The day has finally come....for me to feature/keep track/record/review the coffees I've been buying and will be buying here in my blog! Coffee is one of the things I always look forward to in the morning (and now in the afternoons too!) and it's one of the things I like buying (aside from workout equipment haha!) so I think it's just apt that they also have their own category and space here in Shash Stash. 

I've never been a huge coffee drinker back then but I think I truly started appreciating it when I stopped buying those instant coffees and 3-in-1s and replaced them with freshly ground coffee and coffee beans. That switch really made me realize that damn, I've been playing myself by drinking shit and mediocre coffee all along haha! Freshly brewed coffee is just THE best and it's pretty much a blank canvas, no? From there you can pretty much add on anything you like, to the point where you can just recreate your fave drink from you fave coffeeshop for less. Gotta save those coins to buy more fresh coffee, you feel me?

Last year, I've made another switch: from coffee grounds to coffee beans, partly because we finally got a mini food processor/blender. It's not a Burr grinder but it'll do for now. Getting coffee beans is so much better because the end product tastes and smells better and fresher, not to mention beans tend to last longer. Ground coffee is okay but it can sometimes taste stale so switching to coffee beans then grinding them when needed is a better route to take.

I think I've babbled enough; lemme introduce my new series/category/section in ShashEats called Java Jabber!

Java Jabber is all about coffee features and reviews by a regular consumer- me! No, I am nowhere near the level of James Hoffman or MorganDrinksCoffee, though I am just a good ol' sucker and addict for good coffee. I like buying coffee products (mostly from small local businesses) and most of the time I like my roast dark and my coffee very bitter, tamed with a generous amount of milk and muscovado or brown sugar.

For the first ever Java Jabber review, I'll be featuring 2 products from Bigain Hill. I found their shop while looking for coffee in Shopee and they did not disappoint. Their shop location is in Binan, Laguna but according to their bio, they first started out in San Jose, Batangas. Aside from a variety of coffee beans and products, they also sell spices. They also state that each product bought helps support poor rural children in San Jose- and I think that's amazing.

Now let me show you the first product I got from them.

These are the Coffee in Tea Bags (or Kofi Bag) by Bigain Hill. A pack comes with 8 bags of ground coffee that each have 7 grams per bag. I thought this was a nice product to try for someone who wants to try Bigain Hill's coffees without committing to a 200gram bag immediately.

They have a ton of blends to choose from but I ultimately chose the two that I was eyeing the most: the French Roast (Php70) and the Karibok House Blend (Php70). The Karibok House Blend is a blend of liberica, robusta, and arabica with a combo of dark and medium roast. The beans are sourced from a barangay in Lipa, Batangas. I'm not sure which beans were used for the French Roast but I'm assuming it's arabica? Both come in a bigger bag of 200grams.  

In theory, these bags should function the same as a normal teabag: cup + bag + hot water + steep=enjoy. Easy, right? Well, lemme cut to the chase: this method didn't work for me and I didn't like it AT. ALL. Steeping the bags like a teabag didn't really give me strong coffee, plus it just turned my water lukewarm and honey, lukewarm mediocre coffee is a no-no in my books. 

So, I finally found 2 ways of making these bags work. One is to steep them while the water is still boiling. I usually let it steep for about 3-5 minutes and this extracts the coffee better, resulting in a strong and HOT cup of coffee. 

The second step is to: COLD BREW!

I had this lightbulb moment when I was watching a vlog of Raya Maurelle. In that vlog, she made cold brew with an Emma Chamberlain coffee teabag- that's when it hit me: hey, I can do that with my own coffee bags! So yeah, I took a Karibok bag and a French Roast bag, a mason jar that was once a tomato sauce jar, and about 2 cups of water. I let the bags steep for at least 24 hours and voila: homemade cold brew! A bit of sugar here, a splash of lowfat milk there, plus a generous handful of ice cubes- the perfect afternoon beverage to combat the scorching Philippine heat. That jar of cold brew can make about 3 generous glasses of iced coffee which means 3 afternoons for me haha!

Between the Karibok blend and the French Roast, I highly recommend getting the French Roast. I absolutely love the flavor it brings to my cold brew coffee; it actually reminds me McDonald's iced coffee! I found the Karibok blend a bit weak for my taste so that's why I probably won't get it again but I definitely would get a bigger bag of the French Roast for my cold brews and hot coffee via moka pot.

The next item I got from them is a 200gram bag of Ursula, Bigain Hill's Batangas Robusta coffee. Ursula (Php120) is a single origin robusta harvested and processed in Tipakan, Lipa, Batangas.

Now here's the tea: when I tried it on my moka pot, the end result was dark coffee with mild acidity butsuch a strong burnt taste. I hated it- the burnt taste was just so pronounced that I would not for the life of me drink it straight up. However, adding milk and sugar to it totally changed my mind. With some coffees, the bitter taste always gets washed away when milk and sugar gets added; but not with this one. Even with milk and sugar, its bitterness remained which makes the coffee the perfect blend of bitter, sweet, and creamy- my perfect cup of coffee. So yes, Ursula may be too strong taste-wise to be consumed just black but it's delicious when you add in other stuff to it.  

Ursula, in my opinion, was a good buy, considering its price and amount of beans. I definitely plan on mixing it with my other beans (which are mostly arabica) for my hot and cold coffees.

In summary, my first-time purchases from Bigain Hill were hits. They made me look forward to trying out more coffees from them (I'm already eyeing the Candelaria Excelsa coffee!). I definitely recommend getting the Kofi Bags for the sole purpose of making cold brew with them because they're easy to use, mess-free, and steep wonderfully. Just be reminded that the Kofi Bags are for pre-order and shipped after about 1 week. 

Ursula is definitely my enemy turned friend item. I just love how it mixes great with milk and sugar. I don't recommend drinking it on its own but hey, if that your jam, then you do you! (But honestly, if you like very bitter coffee, this one's the way to go.)

 See you on my next post (hopefully a less wordy one haha!)!