Coffee Recon: March 2025
Our Recon coffee selection this month comes from Rwanda, a small country in central/east Africa that borders last month’s coffee origin, Tanzania. It is a washed-process coffee where coffee cherry mucilage (or pulp) is rinsed off after fermentation and before drying. From a flavor perspective, washed coffees can offer “brighter” flavors and are often more consistent from batch to batch. A natural processed coffee dries with remnants of mucilage still attached which can bring some very intense flavors (some good, some not) and greater variability even in the same batch of beans.
It's also no accident that the Rwandan beans we selected this month is sourced from an established Women’s Coffee Extension that supports its almost 700 members with essential income, education, livestock, and other needs specific to the region and culture. You can read more about the effort at Royal New York’s website. As the prominence of specialty coffee grows in the world, so do the positive effects it can have on the farmers, suppliers, and businesses that make a living from it.
Okay, now to the roast! This was a fun series of roughly seven test roasts that explored extremely light to “almost” dark approaches. I used an Aillio Bullet with 500g batches for each test before moving onto the final profile with our 15kg Mill City roaster. We decided upon a well-developed light profile that our team discovered notes of strawberry, raspberry, with a hint of lemon, and brown sugar. Yes, this is a brighter coffee, but one that should be balanced despite the higher acidity and sweetness in the cup.
If you choose a manual brewing method like a pour-over or AeroPress, be sure to allow enough time for the “bloom” to off-gas the residual CO2. This will give you a cleaner-tasting experience (less of that lingering or astringent effect that very fresh coffee can impart). If brewing in a conventional machine drip, moka pot, etc., you might allow this to rest a few days or grind the coffee and let it sit for about 10 minutes to help release some of those trapped gasses before brewing. Sometimes the CO2 can act as a barrier that prevents the water from reaching the soluble particles in the coffee.
If enjoying a breakfast with this coffee, you may want to consider a fruit-forward selection like banana bread, jam and toast, or a fruit parfait. This is not an “eggs and bacon” coffee since the delicate flavors will get lost amidst hardier pairings. If you use cream/milk/alternative milk in your coffee (not judging!), add less than you usually would then taste until you get just the right amount for you. I made the mistake of blasting it with my normal onslaught of oat milk before realizing I all but extinguished the nuanced flavors.
Our sample coffee pairing is also African, from the Ethiopia Sidamo province. It is a core offering at Bugle Call Coffee and is supplied by our long-time importer and friends at Keffa Coffee. This coffee is a very fresh natural process that was harvested only in the last couple of months (yes, that’s fresh!). For comparison we also roasted it to a medium profile which is where this coffee shines. Like the Rwanda, it brings a berry and citrus but closer to blueberry and orange. The Ethiopian also has a little less acidity and a tea-like body.
We hope this month’s selection has expanded your coffee repertoire! If you are like us, then you understand that coffee can really be an exciting journey. We all have favorite places we’d like to go back to, and others we’re just happy we visited once. The last time we roasted a Rwandan coffee was in 2022. Ever since then we’ve wanted to do it again, and now we finally get to revisit this delicious origin with all of you!
Happy cupping!!
Adam