Quite a bit has gone on with the coffee over the past two weeks. New bags of Guatemalan arrived to ensure an uninterrupted supply until the new crop comes in. I am also working on transitioning to new lots of four coffees which in turn has required most of the blends to be reworked.
New lots of Brazil, both Sumatrans, and decaffeinated Mexican have been opened. Brazil is still used for both Brazil and French Roast, but there are a few changes. The French Roast is not as sweet as the previous one was. That unusual sweetness caused some difficulty in getting the blends right before and this return to a more traditional French Roast character has required changes to every blend containing French Roast in order to keep the flavor right. Also, the Brazil is no longer Brazil Prima Qualita. That mark was not quite as good as it has been in recent years. Rather than another Brazil Santos, this coffee is from the Mogiana region in São Paulo. The Sumatrans, though roasted a little differently, taste very similar to the previous lots. Some may recall that I was concerned with the Sumatra Mandheling due to irregularity in the green beans that, while not uncommon for Sumatran coffees, had not been observed in previous lots of that particular mark. After a little testing, I decided that the coffee had been purposefully and skillfully blended to deliver a flavor consistent with those previous lots. Now that I have a production profile for that, I can affirm the correctness of that initial assessment. Decaffeinated Mexican tastes very similar, but I noticed a delicious Vienna Roast while cupping it. Also, unlike the last lot of decaffeinated Mexican, this one is not Fair Trade Certified. This means that none of the decaffeinated flavored coffees will be Fair Trade Certified.
Big Island Blend is usually made with only Papua New Guinea (from the largest coffee growing island in the world) and French Roast. Using the previous recipe for this resulted in a coffee that was somewhat tasteless (though not as tasteless as one of the attempts to rework the espresso blend). While the new recipe still is mostly New Guinea and French Roast, it also contains a little Guatemalan and Sumatran coffee. I compared the new blend with the old directly and found that the differences were extremely subtle at first and as the coffees cooled, I found the two to be indistinguishable. I expect to run out of Papua New Guinea before the new crop comes in and I am no longer able to obtain coffee from the current crop. I have reduced or eliminated the use of Papua New Guinea coffee in the other blends in an attempt to keep this coffee around for as long as possible, but when it's gone, Big Island Blend will be temporarily discontinued. Once that happens, I will try to produce a comparable blend to recommend until the new New Guinea comes in, but for the time being I cannot really say how that will work out. You have been warned. Please enjoy Papua New Guinea and Big Island Blend while you can.
Working from the existing recipe for Breakfast Blend was a dead end. Fortunately, I keep records of past blend recipes and was quickly able to bring up a recipe from two years ago that needed only minor modification to work. The new blend is a little simpler, using only three ingredients rather than five.
The existing recipe for European Blend was almost perfect with the new French Roast. The proportions just needed a slight adjustment.
Viking Blend Espresso was a challenge. I kept running into blends that were sour when made as espresso. I traced this to the combination of French Roast and Java. The two coffees individually make fine espresso, if too mild for my taste, but when the two are blended together and prepared as espresso, it turns sour. This seems to be the case for blends that are between 8% and 70% Java. The next problem was a lack of intensity. This was solved with a custom pre-blend roast of Honduras, Uganda, and Java coffees which I unimaginatively call HUJ. Prepared as espresso, HUJ is very intense, but also sharp and of entirely the wrong character for use as espresso. Blending it with French Roast resulted in an intense, well rounded espresso that lacked the brightness and complexity I look for. Bringing Honduras into the mix did brighten the blend, but it did so at the expense of body. A little Sumatran fixed this and the result is very good. For those curious about trying HUJ on its own, don't bother. It tastes awful by drip preparation.
Wilson's House Blend did not take long to figure out, though it does contain a few more ingredients to get the right flavor without using Papua New Guinea.
Decaffeinated Viking Blend Espresso required a few changes due to the change in decaffeinated Mexican, but nothing major.
As of today, decaffeinated Vienna Roast and the new Viking Blend Espresso are available and the new espresso blend is being served. For most other things, there is a little left from the previous versions, but those will be gone soon.
A few other coffees are on the way and should arrive some time next week. I am particularly excited about the new coffee from Yemen and know that many are waiting for Mocha Java Blend to become available.
Finally, it seems that for a while the link from the main page to the Roaster Notes section incorrectly pointed to a page that did not exist. The link has been fixed. Sorry for the earlier inconvenience.