5 minute read
Tasting El Dorado
by NANCY HELLMRICH
“What I want to share with you is not only coffee knowledge but our passion and the story of the people behind the coffee.”
Juan Felipe Lozano Sanz is an internationally certified barista. That means he pays himself to drink coffee. “It’s a tough life, do not cry for me,” he says with a smirk. The owner of Caffa Colombia, a coffee café located just seven miles north of Bogotá’s Museo de Oro, Juan Felipe grew up with privilege but opted out of safer career paths in favor of military service, daring travel to remote regions, and a business he believes will help bring justice to underserved Colombians.
When I meet him in his brightly lit café, he is brimming with exuberance. Or caffeine. Or perhaps both. “You’re in luck,” he says, resting his hands on the marble counter top, “because today we’re going to try what is called an author’s beverage. That is a creation based on coffee, but with other ingredients. We got second place nationwide with this recipe.” An ardent follower of coffee culture, I had seen the El Dorado drink and the Coffee Master 2022 competition on social media. With a business conference scheduled in Bogotá the following week, flying in early for a tasting seemed almost preordained, so I caught an evening flight. The next morning, the hotel concierge had been puzzled when I asked for a taxi. “We have coffee right here,” he had protested, an open palm showing the way to what seemed like a lovely restaurant. I fibbed and said I had a business meeting and a ride was quickly procured.
After taking me through preliminaries in which I smelled the burnt fragrance of dry, commercial grounds, learned about the thermodynamics of coffee, and slurped a cup of gently roasted Pueblo Nuevo (grown by a man named Gabriel Gallardo), Juan Felipe asks if I am ready. Si, I respond, seizing the opportunity to practice Spanish.
Cocktail-style glasses are brought out as Juan Felipe recounts the legend of El Dorado, in which Colombia’s indigenous Muisca people hide the nation’s gold from invading Spaniards by throwing it to the bottom of a deep lake. At the bottom of the glasses, Juan Felipe places a tablespoon of cocoa powder. Next, he rolls balls of vanilla ice cream in panela, which looks like brown sugar but is produced more naturally and therefore retains more nutrients.
As he adds the ice cream to the glasses, he sidebars. “A lot of baristas will say you have to drink coffee this way or that way.” Juan Felipe believes in trying things, like brewing coffee with hot cranberry juice. “It tastes really cool. But don’t ever try it with pineapple juice. Actually do. It’s awful.”
Having introduced the idea of experimentation, he explains how he and his brother, a craft brewer, created Jack’s Coffee by resting the beans in Jack Daniels® barrels, allowing them to absorb the whiskey’s smoked caramel essence. Shots of hot, Jack’s Coffee espresso are then poured over the cocoa, panela, and ice cream. To this, he adds cold brew and a swirl of foamy almond milk. “Now are you ready to find El Dorado? Are you ready to see magical realism?” Juan Felipe emotes, referring to the writing style of Colombia’s literary hero Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
It’s important to know at this point that, in the El Dorado legend, the Muisca king covers himself in gold dust and dives into the deep lake. I say that because Juan Felipe, now in the throes of barista bliss, holds a shaker high and generously sprinkles each beverage with actual gold dust, then places a golden garnish at the center of each glass. “Colombian gold. This is not fake.”
When it comes to drinking the beverage, I’m told there are no rules. “You are the explorer here. You are the one finding the gold. Just go for it. As in the lakes of the Muisca, in the bottom of this lake, you will find a treasure.” And sure enough, in the bottom of the glass, the gooey cocoa makes for a sweet finale.
“Have you ever had a coffee bathed in gold like this?” he beams, his hands positively glimmering beneath the café lights. At this, we laugh. “At the beginning, when I was experimenting with all this,” he says, “I arrived home and my fiancée was like, ‘Why do you have shiny stuff on your body?’ And I’m like, ‘Babe, trust me, it’s gold.’”
