Quarantine 2020 edition - Onda Origins Costa Rica Enrique Navarro

After more than 5 years, a new post!  I've not stopped drinking coffee over the years, in fact have heavily relied on the home roasting operation which has produced some outstanding coffee.  To date, I have probably made 1000 roasts in a 5.5 year period.  A fun hobby, which all of your friends and family enjoy the produce of!

Today I am sharing a coffee from Seattle's Onda Origins, the Enrique Navarro Costa Rica selection.
I bought this at the Metropolitan Market in Sand Point, which has a surprisingly impressive roast coffee selection.  As with all grocery store coffee, you do have to sift through to find the most recent roast date.

Using the Chemex method and the revered 16/1 ratio, I get great results.  This is a bright, juicy coffee, hints of lemon and orange with a slight dark chocolate detection.  Chemex results in a very smooth cup, highly quaff-able.  From the photo you can see a nice crema top to the chemex pour.

Brent's rating: 9

Elm Coffee Roasters - Burundi Ikawa - Inverted Aeropress

Elm Coffee Roasters - Burundi Ikawa - Inverted Aeropress

So, it's been quite some time since we have blogged. Partially, this is due to us commencing our
own roasting (we aren't blogging on it's quality, not because we don't like it but because
repping our own coffee would introduce some bias...), work flows, family stuff, and otherwise.

We have been checking out the new Elm Coffee Roasters, a formidable new but not new roasters, as
Drew Fitchette is former roaster at Stumptown. Elm has a clean, open, woody vibe (hey, we like
puns, and their use of clean wood in the design pays a nice homage to their name), and incidentally
brews some great coffee. Today we picked up the Burundi Ikawa, roasted all of the 3 days ago.

Great bloom, obviously.

Tasting notes: Immediately fruit forward grapelike, spicy, with a crisp citrus tone. As it cools, the citrus and spice notes
become more prominent and the fruit tones decrease, but juiciness upticks. Really

Jay's rating: 9
Brent's rating: 9

Solid.

Stumptown - Guatemala Injerto Bourbon - Inverted Aeropress

Another shocker for me: we haven't reviewed any Stumptown on this blog! In response to the severe pickup at work, we are burning through our coffee, and Brent went by our Seattle roasting facility for Stumptown Coffee Roasters, and picked up some Guatemala Injerto Bourbon.

Tasting notes: Nutty nose, crisp and fresh . Chocolate, and light floral flavors rise as the coffee cools. Ultimately, this is a great balance between a sweet, clean coffee, and light subtleties make this enjoyable.

Jay's rating: 7
Brent's rating: 8.5

Intelligencia - Nicaragua - Inverted Aeropress

While visiting Milstead and Co, Brent's source of coffee guidance, he spotted some Intelligentsia out of Chicago. These folks are pretty legendary, and we hadn't had some of their coffee in a while, so Brent picked up the Nicaragua.

Immediately dry/savory flavor, with light touches of cocoa and toasted coconut. A little juicy on the finish. Good stuff, but nothing as impressive as we would have expected from Intelligentsia.

Jay's rating: 6
Brent's rating: 8 

Heart - Guatemala - Inverted aeropress

Jay went on his normal pilgrimage to Tougo, and saw that they had some Heart coffee in stock, roasted in Portland.  I'm shocked that we haven't reviewed their coffee online up to now, as we have got them on some rare occasions, and we consider it a treat, as it is not particularly cheap, and secondly is some pretty great stuff. Reading through the notes on the flavor, I figured it was up Brent's alley, so I picked it up without much further thought.

Amazing how quick they get this stuff up to Seattle from Portland.

Tasting notes: Without being saccharine, a very sweet, clean coffee. Though darker in appearance than would expect, the coffee stays light and chocolately, with a caramel tone. Finishing notes of hot cocoa, or even a zippy tone like a York peppermint patty.

Jay's rating: 8
Brent's rating: 9

Kuma - Carmen Natural, Panama - Aeropress

Brent was out in the middle of the day to get a breath of fresh air and revive himself back at work. Accidentally, while eying different coffee roast dates from packages at a grocery store, he started a conversation with someone, who turned out to be a seller for our perennial Kuma. He looked at the bag of Kuma that Brent had selected, the Carmen Natural, Panama, and stated that he thought it was pretty good stuff. Hey, who are we to argue with Kuma?

Immediate nose of fig, some notes of peach strawberry on the finish, but the coffee is more balanced than expected with the notes. Pretty rounded body. Really smooth and more nuttyness, typical of a Central American coffee than they noted on the tasting notes. Tastes like a great breakfast coffee.

Jay's rating: 8
Brent's rating: 8.5

Sightglass - Ethiopia Guji - Aeropress

Jay's brother's girlfriend decided to trek down to San Francisco. An ardent supporter of our coffee snobbery, and our blog (she gave us some start up funds, in the form of a $5 bill), she generously sought out some good coffee for us while she was down there, which turned out to be Sightglass, which has turned out consistently solid coffee in our past reviews. Not only that, but the roast date was also Jay's mother's birthday, so we figured we were in for a treat! Thanks, Tori!

It had a good amount of bloom, as you can see below.

Tasting notes: Super-bright tangy citrus, grapefruit tones, while amazingly light body and juicy, rounding out with some black current fruit on the end. Further cooling reveals chocolate, candy tones and more sweetness. Real enjoyable and not too rich, as can occur with some African or Indonesian coffees.

Jay's rating: 8.5
Brent's rating: 8