1/31/2007

Cigars and Coffee? Yes, please!

At Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Company we are continuously trying to make the case that coffee is the new wine.  That is, we want to elevate coffee from a commodity at a convenience store to a cup of passion, combined in various ways with food.  We attempt to break down and identify flavors, sometimes recombining them in pleasing espresso and coffee blends, then pairing them with similar and complimentary flavors in food.  The same principle applies to coffee and tobacco.  You may have heard of coffee and cigarettes.  There is even a series of short films called just that, Coffee and Cigarettes directed by Jim Jarmusch.  Highly recommended viewing, to be sure.  Since cigarettes are basically verboten these days, unless you're European, I will make  the case that coffee and cigars are the logical coupling.  To wit, I am smoking a Romeo y Julieta 1875 petite numero dos.  Cigar descriptions use the same terminology as both wine and coffee--aroma, body, flavors and finish.  This particular cigar has a clean aroma, is medium bodied,  has flavors of wood and leather and has a sweet finish.  What would I pair it with?  Well, since I am an espresso nut, I would recommend our Dark Horse espresso blend.  Why?  For starters, since smoking is full of concentrated flavors, it lends itself to a concentrated beverage.  That is exactly what espresso is: highly concentrated coffee whose typical flavors are magnified through the extraction process of an espresso machine.  Dark Horse  has a caramel aroma, is medium to full bodied, with lots of chocolate flavor and a rich, smooth, sweet finish.  It has some spicy notes which are also present in the cigar.  The cigar wrapper is Indonesian as are some of the beans in the espresso blend.  Little wonder Indonesia was known as the Spice Islands.  Take a trip east with a shot of Dark Horse espresso and a numero dos cigar.  Not everyone can be a numero uno.   Here's to long ashes and short shots. 

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