“City to Full City: Brown sugar, caramel, juicy citrus, bittersweet cacao notes. Fair amount of body and pleasant acidity. Good for espresso.” -Sweet Marias
The initial sips are all about the brown sugar and caramel, very smooth and sweet. There is very little acidity up front, but there is a flash of citrus acidity that lingers in the finish. The body is light and juicy. The mouthfeel is clean, but on the finish there is a slight astringent dryness.
Still at a medium temperature, the cacao notes are more noticeable. The brown sugar sweetness and the cacao bitterness are balanced, and the body definitely feels thicker, but the acidity is stronger. The acidity is citrus like, and reminds me of the zest of lemon peel at first, which might be the astringent note I noticed earlier. The sweetness is smoother, more brown sugar than caramel now. As the cup cools down, the acidity is stronger, but it does balance well with the brown sugar sweetness. The finish is tea-like with the acidity and cacao lingering, and the initial astringent note is no longer present.
Overall, this is a good second cup of coffee in the morning, after the taste buds have woken up a little. The overall sweetness balances well with the bright flashes of acidity, but I personally might save this for the second cup of the day, as the cacao and acidity might be a little much for my first cup. As for the roasting details, the roast was done in the Gene Cafe roaster, with a heat setting of 460 degrees, for 14.0 minutes. First crack started approximately around 11:30 minutes and continued for about 2.0 minutes. Cooling was done in the Gene, down to 215 degrees, and then removed and cooled in a colander until room temperature. These beans did not take as long to reach first crack, starting at 11:30, so the time was adjusted to keep the batch at City+ range. The next batch will be targeted at Full City, keeping in mind that it requires less time to reach first crack.