{"id":6660,"date":"2025-03-21T20:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T01:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=6660"},"modified":"2025-03-21T20:00:49","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T01:00:49","slug":"review-heart-coffee-roasters-ethiopia-habtamu-fikadu-portland-oregon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=6660","title":{"rendered":"Review: Heart Coffee Roasters Ethiopia Habtamu Fikadu (Portland, Oregon)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Coffees from Ethiopia, and specifically from the Yirgacheffe region, have been a go-to for me for years, so I was interested to see what these beans via Heart had to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whole beans: Subtle and sweet aroma of berries and gentle florals. On a scale of 1-10 in terms of how fragrant the beans were, I’d say about a 3? I waited for a bit over 4 weeks to break into this bag based on my last bag from Heart<\/a>, but my coffee experience did still seem kind of muted, which did carry over into the drinking phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French press: Rich body, but there wasn’t much evidence of the berry\/floral notes I smelled in the beans (whole and ground). There was a bit of acidity and juiciness on the finish which seemed more pronounced after I tasted these beans in the other methods. This overall was my favorite cup from this tasting, just because I thought it had the most flavor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chemex: More muted, less bright and lively than the French press cup. Not very interesting, if I’m honest. I was disappointed, as I’m used to coffees from Ethiopia being layered and complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hario V60: This was slightly better and more florally fragrant than the Chemex cup, but there was still little to no acidity or brightness in this brewed coffee. It’s my second-favorite brewing method for these beans, but a distant second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clever Dripper: Worst of the lot – when I raised this coffee to my mouth, the smell was exactly like the smell of the steam function of an iron. ?? It didn’t smell bad, exactly, but clean laundry isn’t exactly what I was hoping for! There was virtually no flavor in the coffee either – I might have to troubleshoot and overhaul my Clever Dripper brewing technique because it’s the second time in recent weeks that I’ve tried a new coffee in it and been seriously underwhelmed with the lack of flavor in the brew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summary<\/strong>: Not a bad coffee, but not something I got super excited about either. Everything seemed curiously flat and relatively flavorless. Based on my tasting of the Heart Ethiopia Mullugeta Muntasha<\/a>, I thought that doing a tasting 4 weeks post-roast would be better than doing one earlier. However, I still don’t feel like I’ve unlocked the flavor potential in these beans. Perhaps I waited too long? The French press cup was the best of the lot, tasting a little like a lavender lemonade, but overall this bag wasn’t something I’d go out of my way to purchase again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the roaster: raspberry, white grape, rose<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This coffee is no longer available on Heart’s website but here is a link to their online store<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Review conducted 33 days post-roast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coffees from Ethiopia, and specifically from the Yirgacheffe region, have been a go-to for me for years, so I was interested to see what these beans via Heart had to offer. Whole beans: Subtle and sweet aroma of berries and gentle florals. On a scale of 1-10 in terms of how fragrant the beans were, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"Slightly underwhelming tasting experience - best cup had a hint of lavender lemonade to it, while the worst smelled like a steam iron (?!). ","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[7,159,3,154],"tags":[52,288,210,177,89,218,324],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/IMG_9622-scaled.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3044,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=3044","url_meta":{"origin":6660,"position":0},"title":"Review: Heart Coffee Roasters Panama Geisha Hacienda la Esmeralda (Portland, Oregon)","date":"April 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a coffee I was absolutely salivating to try as soon as I saw an email alert that it was available! The first Geisha coffee I ever reviewed for this blog was from Square One Coffee Roasters, and it was their Panama La Esmeralda Boquete. It was my top-ranked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Central America"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/tn_IMG-1689-e1522429168592.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6641,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=6641","url_meta":{"origin":6660,"position":1},"title":"Review: Heart Coffee Roasters Ethiopia Mullugeta Muntasha (Portland, Oregon)","date":"March 2, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a while since I've had the motivation to review a coffee... life has been busy and to be quite honest, I've been drinking coffee mostly out of necessity rather than enjoyment. There's a certain amount of mental energy I need to have available in order to analyze what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Africa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/IMG_9623-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":605,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=605","url_meta":{"origin":6660,"position":2},"title":"Review: Victrola Ethiopia Yirgacheffe “YIRGZ” (Seattle, Washington)","date":"June 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"My first experience with Victrola's beans was their Kenya Nyeri Tambaya Peaberry, which was NOT a favorite of mine, but I have heard enough good things about this roaster that I decided that I needed to pick up a different bag of theirs while in Seattle.\u00a0I am fond of washed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/tn_IMG_1090.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3232,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=3232","url_meta":{"origin":6660,"position":3},"title":"Review: Square Mile Coffee Roasters Ethiopia Mormora (London, England)","date":"August 29, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I believe I first heard of Square Mile Coffee Roasters back when I used to do a lot of browsing on the CoffeeGeek forums, to do research for notable roasters and to gather advice for what kind of grinder and espresso machine I should invest in. I don't have a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Africa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/IMG-3152-e1535580236961.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":815,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=815","url_meta":{"origin":6660,"position":4},"title":"Review: Lift Coffee Ethiopia Kochere (Riverside, California)","date":"July 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is another selection from Craft Coffee. This coffee reminded me a lot of the Three Ships Konga Ethiopia Yirgacheffe\u00a0that I reviewed back in March. Both are natural-processed Ethiopian heirloom varietals, and the beans are quite lightly roasted and smaller than typically\u00a0seen. Whole beans: Bright, juicy berry aroma. It smells\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Africa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/tn_IMG_1116.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2476,"url":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/?p=2476","url_meta":{"origin":6660,"position":5},"title":"Review: Cartel Coffee Lab Ethiopia Kochere (Phoenix, Arizona)","date":"January 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"When you think of airport coffee, you probably think of Starbucks, right? Well, if you ever find yourself in the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, make your way over to Terminal 4 to visit Cartel Coffee Lab's PHX location. As is typical when I travel somewhere new, when I arrived\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AeroPress"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coffeecantata.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/tn_IMG_5443-e1484600390204.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5QIia-1Jq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6660"}],"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=6660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6664,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6660\/revisions\/6664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coffeecantata.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}