Paris Insights - The Blog

I recently attended a presentation of an exhibit entitled The Resurgence of Erased Black Cemeteries given by curator Pauline Peretz at the Humathèque library of the Condorcet Campus in Aubervilliers, a town located just outside of Paris.

Located in the great entrance hall of the library, the exhibit consists of a series of photographs posted to large panels with descriptive text (in French).

During her 90-minute presentation, Madame Peretz walked to each panel and talked about eleven cemeteries in the United States that had been forcibly abandoned, forgotten or “erased” due to construction projects, then rediscovered.

In the photograph above, she is talking about the Zion Cemetery in Tampa, Florida. This cemetery, founded in 1901, was abandoned in the 1920s when the owner, an African-American businessman, could not pay taxes that the city illegally imposed upon him. During the 1950s, the city built an apartment complex on the land. In 2019, while consulting city directories, a Tampa Bay Times journalist realized that the complex had been built over the burial ground.

Today, there is an ongoing effort by the Zion Cemetery Preservation and Maintenance Society and the Tampa Housing Authority to restore the cemetery to its rightful dignity.

The exhibit presents information about multiple cemeteries in Florida and Virginia, as well as a cemetery in Houston, Texas and the African Burial Ground in Manhattan. It will continue through May 3, 2025.

The Humathèque library can be accessed from Paris via the number 12 line of the city metro system. The library is a five-minute walk from the Front Populaire metro station.

I ventured into Noir Café on the corner of rue Monge and rue du Cardinal Lemoine in the 5th arrondissement to purchase roasted coffee beans.

The café is spacious with warm brown tones. In the center of the café, seating is provided by stools around low polished blocks that look as though they have been hewn from marble. Seating was also provided at the windows by blocks of this material. I did not find this austere ambiance very comforting, but I proceeded to the counter to order an espresso.

The barista was helpful and answered my questions about the coffee. She told me that the coffee beans are roasted at their facility in the town of Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine.

I ordered a cup of Hambela, an Ethiopian coffee from the Yirgacheffe region of that country, and took it to a window seat, where I tasted it. (The seating on the block of “marble” was not comfortable. I learned later that the material is called cultured marble and that it is a man-made product that contains dyes, marble dust and resin.) While I sipped the coffee, rap music played softly over the sound system.

After tasting the espresso, I purchased a 200g container of the roasted bean, took it home, and prepared an espresso with my 9Barista stove-top espresso machine.

I found the taste to be intense and much like the espresso I had experienced at the café. Because of the intensity, it was difficult to discern notes, or flavors, in the coffee. About all I could say was that it tasted “floral.”

I decided to try brewing the coffee using Melitta paper filter in a coffee cone. This technique produced a milder coffee and allowed the flavors of the coffee to open. The flavors indicated on the label of the container are the following: apricot, floral jasmine, and toffee. I thought that I detected notes of floral jasmine in the coffee. It was an agreeable flavor for me.

Noir
29 bis, rue Monge
75005 Paris

As I am on the mailing list of ExploreParis, a collaborative project of diverse organizations involved in the tourist industry in the greater Parisian area, I recently received a notice that a small coffee roasting facility in the nearby town of Montreuil was holding an open house to demonstrate coffee roasting followed by a tasting. I purchased a ticket online and made my way to Capuch’ on a recent Saturday morning.

Getting there was not difficult because Paris and the surrounding region have a wonderfully integrated mass transit system.

Capuch’ proprietor Julie Caron gave a tour of her facility to a small group of coffee enthusiasts, of which I was one. She is pictured here holding a Chemex coffee beaker, which she used to make coffee after she demonstrated the roasting process.

Julie was enthusiastic about her gas-fired, Turkish-model coffee roasting machine. Not pictured is the complex system of extracting and filtering the fumes produced by the roasting process before they are evacuated out of the shop. In the neighborhood in which I live in Paris I have sometimes noticed the wonderful aroma of freshly-roasted coffee wafting out of one of the local coffee-roasting facilities as I walk to the metro. I never realized, until I saw Julie’s demonstration, how much care had to be taken to keep the chaff of the roasted beans from floating onto the street.

Julie had purchased a 69kg bag of unroasted coffee beans from Guatemala.

