Ethiopian Sidamo and Medium / Medium Dark Roast. 20g, 1.4 turns in Jx Pro, 46.4g out and took a little longer at almost a minute. The group was set 93C and the brew was set at 99C. Took 18s for the first drop into the cup. This is too long. I thought the cup isn’t going to be good. It was so good, I drank straight as an espresso. Fruity citrus and lemon grass for me. It will definitely benefit from loosening the grind. This bag will be very good for brewing for sure, which is what I will do later today. https://imgur.com/a/vTgy8Be

@"LMSC"#p1024 The beans look well roasted for a medium dark roast….who was the roaster?

@"DavecUK"#p1035 Clumsy Goat. They stated both the Peru and this Ethiopian are medium roast. I did not think so. I reckoned the Peru was medium dark / dark. That bag was ok; I was never happy with that Peruvian Bag. This Ethiopian is very good and sweet. I was erring more on the medium dark; I didn’t think it’s a dark roast, looking at the dark yellow / light brown colours at the crevice of the beans; I thought they may have been taken out just before the second crack, not at the second. Obviously, I lack a roasting experience and still learning to differentiate the roasts. 😊 You won’t call it as a dark roast, would you ? Thx

> @"LMSC"#p1039 You won’t call it as a dark roast, would you ? Thx I would call that medium dark…it's about as dark as I like to go, normally I'm in the medium or medium light camps. as my personal preference and that of my roast sharers. That roast was nowhere near 2nd crack and I would guess it's about 30-50 seconds after first…not roasted too fast because I can't see any oil and no charred chaff lines, indicating the burners going off before 1st crack and the roast allowed to coast into it. My guess for what it's worth…anyway, they did a good job.

Crown and canvas - first light Brazilian and colombian blend. Bag states dark chocolate, hazelnut and red berry and I have to say it delivers! Espresso 16g in 32g out: really rich dark chocolate and hazelnut (think greene and blacks) and a gentle acidity to finish. Lovely mouthfeel and long lasting. As a flat white everything’s sweetened up and it really pushes the hazelnut flavour. Delicious. Off to make another 😉

@"Baldrick"#p1770 Hadn't heard of Crown and Canvas before. Having looked at their website and following your positive recommendation I think I will be giving them a try.

@"Dumnorix"#p1793 very popular roaster and some great coffees by all accounts. If you check our commercial directory, you will find some good and reliable companies to use. https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/d/52-commercial-members-list

@"DavecUK"#p1796 Many thanks for the link.

Origin Colombia Estate Café Granja La Esperanza Farm Potosi Varietal San Juan Process Natural Altitude 1,800-2,000 masl Harvest January - April I got it from my local shop. It's got a really nice sultana smooth taste. Currently brewing it in a Aeropress 1:15 and diluting up to around a 320g cup. Really enjoying it at cooler temps.

Crankhouse, Cordillera de Fuego, anaerobic natural Caturra & Catuai - Initially hesitant & bracing myself due to the pungent, farmyard aroma off the beans, but absolutely delivers in every aspect on the flavour in cup. Complex, good perception of sweetness. Delicious! Like a coffee equivalent to mulled wine. I'm not big fan of naturals, nor Cost a Ricans generally, but I love this. 13\.6g ground at 32 on Wilfa flat, V60 02 with can strainer, 40g every 40s (each pour taking about 13s), 1st 2 pours direct on to the coffee bed, last 3 via can strainer. Dry bed 3:15 for this brew.

Mikari AA (Washed) (Kenya) from Coffee by the Casuals - two ways. Moka Pot - really rich, lots of peach. Very smooth. Pre-boiled water and AP filter, but no 'bloom'. CCD - 18g + 300g - 32 on Niche. Still steeping, but based on brews this week, flavour is more balanced, not as in your face (as expected) - not much pineapple, but more acitidty alongside the peach.

What’s in your cup this morning ?

PortafilterProcrastinator

LMSC No, sorry, that was my first bag.

