Category: Coffee

Zeke’s Charm City Blend

lpaulriddle
  • 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.

Zeke’s Colombia Sierra Nevada (bag #2)

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Colombia Sierra Nevada” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast level: Light to medium (3/8)
    • Origin: Colombia (Sierra Nevada)
    • Roast date: 7/29/24
    • Purchase date: 7/29 or 7/30/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • V60:
    • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
    • JX: 20 (60 clicks)
    • Water at 97°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 dripper
  • AeroPress:
    • 18g coffee / 250g water
    • JX: 20 (60 clicks)
    • Water at 95°C
    • Prismo with metal + paper filter
    • Pour all 250g; stir front to back 6-7x; steep until 2:45; stir again; press slowly

I bought my first bag last September, so it’s been a little while. It took a few cups to get there, but I see that I’ve settled on similar brewing parameters to last year’s bag. The last few cups have been pretty good, if not spectacularly good. I’ve been on a kick of brewing strong cups lately — most of my recent pourovers have been 22g to 300g, or about 1:13.6. I’m trying to back off that a little bit, as I think it may be negatively affecting the flavor of the cups. I brewed this morning at 20:300 (1:15), and preferred it to some of my earlier, stronger cups. If this works out, I’ll also go through coffee less quickly. 😀

8/18: I’m definitely having a bad run with V60 coffee. Not sure if something is off with my technique, or if it’s just the beans I happen to be buying. With these, everything I have been brewing has been bitter, weak, or just OK but generally unremarkable. Grind setting 20 and 95-97C water seem to produce the cups that are the least bad. The AeroPress cup I brewed today (see above) was leaps and bounds better than anything I’ve gotten from the V60. It had a nice flavor with a hint of sweetness that was totally lacking with the V60 cups. The immersion method seems to do a better job of extracting the beans. I suspect that the issue with the V60 is that the beans aren’t staying wet long enough to fully extract. I might get better results by brewing a larger volume of coffee (maybe 500-600g), or possibly using a filter that is more dense and drains more slowly (maybe Abaca?). I could also grind the beans finer, but that seems to make the coffee taste bitter. As I’ve written before, I’m curious to try a Kalita Wave dripper at some point. It has a different design which (on paper) sounds like it will result in longer immersion time with washed beans like these. Lots of potential things to try, but for now, it seems like AeroPress is the way to go with the rest of these beans.

Rise Up Guatemala Single Origin (bag #2)

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Guatemala (Single Origin)” from Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast level: Medium
    • Origin: Guatemala (Asociación Chajulense, Quiché)
    • Roast date: 7/1/24
    • Purchase date: 7/30/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • French press (good but sludgy):
    • 22g coffee / 300g water
    • JX: 25 (75 clicks)
    • Water about 20-30 seconds off boil
    • Pour about 60g bloom water and stir; steep until 0:30; top up to 300g; stir several times; steep until 6:00 to 7:00; press slowly and pour immediately
  • French press #2 (James Hoffmann method) (very good):
    • 22g coffee / 300g water
    • JX: 30 (90 clicks)
    • Water right off boil
    • Ceramic French press (preheating might be prudent in the winter, but I didn’t bother during this god-awful hot summer)
    • Pour all 300g at once, being careful to wet all of the grounds; steep until 5:00; stir a couple times; spoon foam and clumpy grounds off top; insert plunger until it rests on top of the coffee; steep 5 more minutes; pour slowly
  • V60 (not good):
    • 21g to 22g coffee / 300g water
    • JX: 15 (45 clicks)
    • Water at 95°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 dripper, preheated with insta-hot tap
  • AeroPress (OK cup):
    • 18g coffee / 250g water
    • JX: 25 (75 clicks)
    • Water at 90C
    • Prismo with metal + paper filter
    • Pour all 250g at once / stir 6x / steep until around 3:00 / stir 6x again / press slowly

I last bought these beans in April, and my notes from then suggest that I was getting inconsistent results with the V60. Today, I pre-ground 22g to take to work, with the intention of using my V60 there, but then I realized I had ground the beans coarser than I wanted (setting 25 vs 20). So, I decided to dust off the cheap plastic French press at the office. I’m not sure the bloom step was really necessary, as there was no visible bubbling or out-gassing from the grounds. The end result was a cup that was pretty good, with decent flavor and a hint of acidity, but a lot of sludge in the bottom of the mug. I’ve previously used grind setting 30 for all of my French press brews, so it may be that 25 is a little too fine. All the same, I suspect this was a better cup than I would have gotten with the same grind setting with the V60.