She then removed a small batch of the beans from the bag, weighed it, and sifted through the beans to remove debris and small pebbles.

Prior to examining them, she turned on the roaster to heat it up.

Once the roaster was hot, and after carefully scrutinizing the small batch of beans, she poured 3.5 kg of them into the hopper of the coffee roaster. (The capacity of the roaster is 5kg.)

The drum of the roaster turns in the gas-fired chamber, roasting the beans slowly.

Julie explained that the roasting process is monitored three ways: visually, aurally, and olfactorily. In the photo above, she is is listening for the “crack” (like popcorn) of the coffee beans, which is a sign of their doneness. She is also pulling out the sampling spoon, which is used to check the scent of the roast. To the right of the spoon, you can see a small round observation window that permits the operator to view the progressive darkening of the beans during the roasting process.

Julie gave each participant a chance to experience the maturing aroma of the beans during the roasting process.

Finally, the roasting process was finished and Julie opened the drum to transfer the beans to the cooling tray. Once cooled, she would transfer them to a canister where they would remain for 24 hours while they released CO₂.

After the coffee-roasting demonstration, Julie took a small batch of beans that she had roasted the day before and ground them to prepare them for the pour-over coffee-making demonstration.

She demonstrated the pour-over technique of preparing coffee using a Chemex beaker.

This technique produced four cups of coffee, one for each of the participants.

I purchased a 250g bag of Guatemala Huehuetenango “Le Rêveur” from the batch that Julie had roasted the day before my visit. The tasting notes on the bag indicated that I would experience aromas of chocolate and cooked fruit.

Back home, I ground 18g of the beans finely and used my 9Barista stove-top espresso machine to produce a robust coffee that did, indeed, express aromas of chocolate and cherry. Because it was prepared as espresso, it was stronger than what I experienced at the roasting facility.

Capuch’
8, rue Eugène Varlin
93100 Montreuil

Last week I had the occasion to purchase 250 grams of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Banko Chelchele roasted coffee beans from the Hexagone Café.

Located in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, the café is a handsome establishment that specializes in selling single-origin coffee beans as well as beverages (espresso and filtered coffee) made from those beans.

The beans are roasted in Brittany.

Back home, I finely ground 18 grams of the coffee beans and made an espresso with my stove-top 9Barista espresso machine.

The process produced about 40 grams of espresso coffee. There were no tasting notes printed on the bag, so I did not have much to guide me in my search for flavor except my own palette. I thought that the coffee did not express much sweetness, but, on the other hand, it was not overly bitter.

In other words, I could drink it without sugar.

Searching on the Internet, I found other people’s tasting descriptions of the Yirgacheffe bean and, after brewing several cups, I thought that I could detect the following: unsweetened chocolate, blackcurrant berry, and lime.

These flavors are ephemeral in that they are not always there cup after cup.

I was pleased that the brewing processes consistently produces a crema on the surface of the coffee. I believe this is related to the freshness of the roasted bean. The batch I purchased was roasted on the 10th of February.

Hexagone Café
121, rue du Château
75014 Paris

A friend who was exhibiting her work of art at the Salon des Indépendants invited me to attend the grand opening. The exhibition was held at the Grand Palais, located just off the Champs-Elysées.

When I arrived, I was surprised by the number of people milling about on the sidewalk in front of the exhibition hall. There were hundreds of them! There were three exhibitions going on at the same time, but the entrance to the exhibit that I wanted to attend was not clearly marked. In listening to conversations around me, posing a question to one of the guards, and following some people who seemed to know where they were going, I was able to get into the grand hall.

Once I got into the Grand Palais, I had to figure out how to find my friend, the artist. The exhibition hall is vast!

To look for her, I decided to start from the northernmost side of the hall and work my way south. In my wanderings, I came upon a paper and cardboard sculpture of an astronaut by an artist identified as Bodoc (E).

Next to the sculpture of the astronaut was a sculpture of a swarm of sea jellies (jellyfish), but I forgot to note the title and the name of the artist.

I finally found my friend, Marites Van Vianen, on the south side of the building.  She was exhibiting at an art space bearing her name. Other artists from the Philippines were showing their works in that space.

Bong Canuel was there. I have met him several times at the Village Suisse exhibition space in Paris.

