In this edition: six new coffees and a Brewers Cup champion weighs in on how little your coffee-curious friends actually need to make decent coffee (hint: not a lot!).
Not in this edition: the Olympic snowboarder named Wedding who became a drug kingpin and now has a $15M bounty on his head.
Also not in this edition: the 10-year-old who drove himself home from elementary school after getting into a fight with his mom.
If you subscribed in the last week and want to see what you've missed — hit the archive.
Win some very good coffee: That form you filled out when you subscribed to this newsletter now has a Who referred you? question at the end. On December 31, I'll tally who referred the most new subscribers and that person will win a bag of coffee from any roaster I've featured in the newsletter. Any bag. From any roaster.
And the person with the second highest number can choose a bag too.
To refresh your memory, that includes Hydrangea, Sey, 3fe, Black & White and 70+ others. Please don't go insane.
And a PSA for my New York-based friends: Suited will have five doses of Sey's Finca Sophia gesha (featured in Vol. 8) on filter this weekend. $40 a cup, brewed on the Decent. When I told Caleb Baker that I'm a little afraid to brew the small bag I purchased, he said "I'm a little terrified to serve it."
Coffee leftovers
No leftovers this week, but I've been on quite a coffee buying binge, so you can look forward to having a shot at some good stuff in the coming weeks and months.
A number of readers have e-mailed to say they often have more coffee than they know what to do with. I'm trying to think of the most streamlined way to turn this into a community coffee swap. Less wasted coffee and more sharing is a win for everyone. Let me know if you'd be into participating!
Welcome to the 12th edition of the coffee index.
What a week for the Jijon family! Over the past seven days, I added 141 coffees and six new roasters (and all of their coffees) to the list. Total coffees manually tracked to date = 3389.
Here are six new releases from the past week that caught my attention:
- You know I love a coffee with a good story behind it (it's basically a surefire way into this newsletter), and this one is better than just good. It's a Villa Sarchi variety – a Bourbon mutation that originated in Costa Rica – and a yellow honey processed one at that. But the story is about the producer, Luis Padilla. His grandfather "helped shape the Naranjo growing region" in Costa Rica, according to Metric, the roaster. In 2017, Padilla and his parents bought a neglected coffee farm in Naranjo on which a Hungarian expat had planted Villa Sarchi, Gesha and SL28 coffee trees. He's also interested in a variety I've never heard of called Catiguá, which Metric writes is a cross between the yellow catuai and timor hybrid varieties and is starting to be grown in Costa Rica. Metric doesn't release a ton of coffees every year, so I'm glad to finally feature one from the Chicago-based roaster. Tasting notes: Nectarine, amber maple, grapefruit.
- This is Helm's second appearance in the newsletter (I featured a pair of Ethiopian coffees they roasted in Vol. 6). The Indianapolis-based roaster makes a larger appearance in the feature story below. This Mejorado variety, grown by father-son legends Pepe and Jose Jijón in Ecuador. This variety is quickly becoming my favorite to drink thanks to the incredible sweetness and florality I find in the cup. Why paraphrase when a roaster describes a coffee so well: "This coffee represents the new frontier of Ecuadorian specialty coffee; a shining example of dedication to meticulous processing and the exquisite potential of high-altitude Typica Mejorado." Tasting notes: Mango puree, lychee, raspberry, grapes.
- This is the same coffee – the same Mejorado, from the same farm, presumably from the same harvest. And it comes from another one of my favorite roasters, also making their second appearance in the newsletter: Flower Child. Roaster Prestin Yoder apparently felt the same way about this coffee as Justin Bull at Helm, because he wrote that "this is a bright, light bodied & crystalline representation of Mejorado." I couldn't possibly recommend which one to buy (maybe both?), but if you like this variety, this farm's coffee from either of these two roasters is an unbeatable combination. Tasting notes: Pink Lady apple, mango, starfruit, citrus, delicate florality.
*I will also note that SK, featured in Vol. 9's debrief on the Minneapolis coffee scene, on Tuesday released a 2-bag offering that includes Pepe's wave washed Sidra and Jose's washed Mejorado (same as the above two coffees).
*And I will note further that friend-of-the-newsletter Mirra up in Kingston, New York on Wednesday released the same coffee as well.
- Speaking of Mirra, owner Will Warren sent me some of Paola Trujillo's Wush Wush about a month ago and it wowed me. I even sent a few doses out to you guys to spread the joy. Will's coffee was Paola's washed offering, while this coffee from Sump in Nashville, Tennessee (my go-to when I'm in town) is Paola's carbonic maceration washed process coffee (the listing has a typo – Paola doesn't have a brother or husband named Paolo). Wush Wush isn't an extremely common Ethiopian landrace variety and this one looks funky in the best possible way. Tasting notes: Blueberry, lemonade, green apple candy.
- Push x Pull has also appeared in this newsletter before (in Vol. 5) and the Portland-based roaster is back again this week with another 1/1 co-ferment. This is the only coffee on my list co-fermented with kumquats, but it's not the only appearance Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia makes on the list – his coffees are sold by the likes of Hydrangea, Traffic, Moonwake and plenty of others. This is a Purple Caturra variety, which Rodrigo uses for quite a few of his co-fermented offerings. I'm still not totally certain whether it's a Caturra sub-variety with any noticeable difference in the cup, or whether it's just a Caturra coffee seed wrapped in a purple cherry. Regardless, I am a bit surprised that the tasting notes don't mention kumquat, given that it's fermented with the cute little citrus fruit. Tasting notes: Orange creamsicle, honeysuckle, vanilla bean.
