[Dragaera] Klava

[Jerry Friedman]

--- On Wed, 9/17/08, Eugene Zaretskiy <eugene.zar at gmail.com> wrote:

...

> We purchased a "sampler" kit of cooking wood
> from four different trees, including hickory and cherry.
> They were
> designed for cooking so we figured they'd be the least
> likely to poison us (spoiler: we lived).

Heh.

> My brother also bought some vanilla
> powder from Starbucks. Yeah, nothing fancy there, but we
> figured that
> the vanilla bean was designed to do little but add a
> vanilla flavor, and powder should do that just fine.

I'll bet a connoisseur like you could tell the difference
if you use the bean, but it may not be worth the expense.
...

> First, my
> brother made regular coffee using a french press.

Is this an extra step?  You're going to filter the
coffee anyway, so what if you just simmered the coffee
grounds in water?  Or is it just as easy to make the
coffee in a French press?

> It was some light roast from Peru, if I recall.

You forgot to take credit for this part.  As I understand
it, light roasts have more of the disagreeable bitter stuff--
dark roasting replaces that and the good flavors with an
equally disagreeable charcoal flavor.  So you might as well
use a light roast.
...

> In this case, we put a mix of
> hickory wood chips and lots of semi-crushed eggshells

How many?  This could be a vital detail.

> When plain, the coffee lost it's bitterness and,
> er, body. All that remained was the taste of the bean
> itself, the
> unique signature taste, and a hickory overtone. At that
> point it was
> very drinkable but not as good as regular black coffee
> because the
> bitterness and acidity adds to the body of coffee and makes
> it interesting.
...

Not to everyone (in case I haven't made that clear).

What's more interesting than my taste is Vlad's.  I'm a
bit surprised that he doesn't agree with you in liking the
bitterness.  But I can't cite any textev about why I'd guess
that.

> With klava, you end
> up with a milky, sweet drink that still has a very strong
> bond to the bean's taste.

I might like that, especially if it weren't too milky.

> We were as surprised as anyone that this actually worked,
> though its
> so complicated and time-consuming to make that it
> wouldn't be worth it
> for common consumption.

I wonder.  For a large group, you might only have to set it
up once.  Some research on reusing the filter is in order.
Standing there at a con or meet-up, with the kettle and press
in front of you, and the eggshells left over from the cake
that somebody made to go with the coffee, and a sign showing
Steven's recent seal-of-approval post, and the brass to say
"Sorry" when you're done instead of making sure you'll have
enough no matter what...

> Also, large drink manufacturers already
> mass-manufacture coffee-like drinks with the same idea,
> like Starbuck's bottled frappacinos (that are delicious).
...

That's a problem.  But with better coffee, and honey,
and vanilla and cinnamon to taste, and fresh milk (or
cream--whoa), you might be able to do well at a con.  Or
someone might.

I'd be all over the cinnamon.  And I don't think cardamom
has been mentioned in the texts, but it's worth trying
anyway.

> Anyway, sorry for the long rant but I figured that if
> anyone would be
> interested in this little experiment (everyone around here
> thought we were crazy), it'd be you fine folks.

Not me, nope.

Jerry Friedman