A great cup of coffee
I love a great cup of coffee. Not just a good cup of coffee, but a great one. If you have ever travelled to Italy, France or Spain then you have been spoiled and you realize what a great cup of coffee is.
As a born-and-bred Cree from the James Bay coast, I grew up on plain orange pekoe tea, normally served with canned milk and plenty of sugar. When I attended high school in Timmins, I was introduced to our regular northern Ontario coffee. It was more potent than any cup of tea and I was quickly addicted. However, I still hold onto my tea drinking roots and have my orange pekoe at the cottage or when I visit the wilderness and drink coffee in town.
My favourite brew is cappuccino. It is made of double espresso coffee and hot milk with the surface topped with foamed milk. It is not easy to make as you need an espresso machine and a milk frother. I like this coffee because of its rich taste and smoothness. Sometimes I will have an espresso, which is a small shot of coffee in a tiny cup. I like that small amount of caffeine as opposed to the huge amount of liquid found in most regular coffees available in standard restaurants like McDonald’s or Tim Hortons. I don’t have to make so many visits to the washroom when I drink a tiny espresso.
Sadly, for many of us who have been spoiled by visits to Europe and major North American cities, these specialty coffee shops are not common in our northern cities. Although restaurants serve good coffee and Timmy’s and McDonald’s provide a decent cup of coffee, nothing beats a great coffee served up by a barista who knows how to use an expensive Italian espresso machine, a good frother, while using high quality fair trade or direct trade beans which are freshly ground in a premium grinder on site for every cup.
In the past decade or so I have noticed a few European-style coffee shops pop up in northern Ontario. In Timmins, there is Christopher’s Coffee House (which serves good specialty coffees, sweets and sandwiches) and Vicky D’Amours Bakery (well known for her pastries). In New Liskeard, there’s Chat Noir Books & Games (which is more of a bookstore that has good coffee). Sudbury, Thunder Bay and North Bay are bigger centres so they have several specialty coffee shops.
You can imagine my surprise and delight when the Plum Blossom Bakery Cafe opened here in little old Kirkland Lake last winter. My friend Mike and I had been missing great coffee and pastries that we had become accustomed to in the city. So when Steve and Sumei opened up their coffee shop in the Kirkland Lake’s downtown we were hoping for the best.
On our first visit we were happy to find a cozy and tastefully decorated coffee shop that reminded us of many we had visited in Italy and France. The best part was that these two young entrepreneurs knew how to brew great coffee in many varieties and offered other specialty drinks including teas. What we did not expect was Sumei’s education in the culinary arts; she is a trained pastry chef. She has worked in a variety of premium cafes and restaurants in Montreal and Toronto. Steve, who has a background as a diesel engine mechanic, recently trained as a barista. It was hard to believe that a big-city/European-style specialty cafe had landed in the middle of Kirkland Lake.
Mike and I have come to know Steve and Sumei very well during our regular visits to savour a great cup of coffee and one of Sumei’s amazing cheesecakes, wonderful made-from-scratch cakes, parfaits and a host of other delights. Steve and Sumei use only the very best, from the costly well-sourced high-grade coffee bean to the fresh ingredients for the daily sweets. These two are incredibly hard workers who dedicate most of their time to produce a high-quality specialty coffee shop in a northern wilderness town. Lucky us.
Who knows? Maybe some day Sumei will try her hand at bannock. I have no doubt that if she did I would end up eating the very best, the most sophisticated bannock to be served in the north. Thanks to people like Steve and Sumei our northern cities and towns are becoming a little friendlier and interesting with a touch of the best a big city or a trip to Europe has to offer.