Category: Coffee

Solar Roast Coffee – Bali at Solar Roast Coffee Colorado Springs

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Solar Roast Coffee

https://solarroast.com/

About the Café

Solar Roast Coffee is a hip little café in downtown Colorado Springs offering a variety of coffee drinks, beans, and classic vinyl records. It’s a very colorful space decorated with an eclectic theme of fruits, origami, and their own vinyl themes for their roasts mounted on the walls. They also have a small assortment of food ranging from cinnamon rolls to chicken and carnitas burritos. While the café itself isn’t expansive, it seemed like a comfortable space to work. Another patron was plugged in and dutifully typing away at a corner table. The café provided a nice relaxing spot to enjoy my coffee while a short rain shower soaked downtown Colorado Springs.

About the Coffee

  • Origin: Bali, Indonesia
  • Roast: Light (2/5)
  • Price: $$$ (3/4)
  • Drank at: Solar Roast Coffee Company, Colorado Springs, CO 
  • Aroma notes: Neutral with slight floral aroma 
  • Tasting notes: Light, balanced, but not weak. Floral notes and fruitiness, some light sugar/toffee taste. Quite pleasant.
  • Notes from the bag: 100% USDA ORGANIC🌱 Natural Processed Indonesian light roast coffee. Fruity aroma with blueberry notes. Amazing flavor!

As the name implies, Solar Roasters roasts their beans using an electric solar oven contraption called a Helios. With this machine, they can roast up to 15 pounds of beans in 25 minutes. The process is supposed to result in lower acidity and smoothness in the brew. In the notes on the bag, they liken the process to slow and low temperature cooking for bar-be-que. In fact, they use more space on the bag explaining the roasting process than they do describing the beans themselves. Intrigued, I gave it a shot since I prefer a lower acidity brew anyway. I opted for the Bali light roast.

To my surprise, indeed it does make a rather balanced brew with low acidity. I can’t say for certain if a solar oven is any better than a regular coffee roaster (heat is heat is it not?) but the results do speak for themselves. The fruity blueberry notes come across subtly and, despite being a light roast, it had a medium bodied mouthfeel that gives the coffee a satisfying finish to compliment it’s floral tasting notes. If you’re in the Colorado Springs, I recommend checking out Solar Roast Coffee and the many other roasters in the downtown area. 

Rating: 8/10 

Kona Peaberry at Honolulu Coffee Experience Center

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About the Cafe

https://www.honolulucoffee.com/

This is actually the second time I’m writing this review because my iPad mysteriously deleted the first during an unexpected update. I’m happy to return though since I had such a good experience last time. Work brought me out to Oahu for five weeks so I took the opportunity to try local coffees. I also had the chance to visit three different coffee farms on the islands of Kaua’i and the Big Island, which I plan to write about later.

The café itself is expansive with a variety of seating from a high-top bar surrounding the coffee roaster, to a second tier of mostly two and four tops ringing the café. There are also distinct sections for the ordering counter, a glass walled bakery, a pour over coffee bar, a gift shop, and a cupping lab. As with many buildings in Hawaii, the doors and windows are open front and back to allow the trade winds to blow through. This gives the café a tropical flair similar to what one imagines for a romantic idea of old Havana. As it happened, on the day I visited they were busy roasting beans on this Frankenstein contraption of a 1944 Probat UG22 drum roaster plugged into a control device and a laptop computer. 

About the Coffee

  • Name of Roast: Peaberry
  • Roaster: Honolulu Coffee Company
  • Origin: Kona, Hawaii
  • Drank at: Honolulu Coffee Experience Center, Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii
  • Type: Peaberry
  • Roast: Light (2/6)
  • Price: $$$ (3/4)
  • Enjoyed with: Chocolate Croissant and Breakfast Burritto with Portuguese sausage
  • Aroma Notes: Sweet, fruity, floral
  • Flavor Notes: Milk chocolate, raw sugar, toffee, cherry, nut
  • Tasting Notes from the Bag: One of our rarest coffees in the world. Lighter bodied with subtle sweetness and hints of mixed berries.

