Good morning! After a couple of tasty Peruvian coffees from my friends at Honest Coffee Roasters in Franklin, TN, I am trying out their Dual Axes Blend! It was one of the coffees in February’s Barista Coffee Box and I always love a good blend, so let’s drink some coffee!
Buy this coffee directly for $12/8oz bag
Buy “One Box” for $20 (and use justonebox50 at checkout to take 50% off your first box!)
Honest Coffee Roasters Peru Rayos del Sol review
Honest Coffee Roasters Peru El Cipres review
BARISTA COFFEE BOX FEB 2017: HONEST COFFEE ROASTERS DUAL AXES BLEND
I’m really enjoying my Barista Coffee Box subscription. They put a lot of info about the coffees and roaster both online and in cards in the box so you know exactly what you’re drinking. But, best of all, each box includes four 2-oz packets of different coffees from the same roaster. Just enough for a pourover or two and you get to try a bunch of coffee. Love it! In February they featured Honest Coffee Roasters from the town of Franklin, TN, about 20 minutes south of Nashville. HCR’s roots go way back to their great-great grandfather who brought coffee to Franklin, TN’s general store after learning all about it at the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville!
Today we’re looking at Honest’s Dual Axes Blend. Looking at Honest’s website, I learned that this is a blend of Honduran and Colombian washed coffees with tasting notes of, “Brown sugar, sweet tea, toffee.” Honest says, “This is a coffee for everyone. We enjoy it on espresso and filter equally as much and recommend it as our go-to coffee for value consistency!” But, Barista Coffee Box’s site for this coffee says it is a mix of Peruvian and Guatemalan washed coffees with notes of, “Cranberry, sweet tea, chocolate cake.” LOL oops! While single origin coffees are all the rage and I love good single origin cups, blends are awesome, too, because they allow the producer to dial in the exact flavor profile they want by mixing and matching different coffees in different ratios that have different properties and roast levels. I love good blends and they tend to be crowd pleasers because they tend to be aimed at people who want a consistent experience rather than a totally different coffee every time they brew a cup.
I’m not sure if this is a Colombian/Honduran blend or a Peruvian/Guatemalan blend, but it was tasty as a pourover and that’s what matters to me! I used my standard 1:16 ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of water in a notNeutral Gino with Kalita 185 filters. I set my Handground grinder to 3 and used Third Wave Water to brew. This resulted in a very pleasant, mellow, delicious and easy-drinking cup. I found some crisp apple acidity with hints of citrus in the finish and a nice, full body with lots of sweetness. It was chocolatey and a bit nutty. The balance was perfect, as I’d expect from a blend where balance is the whole point! Just based purely on the other Honest Peruvian coffees I’ve had from this box I’d have to take a wild guess that this is, in fact, a blend of Peruvian and Guatemalan coffee. That apple acidity and sweetness, body and chocolate/nut flavor profile seems like those origins, to me. Maybe the blend changed since they roasted this one up for Barista Coffee Box!
In any case, this is a really easy-drinking cup. Not super-complex, but that’s OK and that often happens with blends. It’s sweet and balanced and incredibly easy and enjoyable to drink. This would be a great breakfast coffee and would pair well with high-carb breakfast and brunch food. Yum