Uganda Bugisu Kawomera

The previous version of Uganda Bugisu I have been drinking for a while has been running low. That coffee has become the base for a lot of espresso blending I have been doing; I love the earthy, malty complexity of it. It also makes a delicious cup of drip coffee.

Since good Uganda coffees can be hit or miss in terms of availability, I snatched 5 pounds of this Kawomera when it became available. This is a really excellent cup.

The roast was fairly standard:


The sounds got a bit hard to hear, but I stopped the roast at what I believe were the first few snaps of second crack. The taste confirms this. I really nailed this roast, if I do say so myself. The hint of roast taste was perfectly integrated with the coffee, without being overpowered or carbonized.

There is rustic maple sugar in the aroma, which carries over into the taste. There is a thick body, but the overall effect is still refreshing. This is not a coffee you take one sip of and put aside because it is too rich. As the cup cools a bit, there is the most interesting cherry cordial taste that becomes prominent. It is a very sweet cup, with lingering butterscotch hints. All and all excellent - that cherry taste is fascinating! I'll be very curious to try this as espresso later in the week.

One other point I should make. This is a good example of a roast/coffee that is taken rather dark (compared to what I normally roast), but still has tons of origin flavors. It goes to show you that a good roasted can take coffees to both ends of the roast spectrum while maintaining the identity of the coffee.

Tanzania Organic AB Hope Project

The bad news is that this isn't the best Tanzanian coffee I have had in the past year or so. The good news is that it is a decent cup.

I have been trying to reduce my green coffee stash for the past few months with decent success. People at work have benefited greatly from this, since they are the victims of my coffee every week. When I saw a new Tanzania coffee crop up (pun intended)recently, I grabbed 5 pounds to try. Tanzania may well be my favorite coffee origin, so it was very hard to resist.

The roast was a standard affair:


This took a long time to get to first crack, which was odd. I didn't observe any temperature issues, so perhaps it was the bean itself. Grinding the beans, they looked quite light - this is a City+ roast - nowhere near second crack.

Drinking this over the past week, it is lighter bodied than I expected. It is balanced, with decent acidity. There is a dense nuttiness as well that I don't think I have encountered in a Tanzania coffee. In the background, there lurks some funk/jute/leather that reminds you that this is an African bean. It isn't unpleasant, but there is a "wilder" element to it. A day or two post-roast, a creamy cantaloupe character emerges, splashed with milk chocolate.

All in all, this is a nice cup, but it didn't blow me away. I need to play with the roast level a bit to see if I can improve it. I think a tad more roast might work well.

Guatemala Oriente Dry Process

There is definitely a trend for Central American coffee producers to be trying their hands at more traditional methods of production such as dry processing. I have had some excellent examples of these over the past couple of years. This was a coffee that came and went at Sweet Marias, and I didn't get a chance to order any. I ended up trading some green coffee with someone else to get some of this to try. It is strange stuff.

Here is the roast, though it doesn't tell the story:


This coffee presented a conundrum in that it seems to race from 1st crack to 2nd very quickly. I rely on the sound of the cracks as a key indicator of how the coffee is roasting, and this one made all sorts of sounds that were hard to differentiate. Luckily the results were good, but I have honestly no idea what roast level this coffee is. Most likely Full City. Actually, I have roasted this coffee twice and had the same experience.

For those who have tried the truly bizarre Anokhi coffee, which is a different coffee variety altogether (coffea liberica v. coffea arabica), this Guatemala coffee is quite similar, but not nearly as intense.

The best analogy I can offer is Frankenberry cereal. There are odd berry notes galore, but not the clean fruit you get from say a Kenya, but fermented, slightly "off" fruit. There are some grainy notes and chocolate as well. The overall effect is slightly offputting, but not altogether unpleasant. I am glad I had a chance to try it, but I have no desire to have any more. For those who are bored by coffee, here is one to wake you up.