Our Blends and Single Origin Selections, Roasted for Espresso
Some months ago when we introduced our regular roasted "coffee pairings" we stopped offering roasted espresso and roasted decaf. We think that the roasted coffee pairings are working out well; customers enjoy the differences between the two coffees, giving access to great small-lot coffees from around the world.
Now we are bringing back roasted espresso! We will offer one Espresso Workshop blend and one Standard blend for sale each week. Or maybe it will be a Single Origin espresso, or two Workshop blends – we'll see what strikes us. We plan to roast the coffee weekly and keep it in stock as an inventory item – so you can add the coffee to an existing order and it all ship together. Our reasoning is this: roasted espresso stays fresher longer, and the flavor will change as the coffee sits. Generally, even with the lighter roast style I am doing now on espresso, I will not get the most out of the coffee until the third or even fourth day out of the roaster. We will post the roast date on the coffee, and have enough fresh espresso on hand to fill orders as they come in.
Recently, we divided our green coffee blend offerings into Standards, blends we maintain and consistently offer, and new Espresso Workshop editions. These later "editions" are blends designed around specific lots; the blends will last only as long as their unique ingredients last, and then they are gone. Instead of maintaining the blend and making ingredient substitutions down the line, the Espresso Workshop editions follow the crop cycle of the coffee; they come and go. We also will insert specific unblended, Single Origin coffees in our espresso roast rotation.
Our roast style for espresso is light, what has come to be called West Coast Espresso in forums and blogs lately. These are roast levels that have not reached 2nd crack, and produce a clean, bright, lively cup, without the carbony, tarry flavors some people associate out of habit with espresso. So be forewarned! If you are accustomed to espresso roasts as black, shiny blobs of coal, you won't like our roast. If you are excited to see what other flavors are possible in espresso, then the Espresso Workshop selections might interest you.
If
you roast your own, you might want to cup your roasts versus those done
on the gas-fired German Probat with our profile tailored to espresso, and compare the "degree
of roast"
we have chosen for the specific coffees to your own. If you don't roast
at home, well ... here's the next best thing!
We have a new Sweet
Maria's Roasted Coffee Weblog where we discuss the why and
how of each week's selection ... and you can make comments too. It serves as an archive for previous roast sessions, so you can go back to review our comments, versus your findings.
If you're interested in roasted coffee for drip brewing, check out our Roasted Coffee Pairings.
Roasted espresso offerings:
Espresso Workshop #8 - Waw, Bukan Main! (roasted on 2009-11-04) - $12 (1# ship wgt)
They might say Waw in Sumatra but I say Wow! This is my personal favorite workshop blend so far. I roasted this just to the verge of second crack without ever entering it and the result is a sweet and mellow shot. Wonderful notes of dates, cinnamon, and rich chocolate make this ideal for straight shots, or milk drinks. -Josh
Sweet Maria's Espresso Monkey Blend (roasted on 2009-11-04) - $12 (1# ship wgt)
Our signature blend with a balanced profile, rustic fruit notes and semi-sweet chocolate. This batch was roasted to Full City+ with a few snaps of second crack but nowhere near rolling.
Espresso Workshop #8 - Waw, Bukan Main!
It has been a while since we have integrated a Sumatra component into espresso, for several reasons. Coffees from Aceh in the North can be great in espresso, offering bass note bittersweets, and thick body as a backdrop for other flavors. But finding the right Sumatra, and one with consistent and uniform processing can still be quite a challenge. We have very well-prepared lots from the Toba-Batak area, but much of Aceh is still sold as bulk Mandheling Grade One, with not enough care put into harvest, wet-hull processing (Giling Basah) or drying and final preparation. With this blend, I found a Sumatra I really felt would work, clean yet deep-toned, and consistent from cup to cup. In fact, this coffee had me so excited when I finally honed in on the final recipe and pulled test shots, the expression "Waw, Bukan Main!" came to mind ... that's what I heard an Indo cupper say when he tasted a really nice coffee, back on my last Sumatra trip. So breaking with all our audio-phonic and geologic name schemes, I had to interject "Waw, Bukan Main!" into the orderly (!) progression of our Espresso Workshop lot-specific blend project. And this cup really isn't about Sumatra flavor profile either, that really lays low, as a backdrop for fruited tones in the cup. This coffee works well at lighter and darker roast levels, anywhere from City++ to Full City+ or light Vienna. It is a complex espresso with great bass to tenor range and an overlay of fruited bright notes. The dry fragrance from the grounds is very sweet, with jammy fruit notes, plum, fig, tamarind, raisin. The crema from the shot has a date sugar sweetness, and zesty nutmeg and cinnamon scent, which comes through in the finish as well. It's such a nicely fruited cup, with rich chocolate bittering notes and tannic tightness in the finish, but much sweeter up front. There is an amazing syrupy character and if you nail the degree of roast, just a few snaps into 2nd and no more, it's a blackberry syrup you will extract here (with 8.5 bars pressure, 203 f temp at start of shot). Darker roast deliver a compact flavor with a more tannic edge to it, and an intense chocolate tang in the finish. Lighter roasts, just at the edge of 2nd, can be surprisingly bright, but have great dimension from high fruited berry notes to deep chocolate layers.
