if you are in Rochester, make sure you swing by, grab some Aporia coffee, grab some really interesting specialty drinks.

Had a great time over there.

So definitely recommend swinging by and giving it a chance.

Yeah, I was going to get some hours because they have limited hours right now and they are doing some great, great things.

Yeah.

Easiest is probably to hit them on Instagram and look there because I think they're updating that pretty regularly.

If you search for AM FM in Rochester, you'll be able to find it pretty easily.

There's a Democrat and Chronicle article already posted.

Oh, wow.

Look at.

Look at that.

I'm sure he's having a very busy day today.

Yes.

So they are down in that business district.

Wade's great as always.

Annaporia Coffee is our big fans of.

So go support those guys as they're doing that.

Absolutely.

And if you do go to the Instagram, look for this great photo of Chris in his red, white and blue hat on Instagram.

There.

That is right.

I forgot I was.

I was there.

I was taking pictures and yeah, it's, you know, it's all.

The only thing I can ever recommend to people is when you go out to places that you really enjoy.

This is your opportunity to reach out and tell people.

Tell people vocally tell people.

Often the businesses really depend on people spreading the word because otherwise it's just constant dollars out with advertising.

So if you like a place, if you love a coffee shop, if you love a coffee, you know, tell people vocally, tell them in person, tell them online.

It helps a lot.

All right, one more plug in then is our friends down at Pandemonium are going strong.

I was sad that Angela was not even in there today.

She has two people who are working in there.

Nice as always.

But, you know, good notes then if she's not there.

Absolutely.

I was talking to somebody this morning that swung by before coming over for recording with.

In this moment, we're working on doing some audio books on hopefully a limited release series on Lunchador covering that and he had went in and he said it was swamped.

So they've been consistently busy.

So shout out to angel and the whole team over at Pandemonium for really killing in that space next to Jen's Artisan Bakery.

Yeah, I'm so excited for that space.

And as soon as they said they were opening there, I was saddened because somebody got the business opportunity that I knew was going to take off.

So super happy for them, though.

Absolutely.

Well, we are here today with another one of our.

Hopefully going to continue going forward.

Standard episodes here.

We've got a coffee in from Italy.

Well, I should specify the roaster is from Italy.

Coffee is from Colombia.

Our roaster who partnered with Standart magazine.

And, you know, Chris is going to help me with this in a second.

But it's Artiganali.

Artiganali.

Yeah.

Let me.

I'm trying to.

So it's Artiginale.

Artiginale.

I was wondering that, too.

That's.

I believe that's.

That would be.

It looks like they're out of Florence.

Yep.

If you've been out there.

Yeah.

And I'm actually.

I was when.

When Aaron reached out to me about doing a tasting episode, I was like, oh, well, I've got some.

Got some stuff here.

And he sent me a picture of the bag.

I'm like, I have actually been to their shop in Florence.

So I've been to Dita Artiginal in.

In Florence.

Or if you're there, you'd say Firenze.

But, you know, we're in America and I don't want to seem like the worst person in the world trying to.

Pronounce all the cities with our worst accents ever.

Yeah.

In the proper.

In, like, proper accent and then the actual Italian words for the cities.

But I actually had the pleasure of going there with a recommendation from the, you know, the Joe Bean team.

That was a good one then.

Yeah.

So I had a chance to go visit the shop and it was a great respite from general Italian coffee.

And it was a very specialty shop.

And I had a great time there when we were in Italy a few years ago.

Yeah.

When I went over.

It was probably about 10 years ago, I was over in Italy and we didn't see any specialty when we were there.

A ton of corner shops and the automatic machines.

Tons.

The automatic machines.

Before I even, you know, was selling the Jura machines and the Gaggia machines.

These.

Gosh, they look like soda dispensers.

They're so big.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's like €1 or something and you get a little espresso and it pops out with a cream and sugar and a little spoon.

Yeah, I love the experience of going to all the, you know, the corner shops that have espresso and amaro and everything like that and, you know, mineral waters.

I love that experience.

But this is the kind of coffee I want is the specialty shops, especially when there's limited options because people are generally looking for, you know, the expectation is a specific kind of roast, which is a darker roast, often with a little bit of robust in there for texture to give that Italian espresso profile.

And often they're serving single shots in Italy versus double shots.

So it's tons of singles when you're going to like the little stores.

And they're also very cheap.

So it's.

This is a wholly different experience.

And like I said, I really enjoyed visiting there.

I'm really excited to taste through this one.

Yeah.

So this came with Standart.

I'll have a photo in the notes of the packaging and stuff.

