For over two and a half years, local Triangle home baristas have congregated in Counter Culture Coffee's espresso lab on Friday at 7:30am until they kick us out around 9am. For the first year, we made a conscious effort to have an experiment in mind for the session. Over time, the get-togethers became more about socializing and enjoying espresso than experimentation. With the opening of their larger space -- which by the way has enough room for cupping classes of 20 people, two espresso machines including one of the 2006 WBC La Marzocco models, a GS3, and a Clover -- I felt the urge to return to a more structured meeting.

This past Friday was the first planned agenda session. The topic was prompted by a couple discussion in the forums, namely Why coffee needs to ''rest'' before making espresso and more recently Just roasted first batch with iroast 2, how should I store beans? Tim had set aside several bags of Toscano roasted January 31st and another batch the prior day (February 9th). We agreed to a simple test structure:

• All tastings would be blind. Neither the barista nor the taster knew which grinder contained which sample
• To speed production and assure consistency, two baristas would work together, one dosing and level / distributing using the Chicago Chop, the other tamping and locking in
• All pours would be color stopped, if necessary
• Tasters would be simultaneously presented two espressos. They were instructed to simply note which they preferred and a few words why
• We anticipated there would be differences in crema production; tasters were asked to focus on the taste and not the appearance or volume of crema.

We discussed everyone's results prior to Tim revealing which sample was which. The results were:

• Four out of six preferred the coffee roasted the day before. A better aftertaste was cited several times as a major contributor to the taster's selection
• The two selecting the 10 day post roast said it was more nuanced and described the one day post roast blend as "monochromatic."

Please allow some latitude in these results since we were a bit rusty in our testing method and dialing in the early roast Toscano was challenging (some of them ran fast). I would like to return to this experiment once we have a bit more practice. In the meantime, the raw comments from the participants are below.

Attendees: Bob Barazza, Ian Stewart, Bob Henry, Dan Kehn, Kevin Krautwald, Mark Overbay
(our thanks to our hosts at Counter Culture and especially Timothy Hill who prepared the coffee and setup the grinders)

I found the 10 day sample to be too bright for my personal likes, and it left a very strong aftertaste, but the one day sample I found to be pleasant and well rounded, not harsh at all. It also had what I thought was a very nice aftertaste. I must admit that when we started making cappuccinos, that the taste was good, but left a little to be desired. As we were pulling the shots, the older blend was easier to pull and generate a consistent shot, but the 10 day took quite a bit of fiddling to get it even drinkable. The 10 day sample was more interesting than the one day, but in my opinion, interesting doesn't always mean better.

Since we focused on taste not looks or aroma I'll confine my remarks to these. Tasting for me breaks down into three stages: what comes to mind the very moment I take a sip (the front), what I think about as I savor my sip (the savor) and finally what I'm left with after I have swallowed it (the finish). I chose the 10 day sample. For me the front end was a little less sour (acidic) than the one day roast. The 10 day roast was more complex and had much bolder chocolates during the savor than the one day roast. Finally I do give the nod to the one day roast on the finish: It had a longer lasting finish than the 10 day post roast. Two out of three to the 10 day post roast.

One day post roast:
All three shots seemed more consistent with each other. All were good. One day post roast had a chocolate taste or sweeter. It had less of an after taste than the left. I liked all three shots of the one day better than the ten day most likely due to the sweetness

Ten day post roast:
Long after taste with a bite at the end. The three shots were all three different tasting (may have just been stabilizing the setup). The ten day had a zest or citrus taste and an acidic taste in the beginning. It was bitter in the beginning and then went to the citrus zesty taste. I got the pirate eye from it.

I liked the sweeter aftertaste of the 1-day-old coffee, which made me prefer it over the more aged sample.

The one day post-roast espressos were acceptable, but not particularly interesting. The body was a bit thin and it had a sharper front taste than the ten day post roast sample. I wonder how the one day post roast would improve if it were updosed more or pulled tighter to increase its body and its complexity. In retrospect I agree with the comments about the better aftertaste of the younger sample, but I didn't weigh that heavily in my thumbs up / thumbs down assessment.

My preference was the one day post-roast blend. The main factors that I preferred were : 1) the mouth-feel which was slightly thicker in body and buttery, 2) a sweeter and more 'rounded' flavor profile, balanced, etc., 3) the after-taste was more pleasing... chocolates and buttery feel on the tongue. Conversely, the 10 day post-roast blend had more brightness than I prefer which seemed to linger into the after-taste along with an astringent feel on the tongue. I must say that the results were counter intuitive for me and inconsistent with my experience at home.

PS: If you live in the Raleigh / Cary / Chapel Hill / Durham area and would like to join us, email me.

Dan-

I have heard more than one person say that Toscano peaks at day 3 or 4, which seems pretty young to me compared to some other blends. Is that your experience?

If so (and you listed some caveats and limitations to your experiment above), I would hope you could repeat with a different (or second) coffee at a later date.

No, you're thinking of the 2005 Toscano, but it changes with each new crop. The current blend peaks later as Geoff notes in Counter Culture comparables:

PheasantCreek wrote:2006 Toscano peaks around 9 to 10 days after the roast. When it peaks, it is a thing of beauty. As a coffeeshop owner, it just got problematic to order and sit on the coffee for a week. Before it peaked I would find this raisin sugar spike in the flavor that I didn't care for but on the 9th/10th day it was an amazing chocolate bomb. 2005 Toscano was Sumatra Gayo, Sulwesi, and Brazil. It peaked around the 4th day. The main difference between the two years was 2005 had a heavy sugar hit in the bottom of the shot. Both at the peak exhibit amazing caramel and chocolate notes.

This was a dry run and we'll definitely return to this comparison. I expected to not like the one day post roast at all, but it was pretty good. Next time I would spend more time dialing in the two coffees to their best extraction. We're always rushed to get to our real jobs (oh bother!).

HB wrote:No, you're thinking of the 2005 Toscano, but it changes with each new crop.

Ah, that would make sense based on from whom and when I heard said comments.... Thanks for the link to Geoff's comments on the current 2006 blend, I had missed that one.