Customer Words of the Colombian 58

I have created a signature coffee roast that I have named Colombian 58 - people really seem to like it.  


My grandma likes it - she told me so this morning - but since grandma's can be biased where their grandsons are concerned (and the fact that she gets FREE coffee) I figured I should add some other non-biased customer reviews of the Colombian 58.


Click on the images to get a larger size so you can read them...

This Colombian is a “58” roasting profile which has taken this coffee to a new level of experience.  It is just raw enough to retain a good amount of the all-natural God given flavor of the bean (as well as the majority of the caffeine) but it is also roasted with enough heat to let you know that you are drinking a very fine coffee.  From the moment the coffee touches your palette you think that you are going to experience the bitter but then you are pleasantly veered to the side as the bitter never materializes.  All you experience is a smooth flavor with an even smoother finish.

2 Huge Truths About Coffee Flavor – And 1 Giant Lie (Part 3 of 3)

2 Huge Truths About Coffee Flavor – And 1 Giant Lie (Part 1 of 3)

2 Huge Truths About Coffee Flavor – And 1 Giant Lie (Part 2 of 3)

If you have been reading all of the posts in this series (see links above) then you know already that coffee shouldn’t taste the same when it’s grown in different areas – it is just not likely.  Coffee from different locations will necessarily taste different because there are too many variables (such as soil, water, mulching, climate, and sun) for two crops from two different locations to ever taste the same.  If you can taste any coffee and tell which of the national chain roasters has roasted and distributed it, then you taste a branded flavor that they have added – and not the pure coffee itself.  Sorry, that’s just how it goes.  People who drink their coffee black should be able to easily recognize the coffee that they are drinking as coming from this chain or that one.  If you travel across the country and get a black coffee from your favorite brewer and it tastes like it did a thousand miles back home then you have to wonder – How is this possible?  Well, the reality is that it is not likely – unless some sort of signature flavor has been added to the beans.

This then is the Giant Lie of Coffee:  what you think is simply plain black coffee is often just the cheapest bean at the market flavored with the coffee roaster’s branded signature flavor.  For a purist like me, this matters.  Does this make me mad?  No.  Do I still get my coffee from my favorite chain while I am on the road?  Yes.  So why then do I bring it up?  Because I want you to love your coffee for just the coffee itself, and this can be hard to do unless you get fresh-roasted, single-origin coffee with nothing added – not even raosting oils that accidently flavor the beans.

So the next time you have coffee (maybe even now as you read this), I invite you consider how pure and natural the coffee is that you are drinking.  If it matters to you, then I invite you to join me, and together we can seek to experience the most perfect natural-tasting coffees from around the world.

2 Huge Truths about Coffee Flavor - And One Giant Lie (Part 2 of 3)

(Click here for Part 1 of 3)

Roasting...

There is a whole range of possible coffee roasts, from green to charcoal.  The possibilities are just about endless.  Every kind of coffee bean responds best to a particular variety of roasts in order for the best natural flavor to be released, and like with wine tasting, the fun is in tasting them all to determine what we like best.  For now though, I want to tell you how roasting affects the flavor and caffeine content of your coffee.

When coffee beans are green they possess all the flavor qualities that God has grown into them(see part 1 of this blog series).  As the green beans are roasted, the natural flavor is cooked out and traded for the flavor of the roast.  This trade-off is good, because a weakly roasted bean is often a bit bitter and sour, and the roasting process corrects this and brings about a very good brew.  This is where the Roast Master needs to become well-versed in his coffee types, because there is a point where a single-origin coffee bean is roasted so much that all anyone can taste is the roast and not any natural flavor of the bean– so any old bean would have worked.  The Roast Master becomes worth his salt when he learns which bean needs to be roasted to which level in order to bring about the best flavor.

There is another important facet to the level of roasting, and that is the caffeine content.  As a coffee bean is roasted, its caffeine content begins to diminish.  So, the darker the roast, the less the caffeine.  This means that people who get espresso coffee for the caffeine kick are actually getting less caffeine than what is in a regular cup of lightly-roasted coffee.

I don’t know why, but most of us assume that when a coffee is roasted darker, it has more flavor and more caffeine, but this is not the case.  I guess it is like a Filet Mignon steak.  If you really want the steak to melt in your mouth and have the best flavor, you need to have it cooked rare to medium-rare.

In the next part of this blog post, I want to bring out the lie of all lies for those of us who love coffee, so check back in a day or two.