LMSC

Had a lovely pour over this morning using V60.

Made a half caf - 16g of Blackcat’s Costa Rica and 14g of Rave’s El Carmen Sugarcane Decaf.

30g : 500g hot water, James Hoffman’s method. Got 415g liquid. Very sweet cup.

simonc

LMSC interesting. I thought his recipe too large for single cup but like this as half caf that’s a lot of nice coffee without too much caffeine.

limelight

For those that are in the US, I am currently enjoying Unicorn Blood from Dark Matter Coffee out of Chicago. Looking forward to exploring some of their other offerings as they appear to have a good relationship with some well established farms in Central/South America.

DavecUK

limelight Every time I see it I am reminded of the playfield of a pinball table…

SouthMark45

Well this months 1Kg choice of beans are from Crown & Canvas

Ethiopia - Basha Bakele

Brazil - Rancho Grande

I’m Starting with the Basha Bakele first

Last month was Square Mile Rotutu and San Antonio they were both good for Espresso and Milk based drinks. I am still searching for my go to morning Espresso bean

LMSC

simonc Yeah. It’s a big cup. I make this only if I am driving to work. That will be 1:30 hours drive. So, it is good.

I still prefer @MWJB’s method even for a bigger cup like this. I find his’ a little sweeter than Hoffman’s. In any case, you can vary the cup size as the dosage is 60g/L!

I normally use max 15g coffee powder : 250g hot water. I can therefore make 2 pour overs during the day. Morning and evenings are espressos.

LMSC

Rugali from Thomson

The coffee is good. 18g : 51g liquid : 6 bars lasting 34s. I kept the temps at 93/98 for the second cup. It was 92C/96C for the first shot for similar volume lasting 36s.

The notes were distinct : Orangey grapes and lingering caramel after taste for me.

My dilemma

The pour was a little faster, given the volume. I will tighten the grind and/or drop the temp to 92/95 and go from there.

I did pick a bit of bitterness, which I cannot liken it to Caramel. This suggests loosening the grind. Am I missing something here, given the shot time?

The extraction is good; there were no doughnut extraction. The beads were uniform before a steady single stream pour.

The problem with the roast type.

This is a Rwandan Rugali. I understand, this beans can be difficult to extract. Hence, I ground a little finer than otherwise.

They call this a light roast with a level of 91. I have never seen anyone calling the roast level by score. May be, I haven’t seen. So, I thought this is a good thing, though misleading. The cup score is 87, which is good.

The problem is this beans is miles away from light roast. It is not even a medium light roast. I would judge this as between medium and medium dark. If I have to peg a roast level, given the chaff lines and colours seen in natural light, I would call it as medium because it is perhaps appropriate.

What are they thinking ? Light roast, seriously? 😑 I am neither colour blind nor drunk on a Tuesday morning.

I am not confident with the Haru either; it will rest for 2 weeks. I will definitely be giving my feedback about their roasts. Don’t think, I will buy again — considering why I got these bags from them in the first place.

Edit :

The beans photo was taken in natural light

DavecUK

LMSC It’s a medium roast now…the number looks like an Agtron tile number

prezes

As it’s a lovely day at last Colombian La Soledad from pact coffee in a hibiscus espresso tonic ! Not had one since last summer so
really enjoyed it.

LMSC

DavecUK Agree. It’s a medium roast. Glad, they changed it. Nice cup, although the calling it as a light roast at the time was misleading.

DavecUK

LMSC For sure, I can understand your disappointment if you were expecting a light roast.

LMSC

DavecUK I did tell them that the coffee is very good, why I bought this bag and it isn’t a light but a medium roast. Am pleased some body noticed the anomaly of the description and corrected it!

gotters

Really into the Manco brazilian fazendo yellow bourbon at the moment, it’s low acidity and makes a lovely cup at 5m in the clever brewer.

https://mancoco.co.uk/collections/coffee/products/fazenda-pantano-yellow-bourbon-brazil

So reading on the yellow bourbon bean apparently one of it’s characteristics is low acidity, which I definitely prefer - what’s interesting is if you search for UK roasters with it you see such a disparity in pricing, the Manco is quite reasonable at £6.50p a bag, you can pay anything up to double that. Wondering how much difference a roaster can make (of course some will be their location, pricing strategy etc).

