Day 06 | 100 Days of Coffee

Today I cupped a few different coffees side by side. Doing this makes it easy to taste the different flavors in each coffee, and see how they compare and contrast. If you’re unfamiliar, cupping is an immersion brew method used by every roaster for grading purposes to make sure their coffee is up to par. Specialty coffee is every coffee that reaches above 80 points on a 100 point scale.

Cupping is a great way to maintain quality control, see how your coffee changes over time (and when it’s too old - often 1-2 weeks after opening the bag the acidity will drastically diminish), and can be used as a baseline to make sure that you are brewing other methods well, often with brighter acidity and more complexity than the cupping.

Once you have your grind size locked in for optimal extraction, there is little room for error while brewing. That is why this brewing method is used by every roaster, to achieve the highest consistency and make the necessary adjustments in the roaster to bring out the best flavor.

Brewing

I cupped two coffees from Black & White roasters, and one from our friends at Caffeinated & Confident - Health and fitness advocates creating a community of wellness through health and coffee culture (they also inform like-minded people about coffee and health via their Podcast, and Youtube channel showing reviews of cafes around Nashville! Checkout their review of Pit Stop Coffee Co.)

These are 3 VERY different coffees. From Black & White we have a very clean floral Gesha, and a very complex tropical Brazil with various wild varieties from Ethiopia. From Caffeinated & Confident we have a chocolatey nougat-like coffee from El Salvador (partnered with local roaster, Pumphrey & Beard).

All of these coffees showed that they are of great quality and offer a complex profile as the cup cools. This is a great selection for anyone interested to try a wide variety of flavors.

I was really impressed with how the El Salvador cooled down. When hot it tasted more like milk chocolate and as it cooled it tasted very similar to a Charleston Chew candy bar! Personally, I am a huge fan of nuttiness in coffee, especially macadamia nut, walnut and almond. This makes for a very approachable profile as these chocolate/nutty flavors are widely likable and are often expected by the majority of coffee drinkers. I’d say this is a great coffee for people that are used to drinking blends or house roasts and are wanting a more specialty, single-origin experience with more flavor depth and complexity. It is also great for anyone that wants to taste a more desert-like profile with nougat and milk chocolate. I will happily be drinking this all week long!

Our coffee of the week, the Brazilian, resembled a lot of tropical fruit notes. It reminded me more of plantain with a boozy flavor. It’s pretty hard to place honestly. I would say it tasted a lot like a tropical fruit punch. Super wild and very delicious! This is surely one to impress but may be to wild of a profile for an every day cup. I would vacuum seal individual doses and freeze this to be consumed as a special treat every now and then. It has a very interesting story behind how a Brazilian coffee can taste so wild and complex. You can learn all about it on our Coffee Introduction 01-07 blog post.

The washed Gesha from Ethiopia is the middle ground between these two. It is floral, citrusy, and bright without the tropical ‘fermented-like’ flavors in the Brazilian. Washed professed coffees like this Gesha are a lot more approachable and resembling of origin unlike natural or anaerobic processed coffees. I am generally not a huge fan of washed Geshas as I think they have a similar profile of floral flavors with subtle but bright acidity and bergamot bitter notes. The Gesha variety is definitely great, but i’d rather have, and spend the higher cost on other unique varieties or a fermented crazy Gesha profile without the cleanliness. This coffee changed my mind on that. It has beautiful white flower floral notes with creamy peach as it cools. The bitterness is similar to bergamot with more of a black tea note and a velvety body with a beautifully bright honey-like finish.

I’d really enjoy drinking all of these coffees throughout the day. If it were me, I’d pair them like this:

Caffeinated & Confident’s EL Salvador - The perfect breakfast coffee with savory foods such as bacon and eggs with your favorite hot sauce (i’m a huge hot sauce fan!). The nougat chocolate notes will stand up more to a heavier meal like this and will be the perfect coffee to start your morning!

Black & White’s Washed Gesha - A great afternoon coffee paired with a light and slightly sweet pastry to help bring out those complex floral and fruity notes.

Black & White’s Ethiopian Varietal Brazil - Desert anyone? Drink by itself and really dig in to those flavors or pair with some ice cream desert and really treat yourself! Best enjoyed with others! Drink within two weeks after opening the bag or vacuum seal and freeze this and bring it our for those special occasions!

Conclusion

I am very excited to have all of these coffees and flavor profiles available on my coffee bar at home! IF you’re interested in how you can brew like we did here on a French Press, reach out to us in the comments or Instagram messages and we will let you know!

We will be brewing the Gesha on the trailer for a limited time as we’re running low on stock. Come out and give it a try while you can!

Happy Brewing Everyone!

-Connor