Review: Three Ships Nicaragua Los Cipreses de Loma Fria (Virginia Beach, Virginia)

I almost didn’t write up a review for this coffee, but I decided it would be a golden opportunity to try a little experiment with home roasting. If nothing else, I will have this bag of beans to thank for helping me dip my toe into the waters of roasting coffee beans at home!

I’ve reviewed Three Ships coffee before; I very much enjoyed their Ethiopia Yirgacheffe (see that review here). When I spotted these beans, I decided that I wanted to give them a try since I have never had Nicaraguan coffee before and I wanted to try something new. I did notice that the beans were roasted two weeks prior and that made me a little uneasy, as I prefer to buy beans no more than a week old, but I figured it was worth a shot anyway.

The roaster’s tasting notes included Meyer lemon, honey, and creamy cashew. The Yirgacheffe I had from Three Ships pretty much punched me in the nose with berry aroma, so I was really surprised that I barely smelled ANYTHING upon opening this bag. The smell of the beans was really faint. I could understand that this Central American coffee was probably more delicate than a natural-processed African coffee, but it was worrisome that I couldn’t smell much. Once I ground the beans, I got a faint whiff of nuts, and for some reason, Now-And-Later candies. Again, though, it was very faint.

V60: This reminded me of the Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters El Salvador that had a flavor like black tea, but it was very bland with no inviting aroma to draw you in.

Aeropress: Smooth but bland. The best I could say was that it wasn’t offensive, but I was looking for these Meyer lemon/cashew/honey flavors (or really, ANY flavors) and I just wasn’t getting them at all.

Chemex: This tastes like campfire ash. I was taken back to camping trips with my Girl Scout troop, sitting around the campfire and breathing in smoke. That’s what this coffee tasted like. It doesn’t help that I really don’t like camping.

I didn’t even bother brewing this coffee in a french press at this point because I was so done with it. I was reluctant to review it though because I thought maybe I had gotten a stale bag and it wouldn’t be fair to say bad things about a bean that wasn’t fresh. My thought was that if I saw this bean again somewhere, but fresher, I might pick it up and try again.

Then, I talked with a friend who bought a Nicaraguan coffee that had strong chocolaty flavors. I was totally confused because there was NO chocolate present in the beans I bought. Granted, not all coffees from the same country will taste the same, and various processing methods will affect the flavor, but that got me wondering if adjusting the roast level would make me like the beans better at all. I’ve never roasted beans before, but I had heard and read about doing so in a cast-iron skillet, so I figured now was as good a time as any, since I would have gotten rid of the beans otherwise.

There are other webpages out there devoted to teaching people how to roast beans in a cast-iron skillet, so I won’t bother getting into the details. I didn’t even truly roast since these beans were already roasted; I just wanted to take them a little darker. I saved a small dish of the original beans to be able to compare them against the final product.

Here’s how they looked side by side after I was done. The beans on the left, the “before,” were quite dry in appearance. The beans on the right, the “after,” had a very slight sheen but were not what I could consider oily. The sheen could have been from the seasoning on my cast-iron skillet, though.

After I let the beans cool, I put them back into the original bag. They smelled a bit like tobacco, but once I ground them up the aroma was much more pleasing – I could smell spicy cocoa. Now we’re getting somewhere!!

V60: This smelled much better to me – it smelled like coffee instead of tea, and it said, “drink me!” The flavor wasn’t much to write about, but it wasn’t unpleasant – there were slight toasty cocoa flavors. I think the additional roasting probably erased any origin flavor characteristics and now I’m tasting a more generic “coffee” flavor, but in this case I am pleased for that, since I really didn’t care for the coffee as it was originally.

Aeropress: Still smooth but a little more lively than I expected. This could be very nice indeed with a bit of sugar.

Chemex: Acidic, with a bit of black pepper on the finish. Oddly, this smelled like Legos to me. What is it about this coffee in a Chemex that is bringing back childhood memories? Unlike camping, I enjoyed Legos, but I never really wanted to eat them.

French press: I can’t compare this to the original roast but my altered roast had a nice heavy mouthfeel, but a bit of a bite to the finish.

Summary: This particular bag was not to my taste, but roasting it a little deeper made it more enjoyable. I do not plan to do this sort of thing regularly, though!

For anyone at Three Ships that may come across this page: I hope you’ll forgive me for what I did to your beans. Next time I will be sure to buy a FRESH bag.

From the roaster: We taste Meyer lemon, honey, and creamy cashew.

Three Ships Coffee