Just ordered next limited roast from GH. El Cairo, Colombia and Alto Lagunillas Medium, Peru. On their pages, El Cairo has no flavor wheel chart. Alto Lagunillas is likely to be a more "likable" flavor profile coffee to me. Will be interesting to compare it with my recently roasted Peru FTO Cajamarca - Lima Coffee - Norte Top Lot from Burman.

The GH limited roast Peru cost 4 times more than Burman's green beans from Peru home roasted.

Jeff wrote:Another roaster that has an easily consumable graphic is Moonwake. As BaristaBob suggests with his comment, some people enjoy chocolate-focused coffees, others prefer some or even a lot of brightness. The classic three-descriptor approach doesn't really address this well. Here's one that I enjoy, with useful information for those that prefer a more classic profile that a different selection might be more to their liking.

They even group their "cocoa" selections together on their website to make finding a coffee easier.

image

Well when Jeff mentioned "cocoa" I was all over this one. Placed my order to Moonwake and this showed up yesterday, four days post roast. Now the dialing in process begins. Can certainty taste the cocoa, but will see if I can pull more.



Edit: Been into this coffee for about six days and it just gets better...more of a pronounced chocolate note, very little acidity, sometimes none at all, just smooth. Not roasty or burnt, since it's a medium roast. I'm happy for sure!!!

Sal wrote:Just ordered next limited roast from GH. El Cairo, Colombia and Alto Lagunillas Medium, Peru. On their pages, El Cairo has no flavor wheel chart. Alto Lagunillas is likely to be a more "likable" flavor profile coffee to me. Will be interesting to compare it with my recently roasted Peru FTO Cajamarca - Lima Coffee - Norte Top Lot from Burman.

The GH limited roast Peru cost 4 times more than Burman's green beans from Peru home roasted.

Just finished cupping both of the GH Limited roasts (8/21 roast at 5 days post roast). BOY, they are good. Honestly, I have not had coffee as good as those, especially the Alto Lagunillas, for a while. As predicted, I do like Medium roasted Peru more than Light roasted Columbia, but that's just my preference. Both are very sweet, chocolaty, and med-to-full-bodied Coffee-Coffee. Nothing like tart, fruit-only flavors. In fact, the fruity notes do not shine until the cup is cooled. I can't afford high-end coffee like this for my daily consumption, but now I tasted it, I am so curious and want to try their most expensive Limited Roast... Yusuf Alrumaim, Yemen @$85/4oz.

An update on the cupping of GH Limited roasts (8/21 roast) Alto Lagunillas, Peru Medium Roast. I was blown away by the deliciousness of the cup a few days ago on this coffee as described above. The flavor profile was exactly what I like which is more on the chocolaty, full-body side than the fruity, bright acidity. My first impression after opening the bag and brewing the first cup was so good, that I was expecting this coffee will remain as the best coffee on my record.

The recipe on the first brew was using AeroPress.

• 20g dose

• 7H grind on Vario ceramic burr (coarser than my usual pour-over)

• brew with 106g water at 202F for 1 min with ~20sec agitation with a spatula

• plunge slowly into a cup (the coffee in the cup after plunge was ~80g)

• dilute the coffee to 300ml total for the 1:15 final ratio

I tasted the coffee before dilution, but as expected, it was way too strong for my taste. I usually enjoy a 1:17 ratio.

I did not aliquot the coffee nor did I store the opened bag in the freezer. I simply purged as much air as I could, then closed the resealable bag that came in and stored it in a kitchen cabinet at room temp. Yesterday (7 days post roast), I brewed another cup using a 20g dose in the Hario Mugen single pour recipe which I have been using successfully on my other coffee. Basically 20g coffee and 340ml water in a single pour (1:17 ratio). This brew resulted in a very sour cup. All I could taste was lemon and unripened stone fruits, no chocolate, no sweetness. Very bright but low-bodied and the texture was very thin. Some people may prefer a cup like this over a heavy-bodied, chocolaty, sweet cup, but it just was not my style. I attributed this to be under-extraction as I forgot to re-adjust the Vario setting to finer grind.

Then this morning (8 days post roast), I repeated exactly the same recipe in the AeroPress as the first brew that produced a superb (to me), heavy-bodied, chocolaty, sweet cup. The sweet butterscotch note I could taste in the 1st brew was totally gone. Although I did everything the same as the 1st brew, the resulting cup was even worse than the Mugen brew I did yesterday. It was sour, no coffee aroma, no sweetness, no body, no chocolate, and no coffee flavor. It's just sour. I consider sour and bitter two of the bad attributes in a cup to avoid. In fact, I enjoy some coffee with absolutely no acidity in it as long as it has no bitterness.

So, what really happened? Does fine expertly roasted coffee lose the flavor and aroma compounds this quickly? Well, it did not lose all together, but lost some of them which I consider very important in the cup. The flavor wheel was more like one of fruit-forward Panama. Is this normal? This was the very first time I purchased a GH Limited Roast or any high-end roasted coffee for that matter. If this is what going to happen to expensive craft roasted coffees, I will stick with just roasting my own coffee in a very small batch every few days.