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2009-08-23
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After I brewed myself a so so filtered coffee for couple of weeks, it’s wonderful to have a good filtered coffee for a change. However, the catch was the place I got the good coffee. It’s Xen Coffee.Until this time, I approached this café on a rather negative light no matter how much I tried to be objective. The reason was, along the way, I encountered something more like advertising, ie posts for Xen Coffee with some sort of empty rhetoric, ie how good this place is without things to substan
Until this time, I approached this café on a rather negative light no matter how much I tried to be objective. The reason was, along the way, I encountered something more like advertising, ie posts for Xen Coffee with some sort of empty rhetoric, ie how good this place is without things to substantiate and without denying the advertising nature of the post. In addition, it’s my opinion that the proprietor did not know how to press the magic button but chose to stress on its easy to handle marketing side, ie I’m a politically correct café which uses Fair Trade beans, freshly “brewed”, blah blah blah. Some would say that HK market is not “READY” for a full scale of really good coffee. To me, it’s a miscalculation on the proprietor side and I could only pray nobody will follow this route ever again though I believe there will be one soon. I initially want to give place the last chance and close the book for this café forever. Boy, I was wrong!
Nevertheless, while I like to declare that the above notion is a thing of the past for Xen, I could only go as far as “much improved.”
Again, I have its Set B with Fair Trade Ethiopia YirgaCheffe. The proportion of coffee and water was now much closer to what was supposed to be vs. a watery black water I had last time. You can now enjoy the flavor of Yirgh and the clarity which is likely the reason Japanese fell in love with vac pot. The bean was not fresh out to me liking. The owner indicated that it was roasted last Monday but from the blooming, I think it’s at least 2+ weeks old beans. No distinct lively flavor associated with this coffee but it was quite drinkable.
I was pressing the barista for freshly roasted coffee earlier and he tried to tell me that the roasted bean needed to be rest a bit. Nevertheless, he came back with a Nicaraguan coffee with no background, ie don’t know the area or the farm it came from, etc. It’s a fair trade bean though. I asked for a cup of the bean and what in the cup told me that it was actually ready for consumption in my book vs. 6 rest days the owner suggested/practiced for this bean. For the cup, the roast profile was full city but I think it was too prominent and the additional two more days of rest wouldn’t help, IMHO. Come to think about it, there is some consistency among coffee roasted by famous home roaster Hottop. All of previous coffees I had from hottop was good but quite dark it covers all the nuances of coffee origin, particularly the acidity. Nevertheless, my sample size is still to small to make a final conclusion.. So, just some note then. I think the roaster should try apply some roasting curve to its bean and roast lighter to allow the origin flavor to shine as the vac pot brewing method was famous for its clarity which accentuates nuances of coffee flavor.
The dull grinder was not in use and the famous budget grinder for espresso Feima 600N was employed. The cup clarity now was prominent and this is the sort of cup quality vacuum pot lovers are looking for. For the brewing technique, barista waited for the water to fully come up to the top before she added the coffee ground, avoiding the overextraction that causing unnecessary bitterness to the cup. Kudos to these changes.
The food offering was worse than last time. The texture of the scone was so heavy it resembles fruit cake you get during Christmas time. The decoration and the location were not good at all but nothing can be done on these points unless one moves away from this Manly which was not designed to host a nice café, IMHO. The friendly owner and barista partly made up of these weaknesses but not totally compensated for all.
In all, if you really like siphon coffee and only interested in the coffee itself without much care for the setting and location, here’s finally the place to enjoy vac pot coffee.
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