• Roaster: Sun Bear Specialty Coffee Roasters (St. Petersburg, FL)
• Purchase date (both bags): 3/22/2026 from Sun Bear café inside Sans Market, St Petersburg, FL
• Both bags 12oz/340g
• Bag 1:
  • Origin: Ethiopia (Guji, Oromia); Farm: Mr. Girum Girma
  • Roast level: Light
  • Roast date: 3/16/2026
  • Process: Natural; Varietals: Heirloom, Ethiopian Varieties; Altitude: 1500-2000 MASL
  • First cup: 3/22 or 3/23/2026; last cup:
  • Tasting notes: Pecan, jasmine, apricot
• Bag 2:
  • Origin: Peru (Cajamarca); Farm: Women Lima Coffee
  • Roast level: Light
  • Roast date: 3/17/2026
  • Process: Washed; Varietals: Catimor, Caturra, Bourbon, Typica; Altitude: 1600-1900 MASL
  • First cup: 3/23 or 3/24/2026; last cup:
  • Tasting notes: Jasmine, nutmeg, lemon zest
• Pour-over with Ode grinder:
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • Ode: 5
  • Water at 100°C
  • Size 2 V60
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses. Finishes around 03:30-03:45

I always try to buy some locally-roasted coffee when I’m out of town. There are a bunch of roasters in the greater Tampa/St Petersburg area, but most of the local, non-chain roasters didn’t have retail hours on weekends. Fortunately, I was able to find Sun Bear, which was only 20 minutes from my hotel in light traffic, and had a café inside a small zero-waste grocery store that was open Sundays. They specialize in single-origin light roasts.

Brewing these has been educational. The beans are roasted more lightly than anything else I’ve brewed in recent memory, and are quite dense. I opened the Ethiopia bag first. I like to grind most Ethiopian beans on the finer side (usually with good results), so I started these at Ode setting 2. The grounds took longer than 4 minutes to draw down, and the end result was not very good. There was a little bit of muted fruitiness, but it was dulled by a kind of wooden roasty flavor. I guess now I know what over-extracted light roast coffee tastes like. Yesterday, I backed the grind off to setting 5, which sped the draw-down up by around 30 seconds. It was kind of like taking a veil off: the cup was much brighter and flavor-forward.

Things went similarly with the Peru beans, except I started them at setting 3. The draw-down was a tiny bit faster (it finished at about 4 minutes on the nose), but the result was similar. Actually, initially, I would have been hard-pressed to tell which of these was which. Backing the grind off to setting 5 once again made a big difference, and really brought out the lemon zest flavor.

I may adjust the grind a little bit coarser still with one or both of these, because ideally, I think I’d like them to finish brewing by 03:30. But whatever the case, this has gotten me thinking more about how I approach brewing light roasts. That being said, most beans I’ve bought in the past that are sold as “light roasts”, have been roasted darker than these. Everything is subjective, I guess.

4/5: I think I’ve got the Peru beans dialed in at grind setting 5 with the size 2 plastic V60. With these settings, the brew has been finishing just past 03:30, and the cups have been pretty good. The Ethiopia beans have proven more challenging. I’ve gone all the way to grind 7, but the brew time has still been slow, and in spite of that, grind 6 and 7 have both tasted under-extracted. Today, on a whim, I tried grind 5 with my size 1 ceramic V60, and it finished brewing just past 03:00, which is a full minute faster than with plastic. The cup was under-extracted, but with the faster brew time, I should be able to grind the beans finer now. Next time, I think I’ll try grind 3 with ceramic, and see how that turns out.

• Beans: BirdSong (blend), 16oz
  • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
  • Origin: Americas
  • Roast level: Medium/dark (6/8)
  • Roast date: 3/2/2026
  • Purchase date: 3/15/2026 from Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
    Freeze date (partial bag): 3/15/2026
    First cup: 3/16/2026; Last cup:
  • Process: n/a (blend)
  • Tasting notes: none listed on bag
• V60 with Ode grinder:
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • Ode: 4
  • Water at 95°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes 02:30-02:40
• AeroPress with JX grinder:
  • 18g coffee / 250g water (1:14)
  • JX: 16
  • Water at 95°C
  • Travel AeroPress Recipe with 45s bloom; steep until 02:45
• Switch with Ode grinder:
  • 22g coffee / 330g water or 20g/300g (1:15) — OK but maybe a little thin
  • 21g coffee / 300g water (1:14.3) — strong and full-bodied
  • Ode: 5
  • Water at 95°C
  • Close drain / pour to 66g and agitate / bloom until 0:45 / top up to 330g and swirl several times / steep until 03:15 / open drain; finishes at around 04:00

I froze about 12oz of this immediately after buying it, and am currently working on brewing up the beans I didn’t freeze. The first V60 cup I brewed (Ode grind 4, 95°C water, 1:15) was good, but the subsequent cups left a lot to be desired. I’ve brewed one cup with the AeroPress thus far (this afternoon) and it was leaps and bounds better than the V60 cups, though 1:14 was a little on the strong side. As with a lot of Zeke’s beans, the water drains through the V60 very quickly, even at rather fine grinds, which seems to lead to under-extracted cups. I think this is partially due to the method Zeke’s uses to roast their beans, which removes a lot of the chaff and fine bits that tend to hold the water in the cone longer. The upshot of that is that immersion brewing tends to produce better-extracted cups than percolation. It might make sense to skip the V60 altogether and start off my next bag of Zeke’s with the Switch or AeroPress instead.

