Category: Coffee

3/15/2012 Brew

Random Brew Recipe:  65g coffee / 1 kg water, 6 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 33g coffee, 500g water at 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ El Salvador Santa Rita Chalatenango

Notes notes notes: This cup was not super aromatic – it smelled very nice, a bit fruity, but not intense or aggressive. A very nice nose (if you say things like that).

This is the first of the random brews of this coffee that really shows off the natural process without barging into intense and obvious underextraction. It’s round and sweet and exhibits a clean stonefruit through the finish that is surprising from a French Press cup. I’m really enjoying this cup!

I’d give this recipe a 9 /10. I’m surprised, as the addition of a little more coffee and 2 minutes of steep time had me suspicious of an overextracted brew – my usual press pot recipe is straight 60g/L, 4:00 – but I think this may be my new default setting. The extra dwell time also lead to a much cooler final cup, which I would have probably scowled at (heat loss! boo!), but it doesn’t seem to have impacted the taste in any negative way – which is a little surprising.

3/14/2012 Brew

Random Brew Recipe:  78g coffee / 1 kg water at 1:00 brew time

Brew Method: Hario V60 using an American Coffee Trader cloth filter
Actual Recipe: 23g coffee, 300g water @ 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ El Salvador Santa Rita Chalatenango

Notes notes notes: Using the V60, I applied the total brew time to my pour time. This doesn’t leave time for my usual bloom & wait technique, or much of anything except not overfilling the cone. I used the cloth filter knowing that it generally nudged dwell time up a bit, as well as grinding a bit finer than I usually would for this brew method (Big Espresso on a BUNN bulk grinder). 1:00 pour time, draw down finished by 1:28.

I’d give this recipe a 4 /10. It has so much less character than I would like. The interesting parts are very subtle and difficult to find, especially if I hadn’t had this coffee before. Tasting this brew combination, it isn’t surprising that people put milk and sugar in their coffee: why not? The coffee isn’t doing anything interesting on its own. Also, anecdotally, I suspect these parameters are quite close to what my mother-in-law uses with her Keurig fill-your-own-cup K-Cup.Very little in the way of aroma in this cup. I’d give it a 6.5 with no intensity on the SCAA form. It smells like coffee, but not like much coffee and certainly not the bouquet from yesterday. It is fine but not good; thin but not terribly so, with no flavors up front. It slowly ramps into a soft chocolate, a little berry (which admittedly I’m looking for). The finish is a long dry rise, bergamot-y, and not in a great way. I’ll admit, I expected this to manifest in a much more negative way toward the end, but it doesn’t have that awful dry bitterness I would have expected from these parameters.

3/13/2012 Brew

Random Brew Recipe:  96g coffee / 1 kg water, 6 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 48g coffee, 500g water at 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ El Salvador Santa Rita Chalatenango

Notes notes notes: The initial aroma was totally lovely, sweet and promising. From the get-go the coffee was a bit heavy, with a short taste experience. It had a very round body, with striking flavors of dried apricot, a bit sour around the edges. As it cooled it developed what I think of as classic underextraction notes – it became quite sour, not very complex.

I’d give this recipe a 6 /10. I’ve had this coffee before and really enjoyed it. The combination of 50% more coffee than I’d usually use and a 50% longer steep time didn’t work out in the bean’s favor. I can see this recipe working with perhaps a bean which is quite far out of the roaster or has lost some flavor due to long green storage, but for a coffee under more ideal circumstances I don’t think it shines.

First

This blog will be mostly about coffee: some parts will be about education and community building, but mostly coffee. It’s what I know and enjoy, and I hope to keep learning and enjoying.

Part of this blog is my record of brewing using David Walsh’s brilliant Random Brew Recipe Generator. I’m excited to see how coffee outside my own usual parameters works out.

I hope you like it.

– SAO