Jaguar Forest Organic Oaxaca Mexico Medium Roast

Jaguar Forest is a roaster that focuses on organic Mexican coffees. As of this writing, they offer this Oaxaca and a Chiapas in Medium (reviewed here) and dark roast. They also have a Mayan Blend which is a blend of the two. As I learned with Jaguar Forest’s medium Chiapas, “medium” is a relative term. I found that coffee to be a touch too dark for my tastes, although loads better than the incinerated coffee that can be found from roasters like Peet’s or Starbuck’s.

This Oaxaca seemed to be a little more lightly roasted than the Chiapas, but it seemed one-dminsional and lacked much character. I used a Gino dripper with a 30g coffee to 450g water ratio and it just didn’t yield much in the cup. The slightly acrid and astringent mouthfeel was there from the Chiapas and I got mainly a roasted, carbon-like flavor from this coffee. Even though I didn’t love the flavors of the Chiapas, it had greater depth than this Oaxaca. Although the Oaxaca was inoffensive, it just didn’t have a lot going on in the cup. Like with the Chiapas, though, for people who like darker coffees and aren’t necessarily looking for a thoughtful, introspective cupping, I would recommend this over the other brands I previously mentioned because there was nothing wrong with it, per se, it just wasn’t my thing.