Evening Tim and welcome to the community.

I assume the change in roast level is to accommodate the new lots flavor profile. I look forward to trying the latest incarnation once it is finalized. I know roast level varies from farm to farm and even bag to bag in some instances. It is interesting to taste the changes that occur at different roast levels. I have 3 different Ethiopians in my greens cabinet and each responds different to a given roast. I can't imagine the size of the log book a pro roaster has for profiling a bean, let alone a blend.

Taste is too subjective and personal to debate. One person's sharp acid cup is another's lemon zinger. The taster will reject or accept the cup based on their personal preference. I like fruity, berry blends (this month), which is why I have three different Ethiopians and prefer natural over washed processing, most of the time.

I so wish I had a local roaster that would allow me play on their LM and cup new blends. Tasting how the blend develops from start to finish would be most enjoyable. Unfortunately, my closest cafe is 180+ miles round trip so I have to rely on mail order, my hottop and the A3.

beta14ok wrote:I pulled 3 very short, dense, consistent, doubles on Counter Culture Coffee's WBC LM machine and the results were fabulous. .....as close as I've tasted in memory to the old Toscano 2005....nice and sweet and buttery with a caramelly-choco' finish that leaves you wanting just one more.

You're right Dave, those were among the best Friday espressos. Why didn't I take some of that blend home!

beta14ok wrote:It might be fun if you could give us an accounting of the major changes to Toscano blend since the "infamous" Toscano 2005. I'm guessing that there have been at least 3 major changes, with the most recent being in the past week-or-so. I've tasted a lot of Toscano varients, some with hefty helping of fruit bombs (harrar and-the-like) beans. I know that most of those never saw production, but it might be interesting to this gang if you could map the time scale of the changes and your perception of the tasting notes at each change. I didn't get any of the "smokiness" or "edgyness" in the batch I drank this morning.....significantly better than a batch I sampled a couple of weeks ago. Also, it could be interesting to know what temp your WBC LM is operating.

I like this idea too. I didn't know Toscano in 2005. What do you mean to imply with "infamous", BTW? What was the reason for the 'bad reputation'?

Also, I would like to know if the beans I enjoyed a month ago -- their colors were gold, ochre, oak, copper, brass -- were indeed Toscano 2006. They were much brighter and yellower in hue than Redline, Paladino, Terroir, Dancing Goat, Coffee Klatch Belle, Paradise Classico, Ambrosia, or Rocket's Classic, all of which are in the raw umber, burnt umber, sepia range. The roast that is closest in hue to what I had from CCC is the Barefoot Redwood, but the Redwood is a much lighter roast in every respect. And the CCC beans had a sheen, so there were some surface oils but no droplets of oil. Do the brassy color and light sheen suggest a long slow relatively low-temp roast?

Regards
Timo

The main difference between 2005 and 2006 Toscano was Sulawesi was swapped out to Sumatra Lintong. The result of the switch was big difference when the blend peaked. With 2005 it was 4 days after the roast. With 2006 it was 9 to 10 days after the roast. Another difference I found was 2006 liked the temp cooler then 2005. I use to pull 2005 at 203.5, with 2006 I found 202 to be better suited. On the 9th/10th day it was piles of chocolate!

Now with each year of Toscano, lots for the components do change and there are some differences. What I have found is the switch to a new lots tends to be a stronger flavor profile. I believe that was the case with 2005 Toscano as new lots of Sulawesi were included.

timo888 wrote:What do you mean to imply with "infamous", BTW?

Sorry....very poor choice of words on my part. I certainly meant "notorious". ......but I did not mean "bad reputation."

On the contrary Toscano 2005 was a favorite of a lot of folks in the south-east, including me. And, as I stated earlier up the thread, lots' of folks were using it at home, in shops and in barista competitions.....I should say it was notoriously good!!.......really yummy stuff.....and the new iteration of "Toscano" seems much closer to that 2005 benchmark.

Could someone please confirm one simple fact for me? Was the Toscano 2006 ever a yellowish golden-oak colored roast (but with a deeper flavor than the color would suggest) ? Or has the Toscano always been dark cocoa-colored, so that the bag I received a month or two ago was possibly mislabeled Aficionado? (I haven't tried the Aficionado yet.)

Regards
Timo

P.S. Regarding "infamous" -- I wondered if perhaps you meant something like it was excellent but only in a very narrow temperature band, or that they were experimenting and the results were unpredictable.

As far as the roast level and color goes, Toscano has been almost exactly the same for as long as I have worked here. It may fluctuate by a point or two based on different lots, but has been very very close throughout the years. However some lots of Brazil and Sumatra look much different, and roast differently. Some have small spreads and some have large spreads. When I talk about spreads it refers to Agtron. We Agtron every batch whole bean and ground to see what the exact color of the coffee is. (Agtron is near infra-red light meter that displays the color of the coffee.)

Agtron numbers go some thing like this. Absolute black is 0. A sample roast which is generally very very light is 65-70.

