Roast # 8: Coffee Club V2
Here we go again.
Hello Friends,
Yes, I'm still doing coffee stuff. No, I still don't have an espresso machine.
I'm here to announce that I'm getting close to Coffee club v2.
The coffees
The first bean will be a Natural Anaerobic Gesha from Huila, Colombia, produced by Luis Anabel Calderon. This coffee is the first gesha I've ever roasted. This coffee was my favorite out of a blind-cupping of 8 other coffees exported by cofinet (they work with fancy roasters like onyx, la cabra, etc). And, of course, it's the gesha that stands out.
This particular gesha exhibits a very floral aroma with a tea-like taste. It's light on body and mouthfeel, but you can likely push for both by upping your ratios. This coffee has undergone a bit of anaerobic fermentation, so it does have a bit of funk in its taste.
The second coffee will be a Natural Anaerobic Red Catuai from Brazil, produced by Yuki Minami. This coffee was interesting to me as it was a Brazilian coffee with hints of fruitiness. From my (tiny) experience with Brazilian coffees, I've found them to be more earthy, chocolate-y. But with this one, I got slight hints of potential for acidity and fruitiness, which I found very interesting. This one has also undergone an anaerobic fermentation... maybe... I just have a thing for anaerobically fermented coffee.
The third coffee will be a Natural Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, produced by Mrs. Gemedech Fulasa. This bean came to me through my roaster friend Aaron, and I'm glad it did. From its cupping, this bean produces the characteristic big, bold fruit flavors of Ethiopian coffees.
Pricing
This box will be more expensive than the last one at $25 per box. The main reasons for the increase are the increased quality of the beans, research and testing costs, and a tiny amount for myself to pay for all the time I put into getting this together -- it wasn't easy.
Logistics
The date of pickup will likely be the middle of November. Now that I have selected the beans, what's left is to refine the end roast along with other logistics.
I still want to do pick up / drop off at a cafe. Maybe I'll post up at a cafe for a few hours on the weekend and have people come through for pickup.
Below will be more details about the process, so feel free to skip if you want to read about the coffee club information.
The process
Having gone through the logistics once, I'm now able to focus more on the coffee this time around. For this iteration, I sampled a little over 20 different coffees.
I got the opportunity to implement sample roasting in my coffee-searching process. Sample roasting is what coffee buyers and coffee roasters go through when buying coffee, and its primary goal is to objectively evaluate the quality and uniformity of green coffee. I contacted a coffee exporter (Cofinet) that I was interested in buying their coffee, and they worked with me to send the requested samples.
Each sample came in 150g increments. The idea of sample roasting is that exporters share small increments of coffee greens to roasters to let them try roasting the beans to determine if they like the coffee greens. Note that sample roasting is usually applied when buying coffee at 25kg or more. Coffee roasters will want to first try the beans before spending thousands of dollars on them.
With the samples, I roasted each with a sample-roasting-specific roast profile. I used one roast profile for all the beans to have a baseline when judging their quality in the end. Sample roasting aims to try and taste the bean rather than the roast.
As for the remaining coffees, I tested those by buying small increments (1-2 pounds), optimizing the roast for each, and then making a decision on whether I liked them or not. I opted not to apply the sample roasting procedure above as I could purchase beans in 1lb increments. If the exporter allowed me to buy in 1-2lb increments, I'd likely test their beans with this procedure instead.
And that concludes this post. If you are interested in getting informed on when I take orders, please reach out to thoughtfulcoffeenyc@gmail.com and I’ll put you down on my list of orderees (?). If you’ve already reached out, I have you jotted down.
Thanks all!