8/1: This morning, I brewed a cup with the ceramic size 1 V60 at grind setting 19. It drained through ridiculously fast, and the resulting cup had no body whatsoever. This afternoon, I tried setting 15, and it was much better, although it still drained relatively quickly — it was finished by 2:30. Interestingly, in my notes from April, I see that I tried setting 15 once, and it turned out bitter. This afternoon’s cup had no hint of bitterness at all. The main difference was that in April, I used a plastic size 2 V60. While my sample size is admittedly small, I’ve noticed that with everything else equal, the size 1 ceramic consistently drains faster than the size 2 plastic. Could be that these beans just need a fine grind and a fast drain-down. Of course, my next cup could prove me wrong and turn out unbearably bitter. It’s all part of the fun.

8/3: I’ve brewed several more V60 cups since 8/1, each with various tweaks to grind size and water temperature, none of them all that good. Giving up on V60 for now and sticking with immersion. Today, I decided to try James Hoffmann’s French press method, the basic steps of which I’ve listed above. The linked article has more detail. This definitely takes some time to brew, but it turned out really good, and as advertised, there was very little sludge in the cup. The opaque ceramic French press is not ideal for this method, as I couldn’t see exactly where the plunger was resting, and I also ended up with a little bit of liquid left over in the press after I thought I had poured all of it out. However, it worked well enough that I’m not going to run right out and buy a transparent French press. I think this will be a great alternative to the AeroPress on days when I have more time to brew coffee, and the French press also has a lot more brewing capacity than the AeroPress.

8/7: I have come to the conclusion that this is French press coffee, full stop. Everything I have brewed with either V60 or AeroPress has been mediocre (alternately bitter or vague/sour), and without exception, all of my French press cups have been excellent. The James Hoffmann method has been a winner with both the plastic and the ceramic French presses, and cups have been good at any ratio from 1:13.6 to 1:15 (20g to 22g grounds to 300g water).

8/8: I managed to brew a decent AeroPress cup this morning. Tried grind setting 30 with 85C water yesterday, and it tasted sour. Today, setting 25 with 90C water was better. It was not quite as good as it turns out in the French press, but a perfectly reasonable cup of coffee — not sour or bitter, and fairly balanced, if a tiny bit lacking in “personality”, for want of a better word.

Zeke’s Beans of Summer

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Beans of Summer” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast level: Light (3/8)
    • Origin: Indonesia, South America, Central America
    • Roast date: 7/8/24
    • Purchase date: 7/8 or 7/9/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • V60:
    • 21g to 22g coffee / 300g water
    • JX: 20-25 (60-75 clicks)
    • Water at 99°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 dripper
  • AeroPress:
    • 18g coffee / 250g water
    • JX: 20
    • Water at 99°C
    • Prismo + metal and 1 paper filter
    • Pour to 50g / stir to wet / bloom until 0:45 / top up to 250g / stir 5-7x front to back / steep until between 2:30 and 3:00 / stir 5-7x again / press slowly

I bought these close to the day they were roasted, and let the bag sit for 10 days or so before opening it. First cup in size 2 dripper at grind setting 20 was pretty good. Second cup at setting 19 was good as well. Started getting a little bit of bitterness at 18. Backed off to 20, and it was still bitter. Tried setting 20 in plastic size 1 dripper and later in the ceramic size 1 dripper, and both cups were good. I’ll keep it there for the time being and see how it goes.

Like most Zeke’s beans, these appear to be washed, leave very little fine residue in the grinder, and drain down quickly in the size 2 dripper and even faster in the size 1. I’m wondering if these beans are similar to Zeke’s Snow Day Blend, which required a really coarse grind in the larger dripper. Maybe the key to avoiding bitterness with these is to make sure they finish draining down by 2:20 to 2:30, which would make the coarser grind appropriate for the larger dripper.

7/26: These are starting to want a coarser grind now no matter which dripper I use. I tried setting 25 with size 2 V60 this morning, and it wasn’t bitter, but not what I would call a perfect cup either. It seemed maybe a little bit under-extracted. I wonder if it would be better if I went back to a finer grind and dropped the water temperature 10 degrees or so. I might try that this afternoon.

