Welcome back, American readers! After a long holiday weekend for Thanksgiving I have a unique natural coffee from China by way of Iowa for you. Check it out!
ROSS STREET ROASTING CO. YUNNAN PROVINCE FUYAN ESTATE NATURAL
China is recognized the world over for its production and consumption of tea, and when you say “coffee,” China doesn’t even register in most people’s minds. The weather and geography of China just don’t lend well to coffee production, and currently there are three coffee growing regions in the whole nation. Two of those regions produce mainly Robusta beans, although the largest coffee growing region in China, Yunnan, does grow Arabica. Yunnan is in southern China, bordering Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, and this region is also home to Pu’er, famous for its tea production. Coffee grows in the 1600masl range in this area, although it could get as high as 2000masl. Some of the producers in Yunnan, such as Fuyan Estate where this coffee comes from, are turning their eye toward specialty production, but it’s still a young market in China.
I drank Urban Dwellers’ Fuyan Estate coffee back in March 2018. That was the washed version of this coffee and I enjoyed it. This one from Ross Street (which appears to have just sold out! If I’d posted this review right before Thanksgiving, I would’ve made it under the cut! Sorry, dear readers!) is the natural process version and it’s the same Catimor beans from the same estate as the Urban Dwellers’ coffee, where Ross Street sourced this from. Ross Street Roasting was founded a few years ago in central Iowa by Brian Gumm and I’ve featured quite a bit of his coffees here over the years. Named after the street Brian lived on when he started roasting in his garage, Ross Street Roasting Co. moved into a roasting space in Tama, IA a year or two ago and things have been growing since!
Brian gives us tasting notes of, “Balanced fruit and earthy notes, sweet, tart apple or green grape, light-medium body.” I’m using a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper with Kalita 155 white filter. I’ve just started adding a Melodrip to even out the water of my kettle pours (look for a future review on that in a while) and my grinder is a Knock Aergrind.
The fragrance on there beans themselves is fruity and almost even boozy from the natural fermentation process that occurs in this method of production. In the cup I’m getting a fair amount of the same along with a slight banana-like ester note. Taking a sip, this coffee borders light and medium body and has a creamy mouthfeel at odds with that light body. Nice fruits are definitely present here. I’m getting some fresh strawberry but I can’t shake the banana note I picked up in the nose of this coffee. I’m certain this is the first time I’ve ever thrown “banana” into a coffee review here, and maybe it’s a trick of my mind now that I’ve associated one of the scents with banana, or maybe it’s really there, but I do get a slightly strawberry-banana vibe from this cup! There is definitely malic green apple acidity to this cup and a sweet apple juice base. The finish is sweet and has a lot of red apple juice in it for me, along with some light strawberry notes that carry into the finish and relatively short aftertaste.
This is an interesting coffee and I quite enjoy it. Brian did a great job pulling some unique flavors out of the roast and I like this coffee’s unusual, but appealing, vibe. It’s more along the lines of a Central American natural than an African one, for me, and it has a lot to enjoy! I just wish it wasn’t sold out, but check out Brian’s site for more excellent coffees and take advantage of his shipping deals going on right now! Now it’s time for me to finish this cup on, gear up in all my winter clothes and do some shoveling. On the plus side, this cold weather and snow bought me a day off work!