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Sweet Maria's Liquid Amber Espresso Blend
A potent, pungent blend for espresso beverages. It's ideal for milk drinks, as this intense bittersweet cuts through the steamed milk. Rustic sweetness, spice, savory notes, long aftertaste. Monsooned coffee and a small percentage of Robusta add crema and body. Vienna roast.
86.6
Full Cupping Notes
Extracted in a properly functioning, clean espresso machine the blend produces a lot of crema, making the mouthfeel very thick and creamy. The sharp pungent bite to the blend has a pleasant bitterness to it, like roasted cacao nibs, and fades into a rich aftertaste of dark and semi-sweetened chocolates. If properly roasted (not scorched) the blend will not be ashy, something I really don't like in espresso. (With any espresso, if the aftertaste turns acrid and bitter after 3 minutes or so, your espresso machine may be overdue for a backflush!) We're using a fresh Costa Rica ingredient this time around that brings a nice level of sweetness to the blend. Short and long shots show hints of fruit, sweet smoke, caramel, umami, and cream in the extended aftertaste. This blend works extremely well in milk drinks, meaning by that a true cappuccino (6-9 oz.) or machiatto. I make no claims for Latte ... is there any coffee that tastes potent mixed down 8:1 in a Slurpee-sized cup of milk?
Liquid Amber Note: If the coffee arrives and doesn't appear evenly blended, this is because of the vibration during loading and shipment. I can positively guarantee you that the blend was packed in the exact, correct proportion (we are extremely careful about this), but the difference in size/density of the Monsooned/non-Monsooned can make them separate a bit with vibration. Just give it a stir....
- Cultivar Varies
- Farm Gate No
I wanted an espresso blend that was potent, sharp, intense enough in flavor to cut through steamed milk, but clean enough in flavor profile to work as a straight espresso shot. I wanted it also to be complex and hint at all of those tastes, and more. Here's the product of a lot of overly-caffeinated days of experimentation: the Liquid Amber Espresso Blend. It is named for the rich color and multitude of crema it produces. The blend was fairly complex to come up with ... after I found the general tastes I wanted, emerging from aroma and first sip through the very long aftertaste (if I don't cleanse my palate with water I will taste this coffee for a very......long.....time) I needed to play with the exact percentages. The specific blend, hey ... it is my secret! But I will tell you that the 5 coffees that really worked toward the flavor goal I imagined ended up surprising even me! We've refined the recipe over the year, and at the moment, there's a washed Central, wet-hulled Indonesia, a monsooned coffee, and even a modicum of quality Robusta. And to keep this a mystery, the blend contains some coffees not on our list. I admit this is a pretty wacky blend by the current fashion in espresso toward lighter-roasted and acidic coffees; it's downright dated really. But it works in its own way. Some emphasis here is on the physical character of the espresso, hence the use of the monsooned coffee, which has properties in terms of crema that no other coffee possesses. Even in cupping the dynamics of the foam/bubbles are clearly different from other coffees due to the changes in the bean from the monsoon processing technique.
A note on visual grade - the defect count will vary, but our "1 full defect per 300g" is us being on the safe side since the Monsoon coffee can have bug holes. That said, we buy the best visual and cup grade available (and we'll let it run out of stock rather than buy sub par product!) and this should not have an affect on flavor.
*Due to the labor involved in mixing these custom blends, we only offer Liquid Amber Espresso in 50 lb. bags.
| Processing | Varies |
|---|---|
| Cultivar Detail | Varies |
| Appearance | 1 d/300gr, 17-19 Screen - defect count will vary, but we're being on the safe side since the Monsoon coffee can have bug holes. That said, we buy the best visual and cup grade we can and this should not have an affect on flavor. |
| Roast Recommendations | I advocate a Northern Italian style roast (lighter espresso roast, really a French roast, stopped 30-45 seconds into 2nd crack), but the blend works very well at the darker Southern Italian style roast (a full French roast actually, at the peak of a rapid 2nd crack). Either way, get this into 2nd crack and allow proper resting that espresso demands: 48+ hours is best. This blend works great in air and drum roast machines and I developed it test-roasting on both. If you notice a tingly "baking soda effect" in your mouth, then the coffee could use more rest. |
| Type | Sweet Maria's Blends |
| Recommended for Espresso | Yes |
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