7/28: Ignore most of the above. It has proven challenging to get a good cup with these beans with the V60. Grind setting 20 with 90C water was bitter. Setting 30 at 100C was sour and under-extracted. I think the coarser grind is the appropriate setting for pour-over, but with the V60 (both sizes) It seems like the water is draining too quickly for proper extraction. It might turn out better if I brewed a larger quantity at a time (say 500-600g). Maybe a thicker filter would help, if such a thing exists. Or, perhaps a different style of dripper (Kalita Wave?) would give better results. For today, I switched to the AeroPress (recipe above) and it produced a much better cup than anything I’ve gotten with the V60 recently. I’ll probably stick with that until the beans are used up.

Rise Up Pura Vida

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Pura Vida” from Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast level: Light
    • Origin: Costa Rica (Finca Las Gravilias)
    • Tasting notes from web site: Complex and very well balanced; bright with hints of honey and orange citrus. Light roast, sweet cup
    • Roast date: 6/18/2024
    • Purchase date: 7/8 or 7/9/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • V60:
    • 21g to 22g coffee / 300g water
    • JX: 18 (54 clicks)
    • Water at 99°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 dripper; slow pour

I’ve been starting most of my new bags out at grind setting 20, but may switch to 18 going forward, as I seem to end up there regardless of what I’m brewing. The exception has been a couple bags of Zeke’s beans that seemed to work better with a coarser grind.

I have managed to get myself a workable pour-over setup at my office. I bought a plastic size 1 V60 cone for the office and a new coffee scale for home, and brought our old OXO food scale to the office. A couple of coworkers have electric goose-neck kettles they’ve said I could use, and we also have a cheap communal electric kettle that boils water, so there was no need for me to buy another kettle. In lieu of a grinder, I’ve been grinding the beans at home and bringing the grounds to the office. A true coffee snob might not approve, but the extra few hours between grinding and brewing doesn’t seem to make much difference with the finished product.

That all brings me to my experience with these beans: I started out at grind setting 20 and used my size 2 plastic V60, and the result was good, but not awesome. Same thing with grind setting 19. Then, I brewed a cup at work with the smaller cone (also at setting 19) and the cheap kettle. It has a regular, non-goose-neck spout, which makes it more challenging to regulate the pour rate. In spite of that, the cup tasted much better than the cup I made at home with the larger cone. So, I decided to try using my size 1 cone at home. The big difference is that it’s ceramic vs plastic, so I preheated it to avoid cooling the coffee too much during brewing. I also adjusted the grind to 18. The result was another really good cup. In general, I’ve noted that with all else equal, the size 1 V60 drains a lot faster than the size 2. These beans are no exception: with the larger cone, they finish at 2:40 to 2:50; with the smaller cone, they’re done by 2:30. With other beans, this has been a recipe for thinner-bodied cups, but these beans seem to work better with the faster drain-down. This is good to know, as it will give me something else to try with beans that I have a hard time dialing in.

LCRC Delaware Blend

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Delaware Blend” from Local Coffee Roasting Co. (Roxana, DE)
    • Roast level: Medium
    • Origin: Guatemala/Colombia
    • Tasting notes from web site: smooth/chocolatey
    • Roast date: 5/27/2024
    • Purchase date: 6/17 or 6/18/24 at Three Blonde Bakers in Bethany Beach, DE
  • V60:

I bought an 8oz bag of these along with an 8oz bag of Beach Blend. I started them off at grind setting 20, but ended up at 18 mostly by accident — I forgot to change the setting after brewing the aforementioned Beach Blend, it was still pretty good, and when I’m working on two bags at once, I always prefer when I can use the same grind setting for both. Initially, it was kind of a toss-up which of these I liked better, but as the beans have aged a little bit, I think I slightly prefer these. My recent cups have had pretty good flavor and body, while the lighter-roasted Beach Blend seems to be getting a little flat. I should probably play around with the settings a bit, but the beans are almost gone. I suspect I’ll use up both of these by the end of next week. Looking forward to next year’s Delaware trip so I can get some more.

LCRC Beach Blend

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Beach Blend” from Local Coffee Roasting Co. (Roxana, DE)
    • Roast level: Light
    • Origin: Ethiopia/Colombia
    • Tasting notes from web site: milk chocolate/strawberry
    • Roast date: 5/27/2024
    • Purchase date: 6/17 or 6/18/24 at Three Blonde Bakers in Bethany Beach, DE
  • V60:

I bought an 8oz bag of these and an 8oz bag of “Delaware Blend” in Bethany last week, but waited until I was home to open them so I could use my pour-over setup. Nice, strong cup this morning with low acidity for a light roast. There’s definitely a slight hint of fruit. When I brew my next cup (likely tomorrow) I’ll pay more attention and see if it reminds me of strawberries as advertised. 😀

