2017-11-23 — Colombia Nariño Rio Juanambú

Roast Date: 23 Nov 2017
Duration: 13m32s
First Crack @ 10m24s
Rating: ★★★☆☆
1.2lb → 0.983lb; 18% Weight Loss

Sweet Maria’s

(From Google Cache:)

The dry fragrance of Juanambú has a butter toffee nut smell to it, City and City+ roasts offer caramel/toffee overtones, with roasted almond and black walnut smells underneath. The level of sweetness is prominent in the wet aroma, a scent of fresh baked cinnamon rolls with white icing, and a strong note of caramelizing sugars. The cup has raw sugar sweetness that comes off in layers; dark brown sugar, vanilla caramels, malt syrup, and honeyed hints. At City there is a lemon vibrance that intensifies as the cup cools, tart, and tea-like, and subtle fruited notes of golden raisin and date pieces pop up. The finish is sweet in the short run, shifting to a long bittersweet end. This bittersweetness is more dominant in Full City roasts, but the sweet side of this equation is really hard to beat, let alone eclipse. I loved the brightness and fruit notes captured in our light roasts, but this is also a great option for those looking for coffees suited for 2nd snaps. Juanambú is made up of really dense beans (as a result of cultivar and altitude) that can handle high heat without issue.


Acidity: I am not sure if it’s acidity I’m tasting but there is a sour note at the back when tasting this coffee. I’m torn between calling it sour and “bad.”

Sweetness: There’s an odd smokey sweetness in the finish if this coffee.

Mouthfeel: Oily.

Flavor: The flavor immediately hits me hard like the smell of coffee from my childhood. It’s not fruity in any way and reminds me of some kind of crude oil more than anything.

Finish: I would say this coffee has more finish flavor than flavor, which is odd. I don’t love it though.

Balance: I don’t like this coffee. I’ll see if it grows on me in future tastings and roastings.

Note: This coffee is almost surely overroasted. I accidentally got into second crack and as you can see from the weight loss it was more water loss than almost anything I’ve ever roasted before.


Update (2017-11-25): This morning (24h after it finished steeping) the coffee was much more palateable. I didn’t have a chance to re-cup it but if I remember I will tomorrow. I’ve updated the rating from 2 to 3.


2017-11-26 Recup

Acidity: There is a tang that originally really bothered me but is much more muted now. It’s still there, and if I focus on it I am still not a fan, but it’s less front and center.

Sweetness: The sweetness here is somewhat raisiny. When this first hits my palate I taste something that I can quite place. I want to compare it to prunes maybe.

Mouthfeel: Astringnent. (Weird, opposite of two days ago.)

Flavor: Kindav a prune-y coffee at this point?

Finish: The finish redeems this coffee in a lot of ways. I taste the prune flavor the most during the finish. I’m really not sure if it’s a prune flavor or something else.

Balance: So as mentioned yesterday, this coffee is not as bad as I originally thought. If I can remember to, I will roast and brew this one ahead of time enough that it will have mellowed out for daily drinking.