High Note Coffee- Trumpet Solo Blend

$8.50 for 8oz, ordered from goodeggs.com

So, I decided to be daring, considering I was getting an awesome deal on some swanky groceries (thanks, special oaklandians!). High Note had a few single origin beans, but none of the fancy word descriptors sounded appealing to me. But this one-- a BLEND! Claiming to have all the good characteristics of the other beans! I'm glad I didn't read too carefully- this one is claiming to be a "dark roast," which it isn't (I mean, it is, but not compared to Californian standards of "dark")

It's exactly as it claims. Dark chocolate, smooth finish. It's actually pretty good. It's got a good, solid, deep taste without being overwhelming in any way. I'm not completely wowed by it, but it's good!

Good coffee, pretty good price. And local!

A gift from Sparkles' trip to Portland!

Looks light. Beautiful bloom. Aroma is subtle and light. Makes me worry it's going to taste a little green.

Wow. This is different than what I've been consuming regularly. It's light, but robust. I'm at a loss for words. I was expecting light, thin, and a little sour. Not the case at all! It's pleasantly acidic and really well balanced. It's seems to have a little more caffeine, but I might just be giddy because it's so yummy.

Good work, Sparkles. I'm impressed.

One sad day, I ran out of Raxakoul and frantically ran around the Whole Foods coffee isle wondering which bag I might find the least offensive. I wasn't impressed with any of the other local roasters so far (and so unimpressed that I didn't even want to give any of their other roasts a try), so I went for Northbound. I meticulously read all of the labels to find one that seemed safe. I grabbed this one. Then I got scared and I put it back. But I had to get something. Maybe I could survive on no coffee. No, that's silly. Just try it. No, I'm scared. Ok, I grabbed. I took it home. I looked at it. It look aight. It smelled aight. And, to my surprise, it tasted aight. Decent. Ok, it was pretty good. But not good enough to finish once I restocked my Raxakoul. I guess this can be my worst case scenario back up coffee. Maybe. 

Patters gave me this last time I was in San Diego. She got a bunch from her friend who is the grower or roaster or owner... or something.

This coffee was so good. I was skeptical, because most touristy Kona coffees are so burnt and so sad. I enjoyed this so much that I entertained the idea of ordering some off of their website. That is, until I saw the price. But I will definitely take more of this off of Patter's hands. mmmm....

It's been a long while since I've kept up this blog. Mostly due to the fact that my coffee quest has met a fortunate end. I have been introduced to good-- dare I say GREAT!!-- coffee in the Bay Area.

Meet Raxakoul Coffee, sold at the Country Cheese Co. in Berkeley. Locally roasted, and so, so good. 

Roasts enjoyed so far:

Sulawesi Toarco Mt. Pedemaran. Nicaragua. Guatemala. Mocha Java. Kenya AA. Peru. Papua New Guinea.

The Sulawesi was my first, and it was love at first sip. I found the Guatemala to be a little light and green for my taste (although I will be buying this one again. Small batch roasting, so there's always a bit of variation every time I buy. A delicious surprise in every bag!). The Mocha Java is on the darker side, but is ever so daintily teasing that line. This results in a more robust and complex roast, which I enjoy... but it is toeing that line of being a little too dark and bold for me. My solution was to mix it with one of the other roasts. Perfection. Kenya AA was delicious. Clean. Crisp. The Peru was a little dark, but not bad. I wasn't the biggest fan of the Papua New Guinea (Papa Newgans!). It has that lightly roasted slightly sour green hint that PNGs normally have.

And then there was the Nicaragua. Oh, the Nicaragua. My favorite. It's just so good. Well balanced. Earthy. Deep. Smooth and subtle. Absolutely no off-putting undertones. Every morning I think... "Damn. That's really good."

The great thing about Raxakoul is... all of them are good. Even my least favorites are better than most of the coffees I've blogged about. I've stayed away from their dark roasts, but that Sumatra calls to me. They have so much variety; I'm like a kid in a candy store. And you can look at the beans. Smell the beans. Oggle the beans. before you buy.

I think price varies from $13-$15/lb. Sweet deal.

Bicycle Coffee Co. - Peruvian Roast

Bicycle Coffee Co. - San Francisco

$11.50/12oz.

Peru, Medium Roast.

Blade grinder, french press.

This was pretty good, lots of dark chocolate going on in that cup. I don't really have much to say about this one.

Dark Horse - Molokai

Dark Horse Coffee Roaster, San Diego

$12/lb for most of their roasts, $22/lb for Molokai

OMG. I have found my new favorite roaster. So sad I'm not local anymore. :( I went to the location on Adams Ave and got a cup of the Molokai. Tiff got the Brazil. The Molokai was amazing. It was robust in all the perfect ways... it was almost too good. I didn't buy a pound, partially because of the price, and partially because it was such an over the top cup of coffee. Great for enjoying on a sunny weekend, but probably not a daily cup for me. The Brazil on the other hand, was also amazing, and a little toned down. Probably the best Brazil I've had. Tiff tells me that the Columbia is her favorite. I'm sure everything they have is perfect. I'm going to have to drink them all next time I'm in SD.

