Thanks again to my friend Sarah for these beans! đ
I consider my tasting skills to be decent, but I can’t hold a candle to the fine folks at Coffee Review. I purposely did not pay attention to the tasting notes on this coffee until after I was finished, and I’m always interested to see where I agree with others and where I diverge. More details in the summary.
This particular coffee features top-quality beans from 55 communities in Guatemala.
Whole bean: In the whole bean format, I didn’t detect any particular fragrance that stood out, but once ground, they had a beautiful fragrance of bittersweet chocolate.
V60: My extraction time was a bit on the short side (2:30), and this particular cup tasted mostly like black tea with a bit of bittersweet cocoa and lemon.
AeroPress: In its concentrate form, this cup was pretty sour – it tasted like a combination of lemon juice and pith. However, once I added water to the concentrate, it smoothed out and had a more iced tea-like quality (but hot, of course). Rich body.
Chemex: Smelled a bit like the smoke from blown-out matches, but it tasted like milk chocolate. This also had a little bite of acidity at the end to keep things interesting, but overall it was markedly smoother than either the V60 or AeroPress cups.
French press: Dominant flavor was one of marshmallows, followed by hot cocoa. This is a nice cup for cold winter mornings when looking for a comforting way to start the day. Too bad it’s currently August in Texas! đ
Summary: I liked this coffee. It reminded me a fair bit of the Coffee del Rey Guatemala Huehuetenango without the graham cracker flavor. Most of the flavors I noticed in this coffee were chocolate, marshmallow, black tea, and lemon. However, the reviewers at Coffee Review had this to say:
“Gently crisp, cedary, complex. Tobacco-toned cedar (think cigar humidor), vanilla, raw sugar, narcissus-like flowers in aroma and cup. Brisk, dry acidity; lightly syrupy mouthfeel. Vanilla, flowers and cedar carry into a resonant finish.”
Yeesh, I need to work on my tasting game!
From the roaster:
Aroma: Candied Fruit & Chocolate
Flavor: Apricot, Pecan, & Milk Chocolate
Acidity: Brisk
Body: Silky
Aftertaste: Tangy Fruit, Nut, & Cocoa
Funny how chocolate was in the bullet points but not in their prose?
I guess the Coffee Review people didn’t detect chocolate, even if the roasters did! Ha. Maybe I wasn’t so far off after all. đ
I concur… I’ve been to concerts that have been critiqued where the critique never showed up… had wine a reviewer has never sipped,.. cigars the aficionado never bought, and coffee a poet never drank. I bet that’s what happened here.
I don’t know that I’d go that far… after all, I taste-tested this coffee pretty thoroughly and I didn’t detect apricot, even though it was in Lexington’s tasting notes. Everyone has their own perspective!