Today I ordered the Kona Peaberry, which is a special smaller type of coffee bean grown on the slope of Mauna Loa and selected from a harvest of larger beans. I visited a couple of coffee farms during my time on the Big Island and most offered a peaberry as a premium coffee. It is a very satisfying brew, and though I’m doing it from memory, I think it was better than the first time. This brew has a notably full bodied mouth feel that compliments the chocolate and toffee notes. It balances the slightly bitter notes of the coffee bean and the nuttiness of the roasting process. I’ll note that for the most part, I haven’t been impressed by many of the Hawaiian coffees I’ve tried with the exception of select beans from the Ka’u region along the south coast of the Big Island. I think this is largely because the beans available at grocery stores are marketed as “10%” Kona coffee, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s mostly the wholesale beans that didn’t make the cut to be sold directly by the grower as an 100% Kona origin bean.

I visited three different coffee farms between Kauai and the Big Island and noted that most Hawaiian coffees have a very bright, acidic, and floral quality to them. If that’s your thing, you will be happy here, but I’m mostly into less acidic medium roasts with sort of a bitter nuttiness to them – as I’ve qualified upfront with this blog. Still, if you look a little deeper, there’s something to satisfy just about every palette. Unsurprisingly, most of the bulk coffee you can pick up at your local ABC store or even in the grocery stores around Oahu are the mass marketed 10% Kona variety for the most part. It is certainly cheap, with most 12-16oz bags running around 6-10 dollars, but you get what you pay for. If it’s any indictment of those beans, I was mostly drinking Peets as my daily “go-to” coffee while working on the Island. There are few standouts and if you go to an actual local coffee shop, you will likely receive a higher grade coffee than what’s offered at the grocery stores and tourist shops. I recommend stopping by the Honolulu Coffee Experience Center or any of Honolulu Coffee Company’s stores if you’re vacationing in Waikiki and the Kona Peaberry is definitely worth a try while you’re there.

Rating: 8.5/10

Stringbean Coffee Company – Ethiopian True Blue at Home

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The Coffee

https://stringbeancoffee.com/

Stringbean is another local St. Louis area coffee roaster I’ve had on my radar for a bit. Based in an office park in the shadow of the Thunderdome Brentwood Promenade, Stringbean coffee was founded in 2011 by Peter “Stringbean Pete” Cohen to combine his love for coffee and music. First off, the packaging design is just fun to look at and read, adorned with guitars, pictures of Pete, coffee beans, burlap patterns, and copious notes on preparation, biography, and origin information. The tagline in Stringbean Pete’s succinct biography sells itself; “Once a bean counter, now a bean cooker.”

Taste

  • Name of Roast: Ethiopian True Blue
  • Roaster: Stringbean Coffee Company
  • Bean Origin: Ethiopia – Kaffa
  • Bean Type: Arabica
  • Drank at: Home
  • Price Range: $ (1/4)
  • Roast Color: 2/6
  • Brewing method: Press and Pour Over
  • Grounds/Water ratio: 18:1
  • Grind: 9/15 – Medium Coarse
  • Aroma Notes: Fruit forward, citrus, orange, raw sugar
  • Flavor Notes: Chocolate, sugar, some fruit, blueberry
  • Tasting notes from the bag: Ethiopian True Blue is a light roasted, natural processed coffee with a blueberry aroma, fruity tasting notes and a bright acidity level.

I picked up a bag of the Ethiopian True Blue at a Schnucks for about $12. Let me tell you, the aroma as you open the bag is just lovely. It is reminiscent of the warm blast of fresh roasted beans that hits you after entering your favorite coffeehouse on a cold winter day. I first tried it in the French press where it bloomed quite nicely from the initial pour. While the aroma is fruit forward and fairly sweet, the flavor is much more subdued and mellowed by the chocolate notes. It is a light and refreshing brew with some sunny fruit and berry notes without an overpowering acidity.

After my initial brew with the French press, I followed the suggestion on the bag and prepared it as a pour over as well. I usually prefer to make coffee at home in a French press due to the ease of use and clean up, so my pour over skills were admittedly rusty. That said, the pour over opened up some different notes. It made for a lighter cup with the same initial chocolate notes but less sugar and more bitterness. The fruit and berry notes are also there but more subdued. Overall, the two preparations bring out some wonderful tasting notes in the brew but my preference is still the French press.

