Whenever random boxes of coffee arrive from Theodore’s Coffee Roasters, I get excited! This time around I was double-excited because roaster/founder, Darwin, threw in a bag of their Espresso Notorious and you readers know how much I love espresso! Let’s dive right in!
Purchase this coffee directly for $17.50/12oz
THEODORE’S COFFEE ROASTERS ESPRESSO NOTORIOUS
Thanks to Darwin Pavon and the rest of the Theodore’s gang, located in Owosso, Michigan near Flint and Lansing, I’ve had a lot of their coffee, and Theodore’s is definitely on my “you can do no wrong buying their coffee” list. Tremendous sourcing and roasting and they’re always roasting up something new and exciting. In their latest care package, they threw in a bag of their Espresso Notorious that I have found to be very versatile and super delicious pulled a variety of ways. I’m not much of a milk drinker, so before I get going I want to let you know I did experiment with this espresso in milkies, but based on the flavors I was getting and the fact that this is the house espresso for Theodore’s wholesale accounts, I am fully confident this coffee does well from small macchiatos and cortados to giant lattes.
Espresso Notorious is a blend of Theodore’s Honduras Quetanquira and Ethiopia Assefa Estate. I’ve reviewed both of these coffees separately in the past, so click those links to see the separate components. The Honduran coffee is a washed coffee grown around 1200-1450masl that is picked and immediately processed right there on the farm. Darwin’s tasting notes for this coffee, unblended, were, “spices, chocolate and sweet berries with notes of rich dark chocolate, blackberries and a floral finish.” Uh, yes, please! The Assefa Estate is a natural process coffee (dried with the fruit of the coffee cherry intact, giving sweetness, fruitiness and body to the beans inside) grown around 1600-1750masl. This is grown in the Keffa Zone of Ethiopia and it’s a grade 1 offering, meaning a lot of care went into handling this coffee, all done by hand from picking to sorting and turning on raised beds as the cherries slowly dry like big raisins. Flavor notes for this coffee were, “berry preserves, vanilla malt, clove.”
My espresso setup is a Gaggia Classic I resurrected from the ashes. It has a brass shower screen holder and I tuned the OPV to run at 9 bars of pressure. I’m using a Rancilio Rocky grinder and a naked portafilter with Decent Espresso 20g precision basket and matched precision Decent Espresso tamper (58.5mm) that is also calibrated for a 25lb tamp. This is a nice setup and the extractions are nice and even. I found this coffee works really well at a lot of extraction styles. Good body and really beautiful crema whether I was pulling shorter 1:1.5 shots or going for longer 35-38 second 1:2’s. Surprisingly, I was really enjoying the flavors I was getting from 19g of espresso in, around 38-ish grams out in around 35 or so seconds. That’s a little bit outside my norm, but the shots were really nice. Excellent crema, good body, lots of sweetness. Up front I was getting some sour cherry and lemon candy acidity. As the coffee cooled a little and I was getting about halfway into the cup the acidity mellowed a little and it picked up more of an apricot vibe with nice sweetness and a hint of fruity tartness. The finish has cocoa and a mild aftertaste. Overall, the shots were refreshing and balanced and I really enjoyed the mix of flavors I was getting. At tighter ratios the intensity of the espresso ramped up significantly and there was more blackberry and more lemon in the acidity. I couldn’t pull a bad shot with this coffee, really, although pulling more in the 1:1.5 ratio in around 27 seconds seemed a little overly concentrated and intense to me, so I really liked going slightly past 1:2 and letting it run out past 30 seconds in time.
I think this is the type of espresso that makes for a good house espresso. With that much versatility it’s forgiving to the baristas and can be shaped and molded to work with the size of milky being made or pulled a variety of ways to show off its versatility to the naked espresso drinker (well, they hopefully have clothes on, but you know what I mean. And, hey, if you drink espresso naked, no judgments!). Another killer coffee from my pals at Theodore’s. This is a bag I won’t be sharing with anyone but myself!
