Paris Insights - The Blog

On Saturday, I stopped by the Brûlerie des Gobelins, located at the intersection of avenue des Gobelins and rue des Gobelins, to see what espresso they were brewing that day. The establishment is not a coffee shop where one sits down at a table to while away the time with a cup of coffee. Rather, it is a coffee roasting facility that sells freshly roasted coffee beans.

They were brewing India Malabar and they offered to sell me a cup at 1.50€. I ordered this with the intent of purchasing a 250-gram bag of the bean.

The sales clerk told me that India Malabar is one of the least strong espresso beans of the house. I sipped the coffee he handed me and thought that it was plenty strong for my taste.

Back at my apartment, I brewed 18 grams of finely-ground India Malabar with my 9Barista stove-top espresso machine. The resulting 40-gram espresso had a decent crema, but I had trouble identifying the notes that the Brûlerie suggested were there: animal, woody, tobacco leaves, and iris (listed on the face of the storage container in the shop), and hazelnut and peanut (noted on the bag). I finally decided that the coffee was robust with a mild fruity, woody flavor. It tasted somewhat bitter, but that taste was balanced by a curious sweetness at the same time. No sugar, then, was necessary to sweeten this espresso.

Brûlerie des Gobelins
2, avenue des Gobelins
75005 Paris

During a recent visit to the town of Versailles, I decided to stop in at Terres de Café to see what espresso they were serving that day. I learned that they were serving an Ethiopian roast called Yeti. However, the barista told me that they had sold out of 250g bags, so I would need to purchase a 1 kg bag if I wanted to take beans home.

Because I did not want to purchase such a large quantity of coffee, I opted to forgo tasting the espresso of the day.

Instead, I decided to purchase and take home a 250g bag of Geisha Santa Maria that I saw on the display shelf.

The coffee is grown on a farm called Santa Maria in the Nariño Buesaco region in Colombia. I ground 18g of beans finely and brewed an espresso with my 9Barista stove-top machine. The result was a sweet, hearty coffee with intensely fruity notes, which I identified as clementine. As well as clementine, the tasting notes on the bag also indicate lemongrass, jasmine, red fruits, and cane sugar.

Terres de Café
6, rue des 2 Portes
78000 Versailles