Beaver Falls Coffee & Tea Blog
Beaver Falls Coffee & Tea is a coffee shop nearby Geneva College in Beaver Falls, PA. It was started by a couple of alumni who just didn't quite leave, basically the stereotypical college coffee shop. But last year they have started the next step, roasting the beans. We occasionally get beans from them, and this time we got some Guatemalan Huehuetenango (which were Direct Trade).
Why is this something of note? It turns out, like most food, coffee is time sensitive. The green beans are shipped from there origins, but all the steps after that effect the taste, starting from when they are roasted. It matters how long from roasting they are brewed, it also matters how long between grinding and brewing,and of course, how long they are exposed to direct heat (i.e. either take the coffee off the brewer and pour it in a thermos within 1/2 hour or dump it.)
So a year ago, Beaver Falls Coffee and Tea started roasting. The other roaster in the Pittsburgh area is La Prima, but they have no outlets in the North Hills (I know, I've asked their marketing director and after much discussion among the staff, came up blanks.) So we made a point of using them, even asking them for different style of roasts to try the range of roasts (light to dark).
We got the Guatemalan this week. It is a medium-light roast. Based on prior experience, we French-pressed it at 7 minutes (for most coffees, we French Press for 5 minutes). At this point, it was still a little light, but we were at the point where the bitterness in the bean was coming out, so I think we have the brew time just right. But the beans were probably too lightly roasted for my tastes.
The dark roasts are probably easier to quality control and these have gone well (which is why if you get coffee at places that ship their roasted beans from somewhere else, you should get dark roasts). The medium and lighter roasts have more nuances, but our experiences with Beaver Falls Coffee & Tea is that they are inconsistent, and their mediums and lights are often too light (not as much taste)
UPDATE: Batch 2 was this afternoon. This time I ground the beans to medium grind (rather then coarse like I usually do for French Press) and had a bit more beans in there. Better. I get more of the taste. Again, at 7 min, I can taste just a hint of the bitterness that tells me that I better not let the beans brew any longer. Of course, now I have to use a second filter to filter out the grounds, but this mostly works. But we'll probably make a point to get medium-dark roasted in the future.
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3 comments:
You say the lighter roasts are "inconsistent". What do you mean exactly? My roasting procedure doesn't change batch to batch (barring mitigating factors such as ambient humidity, etc.). I'd like to know what exactly is inconsistent so that I can make changes to the procedure and provide you a better bean.
Just to put things in context, we probably started getting your beans within weeks of you starting to roast. And when we asked for a light roast, I think the staff mentioned that it would be the first time you did it. So I hope that over the past year and a half, some learning has gone on :-)
For the lighter roasts, the few times we've gotten it have required a few tries to get dialed in on the french press. The very first time, it was so light it was hard to taste anything.
What we're going for is to get the underlying, other then "coffee" taste that dominates with the dark roasts. I imagine that over the past 1 1/2 years there is a combination of learning, and the fact that we are getting different beans every time.
I like the fact that you are getting the Guatemalan as direct trade, and we'll make a point of getting it regularly, and our feedback may be more useful to you over time.
Alright, I get you. My roasting style has completely changed in the last year, so things are very different. The Guat is fairly new to us, so you probably got our Colombian, which was a mishandled and (frankly) tasteless coffee. For perspective, we got those beans (all our original beans, in fact) from an uninsulated POD on the coldest day of the year in Chicago (who knows how long they had been there). Needless to say, that affected the beans drastically.
If you are looking for somewhere on the North Side to pick up our beans, Beleza Community Coffeehouse carries them now--it is located in the Mexican War Streets area.
Also, I've been roasting the Guat to more of a medium (430F final bean temp) with good results.
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