This is my second bag of the BirdSong blend, but I had not had it in about 2 years. It looks like I brewed that entire bag with the AeroPress, but I used a coarser grind, a much stronger ratio (I seemed to brew everything at 1:12 to 1:13 back then), and cooler water. I’m not sure why I felt like I had to make it so strong, as now, it seems plenty strong and roasty at 1:14. I may actually back most of my subsequent AP cups off to 1:15.

3/26: The Switch recipe above tasted pretty similar to yesterday’s AeroPress cup, so I think I’ll use it going forward for any more cups that I brew at home. That’s the last of the beans that I didn’t initially freeze.

4/4: Switch at 1:15 seemed a little thin after a few 1:14 AeroPress cups. This afternoon, I tried 300g/21g (1:14.3) and I think I prefer it at the stronger ratio. It’s quite different from the light roasts I’ve been brewing in the morning — if this was beer, it’d be kind of like going from a light fruited ale/lager to a porter or stout.

• Beans: Into the Light (blend)
  • Roaster: Brewing Good Coffee Company (Savage, MD)
  • Origins: Varies seasonally
  • Roast level: Light
  • Roast date: 2/3/2026
  • Purchase date: 2/19/2026 from BGCC in Savage Mill
  • First cup: Around 3/3/2026; last cup: 3/22/2026
  • Tasting notes: Ripe strawberry, brown sugar
• Switch with Ode grinder:
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • Ode: 6
  • Water at 100°C
  • Rinse filter; close drain; pour to 60g, agitate, and steep until 0:45; top up to 300g and swirl; steep until 03:30; open drain
• AeroPress with Prismo and JX grinder:
  • 1 heaping AeroPress scoop of beans (about 17g)
  • JX: 20
  • Hotel room tap water heated 3 minutes in small microwave (pretty hot, but not quite at boil)
  • Metal and paper filters
  • Travel AeroPress Recipe

This is one of BGCC’s year-round house blends, so the specific beans used will vary seasonally. While this particular batch doesn’t knock my socks off, it’s a perfectly good cup of coffee, with light body and just a hint of acidity. I first tried it with the V60 and Ode grind setting 2 (rather fine), but did not care for how it turned out — it just seemed a little flat. The Switch recipe above brought out more body and flavor, and that’s how I’m going to continue brewing this at home. I suspect it would also make good French press coffee, and there’s a good chance I’ll be trying a few cups in the AeroPress as well.

3/17 (happy St. Patrick’s Day): The Switch has definitely been a winner with this blend. I’ve brewed several cups with it, and all have been nicely balanced with just the right amount of acidity. A few of the cups were 300g/20g, and a few were 360g/24g.

3/22: I have brewed 4 cups with the AeroPress so far. The first two, at JX grind setting 16, were on the bitter side, but setting 20 has turned out pretty good. I’ll brew one more cup tomorrow to finish up the bag.

• Beans: Indonesia (West Java)
  • Roaster: Brewing Good Coffee Company (Savage, MD)
  • Origin: Rawabogo, West Java, Indonesia
  • Roast level: Medium
  • Roast date: 2/3/2026
  • Process: Washed; Varietals: Catimor, Tim Tim, Typica; Altitude: 1350m
  • Purchase date: 2/19/2026 from BGCC in Savage Mill
  • First cup: 2/28/2026; last cup: 3/15/2026
  • Tasting notes: Full-bodied and vibrant, medium sweetness with mellow acidity, notes of chocolate, black grape, papaya, and toffee
• Pour-over with Ode grinder:
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • Ode: 4 → 3+2 → 4+1 → 5
  • Water at 99°C
  • Size 2 V60
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses. Finishes around 02:55

From the bag: “This lot originates from a collection of 52 small farms in Rawabogo, a village in West Java known for its high-altitude coffee production and freshwater springs. Wet-hulling is the usual processing method in Indonesia, but this coffee is fully washed. The ripe cherries are pulped within 6 hours of harvest, dry-fermented for around 16 hours, thoroughly washed, then patio dried for 10-12 days, until the optimum moisture content is reached.”

