Well, the time has come to try the second coffee of the India’s trinity, that I got last week, and this one is Bio Araku Lot 1. The label says, that it should have notes of croissant, persimmon and baked banana... well, that must be interesting!
The coffee is from the special collection exclusive coffees, named Gems of Araku 2020. And again, I will prepare it my ultimate favorite way - The V60 filtering system.
I like this method, because it is relatively easy, does not require any special equipment or machinery and the result in the cup becomes very beautiful, without any flaws in the taste at all.
And here it is... a the first step is to weigh the coffee needed, and here I stick to 21 grams of ground coffee. The grinding level should be a little bit coarser than the espresso one. Here I want to say, that my scale is not very actual and it’s precision is 1 gram. For these coffee measures, it’s most suitable a scale, capable of 0.1 grams accuracy. I guess I’ll need to upgrade my setup, but for now it works well.
Next, the ground coffee is put into pre-washed paper filter, or a cloth one, but paper one tends to be more sanitary, because you don’t have to wash it and keep it clean. And pre-washing is needed to reduce any possible paper taste in the cup. If you skip this, it will not be bad at all, if you use Hario filters. The Japanese produced a beautiful product. The company found a way to reduce this problem to a great extent.
Now comes the stopwatch. It’s needed to track the speed of your extraction and to pick the right moment for the three infusions. First one is like a pre-brewing and I use about 60 grams of boiling water to initially mix the coffee and start the extraction.
Following in the timeline is about 40-45 seconds after the initial infusion, and then I pour gently, in the center of the filter, about 130 more ml of boiling water. Then I shake, with circular motion, the pot with the filter, in order to knock some of the coffee particles from the sides of the filter.
About minute and a half marks the final pour... with about 130 more ml. Of hot water. The overall amount is 330-340 ml of water, which leads to a pretty nice extraction level. Now it’s time for another circular shake. From now on, I leave the coffee to filter itself, which should be completed in about 3 to 3,5 minutes.
And voila!
The coffee is ready and waiting to be poured in a nice cup. And quests what... the color of this lightly roasted coffee is great! And the taste of the second Indian GEM is beautiful!
My wife doesn’t always like the specialty coffees, but this one is one of her favorite one. All the India coffees from this special collection are a favorite of her. I like them, as well. They have somehow magical and exotic taste. I really hope there will be availability in the shop, at least for a month or two, because it’s really worth giving it another try.
See you soon and have a nice cup of coffee, in order to start a beautiful day.