Our 8th workshop blend; Waw! Bukan Main! An Indo expression for Wow, Impressive!
Country:Blend; a mix of origin countries
Grade:Top grades
Region:A mix of areas
Mark:SM Espresso Edition #8
Processing:Various processes.
Crop:September 2009 Arrival
Appearance:.2 d/300gr, 17-18 screen
Varietal:Various
Intensity/Prime Attribute:Bold Intensity / Syrupy body, blackberry fruited notes, nutmeg, layers of fruit and chocolate, long bittersweet aftertaste.
Roast:This coffee works well at lighter and darker roast levels, anywhere from City++ to Full City+ or light Vienna. I prefer it just a few snaps into 2nd crack, no more. Note that Sumatra component looks lighter in surface color than it truly is at this degree of roast.
Compare to:It is a complex espresso with great bass to tenor range and an overlay of fruited bright notes. If there are light "quaker" beans after roasting, pick them out before grinding.
A longtime favorite espresso blend intended solely for pump and piston type espresso extraction. This is a sweet but punchy little cup, and roasted farly light it is a shock to the palette, but has great body and a smooth, sweet, stunning aftertaste. The joke behind the name: I imagine a fancy roaster charming a client in the cupping room, effusing about their "Master Roaster" and "Master Blender" and "Master Cupper", all in the trade for decades of course. Then I imagine the scene in their warehouse where hired apes rip open bags of green coffee and randomly hurl handfulls into the hopper for roasting. In other words, there's a lot of BS in the coffee trade, and blending is NOT really a noble art ...it's done to save cost and disguise coffee defects 80% of the time.
The Irony? I have never worked so hard to develop a blend as this one, designed to cup well at a full range of "espresso" roasts, and developed as a pre-blend (all coffees roasted together to same degree of roast). Am I going to tell you exactly what is in it? No! I am feeling a bit snobby today! Espresso Monkey has become our signature blend for some reason or other, perhaps because it is a true standard that we have sought to maintain for so long, and that we put such nice coffees into it. We blend this for body, balanced between high and low tones, chocolate roast flavors, and slightly rustic fruited accent notes. Those are our goals, that is the "spirit" behind the blend, and we check it to make sure it meets those targets. Our roast goal is in the beginning stages of 2nd crack ... we never "let it roll".
Intensity/Prime Attribute:Medium / Balance, complexity, fruit
Roast:I prefer Northern Italian style re: Illy's Normale blend. I like this blend best when the roast is stopped just as second crack becomes rapid, and shows no sign of slowing down. Actually, I like it a lot lighter than that too! I don't like this roasted to a dark, dark roast stage, Full French or Italian. This is because Brazilian coffees become ashy and began to bitter when roasted extremely dark. I believe strongly in a 36+ hour resting period before use for espresso extraction! It wont kill you to use it sooner... but you might notice sharp unpleasant notes.
Compare to:Darn fine espresso. This was cupped exclusively as espresso, not traditional cupping, so cupping numbers are omitted. I dont like it when brewed as filter coffee! Also see our article on Blending for more about espresso
Some months ago when we introduced our regular roasted "coffee pairings" we stopped offering roasted espresso and roasted decaf. We think that the roasted coffee pairings are working out well; customers enjoy the differences between the two coffees, giving access to great small-lot coffees from around the world.
