https://royalcoffee.com/crown-analysis- ... own-jewel/

As they mention in the above, I found success with a higher drop temp and more heat due to the density of the bean.

Roast #1: https://roast.world/r/SqAF9nO6QgEuPB82PpUJk

Roast #2: https://roast.world/r/tprTqvwBveosdOABKg5wK

Roast #3: https://roast.world/r/eGwqRxI0sF8WnsQ5iVWGN

I'll post the cupping scores and descriptions tomorrow.

Unfortunately yet another highly rated coffee that ended up very nondescript on cupping.

Roast #1: 69.75
a bit roasty, hints of sweetness and fruity acidity (juiciness, if you will) but nothing else

Roast #2: 73.5
a little acidity, some balanced sweetness and floral fruitiness (stone fruit maybe?) but still pretty nondescript

Roast #3: 75.25
initial floral acidity, followed by a balanced simple syrupy sweetness


None of the roasts really shined. I generally try to cup new roasts along with a known good roast as a control and the control was fantastic, so I don't think the problem lies within the protocol itself. I've been having a lot of trouble with floral coffees, and this one is no different.

I whipped up a pourover this morning of #2 and it wasn't bad by any means... some very solid, balanced sweetness with a hint of floral papaya in the aftertaste but nothing compared to what was described by Royal Coffee in their roasting notes. A very drinkable cup, but I don't buy highly rated Crown Jewels for drinkable daily drivers. There was a weird hint of grassiness/underdevelopment, but I don't feel like I was anywhere close to risky with my drop temp and a dissection of the beans revealed a relatively even roast. I'll be trying different methods later this week to see if I can coax any of the complexity and strong top notes described by others who have roasted this coffee... potentially aiming for the raisin/chocolate notes that a darker roast should provide.

Is it possible you don't have the palate of royal? To pull out these flavors? Is it also possible your water and or brewing is a culprit? How do all these roasts taste pulled as a shot rather than brew?

For what it's worth, I've thought about wanting to fly to royal and hang out for a couple days and watch them analyze coffee and taste for myself what they describe in all of these coffees (my geek out level would be overwhelming heh). Royal, sweet Maria's, etc. Their cupping notes are always incredibly descriptive and delicious sounding. If my coffee could taste that good even 20% of the time, it would change my life. I'd literally pay $2000 to finally solve that mystery for myself of....is my palate missing something or is their roasting and brewing just on another level. Given that I don't get much better results from pro roasted coffee.... I don't think it's always technique.

Are you roasting for other people? You go through ALOT of roasts.

My personal opinion is that my palate sucks. But I can taste a mango and remember that taste and am also able to distinguish sub-variants like dried mango or mango icecream, etc. so to me one doesn't need to be a super taster. After I roast (if I'm lucky) the roast will smell of actual flavors either immediately or after some rest. I am currently running through that Ethiopia Uddo Dambi and after a day or two the blueberries come out, just made a cup yesterday (5 days post roast) and when I opened the container the dry smell before grind was coconut flakes. My current dilemma isn't that I'm not getting clear, distinct tastes and aromas. But that I am not getting multiple flavors and a balanced cup. That don't run around the palate but are present with each sip coming in distinct waves. I think this is a roasting technique issue. Brew technique helps find flavors in a less than perfect roast. If your goal is to get there I recommend either devising your own class or go take one.

Apologies, this post was not on topic.

I have nearly every brew tool possible, I truly do not believe its my technique in brewing. I also don't believe its always my roasts - because I'm less than impressed a LARGE majority of the time when buying pro-roasts that have all sorts of absurd cupping/tasting notes on them.

There is a notion IMO that its easy to pull out flavors and have a balanced cup without offputing notes - which IMO (and maybe after 6 years I still suck) is very difficult.

On the contrary - I'll go to my dad's house , and with my same beans, his water system and bonavita brewer produce amazingly round tasting, full, balanced cups. Even me using third wave water or water recipes, can't touch that. It's ridiculously frustrating actually. I'm not sure if it's an environment thing with the humidity in his house or what....