This roaster roasts my perfect cup of coffee. It was love at first sight.

Ritual Coffee - El Salvador

Ritual Coffee, San Francisco

El Naranjo - grown by The Milla Sisters in Apeneca, Ahuachapan, El Salvador.

Flavor notes: Caramel Apple, Butterscotch, Canteloupe

Varietal: Bourbon

$13.95/12oz.

I finally found me some Ritual Coffee!! I've been trying to get my hands on some for awhile now. I brewed this up in a french press, using a blade grinder. It's smooth, has some sour qualities, but with a really great end taste. I think the sour is a bit overpowering for me, but I'm going to try again with my burr grinder, pour over, and perhaps a little more bean to water ratio. I definitely taste the butterscotch, but the "canteloupe" was completely lost on my palate. I'm waiting for the day that I actually taste "canteloupe" in a cup of coffee.

This coffee left me with a - huh, not bad. definitely not bad... but not jumping up and down in excitement - feeling. I think it's going to be pretty great with correct proportions (i'm a little rusty on my french press).

I would totally try some of their other bean varieties in the future.

Peet's Coffee - Cafe Domingo

Cafe Domingo from Peet's Coffee

$7.99/ 12oz.

This coffee is pretty good. Solid. It claims to be smooth and balanced... and yeah, i'll give it that. It's pretty robust and caramelly in flavor, low acidity, and not too over roasted. It has no discernable bright notes to it, no sharpness, no citrus... basically, my ideal cup of everyday coffee. Unlike some of the other coffees i've been unfortunate enough to have tried, this one smells like coffee out of the bag. It smells like delciousness when ground. And it smells like a morning should smell when brewing. All very very positive signs.

It's definitely my favorite purchase so far, but it's still got a slightly bitter kick at the end, kind of like a super dark chocolate, which becomes more pronounced as the week progresses and the freshness wanes. That's being a little overly picky on my end, but I like to keep my standards high. :) I'd gladly drink this coffee every day, but I'm going to keep looking... partially because they only offer 2 medium roasts... and I need some variety in my life.

update: I returned that crappy whole foods charcoal coffee and got some dried mangos instead. much happier with those.

Philz "Tesora"

Philz Tesora

~$14 or $15 for 12 oz.

I tried this bag of beans a few months ago. I remember having this long ago at a Philz location, and thinking that it was pretty awesome. This was years and years ago.

This year's reaction: what's the big deal with Philz, anyways? I think I would find it pretty awesome if I liked darker roasts. It's well balanced*, in its own way. It's not too smokey, the acidity level is pretty low, and it's a strong-tasting cup of coffee. I wouldn't buy this particular blend again personally, but I wouldn't have a problem recommending it to someone else.

If you like a dark roast without the smokiness, or "boldness" as Sbucks would say, try out the Tesora.

And hey, I don't mean to give Philz a hard time. I'm currently addicted to their Mint Mojito, and a little embarrassed by that. I hope I didn't just lose all credibility. 

*I don't really understand why Philz insists on throwing in really dark roasts into their medium and light blends. 

Trader Joe's Organic Breakfast Blend

Trader Joe's Organic Fair Trade Breakfast Blend

in the range of$7 or $8 for 14oz... I don't remember

I bought this one a couple of weeks ago. I have tried it before, or I probably wouldn't have purchased it. Like Tina Turner, I don't do anything nice... easy. Or mellow and smooth. Those words are synonymous with bland and boring.

This blend is mellow and smooth, but also quite good. However, after about a week, I was soo over it. As you can see, I didn't finish it. So, I either got bored with the smooth and mellow, or the beans could have been past their prime (both true). I'm still a coffee snob, even if I'm trying to relax my standards. After beans have been open for a week, they start tasting stale. I'm more likely to throw them away than suffer through it.

Bottom Line: I would definitely recommend this as a budget purchase for those that don't mind smooth and mellow. There were a few days that I did enjoy this blend. It's not complex, but it's not half bad.

Trader Joe's "Limited Edition: Peaberry from Brazil"

Trader Joe's Limited Edition Peaberry from Brazil

$6.99/13oz.

pulped beans

The main reason that I grabbed this one out of the multitude of cans at Trader Joe's: pulped beans. Now, I normally don't pay too much attention to bean processing, mainly because my tastes aren't that discerning. If i do need to decide between two or more, I'm less likely to choose a washed bean. I've found that washed beans will tend to have low acidity, and also a cleaner taste. I don't like this clean taste. I want something to pop out at me. I want some flavor. Some character. And so, I was hoping that these pulped beans would have some form of complexity.