And if you haven't figured out what they end up doing is Standart will reach out to a roaster.

They will secure however much they can get to get to all of their subscribers there.

Maybe next time I have to figure out how many that is because it can't be a small amount there.

So this, the roasting notes here and the production notes more.

This is Angie, Oscar and Annabelle from Colombia.

It's a wheela farm, Finkalos Nogales.

It came in mt.

Oh, that's altitude.

Sorry, I was like, what amount is mt, Chris?

I have no milligrams, but I've never seen mt.

Yeah, they put the altitude on here, which is cool.

1750.

It's a Coutura.

And Chris and I were both shocked when we ripped into this.

This is a decaf.

So again, diving into our decaf stuff, you don't get a ton of decafs, especially a free sample being sent out to a ton of people.

I was a little shocked at that.

Flavor notes on the, on the bag are banana, mango, mandarin.

That makes notes.

That makes sense from what we were talking about right away.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, and they've got a little note here about forest.

So shade grown.

Yeah, that would make sense.

So I gotta say also the bag is very appealing.

It's got this bold yellow color.

It's just a very classy, simple bag.

But the level of detail on I thought was really nice.

So brewing wise, so I kind of use my standard ratios.

I use at home, this kind of.

I'D say industry standards.

So I'm using a fellow Ode V2 for my brewer.

This is on the five grinder setting.

That's my typical pour over setting using a Kalita wave.

So using the standard 60 to a thousand.

And for this we did 15.

Did a 15 gram coffee to 250 grams of water going in.

So pretty standard rooted.

204 water.

So that's my, that's my typical, typical recipe that I use.

Usually I'll be doing a 30 gram pour, but I did a 15.

So we're a little bit in the middle of the day.

Although we have decaf.

So I could have brewed more.

Yeah, I gotta say, you know, brewing it, the aromas coming off this were just absolutely wild.

This is not like when you think of decaf.

Often you think of.

It's a little bland, you like muted.

This is nowhere near that.

This got some, it's got some character, it's got some intensity, it's got a lot of things going on, a lot.

Of things at every step.

You know, Chris is a certified spirits taster and certified spirits taster or just judge.

So I judge and then I have my, I have my WSET level two spirits certification.

Okay.

So I've judged a lot and you know, written restaurant reviews and things like that.

And I love the process of tasting.

I find the detail and nerdery of it very mentally engaging.

And especially something like this that has a lot of things going on.

It's trying to isolate complicated flavors being pulled out of this.

Yeah, here's really good.

You know, much more informal on this stuff, but love it.

You know, taking the extra time to make sure we get a smell on the bean right when the bag opens, then right after the grind and then right after the brew and you know, into tasting.

So the way we like to at least try and do this, given our tech setup and things is, you know, we'll pull out, pull out the coffee, we'll open it up, we'll get a grind and we'll get it brewed and then we mic up before we ever really kind of talk about tasting it.

Yeah.

So hopefully this is, you know, real time banter that you can connect with on that way.

Just to round out a couple things there.

Chris's brew setup is usually using a Kalita wave.

Yep.

He's got a pearl scale.

Acacia.

Acacia.

Yeah, Never remember that one.

And then he has his nifty little RDT Water Ross water droplet.

Technique tool.

Yep.

I use a.

I bought a little perfume sprayer.

Really nice.

The, you know, the texture of the water coming out is very small, so it's not over.

Over beating.

A lot cheaper than the dedicated coffee versions.

I think it was like four times cheaper.

So, yeah, right off the bean, you open this up and you do get a nose full of notes there, you know, very light and floral.

Right off the bat, I got a little bit of raspberry at first.

Kind of moved into some blueberry for me, you know, Chris.

Yeah.

Right away for me, I was getting.

I was getting funky.

So it has a bit of that tropical funk to it.

And that was kind of my first.

My first observation was I was getting these complicated, dense tropicals.

Some of the.

Some citrus, but not like bright citrus, like really intense mid citrus.

And then what I was starting to get was kind of a.

Like a lactic fermentation.

So in the way, like, you, like you're smelling like fermented sausage.

It has this, like, rounded little, like, funky thing.

Got a little bit of a funk.

Yeah.

And again, as a decaf.

I'm delighted that this has as much character as it does this.

The process that.

Whatever process they used, this is.

This is the kind of process I'm hoping people use because this is carrying so much character.

Yeah.

And nosing.

It is equally as complicated.

Yeah.

Because I'm getting some.

Some powdery tropical.

A little bit of powderiness, and then tons of, like, these intense, funky tropical fruits.

