General Update
A few weeks ago we got a bunch of new coffees from Royal Coffee Importers in Oakland. It's been really fun to get to know these beans and hone in on the perfect roast for each. Here are some quick notes on some of our new offerings:
Sumatra IKA Organic
Sumatra has been a main bean for us for ten plus years, but last time around we switched it up and got a bag of Sumatra Golden Retro instead of the usual IKA. It was fun to try something new but ultimately I'm happy we've gone back to the good old stuff. If ever a bean were to be described as psychedelic, it would have to be Sumatra IKA -- there are a dizzying number of flavors going on in this coffee and each roast seems to highlight different ones. The first time out I took the roast to the level of Full City Plus (see Sweet Maria's super handy roast guide here.) . The result was a dark tasting cup with a distinct floral note. This last time, I stopped the roast at Full City, and ended up with a cup almost Central American in nature. There was a nice, bright acidity up front and a thick, raw sugar sweetness running down the middle. Surpisingly, the floral quality I got last time was nowhere to be found. Next time out I'll shoot for somewhere between the two and I think we'll have a winner.
Honduras SHG* EP Ocotepeque
This is our second round of Honduran coffee. I wasn't thrilled with the first bag initially, but by the end, it's charms were apparent. This second bag, however, has been killer from roast number one. I'm particularly happy that this bean shines with a lighter roast -- in general, our MO here at Java Mama has been medium to medium-dark roasts, so this Honduras is a really nice way of shaking things up a little. Vibrant without being edgy, delicate without being insubstantial, this is a very classy bean. (*note: SHG stands for "Strictly High Grown," meaning 4000+ feet, i.e. WAY up there. This means the beans have a very dense cellular structure -- another designation meaning roughly the same thing is SHB, Strictly Hard Bean.)
El Salvador SHG Cerro de las Ranas
In our decade plus of roasting coffee, we've had the pleasure of serving many different coffees from El Salvador, and for the last four or so years they've been without exception, well, totally awesome. Cerro las Ranas means Hill of the Frogs and it's an "estate" coffee, meaning that the coffee is grown and processed on one farm. (The equipment needed for processing coffee is expensive, so it's much more common for all of the small farms in a region to take their coffee to a central processing location. That the red coffee cherries are turned into dry, green beans in a timely manner is critical for the quality of the coffee. That process is more likely to be done right with estate coffees, where the coffee doesn't need to be transported and doesn't risk sitting around waiting it's turn to be processed.) Every roast has gotten me a little closer to where I think this coffee should be, and the last roast was just about there -- medium-full body, piquant acidity, a core of dark, brown sugar sweetness, and a clean finish. Any wonder that people are crazy about this coffee?
Sumatra IKA Organic
Sumatra has been a main bean for us for ten plus years, but last time around we switched it up and got a bag of Sumatra Golden Retro instead of the usual IKA. It was fun to try something new but ultimately I'm happy we've gone back to the good old stuff. If ever a bean were to be described as psychedelic, it would have to be Sumatra IKA -- there are a dizzying number of flavors going on in this coffee and each roast seems to highlight different ones. The first time out I took the roast to the level of Full City Plus (see Sweet Maria's super handy roast guide here.) . The result was a dark tasting cup with a distinct floral note. This last time, I stopped the roast at Full City, and ended up with a cup almost Central American in nature. There was a nice, bright acidity up front and a thick, raw sugar sweetness running down the middle. Surpisingly, the floral quality I got last time was nowhere to be found. Next time out I'll shoot for somewhere between the two and I think we'll have a winner.
Honduras SHG* EP Ocotepeque
This is our second round of Honduran coffee. I wasn't thrilled with the first bag initially, but by the end, it's charms were apparent. This second bag, however, has been killer from roast number one. I'm particularly happy that this bean shines with a lighter roast -- in general, our MO here at Java Mama has been medium to medium-dark roasts, so this Honduras is a really nice way of shaking things up a little. Vibrant without being edgy, delicate without being insubstantial, this is a very classy bean. (*note: SHG stands for "Strictly High Grown," meaning 4000+ feet, i.e. WAY up there. This means the beans have a very dense cellular structure -- another designation meaning roughly the same thing is SHB, Strictly Hard Bean.)
El Salvador SHG Cerro de las Ranas
In our decade plus of roasting coffee, we've had the pleasure of serving many different coffees from El Salvador, and for the last four or so years they've been without exception, well, totally awesome. Cerro las Ranas means Hill of the Frogs and it's an "estate" coffee, meaning that the coffee is grown and processed on one farm. (The equipment needed for processing coffee is expensive, so it's much more common for all of the small farms in a region to take their coffee to a central processing location. That the red coffee cherries are turned into dry, green beans in a timely manner is critical for the quality of the coffee. That process is more likely to be done right with estate coffees, where the coffee doesn't need to be transported and doesn't risk sitting around waiting it's turn to be processed.) Every roast has gotten me a little closer to where I think this coffee should be, and the last roast was just about there -- medium-full body, piquant acidity, a core of dark, brown sugar sweetness, and a clean finish. Any wonder that people are crazy about this coffee?
posted by Raf Spielman at
1:03 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home