It’s mid-July and that means MyCoffeePub.com’s July release for subscribers has arrived! This morning I’m looking at El Ciprez, a Peruvian coffee from Red Rooster Coffee Co. in tiny Floyd, VA. Drink up!
MYCOFFEEPUB.COM JULY 2018: RED ROOSTER COFFEE ROASTER’S PERU EL CIPREZ
It’s the 3rd week of July and you know that means this month’s coffee from my MyCoffeePub.com subscription has arrived! I did my usual happy dance when I saw the package sitting on my doorstep on Friday and, of course, that was followed by squeezing the bag, shaking it, etc to try to guess what was inside (which is impossible to do, but that doesn’t keep me from doing it!). This month’s coffee is Peru El Ciprez from new-to-me roaster, Red Rooster Coffee Co.
Red Rooster Coffee Co. was established in Floyd, Virginia in 2010. Floyd is a town of just 430-ish people about an hour southwest of Roanoke, VA. The record holder on KC Coffee Geek for the smallest town hosting a specialty coffee roaster, though, is still held by Round Top, Texas and Two Sparrows Roasting Co with a population of just 90! Red Rooster was started by Haden Polseno-Hensley and his wife, Rose McCutchan, as the roasting branch to supply their coffee house, BlackWater Loft. A couple years later the duo hired roaster Tony Greatorex and a big expansion in their wholesale market began. Just a few months ago, Red Rooster expanded into an 11,000 square foot space that encompasses the roasting operation, office headquarters and cafe. Red Rooster has grown to have about a dozen full-time employees and 20 part-timers with expectations of roasting 130,000 pounds of coffee this year!
Checking out Red Rooster’s website I’m really digging their aesthetic. Their bag art is awesome, and the bags are fully printed front, back and sides with those designs, which is super classy. The art itself is really beautiful on each bag and I appreciate the warm, inviting feeling of their site without it being super country, as one may expect from a small town roaster, or overly modern and sparse. It really hits the sweet spot of having clean, modern design and a warm, approachable feeling.
Getting to this coffee, it is a mix of yellow and red Caturra grown by Jose Herrera at his farm, El Ciprez, in Hubal, Peru. Named after the cypress trees growing around the property, sugar cane and bananas can also be found growing there and offering shade to the coffee plants. This is a washed coffee with a light roast and Red Rooster says to, “Expect a creamy body with cantaloupe sweetness, raspberry acidity and coconut aroma.”
I prepared this coffee using my standard pourover method of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin using Kalita 155 filters. I have all but the middle three holes in the filter holder blocked and I am using a Knock Aergrind grinder.
Taking my first sips of this coffee there is something immediately in the flavors that reminds me of watermelon and I’m even getting hits of pickled watermelon rind with the bit of tartness there is in the acidity. There are apple notes as well as some hints of fresh strawberry I’m picking up, too. Although that light strawberry note went away as the cup cooled. There is a light, but sweet honey-like base to this cup, which is, overall, more about the high notes for me. As the coffee cools I’m getting a lot of honeydew melon in the second half of the sip but I’m still getting a little bit of that pickled watermelon rind vibe, too, which I rather like. This coffee has a medium-light body and with these light and “cool” flavors, this reads as a very refreshing coffee to me, nice for this blast of heat we’ve been having across the Midwest for the last 6 weeks (I guess that’s called “summer?”). Throughout the range of temperatures I’ve been drinking this coffee I’ve gotten little tiny hints of coriander in some of the sips, too. It’s subtle, but I’ve definitely gotten a handful of flashes of it from this cup. In the long aftertaste between sips I am still getting a bit of coriander and some berry sweetness/acidity on my palate.
This is an interesting and delicious coffee that seems perfect for summer. It’s light, bright, balanced and clean with a lot of interesting flavors that seem to lean into the “cool” end of the spectrum, which helps that summer vibe for me. This is a great first outing for this roaster for me and I will definitely be in touch with them about trying more of their coffees. Again, this is exactly what I love about my MyCoffeePub.com subscription because, without it, I probably never would have tried Red Rooster Coffee Co. and now I’m a fan! Thanks, as always, to MCP’s support for KC Coffee Geek and I encourage you to try their subscription out, which, by the way, makes the perfect gift for the coffee lover who seems to have everything!
Teejay
I regularly buy Red Rooster from a couple of my local grocery stores. Good stuff … and I agree, LOVE the bag art!