Hello everyone,

So here in Houston we have small community of dedicated espresso buffs and as you can imagine the selection of locally roasted specialty coffee is narrow as well. I have visited a coffee shop which serves Amaya Roasted coffees and the espresso is very good. I am currently using a batch of the Temporada (Seasonal) which is quite good, and the flavor notes are as follows: Plum, Toasted Almond, Syrupy. This blend comes from Guatemala and Costa Rica and is a Bourbon 300 & Red Catuai variety. What is my point? Well I have had not so good results with the coffee and quite frankly I'm a bit puzzled. The flavor is very one dimensional and is accompanied by a bitterness. The Roaster recommends a temp. of about 197* F which is achievable and my grinder is decent. Has anyone come across these roasts and had good results?

I agree there are not as many good local roaster choices as I would like (especially compared to cities like NY and San Francisco). Greenway has some very good product but to my knowledge not an easily accessible storefront. I have tried Amaya's Temporada probably a little more than a half dozen times, and have had good results with that as well.

I try to support local merchants, if not local roasters, including Mercantile who from time to time has distributed Intelligentsia and Stumptown. But I buy beans regularly on my travels and, mostly, just mail order from many of the roasters listed as "favorites" on this site, because fresh bean, storefront availability of both local and national brands has been uneven. Mercantile by the way recently announced via social media that they are stocking the national brands again. I have seen some evidence of it, but it is way too soon to know if that source will be long-term reliable.

Hey Andy thanks for the reply and the heads up on Mercantile. Went over there today but all they had was the current Amaya blends. They also had a nice 2 group Strada which was a nice sight! While there me my lady got lattes and surprisingly were very similar to what the Robur produces at Catalina. Keeping in mind they were using a Mahlkonig K30.