Oh how we love contributing to a cross-craft collaboration, especially when a) The collaboration entails selecting and roasting a coffee for Cow and The Moon gelato and b) It results in taking out first place in the World Gelato Tour, which concluded in Rimini Italy earlier this week.
Here’s a little insight into our part in the project.
We’ve supplied coffee to Cow and The Moon, Enmore, for many moons now, and in turn, they’ve supplied their gelato for our café’s affogatos, carefully selecting flavour profiles to contrast and complement the single origin coffees for our pairings.
So we’re no strangers to working together, and when Sam, John & Wendy Crowl approached us about needing a coffee for their Mandorla Affogato gelato, to be their entry for the Gelato World Tour that sees artisan gelato makers from around the world compete, we got straight to work.
Kenyan coffees were our go to, to achieve that combination of lick smacking bright but rich complex tropical coffee notes in the gelato. An outstanding Kenyan coffee would be able to stand up to and burst through all the rich dessert flavours. Bright, bold and complex acidity were a must! “It was all about getting the right acidity,” says Cow and The Moon’s Wendy Crowl, explaining the choice of bean.
The gelato would feature the coffee in espresso form, mixed with the salted caramel sauce and then folded through the Madagascan vanilla uber-creamy gelato. Espresso coffee would also feature in the toffee praline that is smashed over and through the gelato again. Double Kenyan whammy!
But which Kenyan to run with for the Gelato World Tour finals? Our coffee roasters and QC team got together with Cow and The Moon gelato makers and tasters at their store in Enmore, closed for business and locked everyone in to taste and vote on their top three Kenyan lots.
Kigwandi AB Kenya, a coffee that our Buyer and Head Barista had selected at Dormans on an origin trip earlier this year, came out as the crowd favourite. (Followed by Kigwandi AA and Mirigi PB). The Kigwandi AB was noted for its juicy cherry, peach and plum notes, vibrant grape acidity and long creamy toffee finish.
The next day those three coffees were roasted for espresso evaluation. Six days later Sam Crowl joined us at our roastworks Cupping Lab to taste espressos and then taste how they held up to being matched with the salted caramel sauce. Kigwandi AB Kenya came out on top again.
Everything was in place to burst onto the stage in Italy, everything except access to an espresso machine to pull fresh shots of the Kigwandi AB. Enter the helping hand of La Marzocco Italy who provided access to a Linea machine and Mahlkonig grinder in a local Rimini café, allowing Sam to pull 11 litres of espresso in 5 hours the day before the final.
And the rest is history, with Cow and The Moon’s Mandorla Affogato beating 22 nations entries, to take out the title in the Gelato World Tour, including Italian gelato makers Francesco Mastroianni of Il Cantagalli, and Alessandro Lancierini of Gelateria Fiore, who came second and third place respectively.
Needless to say Cow and the Moon has had a sprawling queue down Enmore Road for the past few days as everyone tries to get their hands on the winning gelato that we’re busy roasting up batches of the Kigwandi AB coffee for.
A huge congrats to the hard-working, super-talented Crowl family and a big thanks to our team for all the passion and hard work they put into the collaboration.
Bring on the next one!
