Hey, coffee lovers, how are you? It is already Sunday and one of our favorite things to donin a weekend afternoons is enjoy some delicious coffee.
In the world of coffee there are a lot of new interesting experiments and I have maybe tried most of them in one form or another, but today’s coffee is definitely in another league. Most of the new experiments are so weird, that maybe 20-30 years ago noone would try to do something that brave, but we live in an interesting world with people seeking for the new and different.
The coffee that I bought last week is roasted in Germany by the roastery “Man vs Machine” and I really don’t know what the crocodile has to do with the man… or the machine. But… let’s see the coffee itself.
It is called Jairo Arcila Strawberry and this doesn’t mean that it has flavor that resembles strawberries. It actiually was “infused” with real strawberries while being fermented with wine yeast. Sounds wild, doesn’t it? It surely is! Maybe @coffeenlove would be interested in this process!
Life can be bitter, your coffee shouldn’t be.
One thing that I like a lot is that the packaging is nature friendly and it seems that this is a practice in most of the specialty coffee roasters. I really admire that approach and maybe everybody should start thinking in this direction.
I was a bit surprised when I opened the bag, because I was expecting to see relatively light roasted beans. Rather that I saw this:
I think that this is definitely a medium roastor even a bit darker, but the first thing I could definitely smell right from the bag were the strawberries! Really intenssive aroma, like the one you get when you open a nice and exquisite black tea with added dried fruits. And this feeling was teally impressive and new to me.
I decided to try this coffee first on the AreoPress. On the package it was said that the beans were roasted for Espresso or Filter, so it has to be equally good.
After grinding it, the aroma became even more impressive. Extremely fresh with a hint of fermented beverage. Maybe some fresh white or rose wine.
I decided to brew the beans with 88 degree water, because they were roasted a bit darker. 3 or 4 degrees lower definitely make a differense with the bitterness of the coffee, somas I always say… light roasts brew at about 92 degrees, medium would probably like 88-89 and datk roasts, not suitable for filter, would need 86-86 degrees’ water.
Time to try this experimental beauty!
You really cannot imagine how strong is that strawberry flavor. It dominates over every other taste and when the first sip enters your mouth you can feel the fresh and the little bit sourish fruit flavor. Sadly, I found this coffee to have a little bit of harsh finish, which is characteristic about the darker roasted coffees. There is definitely a chocolate liqueur vibe in the aftertaste, but I would be a lot happier if the coffee was roasted a bit lighter.
Then I said to myself… what about if this tastes better on espresso!
Like 30 minutes later I already prepared the electric grinder for a tasty shot!
Well, here is the big advantage of this bag of beans in my opinion. I could definitely extract it better, if I had a better grinder, but now the sourness and the strawberry freshness in a good combination of the chocolate liquir sweetness in the aftertaste. Definitely a lot more balanced flavor than the one of the AeroPress.
In general, this was for sure one of the boldest coffee experiments in my life so far and I liked it a lot, although the result was not that impressive on filter. I think that this was maybe a bit lower grade coffee, but after the strawberry infusion it definitely received a lot of character and interesting flavor profile. Definitely not the everyday coffee, but an amazing experiment and exquisite taste to try.
That’s for today… see you soon and have a wonderful new week!
Bye!