Overwinter Coffee The Lemon Drop

Let’s start this week off with a new-to-me roaster, Overwinter Coffee from Buffalo, NY. This morning I’m checking out their coffee called The Lemon Drop, which is a washed Ethiopian coffee. Slurp!

Overwinter Coffee

Purchase this coffee directly for $19/12oz (with free shipping)


OVERWINTER COFFEE THE LEMON DROP

Overwinter Coffee is a new-to-me roaster based out of Buffalo, NY. Doing a little Instastalking, I get the impression that they opened for business, at least roasting their own coffee, in the Fall of 2017. In addition to being a roaster, they have a pop-up espresso/brew bar, too. Currently, Overwinter offers three origins: The Lemon Drop, which I’m drinking this morning and is an Ethiopian coffee, The Graham Cracker, a decaf from Mexico, and The Easy Drinker, which hails from Brazil (and that I’ll be reviewing very soon, too). I’ve only been to Buffalo once and that was in 2006, so I can’t comment on the robustness of the city’s coffee scene, but I do know more good quality roasters is better than fewer, so I hope all the best to Overwinter as they make their way through this business!

The Lemon Drop is an Ethiopian coffee from Chelchele, Ethiopia with flavor notes of, “citrus and floral.” This is a washed coffee and my sample had a nice, even-looking roast in the bag. This is a really dense coffee, so the 28g I use in my pourovers looks like a miniscule amount of coffee compared to less dense beans. As with most dense coffees, it slowed down my extraction a little, so if you’re doing pourover with this coffee, try to pour vigorously to keep those grounds agitated a little. Chelchele is a microregion of Yirgacheffe and washed coffees from that region do tend to have light body, lots of citrusy, lemony notes and big florals. Yum! I’m using my standard pourover setup of a 1:16 ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of Third Wave Water in a notNeutral Gino dripper with Kalita filter and my Handground grinder is pretty much permanently set to 3.

Definitely let this coffee cool down some and you will be highly rewarded. The aroma on this coffee isn’t really in-your-face but I do get some nice lemon notes and hints of florals in it. The lemon is intensely lemon, like lemon oil, but it’s still not an aggressive aroma. As you’d guess, this coffee really lives up to its name in flavor! I took a few initial sips when the coffee was only a few minutes post-extraction and it was flat without much going on, but give it a bit of time to cool off and it opens up tremendously. I’d call this a medium-bodied coffee with a creamy mouthfeel. It’s more substantial than some of the more tea-like coffees you can find from this region. There is a sugary, honey-like sweetness that hits my tongue first, then that is followed by a big hit of lemon acidity. It’s so good! Lemon drop is exactly what this coffee is. Tons of lemon acidit, but it’s sweet at the same time, so this is really a balanced cup even though it’s so bright on my palate. As the cup cools even further, the body seems to develop even more and it takes on this lemon syrup-like vibe. This coffee is mostly a one-trick pony, but what a trick it is! If I agitate the coffee and puff out air through my nose I can rile up some more floral notes that add a bit of complexity, but this coffee is basically the liquid version of a lemon drop candy and it’s incredibly enjoyable even if it isn’t overflowing with complexity. Overwinter’s Lemon Drop is proof that bright coffees don’t have to be thin or “sour” or read as “acidic” (even though we coffee nerds know it’s the acids that create these beautiful flavors). This is a dynamic and vivacious cup but it’s also super familiar and drinkable, which is another cool trick to pull off. What a fantastic introduction to Overwinter Coffee. Well done!!