Brian Hockenhull, who runs Toast! coffee shop and wine bar in Delph Business Centre, talks about the world of coffee and introduces you to their Coffee and Wine of the Month.
For more information, phone 01457 820 270, visit their website or find them on Facebook.
THERE WE were at TOAST! thinking January would be a quietish month… Ha!
Anything but as we seemed to have had more parties here last month than any other!
And we’ve started the New Year the way we aim to continue, bringing in new initiatives to delight you.
We’ve brought in some wonderful new wines from Portugal, and are working with a young man local to the area to promote a range of extremely high quality wines from Central/Eastern Europe.
Coffee of the month – Nepal Himalayan Mountain coffee
There’s a lot of hype around about Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, and people buy it at extraordinary prices – I suppose just to show off, really. In coffee circles it’s just an average to good coffee.
This month, however, we introduce a great mountain coffee – one of the rare and exotic ones from the foothills of the Himalayas of Nepal.
This exclusive coffee is sourced from the picturesque mountains beneath the highest peaks of the world. The micro-climate at this altitude – between 1,500m to 2,000m – possess perfect conditions for coffee cultivation.
The coffee plantations are carefully nurtured by small groups of farmers, using old-fashioned farming tools and cattle manure for fertilisation. The beans undergo the entire process manually and once sun-dried they are carefully inspected to select only the best quality.
We are deeply saddened by the recent earthquake in Nepal and are supporting the farmers and the earthquake victims by donating 10 per cent of the profit to the charity initiated by our business partner who was in Nepal during that time and reached out to thousands of victims.
We have carried out a cup-tasting of the Himalayan Coffee. It’s an incredibly distinctive bean, with delicious overtones of chocolate, vanilla and a hint of hazelnut. The body is smooth and soft, and the cup is particularly bright compared to many Asian coffees.
This month’s wine recommendations – A Slovenian white and a Portuguese Red
White – Slovenia continues to show the way in terms of quality for this part of Europe, with wines that reflect this small country’s distinctive terroirs.
Dveri-Pax is a Benedictine-owned estate producing crisp, mineral very good value whites, and the one we recommend is their Sauvignon Blanc. It’s a pale lemon colour with green tinges, with CO2 bubbles dancing on the surface.
On the nose we can uncover a gentle pleiades of juicy yellow fruits which nicely add to the complexity. Dry on the palate, medium bodied with a very long Sauvignon Blanc finish. Best when young, but will be fine after 2-3 years.
Red – It’s not so easy to find Portuguese wine in the UK. This one is spectacular: Quinto da Garrida Dao 2012 Reserva. Like many other wines here at TOAST!, this is an organic wine produced on a single estate.
It’s been aged 12 months in Russian and French oak barrels to give a deep colour and high complexity – a real Winter Warmer.
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