- I try to write about at least one washed, one honey and one naturally processed coffee each week, and I'm short a natural, so let's ramp it up to a Level 11. From producer Cindy Zhao Xin and roaster Taith, in tiny Lewes, UK (site of the 1264 AD Battle of Lewes!) comes this "winey natural" processed Catimor from Yunnan Province. Xin is "a leading figure in China's specialty coffee industry," according to Taith; she's a Q-grader who's coached Chinese participants in World Barista and World Brewers competitions. This coffee underwent two rounds of anaerobic fermentation before being dried. It sounds totally bonkers, if you ask me. Tasting notes: Mulled wine, passion fruit, dark chocolate.
One of my most persistent thoughts about specialty coffee is that I think so many people would be blown away by a good pourover but will never get to experience one because making one just seems so damn complicated.
Step back and look at what you go through to make coffee. You buy kettles, grinders, scales, water minerals, carafes, drippers. And then you measure more variables than a peer-reviewed MIT study on biogenetics.
I often think about how I’d try to convince someone vaguely open to diving into specialty coffee to take the plunge without feeling overwhelmed by it. But, I thought, who can help me in this endeavor? Who is schooled enough in the nuances of all of the gear and all of the variables, but could boil it down to the bare minimum for someone who’s maybe a little skeptical?
Yes, I’ve got it. Someone who works at Starbucks. Well, worked.
"I got into coffee because I ended up working at Starbucks at a time when they at least kind of cared [about coffee]," Justin Bull says.
He is now the reigning U.S. Brewers Cup champion.
But in 2013 or thereabouts, when Starbucks was still using La Marzocco machines to pull shots, Bull worked at the world’s largest coffee chain.
"We cupped coffee at Starbucks, which is a wild idea, and we would do coffee tastings," he says. "It was a weird timeframe where I somehow got an appreciation of coffee because of that."
Fast forward a few years. Bull and his wife moved to Indianapolis so she could get her PhD, and they walked into Helm a week after it opened in 2022. He didn't just want coffee – he was looking for more regular work to complement his freelance marketing gigs. Bull asked Helm's owner (and Olympic rugby player) Jill Potter for a job working the bar. Three years later, he now co-owns the place with her.
Okay, so he’s qualified to help answer the bare minimum question. And that bare minimum, according to the former Starbucks barista, is: a kettle, a dripper, a scale and some decent water. He’s got an idea about what to recommend to someone who doesn’t want to buy a hand grinder, but we’ll get to that.
"I would say the best way for somebody to get into pourover coffee at home would be to start with an immersion brewer, because you don't need a gooseneck kettle in order to facilitate that," Bull says.
"I think the Clever is the best of kind of all of the worlds when it comes to an at-home system," he says. "It has my biggest thing, which is it has a paper filter."
And the kettle? Kettles are cheap. Suggest your friend buy a cheap kettle. Or better yet, "if you have a kettle already – cool. Use that kettle because you're just dumping water over grounds and you're using immersion," Bull says.
"If it has temperature control – awesome. If it doesn't, bring it up to a boil and let it sit for 30 seconds to a minute."
Okay, so a $35 dripper (on sale at Prima for $15) and an existing (or cheap) kettle. Get a cheap kitchen scale, Bull says. That’s three.
"Start with the things to physically brew with. Okay, cool, I'm getting better cups than I did before. But what's the next step? It’s like, okay, go to water," he says.
This is the point at which I tense up a little. I don’t think it’s particularly hard to convince people who are mildly interested in trying a new hobby to pony up $50 for some basic gear. And it’s not even that making your own coffee water is expensive, it’s just that it...feels insane.
And I know that it isn’t insane. I don’t need to remind the readers of this newsletter what percentage of a cup of coffee is water. It’s obviously important. I just mean – try explaining this to someone who’s never made specialty coffee before. I’ve done it and now that person won’t speak to me anymore.
The Starbucks barista rebuffs me.
"If I can convince my parents to buy Third Wave packets, you can figure out somebody to also buy Third Wave packets."
"You convinced your parents to do that?!" I blurt out incredulously.
"Absolutely!" he says. "Oh yeah. 100 percent."
But, Bull says, if your water is under 150 TDS, just brew with it. Or use a Brita.
"I think that's acceptable. Is it the right minerality range? No, probably not, but you're at least not going to scale your kettle," he says.
But if you’ve got bad water (I’m looking at you, Phoenix), buy the Third Wave packets.
"Water is arguably the hardest part, but it's also like the first step [to good coffee]," Bull says.
Finally, we arrive at the most expensive part – grinding the coffee. You don’t think a real coffee professional would recommend suggesting to someone they buy pre-ground coffee, do you? Well, that is correct.
If your friend is going to buy some local coffee at their nearest Whole Foods, Bull says they should bring an airtight container (or an old bag of coffee).
"Open up that bag and grind half of it, grind a little bit," he says.
"I'm not saying again that doesn't resolve the problem of having to go to the grocery store to grind your coffee, or all that," he says. "Or if you grind all of it at one time, stick it in the freezer. We can reduce degassing and off-gassing drastically by doing that."
Or just tell your friend to buy a cheap hand grinder. They’ll fall down the rabbit hole eventually and buy a ZP6.
If you have an idea for a future newsletter, want to talk coffee, or have any feedback whatsoever — you can reply to this e-mail.
Next week: more new coffees and a story about the company that roasts coffee in a town of 448 people and sells it to Erewhon in Los Angeles.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Jeff