Haiti (Domestique Coffee)

This blog used to be focused on the UK coffee roasters’ output, with most of the espresso recipes posted so far being for coffee roasted in London. Today’s post is the first venture outside of the shores of the British Isles. As far as I know I was the only owner of a bag of Domestique Coffee’s Haiti coffee beans in London in December 2022. It is also the first time I have a chance to taste coffee from Haiti. That’s a lot of firsts.

It is often the case that the places where life is hard produce some of the best crops and when handled with care the results are divine. I am pleased to confirm that people working at Domestique Coffee from Birmingham, Alabama in the USA care a lot for the coffee they roast and have turned Haiti single origin into a bag of coffee delight.

The notes are simple, dark chocolate and cherry, but not in the way you may remember from your childhood when you just could not understand why adults would expect you to eat the sticky syrupy mix of sour cherries and dark chocolate. What Haiti coffee is can be described as refined, elegant dark chocolate with the best of cherries balanced just right.

Getting at that goodness is not hard at all. This is a very linear coffee from the point of brewing, ranging from 26s when ground at 3 to 30s when ground at 1. Watch out when you tamp it, make sure you tamp light or you will be waiting for your espresso forever.

MIXING WITH MILK

Grind it at 1 when mixing with milk.

WHERE TO BUY

Haiti is available online.

EQUIPMENT

• Coffee grinder: Sage (Breville) Smart Grinder Pro

• Espresso machine: Sage (Breville) Bambino Plus