I can say that I have a great interest in coffee culture as much as whiskey. For this reason, although not very often, I also post about the association of coffee with whiskey at & Whiskey. (Filter Whiskey from Coffee Beans Experiment, Coffee Beans with Jack Daniel's, Coffee Held in Whiskey Barrels from Starbucks…)

In fact, I compare coffee and whiskey in many ways (this is where my curiosity comes from…). First of all, they both have very ancient and rich cultures. The other similarity is that both drinks are passionately loved by their fans and consumed almost ritually.

To give an example from myself, I often like to consume these two together. At the whiskey tastings I attend or the small tastings I do alone at home, I finish with a nice espresso after the whiskey. Not to mention the coffee rituals I do in the morning…

I'm trying to gradually train my palate about coffee, although not as much as whiskey. To this end, recently NespressoI attended a coffee workshop in Nişantaşı boutique.

First of all, I would like to briefly talk about Nespresso:

The idea for Nespresso, which emerged in 1976 by Eric Favre, a Nestlé employee, came to life in 1986. Nespresso's portfolio includes different types of coffee machines and hundreds of types of coffee capsules suitable for these machines.

The logic of capsule coffee is as follows: The coffee beans collected from certain regions are placed in air and light-proof aluminum capsules after going through various processes (separation from the shell, fermentation, roasting and grinding). Thanks to an extra protective film inside the capsule, the aluminum surface does not come into contact with the coffee.

Then to Nespresso machines Water is passed through the placed capsules with a pressure of 19 bars and the espresso is ready.

I learned very interesting information about Espresso in the workshop. Some of those:

• Foam thickness and color are very important in espresso.
• The foam thickness should be at least 1 cm thick and in the color of tiger skin. (I really liked this information!)
• The foam serves to preserve the aromas contained in Espresso (Same as in beer)
• An ideal Espresso should have a dense and strong body and balanced bitter and/or sour flavors that do not disturb the palate.
• Although the serving temperature of espresso varies from country to country, it should not be consumed above 90 degrees in order to fully enjoy the aromas.
• In the original Espresso culture, coffee should be drunk in small portions and without sugar. Of course, this may vary according to taste. (It's a bit like whiskey and ice...)

During the workshop, I tasted espressos of many different characters. Although I could not detect coffee aromas as distinctly as in whiskey, it was very informative to perceive and interpret the differences between coffees.

As in whiskey, there are many elements that affect the character in coffee: the region of the bean, its type, the way it is collected and processed, the amount of roasting of the beans, the mixing ratio are just a few of them.

The biggest contribution of this and similar tastings to me is to discover my own taste. In this tasting, I realized that in general, I enjoy more intensely flavored coffees.

Among the Nepresso capsules I enjoy the most:

Robusto seeds in the Intense series are dense. accidental, again in the same series, where cocoa notes are prominent Arpeggio and has a density of 11 out of 12 in the Master Origin series india. Especially for Kazaar, I can say that it is almost as dense as an island malt…

For more detailed information about Nespresso products, you can check their website.