Sorry I'm getting somewhat off topic but my whole point in my posts is that I think its very difficult to really have good cups. I sometimes wonder what is "good" to people. I think my bar is incredibly high because I've produced two brews in my entire life that literally blew my mind - almost nothing comes close to them. I want to find out how "good" or how high the bar truly is at some of these places like Royal or Sweet Marias, which list these amazing flavors.... like it's easy. Hell, when I had my quest M3, I've had conversations with Dan @ Coffee Shrub - he's not doing any voodoo with that thing... in fact he doesn't geek out or do anything weird like any of us quest owners. YET, he consistently produces or describes coffee with amazing flavors. Seems like voodoo magic....

I asked the espresso method question, because hot dang - some of my roasts which I struggle with a brew....produce delicious fruity, thick, cherry juice, shots.


Back on topic, the biggest trend I notice in some of my light roasts on the bullet is a general "dryness", maybe a little cardboard characteristic, which I can equate to muddyness. Perhaps its kind of like a baker's cocoa showing too much, instead of round fruit and acidity. There isn't clarity or separation of flavor all the time. The flavor quality I'm talking about from brews at my dad's house is immediately noticable when the coffee hits your mouth and I think oh.... yes...this is properly extracted. My only descriptor is that the flavor feels round, the fruit is right there, its balanced, and feels round, not sharp. Oddly, I had a beautiful floral tasting brew, 1 day post roast of Sudan Rume ( seriously high end green), and no other brew came close to how good it was after that day. I just don't get it sometimes. All that said, anyone I make coffee for says "oh this is delicious", whereas I can be like "bleh".

Maybe I can email Royal and plead for them to send me some of their roasted coffee, it'd be very interesting as a baseline.

Sorry to hear about your general disappointment Philip, I was going to bet on #2 or #3 scoring the best. Please take whatever I say with a grain of salt because I am not as experienced as everyone, but if it were my roasts and I were going for floral I would take the #3 roast and either drop it between 9-9:30, or try a new protocol that preheats higher, applies something like P7 at start with no soak, and then drop with 1-1:30 development time. This would hopefully delay yellow just a bit while still giving enough momentum going into 1C. What was the weight loss percent? This is of course if you are trying to pull more floral out. Floral descriptors also seem to need high brew temps from the couple of beans I have gotten floral from. I am pushing an Ethiopian Yirga Cheffe at 208f for V60 and getting some florals and perfumed tastes. At 205f I still get some, but much below that and it is gone. But like I said, I have only been roasting for two years, so my ideas are just suggestions, I know how much I have yet to learn. Don't want to come off as know it all.

Joe - I know the feeling all too well. Once you have those amazing roasts/brews your mind always goes back to them and compares what you have against it. I have made a v60 almost every day for the last year and have never been blown away by them and my roasts like I was when I went to a shop and had my first Godly cup of coffee from the v60. Some of their flavor descriptors come from the grounds and bloom, which I sometimes find to be easier to pick smells up from than the actual brew itself. Most of my home brews also have a somewhat harsh finish with a slightly drying affect. I just tried using bottled spring water for the first time today on the assumption that my tap water is too soft (I never had shower head or kettle scale). It did make a positive difference, but it still wasn't a god cup. I also got a Melodrip because if doing multiple pours my slurry would agitate and the latter pours would slow down and clog.

false1001 wrote:I whipped up a pourover this morning of #2 and it wasn't bad by any means... some very solid, balanced sweetness with a hint of floral papaya in the aftertaste but nothing compared to what was described by Royal Coffee in their roasting notes...There was a weird hint of grassiness/underdevelopment, but I don't feel like I was anywhere close to risky with my drop temp and a dissection of the beans revealed a relatively even roast.

