Random Brew Recipe:   30g coffee / 1 kg water, 1 minute brew time.

Brew Method: Clever
Actual Recipe: 6g coffee, 200g water at 198F
Coffee: Honduras Las Flores from New Harvest Coffee Roasters

Notes notes notes: This coffee is thin and insidious. It opens with a somewhat round body that almost immediately fades into a long, dry finish. I suspect that these poor brews are a result of my slowed posting, some kind of cybernetic revenge emerging from the seemingly random machinations of the Random Brew Generator. It is a fickle mistress, to be certain.

There is something in the cup to indicate that it isn’t low-quality swill; it’s thin but not without some sweetness, and while unsatisfying it is certainly not actively offensive, as have many similar cups I’ve had at diners and hotels across this great nation. It is better than anything I’ve had at a free breakfast, but in a sense it is worse exactly because it hints at how good it could be if only someone had cared just a little bit more. That being said, if 30g/L for one minute (one minute!) produced this cup, it boggles the mind as to exactly how someone buying high-quality coffee could make a really aggressively bad cup. But they do!

I’d give it an 3/10.

Random Brew Recipe:  67g coffee / 1 kg water, 3 minute brew time.

Brew Method: Aeropress
Actual Recipe: 14g coffee, 200g water at 201F
Coffee: Ecuador Loja from Tonx Coffee

Notes notes notes: Thanks to Mark (@marcushundley) for sharing his Tonx!

Huge nose on this coffee, both through the grinder and in the cup. Through the grinder it was just a sweet berry, in the cup it was distinctly that thick, sweet smell of a cherry cordial. The long brew time in the Aeropress pushed it over the edge, but it still had heavy, dripping chocolate-covered cherry body and flavor. A little tart berry in the finish – I’m excited to try this coffee again with brew parameters a little closer to previous outstanding Aeropress brews.

I am very curious how this would pull as an espresso – it has the kind of flavor that is not just enjoyable, but armed with the kind of clarity and distinct nameable notes that make me immediately think of what a competition routine would look like using this bean. Probably a presentation on Ecuador and the Tonx model, direct-to-consumer coffee evolution…

I’d give it an 8/10.

Random Brew Recipe:  32g coffee / 1 kg water, 2 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 16g coffee, 500g water at 198F
Coffee: Honduras Las Flores from New Harvest Coffee Roasters

Notes notes notes: 16g is a woefully tiny amount of ground coffee in a 500mL french press. Even grinding quite fine results in a brew that just looks strange: muddy and silty as you’d expect a finely-ground french press cup, but quite light, more tan than brown. I was not looking forward to this cup.

Using a french press helped to add a little body, but the flavor itself is practically missing. It’s a hot cup of something – not water, certainly, but in a blind tasting I don’t know that I’d identify it as coffee, either. It’s present in the mouth but without any kind of acidity or actual flavor to associate with the heft. It isn’t offensive or hard to drink, but it isn’t interesting  – it isn’t much of ANYthing, really.

I’d give it an 3/10. I don’t think this recipe would work with any coffee.

Random Brew Recipe:  84g coffee / 1 kg water, 2 minute brew time.

Brew Method: Chemex
Actual Recipe: 42g coffee, 500g water at 201F
Coffee: Honduras Las Flores from New Harvest Coffee Roasters

Notes notes notes: Trying to get 500g of water through 42g of coffee takes the kind of rapidity that does not usually show itself with the slow-brew enthusiast. I will admit; the water level in my Chemex was, at times, uncomfortably high.

I really do like this coffee an awful lot. These higher-than-usual doses tend to go either one way or the other, and in an effort to (selfishly) create a more enjoyable cup, I coarsened the grind quite a bit – as well as upping the temperature just a touch, in search of a little more brightness, a bit more of the sweet aroma that was so alluring in the last session. The grinder smelled just as sweet this time – and the brew itself was overly fragrant, reminiscent of ripe blackberries.

The body is pleasant, hearty but not oily, which I would have expected with this dosage. It’s jammy and juicy, but not anywhere near the winey-fermenty notes you sometimes get with these really fruity-heavy coffees. The finish is quick and soft, belying the (flagrant!) underextraction. But, it’s a really pleasant cup.

In a brew method with a less aggressive filtration, I imagine this brew would not have been as nice. Using a Kone or French Press would have probably yielded an intensely oily body, which is a huge turn-off for me. I have my suspicions about the idea that certain coffees being better with certain brew methods – but I definitely think that different brew recipes lend themselves better or worse to certain brew methods.

I’d give it an 8/10. Not as good as a straight 60g/L for 4:00, but much more aromatic and still a nice cup.