Celeb Coffee Showdown: Leonardo DiCaprio vs. Will Oldham

By Elina Shatkin Fri., Feb. 24 2012 at 6:00 AM

Last time we hosted a Celeb Coffee Showdown, we threw Darth Vader, David Lynch and Rob Zombie into the same metaphorical octagon. What did we learn? Everyone's a product whore, even the Dark Lord.

This time, we went for a less formal but more carefully curated showdown, pitting Bonny "Prince" Billy's Kona Rose Coffee against the Leonardo DiCaprio-branded blend from La Colombe Torrefaction, proceeds of which supposedly benefit the actor's charitable foundation.

This time, instead of a formal cupping at Intelligentsia HQ, we headed to Proof Bakery for an informal, blind tasting overseen by Yeekai Lim. Our esteemed panel of tasters included Squid Ink contributors Tien Nguyen and Dommy Gonzalez, a couple of friends and, to edify our palates and make us casual coffee fiends feel like complete schmoes, a couple of professional palates: Miran Oh of Cafe Americano and Tony Konecny of recently launched microroaster Tonx Coffee.

With our backs turned to him, Lim and his intrepid assistants brewed the three blends (he threw in a control coffee). We sniffed, we sipped, we slurped. Then, we discussed (still not knowing which coffee was which).

Coffee #1: light, thin, watery, bland, earthy, even-flavored, over-roasted, woody, strong ending, bold, no flavor, espresso-like, strongly roasted but not harsh, slightly grassy, sandy, nutty, bread crust, slight rubber taste that increases on cooling.

Coffee #2: smooth, light, pomegranate, a little sweet, woody, bright, light body, good aftertaste, baked, tea-like, burnt chocolate, extremely mild, heavy, sour, round finish, easy morning, watery, vaguely molasses, diner coffee, Indonesian Sumatra.

Coffee #3: acidic, bold, fruity, floral, clean finish, fresher, melon, molasses, fig, complex, tangy, smoky, sweet, citrus, unique, bready, toasty, mashed potatoes, savory, fuller, lots of body, lime, tomato, bright, medium body, good acid, winey, tomato, lime, Kenya-style.

The Reveal
Two people chose #1 as their favorite, one person picked #2, everyone else preferred #3.

Coffee #1: Bonny "Prince" Billy's Kona Rose Coffee ($20 for an 8 oz. bag, includes S&H)
Coffee #2: Leonardo DiCaprio La Colombe Torrefaction ($19.73 for a 12 oz. bag, includes S&H)
Coffee #3: Heart Brazil Daterra Sweet Collection (control coffee)

We were all hoping Oldham's coffee would beat DiCaprio's, but as with the initial Celeb Coffee Showdown, the control coffee beat all other contenders.

The Upshot: No matter how much you adore a celebrity or movie character, chances are their coffee will be terrible, especially if it's being sold mail-order via the Internet.

First, and most obviously, these celebs don't know coffee. They're willing to slap their name on anything that earns them money.

Also, celeb coffee is rarely fresh. Look at a bag of specialty coffee. The package should be stamped with a "roasted on" date. Coffee doesn't expire the way milk does, but for full aroma and flavor, you want to consume it within two weeks of roasting.

"Some coffees will hold out a bit longer," Konecny says. "No amount of fancy packaging will prevent nature from taking its course. If you are paying good money for coffee, it should be fresh roasted, above all else. For coffees that weren't that good to begin with, freshness maybe doesn't make much of a difference. No 'roasted on' date? Avoid it."

Finally, celeb coffee tends to be bland, simple and boring, chosen to appeal to the widest variety of palates. Specialty coffee roasters carefully choose and roast the beans to highlight certain flavor profiles. There's nothing wrong with diner coffee -- when you're paying $2 for a cup at 7-Eleven. If you've just shelled out $15-$20 for a bag of beans, you ought to get your money's worth. Celebrity-branded coffee is the worst of both worlds: paying specialty coffee prices for cheap, flat diner coffee.

Follow Squid Ink at @LAWeeklyFood and check out our Facebook page. Follow the author at @ElinaShatkin or contact her at eshatkin@laweekly.com.

Location Info

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Proof Bakery

3156 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

Category: Restaurant

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Tags:

Bonny Prince Billy, Cafe Americano, Celeb Coffee Showdown, Coffee, Dommy Gonzalez, Elina Shatkin, Kona Rose Coffee, La Colombe Torrefaction, Leonardo DiCaprio, Miran Oh, Proof Bakery, Tien Nguyen, Tonx, Tony Konecny, Will Oldham, Yeekai Lim

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ES16

Dear Bonny,

Thank you for your generous letter and for telling me about the Stiths and their farm. Like musicians, writers don't have a lot of money to spend on coffee. I thought all your comments about batches and quality were right on. As an aside, I appreciate learning how you make your own coffee. (Personally, I use anything -- a borrowed Cuisinart, the industrial coffeemaker at work, a Clever Coffee Dripper I have at my desk.) I look forward to the opportunity to try the Kona Rose coffee again -- and some of those macadamia nuts. Perhaps in Hawaii.

Keep drinking coffee. Keep making music. Drinking coffee makes me happy too.

Yours,

Elina

concernedwolf

Elina Shatkin

your coffee taste test was lacking,

and your conclusions were (in part) shallow and hasty.

I can only speak to the Kona Rose coffee. It was grown and roasted by Jason and Kollette Stith on their tiny organic farm outside of Captain Cook, Hawaii.

In the 1990's, Jason played a lot of music, and he toured with me and recorded with me as a bass player and keyboard player. At a certain point, he decided to get real. He got a graduate degree in botany and joined the peace corps. he and Kollette went to central america. they learned about coffee there. they took what they learned to the big island in Hawaii and started their farm, where they grow, among other things, macadamia nuts and kona coffee. about five years ago, my brother Paul and I were able to visit the Stiths' farm and see how it all went down. it was a very good time.

I hate how expensive kona coffee is. the Stiths' coffee, in my experience, is great. I'm not sure how you brewed the coffee for your taste test, nor how old your bags of beans were. (that's a good point about the time that has passed since roasting; anyone to whom this is important should not be buying mail-order beans through a secondary distributor). I make coffee in two ways. I either use a Bialetti Brikka stove-top espresso maker or a small-capacity traditional American filter machine.

I like many kinds of coffee. here in Louisville we have been fortunate in recent years to have a couple of great 'roastery' (is that what they are called??) coffee holes open up, Quills and Sunergos.

Drag City and I talked about different ways to promote the WOLFROY GOES TO TOWN record; we like to find ways to spend some publicity money in places where the money spent goes a long way and supports other efforts in addition to our own. Our primary goal was to let people know that there was a new record out; in the case of the BPB/Kona Rose coffe, our secondary goals were to support the Stiths' efforts at making a living carefully producing great coffee.

Coffee, especially produced by a small family-run farm, can vary batch-to-batch. and the farther away the coffee is from where it was roasted, the more potential for variants in conditions that could effect the coffee's flavor. I suggest that you try the coffee again if you have the chance. I understand that that may be a cost-prohibitive suggestion (is any of my grammar correct this morning? ). a great cup of coffee in Los Angeles is not hard to come by, depending on where you live, and coffee (to me) is meant to make life better and less stressful, so worrying about how to best brew Kona Rose may also be oxymoronic.

I like the coffee very much, I know and trust its origins. It is too expensive for me to make a regular habit of drinking it, but when I do drink it I am very happy.

beast,

bonny