LaMarzocco home subscription this month is Onyx Coffee Lab Colombia La Palma Y El Tucan Cristian Monroy.

https://home.lamarzoccousa.com/onyx-esp ... scription/

It is described as "Lactic Acid Washed" process as well. Just opening the bag, the coffee has a very citrus nose to it, that I'm not 100% sure I like. It is definitely unusual.


This is a strange one. Described in the notes as, "notoriously soluble" the brew parameters for the Linea Mini supplied by the roaster call for 17.5G dose, 35g out, 18s pull time at 197f. That is both an unusually fast and low temperature for espresso, and not at all what I'd expect for a 1:2 brew ratio.

Honestly, I'm having trouble with this one. I have checked pressure and temperature calibration with the SCACE-II and pretty much everything I've pulled has lacked any notable sweetness and most shots have a distinctly acidic bite in the back of the throat. The citrusy notes from the bag carry over to the cup as well. It not very pleasant in milk. But the straight shots so far seem too acidic to really enjoy.

Grinding coarsely enough to get a 1:2 ratio and 35g out tends towards a bit of spritzing and uneven flows.

My best efforts so far are by grinding much finer to get 30 second extraction time for the indicated dose/output and 1:2 ratio. This reduces the acidic bite in the throat, but none of the "lingering black tea sweetness" as promised.

Anyone having any luck pulling this espresso?

Edit: Tried with somewhat better results 20g dose in a 20g VST basket, 37 seconds and 45 grams out at 199f. Tried several pulls with the 20g/20g basket with variable results. Coarse grinds to get the fast pulls the roaster recommends just tended towards uneven flows. Slower pulls seem to work better with more even flows.

Beats me how to extract this coffee.

I thought it was just me having problems with this coffee. My grinds were very inconsistent, with shots varying from gushers to choking the machine. And, I couldn't seem to dial in the right temperature to get good results. I finally gave up and went back to one of my favorite blends.

I recently switched to new gear, so I thought the issues were on my end. I'm sure there's a way to dial this coffee in, but it was beyond my skill level.

I don't have subscription but I am having some trouble as well right now with this coffee from Onyx. It is basically same region, variety and process but different farm. The tasting notes are pretty close as well.
https://onyxcoffeelab.com/collections/c ... is-enrique
To get to my starting 30 seconds shot time I had to go much finer than usual which is quite surprising since the coffee did not seem to be really lightly roasted.
Increasing the shot time to over 35 seconds did not improve the TDS but I will be sure to try shorter time as per recommendation.

I ordered an Ethiopian and a Kenyan coffee from them last month for pour over and I was thoroughly unimpressed. . .

It might not be everyone's cup of Jo, but Onyx has really cleaned up lately at the SCA events in the US. Onyx won the Roasters Cup and Brewers Cup in 2017 and came in 2nd in the Barista Championship. So they must be doing something right.

http://www.uscoffeechampionships.org/ne ... -announced

I got to brew with some of their coffee last year and it thought it was lip smacking. But some of my favorite coffees for brewing purposes are challenging for me to pull as espresso. (Looking at you Brandywine Coffee Roasters. )

After reading through a lot of Scott Rao's blog posts and personal experience I find it hard to correlate a roasters cup winner to good coffee. . .

nuketopia wrote:This is a strange one. Described in the notes as, "notoriously soluble" the brew parameters for the Linea Mini supplied by the roaster call for 17.5G dose, 35g out, 18s pull time at 197f. That is both an unusually fast and low temperature for espresso, and not at all what I'd expect for a 1:2 brew ratio.

Honestly, I'm having trouble with this one. I have checked pressure and temperature calibration with the SCACE-II and pretty much everything I've pulled has lacked any notable sweetness and most shots have a distinctly acidic bite in the back of the throat. The citrusy notes from the bag carry over to the cup as well. It not very pleasant in milk. But the straight shots so far seem too acidic to really enjoy.

Grinding coarsely enough to get a 1:2 ratio and 35g out tends towards a bit of spritzing and uneven flows.

My best efforts so far are by grinding much finer to get 30 second extraction time for the indicated dose/output and 1:2 ratio. This reduces the acidic bite in the throat, but none of the "lingering black tea sweetness" as promised.

Anyone having any luck pulling this espresso?

Edit: Tried with somewhat better results 20g dose in a 20g VST basket, 37 seconds and 45 grams out at 199f. Tried several pulls with the 20g/20g basket with variable results. Coarse grinds to get the fast pulls the roaster recommends just tended towards uneven flows. Slower pulls seem to work better with more even flows.

Beats me how to extract this coffee.

On my BDB, the default is a 7s PI, and even if I bypass PI completely it still takes a few seconds to ramp up pressure, so I wasn't sure I could properly replicate what they had in mind for the LM recipe. So I went somewhat closer to the "cafe recipe" - which they listed as 20g in, 45g out, 8s pre-infusion ramp-up, 23s extraction, 197F.

I've been going with a 7s pre-infusion, followed by a 22s-29s extraction (so a 29s-36s total), 18.5g in, about 38g out, at 197F.

I've had to grind super fine for this - I think it's actually the finest I've ever had to grind anything, aside from when I'm playing with super long pre-infusion.

As for the flavors - they say "strawberry, vanilla yogurt, orange peel, black tea"...and for me that's a stretch. Usually I can kind of pick out something resembling what the roaster labels, but not this time. Strawberry and yogurt (?) are nowhere to be found for me. There's some subtle red fruit of some sort, but I can't put my finger on it. I do get some orange peel sometimes. And "black tea", well, maybe, I guess.

I haven't had the problem with being overly acidic - after 8 days or so, it seemed to calm down a little, and the flavors are enjoyable now both as espresso and in milk. But I really don't feel like I'm getting everything out of this coffee...

My best efforts so far have come up along the lines of their "modbar" recipe, 20g VST basket, 19.5g in, 40-44g out at 198-199 in 30s. I'm grinding this one relatively coarsely to get this extraction time. While the LMLM doesn't have much in the way of pre-infusion, the net result is about 5-7s from pump activation until flow begins.

It has settled down a bit, but it still has a significant acid "bite" in the back of the throat. I do sort of get the strawberry thing - tart strawberry. None of the sweet black tea.

I think some of the more experimental fermentation methods can produce coffees that have a very unique and pleasant experience when brewed as a pourover, but do not translate well into espresso. They can be quite fussy to dial in because the "sweet spot" for espresso extraction seems smaller and underextraction can lead to some very unpalatable acidic shots.

Try it in a chemex!

I don't claim to be much of a barista, though I can sometimes produce tasty shots. Not with this stuff. The first I made were nearly undrinkable. After adjusting for temp and following LM's guidelines, it did not improve. Awful. Not to put too fine a point on it.

Thought the chemex suggestion was worthwhile, and tried this morning. While it's drinkable as a pourover, it is not my cup of tea. Excessively bright. Chalk this one up to experience.