Salut! to Miraflores!

On January 2, we hopped a LAN Ecuador flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Lima, Peru to visit our niece Hannah Scranton and her partner David Torres Bisetti.  They own three coffee shops in Lima:  the original Cafe Arabica, in Miraflores, their newest, Cafe Arabica, at LarcoMar, and the Tostaduria Bisetti in nearby Barranco.  All of the shops are within walking distance or an easy bike ride from each other.

Our flight landed in Lima around 8am, and, by 9am we were being driven into the beautiful Lima neighborhood of Miraflores.  This beautiful landscaping welcomed us:

We stayed at a beautiful boutique hotel, Hotel Antigua Miraflores, just two blocks from the Cafe Arabica in Miraflores.  After getting settled, we called Hannah and arranged to walk over meet her at the cafe.

We love the ambiance at Hannah and David's first coffee house.  When we visited in the morning, it was low-key.  Regular customers were sipping their lattes, working on their laptops or reading the newspaper, or perhaps chatting with friends:

Hannah showed us the cafe's "Christmas tree,"which was true to the spirit of the tropics:

At the first cafe, we each had a cafe latte, as well as one of Hannah's delicious pastries!  Our tummies thus stuffed, we headed out with Hannah on a stroll to the second Cafe Arabica in the mall at Larcomar.  On the way, as we arrived at the beach, we had towering, glorious views to the north --

-- and to the south!

The newest Cafe Arabica is gleaming and modern, with tones of chrome, wood and stone:

The Larcomar shop has two sides:  an espresso bar and a slow bar.  Since we had enjoyed lattes at the first cafe, we chose to patronize the slow bar here.  This is a photo of the staff in the slow bar:

There are a number of methods of slow-brewing coffee.  Among them are the French press, pour-over, the "Clever" method, Aeropress, Chemex, and Sifon.  The barista demonstrated the Sifon method, which was quite impressive:

We decided to have coffees prepared in the Sifon and Aeropress methods.  An advantage of the Aeropress method is that it can make a true espresso in very short order, and without complications.  Since we broke our large French press coffee maker, this got us to thinking about what method we should be using in making our coffee at home.  More on that later.

Having sufficiently wetted our whistles at the mall, we trekked on over to the Baranca neighborhood, where the BIG shop, the Tostaduria Bisetti, is located.  This shop includes a large roastery, which is an adjunct business to the cafes.

Here are Hannah and Kathy introducing you to Tostaduria Bisetti:

The cafe portion of the Tostaduria is quite spacious and welcoming:

It has some beautiful murals on the front inside walls:

In the back is the roastery, which includes a large laboratory, where all the roasting research and production occurs:

Here we met David, who was busy supervising the final stages of a roasting.  He showed us the roasting process and explained it to us.  When he had finished, Kathy told Hannah that she loves coffee beans all the more for having learned about roasting - especially since it gives off aromas much like the aromas of brewing beer:

Later in the day, we all convened at Amaz, the most "amaz"ing restaurant we've eaten in in many years.  The food is all native to the Amazon.  While we waited for David, the bartender favored us with his own choices of mixed drinks for us:  a "Tumbao" (a mixture of tumbo with Spanish Sherry and breaks) for David; a "Shapshico" (camu-camu, pisco, syrup and a touch seven root) for Hannah; and a "Fratello Iquiteno" (a combination of the quebranta, camu-camu, vermouth rosso and Italian aperol) for Kathy.  David's old friend, Fil, arrived, and we all celebrated with a most wonderful Amazonian feast.  In the photo below are (l to r): Fil, David, Kathy, Hannah and David:

We walked back to the hotel as Hannah, David and Fil walked back to their place, hoping to get a good night's sleep for Day Two of this amazing adventure.

We awoke a little later, being sure to get a full night's sleep, and met Hannah briefly at Cafe Arabica near the hotel before running off on our own shopping adventure.  Kathy found some wonderful, creamy lucuma fruit to snack on --

-- and we shopped for souveniers and some sturdy shopping bags for carrying our mission to be Coffee Mules (more on that later).

We then met Hannah and David in Barranco for lunch at an Italian restaurant.  Here's a photo of Hannah and David posing in front of our delicioso dessert - lime pie with a burnt sugar topping, and (yum!) churros!

After lunch, we returned to the Tostaduria to pick up bags and bags of Bisetti roasted coffee to bring back to Hannah's parents, Laird and Risa (oh, yes, and some for Matt, Katie and ourselves).  We ended up filling the two market bags we had purchased earlier in the day.

We also decided to purchase two coffee brewing kits:  an Autopress method and a Clever method.  The Autopress seems particular adept at efficiently brewing a good espresso, and the Clever seems most apt for a really good regular coffee.  We can't wait to perfect each of these methods.  We KNOW our daily morning coffee walks will be much more enjoyable as a result!

After taking the coffee back to our hotel, we returned to the Tostaduria in time for Fil to do a Tarot reading for Kathy.  He also did one for Kathy's David.

This entertained us until Hannah's David finished some work.  Once David was free, true to our tradition of eating our way through South America, we all went for dinner, where we sampled a Chicharron sandwich at El Chinito Sangucheria ("the little Chinese man's sandwich shop"), then adjourned with Fil to Barranco Beer Company for some hearty conversation and a couple pitchers of very tasty Belgian style beer:

Having eaten and drunk our fill, we said our goodnights and adioses, and went back to our various abodes - us to get up early to fly back to Guayaquil; David and Hannah to get up the next morning to continue their long workdays making Tostaduria Bisetti and Cafe Arabica the success that they are.

We felt sad leaving Miraflores and Lima, and especially Hannah and David.  It seemed like we had barely arrived and we had to depart.  But we look forward to seeing them this April at Passover, where we can reminisce about Fil, the Taro, coffees we've tasted and loved, and the differences between the mad auto drivers of Lima and Guayaquil.