{"id":163,"date":"2015-04-10T07:23:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-10T13:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=163"},"modified":"2016-01-21T08:00:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T14:00:17","slug":"review-cuvee-decaf-spicewood-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=163","title":{"rendered":"Review: Cuv\u00e9e Decaf Spicewood 71 (Spicewood, Texas)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is there a decaf coffee out there worth drinking? My search has just begun, but I am pretty confident I’ve found one. I love being surprised by a coffee!<\/p>\n

Cuv\u00e9e Coffee is a craft coffee company based out of Spicewood, TX (also known as the home of Willie Nelson), about 40 minutes northwest of Austin. Their decaf appears to be a blend of Colombian beans. I couldn’t find information on how Cuv\u00e9e decaffeinates these beans (water process? methyl chloride?).  The whole beans smelled to me like chocolate-covered cherry cordials and pistachios. Lots of pistachios.<\/p>\n

French press: This was my first tasting of this coffee. It brewed up a bit pale in color with a red tint. Extremely smooth, but hollow tasting. Loved the texture of the coffee but it was missing a core to its flavor. At this point, I decided to add just a tiny pinch of salt to my cup (probably about 1\/16 tsp of kosher salt to a 12 oz cup) and it really improved the coffee! I don’t make a habit of salting my coffee, but it makes sense that if a coffee is a bit bland, a little salt can bring out the flavors, just like it does with food. The addition brought out some of the acidity and the cup was much better balanced in flavor. Very nice if you’re looking for a rich cup.<\/p>\n

V60: Deep, dark brown color – not really red. Gentle aroma. No real flavor to report. I added a pinch of salt to this too, but it didn’t really make a difference – I thought this cup was too thin and bland. Next!<\/p>\n

Chemex: WOW. This surprised the heck out of me. This method knocked my socks off!! A lovely, bright acidity with some sweetness. It tasted like lemon meringue pie filling with toasted marshmallow. Considering how relatively flavorless the press and V60 were, I was floored at how flavorful this was. I couldn’t tell this was decaf.<\/p>\n

AeroPress: This was a blend in flavors of sorts between the Chemex and french press. Nice balance of the rich depth and the bright notes, but for me there was not as much WOW factor as the Chemex. A very very pleasant cup to drink though.<\/p>\n

Summary:<\/strong> Chemex makes this coffee into a rock star. It was also good (if more muted) in the AeroPress. If you make it in a french press, add a little salt. Don’t use a V60 unless you want no flavor.<\/p>\n

From the roaster: Herbacious with hints of lemon. A cola-like body, and notes of tea as it cools.<\/p>\n

Cuv\u00e9e Coffee Decaf Spicewood 71<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is there a decaf coffee out there worth drinking? My search has just begun, but I am pretty confident I’ve found one. I love being surprised by a coffee! Cuv\u00e9e Coffee is a craft coffee company based out of Spicewood, TX (also known as the home of Willie Nelson), about 40 minutes northwest of Austin. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":180,"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":[156,12,3,154,10],"tags":[65,33,64,22],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/IMG_0856-e1430540606705.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6530,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=6530","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":0},"title":"Review: Tweed Coffee Two-Step Decaf, Sugarcane Process (Dallas, Texas)","date":"December 5, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Most of the time when I'm doing coffee tastings, I have to evaluate the coffee first thing in the morning because caffeine lingers so long in my system, I can't sleep properly if I consume caffeine later in the day. It can be a little hard to properly enjoy the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chemex"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-2108-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2750,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=2750","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":1},"title":"Review: Cuv\u00e9e Coffee Guatemala Hunapu (Austin, Texas)","date":"August 14, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Cuv\u00e9e Coffee is regularly featured at my local Whole Foods market, but I don't buy it very often because\u00a0the beans aren't often on the shelf within two weeks of the roast date (which is a common situation when you buy coffee at retail outlets like markets). However, I lucked out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Central America"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/tn_IMG_7218-e1499382537154.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2209,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=2209","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":2},"title":"Review: James Coffee Company DecafNation (San Diego, California)","date":"October 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Even though I've already written about James Coffee Company's Night Owl Blend, this bag of their DecafNation blend was actually the first bag of theirs that I invited into my home\u00a0to test, as I purchased this from Culture Craft Coffee and Espresso in Escondido, California. I didn't intend to stretch\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chemex"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/tn_IMG_4876.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2831,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=2831","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":3},"title":"Review: Conscious Coffees Organic Sanitas Decaf (Boulder, Colorado)","date":"November 17, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Decaf coffee is something I rarely seek out, but this bag happened to catch my eye during a recent trip to Denver. I was at Pigtrain Coffee at Denver's Union Station and this was the freshest coffee there so it was a no-brainer, even though I usually think \"what's the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/tn_IMG-1354-e1510614301469.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":809,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=809","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":4},"title":"Mini review: Intelligentsia Decaf Librarian’s Blend (Chicago, Illinois)","date":"July 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This bag of Intelligentsia was a gift for my friend Julee, but she generously offered to let me have some of the beans in order to do a review. I purposely just took a little bit (after all, I wanted her to enjoy the coffee!), so I was\u00a0not able to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blends"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/tn_IMG_1122.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3034,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=3034","url_meta":{"origin":163,"position":5},"title":"Review: Cuv\u00e9e Coffee Ethiopia Cuberow (Austin, Texas)","date":"March 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I found this bag of\u00a0Cuv\u00e9e Coffee at a different Whole Foods location than I normally go to - they had a slightly different selection than my local store, but this was the freshest option. I had just had the\u00a0Cuv\u00e9e Brazilian, so I wasn't really keen to buy another bag from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/tn_IMG-1490-e1521691558298.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5QIia-2D","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163"}],"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=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1796,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/1796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}