World's Biggest Coffee Mosaic... For Now

 

 

In June this year Russian artist Arkadi Kim broke the world record for largest coffee bean mosaic. It took Arkadi and several assistants more than ten days to complete the 30 meter long coffee art which contained over one million beans and weighed around 397 pounds.

 

The piece titled, "The Awakening" was on display in Gorky Park, Moscow where visitors could watch the mosaic go up while drinking coffee and listening to jazz music. Then on July 1st the beans were taken down and sent to a coffee plant for processing. It brings a whole new meaning to "Drinking in Art."

The Awakening is five meters longer than the previous largest coffee mosaic by Albanian Saimir Strati and no one has attempted to make a bigger one so far.

 

 

Photos from google images

 

 



Big Island Coffee: Kona, Ka'u, Puna and Hamakua

While visiting California last year I met someone in a library who was talking about the Kona coffee he had with breakfast that morning. "You know there is only a little bit of land in Hawaii to grow coffee," he told me, "that's not enough for everyone in the country to be able to drink it."
Looking up from my book I smiled, "Yes," I said, "I know, I live there."

For the past hundred years coffee from Kona district has been the internationally famous face of Hawaiian coffee. Kona is also the producer of some of the world's most expensive coffees. What most people don't know is that of the 7 million pounds of coffee produced in Hawaii every year, only half of it is from Kona.

Hawaii Island District Map
from google images

 

Coffee is grown industrially on five of the Hawaiian islands, most prominently on the Big Island where there are four major coffee districts: Kona, Ka'u, Puna and Hamakua.

 

Being a world famous and very expensive coffee, Kona coffee is often sold in bags of 10% Kona to lower the price. Kona farms are also very tourist friendly and you can visit many of the famous brand's farms and their manufacturing areas. There is also an annual Kona Coffee Cultural festival in early November. You can visit the site here

http://www.konacoffeefest.com/

 

Ka'u coffee is generally described as floral sometimes with chocolate, cherry, coconut, orchid or citrus flavors. "It's less acidic than Kona coffee." A girl at a Hilo farmer's market booth told me. Ka'u has done very well in both regional and international competitions. Over the last four years it has placed top ten in the Coffee Association of America Convention. Having earned a reputation as "one of the best coffees anywhere" Ka'u coffee is described as being on the rise in the coffee world. Ka'u coffee can be bought online, even Starbucks has some Ka'u coffee in stock occasionally. It can also be purchased on the island at the farms themselves, the Farmer's Market or the Ka'u Coffee festival held in May. You can see the Ka'u Coffee Festival site here: http://www.kaucoffeefest.com/Main/default.aspx

 

Coffee picking.
A naturally dried coffee bean in Puna.

 

Puna coffee, grown between Hilo and Volcanoes Nation Park has been described by the County of Hawaii Agriculture as being "an outstanding coffee with very full body, heavy, with nutty overtones." One of my favorite places to get Hilo coffee is at the Xpresso Coffee Cooth in Prince Kuhio Mall. In my experience Puna coffee is deep and delicious with a stronger caffeine buzz.

 

Hamakua has a few coffee farms on the slopes of Mauna Loa and is usually described as incredibly rich. The few times I've tried Hamakua coffee I've been pleasantly surprised at its wonderful body and aftertaste.

 

If you have a hankering for Hawaiian coffee it's worth looking into the award winning brands from different Hawaii districts and finding out which one you prefer.

 

Yours Caffeinated,

Arah



What's in my Frappuccino?!

Xpresso Blended Ice Mocha
Xpresso is a local coffee brand on the big island,
they have a booth in the Prince Kuhio mall,
their Hilo coffee is absolutely delicious <3


My #1 favorite drink before I swore off sugar was the classic Mocha Frappe. It wasn't until I stopped drinking them that I began to wonder just what was in a frappucinno... specifically sugar-wise.
I began sniffing around for frappe facts. My research was conducted on only Grande or Medium sized frappes so all coffee mentioned in this post is referring to a 16 fl. oz beverage.
 

A McCafe Iced Coffee
I got it as unflavored/ unsweetened as possible and it still tasted like candy...

 

First up for my study was the McCafe. Everything I have ever had from the McCafe has been sweet, so I wasn't surprised when I found out that their Mocha Frappe had 70g of sugar, their Choc. Chip Frappe had 66g sugar and their Caramel Frappe a whopping 71g sugar!

 

If you don't know how much sugar that is, the total recommended sugar intake for a full-grown male is 45g a day!