Rating: 8/10

Alpha and Omega Coffee – Colombia at Alpha and Omega Coffee Bar

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About the Café

https://www.goodnewsbrewing.com/menu-alpha-omega

Today’s travels brought me out to St. Charles County so I checked google to see which coffee roasters operate in the area. One standout was Alpha and Omega Coffee roasters in O’Fallon, Missouri. Alpha and Omega is a cute coffeehouse with an inviting wrap-around porch right off Main Street in the older part of O’Fallon across from the St. Mary’s Institute. While researching their website, I noticed they are owned by the same people as Good News Brewing down the street, another mainstay in the area with branches around the St. Charles County.

The coffeehouse is homey and open with a mid-century modern styling to match the branding on their sign. There are two open rooms on the ground floor with plenty of room to spread out and use as a working space as well as an upstairs space that can be reserved as a meeting space. It is a fun and inviting space with more room on the porch and lawn in the warmer months, in addition to a drive through in the rear if you’re just passing through. They serve breakfast all day and advertise street tacos on their sign which foreshadows a curated selection of flavorful options. They also have a beer menu full of Good News Brewing favorites available on tap. I enjoyed a breakfast burrito with my coffee, which was decent but nothing noteworthy. All in all, it’s a good everyday coffee shop and a place to stop by for some work, conversation, or a quick bite to eat for breakfast.

The Coffee

  • Name of Roast: Colombia
  • Roaster: Alpha and Omega
  • Bean Origin: Colombia
  • Drank at: Alpha and Omega Coffee
  • I sipped with: Breakfast Burrito
  • Preparation: Drip
  • Roast Color: 3/6
  • Price: $$ (2/4)
  • Aroma notes: Fruity, Nutty, some hints of lavender
  • Flavor notes: Light body, some fruit notes, light nuttiness, lavender, light citrus

For coffee, I went for a medium roasted Colombia served as drip brewed coffee. They also offer a dark roasted Brazil as drip brewed, both available as a “bottomless” cup for in house consumption. Both coffees are roasted weekly in small batches downstairs at the coffee house. The coffee itself had some pleasing complexity but also works as a middle of the road brew to slowly sip while working or chatting with a friend. The aroma was neutral with some fruity notes, a light nuttiness, and a refreshing hint of lavender. The flavor mostly followed the aroma with a light, almost watery body, and some notes of citrus, stone fruit, and lavender. Categorically, it is a good sipping coffee that can quickly sneak up on you if you opt for the “bottomless” option. 

Rating: 7.5/10

Blueprint Coffee – Ethiopia Bobbaasa at Blueprint Delmar Loop

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About the Cafe

https://blueprintcoffee.com/

Blueprint Coffee is a small to medium sized space located along the Delmar loop next to Mission Taco Joint and down the street from the Moonrise Hotel. The space exudes a professional modernity mixed with hints of the building’s older façade and exposed rafters. The storefront is mostly consumed by the coffee bar and merchandise space, with a handful of tables and a small high-top bar pulling double duty as a display for their retail bags of coffee. Just beyond is their roasting and packaging operation, where employees are fast at work filling orders and roasting beans.

One thing is apparent from the moment you enter the door; Blueprint is serious about coffee and are happy to share that passion with each and every customer. Their branding follows a similar theme with simple, mostly bright, solid colored labels with just the right amount of information about the coffee you’re buying. Blueprint Delmar is an open and inviting space to enjoy a few moments with a fresh brewed coffee and a sandwich from their menu. I love a good egg biscuit, and theirs delivered without being too heavy. Notably, the tomato jelly slaps, as the kids say. I’ll definitely be back to try some of their other coffee, and perhaps take part in one of their educational programs to help hone my palette.

The Coffee

  • Name of Roast: Ethiopia Bobbaasa
  • Bean Origin:  Suke Kuto, Sakisso, Guji, Ethiopia
  • Elevation: 2,100 MASL
  • Drank at: Blueprint Coffee, Delmar Loop
  • I sipped with: Egg biscuit
  • Preparation: Automatic Pour Over
  • Roast Color: 4/6
  • Price: $$ (2/4)
  • Notes from the bag: Blueberry jam, florals, grape candy, chocolate ganache, earthy
  • Aroma Notes: Fruity and acidic, like apple and tart
  • Flavor Notes: Citrusy and light with some complexity, hint of nuttiness on the finish from the roast. Somewhere between an apple and lemon for the citrus/tart flavor. The barista suggested notes of tobacco on the roast, which is present but more subtle. 

