Yesterday, whilst getting ready to watch the Detroit Lions piss away yet another game, I roasted up a batch of Colombia "Perros Bravos de Huila" so that I might have something to drink today. I almost drank some last night, but stopped myself, since I knew that freshly roasted coffee just does not taste developed after a few hours of roasting and should sit for at least 24 hours unless it happens to be a coffee emergency. After roasting, the beans need time to de-gas and release the co2 that has formed during the roasting process (which is why you should never ever store freahly roasted beans in any type of air tight container for at least 12 hours-ka boom!). I have, on occasion, tried brewing up a cup of java with a new batch of beans just an hour or two out of the roaster and I have never got an good cup out of it. I find that most coffees that I roast reach thier peak of flavortude at around the three day mark of sitting and then rapidly decrease in quality from there. Of course, having a Nesco Professional Roaster, which only roasts around 5 ounces at a time, sometimes makes it hard for me keep my beans around for more than three days unless I roast several batches in a single day.
Ok now, back to the Colombia "Perros Bravos de Huila". Only knowing enough spanish to get myself a burrito "el pastor por favor" from a taco truck I decided to do a little research to try to figure out exactly what "Perros Bravos de Huila" means. After some googling the best translation that I can come up with is: "some fine bitches from Huila". I am not sure if this is a spot on translation but I can live with it (perhaps someone from Sweet Marias has a sense of humor). This batch of beans is actually a collection of beans from various micro lots from around the Huila volcanic region of Columbia. Each farm did not have enough beans to be represented on thier own so Tom over at SM decided to make a sort of blend from all of them. I roasted this batch at 24 minutes (a time in which I like to start off with all my new beans) and got a city plus to almost full city roast. The beans came out a nice cinnamon and a little lighter than what I was expecting from the roast time.
This coffee has pretty much a typical taste of a premium South American varietal. It is clean and smooth and bright: a perfect breakfast coffee. Now, I am not saying that this coffee is boring. It actually plays nicely on the palate with different tastes dancing around the tongue. I sense a nice fruity after taste along the lines of apricot and strawberry and the intitial taste has a nice robust wake up flavor that opens your eyes and makes the day just a little bit easier to face. Still I think I did roast it a bit to light for my taste and made a mental note to tack on a few more minutes on my next batch.
adios muchachos
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