I have a head and chest cold that just WILL NOT quit, and as you can imagine that affects my ability to taste coffee and share worthwhile reviews with you, but like the sun breaking through the clouds, I got my nose back for enough time to bring you the first review of some coffees from a new-to-me roaster based in Iowa. I’m starting with their espresso because I need it to break this junk loose in my face and chest!
Purchase this coffee directly for $12/12oz.
Pammel Park Coffee Co. Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Rural Revival podcast interview
PAMMEL PARK COFFEE CO. ESPRESSO BLEND
I have a soft spot in my heart for Iowa. It has been A LONG time since I lived there, but it’s the home of my siblings and my mom and dad, and I went to all my colleges there, so it’s home even if I haven’t lived there for the better part of 20 years. I love seeing specialty coffee roasters pop up in little towns in Iowa, like Ross Street Roasting Co. in Tama and now Pammel Park Coffee Co. in Winterset. Winterset is a small town of around 5,300 people about 45 minutes SW of Des Moines and it’s the county seat of Madison County, whose bridges were made famous by Robert James Waller in his book, The Bridges of Madison County. Of course, Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep’s movie version didn’t hurt to bring fame to this pretty little corner of Iowa, either!
Pammel Park Coffee Co. is named after Pammel Park, one of Iowa’s first state parks that was established by botanist, educator and conservationist, Louis Pammel, around 1928. Originally called The Devil’s Backbone because of the limestone ridge running through this part of Madison County, it took on a more family friendly name around 1930. Pammel Park Coffee Co. was started by Naomi and Matt Hupton, using the family farm’s barn as the roastery. The Huptons have owned the land Pammel Park coffee is roasted on since 1917 and I couldn’t find an exact date for when they got started, but I suspect it was in 2018. Matt worked at the fantastic Cafe Imports in Minneapolis for nearly 20 years, so to say he knows a thing or two about coffee would be a vast understatement! Cafe Imports is one of the biggest specialty coffee importers (if not THE biggest) in the country.
Matt sent their espresso blend as a gift to me, but said it was fine if I wanted to review it, too, and it is listed for sale on their website, so of course you know what that means! The blend is currently 1/3 Kenya Embu (washed), 1/3 Mexico Chiapas (washed) and 1/3 Brazil Sul de Minas, which is a natural.
I found this coffee to be easy to dial in, well-behaved, and very traditional in all the right ways. I’ll share all my espresso geekery below, but before I bury the headline any further, let’s talk about the coffee! My shots really remind me strongly of a tastier version of the Roman espresso I grew up on, but without the nastiness. It’s nutty and has a ton of bittersweet and dark chocolate notes with just a hint of roastiness. The sweetness has a dark caramelized sugar vibe and once my nose started working again I was tasting a bit of raisin and plum in the cup, too. There’s a bit of grapefruit acidity and pithiness to the flavors, too, and this is a really balanced, very easy drinking espresso that if I was a milk or sugar or both kind of guy, would be killer in milkies and cafecito and similar espresso-based drinks. If you like your espresso traditional or you want a break from really fruity, super bright “modern” ‘spros, then I can’t recommend Pammel Park’s espresso blend highly enough.
And now for the geeks… I am using the following equipment:
- Gaggia Classic tuned to 9 bars
- Orphan Espresso Pharos 2.0
- BPlus (the Asian La Pavoni guys) WDT stirrer
- Bottomless portafilter
- Decent Espresso 20g basket with 58.5mm Decent Espresso tamper calibrated to 25lbs of tamp force
I was getting good shots of this coffee using a 1:2 and slightly over or under in 25-30 seconds. My best shots were right at 1:2 in around 27-28 seconds. I was using 18-18.3g of coffee in the portafilter. These ratios mean I was coming in around 36g of coffee (1:2 ratio) in that time period. I was going as high as 38g and as low as 33. Tighter ratios were a little more chocolatey and had more dark fruit while the longer pulls were a little brighter and had more of that grapefruit note.