PT’s Coffee Roasting Co. Nano Challa

June’s MyCoffeePub.com subscription drop was local-to-me roaster, PT’s and one of their washed Ethiopian coffees. I’m a few weeks late to the table with this coffee as I’ve been getting caught back up, but let’s check out what I am sure will be a fantastic coffee!

PT’s Coffee Roasting Co.

Purchase this coffee directly for $21/12oz

MyCoffeePub.com subscriptions

My Visit to PT’s a Few Years Ago

PT’s Acquires Bird Rock Coffee Roasters

MYCOFFEEPUB JUNE 2019: PT’S COFFEE ROASTING CO. NANO CHALLA

MyCoffeePub is a monthly subscription service that I love because sometime in the second half of the month I know a mystery package will arrive on World Domination Headquarters’ front step and I get to be surprised by what’s inside, and I love that! I’ve been working with MCP for a few years now and they have never picked a coffee for the month that I didn’t enjoy. Even better, they often pick coffees from origins that I don’t naturally gravitate toward, so it’s a nice way to get out of my own comfort zone and try things I’m always pleasantly surprised about while also often discovering new roasters.

June’s subscription drop is not a new roaster or an unfamiliar name to many people in specialty coffee, and that’s Topeka, KS-based PT’s Coffee Roasting Co. PT’s is one of the OG’s of specialty coffee and for as big of a company as they seem, they’re just efficient and busy and hardworking and they’ve done a ton with a relatively small crew of people, which is astonishing. PT’s was founded by Jeff Taylor and Fred Polzin in 1993 and I spent a day with Jeff and his team in Topeka a few years ago, which I documented in a previous post. Here in Kansas/Missouri, PT’s owns a cafe in Topeka, one in Lawrence, KS (home of University of Kansas) and two here in Kansas City. In more recent years, Jeff moved out to San Diego and PT’s acquired Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, who have three cafes there. They’ve retained the name and branding there and I linked to a story all about that in the links section above.

This morning’s coffee is from the Nano Challa Cooperative in the Gera District, Jimma Zone of Ethiopia. Nano Challa was formed in 2004 and has over 400 members now. Coffee grows at a high 1900-2200masl there and this is a washed coffee, which for Ethiopia usually means we can expect some tea-like notes. PT’s gives us expectations of coriander, black tea, orange and milk chocolate as well as a peach-like sweetness and grilled lemon, which is interesting but explains the “lemony, but different than the usual lemon” I describe below, which I wrote, as always, before checking out any of the descriptions so I wouldn’t bias myself too badly. Cool!

I’m brewing with my standard pourover method of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper with a Kalita 155 filter. My grinder is a Knock Aergrind and I pulse pour through a Melodrip to minimize agitation during brewing, which works fantastically! I forgot to hit my timer before blooming but I’m pretty good at estimating the various aspects of my process, so this coffee brewed around 3:15-3:30 total including the bloom.

The aroma from this coffee is sweet and has some brown sugary/molassessy tones for me as well as some floral notes that lean toward roses to my nose, but not quite. That floral tone is familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Taking a sip, this is a medium-bodied coffee that is definitely not the light-and-almost-like-tea version of a washed Ethiopian that I’ve grown accustomed to over the last few years (which I also enjoy, don’t get me wrong). Up front, the sip is sweet and “dark” in its flavors, then the second half of the sip rolls in bright and fruity, making for a complex set of flavors that I can’t wait to dig into and pull apart. There is a lot of lemon acidity in this cup, but it’s an interesting version of lemon to my palate because it’s lemony, but not bracing, not too loud in the cup, but it’s very apparent and also not that lemon candy flavor I often get. It reminds me of when I’ve squeezed a couple slices of lemon into a big glass of water, so I get that lemon flavor and essence but not as much of the actual “acidity” from it, if that makes any sense. It tastes great here, in any case! Now that I’m focusing in on that lemon, there is a lot of black tea flavors happening in this coffee, too. I know I said this wasn’t a “light tea-like” washed Ethiopian earlier and so I need to amend that slightly because there is a lot of black tea in this cup and it beautifully complements the lemon notes I described. This is still not a “light tea” or green tea note, though, but rather a big, burly, strong black tea that has been steeping for a long time. I think my palate attenuated pretty quickly to it because I’m not tasting it as much right now, but I was getting a pretty good shot of coriander in my first handful of sips, which always reminds me of Blue Moon because that was the first thing I ever drank where I associated the flavor I was getting to coriander, so that connection remains super strong 15 years later! LOL

I’m loving this coffee and I would expect no less from PT’s, who are true players in the game! It’s complex, but drinkable and this coffee has a lot of intensity on my palate, without beating me up or fatiguing me. There’s something about this coffee that seems “adult” like, “Hey, it’s time for a big boy coffee this morning” and I think that’s coming from its excellent balance and how well all these flavors work together without being too fruity or too sweet. This is an awesome example of a washed Ethiopian coffee with great sourcing, profiling and roasting. LOVE it, another fantastic pick from the MyCoffeePub crew!