Its a natural processed Bourbone from Guatemala. I believe it is names after the farm it came from.

I like my coffees light roast and fruity and this one has that in spades. The tasting notes say grape candy cacao pod and syrop, but I can't say I taste grape anything yet. I'm not tasting guru thought.

None the less, this is a very fruity aromatic roast. The nose when you first pour water on it is amazing.

So far I've only made it as my hurried morning coffee: brew, dump in travel mug with a little milk and sugar and run out the door. I'll have to give it a few sips black (not the way I normally drink coffee) on the weekend to see what comes out.

Just ordered some myself. I have been ordering a fair amount of coffee from Pilot and always enjoy their single origin offerings.

Post your thoughts here when you've had a chance to try it.

This is a lighter roast than I usually buy. The beans are noticeably harder to grind than the medium roasts I usually buy.

I upped the dose and the brew temperature on my last cup, but I'm still not tasting anything obviously grape candy. That may just be because my taste buds need a reset. I find I start missing the unique flavour of a roast once I had it more than two or three days in a row. I usually have at least tow different roasts on hand to help reset my taste buds.

Picked up a dark roast Sumatra today that I'll use for my first cup tomorrow and then I'll try the Mercedes again and see what that gets me.

I will say that it requires about 1/2 of the sugar and milk I normally put in my coffee.

One other thing I'll mention is that aside from a Panama Giesha I tried last month I've had the same issue with other 'fruity' Central/South Americans.

Please be aware that the tasting notes we put on the bag are pretty subjective. It's just what I tasted, kind of like a grape jolly rancher. But I have had others tell me it's more like prosciutto (never tried it), which to be honest freaks me out a little!

This coffee has been a challenge to find the best profile. I find that if it lingers any longer than about 1:15 after 1st crack begins then it starts to taste like burnt rubber and/or turpentine on the cupping table. It seems that the seeds are so saturated with fruit and sugars (they look almost brown unroasted) that any amount of time after 1st starts to burn the surface.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the coffee - I feel like this one especially will be either love it or hate it because it is so intense across the board.

Totally OT but it's great to see you here on the board! I'm a huge local fan - especially if your tasting bar - and what you guys are doing is amazing.

cnose wrote:This coffee has been a challenge to find the best profile. I find that if it lingers any longer than about 1:15 after 1st crack begins then it starts to taste like burnt rubber and/or turpentine on the cupping table. It seems that the seeds are so saturated with fruit and sugars (they look almost brown unroasted) that any amount of time after 1st starts to burn the surface.

Thanks for the reply, Chris! Naturals, am I right?? Hah.

Fred - what Chris said. Flavor notes are entirely subjective and experiential so don't beat yourself up or search too hard for a particular note. I know around Corvus those flavors notes are often printed from notes Phil took at origin or after the first roast. Even if they're spot on, many times they change over time. Coffee is an agricultural product, after all!

fredk01 wrote:One other thing I'll mention is that aside from a Panama Giesha I tried last month I've had the same issue with other 'fruity' Central/South Americans.

Perhaps consider where you are, and what', if anything, you do to your water ...

For example, I find that coffee from the GTA roasters that i've tried (including Pilot) generally doesn't perform well with the (naturally) soft water in Ottawa. Coffee from roasters where there is soft water just works better for me - for example, coffee from Anchored in Dartmouth always comes close to the roaster's notes when I brew/pull it.

At the other extreme, my home-roasted coffee tasted disgusting this summer when brewed with City of Toronto tap water.

cnose wrote:...

Anyway I hope you enjoy the coffee - I feel like this one especially will be either love it or hate it because it is so intense across the board.

I'm not criticizing the roast or the bean at all, and I'm definitely enjoying it. This is just my observation of what I taste or don't. I inhale deeply every time I open the bag to pour out the beans. The nose of this bean is extraordinary.

Part of the issue here is probably my aging senses. I just don't pick up the complexity of taste I did when I was in my 20's or 30's or ...

FWIW, I shared some of these beans with a co-worker who generally likes darker roasts. He was quite impressed as well.

+1 on the coffee bar. I ran across a reference to it two weeks ago on the internets and visited with my daughter last week. The fellow behind the bar was very good about answering every single question I asked and I always ask lots of questions.

Oooooh, I taste the grape, I taste the grape! Sort of, with some help...

Went through my usual afternoon shift prep of dinner, make coffee, grab some fruit, grapes as it turned out last night, and headed to work.

I munched grapes as I went through my startup routine. I got a call on the floor, so I headed out, grabbing a hand full of crushed ice to munch on on the way out. I grabbed another hand full of ice on the way back in to the office and then turned my attention to the coffee, which at this point was without milk and sugar. Say, that tastes an awful lot like the grapes I've been munching on. I grabbed some ice water to clear the palate again. Yup, definitely grape. I guess I'm just flavour identification challenged.

Anyway, I'm really enjoying this roast. I find that about 1/3 of the sugar and 1/4 of the milk compared to my normal brew works for this particular bean. I could even get used to drinking it without sugar at all.

This coffee reminds me very much of Social's Ethiopian Sidama Ardi. I like it, happy to have tried it, but not blown away.

I made it as a pour over. 22g coffee, 348g water at 200 F, pour was about 3:20.