I have a Colombian from Royal (CJ1220) that I've vac-sealed and frozen and am still slowly working through. Obviously, a different coffee than yours, but in the 30+ roasts I've done with it, I feel like the 'florality' I get at light roasts could also be perceived as a green underdeveloped note... so it's interesting to hear your description of how both of those types of flavors are at least peaking through your roasts. That said, some weeks I like it and other weeks I don't (and it just strikes me as a green flavor). Still trying to work out how to retain the really yummy acids, while at least moving that 'green' note towards a more developed flavor without baking or compromising any of the coffee's sweetness. Bit of a head scratcher for sure, but then again, that's why I like the commitment to 22lbs!

Taking a look at their analysis and your roast profiles, I'm wondering if you think you could speed up the entire profile (without introducing defects) on the Bullet? Their probatino times are around 8:00 or below, and even their 4lbs Diedrich batch doesn't even get above 9:00. On the other hand, your 300g Bullet batches are sitting around the 10:00+ mark. I clearly have no experience at the Bullet, so perhaps you don't have any more headroom with your throttle, or are concerned about introducing scorching. But, might be worth a try?

I believe...Chris Kornman has said on their blog, that they essentially do fairly quick profiles because they favor getting a lot of simple sugars out of their coffees (sorry Chris if I've misrepresented you!). With the Colombian I have, I am trying to shorten my times a bit as I think maybe the extended profiles (mine have been between 9:30 and 12:00 total roast times) chew through and mute the coffee's potential. One potential caveat of course is that the resulting curve may not look 'correct' if one is trying to finish high enough (to avoid green notes) and fast enough (to not mute/flatten the coffee), but again, I believe Chris has mentioned they don't always follow a declining RoR approach at Royal...something to keep in mind if you're willing to experiment 'outside the box' and are after what they appear to be getting from their roasts...

Last question for you: outside of flavors, how are the mouthfeel and aftertaste on those three roasts? Dry? Round? Wet? What flavors are you getting in the middle and on the back of tasting?

dale_cooper wrote:For what it's worth, I've thought about wanting to fly to royal and hang out for a couple days and watch them analyze coffee and taste for myself what they describe in all of these coffees (my geek out level would be overwhelming heh). Royal, sweet Maria's, etc. Their cupping notes are always incredibly descriptive and delicious sounding. If my coffee could taste that good even 20% of the time, it would change my life. I'd literally pay $2000 to finally solve that mystery for myself of....is my palate missing something or is their roasting and brewing just on another level. Given that I don't get much better results from pro roasted coffee.... I don't think it's always technique.

I share similar experiences of frustration with those discrepancies you listed in both of your posts, lol! Thought I'd offer a couple thoughts based off of 'sort of' doing what you're describing above. The short of it is my guess (for your frustrations and my own) is that it's a bit of brew technique causing the issue, but predominantly roast technique. I'll explain.

I got the chance to get some home roasting consulting/training from Ferris Coffee in Grand Rapids a couple years ago. Side note: the geek out level was phenomenal! Got to roast and talk in their education lab with their green buyer one-on-one for two hours. So. Much. Fun. Coming back: the class they offer is meant to be for a whole class of students, but I basically contacted them and told them I was having a really hard time improving in roasting and asked if I could pay for one-on-one help. To my surprise, they offered it at no additional costs (than their regular class fee would be). Maybe you can't fly out to Royal, but if you ask nicely and offer to pay, maybe there's a roaster you respect (and who has the willingness/time) that you could go to to get some help and education from?

Anyways, at that time, I had a Colombia Huila of some sort from Sweet Marias. Long story short, we talked through roast curves, my roast process and approach, etc, etc, but then their green buyer roasted that green on their Probat sample roaster (outfitted with the standard gas valve, air damper, and a manual thermometer), and then we cupped it next to my roasts.

On the one hand, the result was insanely discouraging, because their FIRST sample roast of a coffee I had roasted 10+ times blew mine out of the water. Round, juicy, incredible plum sweetness, some softer/creamy chocolate notes vs my dry, papery, flat, brown tasting attempts.

