I see this thread hasn't been started yet, for the September 2020 LaMarzocco Home Espresso subscription shipment. There's been a little thread drift in last month's thread about it. But it is better for posterity I think to keep each month's featured espresso in a different thread.

So, this month started with a bit of a bump. The initial shipment consisted of 2x 8oz packages. That's a bit less than the typical Europe/Asia bag size of 250g. I've had some great coffees from Europe and Japan in this size format, which came at no additional cost on the subscription. We're used to the typical 12oz (340g) bag in the US.

However, the good news is that LaMarzocco put out an email that an additional coffee is coming from Parlor, Colombia Los Angeles. I haven't received it yet. That would be super nice and really puts the value proposition in the right direction.

Back to coffee:

Parlor Wallabout blend, Puno, Peru & Huila, Colombia, washed.

I'm just getting into it. So far, it needs a fairly coarse grind to produce the recommended 18g/38g in 27-30 seconds at 202f. My first couple of attempts were too fine. I got it set for the ratio/output/time (my machine is temperature calibrated). My early impressions are that it is on the bright side, and extracts easily, so over-exracting it results in bitterness. That's my preliminary impression, but not a final judgment by any means.

More notes in a few days.

This is a solid espresso blend. Pretty finicky though, been playing with the grind almost every shot. It doesn't seem to like one setting. Pulled my best shot this AM.

Looks like they're sending another espresso blend next month: https://home.lamarzoccousa.com/portrait ... ober-2020/

That coffee is $14 for 12oz bags on the roaster's website with free shipping for orders over $25, so maybe they're gonna send 3 bags again?

Did anyone get their 'bonus bag' of beans yet? Haven't gotten mine...

According to my USPS daily email, I have a package en route from Brooklyn. I think this must be it. I'm not expecting anything else right now.

Cheers,

Brent

Mine came in this weekend. Have some other beans open, so I put it in the freezer.

I suspended my subscription for the timebeing. I might buy a bag of that Portrait blend from the roaster's website just to try, but I'm not really interested in getting 2 bags of espresso blends every month. Might check out the April subscription.

The extra bag came on Saturday, "Colombia Los Angeles".

About the finish the Wallabout Blend in a day or so.

No notes with the Colombia Los Angeles. Haven't looked at the LM site yet to see if any were posted there.

Tried to dial in the Colombia Los Angeles this morning. It was temperamental and required a bunch of fiddling with grind tightness. Also, I couldn't find brewing parameters anywhere.

Ended up going with 19g, 202 F, 25 seconds w/ pre infusion. 38g out. Couldn't find the stone fruit, but it may have been slightly under-extracted. I'll try again later.

General question to the group on the LM Subscription, since they are acting as a curator of the beans and not the actual roaster - has anyone had any issues with the freshness of the shipped products?

(Bump - I've tasted and pulled Parlours Wallabout Blend on my own and found it to be a little finicky as well.)

No they are always fresh, definitely less than a week and usually within a few days of roast date. The exception would be the international roasters they've used a few times, but even those were around a week after roast date if I recall correctly. Pretty sure the roaster ships everything direct to subscribers.