Is there any more pefect time for espresso than Monday morning? Let’s take a look at Pearland’s Palo Alto, a blend that I absolutely loved dialing in at home!
Purchase this coffee directly for $14.50/12oz
PEARLAND COFFEE ROASTERS PALO ALTO
Pearland Coffee Roasters started around 2009-2010 in the town of Pearland, Texas, south of Houston. The founders moved to Pearland from Louisville, Kentucky and rebranded Pearland’s Antigua Coffee House around that time. Over the few years I’ve been familiar with Pearland, they’ve gone through a recent branding upgrade with their bags and things seem to be going well for this roaster and cafe. Houston has a red hot food scene, but for the size of city it is, coffee has definitely been lagging, so it’s great to see local roasters survive and thrive, even if they are few and far between!
When I put the call out for espresso from roasters to highlight this style of coffee in November, Pearland shot me about 2 pounds of their Palo Alto blend and I’ve been enjoying it for a couple weeks now. About a week ago I picked up an Orphan Espresso Pharos grinder that I dialed in with this coffee and even with the same extraction parameters between the Pharos and my Rancilio Rocky, this coffee tastes different from different grinders. It’s a bit of a PITA to use, but this Palo Alto just comes out awesome when I use the Pharos, and it looks beautiful and behaves accordingly with my bottomless portafilter!
Pearland’s website says they created Palo Alto as a bridge for “those who traditionally do not enjoy espresso to the novice user.” Pearland gives us tasting notes of, “Cherry, milk chocolate, floral” for this coffee and recommended a recipe of 16.5g of coffee to 32g of espresso in the cup at 26-28 seconds. In a little communication with my friends in Texas, they said this blend started out smooth but, “lately pops like a cherry soda.” The components of Palo Alto are pulp natural Brazil, Colombia Supremo (washed) and Sumatra. Note: Pearland sells coffee in nice-looking bags, but they shipped me this two-pounds of ‘spro in a plain Kraft bag with the name and date handwritten on it, so hence the lack of bag pics in case you were wondering.
For equipment, I’m using a Gaggia Classic blind-tuned to 9 bars of pressure and my recently acquired OE Pharos. I pulled some shots using my trusty Rancilio Rocky, too. The Pharos is darn near impossible to turn, but, man, that has one consistent grind! I’m also using a Decent Espresso 20g precision basket and matched DE tamper, which they calibrate to a 25lb tamp pressure. The Pharos grind is more or less clump-free, but I still give it a WDT stir in the portafilter and groom before tamping with an OCD-style tool.
I don’t have a smaller basket to try the exact recommended recipe from Pearland, but doing the math, they recommend a 1:1.94 ratio in 26-28 seconds and I was using a 1:2 ratio in the same amount of time, so we’re right there with one another. I was getting great flavors using 18.5g in the basket and getting just a bit over 37g of espresso in 27-28 seconds. This coffee has a nice crema, a little bubbly and slightly thinner with the Pharos and a tighter, thicker, shaving cream-like consistency when I use the Rocky. My best shots were full of cherry flavors and were bright, but still sweet and balanced. This coffee has a medium-heavy mouthfeel for me and a syrupy presence on my palate. I am getting a lot of sour cherry and some lemon candy acidity, too. The second half of the sip has a lot of cocoa notes and the long aftertaste is like a chocolate-covered cherry. Even right now, 15-20 minutes after my last shot of this Palo Alto, I can taste cherries and chocolate on my palate, still! We don’t do much milk here at World Domination Headquarters, so I couldn’t test this espresso out in a milk-based drink, but as a bare shot it is super flavorful, easy drinking and vivacious. Really excellent in my book!