{"id":389,"date":"2015-05-16T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T18:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=389"},"modified":"2015-10-04T11:06:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-04T16:06:28","slug":"review-red-bird-sumatra-permata-gayo-bozeman-mt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=389","title":{"rendered":"Review: Red Bird Sumatra Permata Gayo (Bozeman, Montana)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I used to drink a fair amount of Sumatran coffee, before I started branching out to explore other flavors and lighter roasts. I haven’t had a cup of Sumatra in at least a year (probably longer), so I thought\u00a0it might be nice to revisit it\u00a0with a new\u00a0roaster.<\/p>\n

Red Bird Coffee, based in Bozeman, Montana, is a small batch roaster that seems to be best known in coffee forums\u00a0for its Red Bird Espresso blend, which reportedly tastes like Snickers bars. I ordered a pound of the espresso blend at the same time as this Sumatra Permata Gayo, and I can confirm that the USPS Priority Mail box definitely smelled like Snickers!! Heavy on the peanut and chocolate\/caramel aromas.<\/p>\n

First impressions: The Sumatra whole beans didn’t really smell like chocolate, but they had depth to them. Red Bird classifies this as a “Rich Medium” roast. “Medium” doesn’t really signify anything, as different roasters will define it different ways, but these beans are a bit darker than what I’m used to seeing vs. other “medium” roasts. The coffee was\u00a0roasted long enough that oils were starting to come to the surface. The aroma strongly reminded me of the Sumatra from Peet’s Coffee, which also tends to be roasted darker than what is typical nowadays amongst craft roasters.<\/p>\n

A “medium” bean on the left*; Red Bird’s “rich medium” on the right.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0971\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(*I’m not sure\u00a0what bean this is. It’s either from Coffee del Rey or Blue Bottle!)<\/p>\n

French press: Dark but mild flavor. No fruit or flowers. Nutty taste, but in contrast to the Coffee del Rey Mexican Chiapas<\/a> beans I had recently, no chocolate flavor… tastes more earthy but thankfully not gamey\/off-putting.<\/p>\n

Chemex: Thinner in texture but otherwise has the same flavor notes as the French press cup. This coffee is sort of moody and brooding. Is it going too far to call this “Eeyore in a cup”?<\/p>\n

AeroPress: This method brought out a little spice in the finish – livened up the cup a small bit with toasty flavors.<\/p>\n

V60: Tasted kind of plasticky right off the bat but it smoothed out and I tasted toasted\u00a0almonds along with the earthiness.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong>: I think this coffee is great for dark roast fans, who want to try something a bit lighter than what they are used to if they usually drink stuff like French Roast. Sumatran coffee has a reputation for being kind of funky, but I didn’t find that with these beans – they definitely had an earthiness to them but they didn’t taste or smell weird or anything.<\/p>\n

From the roaster:\u00a0 This coffee has a smooth deep body, a cleaner taste than most Sumatras, with mild spice, remarkable sweetness and a hint of almond and berries in the finish.<\/p>\n

Red Bird Sumatra Permata Gayo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to drink a fair amount of Sumatran coffee, before I started branching out to explore other flavors and lighter roasts. I haven’t had a cup of Sumatra in at least a year (probably longer), so I thought\u00a0it might be nice to revisit it\u00a0with a new\u00a0roaster. Red Bird Coffee, based in Bozeman, Montana, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"Eeyore in a cup?!","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[19,188,3],"tags":[96,44,56,53,54,55],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_0969-e1431004191902.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":391,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=391","url_meta":{"origin":389,"position":0},"title":"Review: Red Bird Espresso (Bozeman, Montana)","date":"May 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a tasting that\u00a0I've been wanting to do for quite a while. This is the espresso blend I mentioned previously that has a reputation for tasting like Snickers (peanut, chocolate, and caramel). I have ordered these beans several times previously and enjoyed them, but this will be my first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_0970-e1431289979244.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4172,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=4172","url_meta":{"origin":389,"position":1},"title":"Review: Single O Firecracker Launch Edition, Limited Reserve Blend 2018 (Sydney, Australia)","date":"November 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I took advantage of a long layover (23 hours) in Sydney to explore the city a bit and check out its local coffee scene. Many craft coffee shops\/roasters close on the early side so I unfortunately wasn't able to make it to more than one cafe in the time I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blends"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/IMG-4388-e1541190375105.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2200,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=2200","url_meta":{"origin":389,"position":2},"title":"Review: Bird Rock Coffee Roasters Nebula Nectar Espresso Blend (San Diego, California)","date":"September 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a roaster I was pretty excited to check out (again). I had received a couple of bags of Bird Rock Coffee from my sister as a birthday present a few years back (pre-blog), and I remembered the coffee being delicious, so when I had the chance to visit San\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Espresso"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/tn_IMG_4875.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1936,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=1936","url_meta":{"origin":389,"position":3},"title":"Review: Corvus Everyman Seasonal Espresso Blend (Denver, Colorado)","date":"April 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"On a recent visit to Method Coffee\u00a0in Dallas, they had fresh bags of this in stock, so I decided to check them out. I had not previously heard of Corvus, but the independent DFW area coffee shops that I frequent have not steered me wrong yet! Poking around their Mission\u00a0page,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chemex"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/tn_IMG_3508.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5666,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=5666","url_meta":{"origin":389,"position":4},"title":"Review: Ipsento Coffee Roasters Wildfire Espresso, now known as Cascade Espresso (Chicago, Illinois)","date":"March 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Ipsento Coffee Roasters is another Chicago-area coffee roaster I wanted to visit on my trip, but when I discovered I could order fresh beans from Ipsento via Javaya, it was a no-brainer. Since I purchased this bag of Ipsento's Wildfire Espresso, they've apparently renamed the blend and are now calling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/IMG-5991-e1550451744799.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5060,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=5060","url_meta":{"origin":389,"position":5},"title":"Review: Ross Street Roasting Co. China Yunnan Province Fuyan Estate (Tama, Iowa)","date":"December 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this year, I was introduced to the lovely folks and the cool business model at Javaya - for more on them, here's my blog entry about my experience ordering through their website. They aren't a subscription model that locks you into getting shipments of coffee at pre-determined times. Rather,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Asia\/Pacific"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/IMG-5255-e1543172208333.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5QIia-6h","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389"}],"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=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1132,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/1132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}