• Beans: Colombia (Huila) – single origin
  • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
  • Origin: Colombia (Huila)
  • Roast level: Medium/Light (2/8)
  • Roast date: 4/1/2025
  • Purchase date: 4/7/2025 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
    Freeze date: 4/8/2025 or 4/9/2025
    Thaw date: 6/2/2025
    First cup: 6/5/2025
    Last cup: TBD
  • Process: Washed; Varietals: Caturra, Castillo
  • Tasting notes: Orange, caramel, milk chocolate
• V60:
  • 19g coffee / 300g water (1:15.8)
  • Ode: 4
  • Water at 100°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 cone, 40g bloom water and 50g pulses – finishes around 02:50
• Previous bag: May 2024

I bought and froze this bag in early April, so I would have some coffee in the house when we got home from our trips in April/May. I put all of the beans into a gallon freezer bag, got as much air out of it as I could, and put the bag in the basement freezer. It stayed there a little bit longer than planned, as I ended up buying a bunch of coffee in the meantime.

My first two cups were somewhat roasty and low in acidity. I brewed cup #1 at grind setting 3, and it tasted a little bit over-extracted. Setting 4 was better balanced. 1:15 was on the strong side, so I will try 1:15.8-1:16 tomorrow. Interestingly, I see that last year, I was brewing these beans at 1:14. I can’t imagine why I would want it that strong, but it could be that I’m getting better extraction using 6 pours of 50g water (vs 5 pours of 60g water), which keeps water in the cone a little longer. I was also using a different grinder then (JX), so it’s hard to compare grind sizes. My tastes have probably evolved over the past year, as well.

Final note: As of today, I am using a new scale. For the past year or so, I have had a cheap coffee scale from Greater Goods, which I liked just fine, until the tray started wobbling and giving inconsistent readings. You get what you pay for, I guess. After doing a bunch of research and comparison, I narrowed my choices down to the Timemore Basic Mini and the Mx. Cool Katze. I ended up going with the Katze. It was about twice the price of the Timemore (though still a good bit cheaper than Fellow Tally or Acaia Pearl) but the deciding factors for me were (1) it’s made in Taiwan vs China; and (2) it has a unique retracting control panel which protects the scale during storage. It seems solidly built, has some weight to it, and has a metal tray. Feature-wise, the only thing it has over the Greater Goods scale is an automatic timer for pour-over, which I have yet to try out. One of the Timemore’s selling points was a flow rate indicator, which the Katze lacks, but I’ve somehow managed to get by without one up to now, so it wasn’t a show stopper (and, surprisingly, the $190 Fellow doesn’t have one, either). The Taiwan-made Acaia would have been a strong competitor, but it had extra features I didn’t need (Bluetooth/app) which added $30 to the price tag. Overall, the Katze seemed like the best combination of price, features, and build quality. It has worked well for one cup of coffee thus far, hopefully with many more to come.

6/6: As I had suspected I would, I liked this better at around 1:16, so I’ve updated the recipe to 19g/300g.