Paris Insights - The Blog

My partner and I entered Grains de Génie recently to taste and purchase coffee and tea. The coffee roasting facility is located next to the entrance to the Censier-Daubenton métro station (Line 7) near the popular Mouffetard market street in the 5th arrondissement.

I ordered a cup of Guatemala / Finca Brême espresso while my partner ordered a cup of Rooibos tea.

Bags of tea and roasted coffees are displayed along the wall, while outside there is a sidewalk terrace for sitting down.

I purchased a 250 gram bag of the of the Guatemala / Finca Brême and took it home, where I ground the coffee finely and brewed a cup in my 9Barista stove-top espresso machine.

Sipping the coffee carefully, I noted that its aroma was similar to almond. I did not, however, detect the other aromas that were listed on the bag: milk chocolate, orange, biscuit, and green apple.

I was pleased that the coffee was not at all bitter, which permitted me to enjoy it without adding any sugar.

Grains de Génie
45 rue Daubenton
75005 Paris

I recently purchased a 9Barista stove-top espresso machine and put it to use immediately.

From Loutsa Torréfacteur on rue Bazeilles, I purchased 250 grams of Santa Rosa roasted coffee beans from Costa Rica.  I ground 18 grams of the beans (finest grind in my De’Longhi KG520.M grinder) and brewed them with 120 grams of water (Volcania brand mountain water from Auvergne).   The result was a strong espresso with frothy crema that tasted much like the espresso I purchased the day before at Loutsa (see my blog dated October 23). 

I could not distinguish any of the aromas or flavors (clementine, honey, almond, chocolate, and caramel) that the coffee reportedly expresses, but I did enjoy the assertive coffee flavor of this strong beverage.

I enjoyed making the brew with the new machine.  There was no fuss after an initial period of learning the steps of the brewing procedure and there is minimal clean-up afterwards.  Easy and fun!

9Barista – Made in the UK

Last week, my partner and I entered Loutsa Torréfacteur, a coffee roaster and café on rue de Bazeilles, to purchase an espresso coffee.  I was curious to see if I could identify the aromas associated with one of the café’s specialty roasts.

A coffee roaster sits to the right of the entrance.  Next to it, a shelf displays 250g airtight bags of the café’s recently roasted limited edition specialty coffees.  The multi-hued colors of a package of Santa Rosa roast from the Tarrazu region of Costa Rica caught my eye.  The package label indicated that this roast is characterized by aromas and flavors of clementine, honey, almond, chocolate, and caramel.  Could I, I wondered, identify any of these intriguing elements while sipping a freshly-pulled espresso made from this bean?  I decided to order one to test my ability to distinguish them.

I ordered the coffee at the counter, found a table at which to sit, and waited while it was being prepared.

After the barista placed the espresso on the table, I took small sips, trying to determine which flavors I could recognize.  Alas, the only thing that I could identify was the very strong flavor of…coffee.  Try as I might, I could not distinguish any of the characteristics that were indicated on the package.  The only thing I could say was that the brew tasted slightly bitter and sour.  I was not greatly disappointed, though, because I do enjoy the flavor of coffee. I persuaded my partner, who does not like coffee, to take a sip, but she could go no further in the taste test than I had gone in my experience.

Not ready to abandon my quest, I purchased a 250g bag of Santa Rosa coffee and took it home to try my hand at making espresso with a  9Barista stove-top coffee maker that I had recently purchased. Would I be able to capture those illusive aromas and flavors at home with my new espresso machine?

Santa Rosa Pure Origin Limited Coffee – 16.20€/250g – Loutsa Torréfacteur – 1 rue de Bazeilles – 75005 Paris

On Saturday, October 12th, I had the occasion to attend an open house at a photo studio located in the Boissière quarter of the Paris suburb of Montreuil.

The studio was founded in 1951 by an Arminian refugee, Varastade Kasparian, and has been operated by his family ever since. One of the sons of the elder Kasparian, Roger, went on to become a celebrated photographer, renowned for his images of popular singers and bands that performed in Paris during the 1960s. Today, the studio is operated by Maccha, the daughter of the second-generation Kasparian, and her daughter, Nelta, who divides her time between Paris and London.

It was fascinating to watch the mother-daughter team work together. Nelta took portrait photographs of open house attendees and Maccha developed the film.

Studio Boissière
265 boulevard Aristide-Briande
93100 Montreuil
studioboissiere.com

View of the Ecole des Mines from the Luxembourg Garden
The sculpture commemorating the abolition of slavery stands to the right.

Visitors to the Luxembourg Garden sometimes wonder what the building is that overlooks the edge of the garden near the three-link chain sculpture (on the right in the photo between the path and the sign) that commemorates the abolition of slavery.  It is the “Luxembourg” wing of the Ecole des Mines, an engineering school that was founded in 1783 and initially located on quai de Conti. 

Since 1816, the school has been located on boulevard Saint-Michel next to the garden. The “Luxembourg” wing that can be viewed from the garden was constructed in 1861-1866 to house laboratories during a period of physical expansion of the school.

Place Edmond Rostand

Place Edmond Rostand is a roundabout located at the intersections of four streets in front of the Luxembourg Garden:  Rue de Médicis, Boulevard Saint-Michel, Rue Soufflot, and Rue Gay-Lussac.  The roundabout was created between 1860 to 1870 during Baron Haussmann’s urban renewal project, a colossal campaign that tore down old Parisian neighborhoods and replaced them with wide streets and boulevards.