I’ll preface this by saying this was my third cup of coffee this particular day so I may be biased by the jitters. That said, I was satisfied by both my coffee and food selections at Blueprint. The coffee had some surprising notes, chief among them a tarty citrus somewhere between a lemon and an apple. Behind the initial flavors were a hint of earthiness and nuttiness imparted by the roast. Though there was some slight acidity to accompany the citrusy/fruity flavors, it is balanced overall and makes for an enjoyable and intriguing brew. 

Rating: 8.5/10

Kaldi’s Coffee – El Salvador La Cumbre Red Bourbon at Kaldi’s Coffee DeMun

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About the Café

https://kaldiscoffee.com/

Although I have a Kaldi’s Coffee closer to my house, I decided to try the original café at the corner of DeMun and Northwood Avenues just west of Forest Park. Kaldi’s Coffee started here in 1994, making it one of the longer-lived coffee roasters of the third wave coffee movement in St. Louis. Since then, they have expanded to 13 locations in St. Louis and Columbia, Missouri, and Atlanta, Georgia, as well as a roastery on Gratiot Street in St. Louis.

The name “Kaldi” refers to the legendary 9th century Ethiopian goat herder who discovered the coffee plant. Kaldi noticed his goats acting strangely after consuming the berries of a coffee plant, frolicking and playing rather than their usual docile nature, or so the story goes. While this is all probably apocryphal and there are competing claims to coffee origins in the Arabian Peninsula, I digress. It’s a fun story for a local coffee roaster and fitting for the prancing goat on their logo.

The Cafe itself is located on a boulevard street across from a park and an elementary school. The inside is segmented into the counter/merchandise area and a small dining area with a handful of tables separated by a wall and a hallway. The sidewalk also had ample table space and seemed inviting in warmer weather, but not so much in February.

The Coffee

  • Name of Roast: El Salvador La Cumbre Red Bourbon
  • Bean Origin:  Santa Ana, El Salvador
  • Elevation: 1,525 MASL
  • Drank at: Kaldis De Mun
  • Preparation: Pour Over
  • Roast Color: 3/6
  • Price: $$ (2/4)
  • Aroma Notes: Fruity, Light, Floral
  • Flavor Notes: Citrus, Slight acidity, hint of caramel, some berry
  • Notes from the bag: Honeycrisp Apple, Almond, Fruit Cake, Butterscotch

The El Salvador La Cumbre Red Bourbon is part of Kaldi’s relationship series which builds productive partnerships with coffee farmers in a similar vein to Fair Trade coffees. These relationships allow Kaldis to work with farmers year after year to help cultivate premium quality coffee and provide the farmers with predictability and financial assurance. If this brew is any indication, those relationships have paid dividends.

I don’t have much to say about this coffee other than wow. It is a bright, satisfying, and balanced brew with a medium bodied texture that keeps inviting sip after sip to linger on more complex notes. It is as much an invigorating coffee to start the day as it is an afternoon break. Overall, a solid effort by Kaldi’s Coffee that I hope foreshadows the quality of the rest of their single origin selections.

Rating: 9/10

Blueprint Coffee – Santa Isabel at Roadcrew Coffee & Cycles

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About the Café

Roadcrew is an interesting combination café/bike shop located at the corner of Morganford and Connecticut just south of Tower Grove Park. It is a bright, modern space as suitable for working and sipping coffee as it is mechanical service on your bicycle. As this blog implies, coffee and cycling are two sides of the same coin, so the union is a natural fit. Stop in to fix up your bike and/or fuel up with some coffee. The large floor to ceiling windows also allows for an unobstructed view of the bike racks out front, which I appreciated as an added security measure if you happen to ride your bike to the coffee shop. The Café is equal parts bike shop and coffee shop and is perfectly inviting for either side of the business.

https://www.roadcrew.cc/

The Coffee

Roadcrew serves a rotation of coffees and on this day served Blueprint Coffee, a local St. Louis roaster located on the Delmar loop and off Watson Road in Lindenwood Park. Roadcrew’s staff are knowledgeable on both coffee and bicycles, offering informed recommendations on your selection of pour over or the merits of a particular chain lubricant. The coffee was served in a large beaker like decanter with a small clay cup which came off more on the hipster side but it works with the overall vibe of the café.

