Caffeinated yet?

July is a good month for getting lazy at finding places to eat dessert - thank you Aroma Festival! Besides, it's always a great day, amazingly for since 1998, it only ever rained once. All the other times, sunny.

And busy. Deservedly so, who wouldn't love a good cuppa on a lovely day, at the best location in the world?

This year, to mix things up a bit, we decided instead of starting breakfast at our usual spot, we forgo La Renaissance and stroll the stalls, followed by a sumptuous French lunch and desserts, then more coffee, if so desired.

Part of the Aroma Festival was a series of coffee appreciation workshops. This year I attended one on cupping - the international standard in determining quality of coffee beans, which goes something like this: 10g coffee coarsely (and freshly) ground, in round-shaped glasses or ceramic cups with a 7-8cm diameter and hold about 150-200ml volume; pour water in at 93C; steep for about 5 minutes - do not stir - then, carefully spoon away ("break") the 'crust' of coffee grinds on top, smell, remove the crust as much as possible, then slurp spoonfuls of coffee like wine tasting, so you get the flavour throughout your mouth. This is done for all the coffees you're tasting, so you can directly compare without bias.

(For details please google ... I'm not that familiar with this technique!)

It's scary though, see this colour wheel of all flavours and aromas? It's just like wine tasting. I can't pin point the flavours so more training is required....

Three single origins were provided for tasting: Kenya "Barichu Gatomboya AA", Panama "Camilina Geisha" (lovely story about its discovery), and Colombian "Rodrigues Ospina". And one other nondescript coffee sitting at the end of the table... which we discovered as something "that couldn't be much worse when it comes to coffee". Reminded me very much of Starbucks, actually.

Which one did I like best? The sharp Colombian, followed by the refreshing Geisha; the Kenyan was smoother but in comparison, flatter.

Learned heaps, will keep trying this for future coffee purchases.

The actual Aroma Festival was, once again, a gorgeous day out. Mild and fresh morning, I got a few coffees in my system before the massive queues started: A single origin pour over batch brew - Kenyan, sharp, but a tad bitter to taste; second coffee unfortunately was a "lowly espresso" so I got a skim flat white - mild and sweet tasting, some considered it weak and tasteless, but this is how I enjoy my flat whites. Then the last coffee purchase which I didn't have until later - a cold brew Geisha which I will enjoy for a few days to come.

LUNCH! Yes yes it's a dessert tour so I will skip describing the delicious dishes at Ananas.... and skip straight to dessert. Not many to choose from but everybody who had the creme brulee was absolutely in love with this creamy vanilla'y goodness. Oh and that scoop of raspberry sorbet ... and hidden underneath, a small pile of hazelnut praline. Yum.

I had to be different and went for a not so classic tarte tatin: Not classic as in the apple wasn't cooked with the pastry baked upside down, but the pieces of apple was full of caramelisation and sitting on a flaky pastry. Vanilla ice cream adorned the plate, smooth and creamy that was.

More strolling later, we found ourselves bouncing to live music  while wolfing down a classic French crepe, sitting opposite the Opera House, enjoying the last of the afternoon sun before it got a little too chilly to be out and about.

Thanks again for a lovely day, Aroma; we shall return!

CS

Something new at Newtown

After a miserable Saturday, it really was uplifting to wake up to a perfect, clear blue sky! Amazing that on days like this, everything just promises to be wonderful..... oh yeah, of course it'll be wonderful - we're out to have coffee and sweets in Newtown!

First stop - Campos. The coffee scene in Australia is enjoying some sort of a renaissance - artisan roasters, demand for single origins, and various hand-brewed or drip coffee are commonplace now, it really is a coffee snob's heaven. I opted for a cold drip from Colombia to wash down my crispy, fluffy croissant. I always found Colombian coffee a little on the bitter side, while a cold drip meant it was less bitter and more floral/fruity.

Brewtown Newtown was our next stop - as with most of the funky insdustrial style cafes, it was abuzz. Which meant a short wait for a table. This gave us some time to admire the long cabinet of cronuts ... which is about as close to these sugar and fat blobs as I'd ever get. The 4 of us devoured a morish pumpkin bread (among other things) with ginger and honey butter, and lime mascarpone which was da bomb! I could just eat that on its own! Also enjoyed the ginger and honey butter. But that mascarpone - I'm stealing that ....

Drinks to wash down our food - a cup of batch brew that smells like cocoa and has a very fruity flavour without bitterness at all, so I did prefer this over the Campos cold drip. The flat white by another dessertee also received good remarks. Teas came in individual tea pots and eclectic tea cups and milk jugs - cute.

We did also have something else at Brewtown but as it's not sweet, we will not report it....

The new spot - Crumble Top - I think has only been there for 6 months or so - we were curious with just how many types of crumble desserts they could come up with. And will they beat our the delicious warm hugs of apple crumble made by our grannies/nans? Lets find out ...

Damn, now that you gave us a choice, we don't know what to do! You get a choice of base + crumble flavour + type of sauce + scoop of ice cream...  So do we choose a classic crumble (eg apple and cinnamon with classic crumble and a butter scoth sauce and vanilla ice cream), or experiment with new flavours and textures? So our gang ended up with four different crumbles and accessories - some more daring than others - and we compared notes.

The concensus was good crunchy caramelised and aromatic crumble; the conservative of Granny Smith with cinnamon crumble, lemon curd sauce and vanilla ice cream was a cheerful choice as it's a tried and true flavour; Strawberry and rhubarb was gorgeous (I frequently make jam with these two produces) while white choc and macadamia crumble worked nicely; toffee sauce seem a little lackluster maybe? The "Spice girl" option of pear and ginger + cinnamon crumble provided a blast of cinnamon flavour, rendered the orange nutmeg sauce somewhat bland while the cardamon ice cream was a hit (perfect level of cardamon'ness); I went against all tradition (expectedly) with a sticky date pudding topped with a peanut butter crumble - a light, moist pudding sans butterscotch sauce - and a deliciously tangy lemon curd ice cream. Again, sauce was somewhat lacklustre for me - orange and nutmeg was just not nutmeggy enough. Also - decent shot of espresso. You'd need that to survive Newtown.

Stomach full and now in hyperdrive mode after multiple coffees, we left Newtown happy and satisfied... Skip lunch and go straight for an afternoon nap maybe?

CS