In this edition: seven coffees released this past week & grocery store Panamanian gesha (keep reading for how to get a little for free).
Not in this edition: why your new Corvette might explode.
Tell your friends! Forward this e-mail to someone you know who loves coffee! And if you received this e-mail from a friend, you can sign up here.
If you missed Volumes 1 or 2, you can read them here.
We hit 100 subs on Sunday, and Joseph Almasri won a bag of the Maragogype from Brainwave Coffee Roasters that I featured in Volume 2. Congrats to him, and we'll give away another bag at 200!
Welcome to volume three of the coffee index.
When you signed up, you took a survey about your coffee preferences and I promise tailored coffee alerts based on those results. That is on the way, after I work out the million kinks in this one-man project.
One last note, for the sake of transparency. The first coffee on this week's list has a pretty sweet offer attached to it. Just so you know how it works — I don't write about coffees because a roaster offers to discount their beans. I make nothing from the discount. I make notes throughout the week about which coffees I want to write about, and then I e-mail the roasters to ask if they want to offer an incentive to you all to buy it. That's it.
Over the past seven days, I added another 113 coffees to the spreadsheet. Here are standouts.
- Of the 107 Kenyan coffees on my list (which is not by any means the authoritative list of coffees, but is at least representative), only five aren't washed. Last Thursday after I sent Vol. 2, Black & White Coffee Roasters dropped this boozy anaerobic natural fruit bomb from the Thunguri Coffee Factory in Nyeri. B&W says this coffee reminds them of a California Cabernet Sauvignon, and if you use the link above and add a bag to your cart, they'll add another bag of (quite great) coffee to your order for free. HUGE thank you to them for offering that. Tasting notes: Blackberry compote, hibiscus, black currant, winey.
- I hadn't been familiar with the British roaster Sweven until I began building out my giant list of coffees, but they're roasting up some serious stuff. This "pico lot," as owner Jimmy Dimitrov calls it, being a great example. A collaboration between Diego Bermudez of Finca El Paraiso and Allan Hartmann of Finca Hartmann (among others), the Hachi Project is likely well known to many of you. This offering stems from that partnership and is an Ethiopian landrace variety grown at Hartmann's Rocky Mountain Farm in Panama. The cherries go through 24 hours of aerobic fermentation before mechanical drying. To me, it's hard to beat the combination of a landrace variety grown in Panama. I also love how Dimitrov says the coffee has a "soft, muffin-like texture." Tasting notes: Açaí berry, pitaya, chocolate muffin.
- Pablo Guerrero won Colombia's 2021 Cup of Excellence competition with a gesha coffee grown on his farm, El Obraje. Sweet Bloom in Denver has been showcasing Guerrero's coffee for years, and this yellow bourbon grown at 2200 meters sounded so far up my alley I ordered it the moment I saw it. A "sugary gem" with "wonderfully sweet and floral" aromatics? Yes, please. Tasting notes: Silver needles, clementine, sugarcane.
- On one of my first visits to LA after getting into coffee, my buddy Matthew Jung-Quillen told me to stop by Loquat (and obviously I listen to what Matthew says). Super yellow, super LA, super good coffee. And from what I've heard, they run a pretty sweet subscription service too. This honey-processed Java variety from producer David Estrada sounds intriguing. I've only had one Java coffee in my life, from Ben Put's Monogram, and that was five years ago before I knew what I was doing. I'd be curious for anyone here's thoughts on the variety. Tasting notes: Cotton candy, dragon fruit, cardamom, delicate.
- I bought my first bag of coffee from 3fe in 2023, but I didn't read Colin Harmon's background story until recently. Talk about drive, passion and hard work (plus incredible execution). Grown by the Mierisch family on their farm, Los Placeres, this ethiosar — a Nicaraguan variety that has Ethiopian landrace, sudan rume, sarchimor and timor hybrid genetics — sounds wild. Given the longterm challenges coffee producers face due to climate change, it's great to see high quality coffee like this being grown at lower altitude. Tasting notes: Black cherry, dried apricot, sangria.
- This is Greater Goods' first coffee from Myanmar, and color me surprised to learn it's a natural processed coffee with delicate floral notes. It's on my giant list of ideas to research and write about how coffee is exported from Myanmar, a country that has once again fallen under authoritarian rule. Tasting notes: Ginger, pineapple, grape compote.
- Finally this week, a late add. I noticed this washed red bourbon sourced by Crema directly from the producer in Huehuetenango. Aurelio Villatoro's dad grew coffee, and now his two sons are in on it with him too (one's a Q grader!). I have a lot of Guatemalan coffee on my list, but very few bourbons from there. This one sounds beautiful. Tasting notes: Cherry blossom, raspberry, wildflower honey.
My father in law buys coffee at the grocery store if we don't intercede and provide him with specialty coffee first. My guess is nobody reading this e-mail buys Folgers at the supermarket.
But what about a $43 bag of Panamanian gesha? Would you buy that?
I first saw on Reddit that H-E-B, the largest grocery retailer in Texas, was selling this coffee and asked a friend to pick me up a bag. Three days later, it arrived in New Jersey and wow... am I not surprised.
I guess I don't know who this coffee is for. If you're willing to spend $43 for a bag of this coffee without a roast date on it, surely you know there are better options. Well, better is subjective. But there are certainly fresher options.
I would say the coffee is roasted medium-dark. It smells burnt, but there's no visible oil on the beans. The grinding tells the story though — I've never before ground a less dense coffee. Given the altitude this coffee was grown at, the only conclusion I can draw is it was roasted to softness.
Speaking of altitude, did I mention this comes from Hacienda Barbara in Boquete? The same farm that's won Best of Panama competitions and sells coffee to esteemed roasters like Archers in the UAE, Rosso in Calgary and the aforementioned Loquat.
I made a few cups of it and it's...fine? I mean, most of whatever nuance once existed has been roasted out. I do get some cooked berries and milk chocolate sweetness. There's very little in the way of acidity or complexity — a far cry from the tasting notes on the bag: blueberry, jasmine, honey and candied lemon.
So how fresh is this coffee? As I said, there's no roast date. The bottom of the bag only has a "best if used by" date — July 17, 2026. Laughable.
And who roasted it? Also unclear.
So there are lot of unanswered questions. I tried to get answers, but my five calls and four e-mails to multiple PR people at H-E-B went unanswered.
I know I've really sold this stuff, so if you want one (or two) little bags of it, I vacuum-sealed it into 15g packs. Just reply to this e-mail with your name and address and I'll send you some for $0.
That's it for Volume 3. If you have an idea for a future newsletter, want to talk coffee, or have any feedback whatsoever — just reply to this e-mail.
Next week: more coffee and a discussion about freezing coffee with a roaster who just defrosted and immediately sold out of a 2017 COE winner.
Thanks for reading.
Jeff