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Early April Run Notes
The weather early this spring has been like a roller coaster: warm and humid one day, cold and windy the next, rinse, repeat. We’ve had 3 days where it has gotten up into the 80s, followed by a couple of days in the 50s and 60s, and today we were back up near 80. Next…
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Zeke’s Black & Orange Blend
I’m finally all caught up with coffee notes. I’m actually still near the beginning of this bag. As I remember, I’m going to try to start noting the date I brewed my first and last cup of each bag along with roast and purchase dates. That will give me a better sense of freshness to…
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Gracefully Colombian Decaf
This is another pretty good decaf. It’s definitely on par with the offerings from Brewing Good and Rise Up, and I’ll likely cycle through these (depending on availability/freshness; Rise Up can be hit-or-miss around here) until another local competitor comes along. The grounds draw down fairly slowly, though not as slowly as the Brewing Good…
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Black Acres Seya Blend
I’m a little behind with writing this up, as I finished the bag last week. I kept the bag around so that I could record the roast date, but can’t find it at the moment. When it turns up, I’ll update the post. These beans have a relatively slow draw-down time. I brewed almost all…
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Gracefully Papua New Guinea
I first brewed these with pretty typical settings: grind 3, 95C water, 60g pulses. The first couple of cups were good, but then I started getting sour/under-extracted cups. The beans draw down pretty quickly, finishing up at 2:30-2:35, which I’ve often found isn’t enough time to get everything fully extracted. In the past, when I’ve…
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New Tires
My trusty Surly Disc Trucker had been out of commission for about a month due to a flat rear tire. Normally, a flat wouldn’t result in that much downtime, but I was out of patches, and didn’t have any spare tubes to fit. The two tubes I had that were the correct size had Schrader…
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Gracefully Clumsy Girl
This was my first time visiting this small local roaster. I first had their coffee at Evergrain Bread Co. in Chestertown, and enjoyed it. I think it was this one, but there’s a small chance it was Jamberry, one of their other popular roasts. They don’t classify this in terms of “light, medium, or dark…
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Winter Biking Update
It has been a very slow winter for biking. Sub-optimal trail conditions kept me off the MTB for most of January and February. I tried to ride last week after about 48 hours of above-freezing temperatures, but the trails were still extremely muddy from the freeze-thaw cycle — about the worst I had ever seen…
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Late Winter Running Notes
Winter is almost over, but you wouldn’t know it this year. 2024-2025 has been one of the longest, coldest winters in recent memory. We’ve also had more snow than usual by recent standards, although compared to years like 2010 and 2016, it hasn’t been too much. All told, I’m not going to complain. We’ve got…
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Brewing Good Decaf Ethiopia
This is very different from the Ethiopian light roast that I bought at BG at the same time. It is a smooth medium roast with no hint of acidity. Definitely not as complex as the light roast, but nice body and overall a very drinkable decaf. The beans have one of the slowest draw-down times…