What I’m Drinking Right Now – Maps Coffee Roasters Sidamo

Maps Coffee Bag Brown SidamoHad an opportunity yesterday to meet Vince Rodriguez, the man behind Velo+ bike shop and Maps Coffee Roasters in Lenexa, KS. This was a relatively quick meet & greet as I did recon for the article on local coffee I was hired to write by the Overland Park Convention and Visitors Bureau for their 2015 Visitors Guide. There will be more articles and interviews with Vince in the near future as he has a LOT going on. and he is just getting started.

After a good conversation with Vince things started to get pretty busy in the shop so I bought his freshest coffee, some Ethiopian Sidamo he’d roasted two days earlier. Twelve ounce bag was $10 and that’s Vince’s normal pricing on his coffee. To compare I made a coffee stop at another place before I went to Maps and a 12-oz bag of their Ethiopian coffee was $19. Granted, a lot goes into pricing structure and costs and etc, but it’s worth mentioning at least.

When I got home I pulled a shot of the Sidamo in my espresso machine and it was pretty good, but I over-tamped or need to open the grind up or use a little less coffee or all of the above because it took about 7-8 seconds too long for my shot. Still tasted good, however I have no idea if Vince intended this to serve as a single origin espresso or not. It’s just something I like to do.

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This morning (right now as I type), I made a cup in the Chemex. For the geeks, I did a different ratio than the usual 1:16 (28g coffee to 450g water) and went with 35g of coffee to 450g of water. That yielded 375g of coffee in the cup, so 75g was lost to absorption by the coffee. Fascinating stuff, huh? 🙂

There was nothing special to the aroma and look of the beans themselves. I noticed a lot of screen sizes, a decent amount of chaff and what was MAYBE a quaker or two (beans that don’t roast properly and are usually very light compared to the rest, considered a defect) that I pulled out and tossed. After grinding I could catch some fruits, like red berries, in the aroma and that was very promising. I was getting the same from the wet grounds as I started extracting.

In the flavor there is a little blueberry, a little strawberry (especially as the cup cooled) and some other fruity flavors I can’t really pin down. There is nice body to this coffee and I think the ratio I used was a lucky good choice! The finish has a little astringency to it but it really has a pretty round and juicy mouthfeel and I think this is an excellent example of a nice Ethiopian coffee. If I remember right Vince said it was a semi-washed (honey process) bean, but don’t quote me on that.

This coffee isn’t a looker in the bag but it’s super in the cup, and that’s all that matters to me. $10 is a STEAL for this coffee.