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Coffee, Coffee, Nashville, and More Yummy Coffee!
When I moved south to Nashville in 2021, I didn't have a lot of roasted coffee for personal consumption. I did have some greens I had sourced from my previous job. I asked a friend who had a small 3 kg coffee roaster if I could roast some beans for myself to bring. So I left Minneapolis with only a couple pounds of good coffee. I quickly would need to roast some yummy coffee for myself and everyone else in Nashville.
Luckily for me at the time Barista Parlor had a lovely 24 Kg Diedrich and a nice 2 kg Diedrich lab roaster. But much More importantly they had some lovely Ethiopia, Colombia, and even a natural Sumatra from the Nordic Approach;-) so the roasting and cupping begins! I was super lucky to land at Golden Sound when I did (green coffee wise and drama wise ;). Daniel the previous Head roaster had worked hard building his importer relations for BP. He didn't have the lovely greens I had when he started or the strong relationships, Thanks Daniel! I did need to clean up the green selection a little bit, more-so prioritizing greens for best use at their optimal time. So begins my 14 months roasting yumminess for Nashville and myself. I roasted a lot of very nice to excellent coffee's and a few once in a lifetime in that period. I'll try my best to cover all of them.
First off it was all the yummy ingredients for Daredevil blend! I think when I started it was just coming off a rough run that included a pulped natural Sumatra. So the barista's were not into it. The other component was a juicy clean fruity Natural Ethiopia from The Coffee Quest-Guji, Qaballe. We also had a nice washed citric Sidama from Quest- Bensa. Simply I removed the Sumatra and replaced it with the Sidmama-Bang! Fruity, clean, citric, berry, red fruit, and Yummy! The daredevil blend became my baby- I always wanted it red fruit forward, but I let the components drive the bus. Another memorable one was the triple plus-Qaballe, lovely Costa Rica natural from Balzac, and then a blend of Guatemalan Geisha (red and yellow honeys) from Anthem;-) My last daredevil included my favorite Ethiopia Natural from my time in Nashville-The Coffee Quest- Layyoo! It had all the yummy Natural flavors plus Summer Melon! That was an epic Daredevil!
Then I should bring up the coffee that most Barista's at BP said was their favorite while I roasted for them. The Halloween Blend-Monster Mash. It was a blend of Natural Coffee from Colombia and Ethiopia. A previous Layoo lot, Qaballe, and juicy slightly funky Balzac natural Colombia lot. The flavors of this cup-Red Licorice, Grape Candy, and Gummies. On the blends- Cabin fever was a lovely natural and washed-Colombia/Ethiopia blend. And lastly my Road trip was a great Natural Ethiopia and Washed Guatemala blend-Red fruit, Sweet orange, and Butter Caramel.
SO's....there were so many! But definitely the Nordic Approach Natural Sumatra was super complex, fruity, clean, and a touch funky. Very nice and popular, the Andres Cardona Natural Colombia coffee was a favorite! I actually roasted it slightly darker than any previous BP SO release. It had gotten lost in the green inventory previous to my arrival, so I couldn't roast it until it was over a year old. I added some Dev to cover up the slight age. Customers and the barista's loved it! And when the barista's all told me it was also the easiest extracting coffee BP has sold, I smiled wide! Another Unblended coffee I loved was the Valeria Pino washed Colombia. It was a super clean, bright, tart, mildly floral washed coffee, perfect for any washed coffee use. The Aquiares Estate Esperanza Red Honey from Costa Rica via Ally was a epic bright fruitty citric berry winey SO offering, Very Nice! And now that takes me to the Most memorable green and roasted coffee of my Nashville period.
Diego Bermudez of Finca El Paraiso in Colombia makes many very special coffee's. I pre-contracted through The Coffee Quest-6 35kg bags of his Red Plum process. We used it for the Ten Year BP anniversary. It was Red Plum from first sip to final drink through and through! A truly amazing life experience! Thank you Sarah and Stephen from Coffee Quest for getting me this very special coffee!
One thing I always enjoyed was roasting coffee at BP because they had popular established blends with flavor profiles that I matched with coffee selection and roast profile. That might be my favorite thing in coffee:-)!!! For the Golden Sound blend I had hundreds of contracted bags of El Salvador Mapche from Balzac (contracted before I started). I became very familiar with that green coffee and its roasting habits. Now, weirdly I kinda miss it;-) For the Co-Pilot blend (the airport offering that had to fit into a low price point)I had a washed Brazil. Same on this coffee (contracted before my time) except not a lot of bags. This Brazil was crazy delicious, punching way above its weight. I thought it was Colombia or Guatemala at first by the way it looked. It cupped like a hybrid of one of those green coffees and a super clean semi-pulped Brazil. Like 75%washed/25% semi pulped. It was a super fun coffee to roast.
I'm sure I've forgotten some lovely coffee I roasted while in Nashville! My apologies!
February 11, 2024
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Derek Delapaz
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