Who’s counting?
How important is the batch/expiry date for this one? I bought a bag in Ximen Carrefour today, but the closest they had on the shelves was 2/11/21, so a week earlier than yours. Is it noticeably different?
Does yours taste like liquid dark chocolate, with no bitterness or smokiness? Sorry, forgot to mention, no jasmine flowers?
I haven’t tried it yet - still have some beans in the hopper thing of my grinder to work through first. Maybe later or tomorrow, depending on how inefficiently I can get through my work tonight.
Also, I’m not sure that my palate is refined enough to detect all those flavors. I can basically just do “great coffee”, “good coffee”, “bad coffee”, and “not coffee”.
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If you can, let us know how the Mocca beans you picked up fit into this scheme. 
Guy
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I’ll try to be more useful here. Been drinking this guy’s cheap Laotian beans recently, very nice. They have their own set-up there. I’m cheap but I’ll have to try some of their other beans as well. Had a cup of their “COE” coffee first time, really good and got me to go back.
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That stuff (at least the ones I’ve tried in Phnom Penh) is rocket fuel—robusta beans, kinda edgy, and strong!
Guy
This is arabica–I made sure of that! Not a huge robusta fan. But I won’t turn it down if that’s what’s available 
It’s pretty hard to say. I did have a batch of theirs that was a little ordinary a while back, that’s why when I stumbled across this one I was sure to specify the exact expiry date. Let me know how it goes…
I think that some or maybe all of the beans sold there are Oklao, right? That’s the chain I posted about somewhere upthread that I’ve been going to for several years.
It doesn’t appear to be an Oklao branch per se, but most of the coffee in there seemed to be from Oklao and they even have the same promotions in the window.
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Yep! A Chinese name similar to OKLao is the company name on the label.
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It’s pretty good - I usually go to the Bo’ai Road branch near Ximen for 3x454g bags of beans for NT$600. Was there today actually.
The drip coffee sachets are pretty decent as well, especially when they have promotions on, which is pretty often. The café you mentioned sells those as well. Good for traveling and evening coffees, IMO.
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They have a 3 for 2 deal for members, so 3 lbs. for $400. Works for me! You’re supposed to spend over 1,000 I think to become a member, but they cut me a little slack.
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You’re talking about the café, right? Which coffee beans did you buy from there? I actually went in a month or so ago (I live really close) when I was running out of coffee and didn’t have time to go to Ximen, but they didn’t seem to have the ones I normally buy in the Oklao branch so I left.
I usually get the medium dark roast and Italian roast, which in the branch are NT$300 per 454 g also with 3 for 2, so NT$600 for 3 bags. My budgeting app tells me I’ve spent NT$44,505 in Oklao over the last 4 years, so I’ll be mildly irritated if I could have been buying the same coffee for two-thirds of the price… 
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These are labeled as “special blend of Yemen mocha”, which is just a stylistic comparison. It’s ordinarily $200 a lb. and is the cheapest one they have.
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The medium dark roast that I buy is also “a special blend of Yemen mocha”. I guess I’m just going to pretend that mine is more special then.
Mine is medium. It probably took some really expert roasting to get to medium-dark.
I think this is sometimes called a full city roast. I think it involves roasting two sets of beans—one dark, then one medium—and blending them to try to maximize deliciousness.
I could be wrong though as I am not a member of this invaluable profession! 
Guy
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I stopped in this evening, and was amazed at the variety of product in that store—almost a whole row of beans from Laos, variously named (example: Italian roast) and sometimes misleadingly labelled (something about a Yemen Mocha blend, with apparently no Yemen beans therein…).
Amidst this cornucopedia of Laos coffee beans, what do you recommend?
Guy
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They’re “descriptive” with their naming, yes. I, being cheap, have only tried the cheapest “Yemen” one! It’s good. I’ll probably try something else next time, it’ll be Christmas!
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