nez du cafe

I thought I would dedicate this post to a product I would love to have, but have had a hard time justifying buying (ie can’t imagine buying), so if any of you are dying to give a random stranger an amazing gift this would work perfectly!


The product is called the “nez du café” and is available through the SCAA (specialty coffee association of America) for a mere $350.

https://netforum.avectra.com/eweb/shopping/shopping.aspx?site=scaa10&sho...


It is a kit with all of the major scents of coffee contained in it.  The scents are dissolved in oils so you can preserve them and smell them.  


The thing that I think is so cool about them is that they allow you to see through the artificial descriptors that people tend to use and approach them from a scientific perspective.  Just as with cooking some people are excellent at picking out the components and others are not as good.  It is a skill well worth developing.  You do not really need it to pull great shots of espresso, but it sure helps in communicating about the coffee and recognizing its components.  


There is a product by the same people called the “nez du vin” and it also supposed to be great.  I remember I first heard about the one for wine and then the coffee one and mentioned it to a friend and he laughed and said “it is only coffee.”  The funny thing is I agreed with him at the time and could not disagree more now.  I find coffee so much more interesting than wine.  To make wine as good as good espresso you need to spend over twenty dollars a bottle, but for espresso you can spend a fraction of that.  (Sure there are nice wines under twenty dollars, but I haven’t found one that reaches the heights that an amazing 30 cent shot of espresso does).  Unlike espresso wine does not require the skill or equipment to pour, but even including high end equipment in the price good coffee is still a fraction of the cost of good wine.  


It also turns out that coffee has many more flavor and smell components than wine!  I once saw the exact comparison and it was impressive, but I cannot find it right now, but here is at least one confirmation of this fact…

http://www.coffeereserve.com/coffee-has-at-least-850-components-of-flavo...

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