Woodcut print of coffee bean with permission from Wouter, the artist (see link to his website below for more information)A friend of ours recently visited and brought some Robert Harris (Irish Creme - my favourite) coffee - filter and plunger grind - from NZ - each time I make this, Wouter says - that was a nice coffee, so I know he likes it as much as I do. (Actually it should read MADE as it's all gone, hence my desperate quest for some decent coffee).
Two weeks ago we made a trip to Toulouse to go to IKEA and order our new kitchen. We also bought a lot of other things at IKEA, one of which was a plunger coffee pot.
The reason: we have a stove top coffee maker and another on the way. To make nice coffee in the stove-top coffee pot, you need coarse ground coffee. Alors, we have looked high and low and tried all sorts of coffee from the shops, but none is coarsley ground. It's just moulu - ground - and the only moulu coffee we have found so far is ground to a powder. If you make stove-top coffee with powder, then most of it gets into the cup when you pour and you feel you need a coffee filter on your teeth.
So, when we got the IKEA plunger, there were instructions in 24 languages on how to clean, dismantle, use and maintain your new coffee plunger device. Aha, I thought, in English it says to use coarsely ground coffee - so over to the page francais with excitement to finally find out the French equivalent of coarse grind which has so far eluded us. But it just said "moulu". So I have come to the conclusion that you cannot buy coarse ground coffee in France and need a coffee machine to grind your own.
The next problem of finding a coffee grinder (at least temporarily) was solved by other friends loaning us one of theirs. But we still need to find our own at some stage. Other than that, we are looking for some nice beans to grind - the first packet I bought looked promising, but the taste is not that nice - shall we say the earth from our garden might have tasted nicer, although Wouter thinks this is a little exaggerated ... Luckily I didn't buy the kilo pack!
It just so happens that Robert, one of Wouter's sons, runs a lovely little coffee shop in Raglan, and also roasts his own, so we might have to put in a special order if he delivers world-wide!
See Roberts website for more details on his coffee expedition:
http://www.raglanroast.co.nz/index.htmland Wouter's site on the coffee print: http://www.acwwoodcuts.com/Site/Woodcut_prints/About_Woodcuts/Coffee_bean_in_roasted_state.ashx
Update - we've spoken with Robert the coffee expert who tells us we might be lucky if we buy espresso grind as it could be coarser - next time we shop we'll buy some and report back.
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