Starbucks Mocha Frappe
Picture from official Starbucks Coffee Company website
(they take really good pictures...)

 

Starbucks was a little better, but not much. Their Mocha, Vanilla and Caramel Frappes were respectively 60, 69, and 64grams sugar. (You can find out their coffee facts on the Starbucks coffee site.)

 

 

So the question arises: what do I order if I don't order a frappuccino?

The answer-- pretty much anything else. Innocent, fluffy frappes it turns out, are really bad for you.

 

For yummy alternatives, McCafe's medium Iced Latte has only 8 grams of sugar.

If you prefer the Starbucks route, even the lovely Grande Caramel Macchiato has only 31 grams of sugar, which is still a lot, but not nearly as much as a Starbucks frappe which can be more than twice the amount sugar depending on the flavour.

 

Whipped cream also makes a bit of a difference. You can add it to your unsweetened beverage or take it away from your sugary one; McDonalds whipped cream portions are about 3g sugar and Starbucks whipped cream is closer to 2 grams. The difference in total sugar intake isn't much, but it helps.

 

Even better is getting a steaming (or iced) cup of plain coffee. Your medium/grande original coffee has zero grams sugar, zero grams transfat and zero grams cholestrol! *cheers wildly*

 

Yours Caffeinated,

Arah



Home Coffee Cupping...

 



Keaau Caffeinated, reporting in their first coffee cupping!

The Judges:

Arah Ko, Riana and Y.B. 

 

The Coffee:

(from left to right)

Buddha's Cup, Big Island Coffee Roasters, Divine Hawaiian Coffee, Kona Mountain and Big Island Coffee.

 

The coffees were brewed and tasted within a couple minutes of each other, they were rated on scent, body, flavor and personal preference among the judges.

The Verdict:

1st Place Coffee- Big Island Coffee Roasters!

 

Described as having a unique taste with low acidity with hinted flavours of cinnamon, malt and caramel, this coffee was truly delicious and was voted as the favorite of all three judges in our blind cupping. It is a light coffee with an amazing smell, before and after it is brewed. This coffee was also the Grand Champion of the 2012 statewide cupping competition!

 

Link to Big Island Roaster's Site: http://www.bigislandcoffeeroasters.com/

 

 

 2nd Place- Big Island Coffee!

This coffee had a strong and rich scent. Its flavour was oaky and savoury with a smooth body. This is a deeper, blacker coffee and completely addictive. It was the first one to run out after the cupping...

3rd Place Coffee- Divine Hawaiian Coffee!
This coffee had a taosty tobacco flavour with a long aftertaste, a little more acidic than the others. (I was unfortunately unable to get a picture for this one.)
Site: http://divinehawaiiancoffee.com/cart/

Yours caffeinated,
Arah



Shopping For Coffee

 

One of Hilo's most interesting attractions is the Hilo Farmer's Market. Packed with vegetables, fruits, honey, soap, ethnic foods, clothes, handcrafts and yes, coffee, the Hilo Farmer's market operates on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from however early you can manage to wake up to about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

 

Big Island Coffee/ Kimchi booth at the Hilo Farmer's Market
Photo by Arah Ko 

 

The Hilo Farmer's Market has booths selling over half a dozen different Big Island coffee brands, so one bright Saturday morning I stopped by the market and picked up one of every brand I could find, determined to have my own home coffee tasting.

 

 

Divine Hawaiin coffee booth
Photo by Arah Ko

 

It didn't take me long to figure out that coffee tastings are actually called coffee cuppings. (Thank you wikipedia!) The coffee I bought was all medium roast and if I could get it, whole bean. I purchased coffee from Buddha's Cup, Big Island Coffee, Big Island Roasters, Kona Mountain, Divine Hawaiian Coffee and Sharkie's. I will be posting about the individual brands as well as the result of the coffee cupping soon!

Cappucino Crazy

A classic heart-shaped cappucino.
Picture taken by Arah Ko.

There are a lot of reasons many people prefer other coffees to cappuccinos. Some people don't like bitter coffee and go for the Frappe type of drink while several black-coffee drinkers I know avoid cappuccinos because "they are all foam", but there are also a few pros to this particular beverage...

 

 

One reason to order a cappuccino is if you don't want too much caffeine. Though the degree of caffeine in a cappuccino verses a plain cup of coffee varies depending on where you get it, your typical Starbucks Grande cappuccino will only have about 150mg of caffeine while the same size of Starbucks drip coffee is around 330mg.