But, the encouragement was two-fold. First, it led me down a very helpful road of letting go of trying to do the 'right' thing on my equipment (e.g. achieve a perfect curve, or not exceed a 'maximum' temp, etc) and to instead be open to any technique (on my equipment) that improved my coffee. Second, it made me realize that even though I've thought my roaster should be as 'capable' of roasting coffee as the pro roast machines, it clearly has a different 'natural profile' (i.e. if I just heat it up and throw coffee into it vs a Probat barrel, the resulting coffee after 10 minutes will be quite different). This doesn't have to be a curse, of course (and I really liked reading about Hoos' recent article showing replicated flavor profiles across manufacturers), BUT it does reiterate point one (which is that I can only glean so much from approaches that fit others' roasters, and instead, I just have to really be open to trying anything that might better develop a bean in the environment of my roaster)...

Josiah - Those are two awesome posts!!! I'm going to not comment in depth to avoid further hijacking of the thread BUT....

I'm often not impressed with v60's made in cafes. I'm also not often impressed with pro roasted coffee. I do think my roasts can absolutely be to blame with some beans. I also ABSOLUTELY agree with you that curves are not applicable to all machines. I've jokingly said on here that sometimes I feel we're just doing an etch a sketch of a little descending curve, rather than breaking free and being creative. It's hard to be creative and experiment - there are alot of variables to control and it's tough to take the time to really be scientific and understand what is driving what.

dale_cooper wrote:I have nearly every brew tool possible, I truly do not believe its my technique in brewing. I also don't believe its always my roasts - because I'm less than impressed a LARGE majority of the time when buying pro-roasts that have all sorts of absurd cupping/tasting notes on them.

There is a notion IMO that its easy to pull out flavors and have a balanced cup without offputing notes - which IMO (and maybe after 6 years I still suck) is very difficult.

On the contrary - I'll go to my dad's house , and with my same beans, his water system and bonavita brewer produce amazingly round tasting, full, balanced cups. Even me using third wave water or water recipes, can't touch that. It's ridiculously frustrating actually. I'm not sure if it's an environment thing with the humidity in his house or what....

First off, sorry for not examining a bit more of your second post before responding yesterday. I hope it didn't come across as overlooking or disregarding your points/frustrations! Besides wanting to share how eye-opening the experience of a professional roasting the same coffee I had been attempting to roast well (but was failing to) and some of my takeaways from that, the thing is, I do share a very similar experience with what you're describing.

I, too, am not often impressed with pro roasts because of the discrepancy between their descriptions and my experience of their flavors. It's tough to know whether to blame my brewing or their roasting...and in the case of my own roasts, whether to blame my brewing or my roasting. I truly do value traditional cupping, both because of its consistency and because (I feel like) it shows what the coffee tastes like when well-extracted. All to say, since becoming convinced that cupping provides an adequate insight into the coffee's potential, I've tried to work backwards in simplifying/adjusting my brewing to try and more closely match cupping results. Long story short, I have gotten away from percolation-based brews less than 500ml. I can't categorically say that higher dose pourovers are for sure superior, but there just seems to be a wider sweet spot* in bigger brews, whereas the popular ~300ml sizes often served in cafes (and now emulated by many at home), seem to me to have quite a narrow sweet spot before they turn into "bleh..." brews. Maybe that's some of why your dad's Bonavita brews seem rounder and more balanced than your (presumably smaller) pourovers? I'm just thinking out loud, definitely don't have the answers, and definitely share the same frustrations, haha.

*interestingly, sweet spot is probably a bit misleading as the main sensory improvements are more to do with round mouthfeel, clean aftertaste, and a slightly better balance of acidity, sweetness, and complexity.

dale_cooper wrote:I'm going to not comment in depth to avoid further hijacking of the thread...

Apologies to the OP for adding another response to this slight diverging line of discussion. Any luck or differing results with Crown Jewel you've got?