Coffee to inspire the connoisseur!

I've decided to change some of the coffees we offer in our shop a) because I like to keep things fresh, but also b) because each coffee we sell has to earn its place in our selection.

The coffees we tasted today were, Kenya peaberry, Ethiopian Harrar and Old Brown Java. We're currently experimenting with the roast colour, and so far only the Java has been agreed.

All of the coffees though are outstanding and very distinctive. We did the initial tasting in the shop, and the level of interest from our customers was superb.

I'll start on this blog with the Old Brown Java. The word old is used, because the coffee has been "aged", that is left in the warehouses prior to shipment for anything between 2 and 3 years. This in itself has a major impact on flavour, as the acidity levels in the coffee drop dramatically. The raw coffee also has a wonderful aroma of old sacks! A really earthy feel to it.

What is noticeable with the raw beans, which by now have lost there initial greenness and instead are a light tan is the range of sizes. It would appear that very little screening takes place at origin so as a roaster I'm concerned about how I'm going to achieve a consistent roast colour. The only way it would seem is to go dark.

We roasted the coffee to a full medium colour as well as to a dark roast and tasted the resulting brew. Our initial impression was that the lighter roasted coffee didn't seem to have much flavour and was rather flat, however what a difference going just a little darker made to our overall impression.

The liquor was a wonderful full dark colour, however the taste was very smooth, with a slightly nutty flavour coming through in both the taste and aroma. In fact it reminded us all of the Monsooned Malabar offering, despite being roasted significantly darker.

Following the tasting we made up a cafetiere (french press) of this coffee and all agreed what a great tasting coffee this is. Despite its dark colour I found it very palatable as a black coffee, the lack of acidity really helps here.

I'm looking forward to tasting it as an espresso, which I'll hopefully do tomorrow.

By the way for those of you interested in the details about the origin of this coffee, it comes from near the Kawah Ijen in the east of Java.

It really is a pleasure to be able to offer this coffee to you once again after many years absence. It will be available from our website in the next couple of days.