Even though whole bean Agtron numbers are important, the ground Agtron represents a much better roast level representation of how light or dark a roast may be. The analogy I like to think of, is when cooking you can burn the outside of a steak but it can still be rare on the inside. The same is true with coffee. If roasted too fast you can scorch the outside but still have it underdeveloped on the inside. Obviously that is not the goal. The goal for us is to find the optimum balance of time, temperature, and degree of roast to best suit each coffee. Having different lots of coffee look the same does not represent that it is going to taste the same. While Toscano is roasted primarily on one machine, another factor when it comes to the look of the coffee is the roasting machine itself. One of our roasting machines will give an Agtron for one of our coffees at 50 whole bean, and 62 ground. Another one of our roasting machines will give the Agtron of 45 whole bean and 62 ground for the exact same coffee. So although they may look really different on the outside they are going to taste much closer than if we were to make them just look the same on the outside. So when we roast different lots of Brazil and Sumatra trying to be consistent in roast and taste, the look of the coffee is not at all a 100%. So the answer to the question is while Toscano may look slightly different than a month ago, or two years ago, the roast level has pretty much stayed the same. And just let me say that Toscano requires constant and painstaking dedication to roasting, tasting, and always refining to make it what it is, and feedback is something that we always welcome. Happy espresso everyone.

Hey Guys-

I've been meaning to weigh in for a while, but internet connectivity can be difficult in East Africa, where I am traveling at the moment. But I managed to grab some wireless here at the Nairobi airport.

Our goal with Toscano is to maintain a consistent flavor profile, inspired by a coffee I tasted in Siena one time. The basic goal is to focus on sweetness; flavors of caramel, butterscotch, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and a hint of nut (I always say, sorta like a Snickers bar.)

To maintain such a flavor profile, we must constantly tinker with the blend. This is especially true since Toscano focuses on Sundried Natural coffees from Brazil and Indonesia, which can be even more variable than most. Over the years, I think we've been able to consistently nail it, while at the same time enjoying the natural ebb and flow of flavors that comes along with coffee seasonality.

Over the years, we've gotten invaluable help in perfecting and maintaining the flavor profile from geeks like Mike Walsh and Dan Kehn, and pros like murky coffee, 9th Street Espresso, and Pheasant Creek.

When we first committed to transparency in our espresso blends, we decided to label Toscano with "vintage years" every time we changed the formula. This was to try to communicate the reality of coffee blends as fungible and ever-changing, and practice our goal of "radical transparency". We always list the components of Toscano, as we do with all the blends we sell. No secrets here.

However, a little while ago, we decided to drop the "Vintage Year" thing, because it was causing confusion. People were calling in February 2006 saying: "we have a bag marked Toscano 2005 here. Was it roasted last year?". So we dropped the year, but will always continue our practice of naming the component coffees of the blend on the label.

The very first Toscano blend in 2003 contained a small percentage (10% or so) of a French-roasted Sumatra. In a subsequent year (I think 2004), we dropped that percentage after a series of taste experiments with murky; we felt that the sharpness of the bittersweet dark chocolate of the dark roast was inconsistent with the goal of the blend. (It was sweeter without it). Since then, the roast level has remained nearly the same (just as Tim mentioned).

"Smokiness" has never been an intentional flavor component of Toscano. It was kind of a mystery to me when Tacy mentioned it in his review, but hey; the vagaries of taste are inscrutable. We've always maintained the focus on simple sweetness in this coffee, and people seem to love it.

As a number here have mentioned, our roasting QC is very tight, and we analyze every single roast a number of times. And our roasting profile for this coffee has remained focused.

All this said, I think that Timo got a mistakenly filled or labeled bag. As much as it pains me to say it, in our rush to roast coffee and ship it the same day, we've made a few mistakes over the years. This is the simplest explanation for the roast level inconsistency Timo observed. Tim, please give us some feedback on the comped bag we're sending this week; I'd love to hear your wife's take on it.

I'll post more later about the blend transitions over the years, and how that all works, but I have to go catch a flight!

See you soon

Peter

Nanofish wrote:As far as the roast level and color goes, Toscano has been almost exactly the same for as long as I have worked here. ..
[much interesting detail snipped]

Thanks for the detailed answer. There was no subtle difference in the color of the two bags I've received from CCC. One was pale as golden oak, the other dark as mahogany -- as they typically appear in furniture. Really, it was like opening a second box of Kix cereal and finding Cocoa Puffs inside. I have to conclude then that what I received a month or two ago was simply a mislabeled bag. It must not have been Toscano 2006. Whatever it was, it was delicious, and I want another bag of it. It was yellower than any northern roast I've tried, but it had a deeper nuttier flavor with lots of caramel. Is that your Aficionado?

The Toscano I received this past week is losing more and more of its smoke with each passing day and is developing a smoother finish.

Regards
Timo

PeterG wrote:"Smokiness" has never been an intentional flavor component of Toscano. It was kind of a mystery to me when Tacy mentioned it in his review, but hey; the vagaries of taste are inscrutable. We've always maintained the focus on simple sweetness in this coffee, and people seem to love it.

Peter,
Thanks for replying while your were en route. When you get settled in after touching down:

As I mentioned in my reply to Tim, the smokiness is fading as the Toscano ages and it is becoming smoother. The finish is still a little sharp back in the throat, compared to, say, Caffe D'Arte's Firenze, which finishes further forward on the palate...or on my palate, at any rate.

PeterG wrote: I think that Timo got a mistakenly filled or labeled bag. As much as it pains me to say it, in our rush to roast coffee and ship it the same day, we've made a few mistakes over the years. This is the simplest explanation for the roast level inconsistency Timo observed. Tim, please give us some feedback on the comped bag we're sending this week; I'd love to hear your wife's take on it.

Mislabeling must be the explanation. My wife is asking if I can get another bag of it, whatever it was If CCC could let me know which of your espresso roasts is closest in hue to this sample, I could place an order for a bag and see (note: it changes hue depending on whether it is being viewed from above or below on my LCD monitor; the view from the lower angle is closest):



Regards
Timo