Several of us have this Crown Jewel from Royal, Oakland: https://royalcoffee.com/product/cj1396/

Bourbons. Roasted it this afternoon and let the Gene Cafe struggle against the outside venting, with a -5*F downdraft.

1st crack: 8:20
Dropped external cool: 10:20

Notes to follow later this week after rest.

Coffee Name: Rwanda Mahembe Murundu
Date: 2/18/21
Evaluator: db
Importer: Royal, Oakland
Process: Washed x3
Varietal: Bourbon
Roaster: Gene Cafe
Days Rest? 4
1st Roast. Depth/Min/Sec after 1st crack: 2:00

Comments:
1. Dry fragrance/Wet aroma: Dry, very pronounced Hershey dark chocolate bar. Wet, herbal, light chocolate.
2. Brightness/acidity: medium, citric.
3. Flavor/depth: deep baker's chocolate, slight orange, raisin. Agave syrup sweetness.
4. Body/mouthfeel: soft cup, syrupy, smooth, silky
5. Finish/aftertaste: very clean finish with raisin and baker's chocolate lingering

Comments: Excellent cup, top to bottom. Will be great for espresso at this level. Will shorten the time after first for vacpot/pourovers. Going after more sweetness.

Buy Worthy? xx (edited). Need more roasts to see if I can remove advancing dryness in the cup, 2.26.21

Grade: xx

Grading system:
88 and above: Superb coffee
87: Outstanding coffee
86.5: Buy range, distribution worthy
86.0: If I needed the origin, I would buy it
85.0: Missing an element
84.0: Specialty coffee but not recommended
80-83: Coffee

The first cupping came off a vacpot. Today's cup was a pourover.

Has a drying aspect which I wonder if a less medium fine grind will help. I have a tendency to grind fine. Going to do both a longer and a shorter roast to experiment.

Roast again this weekend.

Buy Worthy? xx

Grade: xx

I edited the coffee notes above as the dryness has moved into astringency the longer it rests. I loosened up the grind and it barely helped.

Going to regroup on the roast and go longer and shorter than the 1sr roast. Will jump on a higher heat with this one as both the Ikawa and Diedrich notes from Royal suggest it:

I'd go with something a little hotter and a little faster, to bring out those delicious acidities...A way to deal with this is to start with a higher charge temperature to drive off moisture faster and step down off of the gas before/during the Maillard stage/Stage 2. This will enable you to control the roast, allowing the sugars to brown at a slow enough rate to take advantage of this extremely sweet coffee.

This will be a dance to pull off on the Gene as I have to fly without all the umph as a gas roaster.