DavecUK

gotters what’s interesting is if you search for UK roasters with it you see such a disparity in pricing, the Manco is quite reasonable at £6.50p a bag, you can pay anything up to double that. Wondering how much difference a roaster can make (of course some will be their location, pricing strategy etc).

There can be quite a big difference in coffee pricing, recently there was a coffee doing the rounds which was about £4.50 more expensive for 500g from one source (supposedly at a discount), than it was from a roaster called Teeside Coffee, that’s quite a difference.

The truth of it is, as the bean rises in price, the % margin it can sustain reduces. So a non coffee example might be, if a widget costs:

5 = margin of 300% - 400%
10 = margin of 250 - 350%
15 = margin of 200 - 300%
20 margin of 150 - 250%

Of course the money made changes like this:

£12.50
£20
£22
£20

There are two ways a small roaster can go, high volume and smaller margins, the only way to make more money is to increase the size of their market. Or buy more expensive coffees, make less margin, but more money. Of course, there is more risk because of the value of stock holding and having to sell older coffees at a discount, often because consumers are led to believe a coffee 1-month-old isn’t any good. It’s why most roasters roast to order a few times a week, with a couple of set despatch days.

Sometimes roasters for whatever reason, new, staff change, business consultancy whatever…get it into their heads that they must make a fixed margin…but for coffee, that really doesn’t work and either leads to consistently cheap coffee because consumers won’t pay super high prices, or the price disparities you see, So I might buy a green bean at £12 per Kilo, but a lot of roasters won’t, especially if they are in the high volume relatively fixed margin roasting.

So a long preamble to get to the recommendation that coffee is a bit like wine. The more you pay, the more of your £ is going into the coffee quality (as most roasters to take a smaller margin).

gotters

DavecUK

yep, I think though there must be an element in there of relative costs for roasters - there are some fancy schmancy places down in London who will undoubtedly have higher rents & staff costs on top of all the shared expenses like beans, electricity, transportation etc.

a small roaster in London will have higher costs but possibly their local (not internet) market may also be willing to pay a higher price.

Those Manco beans are £6.50, and are lovely. Seems that Rave sell something very similar for £5.50 and others are charging a lot more.

So yes you can get a higher quality product if you pay more, but I suspect you can also pay a lot more for the same thing, just from somewhere with a higher overhead.

LMSC

DavecUK Everything obeys the law of diminishing returns. Where would you draw a line for coffee. This may be difficult in the coffee beans.

DavecUK

gotters So yes you can get a higher quality product if you pay more, but I suspect you can also pay a lot more for the same thing, just from somewhere with a higher overhead.

Of course…London based roasters in certain areas can have some challenges. and overheads do matter. Unfortunately, though, as consumers with something called the internet, location is not that important to us (royal us). Consumers can choose to buy the same coffee from roasters with lower overheads and greater business efficiency.

The realities for businesses are that people search around for the same product at lowest price from someone they still trust. e.g. Do you buy exactly the same product from John Lewis or AO.com if there is a big difference in price.

Ernie1

I was riding down in the South West so stopped at Yallah’s hatch in St. Ives. Brilliant coffee, expertly prepared as usual!

Picked up a kilo of their espresso beans too. Picture of the coffee would’ve been helpful but I only got a picture of the bike and the weather!

MWJB

CRANKHOUSE Oscar Mendez Finca Genesis, natural Typica

Very tasty nectarine, apple & maple syrup (not as sweet but I get it).

94.5 on Niche. 13.8g dose, 210g water, V60 02 with Hario Drip Assist.

7 pours of 30g every 30s,each pour taking ~10s.

First 2 pours via the centre of the Drip Assist, remainder around the ring.

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