He is pictured in front of his works wearing a hat that he painted and holding the Philippine flag. The hat displays a carabao, the national animal (a water buffalo) of the Philippines.

Aurea Calanog lives in Belgium.

Chelony Mercado created a four-panel work of art to hang on the wall and a work of art to wear.

Marievic Beaune illustrated the harsh life of a little boy carrying a jerrican of fresh water.

She also created this intriguing image of Marianne superimposed on a Philippine flag.

Tei Leonardo holds a lovely bouquet of flowers in front of her paintings.

The artists posed for a group photo. Most of the women wore lovely dresses, as is customary for them to do at exhibitions.

The exhibit continues through Saturday, February 22, 2025.

Salon des Indépendants – Art Capital
Grand Palais
7, avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris

For information about many of the artists featured in this blog, click here:
https://www.facebook.com/GaleryaTess.

Located steps away from the southwestern corner of the Luxembourg Garden, Un Grain Décalé serves coffee and sells roasted single-origin coffee beans.

I stopped by to purchase a bag of roasted beans and inquired as to what espresso was being brewed that day. Coffee from Burundi was one of the two choices offered, and I requested a cup of that.

The coffee shop is narrow. There were a lot of customers, so I felt lucky to get the small table at the front, where I had a view of passersby on the sidewalk. I took small sips from the espresso and found it to be rather harsh to my taste, but I nonetheless ordered a 250-gram bag of the roasted bean to take home.

Back home, I ground the beans finely and brewed espressos with my 9Barista stove-top espresso machine. Try as I may, I could never detect the caramel note indicated on the bag. I still found, cup after cup, that the flavor was rather aggressive, and not at all soft (or sweet) as the note on the bag indicates.

I recall having purchased Burundi from another roasted coffee outlet a long time ago and I remember that my experience with the taste of the coffee was the same.

On another note, Un Grain Décalé has a warm atmosphere and I think that travelers who visit the Luxembourg Garden will enjoy stopping here for coffee, tea, or another beverage served with a pastry.

Un Grain Décalé
3, rue Vavin
75006 Paris

We were on avenue Victoria the other day when we spotted Kawa, a purveyor of roasted coffee beans.

We entered and saw that a bean called Indonesie – Frinsa Sarapan #1 was on the beverage list. I sat at the counter and ordered a cup. The barista told me that I could also buy a bag of the roasted beans to take home.

The espresso was served alongside a glass of light lemon-flavored micro-fizzy water. The coffee had a sweet, fruity taste. Sipping the beverage, I could not identify any of the tasting notes that were indicated on the bag: date, milk chocolate, or toffee. (My palate is still in training!)

After tasting the coffee, I purchased a 250-gram bag of the roasted bean, took it home, and brewed a cup with my 9Barista stove-top espresso machine. The machine produced a 40-gram shot of espresso that had an agreeably sweet, fruity taste. My partner declared that she could detect a fleeting chocolate aroma.

The coffee beans are roasted at Kawa’s coffee-roasting facility in Aubervilliers, a town located just outside of Paris.

Kawa
22, avenue Victoria
75001 Paris

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

Verlet has been selling roasted coffee on rue Saint-Honoré since 1880. The café exudes Old World charm with dark wood tables, chairs, and display shelves.

We passed by last week to try one of their espressos. They serve seven rare and seasonal coffees:

Blue Mountain from Jamaica
Bourbon Pointu from New Caledonia
Geisha from Panama
Galapagos San Cristobal from Equator
Kopi Luwak from Indonesia
Matari from Yemen
Napoléon from Saint Helena

I wanted to try Geisha from Panama, but they were out of stock. The waitress suggested that I try Blue Mountain from Jamaica, which she said has similar characteristics. I took her advice and ordered a cup.

A square of dark chocolate was served alongside.

Although I could not detect the tobacco, roasted almond, cedar, and black currant blossom aromas to which the information card alluded, I found the coffee to be satisfyingly sweet and smooth.

I purchased a 125-gram bag of roasted coffee beans and took them home to brew with my 9Barista stovetop espresso machine. There, I was able to detect the aroma of roasted almond in my first cup. I also observed that the coffee had a sweet fruity flavor, which I have been unable to identify. Black currant blossom, perhaps?

Verlet
256, rue Saint-Honoré
75001 Paris