Vancouver is one of my favorite cities that I’ve ever visited, and while on a short trip to Seattle earlier this year, I made a somewhat spur-of-the-moment decision to hop on a bus and spend a day in Vancouver. While there, I made it a priority to find my way to a 49th Parallel Cafe […]
Africa
Review: Kuma Coffee Ethiopia Suke Quto (Seattle, Washington)
I had last tried beans from Kuma Coffee back in 2015, not long after I had started this blog. I remember liking their coffee for its fruity, bright notes, but I also remember struggling a bit in my first tasting because I was picking up on a papery taste from the unbleached filter I was […]
Review: Roseline Coffee First Flowers Spring Blend (Portland, Oregon)
Roseline Coffee is one of my favorite roasters to order from when I’m in the mood for something special. I follow them on Instagram and when I saw this coffee pop up on my feed, I knew I had to try it. It’s one of the prettiest bags of coffee I’ve seen in a while, […]
Review: Black Diesel Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
I’ve enjoyed drinking coffee for decades, but I still remember the one coffee that changed everything, the one that awakened my senses and introduced me to a world I never knew existed. The coffee was a natural-processed Ethiopian, and I remember marveling at its sweetness, the blueberry aroma, and how much I enjoyed drinking it […]
Review: Simple Beans FUCK COVID-19 Social Distancing Blend (La Jolla, California)
Did the name of this blend catch your attention? It sure caught mine!! I haven’t been super motivated to write new coffee reviews lately; my energy level these days is lower than usual (from stress) and I sort of unofficially decided not to create more work for myself by accepting new beans for review. So […]
Review: Drum Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Banko Gotiti FTO (Missoula, Montana)
I first heard about Drum Coffee via my friend Brandon, a fantastically talented percussionist who happened to stop in at one of their locations while on a road trip. My first reaction to the roaster’s name was, ha, nice pun (since I figured they use a drum roaster to roast their coffee beans). But on […]
Review: Blue Bottle Coffee Summer Blend (Oakland, California)
Blue Bottle Coffee offers seasonal blends, and I was fortunate enough to pick up a bag of their Summer Blend while it was still available. I first was alerted about this blend through Blue Bottle’s email list, where Blue Bottle’s quality control director, Ben Brewer (really? Is there a more spot-on surname for someone working […]
Review: True Coffee Roasters Ethiopia Guji, washed, Grade 1 (Fitchburg, Wisconsin)
Readers in the US are probably familiar with the quasi-holiday Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, when large retailers slash prices on all sorts of merchandise to kick off the Christmas shopping season), but a slightly lesser-known quasi holiday is Small Business Saturday, when consumers are encouraged to do their holiday shopping from small businesses. […]
Review: JJ Bean Coffee Roasters Kenya Othaya (Vancouver/Toronto, Canada)
This coffee was an impulse buy – I had taken a trip to visit Lemonade Gluten-Free Bakery on Cambie St. (and enjoyed every bite of the roughly $30 worth of baked goods I purchased over the next two days!), and JJ Bean was just a short walk from the bakery (literally about one minute – […]
Review: Monogram Ethiopia Gesha Village Lot 97 (Calgary, Canada)
This bag came to me courtesy of Revolver Coffee in Vancouver; it was so hard for me to limit myself to just three bags that day but I knew I’d be buying more from other shops so I had to draw the line somewhere! Whole bean: Super fragrant and fresh, like meyer lemon. French press: […]