Guatemalan
Light roast
The coffee I seem to be getting the most positive reviews about right now is our Guatemalan. So I sat down with a big cup and tried to wrap my taste buds around why it’s so popular right now.
This coffee is roasted at the lightest roast we do. When coffee is not roasted dark you really taste the coffee. So it’s much harder to hide a bad quality coffee in a light or medium roast. When you get into the dark or french roast it’s burnt coffee and tastes like such.
Think of roasting coffee like toast. If you have a white piece of toast and a wheat piece of toast and burn the hell out of them, you get, burnt toast. Further, if you take toast dark, you don’t get “more toast flavor” you get, burnt toast. Same with coffee. Adding roast doesn’t make a stronger cup of coffee. Just darker toasty flavors.
This coffee being light really allows you to taste the coffee taste. There is no roast to get in the way. It’s got a nice clean crop flavor up front and a great finish.
In the mid palate though I think is where this coffee gets it’s fans. It has a great acidity without being over powerful. It’s a very subtle lemon flavor that adds a high note to the bitter note of the coffee. Bitter and acidic work well together. That’s why some people add lemon to espresso.
The acidic cuts the bitter and makes this a very pleasant cup. People tell me they put less sugar in this coffee and that’s why they like it. It’s healthier. The reason they don’t need sweet so much in this is the acidic flavor cuts the bitter.
That’s an interesting flavor lesson that can be applied to all kinds of cooking. Bitter brussel sprouts with lemon juice anyone?