Definitely getting the banana, the mandarin.

The mandarin makes sense because it has that rich, citrusy thing.

I still think it has, like, that fermented funk to it.

Yeah.

It's almost pineapple, like natural.

It's natural.

Dried pineapple, too.

Yeah, like natural dried pineapple.

You get that brightness, but it has that, like, brown funkiness.

I'm gonna say a toasted pineapple, like if you grilled it.

Yeah.

And the reason I say the natural is because when you.

You see it, like sun dried, it gets this funky pineapple going into that banana note.

And this is very.

I actually have some dried jackfruit in the.

In the cabinet.

Of course you do.

And it's a lot like dried jackfruit.

It's that tropical, but it's like all mid and low.

It's not high.

So it's got a lot of that complicated thing.

I'm excited to taste it, man.

Well, you should dive in.

I've been kind of sipping on it a little bit.

I had it for maybe a week, I think, since it came in the Mail, so.

And it was, you know, sealed shut completely until today.

So it's held up pretty well, you know.

Absolutely.

And I'd say we, for me, from nose to palate, no difference.

Yeah.

You wouldn't notice at all.

Almost identical.

It.

Nothing really got added.

Maybe a little bit more bounciness of the fruits, but it's not.

Not an acidic coffee.

I'd say this is very mellow.

I'd say it's, to be honest, bordering on low.

Maybe like low plus.

It's not like there's no acidity, but I'd say it's like low plus acidity.

Like on the wine scale.

Okay.

Where you might say like a very bright Riesling is like, you know, high.

Okay, I got you there.

Or like high minus.

Usually you do that little scale like that.

I'd say this is like.

I wouldn't even say it's medium acidity.

I'd say it's like low plus because it does have some.

It's not dull, but it's not like appreciable acidity where your mouth is watering and stuff like that.

No.

And it's like you mentioned body earlier.

It has a lot of body, which is something I really like in coffees.

Um, I'm a big sipper.

Um, I just want the flavor in my mouth as opposed to just like putting down volume.

And so, you know, that high body for me, like, if I'm working during the day, you know, that lets me sip it, put it down.

I'll go work with my kids on something, come back and grab another bit.

And just something I really like in it, that lactose and beer is kind of the same thing.

It adds a little bit of heaviness to it.

This actually kind of reminds of that.

The body is very rich.

Yeah.

I think the best thing I can say about this, I mean, the notes are fantastic.

The notes are interesting.

The best thing I can say about it is every sip I'm taking, my mind is just racing, trying to figure out what's going on.

Like, this isn't a coffee you can ignore.

No, there, there.

Every sip almost like shocks you a little bit where you have to think about it.

You can't.

This isn't like coffee, just like, oh, this is a generic, good specialty Colombian.

Right.

I understand the notes.

I've had this a hundred times.

I don't have to think about it.

I'm just enjoying it.

Like, every sip I'm taking is like just a little bit of a shock and I have to stop and think about it, uh huh.

No, completely.

This is, this is what makes me want to continue doing these.

You know, I've been lucky enough to have these come in the mail to me.

And you know, we had duck rabbit, which was the first one I've had.

Really?

That was, I'd say, you know, higher end than specialty, at least from what I used to eat.

What I used to eat, used to drink.

This one fits right into that category.

What you missed is there are a couple beans that I put into his coffee cup.

No.

Yeah.

And.

And this is the stuff I love.

I love going through the tasting process.

Like, I know I've got a couple special bags coming in in the next month or two that I'm excited to taste through, but I gotta say this is, this is one of the best decafs I have ever had and certainly one of the more unique decafs I've ever tasted.

This is probably, I can go on record saying this is the best decaf I have had.

Mm.

Ever.

Acidity is coming out just a hair more as it's cooling down.

I would still say it's in that low plus range.

It's not like appreciable other than it's becoming more apparent.

We weren't drinking like right off of the pore, so we were already like, not like right off the po hot.

But now that it's getting closer to room temp, I can taste it just a little bit more.

Yeah, I'm getting a little bit of that.

It's not a maraschino cherry, but what's the little cocktail cherries that they put in?

Oh, like a Luxardo cherry.

That dark?

Yeah, the dark little ones.

Yeah, A little bit of that tartness is coming out there in the end and I don't hate it.

No.

You missed one of the most interesting notes you had, which was on the grind though.

You pulled out a toasted parmesan.

Yeah, I was struggling to pull.

There was a toasted note that I was trying to isolate.

I was thinking it was kind of like a roasted like, you know, like a, like a roasted like fermented sausage or something like that.

