It’s mid-month and that means October 2017’s MyCoffeePub.com subscription just dropped! This month the crew at MCP selected a delicious-sounding blend from Louisville, KY roaster/cafe, Sunergos Coffee. With an autumn chill in the air and today being the first morning I turned our heat on, a nice, warm Fall blend sounds perfect. Let’s check it out!
Purchase this coffee directly for $11/8oz or $19.50/16oz
MYCOFFEEPUB.COM SUBSCRIPTION OCT. 2017: SUNERGOS COFFEE HARVEST BLEND
MyCoffeePub.com’s subscription is as easy as it gets. Around mid-month you receive a single surprise bag of whatever coffee the gang at MCP have decided to feature that month. They do a great job curating the subscription and they pick nice coffees from really good roasters. They have a good balance between new or small microroasters and larger, more well known companies and I haven’t had a bad coffee in the bunch in over a year and a half of working with the folks at MyCoffeePub. This month, they picked the new Harvest blend from Sunergos Coffee.
Founded in 2003, Sunergos Coffee has become a Louisville, KY institution, with a great reputation for roasting and their cafe service. I’ve reviewed a handful of Sunergos coffee in the past and it was all great, so check the list of reviews to see those (and everything else!). Sunergos’s Harvest blend is 75% Guatemala El Sarral and 25% Honduras Finca Casa Vieja. Both coffees are natural process and Sunergos considers this a light roast. They suggest tasting notes of, “pomegranate, apple, brown sugar, clove” and aromas of, “malt, brown sugar, cinnamon” with a “semi-dry cocoa, nutty” finish. Yum! Definitely sounds like the fruity side of autumn in a cup with pomegranate and apple. Interestingly, I did note that Sunergos is currently selling coffees both from El Sarral and Finca Casa Vieja, Assuming these are the same coffees as what are in the Harvest blend, the El Sarral is actually a washed Caturra grown around 1150-1250masl and the Finca Casa Vieja from Honduras is a honey process Catuai grown at 1450-1489masl. Based on the overall clean flavors and total lack of ferment I got from this coffee, I’d say that it probably isn’t a mix of naturals, but rather 75% washed coffee with a 25% shot of honey process, but that’s assuming these coffees are the components of the blend. Just as easily, Sunergos may have gotten naturals from both of these same farms to use in this blend, so maybe someone from the company will clarify for us. Nonetheless…
The aroma on this cup does have some warm baking spice characteristics. Taking a sip reveals this coffee to be a fruit-forward, bright, but also sugary sweet coffee. This is a fruity cup, for sure, but it seems to favor the sweetness inherent in fruit more than the sheer brightness and acidity. This is a medium bodied coffee with a sweet front end that quickly builds to an apple juice sweetness and brightness as the sip progresses. Think red delicious or honeycrisp apple juice. There is a brighter component, too, which does remind me a lot of pomegranate, although it has been a long time since I’ve eaten a pom and I’m not sure if I’d have come up with that descriptor on my own without the suggestion from Sunergos! This is a bright, “red fruit” note. It has citrus-like levels of acidity but doesn’t have a citric character to me. At the same time, it doesn’t have what I would think of from tart cherry, either, as far as flavor notes, so pomegranate it is! The apple juice and pomegranate brightness really dominate the middle and end of the sip, but there is a warming/baking spices note in the background, too, that carries into the aftertaste, which seems to last forever. I get some very fleeting, but present nonetheless, hints of cocoa with some of my sips, too, and those seemed to happen mostly at a small temperature range as my cup cooled.
I really enjoy this coffee. When I first saw the Harvest: A Fall Blend label on the coffee, I was thinking a medium/darker roast with chocolates and caramels and those sorts of flavors which seem to lean into the nesting season of autumn. I tend to avoid looking at descriptors on labels, so I quickly noted it was a blend of two Central American coffees and then went straight to the espresso machine with this blend. I pulled a handful of shots and they are all quite bright, featuring some dark chocolate notes with a ton of lime top end. So, I knew going into my pourovers that this wasn’t the typical late-season blend and that has proven to be the case. That being said, thinking about it a little more, Fall really is as much about fruit and vegetables as it is about desserts and other heavy foods, so this blend is a cool take on the idea of the season of Harvest. This is definitely a bright coffee and even the aftertaste, waiting minutes between sips, has a certain apple/fruit tartness on my palate, but it has plenty of sweetness to balance and anchor those notes, too. Another great offering from Sunergos Coffee and a wonderful pick for the season by MyCoffeePub! Woot!