2018-03-11 — Ethiopia Illubabor Baaroo Cooperative

Roast Date: 11 Mar 2018
Roast Level: FC
Duration: 11m35s
First Crack @ 9m39s
Rating: ★★★☆☆
1.2lb → 1.038lb; 14% Weight Loss

Sweet Maria’s

We’re really pleased with this year’s lot of Baaroo. A balanced coffee, Baaroo’s profile has just the right levels of complex sugar browning sweetness and subtle top notes to reflect coffees from the origin. The dry fragrance has a smell of dark toffee, so sweet and candy-like, with an understated peach note of the canned, syrupy sweet variety. Adding hot water sees a boost in stone fruit aromatics, like apricot and brown sugar,, as well as a peak in sugary sweetness, a maple icing scent filling the steam. Baaroo is extremely versatile, and great at both light and dark roast levels. Notes of stone fruit reductions with unrefined sugars prevail across the roast spectrum, and darker roasts develop deep chocolate roast tones. Oddly enough, the floral side is most present in the hot cup, faint jasmine and lemon oil accent a honey-sweet cup. The cooler temperature allows for profile expansion and depth, and the profile is filled out with notes of raw honey, baking spices, slab apricot, and a well-integrated lemony acidity. There is a mingling of rindy citrus and cacao nibs in the finish too that interplay with one another nicely. Body is juicy, even at City roast level, and translates into great mouthfeel as both brewed coffee and espresso. Espresso shots of a Full City roast extract a rich chocolate syrup flavor, along with orange juice and licorice accents, and undeniable citrus brightness but without overpowering the shot.

Roast Notes

It was cold and rainy while I roasted this coffee, so first crack may have taken longer than normal both because it was higher humidity and because it was colder.

Cupping

Acidity: Bright vegetal acidity that reminds me of some kind of bean?

Sweetness: I think I taste the apricot flavors listed above in the sweetness, but hard to tell for sure.

Mouthfeel: I get a pretty oily, rich mouthfeel out of this one.

Flavor: I had trouble placing the flavor of this one, so I re-read the SM tasting notes, so these might be primed. I do think I taste the stone fruint reductions and apricot.

Finish: I taste a lot of the cocoa flavors in the finish.

Balance: Good, but hardly great. Maybe it’ll grow on me.