And eventually it got to parmesan because like when you make a parmesan, like a frico, you bake it in a sheet.

You get this really dark, toasted, funky, you know, funky cheese smell.

And I definitely got it.

It's like a concentrated parm with like.

I'm forgetting the name.

What's the name of when you brown a meat and it gets that caramel color Maillard reaction?

That's the one.

Yeah.

The cheese with the Maillard reaction.

And it's.

Once you've smelled it a couple times, 100%.

So as soon as he pulled that out, for sure.

Yeah.

Not nearly as present on the nose and the.

And the taste.

But now that we smelled it there, I can smell why I smelled it in the drink.

I wouldn't say I taste it, but I.

The roots of it, the roots of why I was smelling it are still there because it's that fermented, funky, toasty thing.

The toast is much less apparent on this.

And I'd say roast wise, this is like specialty medium minus.

Yeah, I was going to say I'm looking at the.

We're drinking in clear glasses here, and it's very translucent for a lot of things.

Yeah.

It's not appreciably, like very red.

Like it has a little bit, but not a lot.

And compared to the amount of body you feel is kind of.

They're at odds with each other a little bit.

You would expect this to be very lighter on the palette.

From what you see in the cup.

There, that Mandarin note that was brought up, I'm getting aspects of that.

I'm also getting, like, not the super high ends of bergamot, like from Earl Grey tea, but like the medium, you know, the medium part of it.

And then some of the florals.

Yeah.

From that, like, I'm getting tinges of Mandarin, like expressed oils.

Not the brightness as much, but it's coming out a little bit more as it's cooling, for sure.

But definitely getting some of those, like, bergamot.

Kind of weirdly, because bergamot always comes across as like a very high note citrus.

This is like the floral parts of that, the complicated and then the medium parts of it.

I say this.

This is a fascinating, fascinating coffee.

I was going to see.

I'm looking to see how much this is, if I can find it.

I'm not a huge one for iced coffee.

I like to drink my coffee stale, cold at work.

Like is what I.

The term I've given it.

You know, I'll open it up and let it cool all morning and drink it through the afternoon.

This I almost want to brew over ice.

Yeah, I think that would be special.

Like, I'd want to brew it over ice and then almost pull it out of the ice.

Like almost like a martini.

Like a shaken martini type thing.

Yeah, something like.

You know what?

In a lot of ways, this would be a great cocktail ingredient.

I was debating that and whether or not it would get Lost in anything because it is delicate.

I'm kind of thinking this would be like, I would brew it a little stronger.

Like it was poured over ice.

I wouldn't pour it over ice.

I would pour it, chill it in the carafe like with an ice bath around it.

Yeah.

And then use that.

Right.

Because the complicated nature of this is.

Oh boy.

Yeah, they don't, they don't have this on their website right now, but they're, you know, their decafs are running in the, you know, 15 to $17.

That's really good for 250 grams.

Now it's not a huge bag.

That's a 250 gram versus a 300.

Yeah, just.

And they're, they're singles range from, you know, $14 for, you know, a fairly small bag all the way up towards into the, into the mid-20s.

They have this Mexico from 10, I don't know, how do you say the J.

Is it tanape?

Tanapa.

Yeah, something like that.

I'm a huge fan of Mexico coffees and so this usually typically I look for Oaxaca, which you don't see.

A ton.

Yeah.

Tina Hapa.

Yeah.

Tanahapa.

This is interesting.

Maybe this will have to get pulled in.

Yeah, I mean I'd love to try, try one of their, you know, single origin non decaf coffees as well because they've got some really interesting stuff.

They've got an anaerob Honduras there.

They've got, you know, a few different, you know, similar.

Oh, they have a Honduran gesha.

They've got some whole bunch of different source stuff.

I'm.

This is a very diverse group of coffees and yeah, this is, this is really cool stuff.

I'm really glad you brought it over, Aaron.

I'm glad.

Chris.

We're going to be looking to bring you more of this stuff.

Awesome.

Look forward to some more episodes.

And this is a great segue.

Also, one of the things that's been popping up in the coffee news is a lot about environmental stuff, global warming, all of that generic environmental stuff that plays into this hobby and delicacy of ours.

This bag is 100% recyclable and it feels like plastic.

Yeah.

So props to Arte.

Oh gosh, I'm from Firenze.

I am poor.

Don't, don't send me over to Italy and expect me to speak Italian.

My Mexican or Spanish is better but not great.

Yeah.

Well, for level up, I'm Aaron producer Chris Lindstrom.

Thanks for listening and we'll see you shortly.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchador Podcast Network Dita Artiginale.