To the left in the photograph stands Rue de Médicis.  To permit the construction of this street in 1860, a portion of the Luxembourg Garden was appropriated despite resistance from Parisians who wanted to preserve that section of the park. 

The buildings that stand today around Place Edmond Rostand were constructed during this period of massive urban transformation.  Called “Haussmannian” buildings, they reflect the architectural style that Baron Haussmann imposed on the city during the demolition and rebuilding that took place in Paris under his authority from 1853 to 1870.

The French Senate, which is tasked with the maintenance of the Luxembourg Garden, assigns the mission of trimming its tall hedges to a landscaping company.

The trimming is carried out by a specially-designed machine, mounted on a wheeled vehicle, whose cutter can reach a height of 21 meters.  Assisted by a laser guidance system, a circular saw placed at the end of a telescopic arm ensures precise cutting.  An operator, sitting in a cabin at the top of the aerial lift, guides the trimming process.

Photograph by Entrée to Black Paris

Just inside the Luxembourg Garden at the entrance called Porte Médicis stands a sculpture of a dancing faun, a half-man, half-goat deity from Roman antiquity.  Sculpted by French artist Eugène Louis Lequesne (1815 – 1887), the creature dances stark naked, balancing precariously with one foot on an overfilled wineskin and playing a trumpet.  A close look at the subject reveals that its only animal-like feature is a short tail.

During Antiquity, fauns represented inebriated gaiety.  They were associated with Bacchus, the god of wine.  Here, the intoxicated faun demonstrates his prowess at balancing on a wine-filled animal skin, an unstable surface, while playing a musical instrument.

At the base of the sculpture, one can see the following objects around the wineskin:  a tambourine, a bunch of grapes, a wine cup, and a thyrsus (a pine-cone tipped staff tied with ribbon that was carried by devotees of Dionysus and Bacchus).

Lequesne started a career as a jurist, but abandoned the trade and entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1840.  He gained acceptance into the Villa Médicis in Rome, where he studied classical art for five years.  Inspired by an antique dancing faun that was discovered in Pompei in 1830, he created a plaster sculpture depicting his own rendering of the subject.  It was cast in bronze in 1850.  This metallic sculpture is the one that we admire today.

by Tom Reeves

The first time
Usually I do not pay much attention when someone stops me on the street to ask for directions: I offer what information I can muster and then I continue on my way.  But on this particular day, as I was making my way up Avenue des Gobelins toward Place d’Italie, someone approached me from behind and tapped me on the left forearm.  I turned to look, and a young man asked me where the metro was located.  I replied that it was back in the direction from which we were walking.  He turned to walk in that direction and at that moment I was aware that another young man had been on my right during the encounter.  I realized that the second man had probably tried to unzip the bag that I carry, bandolier-style, over my right hip.  I thought that he probably failed, and, when I inspected the bag, I was right.

I put the incident out of my mind.

The second time
The second time occurred a day or two later as I was making my way up Passage des Postes, a walkway that links two parallel streets.  Just as I reached the end of the passageway, a man approached me from behind on my left and asked me where the metro was.  I turned to him and replied that it was in the direction from which he came.  He thanked me and turned to walk in that direction.  This time, there was no one with him, so I imagined that his inquiry was sincere, although I began wondering if there was some new phenomenon occurring that was inciting people to begin asking for directions so frequently.

The third time
The third time occurred just one or two days later when my wife and I were making our way up a narrow stairway that leads from one platform to another in the Ecole Militaire metro station.  This time a young man tapped me on the left forearm and asked me if I could tell him the time.  I thought that it should have been obvious to him that I was not wearing a watch, and replied that I did not know.  When my wife and I arrived at the upper platform, I realized that another young man, who was associated with the one who asked the question, had been behind us and to our right.  For some reason I did not attribute any malicious intent to this encounter.

The fourth time
The fourth time occurred the same day as we were making our way up Passage des Postes.  Just as we got to the end of the walkway, a young man, approaching from behind, tapped me on the left forearm and asked me where the metro was located.  I turned to him and indicated that it was in the direction from which he was walking.  Then he asked again, and my wife repeated what I had said.  At that point I saw that there was a second young man who had been following us on our right.  We watched them walk away.

Just five minutes later, arriving in our apartment, my wife realized that her wallet was missing from her small, zipped purse, which she was carrying over her shoulder along with a second, larger bag.  We concluded that it must have been the man on the right who stole the wallet while we were distracted by the first man in the Passage des Postes. 

My wife quickly called all her credit card companies to alert them to the theft. 

About an hour later, a woman who lives in the Passage des Postes contacted my wife to tell her that she found the wallet in front of her door.  My wife rushed to retrieve it and found that the small amount of cash in the wallet had been stolen as well as two local credit cards.

The conclusions that I draw from this
I think that a group of thieves has swept into Paris and will pull this stunt for as long as they can get away with it.  And then they will move on to another town.

Whether I am right or not, I write this to alert people about what is happening on the streets of Paris.  It is not sufficient to carry a zipped purse or zipped bag to prevent pick pocketing.  The bag that I carry also has a clasp, which, until now, I never used, because it requires so much fumbling to secure it to the pull of the zipper.  But that is now the point:  if is difficult for me to secure, then it will be difficult for a pickpocket to open quickly while his partner tries to engage me in brief conversation. 

Be aware and alert!