Good morning and welcome to today’s review, where I’m digging into Tobra Coffee’s French Roast (not as dark as you may be thinking). I’ve been waiting to get into this one and I’m already loving the aromas from this one as I type! Slurp…
Purchase this coffee directly for $11/12oz
Other reviews in this series: Breakfast Blend | Northwest Blend
TOBRA COFFEE FRENCH ROAST
Tobra Coffee was started in 2013 by Shane and Jessica Monroy, both born and raised residents of Tekoa, Washington. Tekoa is a little town of about 770-ish people (2010 census data) in the southeast corner of Washington state. Their website doesn’t say what got them into the coffee business, but that they roast all Fair Trade certified coffee and are committed to providing premium coffee to the people of the Pacific Northwest. They roast on a Diedrich infrared roaster, with training from the man himself.
The coffee I’m checking out this morning is Tobra Coffee’s French Roast. This is a bold name, IMHO, for a specialty coffee company because French roast connotes images of very black, carbonized, oily beans (which, if done right, I will still happily drink, too!)… an older school second wave-style roast. I was surprised, then, to open this bag and find beans that were certainly well developed, but not nearly as dark as the name implied. Once coffee hits second crack during its roast, it has become “Vienna” or a “Light French roast” and that’s what I’d call this coffee. If that stretches to where the sounds are cracking very rapidly, then it becomes a true French roast and A LOT of carbonization to the beans in that very short period of time. Tobra’s French Roast appears visually to be on the light side or maybe even Vienna range, with pools of oil on the surface of some of the beans, but not an “coffee beans dipped in oil” appearance.
This coffee is an organic single origin Nicaraguan coffee, and it won a Golden Bean Award in 2018. They describe this coffee as, “Bold and smoky, hints of dark chocolate, clove and spice.” I’m using my standard pourover setup ofa 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 pulse pour through a Melodrip to keep the coffee bed free of agitation during brewing. This coffee got a 30 second bloom and brewed in a slightly fast 3:00 total.
The aroma from this cup is really doing it for me… lots of dark caramel notes, browned marshmallow… just smells like all the caramelized sugars! Taking a sip I’m getting a lot of those caramelized sugar notes in the flavors. Sticky, warm, roasted marshmallow is here again in spades, along with medium-dark caramel. This is a medium+ bodied coffee with nice presence on my palate. Those sugars just lie over my tongue and the back of my throat like candy. There’s also a dairy sweetness here, too, like cream or full-fat milk. I’m getting a bit of a lactose note and if I was blinded to this coffee I may even think it had cream added to it. There is balance to this cup, too, with some high notes giving it dimension. There’s not a lot of definition to the acidity in this cup, something sort of apple-like but in the aftertaste almost leans more tart like a generally “tropical” note. Now that I wrote that I’m actually visualizing a grilled pineapple vibe. The second half of this sip is definitely chocolatey, something in the semi-sweet to Hershey’s full sugar range. The finish is neutral to just slightly dry and the aftertaste has that bit of pineapple tartness, all those sugars I talked about, and lingers nicely forever.
I love this coffee as a pourover! It has minimal smokiness and carbonization… I’m not getting that “freshly sharpened pencil” twang from it like I do most coffees in this darker roast range. There’s minimal carbon here. Instead, Tobra’s French Roast really accentuates all that beautiful sugar development and brings out some interesting flavors while perfectly straddling that line between delicious and slightly over roasted. This coffee would be my recommendation for anyone who likes a darker roast. I’ll continue to play with brewing methods, but for me, a coffee like this is usually very versatile, probably doing great in a French press, Moka pot, and certainly as a vehicle for cream and sugar. A Cuban cafecito would be amazing with this coffee, but I’m on day 36 of a serious keto run and I can’t try! That would be sugar perfection, though. And, you know me, the espresso machine is already warmed up…
Espresso
As espresso, this is also a nice cup! I am enjoying shots of 18g doses, 27-30 seconds running the pump and getting 34-36g in the cup. Sweet, balanced, nutty, some more of that almost-tropical high end. Not much roastiness at all. A traditional-leaning shot with more vibrance and none of the nastiness. YUM!
For the ‘spro nerds, I’m using a Quick Mill Carola Evo with IMS shower screen. Naked aftermarket portafilter with IMS 16/20 basket, Decent Espresso 58.5mm calibrated tamper. For these shots I ended up using an Orphan Espresso Lido E, which is a little clumpy, so they get a whisk with a BPlus WDT tool in the portafilter, then a spin with an OCD-style grooming tool before the tamp.
