The Artisanal Diet - part 1
By Bruce Cole - Published 03.30.04
Atkins schmat-kins. I'm on the latest diet to come out of California, at least in the last couple of weeks, that is. It's the Artisanal Diet. My friends call it the food snob diet, but that's just because they can't pronounce it properly. Say: are-TIS-in-al, with a bit of a sneer, and a tilt of your head on the TIS, which gives you the requisite air of self-importance.
The Artisanal Diet is not a three-step program, or a weight-loss diet, or god forbid, a raw-food-you-gotta-chant-nam-myo-hyo-renge-kyo-while-you-slurp-wheat-grass-juice-through-a-straw-in-your-nose-diet. No. Please. It is simply a diet that will appeal to the foodie purist in you, that part of your cosmopolitan palate that derives immense satisfaction from the pleasure of eating and drinking only the finest hand-produced foods available, anywhere. Yeah, ok, so it's a food snob diet. Whatever.
What's the diet like, you ask? Lets start with the most important part of your day first, which besides waking up and doing 75 sit-ups (this part of the diet is optional, yet highly recommended), is the morning cup of coffee. ’ÄúNone of that ’Äògood to the last drop' crap for me’Äù, you say to yourself, while sipping a latte from your neighborhood coffee shop, the one that burns, er, roasts their beans beyond recognition, just so they can call it a Full City Roast. Time to wake up and actually smell the coffee, cause chances are, there's not much taste or aroma in the cup of burnt beans you've been drinking!
Artisanal coffee is the Domaine Leroy to your Gallo Merlot, the USDA Prime Beef to your Safeway Ranchers Reserve, and the it's the drink that will make you stop and seriously consider dumping your $15 a week (that's almost $800 a year) mediocre latte habit. If you are what you drink, then are you really as bland as your morning cup of joe?
Alright, quit preaching and get to the point. What makes a coffee artisanal? Artisanal coffee roasters fire up small batches of beans at a time, allowing them precise control over the precious and fleeting flavor components found in a coffee bean, such as the chocolate, citrus, and floral notes (coffee has over a thousand different chemical flavor/aroma compounds). The reason you probably never taste or get a sniff of these (if you don't drink artisan roasted coffee), is that the large coffee roasters rely on a computer program to guide them in roasting a particular bean, and those exotic flavors and aromas go up in smoke, literally. There is no nose to guide them, only a time clock. The artisan roaster handcrafts each batch of beans, finishing them with what amounts to their own personal signature style.
And by the way, coffee is naturally sweet, the coffee bean is actually a fruit, and one of the differences between artisan coffee and regular coffee is that the sugars and caramel tastes are more carefully cultivated. When roasting, one of the crucial moments in judging when to halt the roasting process, depending on the type of roast, is determining the seconds right before the sugar components in the beans go from being perfectly sweet, to perfectly charred and bitter. Think of that French Roast that's served up at your local bagel joint and the fact that practically everyone adds milk and sugar to it to cover up the bitter taste and make it more palatable. Criminal. Just Criminal.
One of our favorite artisanal Coffee Roasters is Blue Bottle Coffee, located in Oakland, CA. This is James Freeman's description of his 100% Yemen Sana'ani, which is as almost as exhilarating to grind and sniff as it is to grind and brew:
"This is an intoxicating coffee that produces a huge aroma, and, at this medium-to-dark roast level, it is one of the few single-origin coffees that makes an excellent shot of espresso. Also terrific as a filter or presspot, coffee from Yemen is still farmed much the same way as it was 1200 years ago: harvested by hand from ancient, often wild, non-hybridized cultivars, dried on local patios, and processed locally before being shipped. While not certified organic, Yemens are considered pesticide-free owing to the strong farming traditions which predate pesticide use. One more thing: you might not like it. Lovers of clean, snappy Costa Ricans, or Colombians might consider drinking a cup of Yemen uncomfortably similar to being picked up by the lapels, shaken, then tossed into a grimy Manhattan snow bank. But for some of us, this is the most complex and desirable cup in town."
Brew your own Blue Bottle Coffee
Grab that can of ground coffee beans sitting on your counter, take it down to your back yard, and sprinkle it around your rose bushes, they'll appreciate it. Seriously.
Consider John Gant of Gimme Coffee's description of his Platinum Blonde Espresso:
Aroma:
centennial Harley leather
Taste:¬Ý
divebar chic
Body:¬Ý
sculpted super-cream
Aftertaste:¬Ý
a vanity fair
If Marilyn Monroe were a brilliant librarian on sabattical in Milan, at about 4pm daily she'd find herself leaning on some marble counter ordering solito shots of this bomb-track before her high heels hit the cobblestones en route to steal spotlights in an all-night jazz lounge.
Origin Dossier: Blend
This is a carefully crafted 4-component, northern-Italian espresso blend (also perfectly suited for drip brewing). Blonde refers to the lighter espresso roast. Platinum, like triple platinum, in heavy rotation.
Sign me up, and gimme some Gimme Coffee!
There are hundreds of Artisan roasters in the U.S. these are just a few:
Torreo Coffee
Gillies Coffee (Brooklyn)
Rileys Coffee (Illinois/Missouri)
Espresso Vivace (Seattle)
Caffe Artigiano (Vancouver)
Now I know this part will be hard for most of you, but diets are never easy, this artisan coffee drinker does not pollute his precious brew with milk, or shudder to think, soy (they call it?) milk. Besides, it wouldn't be a diet if we didn't cut out some calories somewhere, so ditch your lattes, cappuccinos, macchiatos, and mochas, and start drinking the real thing: 1.5 oz of espresso, brewed at 190 degrees, extracted at 130 p.s.i., right into your perfectly warmed, thick-walled demitasse cup with the Made in Italy stamp embossed right on the bottom. Give it a good sniff, knock it back, and lets move on to toast. Yeah toast, Artisan toast.