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Published: February 9th 2009
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Hello Everyone,
INSERT UPDATE: it's actually a day after I began this. I went to the Ramayana Theater last night and was on the shuttle this morning at 5:00 am for Borobudur and Prabanam. The internet cafe experienced an energy loss so I had to start over with what was lost. I'm learning that this is a common occurrence here. Tomorrow, I'll see if I can find a place closer to my hotel and the donut shop!
Now where I left off before the power outage yesterday....
I'm sitting in an air conditioned internet cafe in Yogyakarta after touring the Salton's palace, the bird market, the traditional Batik center and a donut shop. I got up at 4:30 this morning for my flight. Having no reservations, I had the taxi driver take me to a hotel that was highly recommended in a website I found that caters to hostel users. I thought I'd like to be in a place that was authentic Indonesian. They had a room. It is authentic Indonesian with a water bucket by the toilet, a cold shower, foam pad on a solid bed frame and lots of families. It's actually very cool to
Kopi Bali Coffee Painting
The dark part is all coffee. The color is something else blended with it. be there.
For comparison, when I stopped by the donut/coffee shop for a snack before walking, my bill was Rp. 35,000 which is half the price of my room. It tipped my guide Rp. 20,000. I walked for hours, got sent in a different direction from each person I talked with, helped a group of young ladies with an English assignment and....when I was hot and pooped, another man on a motorcycle stopped beside me. He spoke very good English. He gave me a couple tips and offered to take me to the batik place. I cringed, he saw it and explained that he worked with the government tourist office and wouldn't want any money but just wanted to help. He gave me a lift on the back of his motorbike.
Leave it to me to find a man from the tourist office on a Sunday when it's closed to give me help!
COFFEE UPDATE
After walking on the beach in Sanur yesterday and finding a chair under an umbrella to relax in and read, I headed back to Mary's house. I walked on by realizing I had my camera and wanted to take a picture
of the Kopi Bali coffee shop. I discovered a staircase leading upstairs and found a gallery there. It was a coffee gallery. A man approached me and asked me if I knew about the gallery? Every painting has coffee in it! Not the scene, the paint. I looked more closely and took some pictures. We visited.
Mister Agung is the manager. He's only been in the coffee business for 6 months but was a food and beverage manager for 7 years with a large hotel. We talked coffee and he asked me if I had tried the Kopi Luwak? No, I hadn't and thought I might try it on my next visit. We visited some more. He asked if I had time as he wanted to share it with me.
His assistant brought me a book on the gallery and they both went to make preparations. A short while later, they returned with a small packet of Kopi Luwak, a tray with an espresso cup, sugar, cream and a portable gas stove with stove top espresso maker. The packet of Kopi Luwak is really small, about 8 ounces. They said the best way to make it is with
the stove top espresso maker. The grind is a bit coarser than espresso (grainy for my coffee friends and the coffee ladies).
They put enough water in the espresso maker to make about two ounces of coffee, added the 8 ounces of Kopi Luwak and waited for the water to boil and rush through to the top container. The smell was great. It has an earthy taste, very light acidity on the front of the tongue (an acidity I have never experienced) and a bit of nutty and fruity flavor/aroma. Their tradition is to sip the first cup straight and to dd sugar and milk to the second. This is among the top two or three cups of espresso I have ever had.
Which ones, for those who are interested: Cinnamon Bay Zoom, Cafe D'Arte Capri, Conscious Coffee but it was a special blend for the Mountain Region Barista Championships.
Kopi Luwak is eaten by a cat like creature, excreted and cleaned and then processed. The cat eats only ripe cherries so they are all harvested to perfection. It only eats cherries so nothing else is mixed in. The cat has no ecoli in it's digestive tract
so the beans come out really clean and with no odor or bacteria. Very interesting.
My little one ounce cup of coffee would have cost $20.00 US had it not been gifted to me. Better be good. They had a gift box for $150.00 that would make about 10 tiny cups.
So, I have been invited to return, call them ahead and they will arrange a trip to their coffee plantation. It is the Butterfly Globe Plantation, they have been using it since 1935 and it is close to Sanur. They roast beans every day so the beans at Kopi Bali are never older than three days. They throw it away if it is older or doesn't smell right when it hasn't reached three days. For info on Kopi Bali: www.KopiBali.com.
Their barista's did great milk so I'll look forward to having one of their cappuccino's when I return!
Internet connection here on Java is sketchy. I wrote for an hour yesterday and a power outage erased everything. This morning, I went to Borobudur and Prabanam. WOW! Had lunch with new friends. They are leaving tonight. Tomorrow, I have the morning to visit the water palace,
do a bit of shopping and then fly to Bali and take a taxi on to Ubud arriving near midnight. I'll write more tomorrow if I get a chance.
In the meantime, ciao! Larry
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amanda
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kopi luwak
I used to work with Starbucks Coffee before.Now I open my own coffee shop in Langkawi Island.Thanks for the info about kopi luwak,I reall look forward to have that coffee someday.