Tasting notes on Kaldi's fourth-place coffee from the 2009 Monserrate Cupping Competitin
Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 11:18AM Kaldi's Coffee offers the fourth-prize-winner from the 2009 Colombia Monserrate competition. Like the "Lo Mejor", this is a very fine coffee. When you get up to this level of quality coffee, most differences come down to personal taste. I've tasted this using two different brewing methods and I'll report on each one.
French press
I brewed the coffee with a dose of 18g coffee to 250ml water for 3'30" and skimming the grinds off the top before pressing. This is a fantastic coffee. It offers an aroma of caramel and spices with flavor notes of lemon and nuts. It's got a milky mouthfeel—not dense, but just enough body to seem substantial.
Clover
I also had this coffee brewed at Kaldi's downtown Clayton location in the Clover 1s. I'll offer thoughts on the Clover soon. It was brewed with 12 fl. oz. of water, 30g of coffee, for sixty seconds, at two hundred degrees fahrenheit. The mouthfeel from the Clover was much lighter than in the press. As in the press, there was a distinct lemon flavor, but the Clover also brought out a little bit of a black tea, which I didn't get in the press. This was a balanced brew; certainly citrusy and acidic, but there was depth to the flavor too. As the coffee cooled, it became more lemony but it did not get unbalanced.






