June’s Roaster’s Pick

KASAMA ESTATE: Zambia Coffee
Ari Weinzweig, CEO & CO-FOUNDER OF ZINGERMAN’S

My longtime friend Lex Alexander has one of the best palates and finest food sensibilities I’ve known. A bit less than 10 years ago, Lex suffered a bad stroke. To his great credit, and to all those around him who supported him through the process, he’s come a long, long way in his recovery. His sense of food and his palate remain excellent. He remains a great friend, driven to learn, to connect, to play golf (his other passion), and he writes some, now and again, about his views. He cares deeply for his family, his friends, his community, and the world of wine and food. I hope that one day you’ll be able to read his work in properly published, print form. But for the moment, I figured I’d share a snippet of it here:

I think that rituals, if richly textured, can add a rhythm and a marker to your life. I have this coffee-making ritual I’ve had for 25 years. And I’ve evolved it as I’ve learned more about coffee. And the thing I love about it is, if you have a ritual of going to work out in the afternoon, oft-times something can come up and get in the way. But nothing ever gets in the way of something that happens at 5:30 in the morning. So I know that no matter what’s going to happen the rest of the day, I can do something really nice for myself and make something just for me.

Something I love about the coffee ritual is thinking ‘What went in?’—the farmers, the pickers, the shippers, the roasters—everything that goes into that cup of coffee. I have a German gram scale where I weigh out the grams of coffee, and then I have a nice grinder where I grind the beans right before I make it. I’ve gone through periods where I use a French press, but currently, I like a pour-over drip. I’ve got a really beautiful Japanese kettle that has a long spout where you can aim the water to saturate the grounds. You can sort of agitate the grounds because the spout is so precise.

If Lex were here in town (he lives in Durham), I think he might join me in appreciating the current crop of coffee we’ve got in from Zambia right now. I’m loving it. We found this lot from Kasama Estate to be rich, full-bodied, and complex, and loved its earthy, herbal, and bittersweet cocoa notes.

Zambia used to be known in the US, for the history buffs amongst you, by its colonial name of Rhodesia. Named now more appropriately for the Zambezi river that runs through it. Coffee came later to Africa than it did to most—in the 1950s. Kasama estate is in the northeast section of the country, about 400 or so miles to the west of the Mababu co-op with which our very good friend Shawn Askinosie works to get the great cacao beans for his terrific Tanzania chocolate.

To my taste, the cup is creative, caring, very cocoa-y, elegant. Easy going, but not in a bland way. More like mellow, but marvelous, Ry Cooder guitar-playing than any kind of uninteresting elevator music. Something with style, elegance, purpose, and subtle power, but all delivered in an unobtrusive, thought-provoking, emotionally supportive way. Elle Koski from Zingerman’s Coffee Company told me that she loves its savory, almost meaty (maybe bacon-y!) richness. I’m gonna send a bag down to Lex this week so he can try it as part of his morning ritual. If you happen to be up early, around 5:30 EDT, think about him and his meticulous grinding of the beans, his very exact weighing and the spot of his pot gently dispensing a soft but steady stream of hot water onto the grounds. If you can wait til 6 am, you can get it at the Roadshow drive-up trailer (9 on the weekends), or at 7 at the Deli and of course, the Coffee Company. Enjoy. As Lex often closed out his blog and our conversations: “And a beauty to you.”

Excerpt from Ari’s weekly Top 5 E-Newsletter. To stay in-the-know about things that Ari is excited about in the Zingerman’s family, sign up here

Totally Toasted Tournament: May the Odds Be Ever in Your Flavor

 

Battle against fellow foodies to create the best thing on a slice of bread!
Make the next great toast recipe for the Zingerman’s Coffee Company, for a chance to win an
$200 in ZingBucks and eternal glory!

 

TO ENTER THE CONTEST:

Submit a photo & description of your deliciously creative idea via social media post (we’re on
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!) using the hashtag #ZingToast, or shoot us an e-mail at
[email protected].
The winner will be chosen by Zingerman’s co-founder and CEO, Ari Weizweig.

TOAST CONTEST GUIDELINES:

Pimento Cheese on Roadhouse Toast at the Coffee Company

So good I could eat it every day!
Ari Weinzweig, CEO & Co-Founder of Zingerman’s 

 

pimento toast

Ever have one of those days where your stress level is shooting super high, anxiety is setting in swiftly, and it’s hard to get re-grounded? If it’s any solace, you’re not alone. I have ‘em all the time!

I have a whole bunch of mindfulness and self-management techniques I’ve learned from others and have made up on my own to help me calm my nerves and center myself. I journal, I practice my breathing, I go for a run….But one trick that’s not in the books is this terrific toast. I love it. I feel better every time I eat it. And if you’re one of the ever-increasing number of folks around Ann Arbor who have fallen in love with our pimento cheese, it might work for you, too.

It starts with the toast: one thick slice of wonderful Roadhouse bread (one of my favorites from the Bakehouse). I’ve written about it at length elsewhere, but at the moment, let me just say it’s a marvelous traditional American bread. In the context of American culinary history, this bread was in nearly every New England cookbook from the colonial era. It’s a mix of rye, wheat, and corn, very slightly sweetened with a bit of molasses. When you toast it (or double-bake it like we do at the Roadhouse for table service, or at the Deli for sandwiches), man, it really brings out the flavors. I love it! I can—and do—eat it on its own all the time.

What takes that into the “comfort zone” so compellingly is the rich, softly spicy, lively, kind-of-addictive flavor of our pimento cheese. Despite being northerners, we make really, really good pimento cheese. Southerner after southerner sings its praises. The latest was a chef from New Orleans—it got an eyebrow raise out of her, and she reached back to refill her plate more than once!

We finish the toast with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a nice sprinkle of the Zingerman’s 5-Star Black Pepper Blend. Order up, sit down, wait a few minutes, and then eat it while it’s hot. I always, always leave the experience less stressed, calmer, and better prepared to face the world!

Excerpt from Ari’s weekly Top 5 E-Newsletter. To stay in-the-know about things that Ari is excited about in the Zingerman’s family, sign up here