The Daily Sauce :: A Daily Sip of Hip

January 9th, 2008 edition of The Daily Sauce: Food and Wine. Visit Our Food and Wine Archive.

Excellence in a Cup

If wine is the noble beverage, then coffee is the new wine. And in the world of fancy, specialty coffee, the 2007 crop of Nicaraguan Nueva Segovia from the Luis Alberto Vasquez coffee cooperative is as coveted as the magical 2000 Bordeaux vintage, perhaps even more so given the limited availability of the small crop. Only 18 bags (154 pounds each) of the organic fair trade coffee were produced for the international Cup of Excellence competition, the esteemed annual award given to the world's top coffees. Of the 500 lots of Nicaraguan coffee submitted this year, this co-op's lot ranked in the top 20.

Kaldi's was one of seven roasters lucky enough to score two bags of the prized, limited edition beans; it was even delivered to their new downtown Clayton coffeehouse last month via armored car. To showcase the bean's creamy, chocolaty, citrus characteristics, Kaldi's brews the coffee in its new Clover machine (see yesterdays Daily Sauce). Even at $4.25 a 12-ounce cup, we were lost in the heady aroma and flavor of this velvety smooth, rich, softly acidic coffee.

Get it soon, because, as Kaldi's coffee buyer Andrew Timko said, "When it's gone, it's gone forever."

Sauce pick: Nicaraguan Nueva Segovia from the Cooperativa Luis Alberto Vasquez
Price: $4.25 per 12-ounce cup; $15 per 8-ounce bag.
Where to get it: Kaldi's coffeehouses (by the cup at the Crescent location only), www.kaldiscoffee.com
Info: www.cupofexcellence.org

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