Random Brew Recipe:  71g coffee / 1 kg water, 5 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 36g coffee, 500g water at 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ Ethiopia Gera Jimma

Notes notes notes: These settings provided an interesting cup for me.

Aroma-wise, there is a subtle brown sugar sweetness, which is light and pleasant. The coffee itself has that very present body you would expect from a French Press, but the flavor is thin and relatively simple. It is a quick flavor experience, with some simple acidity leading into a sweet, quick finish. It’s a fine coffee, but it’s surprisingly unsatisfying. Here’s why:

– These settings are quite close to a brew last week that was very good, albeit with a different coffee.
– The combination of a relatively high does and relatively long brew time in a French Press challenges my assumptions about coffee extraction and flavor notes.

When I consider how the spectrum of coffee extraction affects the flavor of the resulting brew, I usually associate thinness and astringent finish with overextraction, whereas a quick flavor experience, sour initial flavors, and oily body with underextraction. These general rules seem to work pretty well with espresso and drip brewing, but full-immersion brewing is more challenging for me. That is, a drip brew’s later extraction is necessarily associated with the passage of additional water – meaning that the thin body may be caused by the additional water rather than by drawing out thinning agents (thinning agents?)  from the bean itself.

With immersion brewing, I need to adjust my thinking, and consider perhaps surface area more. Time to revisit Everything But Espresso again!

I’d give this brew a 6 / 10.

• Coffee