After a thread a week or so ago I decided to add some decaf coffees.
This is Black and White’s Hambela Natural, an ethyl acetate decaf grown and processed in Ethopia and then decaffeinated in Germany.
This is a very young coffee, roasted last week, but I am impatient. I used a pretty typical V60 recipe. The drawdown was a little long even accounting for a long bloom, over 4 minutes, so I’ll need to grind a bit coarser going forward. Extraction is pretty close, so to compensate for the quicker brew I’ll go up a hair on temp from 92 to probably 94.
The coffee itself has bite from its youth, but interesting flavor notes are showing. Cocoa, cranberry, tart cherry. Not a lot of natural sweetness, but I think that has more to do with the age and me needing to refine my brew. I’m not sure it’s remarkable enough that I’d favor it going forward over their standard decaf, but we’ll see. Black and White, in its usual style, does have a funkier decaf among its rotating options that I haven’t tried.
I did pick up my first two coffees from Luminous and I’ve tried them both, one EA decaf coferment and one natural process, both from Colombia. I appreciate the recommendation, these are excellent. Easy to brew, too, they practically leapt from the grinder finished.
The buying experience, the overt maximalism, is really interesting. At $65 for 400g of coffee I was worried I was buying more show than I wanted, but the coffee is excellent, so the pizzazz feels like they threw all their weight behind something that was already great. I’m kind of floored; I might be grossly uninformed but I’ve never seen anything else like it.
Yess! The whole drop shipping orders/process is a bit atypical, and their brand identity is very bright and loud, but I honestly couldn’t agree more- their decaf process is the best I’ve tried yet. It’s as close I’ve tasted to higher end caffeinated roasts and my go to right now. I’m super happy you’ve enjoyed them!!