This will likely be my morning cup for the next week or two. I brewed my first 3 or 4 cups at grind setting 4, and nudged it a tiny bit finer this morning. It’s definitely a full-bodied brew, with the chocolate/toffee notes outweighing any acidity/fruitiness. Most Indonesia coffees I’ve brewed seem to like a coarser grind than this one, and I’m wondering if it’s because of the washed vs wet-hulled processing. It will be interesting to see if I end up making any further adjustments as I work my way through the bag.

3/13: I’m finding myself nudging the grind coarser as the beans age. I probably should have paid more attention to my own notes (here, here, and here), and started these at grind 5 right out of the gate. One of these days, I’ll learn, but who knows how many more bags of Indonesian beans it will take to sink in. 🤣

• Beans: Mighty Forces (blend)
  • Roaster: Gracefully Coffee Roasters (Baltimore, MD)
  • Origin: Sumatra, Colombia, Mexico
  • Roast level: Medium/Dark
  • Roast date: 2/4/2026
  • Purchase date: 2/10/2026 from Gracefully curbside café
  • First cup: 2/14 or 2/15/2026; last cup: 3/13/2026
  • Tasting notes: Cocoa, honey, cinnamon apple
• V60 with Ode grinder:
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • Ode: 3
  • Water at 95°C
  • Size 2 cone
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses. Finishes around 03:00
• AeroPress with JX Grinder:
  • 17g coffee / 250g water (1:14.7)
  • JX: 16
  • Water at 99°C
  • Travel AeroPress Recipe with Prismo and one paper filter
• Switch with Ode grinder:
  • 21.2g coffee / 315g water
  • Ode: 4
  • Water at 99°C
  • Close drain / pour 60g and agitate / bloom until 0:45 / pour to 315g and stir several times / steep until 3:00 / open drain

This is another blend where the specific beans used seem to vary depending on what is available at different times of year. The bag pictured on the web site, the web site description, and the actual bag in my possession, all show slightly different bean blends, although they all have Sumatra and Colombia in common. The coffee itself is just as advertised: bold and roasty. The AeroPress, in particular, produced a really nice, smooth, strong cup. This will probably be my office coffee for the next 2 or 3 weeks.

3/1: My favorite cups to date have come from the AeroPress. Today, I tried it in the Switch, and got a fairly close approximation. It was actually my second try with the Switch: the first time around, I used 95C water, and the coffee cooled too fast. It worked out better with 99C water, but I think next time I will also preheat the Switch. I have enough beans left to brew one more cup like this, and 4 more at the office in the AeroPress, which will take me right up to Spring Break.

3/13: AeroPress is definitely the winner with this blend. I preferred the AP cups to both V60 and Switch. My initial notes listed a water temperature of 95, but I have brewed most of my recent cups at 99, so I adjusted the above recipe accordingly.

• Beans: Colombia Nariño
  • Roaster: Gracefully Coffee Roasters (Baltimore, MD)
  • Origin: Colombia (Cooperativa de Cafés Especiales de Nariño, Alvaro Gomez)
  • Roast level: Medium
  • Roast date: 2/4/2026
  • Process: Washed
  • Purchase date: 2/10/2026 from Gracefully curbside café
  • First cup: 2/12/2026; last cup: 2/27/2026
  • Tasting notes: Peach, pear, sugar cane
• Pour-over with Ode grinder:
  • 19g or 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15.8 – 1:15)
  • Ode: 2 → 3
  • Water at 99°C → 100°C
  • Size 2 V60
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses. Finishes around 03:00

I lucked out with the timing, and was able to pick up a bag of this microlot coffee last week. I’ve now brewed 4 or 5 cups of it. It is definitely very fruit/acid forward, and I’m finding that, at least for the moment, I like it best at 1:16. At 1:15, it was kind of like a little too much of a good thing. Someone posted on Facebook that it turned out really good with immersion (using a Clever Dripper) so I may try brewing it in the Switch to see how that compares.

2/25: After my initial entry, I ended up going back to 1:15 for most of my cups. Eventually, it started tasting a little bit over-extracted at grind setting 2, so today, I backed off to 3. With a little over 90g of beans left, I brewed a larger cup (345g/23g) and it was very nicely balanced. I’ll brew 3 more like today’s, and that will use the beans up.

