Good morning and welcome to today’s review! I’m having a look at local Kansas City roaster, Walt’s Coffee Roasters, and their washed Ethiopian selection. Let’s drink!
Purchase this coffee directly for $13.50/12oz
Other reviews in this series: Brazil Rose Diamond | Guatemala La Montanita
WALT’S COFFEE ROASTERS ETHIOPIA YIRGACHEFFE KOCHERE
Started right here in Kansas City by (Walter) Craig Swanson and named after his father, Walt’s Coffee Roasters gives an incredible $3/bag of coffee purchased to a local KC organization. Walt’s supports the City Union MIssion, Liberty Arts Foundation, Restoration House, Urban Christian Academy and the Veterans Community Project and you can read more about these places here. I’ve spent 12 years volunteering my services to KC CARE Health Center (formerly Kansas City Free Health Clinic), so this sort of giving is near and dear to my heart. As a coffee reviewer, I’m always a little wary of “charity coffee” as it seems like the charities often take the primary spot and the coffee is an afterthought. After tasting these three different coffees (links to the other reviews are at the top of the page), though, I can say Walt’s is just as concerned with sourcing and roasting good coffee as they are with the organizations they give money to, and that’s nice to see!
The last two coffees I reviewed from Walt’s were a Brazilian and a Guatemalan, so we’re moving away from the Americas this morning and heading to the birthplace of coffee, Ethiopia. This is a washed coffee from Yirgacheffe, grown by smallholder farmers in the area of Kochere. Coffee grows around 1800-2000masl there and most farmers use organic methods, although this is not a certified-organic coffee. Washed coffees are picked and sorted in a variety of ways, then the coffee cherries are run through a machine that removes the fruit’s skin and pulp. There is still sticky, sugary mucilage clinging to the seeds inside (what we call coffee “beans”) and to remove that, the beans are fermented in tanks and then rinsed before drying in the sun on raised beds. This gives coffee a usually “cleaner” tasting cup than dry processing, and in Yirgacheffe, washed coffees are often light, bright and tea-like. Walt’s gives us tasting notes of, “Medium body with delicate, citrus-like acidity. Sweet and velvety with flavors of jasmine, lemon, peach and vanilla.”
I’m using 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 Kalita 155 filter. My Knock Aergrind is set to just under 10 and I pulse pour through a Melodrip to keep the coffee bed from getting agitated. This coffee got a 35 second bloom and the total brew time, including the bloom, was 4:00.
As this coffee brewed I was getting some nice aromas of jasmine and hints of peach. Taking a sip, at warmer temps I’m getting some of the jasmine florals I smelled in the aroma with a lot of tea notes. At the warmer temp, I’m thinking more black tea, but as the cup cools, the tea notes are a little milder and run more toward green tea for me. There are more florals as the cup cools, too. Medium body with a creamy, dairy mouthfeel. There is a honey sweetness to the low notes of this coffee and I’m getting some peachy sweetness in the mid-sip, too. There is lemon-candy acidity providing the high notes to this cup and this is a pretty balanced, pretty easy-drinking coffee. I’m getting a little bit of chocolate notes from this coffee, too, and the only thing sort of hitting me the wrong way is there is a bit of roastiness on my palate and in the aftertaste that doesn’t seem to fit the rest of these flavors. Certainly, this is a nitpicky criticism as I am overall really enjoying this coffee and it’s flavors (I’m a sucker for peach notes in any coffee!), but if I could make any recommendation to Walt’s, it would be to try to get that bit of roastiness out, if possible. As the cup cools it’s getting peachier and sweeter, with a heavy peach note lingering on my palate between sips. Larger sips seem to give more sweetness, more peach and more caramel sweetness while taking small sips enhance the tea notes and bring out a little more of that roastiness. This is definitely a coffee to let cool down because the cooler it gets, the more I’m digging it. Caramel, peach, light lemon candy acidity, more peach, more caramel… I mean, come on! At warmer temps this coffee had a slightly dry finish that was just a bit astringent on my palate, but as the cup cools the finish is sweeter and doesn’t leave any of that dryness on my palate like it was closer to brewing temperature. This is a really enjoyable coffee! I love the flavors and it’s sweet, balanced and accessible. Sure, there is a bit of roast in there that’s a little out of place, but it’s totally outweighed by all these peach, caramel and lemon flavors I’m getting. Yum!