The day before yesterday, more Guatemalan coffee arrived. As always, Guatemala Antigua La Flor del Cafe is excellent. Home roasters buying this coffee unroasted should be especially pleased as it performs well in the entire range from a true light roast through to a French Roast.
Yesterday's cupping identified four particularly good ways to roast this coffee. Two of these (the medium and the dark roasts) are on our shelves in place of the previous lot of Guatemalan. Both of these are roasted a little lighter than with the previous lot. In the case of the medium roast, going a little darker resulted in an outstanding aftertaste, but the flavor just was not very interesting. With the dark roast, I wanted to preserve the Antigua character while introducing some roastiness. Darker roasted coffees tend to lose origin distinctiveness, but I think I struck a good balance with this coffee.
I also chose a French roast which will replace the current French Roast when I run out of the Brazil I'm using for that now. This could be as soon as a couple weeks from now, possibly sooner with the art walk only a week away (be sure to visit West Racine for that on the 8th, 10—3; we'll have live music by The Dave Braun Quartet and there are always some talented artists displaying in several shops). I'll be using my test batch to work on new versions of blends so today in addition to the usual daily roasting, I'm preparing a little more of coffees I'd like to try in the next espresso blend.
Finally, there was a very nice light roast sample tha I pulled a little more than a minute before the start of the second crack but well after the end of the first crack with full bean development. It cups well, but I don't think I can sell it.
Unrelated to this, a recent thread on the Roaster's Guild forum features roasters expressing the opinion that $8.99 is a fair, or even too low, price for a half pound of Costa Rican La Minita. Yes, that's $17.98 per pound. I'm happy to say that you can buy this coffee from us as either a medium or a dark roast for the much lower price of $12.50 per pound.