I received Sumatra Mandheling from Frankly Good Coffee the other day, you can find them here on Facebook. Frankly Good Coffee is a small batch coffee roaster that does his roasting at a farmer’s market near where they live. They have a I have had coffee delivered to my workplace before. This time I was actually informed that if I did not get down there immediately they were going to go get a grinder and make it all themselves as of now. Well, at work we have those volume Bunn machines. I cannot have that happening to good coffee; that would have been catastrophic!
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The coffee was packaged inside of a bag within a bag within a bag. I think it did a great job of keeping things from getting into the coffee, which is always a concern. However a box would have given more piece of mind I think as someone could have dropped it, stepped on it, cut it open, a number of things come to mind. I don’t know what the cost difference would be, but, if it were a problem yet, I imagine that Glenn (the head roaster) would have changed it by now.
Well time to try some coffee. I only really brew with the Clever Dripper anymore. With the clever you need to measure out your water and coffee (by weight please (thanks Alton Brown!)). This allows me to exert extreme control over the brew. This highlights one of the great things about coffee. You can alter things minimally and experience different characteristics to one single coffee. It is like having several drinks at once. If only I had an espresso machine I could super tweak things.
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Well let’s pile right into it shall we? The roast was very even and the beans had a very universal coloring. There should not be much variance then in the bean flavor from roasting, good. I used a medium grind setting. On my poor little overworked Mr coffee this produced some chunks slightly larger than others. Not the most even of grinding but what am I going to do right? ( I know buy a better grinder, its on the list!) The bloom was really impressive. It really did do a total muffin top. Very active.
I was definitely getting serious spice notes with a greater water to coffee ratio. The chocolate hints are subtle. This is a really good coffee. At first I used a 350:35 w:c ratio (in grams). This produced what I call a brute force coffee. Very strong, robust, good and earthy. There was a hint of spice and chocolate, maybe it was more caramel but that might just be my taste buds. With the 350:30 w:c ratio the earthiness let up a good bit but the spicy notes kicked it up a notch in prevalence. The chocolates however seemed to disappeared.
After four cups of this coffee, I have to say I like it. I would recommend it. Check them out at their fanpage. Frankly, its good coffee…
I received Sumatra Mandheling from Frankly Good Coffee for purposes of sampling it. I was given this coffee free of charge with the understanding that all opinions would be honest and forthright.
Brandy that one will be forthcoming this weekend, published Sunday or Monday.
