- Beans: “Charm City Blend” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
- Roast level: Dark (6/8)
- Origin: Colombia (Sierra Nevada)
- Roast date: 8/19/24
- Purchase date: 8/20/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
- AeroPress:
- 20g coffee / 250g water
- JX: 30 (90 clicks)
- Water at 90°C
- Prismo with metal + paper filter
- Pour all 250g; stir front to back (carefully) until all grounds are wet; steep until 2:45; stir 6x; press slowly
The local grocery store has always carried these, but this is the first time I have tried them. From the description, it’s a blend of dark (Italian-roast) beans with a bunch of random lighter-roasted beans. No origin listed, as I guess it varies from bag to bag. It looks and tastes like a dark roast, so that’s how I’ve been brewing it. Grind settings 20 and 25 were too bitter, but 30 produced a fairly smooth AeroPress cup. French press with the same grind setting tasted similar. 20g coffee and 250g water just barely fits in the AeroPress cylinder in standard orientation. I probably could not brew this amount without the Prismo attachment.
8/28: AeroPress cups have been pretty consistent and smooth, with only an occasional, slight note of bitterness, but not unpleasant and not more than you’d expect from dark-roasted beans. The taste is a tiny bit reminiscent of Verona St Julien’s Breakfast Blend, which is probably my favorite among the darker roasts I’ve brewed to date. Unfortunately, though, my last two French press cups at the office have not been good. I have been using 24g coffee to 300g water (same 1:12.5 ratio as AeroPress) with the James Hoffmann French press method and grind setting 30 (again, same as AeroPress) and the cups have been unpleasantly bitter with kind of a strange aftertaste. Obviously, something needs tweaking, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to experiment much more, as it’s likely I’ll be running low on beans by the next time I come to the office. Assuming I have any left by then, I may just end up bringing the AeroPress to the office, so I can brew it the same way I do at home.
8/31: As an experiment, I brewed my past 3 cups without a paper AeroPress filter, using only the metal filter that came with the Prismo (no paper filter), and I think I prefer it this way — the cups seem to have a sweeter flavor with a richer texture/mouthfeel, at the expense of a little bit of sediment in the cup. This could be subjective, as I haven’t done a blind taste test (and don’t have enough beans left to do one now) so I’ll have to experiment a little bit more and see what types of roasts taste better without the paper filter. I suspect it may work better with darker roasts than lighter roasts, but as always, I could be wrong.