Coffee Trail and Error – Early tryouts – Ethiopia journey

Coffee Beans

This time it was the Ethiopian coffee turn. For that I choose one of the Polish, “freshly” roasted beans. This one was stuck longer with me since I ordered 1kg by mistake. However I took the opportunity this situation presented, which allowed me to test few brewing methods with the same beans and also see how they change after some time. Since it was 1kg bag I had no container to hold it so I had to divide it. Half went to Miir container the other one stayed in the bag. What was interesting is that I thought the coffee would loose some of it “taste” after being in the bag (which has a proper seal and everything) rather than in proper container, however after some time I must say I didn’t see much of a difference between those two portions. Maybe there is less flavor however I still can’t really feel that so I will have to revisit this check somewhere in the future.

What’s more not learning my lesson from the last time I ordered another highly acid coffee and in this case it really was (to tell the truth it I believe it wasn’t labeled on the site and somehow I didn’t bother to double check it). The other parameters were to my liking, light roasted, sweet with medium body so I was hopeful it will turn alright. First interesting thing was the look of the coffee after grinding (thought I did a photo all the time drinking it…), which was much more loose then the previous one, while being grinded on the same setting. This also was made me clean the mill more often when I was brewing it since after couple of glasses I started noticing that’s it’s getting harder and harder. What was also different was the smell, more interesting then the first one, a bit sweeter I guess? However it still had a strong and expressive note of coffee, so you would not mistake it for another drink.

Since I had those beans for a while I decided to try out a few theories I found online regarding the best steps and time when it comes to brewing and also the proper dosage. The first “trick” I decided to try was to mix the grounded coffee after the first part – the infusion part – was done, to help the carbon dioxide leave the coffee much easier. There was also a variation that made you repeat this step after the second part to get more “body” from the coffee. How did it turn out? Was there any outstanding change? Maybe if I brew both of the together I would notice something, however to tell the truth there wasn’t much of a difference, the biggest change I saw was in the presentation. Thought it was a bit brighter by using those tricks, however I never noticed any taste change so guess maybe it doesn’t really work for every type? Moreover that made the whole process, a bit longer which also made it harder to follow the steps times and to keep the correct water temperature, which made me abandon this one. The other trick I saw online was the amount of steps, or how getting rid of them altogether would made the coffee better, more “rich” in flavor and this one actually had something in it. I will be testing this with other coffees to see if it was only my autosuggestion due to the fact I hoped that to change the acidity levels, or there actually is something in it.

At last we came to the tasting part and well as I wrote beforehand the coffee does have a strong acidity (and also some bitterness that didn’t really mattered to me in the end). Hoping the brewing method could overturn those minuses I tested it for a long time (drinking one coffee per day, believe me 1kg is really a big bag), however to no avail. Don’t get me wrong it was better than some of the coffees I had in the past however it definitely wasn’t my type, maybe if the sweetness would come through or I would finally manage to feel the flavors. Unfortunately that didn’t happen which would place this coffee lower in my ranking than the Panama one I had earlier.

Coffee Rating

• Flavor – 4 – thought it tasted a bit worser than the first beans I ordered
• Bitterness – 5 – wasn’t really that bitter but you could still feel it, maybe since it was a light roasted one?
• Acidity – 3 – it was advertised as one and I could feel it, which was a bit of dealbreaker for me
• Sweetness – 2 – this supposed to be peach/lemon/tea flavor but to tell the truth I still can’t feel them
• Initial rating – 4 – for the acidity and zero flavor taste I decided to rank it a bit lower though I still at the beginning of this journey
• After time rating – 5 – didn’t really taste worser after the time especially since it was a 1KG bag which I couldn’t put in my coffee containers so it was left on the table in original bag.

Conclusion

For now I wouldn’t recommend this one unless you want some perceptible acidity in your coffee. Still like with the first one I will gladly come back to this one after I get some more experience and see how it changes while also comparing my future brewing methods with the ones tested here.