Counter Culture Coffee Washington, DC

Well, this was amazing.  For all you doubters out there convinced that coffees don’t taste better in season, here is the perfect experiment for you!

Our head roaster, Tim Hill, has saved some GREEN coffee from last years harvest of Ndaroini and Finca el Puente.  We have also just received this year’s harvest of Thunguri and Finca El Puente.  So, Tim decided to take a sample of some of the 2008 harvest and cup them alongside their 2009 counterparts and see what differences people tasted.  While the Ndaroini and Thunguri are from different mills, they are both from the Nyeri district in Kenya, so they are a very close comparison even when both are “fresh.”  So Tim roasted up the 4 different coffee samples and shipped them to all of us to cup.  To read what other cuppers found, you can visit www.counterculturecoffee.com to find the other regional pages and read their notes as well!

First on the table was the Finca El Puente 2009 crop (this is the current coffee we are selling).  2 people decide that this was their favorite coffee.  The smells that came out of this coffee were so chocolaty and sweet.  There was also some nuttyness along with some aromas of  ”mash” (like beer/whiskey).  There were a lot of subtle fragrances like tea rose, flowers, grapes, and citrus.  We were not surprised by the way that the taste was overwhelmed by milk chocolate, but we weren’t expecting such savoriness.  We tasted lots of grilled veggies, miso soup, and tofu.  The aftertaste was like tea:  quick, clean, and a little snappy.  The body was very pleasant as well and we were quite excited about how smooth and soft it was overall.

The next coffee was from the same farm, but harvested in 2008 (the coffee was roasted at the same time as first coffee).  We began smelling a sumatra like fragrance (reminiscent of crunchy dry leaves and dry earth) along with some cocoa powder and green veggies.  We found that we lost a lot of the sublte flowers and citrus from the previous coffee and kept smelling dry nuts and dry earth.  When we tasted the coffee, people kept remarking at how it didnt taste like it smelled–it had lost even more in the taste.  There was a thin, hollow body and the aftertaste was burnt and resinous like overcooked caramel.  a couple of us did taste some nice vanilla at the finish, but most people were pretty dissapointed by the aftertaste.

Next we cupped the 2009 Thunguri from Kenya.  It was no surprise that this was the favorite on the table this morning.  It was full of life and sparkle–even on the nose!  Blackberry, tropical fruits, bourbon, sweet tomatoes, citrus, herbal, tangerine, wildflowers, and spices.  When we moved to the fragrance, the citrus was still there, but now the dominant flavor seemed to be tomato and tomato soup along with a syrupy sweetness, like molasses.  The brightness was all citrus and tomato, and the flavor really confirmed the nose with tons of fruits, a beautiful acidity, and some heavy savory tomato.   The body was sweet and soft, and the aftertaste was a sparkly apricot/citrus that once cupper said “tingled her lips.”

Finally, we finished with the Ndaroini harvested in 2008 (also roasted at the same time as the other coffees).  Sweet potatoes and brown sugar started off our fragrance and then the water brought out some frutiness like pomegranate-orange-grape & guava-strawberry-apple.  Then we got that savory tomato and cooked onions thing going on for the break.  When we began looking for brightness, we were really excited to see that the acidity hadn’t suffered as much from the age as we feared–it still held a lot of citrus and bright fruits.  We tasted a complex flavor of flowers, orange blossom, burnt toast, hazelnuts, brown sugar, lemons, tomato, and wood.  The body was nice and smooth, but a little hollow, and the aftertaste was quick and fleeting–like lemony, floral wood chips.

Well, results were almost unanimous.  When I asked favorites, some folks had a hard time choosing between #1 and #3, but most people agreed that #2 was nowhere near as tasty.  #4 however, gained a few popularity points because the Ndaroini, while aged signifigantly, has kept a lot of its characteristics (partly due to the vaccum sealed bags that we had it shipped in…without the constant contact with oxygen, the flavors and aromas take longer to break down, or oxidize).

We learned a lot today, and if you hang around with Counter Culture folks enough, you will definitely hear a lot of talk about seasonality in coffee.  This is the experiment that really brings that to life!  The  next time someone complains about not being able to have a particular coffee all year round, you can tell them confidently that it wouldn’t be worth it even if they did.

Drink Seasonally!

Alex