Jonk wrote: The shipping was pretty slow given that I'm in a neighbouring country. Our postal services are actually run by the same company. Got the beans 2 weeks old and they did not improve with age.

Yeah it has taken about the same to get here. From a week to a week and a half, depending on the day of week they ship.

La Cabra really holds on to this mantra of the beans getting better after 4 or so weeks post roast, and I am really the contrary. I have yet to taste beans that got better after about a week or so. At maximum some of the fermented ones have lost some of their edge, which for me is an improvement. Naturals and washed have just gotten more boring.

Maybe my taste buds just work bad but I appreciate when I get the beans a couple of days post roast

That is something that has to do with Loring roasting machines. It's a hybrid air bed that for some reason I can't remember (has to do with how the surface of the beans is roasted) makes for a slower degassing, so every bean coming from Loring is said to be at its peak after 4 weeks (La Cabra, Tim Webndelboe, Kawa, Talor Made etc.).

By the way, I had some Kawa and they were really light and well roasted. Some more than the other, but generally very good.

I had Standout Competition subscription for a long time. Some coffees are exceptional, others aren't really worth that price. But for sure it's a good, probably the best way at the moment to try the best of the best. Roasting was generally nice, with some odd bean underdeveloped, and some bean too developed. So not super consistent but still good. I also had the "regular" subscription, but the beans are often the same that the month before, and aren't super exciting. There are subscriptions with better beans at a lower price in Europe.