{"id":108,"date":"2015-03-14T12:28:44","date_gmt":"2015-03-14T17:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=108"},"modified":"2015-10-15T22:02:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T03:02:05","slug":"review-klatch-belle-espresso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=108","title":{"rendered":"Review: Klatch Belle Espresso (Upland, California)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finally! Time to review Klatch Belle. I will say upfront that I am still learning about what makes a “good” espresso, and I am not as experienced with tasting espressos as I am with coffees. However, this was a very enjoyable tasting for me, and I do think that the espresso shots I made at home have been better than some I’ve gotten at coffee shops!<\/p>\n

My Vario grinder is still quite new and I’ve only gone through around 1 pound of beans, so the burrs are still being broken in. I had to play with the grind settings quite a bit before I was able to dial in the right size grind for Belle. Once I found it, my espresso machine poured some delicious looking shots. The streams were slightly redder than I had ever seen before – definitely on the red side of reddish-brown. Very syrupy in consistency.<\/p>\n

Stats for espresso geeks: 201 degrees F, 16g in a double basket, 27 seconds from first pour.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0788\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I really liked these shots. Great crema! The flavor of the shot was wonderfully balanced – bittersweet cocoa and a bit of fruitiness (cherries?). Not sour or bitter in any way – very complex and rich.<\/p>\n

My latte art is laughable, so I will not be posting pictures of my milk drinks yet. However, I did make a few lattes and flat whites with these beans and they were absolutely delicious; the flavor of the espresso stands up well in milk with no burnt\/sour\/off flavors… just creamy silky balanced goodness. Shutterbug is a man of few words when it comes to coffee, but when he tried the latte I made for him this morning, he commented, “Wow, this is really good!” Good on you, Klatch.<\/p>\n

I also chose to try these beans in an Aeropress, just for kicks. I had a bad experience once with using the inverted Aeropress method (and by bad, I mean hot water and coffee grounds EVERYWHERE), but I faced my fears and did it for this review. After having mostly single-origins lately, my palate was confused by the Aeropress brew: I was drinking it and thinking, “I can’t tell where this is from!” But, it didn’t really matter. It was strong and flavorful; smooth with a touch of spiciness that added character. It was VERY easy to drink. Definitely a winner, though I would prefer using these beans strictly for espresso.<\/p>\n

From the roaster: Intense, sweet aroma of brandy, chocolate and caramel as well as a smooth taste and understated complexity. Described by Coffee Review as “crisply pungent yet caramelly sweet.”<\/p>\n

Klatch Coffee Roasters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finally! Time to review Klatch Belle. I will say upfront that I am still learning about what makes a “good” espresso, and I am not as experienced with tasting espressos as I am with coffees. However, this was a very enjoyable tasting for me, and I do think that the espresso shots I made at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[158,157,8,3,154],"tags":[63,28,195,54],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/IMG_0783-e1430540469879.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1701,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=1701","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":0},"title":"Review: Klatch Golden Bean Espresso Blend (Upland, California)","date":"November 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"TL;DR: If you love espresso, GET YOUR HANDS ON THIS ASAP!!! I'm actually finding it a little hard to organize my thoughts on this espresso. How do you explain the beauty of a sunrise? How can you put into words what happens\u00a0to you\u00a0when you hear your musical soulmate? That's what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/tn_IMG_1908.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5576,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=5576","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":1},"title":"Review: Klatch Coffee FTO House Espresso (Upland, California)","date":"January 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I've had pretty good luck trying Klatch Coffee's espressos in the past (I liked their Belle Espresso pretty well, and I LOVED their Golden Bean Espresso of 2015), so I was excited to try another one of their blends. This time around, I opted for their FTO (Fair Trade Organic)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/IMG-5394-e1546646337512.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5574,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=5574","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":2},"title":"Review: Klatch Coffee 25th Anniversary Blend (Upland, California)","date":"January 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a soft spot for Klatch Coffee - back in the early days of this blog (March 2015, the first month that I started writing coffee reviews), Klatch's Panama Elida Honey was the first coffee that I sampled that made a strong, strong impression on me, and that same\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blends"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/IMG-5393-e1546643076246.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1735,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=1735","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":3},"title":"The Best of 2015","date":"December 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This time of year, indie-music snobs the world over take great pleasure in making and criticizing each others' year-end best-of lists. I didn't make a list of my favorite albums because I really didn't buy very many\u00a0this year (though, I do have a favorite album - \"Carrie and Lowell\" by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Advice"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/tn_FullSizeRender.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2474,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=2474","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":4},"title":"Review: Ritual Coffee Roasters Day Drinker Seasonal Espresso (San Francisco, California)","date":"January 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I had my first experience with Ritual Coffee Roasters while visiting Cognoscenti Coffee in the Los Angeles area, and I was really impressed with the quality of the beans and the flavor that I received in that cup (chocolate, plum, spice). However, I have yet to order online directly from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/tn_IMG_5306.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":102,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=102","url_meta":{"origin":108,"position":5},"title":"Review: Klatch Coffee Panama Elida Honey (Upland, California)","date":"March 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been looking forward to trying Klatch Coffee ever since I started reading up on specialty coffee roasters. Klatch is a name I saw mentioned\u00a0repeatedly, along with Intelligentsia, Verve, Counter Culture, Madcap, and Stumptown (especially in an espresso context). The Klatch Belle Espresso review will be happening in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Central America"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/IMG_0782-e1430540451847.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5QIia-1K","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1148,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions\/1148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}