The Christmas rush was pleasantly hectic and extremely busy. Quite a bit happened at the roaster. New lots of coffee were opened, nearly every blend was retested (most thankfully were continued to taste right with preexisting recipes), and my work day on many occasions involved nothing but keeping track of what coffees were selling and roasting more. Holiday Blend was popular enough that I no longer have two of the ingredients needed to make more of it. I have drafts for entries detailing all of this, but there was no time to finish them properly. Outside of the roasting area, we sold every mug we had with a cat on it, lots of our chai concentrate (prepared and bottled in the exotic Midwest by Wilson's Coffee & Tea), and due in large part to a favorable article in the Racine Journal Times we sold as many of Manijeh's fine truffles as we could get in stock. As for weight issues, I lost entirely too much of it and am working hard to put those pounds back on.
Once the new year starts, I will be looking for new coffees to bring in. For the most part I am interested in new lots of coffees we are presently carrying or have recently run out of, but I'll be looking at other things as well. A company we do not currently deal with is sending me some samples in January.
That covers the recent past and the near future. Now for the present. Our current lot of Brazil Prima Qualita is wonderful. It has an amazing sweetness that is present not only in the medium roast I'm doing but in French Roast as well. This has caused some complications with its use in Viking Blend Espresso. I want the espresso to be sweet, but it has been tricky to avoid going too far with that. This was solved in the previous two recipes by finding a way to balance the dark roast portion of the blend between French roasted Brazil and French roasted Sulawesi. Now I am out of Sulawesi. I spent nearly all of yesterday working on a new espresso blend. Several attempts were not bad, one was, I believe, the worst espresso I've ever tasted (and this includes those 3 ounce in 10 second "espresso" served at establishments that did not remain in business for long). None of these attempts were good enough for me to consider serving. After 19 attempts, I had to conclude that it had become impossible to produce a truly exceptional espresso blend with only the coffees roasted as they are for normal sale. I normally decide to try roasting something that will be unique to espresso sooner, but several trials were very close to what I wanted.
If my only interest in espresso was its use in a mocha or a flavored cappuccino, a few of the blends I tasted would be fine. Once milk is added to espresso, or any coffee, many distinguishing characteristics are irretrievably lost and good enough can, for someone who has developed a taste for milk coffee, become good. These considerations have caused some roasters to embrace generic, good enough for milk coffee espresso blends that are easier to adjust to changing coffees. This does a disservice to the espresso drinker and to the blend developer who can do better, given the chance.
With this in mind, I guessed that there might be some change that would open up truly exceptional possibilities if I had a preblend consisting of 80% Brazil Prima Qualita and 20% Papua New Guinea roasted darker than French Roast. The motivating idea is to reduce the sweetness present in both ingredients, increasing the body of the dark roast component, and allowing other ingredients to be used in sufficient proportion to more fully express themselves without pushing the blend as a whole into sour, astringent, or unbalanced domains.
Whenever I prepare a custom roast for use in espresso, I like to try it on its own to make sure I have the right grind and find out what I can expect from that component when used in a blend. This preblend delivered an intense, sweet, and surprisingly delightful espresso. Everybody working agreed that this was perfect for espresso. I tried it in a few blends and found that adding anything only diminished the quality of the blend.
There is one potential flaw in the blend. I know that there are a few people who like it with a drip preparation, but this tastes rather thin as anything other than espresso. Those not making espresso with this may want to consider switching to House Blend, which is the closest in flavor to a drip preparation of the previous espresso blend.