I opened up this can, and took a big whiff. I immediately coughed after inhaling some funky fumes. Ground it up anyways, and had a truly uninteresting cup of coffee. I don't even want to write any more about it. You get what you pay for. Boring.

Bottom line: I hate Trader Joe's coffee aisle. There are probably 20 "different" roasts. All of them have the exact same descriptive words on them, making it impossible to make any informed decisions. The beans are unevenly roasted, low quality, and I don't think I'll be buying any more of them. 

That last line is probably a lie. I will make the same mistakes twice. The curse of an optimist.

Philz "Sooo Good"

Philz Coffee, "Sooo Good" Light Roast

$16/16oz at a Philz location, $16/12oz at Whole Foods. 

This is the perfect example of why I prefer single origin coffees as opposed to blends  (this was not always the case). This is listed as a light roast. I chose a light roast because I've tried their "medium" roasts, and they taste like dark roasts. So, not much to my surprise, this light roast also tasted much darker than a light should.

This blend wasn't amazing, and it wasn't bad. I just wasn't that into the odd mixture of beans here. There was some smokiness in there, which pretty much killed any subtleties in flavor that a light roast should highlight. However, the smokiness wasn't overpowering as it would have been if this was a purely dark roast.

I'd be interested in trying more of Philz coffee, only because everyone raves about it. But I think it might be in vain, considering that the blends that I've tried are a little dark for my liking.

Bottom line: it was fine-- a little more than fine-- but the price is a bit steep for how unimpressed I was by it. I didn't even finish the bag. :(

Whole Foods "Pleasant Morning Buzz"

As soon as i opened this bag I sensed doom. In it's defense, it does say that it's "darkly roasted for a rich, full-flavored cup." Ugh. I just noticed that now. Serves me right for making rash decisions and not reading carefully.

Ok. This coffee smells good straight from the bag. Notice the shininess of the beans and the dark color. Beans tend to shine like that when they are roasted past a full-city roast. Basically, all of the inherent bean flavors and sugars have been burnt off, resulting in a smokey, sometimes charcoal-like flavor. I could even feel the difference as I ground these up. The beans were lighter. More brittle. These beans have had all of the goodness roasted out of them.

I brewed this coffee, cringing, but still hoping for the best. Hoping that at least Daddio would drink it and enjoy it. Sadly, today was not a day of miracles. This coffee was the worst I have had in a long time. Reminiscent of the Mission's coffee in San Diego. Yes, it was that bad. It tastes like i steeped the ash from some old dingy cigarettes.

Whole Foods, Pleasant Morning Buzz:

$7.99 for 12oz.

Dark. Burnt. Thin. Ashtray undertones.

Most regretted purchase.

All I want is a good cup of coffee.

I've decided to document my quest to find some good, affordable coffee in the Bay Area. I'm not asking for anything spectacular; I just want a good cup of coffee, at a decent price. I didn't realize how hard this would be.

Living in San Diego spoiled me. Having a job spoiled me. Having that job be at an awesome coffee cart spoiled me. Being in close proximity to roasters that know their shit and roast beans right spoiled me.

So, I find myself in the south-ish bay area. And as a student and on a tighter budget, I no longer have the time or the dollars to buy coffee at cafes every day. 

The bay area has a lot of good local roasters. I know this. When I moved up here, Whole Foods had a really great variety of coffees available from roasters located all around the Bay. That variety has lessened significantly since then. And, coincidentally, it was one of my Whole Foods purchases that has inspired this little blog.

Ok, let's give a little bit of background on my coffee tastes.

Sumatra Mandheling has been my long standing favorite. I don't like dark roasts. At. All. I go for a medium roast, full body, low acidity, with a good nutty, caramely taste. I would rather drink a light roast than a burnt one, but I'm not really into citrusy tones. Not for an every day coffee, at least.

I support local roasters, but I've been buying at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, out of convenience. I think this will be stopping. I buy whole beans and grind them by hand every morning. I started off the school year using my french press, but have since gotten much lazier and have been using your run of the mill coffee maker. 

I don't want to be spending too much, and have been aiming for more affordable options. There is a big range of prices, and I was hoping that price doesn't have to directly correlate with quality. I wouldn't mind spending $10 for 12oz of coffee. Unfortunately, if I'm not buying Trader Joe's or Whole Foods brands, from big chains, or some other sketchy crap, I'm looking at paying $11-16 dollars for 12oz. If I go directly to the roaster, I'd get 16oz for that price. However, I don't drink enough coffee to go through that amount before it no longer tastes fresh.

And with that, let's start the reviews!

Chiang Mai, Thailand.

September, 2012.