• Beans: Uganda (single origin; Arabica; 12oz)
  • Roaster: Tehila Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
  • Origin: Uganda
  • Roast level: Medium
  • Roast date: Unknown
  • Process: Washed
  • Purchase date: 11/29/2025 at 12th Annual Sykesville Holiday Market in Westminster, MD
    Freeze date: week of 12/1/2025
    Thaw date: 2/2/2026
  • First cup: 2/3/2026; last cup: 2/13/2026
  • Tasting notes: Earthy (aroma)/Fruity/Chocolate
• Pour-over with Ode grinder:
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • Ode: 2
  • Water at 99°C
  • Size 2 V60 or Size 3 Switch
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses. Switch: bloom with drain closed, open drain at end of bloom – finishes around 03:15

My wife picked a bag of this up at the Sykesville Holiday Market back in late November. From the roaster’s Facebook page: “I’m a specialty coffee artisan devoted to crafting coffee with purpose and passion. Every bean we source is hand-selected for its flavor, quality, and story — because great coffee starts at the origin and deserves to be honored all the way to the cup.” I brewed one or two cups around the end of November, but didn’t take any notes. I then froze the rest, as I was about to go out of town, and had a surplus of beans at the time. To make a long story short, I finally took them out of the freezer yesterday. I brewed them with the same settings I used for a recent bag of Tanzania Peaberry beans, and it was a good cup. It had a smooth, round mouthfeel and good body. As with a couple of other African coffees I’ve brewed, I didn’t detect much fruitiness, in spite of the stated tasting notes. I’m wondering if a different brew method would bring more of those out. I might try a cup or two in the Switch, but probably won’t experiment much more beyond that.

2/5: Tried the Switch this morning, with drain closed for bloom phase (3x coffee weight for 45 seconds) and then pour-over with drain open. I think I liked it a little better than straight V60. Hard to put a finger on it, but with some African coffees, the full-immersion bloom step seems to do something to bring out a slight amount of acidity/complexity. Of course, it’s also possible that I’m imagining things.

2/13: I ended up brewing all of my subsequent cups with the Switch, and all of them were smooth with just a tiny hint of acidity. My final cup was a little bit stronger, as I had 21g beans left, and forgot to add extra water to keep it at 1:15. I liked this a lot, and I wonder if I’ll have an opportunity to buy the beans again at some point. I get the sense that it’s a one-person roasting operation.

• Beans: Big Trouble (blend)
  • Roaster: Counter Culture Coffee (Durham, NC/Emeryville, CA)
  • Origins: 75% Valle Inca, Peru / 25% Segovia, Nicaragua
  • Roast level: Medium/dark (8/10)
  • Roast date: 12/23/2025
  • Purchase date: 1/1/2026 at Atwater’s in Catonsville, MD
  • First cup: 1/11 or 1/12/2026; last cup: 1/26/2026
  • Tasting notes: Caramel/nutty/”round”
• V60 with Ode grinder:
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • Ode: 3 → 2
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes around 03:00

CC is a large roaster with nationwide distribution (they also brew a house blend for Atwater’s, and I’ll be trying that out in the next day or so). With this particular blend, they try to keep the taste consistent, which means the specific beans used will vary depending on what is available at certain times of year. I get the feeling that this is fairly common practice, but I suspect that larger roasters have kind of an advantage here, because they can source larger volumes of beans and do more experimentation to try to tweak the taste profile. I do like that they label the bags with the specific ratio of each type of bean used. “Roast level” is fairly subjective, but I’d call this more of a medium roast than medium/dark. As of this writing, I’m still using my initial brew settings, and I think that the stated tasting notes are pretty accurate. It is nutty with low acidity and medium body — a pretty good cup of coffee if that’s what you’re after.

1/26: This was starting to taste under-extracted towards the end of the bag, so I brewed the last couple of cups at grind 2, and that was an improvement.

• Beans: Tanzania Peaberry (single origin)
  • Roaster: Rafiki Exchange (Mount Dora, FL)
  • Origin: Arusha, Tanzania
  • Roast level: Medium
  • Roast date: Unknown
  • Purchase date: Unknown (received as gift)
  • First cup: 1/2/2026; last cup: 1/11/2026
  • Tasting notes: Dates, cinnamon, molasses
• V60 with Ode grinder:
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • Ode: 2
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 2 cone, 60g bloom water and 60g pulses – finishes around 03:00

This is the first single-origin Tanzanian Peaberry that I’ve brewed. I’ve previously only had it as part of a blend (specifically, Zeke’s Snow Day Blend). I couldn’t find much info about this particular roast, either online or on the bag: just origin, roast level, and tasting notes. I’m not sure if it’s roasted on-site at the exchange in Mount Dora, or elsewhere, and there’s no roast date (or even a “best by” date) on the bag. None of that particularly matters, though, because the coffee is really good. It has a very pleasant balance of body and sweetness with low acidity. Like a lot of African coffee, it seems to work best with a fine grind. I tried settings 4 and 3 on the Ode before settling on 2.

1/11: The last several cups of this were fine, but didn’t seem quite as good as the first half of the bag. I’m not sure why exactly, but this is definitely not the first bag where I’ve noticed this. I wonder how much of it is actual changes to the beans (outgassing/etc, which might benefit from slightly tweaking the recipe) or just my own taste buds, as I’ve noticed that I tend to get “tired” of drinking the same coffee after 10 cups or so. I suspect it’s a combination of both.