Sunday, 24 July 2016

Aldi Specially Selected Kenyan Coffee





This is a very bright yet robust coffee. Coming to it from a few days of Columbia I find it somewhat crude and sludgy, though certainly not lacking in impact. It's not a coffee I could see myself drinking a lot of in one go. One mug is enough. I prefer a little more variety in my coffee, though recognise the contrast between the vibrant acidity and the depth of the sludge.

Great packet image.

The coffee was roasted and blended in Ireland by an unnamed company. Possibly Bailies Coffee, but possibly not.





Date:  July 2016    Score: 3 







A more colourful but less interesting packet. Coffee is still a a little too one-dimensional, crude and sludgy for me. I'll mess around with it for a bit, but this may be a coffee that is best drunk with lashings of cream and sugar.


Date: Jan 2017   Score: 3


Aldi tea and coffee


Friday, 8 July 2016

Naber Kaffee Mocca






A proper pukka Vienna coffee: roasted by a Viennese coffee company (Naber Kaffee) to a traditional Viennese roast, and purchased in Vienna. Vienna was one of the early places in Europe where coffee was drunk. Venice, England, and Paris had already established coffeehouses, but it appears few other places outside of North Africa and the Middle East had been introduced to coffee. Following the decisive Battle of Vienna in 1683, the defeated Turks left behind their stores of coffee beans which, according to tradition, were given to Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki who set up a coffeehouse in Vienna. In 1980 a historian questioned the tradition, and put forward evidence that the first Viennese coffeehouse (The Blue Bottle Coffee House) was founded in 1703 by an Armenian, Isaac de Luca, and that many of the stories attributed to Kulczycki were invented by Gottfried Uhlich in 1783. I like the Battle of Vienna story, and so did the Viennese who put up numerous statues to Kulczycki, and held an annual festival in his honour. Seems this has now stopped.




Anyway, the coffee? Well, it's drinkable, but unremarkable. It's more roast than coffee, with no acidity and no character. Any cheap dark roast would taste similar. The "Mocca" name is probably a reference to Mocha, in Yemen, where coffee was first marketed, and was the gateway to coffee for hundreds of years. The company website says: "This mixture is very firm and aromatic, for coffee connoisseurs who love the strong espresso." Essentially it is a blend of cheap coffee beans so dark roasted it doesn't matter what their origin. 


Score: 3




Coffee roasts