I searched and discovered that you can get both Olympia Little Buddy and Verve Sermon from amazon. Same price as from the roaster and even free shipping for Sermon. I wonder how long post-roast they tend to be?

Opened up the Verve Sermon today (day 6), I didn't have much problems dialing it in. It is quite the contrast to the Cartapani I was pulling. Lots more acidity in the Sermon with flavors of lemon, berries, and chocolate. I pushed the preinfusion and extraction longer to reduce the lemon notes and draw out the bitters/chocolates. I hit a bit of astringency and likely need to pull it back.

It's going to be hit or miss with ordering coffee from Amazon. Unless the seller is the roaster itself, the coffee could already stale. There's usually a few lower ratings because they received 2-3 month old coffee that's closer to the 3-4 month best by date for domestic roasters.

It very well might be that my niche is still getting seasoned. I probably only have ~2lbs through it right now. Interestingly, the other coffees didn't exhibit that much channeling. I did get blueberry on some of the shots, but it was a challenge to dial in.

And to me - it definitely was on the lighter side of medium when compared to most of the mediums I have tried plus even a few light roast. Could be that I haven't really tried super light roasts yet to compare to.

Going by what Verve recommends, you could try updosing and pulling shorter. They recommend a pretty high dose and pull it ristretto. I can get the blueberry with milk drinks, even up in the latte size range. Straight shots, my palate is a bit overwhelmed at the start but has the berry and chocolate finish at the end. I pull it closer to normale out of personal preference but Verve's recommendation should create a punchy shot with the acidity/berry highlighted.

I'm still "playing" with the Sermon, but on the second day of using it (9 day post roast), I was getting a sour citrus---lemony with some blueberry undertones. The "lemon" isn't bad, different-- but would prefer to play that flavor down more. I made it a little less fine on my grinder, but still 18.9g was almost too much---so I"m thinking maybe I will make the grinder coarser & updose.

coffeechan wrote:Going by what Verve recommends, you could try updosing and pulling shorter. They recommend a pretty high dose and pull it ristretto. I can get the blueberry with milk drinks, even up in the latte size range. Straight shots, my palate is a bit overwhelmed at the start but has the berry and chocolate finish at the end. I pull it closer to normale out of personal preference but Verve's recommendation should create a punchy shot with the acidity/berry highlighted.

Here's what Verve recommends:

Brew Recipe

In: 19.7-20 grams of coffee
Time: 22-26 seconds
Out: 28-32 grams of coffee


My first two shots were pretty fast and tasted quite nice. I tightened things up and had an issue with astringency. I updosed (to 20g) and pulled shorter (32g) and that helped but it still wasn't fabulous. Then I tried a tighter grind and a longer pull (50 seconds, 40g) and that was pretty good, but again not fabulous.

I'm probably just a bonehead but I'm not loving Sermon at the moment. It's okay but not what I'll order next.

I've tried adding up to 19.3 grams of beans & making it a little coarser grind---still getting that stronger citrus (lemon), but some blueberry. If I can't figure out how to get less lemon & more blueberry/chocolate--I'll probably only order this again when I want a change from my normal blend(s). Why? Cuz I do like it, but not overly fond of the lemon. It's a little overbearing.

Interesting. I found it pretty forgiving with a fairly big sweet spot. No lemon to my memory. I had it a few months ago and blends change. So take this for what it is worth. Sounds like underextraction. Up your brew temp. Can you do that with your Gaggia? Does it have a PID? Can you temp surf those? Updosing and grinding coarse reduces extraction. If you are doing that and getting lemon, do the opposite. Have you tried it in your clever? Immersion brews can be very good at showing what a coffee has going on and what it might be capable of as espresso. I don't have a clever but when I want to figure out what is going on with a coffee that is really causing me trouble, I go with James Hoffman's French Press technique (an immersion brew). I find it to be a dead simple way to get a very even extraction. It is like listening to music on studio reference speakers but for coffee. It does not artificially accentuate / highlight any particular part of the flavor profile.

Unfortunately, my Gaggia Classic doesn't have a PID. I try to temp. surf, but doesn't really work that well. Plenty of times, I am in the beginning to middle of espresso shot & the light will go off on the Gaggia (which I guess means the temp. is dropping until the light goes back on where in the temp starts to rise again). In the process of searching for a machine with a PID (but that's another topic) I have updosed to 19.5g and ground coarser, and less grams & ground finer--still get that lemon mixed in with the blueberry. Don't get me wrong. It is not horrible, love the blueberry--just a little too sour. I know others have commented on the citrus. I never like my Clever. Maybe I'm just an idiot. Whenever I used it following exact directions--the coffee always tasted watered down.

For straight shots you could also pull it out towards the 2-2.5 out range to try to balance out the acid, but keep the time/grind reasonable as you could enter the astringent bitter territory. This was something that I found to work with Black Cat Analog, which was kind of close to Verve Sermon roast wise. I was still getting cherry flavor notes with 18g and 45g out with that blend. I should probably try that myself before the bag is done at some point. I'm pulling it close to their ristretto parameters for milk drinks. Worse comes to worst, try pulling it as best you can but in a cortado or a cappa. I'm enjoying it more in drinks than straight espresso.