This week’s coffee is a honey-processed Pacamara from La Bendición in El Salvador. I am buying almost all of my coffee from Bean & Bean now since they deal in the best of the best and the young woman who runs the place is on the ball.
I paid $70 for 4 ounces, which works out to only $17 a cup (beans only).
I forgot to get a picture of the roast date, but it was a Feb. 10 roast. This means that the coffee has been resting for about a month, which could be a perfect amount of time.
Pacamara is a big bean, fairly hard to grind, but gives off little chaff. [UPDATE: the whole beans have the aroma of cocoa for sure.]
Do you even sift, bro? It’s extremely important that you sift out your fines when making pour over. The fines will muddy everything up and ruin your beautiful cup of coffee. Set them aside!
20 grams of perfectly consistent grind after sifting. The usual recipe, 15:1 … 200-degree Fahrenheit water, 50 ml and 30 seconds to bloom, second pour of 150 ml, final pour to 300 ml total. Of course I use a hand-blown Chemex because it costs three times as much, which means it’s three times as good. It’s also important that you pronounce Chemex, “sha-may.”
Bloom pour of 50 ml.
Second pour of 100 ml to 150 ml total.
Final pour of 150 ml to 300 ml. Lovely color. Drained to drip at exactly the three and a half minute mark.
This is a #1 CoE and I can see why … not full mouth acidity, but sort of back of tongue acidity, and it diminishes quickly while leaving a strong coffee flavor. Pacamara is a great variety. I’ll drink another cup tomorrow and update the post with aroma and flavor notes. Honey-processed doesn’t mean any honey is involved … it’s just that the mucilage is sticky like honey, I guess. [Update: main impression of this coffee is it is CLEAN … not a whole mouth sour but a tongue-only sour, very nice. CoE #1 for a reason.]
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