Coffee Name: Ecuador - Pichincha/Imbabura
Importer - Royal, Oak - Crown Jewel
Process: washed
Elevation, if known: unk
Variety: Typica (?)
Date: Jun 9, '22
Roaster: DB
Prep: vacpot
Evaluators: DB
Comments: needed heavy culling - defects, unlike other CJs from Royal

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1. Fragrance/Aroma: red licorice, strawberry/sweet vegetal
2. Brightness/acidity: citric, bright cup as it cools
3. Flavor/depth/nuances: watermelon Jolly rancher, black tea, Meyers lemon. White sugar-sweet. Florals in there. Slight dirtiness? I will try a pourover tomorrow and compare.
4. Body/mouthfeel: medium heavy cup
5. Finish/aftertaste: Watermelon/cranberry, long lasting.
Subjective Evaluation/Comments - extremely fruity washed coffee. Starburst candy. Celestial Herbal Red Zinger tea.

Grade: 86.0
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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
79 and below: Thrown off the table

...whatever Pichincha & Imbabura mean...

Two adjoining provinces in Northern Ecuador.

Ah geography. I wonder if those names are indigenous. They don't seem rooted in Latin. I only remember Loja as a coffee region there without study.

What would you score it if the prep were great? The same or higher?

8 days out;

Still has a great nose that's hard to explain. I'll call it tamarind or pear.

Mango as it cools and is not too bright.

God mouthfeel. Cups gone.

Chert wrote:Ah geography. I wonder if those names are indigenous. They don't seem rooted in Latin. I only remember Loja as a coffee region there without study.

Has to be indigenous.

What would you score it if the prep were great? The same or higher?

If the prep were great, it would be a different cup totally and then it would produce differently. Would have to cup it to know. Not trying to be cute.

What surprised me was the amount of defects that got by the exporter, Galo Morales, who walked with the national cup title.

I put the coffee into a cotton sack. Royal talks about the high moisture level and maybe that dirtiness is just mustiness. I will see if that makes a difference.

I finally had a chance to give this a try. Based on Dave's notes about extra moisture and some mustiness, I charged hotter and wanted to take it darker, past the Meyer lemon stage. I did no culling but expect that Dave sees defects I'm missing. This dry cups nicely out of the roaster with good sweetness and development, some earthy complexity that should open up and an aftertaste of praline. The long aftertaste is that fruity one everyone's picking up. Nice. It's a medium roast and despite the displayed temperature does not have darker distillate flavors. I did a gas dip before 1C because it was coming in fast. The drop was by smelling the trier near the target temperature of 430°F. Time will tell. My BT temperatures read at least 10°F higher than most others. Added: The nose of the degassing greens last evening were heavenly. I hope that is captured in the cupping.

Here are tasting notes at Day 4. I don't know if it's opened up and will post more notes. Here how this roast looks, including a hull I didn't cull.




I ground the coffee in a LIDO 2 and let it degas for 1/2 hr. Then I brewed it at 202°F in AeroPress using LIDO grinder. Ratio? My usual 1 AeroPress scoop to enough water to fill the interior of an AeroPress funnel. Not quite science, but it's my dialed in dose.

Added 6/22: Roasting lesson learned today, dial in the grind for your tasting! What follows is the result of underextracting that produced a woody bitter note that's not a roast defect. My new conclusion is that roasted at this level, this is a "coffee that tastes like coffee" (Jim Schulman quote) instead of having other intense flavors dominate. I don't expect the flavors to pop at any roast level but maybe you can make that happen. To my palate its main attribute is softness and balance. My next attempt will take it a bit lighter. You can skip some most of the tasting notes below, which I'll leave in place to show a flawed first tasting.

I like to note changes in taste as the cup cools and haven't provided a timeline. It's going from freshly brewed to room temperature.

Initial taste when hot is nicely developed beyond lemony acidity and a bitter high note. I wonder if the bitterness will resolve with more age? I think so. There is a "softness" to the acidity.

As it starts to cool, there's a melon-like acidity and less bitterness. Sweetness starts to emerge. The bitterness is like wood.

Still warm, the bitterness is receding into the soft, sweet acidity. Aerating the coffee in my mouth, the sweet acidity tastes like apricot. Bitterness is more muted and appears as an aftertaste.

The lingering aftertaste is still bitter but starts to be earthy.

Further cooling brings the sweet acidity forward. The bitters are a smaller spectrum of the taste range and there's a note of almond and unsweetened chocolate.

I like the acid/maillard balance of this roast level but might reduce drop temp by 5°F to ditch the bitter note that's now a bit malty but will wait for results of aging.

Long aftertaste starts to taste somewhat roasty.

My wife tastes it at this point and says, "very nice"! Her taste is discerning, and I think she likes its mildness.

Lukewarm now. There is no roasty taste when first sipped. I think the acidity/development are well balanced.

At room temperature not much more is revealed except reduced bitterness and the rounded acidity is somewhat hollow. I certainly didn't get the fruit flavors that others noted. If I were served this at a restaurant, I wouldn't send it back but would add cream and sugar, and that says something, probably more about the roast than the coffee.

If this doesn't open up much from here, my next roast would be faster with much lower drop temp, putting on the brakes before 1C to achieve that. I'm guessing that as it ages, it will mellow but won't be much more complex.

Here's my next roast with a lower target temperature and with no need for a gas dip. I still had a soft crash, yet this should be drinkable.

I'm surprised at your charge temp considering your very low TP temp.