From our Greens Alert thread, this is the freshly landed Ethiopian honey processed coffee that Royal Coffee just released. There is still plenty of it available and it's attractively priced. Jen Apodaca was very enthusiastic about this coffee, on top of being very big on Ethiopian coffees in general, she saw this as the star Ethiopian offering they've procured thus far this season.

The greens are small, very consistent sized, appearing like a washed rather than a honey processed coffee, with a few depulper defects and I noticed in each 250g batch some fine jute or burlap fibers, so those should be sorted out. The green measures 11.3% on my Wile moisture meter, which matches very closely to their Sinar measurement of 11.2%. They smell like typical, sweet, slightly watermelon rind and fresh.

I took two random stabs at it to get something started. I can't replicate the insane thermal momentum and retained heat of her Probatino with my little Quest M3, so reaching for her goals won't work on my gear, I didn't even try. But she did note that she found two general themes with this coffee. If you let the development build slower to build body, you get harmonious florals and berries, whereas slightly lower charge temp but faster accelerating and faster overall profiles yield a very powerful, clear orange blossom extract aroma albeit sacrificing some of that body, most notably in her convective Ikawa roaster. I basically did one regular/slightly fast profile, and one very fast, very aggressive cracking profile. I'll work backwards from these to more development depending on what they brew up like.

Both profiles showed a very beautiful smelling, but hard to describe note right as they dried at yellow. It wasn't a common fragrance I find, but wow it smelled great. Maybe something like pineapple upside-down cake fresh out of the oven.

This first profile trickled into first crack gently and I didn't tag it until it was really going for a bit.




And the wickedly quick one (not entirely intentional to this degree, I've been awake for >28 hours) and notice I trimmed the X axis. So this is in sorts, an accelerated, otherwise copy of the first profile. I can get the Quest to behave in a predictable fashion without requiring a ton of fiddling, by charging a tad higher bean mass, and start with a much higher charge temp and then only trim heat a bit as I proceed.




Impressive weight loss for both, for what is a light city roast with plenty of bean surface texture remaining. These greens are fresh and have no trouble shedding moisture with their consistent small size and open seams.

Brewed a sample of each profile this morning. This is definitely a very good coffee. Even though it's almost a caricature of intense fruity/floral coffee, it's supremely gulp-able because it's so clean. It doesn't taste like a natural or a honey, but more like an exotic geisha.

Although I expect the coffees to rest more and change slightly, there's a unanimous theme present in both. Scale tipping sweetness of pineapple juice. They are very much like warm Hawaiian Punch. My profile #1 has exotic florals paired with that nice pineapple flavor, so what I'm tasting is reminiscent of what only the finest fruity IPA's can achieve with their pricy hops, albeit minus the bitterness. There is a good bit of body there, but I'll stretch my ramp time on my next profile and see what comes of it. It would be fun to chase that orange blossom note. I did grind a tad too fine on this small 15g brew, but still didn't get any astringency.

My second profile is obviously not as impressive, thin and a tad grainy, but still otherwise containing the flavor notes above.

Batches of green that I weighed out and shipped should be arriving by Tuesday for folks.

I brewed up what I'd now consider a properly rested sample just now. It's still cartoonishly sweet and clean fruits, mostly nectarine first, pineapple next. There's still a subtle hoppy floral in the back of the mouth. I think the whole thing will be better with a slightly longer stretch during the ramp, even if I finish shorter.

Thanks for sharing these notes Tom! I'm excited to take this one for a spin.

I roasted 1lb of this yesterday morning/24hrs ago. My first attempt mirror's Tom's 1st. This coffee is very prone to moisture loss & this batch had -13.7%. I am finding the flavors very washed out & dry. I did a 2nd roast with extended development for espresso. Ill pull some shots later & see how it cups.

Anyways - Id like to charge higher next time and get the overall roast time closer to 9 minutes. I think that would improve this coffee greatly.

Couldn't wait to pull a shot. REALLY impressed with this coffee as espresso. Such a complex, killer shot. That Orange Blossom note hits right up front, good body, milk/bakers chocolate. It will be interesting to see how it clears up after a few days rest.

Again, -15.6% loss.

Can someone say they're not impressed so I'm not forced to buy this ?

If anyone has some to spare could you pm me? Or I'll just buy a box and hopefully people want a share.

i'd definitely be in for some if anyone's getting a box to split, please let me know!

I ran about 15 different roasts last night of various coffees and a few blends. Took another shot at this beautiful coffee but haven't tasted it yet, I've been running around (mailing green coffee), but I hope to try it by tonight. I hit all my earlier stated goals with this profile.

I split my box 3 ways sending on to two others and I had enough time to include samples of my first roast of this, very encouraging. It seems much easier to roast than straight up DP beans and therefore a wider margin of error allows for very good coffee regardless.

I hit the marks I intended other than wanting a slightly shorter overall time, (I purposely backed the heat down one notch for a first run) the even color of the beans possibly a combination of better sorting and certainly the honey process.

I'll update with a copy of my profile if I can figure out how to get a screenshot from my laptop to the phone. Roasted it on the 11th here is a first report on how it turned out:

"...sipping on my morning cappuccino using the Kochere sample you sent. One of the best African coffees I have had in a very long time. I love the way the fruit is prominent and gentle. It's a bit like a blend of perfectly ripened strawberries and mango. Love it. Thank you."

Then this:

"Pat, the taste didn't match the aroma. I was not expecting such a surprise. It is lovely! Very smooth, perfect body and the flavors were smooth and vivid. Elegant. I don't know when you roasted it but if it gets any better I will truly wet my pants. I place my morning cappuccino in an EMBER temperature controlled mug set at 140f. I sipped on this for about an hour at the perfect temp for me. It just doesn't get any better. Thanks for making my day."