Taste

  • Roaster: Blueprint Coffee
  • https://blueprintcoffee.com/
  • Bean Origin: Santa Isabel, Cobán, Guatemala
  • Bean Type: Arabica
  • Price Range: $$$ (3/4)
  • Roast Color: 2/6
  • Brewing method: Pour over
  • Grounds/Water ratio: Unknown
  • Flavor Notes: Full bodied, Savory, Oily, Fruity
  • Aroma Notes: Smells like fresh baked focaccia
  • Tasting notes from the bag: Stonefruit, sugar cane, papayas, funky, chocolate, grapefruit

After decanting a cup, I was struck by the savory aroma of this brew. I noted it smelled like fresh baked focaccia in my aroma notes for lack of a better description but the resemblance was uncanny. The barista remarked that this is a “peppery” brew and it definitely delivered in that regard, but not in an unpleasant way. The peppery flavor came across more subdued than the aroma implied with a full bodied and complex taste almost like the nutty pungency of a hard parmesan cheese. I had to keep taking small sips to appreciate the complexity and nail down the flavors as I haven’t tasted much with a similar flavor profile. It was most similar to a light roast from Honduras I tried at Coffeestamp a couple weeks ago (and unfortunately did not review at the time) though not as light and floral as that coffee. Overall, it struck me as unique, flavorful, and satisfying.

Rating: 7.5/10

Chauvin Coffee – St. Louis Blend at MoKaBe’s Coffeehouse

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About the Café

https://www.mokabescoffeehouse.com/

MoKaBes’s Coffeehouse (actual spelling) is an inviting space at the corner of Arsenal and Grand at the edge of Tower Grove Park. Due to COVID-19, they have tastefully rearranged their café to accommodate appropriate social distance while still providing plenty of space for small parties of 2-4 either on the main level or a wrap around balcony upstairs. Their ordering is novel in that they provide you a table number and provide a QR code to access their menu, order, and pay. Their menu is homey and familiar with a spread of options to satisfy most palettes.

Tower Grove in the snow

After some deliberation, I settled on the Biscuits and Gravy with two eggs sunny side up and fruit. They delivered my coffee almost immediately after I ordered and breakfast followed soon after. I was surprised by the bounty of the full order and suggest that unless you’re feeling particularly hungry, you can probably get away with a half order. MoKeBe’s provided a thoroughly enjoyable breakfast served with quality coffee and I expect I’ll return soon.

The Coffee

MoKeBe’s serves Chauvin Coffee, a relatively large but low-profile roaster out of Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis. Though their history goes back 85 years, they deal mostly in wholesale, office, restaurant, and private label roasting and distribution. Their portfolio is voluminous, containing 18 single origins, several blends, flavored coffees, espresso, and decaf options. On this day, MoKeBe’s featured coffee was the Chauvin Coffee St. Louis Blend, a medium and full city roast blending Central and South American coffees which retails for $14.25 direct on their website.

Taste

  • Roaster: Chauvin Coffee
  • https://chauvincoffee.com/
  • Bean Origin: Blend – Central and South American Coffees
  • Bean Type: Arabica
  • Price Range: $$ (2/4)
  • Roast Color: 4/6
  • Brewing method: Drip
  • Grounds/Water ratio: Unknown
  • Flavor Notes: Dark, slightly nutty, little acidity, little citrus, medium body
  • Aroma Notes: Neutral aroma, some nut
  • Tasting notes from the bag: A blend of Central and South American coffees with a small amount of a dark roast coffee added, but not so much as to give it a dark roasted taste. This is an excellent after dinner coffee which is well balanced for taste and flavor.

I’ll preface my biases that I typically prefer single origins to blends, particularly darker roasts, but this brew surprised me. The choice of single origins tempered the darker roast with a lighter profile, which brought out the nuttier qualities of the beans without much bitterness typical to a darker brew. Simply put, it is a solid medium roast blend with some darker notes. It paired well with the heavier biscuits and gravy I ordered, but I had a chance to take tasting notes prior to breakfast. In that respect, the St. Louis blend stands on its own as a pleasing cup to start your day. I could easily see myself making this at home and will likely try Chauvin Coffee’s beans in the future.

Rating: 7.5/10