This week’s coffee is a light roast Andes Mountain coffee roasted on May 26th. Andes Mountain is in Ecuador. I am not sure which company/plant they sourced this coffee from. It is listed as a light, refreshing coffee with slightly sweet and deep notes.

The Beans:

Smell  – The beans themselves are decently fragrant. The tail end is the more interesting part as it has a bit of charcoal and burning wood chip notes. Reminds me very much of a camp fire.

Taste – When eating a bean as is, more harsh charcoal notes are present. There is also some earthiness but it is hard to determine exact notes due to how strong the charcoal is. This is somewhat disappointing as this is something I associate more with darker roasts.

Brewing:

As these are very fresh beans, the off gassing of CO2 is very visible. A very proper bloom. The sweeter side of the charcoal and wood chip smell also starts to become more present. This is probably the first coffee I have made that gave me flash backs to camp fires to be honest and it’s surprisingly not off putting. The normal coffee notes people look for are also mostly there. The warm coffee smell is definitely present but very subtle compared to most coffee I have brewed.

Drinking!

Ah, the part of coffee that makes all the work of finding, grinding, and brewing worth it.

As expected, there is a heavy emphasis on the charcoal notes in this one. There are other flavors but the ending charcoal notes definitely override a lot of the more subtle flavors that can be found when initially taking a sip.

This is a very mild brew. The acidity is extremely subtle and makes for an easy cup to drink. There is also a decent amount of woody/earthy flavors that can be teased out on the tongue. There is even a slightly fruity/almost strawberry or tart cheery like taste hidden in there. Surprisingly deep considering how strong the charcoal flavor is.

One big thing that helps this particular cup is letting it cool down. After letting it cool down to the higher end of warm lets the more subtle flavors shine through to the point where there is a calm, vanilla like end note to the swallow.

Overall, this is an interesting cup of coffee. I think it would pair well with a little raw sugar or similarly earthy sweetener and a little cream. Not too much, just enough to help emphasize some of the sweeter notes over the charcoal/campfire notes.Otherwise, letting it cool down a bit and drinking it black is also a good option if one wants to taste the subtle flavors. It definitely goes from campfire to woody/earthy with a hint of berries at a lower temperature. Given how mild it is, this is a very easy cup to drink.

I would not give it super high scores compared to some of the other fresh beans I have tried but it is a decent cup. 7-7.5/10 I would say. Of course this is a much better cup than most things you can get at the supermarket or even quite a few coffee shops. Having super fresh roasted beans is a luxury and one I plan to exploit fully.