The Best Coffee In The World

I'm not going to mince words, split hairs, or serve you decaf on this one. The best coffee in the whole entire world is Arabian Mocha Sanani [a.k.a. Mocha Yemen], and is roasted by Peet's Coffee and Tea of Berkeley, California. [Second place - and it's a photo finish - goes to beloved artisan tiny batch roaster Lighthouse of the picaresque Phinney Ridge neighborhood here in Sea-Town. Hell, even the Great Green & Black Satan can't seem to screw it up.]

I have brewed this coffee as espresso, through paper and gold cone filters both "Mr. Coffee" and "Melitta" style, and [best of all] in a press pot or "French Press". I've even made "cowboy coffee" with it - i.e., boiled a pot of water over a campfire and then thrown a few coarse-ground fistfuls in, straining the product through a paper towel. It holds up under any and all circumstances.

Most coffee that you drink doesn't startle you like Sanani does. Usually you start with that roasted bean flavor followed by an interesting aftertaste, or the acid burn of No-Doz, or whatever crap you dump in there. The coffee of Yemen, however, immediately comes over you like an ancient and tawny port, a smooth single malt scotch, and a good cigar all rolled into one. You can taste the unique preparation method of this particular varietal, in which the coffee cherry is dried onto the bean in the blazing Arab sun rather than pulped and rinsed off beforehand.

Drinking this coffee has all of the flavor notes one looks for in any coffee, rolled into one - the tart acid on the tip of the tongue, the creamy fatty esters on the middle, the toasty oxidation somewhere on the back and sides - and then ties it all up with a nose like a particularly velvety Chianti.

How do Peet's manage to knock this particular bean straight out of the ballpark? It's a mystery, it's magic, more art than science - I imagine it's got something to do with the excruciating care they take on timing the different stages of the roast from first crack to cooldown - like any culinary craft, it's an alchemical thing, requiring a hermetic and gnostic sort of wisdom that cannot be written down. However it is done, I've found their roast has an unbelievably long shelf life, certainly far longer than any roasted bean has any right to. By contrast, Lighthouse's roast is very immediate, very NOW - you'd better drink it all this week if you know what's good for you. Of course it's delicious enough to drink a bag full in a few days, but you don't want to rush it.