 

A beautiful swan design cappuccino from the Ala Moana Mall-- after I had taken a sip from it...
Photograph by Arah Ko.

Reason number two for not dismissing a cappuccino if you're ordering out is that they can be fairly difficult to make at home, requiring very specific milk temperatures and an espresso machine. So if you want a little variation in your coffee habit, it can be a fun thing to try.

 

I haven't even seen one of these dog cappuccinos online! Even though a lot of cafes don't design their cappuccinos if they are in a to-go cup, the cafe we went to did it without us even needing to ask~
Photograph by Arah Ko.

 

My third reason (and excuse) for ordering cappuccinos is probably the most obvious one: cappuccinos can look amazing. There are hundreds of cappuccino designs ranging from hearts and leaves to monkeys and cartoon designs. The cappuccino photographs above were taken at the Ala Moana Shopping center in Honolulu where they have an amazing coffee shop called Honolulu Coffee Co.! I highly recommend a visit.

What happened when I tried to grind green coffee...

Drying Coffee
Photo by Arah Ko, Sept. '12

Green coffee is what processed coffee beans are called before they are roasted. While green coffee can be green, it also ranges from a light green to a chalky grey.

Some studies had been conducted to see whether or not green coffee can aid weight loss, but so far it remains a myth because no scientific study has proven it yet. In any case, I decided I wanted to try green coffee for myself, but was surprised when I put it in the coffee grinder and it started to make a noise like a breaking lawn mower. Little bits of shell were being torn off tiny grey-green coffee beans. After a little more careful research I found out that my coffee had been green coffee with the hull and dried pectin (or mucilage) layer still on and that the blender had taken the outer layer off while leaving the very hard little green beans behind.
 

Above to left is green coffee, to the right is coffee with parchment skin.
Photo by Arah Ko, Sept. '12

 



While my green coffee blending experience didn't turn out exactly as I'd hoped, I did learn some things about coffee that I hadn't known before.

Coffee fruit are made up of seven layers and we only end up using the center cut of the bead, the part in the very middle, and the bean itself surrounding the center cut. The outer skin, pulp and mucilage layers are removed in both dry and wet processing. The parchment layer comes off during the coffee washing or drying. The last remaining layer called the silver skin is either removed by machine or it burns off in the roasting and becomes chaff. What is left of the fruit is roasted and ground for our enjoyment.

 

I curbed my disappointment about not being able to drink green coffee by brewing myself a cup of 100% Hawaiian coffee-- which was great-- but I'll have to tell you about it next week...

Yours Caffeinatedly,

Arah

Harvesting Coffee Cherries

 

Coffee grows on bushes in little green and red fruits called cherries. The coffee is ripe when the cherries turn dark red. After being picked and brought in the coffee begins the process of becoming the beans you buy in the store, but because I'm just making some for myself the process is a bit different.

 

Coffee is typically processed one of two ways, the wet method or the dry method.

 

For the wet method the coffee cherries are sorted and pressed in tanks of water and then either shelled by fermentation and washing or machine assisted wet processing. Both ways require specific equipment. Most Kona Coffees are processed in the wet method.

 

The dry method of processing coffee cherries is the oldest one. Whole coffee cherries are sorted and set out to dry on a flat plane or concrete and regularly rotated until their skins come off leaving the rest of the fruit.

 



Having tried to take off the skin the dry method last year without success (they all rotted) I am practicing neither the wet nor the dry method. Because I only picked one bowl of cherries, there are few enough to simply mash the cherries with a potato masher and pop the beans out by hand.

 

 

The beans are free of their skin and pulp and what can be seen now is the white, slimy pectin layer of the coffee. I set these out to dry in the sun for a few days.

(I hope this works. I've never heard of anyone doing it this way before...)



Keaau is the town right... There!

   Keaau is a town on the Big Island of Hawaii on the Hilo side, or East side of the Island. While Kona is famous for it's dryness (and coffee) Hilo side is a lot like Jurassic park-- except instead of big dinosaurs, we get geckos... Because of these extreme climate differences, some people don't realize that coffee can actually grow on both sides of the island.

   Hawaii is the only State in the U.S. that can grow coffee, vanilla and chocolate and Kona coffee tastes great because of the rich volcanic soil it lives in. We're growing our own coffee, just a couple bushes of it here in our yard on the rainy side of the island. Right now they look something like this:

This year I plan to go to several Kona coffee tastings, grow, dry and brew my own coffee, review local coffee shops and blog about it!

A hui hou!