Let’s take another look at Kansas City’s latest entry into coffee roasting, Hammerhand Coffee, and their Camino Real from Colombia. Slurp!
Other reviews in this series: Light of Eärendil espresso
Hammerhand is new to roasting and does not have an online store at this time, but coffees are available in-shop for around $15/12oz and non-locals can email alex@hammerhand.coffee to see what’s available and arrange for shipping
HAMMERHAND COFFEE CAMINO REAL
Hammerhand Coffee is located in Liberty, Missouri, which is about 16 miles north-northeast of downtown Kansas City. They’ve been open for business, after a crazy startup, since Oct. 2016 and I’m embrarassed to say I’ve never been in the shop because that part of the KC metro area may as well be on the other side of the planet from KC Coffee Geek World Domination Headquarters and where my life is lived here in this city. I will be better about getting out and about in KC to visit all these awesome local coffee places in 2019, though!
Hammerhand was slated to open in downtown Liberty and was a week or two from opening when their building collapsed and caved in on itself, putting them back 6 months! No one was hurt and they hadn’t moved all their equipment and furnishings in, though, so it worked out. Hammerhand started out as a multiroaster featuring locally roasted coffee, as well as that from out of town roasteries, and in September 2018, Alex and crew started their own roasting program at the cafe. I really enjoyed their Light of Eärendil espresso and the link to that review is at the top of the page. This morning, I’m checking out a Colombian offering, Camino Real.
Because Hammerhand doesn’t have an online store with info of the coffees they sent me, yet (and you can still order and buy coffee from them, just shoot an email to alex@hammerhand.coffee), I had to do some digging around and I believe this coffee was sourced from local KC importer, Anthem. If that’s the case, this is their El Camino Real, which is grown in the Huila Department of Colombia and is a fully washed mix of Typica, Caturra and Castillo varieties. Anthem worked with a local wet mill in Huila to put this selection together, buying the best cherries from farmers, on the spot over a period of days, as they were coming down the mountains to sell their cherries to the mill! This is a 90% Supremo and 10% Excelso mix, which is the Colombian way of screening and sorting coffees by size. Supremo is a larger bean than Excelso. Finally, Anthem gives us tasting notes of “lemon acidity, good rounded body, black walnut, maple syrup, baker’s chocolate” for this coffee while Hammerhand’s label says to expect, “caramel, chocolate, hint of apple, medium bodied, sweet and easy.”
I’m using my standard pourover setup of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper with Kalita 155 filter. I’m using a Knock Aergrind and a Melodrip to control the water agitation. I do a 40-45g bloom straight out of the kettle and use a glass rod to probe the coffee bed and make sure everything got wet, then I do 30 second pulses through the Melodrip, letting the water get to just above the coffee bed before starting the next one. This coffee brewed up in about 3:30 total, including a 30 second bloom.
The aroma from the cup gives me some lightly caramelized sugars along with stewed apples. Taking a sip, there is another big shot of apple, with some apple juice sweetness as well as the brightness of green Granny Smith apples. Along with that crisp malic acid I always associate with apples, there is a hint of lemon in the high notes, which I always love and appreciate in a Colombian coffee. I’m not getting walnut, per se, but I do get a little bit of a drying sensation on my palate with this coffee which I do associate with walnuts, so it’s there in feel, if not so much in flavor. The caramel from the aroma is here as a sweet base anchoring these bright notes and giving this coffee really nice balance. I do get some semi-sweet chocolate notes toward the finish, which is sweet, and there is a maple syrup vibe to the aftertaste, which is sugary and sweet and lingers on my palate for a long time. I really enjoyed this cup more and more as it cooled down, and I feel like I write this almost every review, but this is a coffee worth letting sit and cool for quite a while before you dive right in. Assuming you brewed it right, you’re going to be rewarded with fuller flavors and a really great drinking coffee!