Counter Culture Coffee Washington, DC

Today, each coffee on the table was described in one word by 11 different people, and I chose my favorite 3 to put together a summary of each coffee.  Then, I asked for overall impressions and we made a sentence describing the coffees…

1. Finca Mauritania:  Sweet, chocolate, and malt.  This is a “cuddle”* coffee with impressive aromatics and great balance, but some felt it didn’t fully deliver what it promised on the nose into the finished cup–drink it in the morning time!

2. Shakisso:  Jasmine, candied orange, and floral.  A wonderfully heady aroma meets you in the beginning and the fruits and flowers really come through to make a sweet cup with brilliant acidity and a silky body–Afternoon refresher over ice!

3. Los Luchadores:  Brown sugar, citrus, and custard.  This coffee began with a complex spicy nose with hints of orange and pumpernickle and the taste fell slightly short of our expectations; however, the body delivered a nice creamy quality and it finished nicely with and orange  and apple combo–Drink this on a frigid morning out on the porch with breakfast!

*you guessed it, Uncle Rich strikes again!

This great cupping table brought to us by Finca Mauritania, a good friend of CCC and a producer of amazing coffees.  Serendipitously (I swear this was not planned by me), Woodberry Kitchen showed up with 7 bartenders/baristas/servers led by Spike and Allie.  The serendipitous comes in to play because Finca Mauritania is very close to the heart of Woodberry.  They are always serving up some of their coffee (when seasonally available) and doing a great job with it!  They have been great supporters of FM and relay the story of the farm frequently to customers.  Such a pleasure to have everyone here to taste and discuss this coffee!

So all the following coffees that we cupped were from Finca Mauritania, Santa Ana, El Salvador.  The only differences are in the processing methods…

1. Washed Process (removal of skin and pulp using water)

Cuppers found this coffee to have wonderful fragrances of butter, brown sugar and roasted nuts.   The acidity was very nice and mellow with a soft, sweet lemon and was unanimously the brightest on the table.  We tasted red fruits and heavy sweetness and other complex berry/nutty/slightly spicy things.  The body was nice and silky, a little lacking in some cuppers opinions, but the aftertaste was perfect–clean and refreshing with just enough sweet nuttiness to make them want another cup.

2.  Pulped Natural Process (removal of only skin, but leaving pulp for a determined amount of time, then removing it as well):  We noticed less acidity, more simple sweetness and a heavier body.  The flavors seemed to be very simply nutty and sweet with a little savory happening in the background.  The aftertaste wasn’t memorable, but not offensive, either.

3. Sun-dried Natural Process (leaving coffee cherry intact to dry completely on stone patio)

This Coffee was much more sweet on the nose with fruits and berries and just a touch of that snappy lemon-yogurt acidity.  The chocolate and thick, sweet body helped make it a very rich coffee and the body was very syrupy and nice.  We really dug how the berries were persistent throughout the taste, but not overpowering.  The finish was heavy chocolate, but very nice and clean!

Hello from the great commonwealth of Virginia!  I am on a train headed to Durham, NC to see all the lovely, smiling, hyper-caffeinated faces at Counter Culture Coffee’s World Headquarters (just in time for the last day of Counter Intelligence Camp)!  Mr. David Fritzler, the “coffee guy” at Tryst, led the cupping today and I extend my heartiest thanks for taking everyone through some tasty coffees this morning.  If you were there, comment on this post and let me know how it went!  I havent tried Finca Kilamanjaro yet and I am oh so curious!  Thanks so much David and everybody have a rad weekend!

Here are the notes from the cupping today!

Finca Mauritania smelled of chocolate, citrus, fall mulling type spices, vanilla, cherry, woodsy and bread. It was the least bright (med to med-low) with flavors of molasses, chocolate, malt, toasted hazelnuts, and faint orange. It was silky with a classic chocolaty, coffee aftertaste.  4 favorites

Finca Kilimanjaro smelled of Now ‘N’ Later candies, sweet red berries, orange, wood, perfumy chocolate, kale and peach tea. It had nice brightness and sweetness, an agreeably light body, with flavors of strawberry, currant, tart cherry, mango, malt, nugget, and leafy greens. 4 favorites

Thunguri smelled of tomato, soup broth, pot roast, lemon zest, pine nuts, jasmine, maple syrup, caramel, tangerine and wet earth. It had a bright pop to it, medium body and bright, tannic finish. It tasted strongly of lemon with tomato, zucchini, and green pepper vegetable notes, as well as a buttery, brothy, meaty savoriness.  0 favorites

Hello everyone–

We had 10 cuppers today including myself…

Coffee # 1 - Cafe San Ramon - We found a lot of spices and savoriness in the smell of this coffee, but we weren’t expecting the really delicious brightness!  it had a great acidity with black tea and citrus flavors over a light, soft body and finished clean and quick.  1 favorite.

Coffee #2 - Los Luchadores - This coffee had a sweet earthiness on the nose and then popped with a juicy brightness!  The flavors were so balanced and lots of cuppers said “complex” and dynamic.”  the body was full and round with a nice lingering chocolate/apple finish.  6 favorites.

Coffee #3 - Gayo - We really liked the scented wood and earthiness we found in the fragrance that turned to chocolate and tobacco in the aroma.  The brightness was low, the flavors were just what we expected from the nose with a couple of surprises (blackberries and bananas), and the body was rich and coating.  This coffee finished heavy and lasting with chocolate and campfire.  3 favorites.

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