Amity Costa Rica (Terrazu)

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Costa Rica (Terrazu)” from Amity Coffee Roasters (Greenwood, DE)
    • Roast level: Medium (wet process)
    • Origin: Costa Rica
    • Tasting notes from bag: clean sweetness / floral
    • Roast date: 6/11/2024
    • Purchase date: 6/16/2024 at T S Smith & Sons in Bridgeville, DE
  • AeroPress:
    • 20-21g coffee / 250g water
    • JX: 18 (54 clicks)
    • Hot water from Cuisinart machine (pretty hot but not boiling)
    • Prismo with metal and paper filters
    • Pour to 250g and stir 6-7x; steep until 2:45; stir 6-7x; press slowly, finishing up somewhere around 4:15

I have brewed this recipe 5 or 6 times now at our beach house, and the cups have been pretty consistently good. I’ll almost certainly be bringing some home, so I’ll try it in the V60 next week and see how that compares.

6/28: At home, I’ve been using the same recipe with my gooseneck kettle and 95°C water. The past few cups have been very slightly bitter. I tried dropping the temperature to 90°, but it still was not quite as good as last week’s cups. I only had about 30g of beans left, so today, I brewed all of them with the V60 (size 2) and 450g of water at 95°, and I also backed the grind off 6 clicks to setting 20. The result was a very good, smooth cup. Seems that making the grind slightly coarser is the ticket with these beans as they start to age. They were only 17 days past roast date when I used them up.

Zeke’s Colombia Huila

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Colombia (Huila)” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast level: Light (2/8)
    • Roast date: 4/20/24 or 4/28/24 (second digit of day hard to read)
    • Purchase date: 5/2/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
    • Process: washed
    • Tasting notes: Orange, caramel, milk chocolate
  • V60:
    • 21g coffee / 300g water (1:14.3)
    • JX: 18 (54 clicks)
    • Water at 99°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with slow pour

I started these at setting 19 a couple of days ago, and it seemed like it needed to be a little finer, so I went with 18 today. This was a good cup. It will be interesting to see how I need to adjust things over the next couple of weeks. Some of it depends on the actual roast date. If it was 4/28, I expect I’ll need to tweak things quite a bit; if it was 4/20, probably a little less so. A couple of the bags on the shelf clearly read 4/28, so I’m wondering if mine is actually 4/28 also, with the bottom half of the 8 chopped off. But, it could also be 4/20. Who knows?

5/11: I have settled on setting 19 for my most recent several cups, and they have been fairly consistent, with some slightly better than others, but overall pretty good. I can definitely taste a hint of orange, as advertised, and the overall roastiness balances the acidity out nicely.

Zeke’s BirdSong

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Bird Song” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast level: Medium/Dark (6/8)
    • Origin: Central and South America
    • Roast date: 4/15/24
    • Purchase date: 4/22/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • AeroPress:
    • 21-22g coffee / 250g water (1:11 to 1:12)
    • JX: 19 (57 clicks)
    • Water at 85°C
    • Prismo with metal and paper filters
    • Pour all 250g and stir 5-6x; cover and steep until 3:00; stir 5-6x; press slowly

I brewed the first few cups at 95°C. For a couple of them, I included a 45-second bloom step and steeped until 3:00; for a couple others, I skipped the bloom and steeped until 2:30. I didn’t notice much of a difference. The cups were a tiny bit on the bitter side, but not enough to be unpleasant. There was no acidity and not much in the way of complexity — more or less what you would expect from a darker roast, and not bad, but nothing to write home about, either. This afternoon, I dropped the temperature to 85°, and it made a big difference. The bitterness was gone, and the cup was rich and full-bodied. I’ll keep brewing it like this for the time being. I bet that this would also make really good French press coffee.

5/2: The past couple days’ cups were starting to taste a little bitter (right around 2 weeks past roast date), so I backed the grind off to 20 this morning. It would probably be good at anywhere from 18-20. The only issue I have with coffee brewed at 85°C is that sometimes it cools off more than I would like. Cooler cups can be good in the summertime, but a few options for a warmer cup would be:

  • Preheat the mug using water from the insta-hot or leftover hot water in the kettle. The former bothers me because it seems like it wastes water and energy. The latter seems inconvenient with the AeroPress, because once the water is heated, the brewer sits on top of the mug, unless I brew with it inverted.
  • Use an insulated mug instead of ceramic
  • Brew a stronger ratio and then dilute with hot water

5/5: I used the last of these up today. I settled on setting 19 for my last several cups, and they were pretty good.