Senftjc77 wrote: The GH website lists this as their darkest. How dark is it? I'm usually not a huge fan of really dark coffees but I have had some great ones. Generally I will stay within the medium-medium/dark varieties for my everyday stuff.

I have a bag of their Tarrazu Espresso on the way which is described as a bit lighter than the alchemy. Think I should try it anyway?

Alchemy is GH's darkest, but that doesn't mean it is a dark roast. It's just dark relative to his other roasts. I think it is fair to say that it will fall comfortably within your medium to medium/dark preference. My notes indicate that Alchemy will only be a shade darker than the Tarrazu you have en route.

Enjoy!
Lissa

Well this one might be hard for most of us to get our hands on but it Pablo and Rusty's Trailblazer Espresso Blend. Sent from Sydney by my daughter and her husband who live there and enjoy this one everyday. After dialing it in (which was not hard), I'm experiencing a fruit forward note of raspberry, and then dry cocoa, with pleasing acidity. Just a well done medium roast coffee!

Anyone from down-under care to comment on P&R? I'd love to get a take on your perception of this coffee?

Ethiopia Gedeo Worka Natural from Klatch.
Blueberry bomb as a 6oz cap

According to their IG, you can grab Soul Work at 1oz Coffee in Santa Clara right now. They have the Ethiopia Wuri Washed - I personally prefer the Wuri Natural, but that's splitting hairs.

Balthazar_B wrote:Tom, do you know of any cafes in the Bay Area brewing their coffees, particularly as espressos?

Paradise's Ecuador Pichincha Typica. Worthy!

Just about spot on relative to Paradise's descriptors: Dried mango, dry chocolate/cocoa and honeysuckle (very floral!). Normally I steer around washed beans for espresso but it sounded too tasty to pass up...and I had a credit balance so why not?! Very, very tasty!

https://paradiseroasters.com/collection ... cha-typica

Coava Robinson Figueroa

Sea Bean Coffee Co... Local to my town in Florida. I've met a few people who travel and a big part of their travels (besides the beach front) is the coffee. They always come on Sundays when the market is setup and Sea Bean is there.

Amazing owner as well, very nice guy.

Olympia's San Sebastian Reserva from Colombia. This smells like pie crust when you are grinding it and makes some of the sweetest straight shots I've had in months. Been loving how easy it is to dial in and hit spot on, too. If someone asked for a coffee that is a good middle of the road transition from a traditional comfort espresso blend to a more fruit forward, lighter roast, this is where I would steer them. Great stuff.

I ordered a bag of Fazenda Cachoeira from Nossa Familia (Brazil Cup of Excellence award winner) the weekend before last. It arrived last week while I was unexpectantly out of town, and so it's been resting almost 10 days. My Major Mazzer has been sitting unused since I received my Niche Zero two months ago, waiting for me to get off my @$$ and start pulling s.o. shots with it. My first shot was pretty interesting. There were definitely some really nice flavors there, but they were sort of hidden by a mix of both sour and bitter. It actually makes sense, since the extraction seemed to be divided into half by the flow dynamics...one half over-extracted, while the other was under-extracted. So, I pulled another shot, paying more attention to distribution, and got an amazingly even flow across the entire basket. After giving the shot a good stir (ala James Hoffman), I brought it to my nose for a good strong sniff, and was freaked out for a second. I was sure I was smelling a mellow perfume...so much that I actually stopped to think how I could have gotten perfume on my hand, since all I did in between shots was rinse the pf and cup and prep all over again. I didn't even take one step away from the bar! I was having trouble identifying the dominant scents...was it jasmine, no not really, something else, almost floral, but not very bright. Ah, the bag says red grape and apricot. Yeah, it smelled and tasted kind of apricot, but not exactly. My next shot, was just a good, and after taking just a little sip, I put it in milk. Somehow, I got lucky and didn't need to adjust the grind setting at all! Parameters below, I'll call them shots 1 & 2 (skipping the first unbalanced one).

Both:
8.9 bar, 200F
LM Strada 17g basket, naked extraction after an ~8 sec pre-infusion at line pressure (about 3.5 bar)

Shot 1:
19g in : 33.2g out
long side of 28 seconds

Shot 2:
19g in: 31.8g out
short side of 28 seconds

I just stopped by Issaquah Coffee in Issaquah, Wa. - serving 'Campos Superior Blend' espresso - new to me - very nice indeed. Looks like Salt Lake City based.