The taste of coffee

You either love or hate coffee. But it's part of our daily ritual. Everything is an excuse for a coffee break. Among pastry chefs, its use is evolving thanks to the arrival of roasters who offer quality, custom-roasted vintages.The precise work and mastery of the bean reveal the aromatic palette of the different varieties. For example, even if trablit, a coffee syrup with overly sweet notes, is still used in pastry-making for its practicality of use and preservation, it in no way reflects the richness of the bean. "These ready-made preparations leave a monolithic, bitter, charcoal taste in the mouth, but it's the heritage flavor of the sweets of yesteryear. Coffee is an equation with many unknowns and variables: terroir, variety, fermentation, roasting, extraction..." emphasizes Hippolyte Courty, founder of L'Arbre à Café.

To bring out the best in the coffee, the sourceur-roaster makes a point of understanding the identity of the chef he's accompanying. "Some are looking for length on the palate, others for contrasts, still others for the floral delicacy of the bean or more or less complex combinations. Our aim is then to offer them three or four varieties of coffee that correspond to their tastes." The infusion methods are then very important to extract the aromas gently. As 25% of the coffee bean is soluble in a liquid, infusion can be hot or cold, often in milk or cream. "The more power you want, the hotter the solvent should be. If you're looking for delicacy, complexity or if you want to reveal a coffee, you'll prefer a cold infusion. To accentuate the taste, you can also choose a finely ground coffee in a cold or hot infusion. What you absolutely must avoid is re-cooking the beans in the oven, as they are already roasted" , insists Hippolyte Courty. Coffee is all about discovery, from the roasted bean to the green coffee, via the leaves and even the flowers.

• A drop of Colombian coffee from the province of Cauca, Pascal Hainigue, Illhaeusern.

More than a dessert, a work of art by Pascal Hainigue, pastry chef at Marc Haeberlin's Auberge de I'Ill in Alsace. "We're not sufficiently aware of the seasonal nature of coffee. For this dessert, I chose Colombian coffee from the Cauca province. In the sugar shell, I place a coffee emulsion, a superposition of coffee crème brûlée and raw roasted hazelnut shortbread to bring roundness while recalling the roasted notes of coffee. In the center, I place an ice cream like an espresso lightly scented with orange blossom."

Like a glass-blower, each sugar shell is stretched by hand to give it the singular shape of a drop of coffee. Like a cast shadow, vanilla powder adds the finishing touch to this exceptional dessert. A creation to savor!

Auberge de l'Ill. 2, rue de Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or, 68970 Illhaeusern.

www.auberge-de-l-ill.com

• Viennese coffee-infused bread, Tranché, Paris

Reconciling bread and coffee in the same creation is the original idea of Alexis Ragot, Tranché's head baker. " We chose a mild, floral Salvador coffee, with little acidity, to preserve all the gourmandise of Viennese bread", explains Marie Debié, co-founder (with Augustin Rivoire) of the chain.

To make this "wake-up" bread, freshly ground coffee is infused in milk. A toast that needs nothing except a cup of coffee!

62, rue Marguerite-de-Rochechouart, 75009 Paris.

www.tranché.com

• Infiniment Café" croissant, Pierre Hermé, Paris

A croissant from the "Fetish Infiniment Café" collection, which mimics the image of the tip of a croissant dipped in coffee, was the idea behind the creation. Pierre Hermé thus imagined an original and ephemeral viennoiserie, a trompe-l'œil whose taste alone reveals the precision work required to perfect it.

"The difficulty lay in respecting the true taste of the coffee, in this case red Iapar from Brazil, which must be neither overheated nor badly brewed. "The recipe for this croissant can be found in the book Infiniment pâtisserie, au fil de la journée (Éditions de La Martinière, 2021).

72, rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris.

www.pierreherme.com

• Congo coffee and grué bar, Marc Chinchole, Paris

©InstantCacao

For this limited-edition bar, the artisan chocolatier swaps 50% of the cocoa beans for coffee beans, imagining a bar that nods to the square of chocolate we like to munch with our coffee. "I combine cocoa beans and coffee beans from the same country, then grind them together and sweeten with organic cane sugar.

With this blend, neither the coffee nor the chocolate express bitter notes. In the attack, the coffee sets the tone, followed by a coffee/chocolate back-and-forth that finishes on the coffee. An unctuous sensation, where the two fragrances undulate in subtle balance, perfectly mimicking the p'tit noir of dessert.

L'Instant Cacao. 3, rue des Petits-Champs, 75001 Paris.

www.linstantcacao.com

• Coffee tiramisu, Maison Barrelle, Blagnac

When it comes to coffee, it's impossible not to try a tiramisu. But not just any coffee: an iced interpretation made with Kitché coffee from Guatemala, grown by a women's cooperative. "We chose this coffee for its floral notes of chocolate, walnut and citrus, its acidity and its presence on the palate. The ice cream is placed on a coffee-soaked joconde cookie, then covered with a thin sheet of coffee chocolate and yoghurt ice cream", explains Barbara Chapotier, co-creator of Maison Barrelle.

We love the freshness provided by the tangy notes of coffee and farmhouse yoghurt. A competitive tiramisu to be discovered soon at the artisan ice-cream maker's.

35, rue Pasteur, 31700 Blagnac.

www.barrelle.fr