Brain food paired with brain juice. What we love most about Common Folk is that they have a steady supply of wifi and furniture that’s cozy — but not so cozy that you slack off — which is perfect for being productive! Working on your laptop or studying, this Chorizo & Egg Hash paired with a nice and creamy latte is a great combination to power your brain through hours of productivity. Usual cafe etiquette applies, of course.
Water will find the weakness. There’s science behind preparing coffee grounds for espresso, and execution of that science is the beautiful dance that only baristas know. The pressurized water in the espresso machine always finds the path of least resistance, and so we must prepare the coffee to match that nature.
The act of equally distributing coffee inside the portafilter has one goal: consistency. Much more than a flatly tamped top, there should be an equal distribution of density throughout the entire portafilter basket, and thus a consistent density throughout the coffee grounds. If you fail to do this, water will find the weakness in your coffee’s density and exploit it. It finds those inconsistencies that the tamp hides, creating channels through the coffee and over-extracting those areas. This leads to inconsistent espresso shots.
By carefully making sure that there are no week areas, water should pass through the coffee grounds evenly, leading to an equal extraction throughout the shot.
Tip: trust your eyes. If you see that the coffee is lumped up on one side, a tamp or distributor like the OCD will do little to fix that. Even it out by loosening your grip on the portafilter and tapping it lightly but firmly on the side, then go on to OCD and tamp.
One of the pioneers of specialty coffee in the Philippines, Magnum Opus is home to barista champion, Jonathan Choi. What we like most about Magnum Opus is that feeling of comfort you get staying inside their shop; tucked away on top of a building inside a neighborhood village. And as a neighborhood cafe, it is always filled with regulars from the area. The intimate vibe is perfect for working alone or bringing a date.
Tucked away in an alley along Maginhawa Street, you’ll find a three story gem called Driftwood Coffee. It’s the first born of business and real life partners, Louise and Michael. They decided to pursue their passion for both coffee and baking by merging them into a cafe. Their goal is to build an informed community of regulars by educating costumers about specialty coffee and offering short course workshops such as sour-dough making and coffee cupping. There’s a lot going on in this cafe but we find their approach to food and drinks simple, straightforward, and easy to like. Definitely one of the best places in the metro to pair freshly baked sourdough bread with coffee, ideally something similar to this latte which had a tasting note that reminded us of dark chocolate coated blueberries.
After midnight, as baristas ran their post shift at Cebu City’s The Good Cup Coffee Co., a shooter entered the premises and opened fire inside the cafe. The shooting resulted in the deaths of Kis Tryvl Ramos and John Michael Hermoso. Also injured were Sherwin Dean Rivera and Jerome Amada.
John Michael was a managing partner at The Good Cup and is also the current Philippine Brewers Cup Champion. We at Daily Drink knew him to be a passionate, talented, and good-hearted man. He loved Cebu, he loved coffee, and he loved serving people.
Kis was a working BA Psychology student at UP Cebu. She was set to graduate this coming June.
On Friday, 4/12 at 1PM EDT, the world coffee community will together hold a moment of silence for John Michael as he is a national champion. This will be done officially from the stages of the World Brewers Cup and World Barista Championships in Boston, USA and streamed globally.
Our hearts go out to the entire The Good Cup family. Please join us as we mourn this senseless tragedy.
Rest in peace, John Michael. Rest in peace, Kis.
We sampled this bag from New York’s Bluestone Lane, an Australian inspired and Australian-run coffee shop that currently has 40 stores coast to coast in the USA. Each bag is roasted down under the Brooklyn Bridge, and we were delighted to find this bag in our hands, all the way here in South East Asia. This washed processed single origin coffee is from the region of Cajamarca in Peru. Great as a shot of espresso and we find that it is ideally served as a long black or a cortado. Think fruity with hints of grapes and wine. The packaging is simple and easily identifiable, reminds us of sailboats and the sea which compliments the easy going vibe of their coffee shops.
Well respected as one of the standards for great coffees in our hometown of Manila is Yardstick Coffee. Most days, you can find them serving their signature Legazpi blend, named after the village they hail from. It’s a comforting cup of coffee, especially good when had in a milk beverage. When you walk in, you’ll notice that the cafe is often populated with some variation of the same group of regulars either having a discussion with friends, or hunkered down into a laptop. Yardstick is a great place for both. Open until 11pm, it’s an awesome place to wait out Metro Manila’s traffic.
When waffle cravings strike in Metro Manila, Yardstick is the go-to stop. This fried chicken and waffle, served with a beautiful maple butter is an excellent painting for the clean pour over black coffees on bar. The Ethiopia Kochere we had alongside was perfect on its own, and the pairing opened up the experience and made for a pretty delightful brunch.
We visited the south of metro manila in pursuit of great coffee finds. Our first stop was Need Coffee, inside a village that spans 3 cities. Entering their shop will immediately give you a feel that there is already an existing community inside, most likely the outcome of having staff that’s comprised of young and friendly people. There is also a wide range of options for pour-overs roasted in different countries. If you want to introduce your palate to different origins of coffee, Need Coffee is a good place to start.
