I got approached by Hot Coffee Club recently after they saw some of my Perc postings on Instagram and Twitter. Hot Coffee Club is a subscription roaster based out of Garden City, GA, down the road from Perc, and they wanted to send me some coffee to share with you dear readers! Today’s review is of their Guatemala offering, which you can buy directly from Hot Coffee Club as a subscription.
Also, Hot Coffee Club likes you and wants to give you free coffee. Check it out!
HCC’s description for this coffee is that it is “smooth with almond smells” and their website also says that it is their most popular filter/drip coffee. They claim it is a “light roast” and I would agree with that. The coffee itself comes from a co-op in Antigua, Guatemala consisting of 500 independent coffee growers. The varietals are Bourbon and Catuai, washed or wet-processed and grown at an altitude of 1500-1600masl.
My sample bag was pretty small so I really only had one shot at brewing this up. I used my Gino dripper and my usual 15:1 ratio as a pourover. The aroma coming off the brewing coffee had a ton of coconut in it. I would say the body and mouthfeel of the coffee was on the heavy side of light (but not quite medium. Hope that makes sense!).
The aftertaste was pretty quick and the coffee’s flavors didn’t sit on my palate for long. It was brighter out of the gate than I thought it would be based on the aromas. In the warm, freshly brewed cup I was getting a lot of nuts (maybe pecans, tough to say on this one), a lime-ish tone to the acidity and even a bit of sweet cherry in the finish.
As the cup cooled I felt like it had a tropical fruit vibe and I got hints of the mythical pink bubblegum, too. I always hate to say it because I know someday someone will trash me over it, but if it’s there, it’s there! The cooler cup also had some apple character to the acidity and sweetness. It was crisp, but didn’t have that little tart bite that most apples have.
Unfortunately as the cup cooled it picked up a bit of grassiness, too. Between the nuttiness and the grass flavors I was getting, I wonder if maybe the roast is a little underdeveloped for this coffee? That being said, I’ve had coffee that tastes like peanuts wrapped in grass, and the coffee turned out to not even have gotten into first crack, so this is a FAR cry from that. The cup got quite cool before I picked up the grassy notes, so if you drink your coffee faster than I do you probably won’t have to worry about it.
Even then, I liked this coffee and I would like to try it with a bit more roast on it. The grass could’ve been a fluke, too. Keep in mind I only brewed one batch of this coffee, so it’s tough to make a judgment on 400g of bean juice!
I am definitely looking forward to trying the other coffees I got from Hot Coffee Club, so stay tuned for more!