O'Kam Coffee

营业中

休息中

Its getting X'massy Chilly and what's better than having some hot coffees to shrug off the cold weather!! Situated opposite to COCO ESPRESSO but upstairs in a commercial building in the Sheung Wan area - O'KAM COFFEE mainly imports a good Italian Coffee Bean, known as ARCAFFE. Started in 1896 by the Meschini family and popular in the more Northern Italian cities. ARCAFFEE is part of the CSC (Caffé Speciali Certificati Italy) - an association participated by Italian Roasters with a common purpose of promoting the culture of Quality Coffee, & is already used in some local restaurants or cafes within SOHO area and Wanchai Exhibition Centre, etc. O'Kam Coffee also sells SAECO Coffee Machines - mainly Automatics, so do call them before paying them a visit to see some demo's if you wish. I asked for a Coffee-bean demonstration and the lady made an Espresso of their Roma Blend on an Auto-Machine... I didn't take photos, but it gave me a 'faint indication' & persuaded me to buy a 250g pack to try making at home: ********************************************************************************SINGLE TIGHT RISTRETTO : Problems existed initially with multiple attempts of Espressos or even Non-true Ristrettos even after numerous adjustments, surprisingly the Pour itself seemed ok yet not much flavours were extracted nor did the crema held up despite coaxing - indicating borderline stale-beans, but not beyond state of no return. I decided to shift towards the tighter Ristretto spectrum to explore any remaining flavours, despite carrying no 3rd waver intentions but barely to savage anything from the package rather than write it off completely, seeing I had paid $75 for it! - albeit only a Single, since its a first truer-to-reality test of a normal Espresso's quality: Harder tamp, 2 clicks Finer, roughly 10g, un-measured but shortened volume, registering higher back-pressure on gauge, ran 2x secs. (Intended for those who need some Technical Reference*.) You would 'visually' judge the above true Ristretto shot as unappealing, but in fact the pour itself remained viscous and the resulting cup was thickly drinkable and I managed to finally open it up very slightly. There are 3-4 explanations, to be fair to ARCAFFE:- 1) My mobile kept taking photos with yellowed-out colours, so by the time I started up the main camera then readjusted Macro and light levels, around 30% of the already weak crema has dissipated. In hindsight, could have made another shot for shooting but I wasn't really planning to post pics up at that time. - 2) My bag of Coffee was handed to me straight from the Display Shelf - one can even spot it in the photo above! So it serves as a self reminder to say NO to this the next time! This is one of the biggest reasons for a below-par performance and no amount of after-thought adjustments could fix. - 3) My little home-machine doesn't extract True Ristrettos/Espresso's to really professional standards, particularly when its months between turning it on, as I hate cleaning it after making 1-2 quick coffees. However, my previous extractions, i.e. beans from Coco Espresso or imported Australian, have fared much better than today as a comparison. I'll post pics next time then as reference.- 4) The presence of thickish dark-brown pour throughout the extraction, not blonding even beyond 20+ secs yet lacking Stable Crema on top indicates the bag of beans was past its best use-by date but initially high quality, it lacking any gas in the beans too, but barely retaining enough aroma & flavours, so it was borderline drinkable. - 5) The ROMA Blend is 100% Arabica beans, without Robusta. Although this isn't relatively so important compared to the staleness, which precedes this in this instance. The coffee shows potential, with a sweetish mild background and a tad winey porty, mid-bodied, not much roasted bitterness - its within scope of expectations vs the way I extracted. More Gourmet than Commercial, its roasted & blended to retain original flavours and quite lovable if mentally extrapolating the details! If only it was 'Fresher' and my Machine + Grinder combo was better: this would be a blend I could come to like a lot! I will definitely buy more ARCAFFE beans to try again, hopefully fetching a fresh pack from the Monthly imported box than the one that has sat on the shelf. ****************************************************************************************************************************************************************CAPPUCINO CHIARO - (w/ Single Espresso) : This to be a test of its performance with milk, so fired up another Normale shot. Unfortunately, at only 1 / 20th the price of a true Commerical Machine, the Steaming Performance of my tiny home-use Sunbeam is barely 1/5th to 1/3rd that of a proper machine, its weak and also steams in pulsations than continuous, unbelievable! Little did I know before purchasing - as the shops don't allow customers to trial 1st!! It steams almost like an old man with weak bladder taking multiple intervals before finishing his job in the toilet... If i knew, I wouldn't have bought it, its frustrating! Therefore it was nigh on impossible to make good velvet-foam with barely 25% of full steaming capacity - it was either too big bubbly, or not producing enough volume of micro-foam desirable for a good Chiaro or perfect for Latte Art. After calculating numerous compromises, there were still some rugged edges. Nevertheless, the end foaming wasn't top stuff but blended in with the base enough to be indicative of its Taste Structure. Made one for myself then another for my mother who's in town: I don't really know how to describe it as it was slightly muted from this package, except its certainly not the boring commercialised-to-death blend nor a poorly roasted yet bluffing its way up to be an artisanal blend. ARCAFFE'S ROMA showed potential and in its muted guise was mellow, syrupy, slightly pruney & earthy, the mid-bodied background punched through the milk nicely - if this can be enjoyable and give out such performance now, even when not overly fresh, I cannot imagine how much better it would fare if this was a freshly imported package! Thumbs Up!Until Next Time... ******************************************************************************** *NOTE: THIS IS A SHOP WHICH SUPPLIES MACHINES AND BEANS. THEY ARE NOT A CAFE AND WON'T SELL OR MAKE YOU COFFEES: HOWEVER THEY HAVE AUTOMATIC MACHINES FOR GENERAL TESTING AND DEMO. 继续阅读