Happy Tuesday! I played a little “blind tasting” and “let’s guess the blend before we know what’s in it” with this coffee! Check out how I did below…
Thrillist Top 21 Roasters in the USA
MANZANITA ROASTING CO. SPRING BLEND
Manzanita Roasting Co. has been keeping KC Coffee Geek in beans since not too long after they opened up for business at the very end of 2015, and they always impress me. Manzanita was started by Weston and Samantha Nawrocki. Weston came to coffee from a background as a chef and sommelier while Samantha was involved in her family’s wine business at Bernardo Winery, in the family for more than 125 years now! Located in the San Diego area on the Bernardo property, Weston and Samantha have been sourcing organic coffees and roasting them in a low emissions Loring and having a great time since. Earlier this year, they made Thrillist’s list of Top 21 Roasters in the USA, which is a tremendous achievement!
This morning, I’m playing catch up on coffees I’ve had notes on and haven’t been able to get written up and posted. My job’s duties have changed and that makes my morning time a lot less predictable for writing than it used to be, so sometimes I fall behind on getting reviews posted and I am always grateful for your patience, dear reader! This morning, I’m taking a look at Manzanita’s Spring Blend, which is not a currently available selection, so it must’ve sold out quickly! Unfortunately, I was unable to pull up a cached listing for this coffee to give you all the details, so I’ll just dive right in and tell you what I taste and why you should be buying Manzanita Roasting Co. coffee! Edit: this coffee is a blend of Manzanita’s Burundi Gaharo and Colombia Nely Moncayo, but I didn’t find that out until after I took all my tasting notes and made my guess as to the blend components, so read on to see how I did!
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 filter. My grinder is a Knock Aergrind and I’m pulse pouring through a Melodrip to control the agitation in the coffee bed. This coffee came in at 3:00 total brew time including a 27 second bloom.
The aroma from this coffee is sweet with hints of brown sugar and baking spices. Like all coffees, flavors open up dramatically when you let them cool down considerably after brewing. Finally ready to take my first sip, I’m greeted by a medium-heavy bodied coffee with a creamy, dairy mouthfeel. It’s bright and sweet and let’s try to parse that out some more… There is a lightly caramelized sweetness to this cup that is a perfect vehicle for the bright fruitiness of this blend. There is a real juiciness to this coffee and that word, “juicy,” is more of a feel than a flavor… it’s that full wetness that hits your cheeks and palate and that seems to make you salivate more. Juicy coffees are easy drinkers because every sip encourages you to get in there and take another one, and another, and… The fruity component of this coffee is a bit of lemon acidity, but there are some tropical notes and something resembling pineapple and that tartness that comes with it, too. At cooler temperatures I’m getting a little grape soda in the sweetness and hints of jasmine tea in the sip and in the aftertaste. This coffee finishes sweet with a coating on my tongue that has pineapple and jasmine and grape all balled into one. The aftertaste lingers for as long as I will let it. This is a fantastic blend and it’s no wonder it is sold out!
To play a little, “Let’s see how far off we can be” game, I’m going to call this blend Colombian and a washed Ethiopian. I’m pretty confident on the Colombian front, but the Ethiopian… I’m not totally sold on, but it has some tea notes, some lemon (but not quite the lemon lemon of a washed Ethiopian…). Hmmm. Well, that’s as good of a prediction as I can give. Hopefully I’ll hear from Weston or Samantha and can enlighten you on how far off I was!
Edit: went to Instagram and found a label pic from about 8 weeks ago, showing Spring Blend as being “a medium roast blend of Burundi Gaharo and Colombia Nely Moncayo” so I was half right and not too far off given that I at least had the general area of the correct continent picked! LOL Both of those coffees are still available as individual selections and if they are as good alone as they are in this blend, I’d jump all over them!