What makes me giggle about the Giggles Blend?

The Giggles Blend was my first creation of a coffee blend. Before Chazzano Coffee Roasters or Chazzano Cafe, there was the Giggles Blend. I have a strange sense of humor that I inherited from my mother, of blessed memory. My puerile, sophomoric, and extremely dry jokes would produce giggles from my wife. Hence the name. The creation of a blend is completely unscientific. The main questions when tasting a prospective blend are, "Is this blend special? Is the flavor profile different from any of the single origin coffees that I roast? Does it enrich your life?" When experiencing a blend, do you stop after a few sips and sigh while exclaiming "wow?" If the answer is no, then it's not right for you. Rarely do we dislike the taste of any of our experimental coffee blends. It's just that we have so many awesome coffees that the blend really needs to be so awesome that it literally changes your life.

The Giggles Blend has a syrupy mouthfeel with intense spicy aromatics, with the sweetness of nutmeg and cinnamon. It is a blend of four different coffees from Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Central America.  The Giggles Blend has a huge body when brewed in a Vacuum Syphon and intense cardamom, nutmeg, and peppery notes when brewed in a French Press.

What were my next two creations? Frank's Blend #1 and The Lunch Cafe Blend. 

Here is a partial list of the coffee blends that will change your life:

Jen's Blend

Klaire Bear's Tropical Summer Blend

Lisa Lisa Blend

Talia's Burrrr Blend

Tres Arias

Frank's Blend #2

Frank's Blend #3

Creamy Dreamy

Tre Monti Espresso Blend

Domani Blend

Jennifer's Peppermint Blend

Rachel's Wedding Blend

Winter Blend

Namaste Blend

Daddy, are they serious?

I'm just going to say it. Coffee should not be sold 3 weeks after the roast date. The complex aromatics just do not exist anymore after 3 weeks. We donate our 3 week old coffee to homeless shelters and low income housing. How old is the coffee that you drink? When you peruse the coffee aisle in the supermarket, does it have a date roasted? It probably has a date by which you should consume it. The good news is that 5 year old coffee will not poison you. The bad news is that with all of the fresh ingredients and food available to us now, why would you want to drink bitter and stale coffee? When I walk through the coffee aisle, anywhere, my son asks, "Daddy, are they serious?" He's looking at the date on the coffee bag that is often 6 months to a year from the moment we are reading the label.  And there's no way to know how long it took to get the coffee from the roaster to the store.

There is no way, yet, to stop the quick death of the coffee fragrance/aroma. Vacuum packed and nitrogen flushing are  really cool to hear, but they just don't keep the coffee fresh enough.

Recently, we swapped out brand new coffee at a few Plum Markets because they were over 3 weeks old. That evening, we had a large catering job and I was hoping that I was wrong and just crazy. I tasted 3.5 week old Nicaragua Jinotega and the same cofffee that was just 2 days old. The contest wasn't even close. The 3.5 week old Nicaragua had no taste. Sometimes, I wish that the coffee that some restaurants serve would come close to the old Nicaragua, but alas, I cannot sell old coffee. The old coffee that I took off the shelves was ground and donated to various shelters around the Metro Detroit Area.

Chazzano Coffee is sold at Plum Markets in Bloomfield, West Bloomfield, and Ann Arbor, at Whole Foods Market Troy, Western Market in Ferndale, and One Stop Kosher in Southfield. Buy it often, and buy it fresh.

New Coffee Offerings!

I am going to start cupping some new Papua New Guinea Purosa (Fair Trade Organic (FTO)), am El Salvador Organic Cuzcachapa Rainforest Alliance as well as a SWP (Swiss Water Process) Decaf Peru (Fair Trade Organic).

Even though I have cupped the PNG Purosa for many years and it remains one of my favorite coffees, with each batch and with each new crop, I need to experiment to find the sweet spot. There is a process by which I investigate the roast profile that will bring out the awesome character of the particular coffee. I roast the coffee at different roast profiles- from a light City Roast to a Full City+. Rarely do I roast a coffee to Vienna- the coffee flavor profile has too much to lose when coffee is roasted too dark. (However, Sumatra Mandheling is superb at Vienna roast- there is a great bittersweet chocolate that survives and thrives at that profile.

I'm interested in how the El Salvador will work as part of a blend. I have not been impressed with coffee from El Salvador- yet. I'll let you know.

I buy only Decaffeinated coffee that became that way through the Swiss Water Process. I have found that the coffee does not lose all of its aromatics and complex flavor profile. Besides, I appreciate the lack of chemicals in my cup of coffee. Several years ago, I forgot that I was drinking my Decaf Extravaganza blend. It was so good, I forgot that it was Decaf. If coffee isn't full of aromatics with a great mouthfeel, it just isn't worth drinking. Besides it won't make you sing- only, Good Coffee Makes You Sing.

Papua New Guinea


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