I have now been through my pound of coffee from CCC and thought (with a little prompting from Dan) that I would write up my responses as part of the 1,000,000 message views countdown contest.
As my reward, I chose the Toscano 2005. The website describes it as: "A wonderful espresso roasted and blended in the Italian caffe dolce or "sweet coffee" tradition. Sweet and mild, with notes of caramel, hazelnut, and dark chocolate." It is a blend of: "Brazil Fazenda Ipanema "Dulce" ° Sulawesi Kalossi ° Sumatra Aceh."
My caveat to this review is that my palate is not as refined as some, although more refined than others.
About my tastes: I tend to like a sweeter espresso blend (although I am looking at trying SO's in the near future), which this promises to be. I will be trying it as straight espresso, americano, and in a latte, although my inability to properly foam milk will definitely effect that. My wife drinks americanos and lattes and I will try to gauge her reaction as well.
I have been having trouble getting nice microfoam, so I will probably try to stay away from the milk drinks for my evaluation on taste.
Notes:
I really liked this blend. Although I did not get notes of 'hazelnut' you could definitely taste caramel upon first hitting the mouth and then a dark chocolate flavor that lingered on the palate. It is not an overly-complex blend, but is very pleasant for what it is: sweet espresso.
As a straight espresso I liked it best, although it took me a while to get to the right brew temp for it. I found that it liked to be a little cooler than many of the other blends I have tried. Once the temp was right, it took most of the bitter out of the front end of the sip and any bitter that was left was quickly overtaken by other flavors. I tried a few different extraction times and liked it better as a longer pull (28-35 seconds I think) when I could get the grind to hit there, it seemed perfect.
As an americano it was still very good. I have to let my americanos cool before drinking, but I still enjoyed it. My wife did not think it was as good as some of the others we had tried, but could not remember a blend she liked more, so she enjoyed it as well.
In a latte, well...with steamed milk, my wife really liked it. I don't think she would care what was in her latte though as long as warm milk was included. I thought it was okay, but the poorly foamed milk had me too distracted to make a judgement.
As a side note, this blend was the nail in the coffin on the 'should I upgrade my grinder' question. I really needed micro adjustment for it. I ended up putting the Rossi about halfway in between two notches to get a decent pour. I had two shots that were extremely good and they were 29 sec. and 33 sec. On the notch above, I had a blonde gusher and on the notch below I didn't choke the machine out, but you were looking at a minute for 1.5 ounces. It was hell, but worth it when it worked right. Now I have to decide which infinitely adjustable grinder I would like.
My .02, take it with a grain of salt, YMMV, etc.
Matt
