One of my takeaways is noticing how blends can change. Neither Belle, which I had over a year ago two years ago, nor Dolce, which I have had in the past year a year and a half ago, were the same as I remember them. And I keep notes.

edits: I looked at the dates in my journal. The last time I had these coffees was a little further back then I thought

baristainzmking wrote:Is it just the picture or so the beans seem pretty unevenly roasted??

Right, there was quite a bit of variation in the roast. Not just the photo. If that's always bad or not in a blend, I don't know. I wouldn't say there were any roast defects though.

I immediately guessed B correctly as I had recently had a 2 lb bag of it. To this day it remains the lightest of the many "comfort blends" I've tried - and by a good margin. What was funny is that after I voted, I saw that my votes were the exact opposite of the consensus (without yet knowing what they were), and yet forged ahead with my review and votes.

It's strange how B is Dragonfly Crema Dolce. I was getting a ton of chocolate and sweetness from it. Prior to the blind tasting I was working on a 2.2 kilo order. At 21 gram dosing I did not get he same sweetness I was getting out of bag b, not even close.

B and C were so similar it was a hard call. B is more dark chocolate and C was more milk chocolate.

After going through 8 oz of each, I went back to A. I was pulling really good sweet shots with it 18/36 in 26-28 seconds.

I'm not sure if these coffees do better with a 10-14 day rest but they got better as they aged.

I like them all. I think if I had to vote now it might be A Klatch Belle.

Pulled the Dragonfly this am using their suggested paramaters. Mine pulled a bit slower but it was a much nicer cup.
(Espresso): 21 grams in (dry grounds), 38 grams (extracted liquid) out, 3-5 second pre-infusion, 30 second total pull time, 198F temperature. Experiment & enjoy!

As for A, my brother in law threw his out as well. The roasty flavors are just not something our two families enjoy.

I am going to try C again next and see if I can improve it. Interesting that some have said its not what they got years ago.

The trick with A is to pull it short. 1:1.8 in 24-26 seconds. Klatch recommends 20/36g. But 18/32-34g in 24-28 seconds works well. Very sweet.

My issue with coffee A was roast flavors I could not seem to shake. I tried to pull Coffee A as a ristretto to tame the roastyness. It didn't work out too good. My 2 year old notes from Belle say 201, 20:36, 24-26 seconds. When I was trying to dial in coffee A, I forgot the updose and grind coarser trick.

FWIW, I had 11g left of B, and so I added some C to round it up to 19g. I guessed the grind perfectly and the shot was 36g in 30 sec @ 201°. Quite nice!

+1 on the *thanks* to Dan for this experience! I've enjoyed it.

I'm still developing my espresso palate and espresso-making skills, so I didn't post my notes, but I'd like to add that I did brew a full pot of each coffee using the Brazen+. I thought B did the best as filter, though A and C were enjoyable brewed that way, too (though milder and less interesting in terms of acidity).

CarefreeBuzzBuzz wrote:Pulled the Dragonfly this am using their suggested paramaters. Mine pulled a bit slower but it was a much nicer cup.
(Espresso): 21 grams in (dry grounds), 38 grams (extracted liquid) out, 3-5 second pre-infusion, 30 second total pull time, 198F temperature. Experiment & enjoy!

As for A, my brother in law threw his out as well. The roasty flavors are just not something our two families enjoy.

I am going to try C again next and see if I can improve it. Interesting that some have said its not what they got years ago.

After the big reveal, I tried B at the suggested dragonfly parameters and found it still a bit roasty; I reduced the dry grounds to 19.5, stopped the shot at 32gs and found I liked it better; maybe I needed to make these changes to better suit the 53mm portafilter

Haven't gone back to A or C yet