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<\/p>\nThe craft coffee market is saturated these days with excellent small roasters, so it can be difficult to get noticed, even if your product is\u00a0top-notch. It’s trendy these days to see coffee roasters using modern and minimalist designs for their bags and logos, so Slightly Coffee Roasters’ packaging definitely stands\u00a0out from the pack with their decidedly retro, psychedelic font. It’s fun and approachable looking. I’m not sure exactly who they’re looking to appeal to with this, but people who were around in the 1970s weren’t drinking great coffee… are they speaking to that crowd when imploring them with their slogan to “drink slightly better coffee”? I sometimes hear people saying they want to try “better” coffee than Starbucks and such, but find craft coffee intimidating. This lettering doesn’t seem intimidating to me, it screams fun. It actually screams “ice cream” and “roller disco” to me, but that’s beside the point! I applaud the vibe this logo is giving me.<\/p>\n
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The slogan “drink slightly better coffee” fits in with this feel-good vibe if you ask me… they’re not looking to admonish anyone for drinking Folgers or make them feel like a bad person if this is the first bag of craft coffee they’ve ever purchased. They’re just encouraging people to give their coffee a try! I did question before I began this tasting if this slogan would apply to me as well… I usually drink pretty damn good coffee at my house, if I do say so myself. Let’s get started!<\/p>\n
Whole bean: Cranberry and vanilla.<\/p>\n
French press: Well, this was unexpected! This cup was a creamy treat that tasted of green tea. There was a bit of pineapple on the finish but it wasn’t what I would call a sweet cup. I was really floored by this cup and I kept drinking it again and again… I swear that if I was blindfolded, I am not sure that I would have been able to tell it was coffee. It had a lot of delicate flavor notes and a rich complexity.<\/p>\n
Chemex: Really smooth — less vibrant in flavor than the French press cup, but the taste was similar. Again, not a coffee that tastes like “coffee.” This is quite a light roast.<\/p>\n
AeroPress: Grapefruit and pineapple dominated this cup. It’s pretty bright and zingy straight out of the AeroPress so I chose to add a little additional water than what I used for brewing. Adding water tamed the flavors a bit but it was still tangy and very interesting!<\/p>\n
V60: At a 3:07 extraction, this cup was beautifully balanced and lovely. I couldn’t pick out specific flavor notes in this, but it definitely tasted like a light roast with a lot of juiciness and sweetness. It is the most approachable cup of the four that I made with these beans.<\/p>\n
Summary<\/strong>: Well, blow me down. This really IS slightly better coffee than I drink most days! If I had to compare it to other roasters, the coffee reminded me quite a lot of Heart Roasters<\/a>, which is very high praise from me as Heart is probably one of my top 3 favorite coffee roasters out there. The French press cup was my personal favorite, but it was great in all four methods. Try it in an AeroPress if you want more vibrant, fruity flavors, a V60 or Chemex for more balanced flavors, or the press pot if green tea with a fruity twist sounds appealing to you.<\/p>\n I suspect that if I was a Folgers drinker and I had THIS, it would take me a while to wrap my brain around what I was drinking (because it really doesn’t taste like “coffee”), but in time, I would come to think that this company’s vow to provide “slightly better” coffee was quite an understatement! I enjoyed the heck out of this bag!<\/p>\n From the roaster: Cherry cobbler, peaches, and cream<\/p>\n