It was too hard to resist, sitting on the shelf at Whole Foods with its cool logo, dark red bag and the roast date, 9/9. Ritual was even willing to reveal the blend's contents, (Finca Matalapa, Finca Siberia, & Brumas Del Zurqui), and let you know what to look for in taste: chocolate, caramel corn, orange and cinnamon.

The lungo pull was a sink shot, but the ristretto was worth taking time to drink. The chocolate and cinnamon were evident, but any orange notes were difficult to distinguish. I'm reluctant to rate this coffee based on a couple of shots and I usually don't care for a predominance of centrals in a blend, but the High Striker showed promise and is worth more taste testing.

I would love to hear more, Fullsack. I have had my best success with Ritual beans from day 3 or 4 post roast to day 7 or so. How would you describe the body?

John,
Funny you'd mention the early drinkability period, it was my strong impression this coffee was older than the roast date would indicate. It required a finer grinder setting than most 9 day old coffees. Even if it contained something like Sumatra that requires a finer setting, it still tasted like it was a little past its prime. To give this coffee a fair shake, i need to buy a fresher bag.

Fullsack:

It required a finer grinder setting than most 9 day old coffees.

I notice I have to set my grinder finer for Ritual coffees than any other I grind—mainly my own roasts, and Vaneli's. I have purchased a couple of bags of super fresh Ritual El Salvador Matalpa La Cidra, just 2-3 days old, and the grind required was extraordinarily fine, about 6-7 notches finer on my stepless Macap M4.

I too have seen this at our local Whole Foods.
I'd be curious as to know what your further
impressions are; it's always so hard to plop
down your money on a bag of beans you're
just not sure about.

Who says the internet isn't useful for more
than porn and bellyaching?

I have a Ritual coffee bar near me, and the baristas there do like to sell their coffee for espresso very fresh—2, 3, 4, 5 days old, up to a week. The Ritual coffee on the shelf at Whole Foods that I have seen has been well over one week old, and I think this is too old for Ritual as for the best it has to offer, especially if it is to be consumed over the coarse of many more days.

I've never had a Ritual espresso that's best at past 7 days - and find that most of their espressos are "at their peak" (to my taste) at 4 or 5 days.

That's interesting, my coffees don't start getting really good until about day 7.

I picked up my first bag of the High Striker 4 days after roast and thought it had fallen off just a little (but was still great) by the time I had finished the bag 4 or 5 days later. I was using a level dosed LM triple basket at 203.3ish and extracting for 25-28 seconds or so. Can't recall (it's been a couple of weeks) the volume I ended up going for, but it wasn't a full extraction I don't think, maybe something between 1.2 and 1.5 oz. Funnily enough, on the flip side of Doug's experience, I got the orange easily but found the cinnamon elusive.

Playing with the Sweet Tooth S.O., the La Cidra, now, and I think this one is actually liking a bit higher dosing and a bit quicker pull - it's good at level dosed and a 30 second extraction, but I think it was even better at 20 seconds and overdosed for 1.5-1.7 oz. (Will try that again this a.m. and confirm it's not just an artifact of having done those pulls earlier and how the coffee is aging.)

Later Findings: Pulled another La Cidra shot after loosening the grind and the faster pull was good but not quite so lime candy (good call in the description) as I recalled from days 3-4 after roast with that grind and shot timing - now on day 6, but the shot had some of the tighter grind still left in the doser and I will try a couple more and at various doses to see if I can replicate the earlier one, which was pretty darned cool. Why did I change it... always hunting for even more and I find that I wander off the optimal shot in trying to get to more "normal" extraction parameters and then can't get back, presumably due to inadequately consistent technique although it could be just aging and the elusive nature of over the top shots in general... Works better when I take notes after the shots while calibrating but even then you can't always go home again, so to speak. Then again, on the upside, I think the fact that the shot was still very good whether at 35 seconds or 20 speaks well for the forgiveness of the bean.

Later Findings #2: A few more shots in got closer to that ideal shot with a coarser grind, whether with a faster 20-23 second pull or overdosed to get back to 30 seconds. The Finca Matalpa La Cidra likes a somewhat coarser grind.