Dragaera

Klava

Jason Derleth derleth at MIT.EDU
Tue Mar 4 14:11:09 PST 2003

So, since Steve put a description of how Klava is made in _Issola_,
I've  recently gotten it in my head to make some. Eggshells are an old 
trick for taking the bitterness out of coffee, and I figured that 
woodchips couldn't be any worse than chickory.

It was interesting, the wood barely scented the coffee the first time 
that I did it. I used maple, and not very much of it, along with 
coffee and an eggshell, in a french press. The coffee was much 
smoother than normal--or, I suppose I should say, the klava was much 
smoother than coffee--but the wood flavor didn't really come through 
at all.

The second time I tried it with spruce, which is a softer wood. I put 
in more chips this time. I could just about taste the wood in the 
coffee, and it was good. Very smooth, nicely aromatic, and fairly 
flavorful, despite the fact that I was using old coffee.

I think I'm going to try it again tonight, but use a chainsaw carving 
tool to make smaller pieces of the wood. I figure that smaller pieces 
will have more surface area to impart flavor through. Heh. My 
apartment neighbors won't appreciate the chainsaw, I'm sure.

Has anybody else tried to make klava? I suspect that certain types of 
wood with certain types of coffee beans would be very appealing...

-Jason