August’s Trade Coffee comes from Feast Coffee & Culture Company. The beans are from Ethiopia’s Sidama region from a Shantawene village. Opening the bag of beans, I initially smell a pleasant floral aroma with a hint fruitness. A second whiff of the bag, I also get this nutty/peanut butter aroma.

Making my latte, I’m fairly disappointed at the lack of flavor. I didn’t taste much of that normal coffee flavor even when I drop down to a 1:1 coffee:milk ratio. It has a very light fruity and floral flavors with some sweetness. Ultimately, the lack of the “coffee flavor” is really disppointing for me.

August’s Angels Cup comes from Backstory Coffe Roasters. The coffee beans are single origin from the Rwanda’s Kilimbi Washing Station. Beans from Rwanda are rare compared to beans from Ethiopia.

The beans have a wonderful floral and fruity smell. Making my latte, I’m immediately greeted with a subtle smooth fruit flavor. It’s light, sweet and fruity. It doesn’t have a strong coffee flavor so it feels like I’m drinking a light chocolate milk. I really enjoy this latte for the lack of the bitterness.

July’s Trade Coffee comes from Drink Coffee, Do Stuff. The coffee beans are single orign coming from the Las Mercedes region in Columbia. From the roaster’s website, this particular coffee is able to control the process starting from growing to exporting. This kind of control in the coffee chain can be important to maintain that quality control

Making my latte, I wasn’t disappointed with the flavor. The initial burst of fruit flavor was a wonderful surprise. As I kept drinking, the fruitiness becomes this nice sweet lingering flavor at the tip of the tongue.

I’ve been behind on my coffee posting. I think I’ve been also kind of slow in drinking coffee too. Anyways, July’s Angels Cup comes from Black Oak Coffee Roasters. The coffee is a Columbian single origin bean that’s been light roasted. This is a Caturra varietal if it means anything. To be honest, I haven’t spent enough time to learn about the arabica varietals. I’ve seen them on the various bags from the roasters but never looked much into them. I have noticed some taste differences but I’ve always attributed it to the roasters and roasting variabilities.

First open of the bag is nothing out of the ordinary. The beans have a pleasant normal coffee smell with a little bit of fruit aromas. Making my latte, the initial sip was a little shocking. It had a strong black tea and sweet caramel sugar flavor. After getting used to the initial flavor punch, I start tasting berry and chocolate flavors. Sometimes I’ll go for a 2nd cup of coffee becuase of the tea and caramel flavors seem to mix so well together.

From time to time, I’ll stop one of my coffee subscriptions in order to “catch up” with additional bags that I might have purchased when I run out of beans but the next shipment hasn’t arrived.

June’s Trade Coffee comes from Sterling Coffee Roasters. I received beans from Ethiopia’s Limu region. Reading this guide about the origin of the various Ethiopian beans, Limu is located in the western part of Ethiopia compared to Ethiopia’s Yirgacheffe (central/southern) or Sidamo (central/southern) regions.

Opening the bag, I’m greeted by a subtle fruit aroma. Making my latte, I’m underwhelmed by the flavors. There wasn’t the expected fruity flavor or floral flavor that I expected from Ethiopian beans. There also wasn’t an earthy flavor as well. Everything I tasted in the latte was extremely subtle. I get hints of fruitness, hints of honey, hints of earthiness but nothing outstanding. Is this the result of a light light roast? Or perhaps, the milk is overpowering everything?

So I skipped Angels Cup delivery purposely becuase I had an extra bag of coffee already waiting for me from Trade Coffee. May’s Trade Coffee comes from Steady State Roasting. I received an Anserma bag from the western part of Columbia. The beans come from the Anserma Co-Op.

Opening the bag, I’m greeted by a normal nutty and earthy aroma. Think of this as the normal roasted coffee bean aroma that first hits you when you walk into a coffee shop. Making my latte, I was surprised at how smooth the latte was. It also had a sweet floral flavor that lingered on the tongue after each sip.

I’ve fallen behind again on my coffee postings. But I haven’t fallen behind on drinking coffee! This is technically May’s Angel’s Cup and it comes again from Klatch Coffee. If readers recall, last month was a blend. This month is a single origin from Ethiopia.

Immediately upon opening, I smell a very strong fermented aroma. Getting past this initial aroma, I pick up up berry aromas mingling with the nutty espresso aroma. Making my latte, the fermentation aroma carries over into the latte as well. I taste this strong fermented yogurt-like flavor that literally masks any initial flavor. After getting used to initial fermented flavor, I start to taste subtle berry flavors. However, that fermentation flavor really overpowers everything else. I even tried adding some cinnamon to temper that fermenty flavor but it didn’t mask it too much.

I ran out of coffee about a week ago. I haven’t been able to “time” my coffee subscription arrivals perfectly yet… (I know, I know… #FirstWorldProblems). To hold me over, I chose a random coffee roaster off the shelves of my local market. Canyon Coffee was a roaster I’ve never seen before on the shelves. I chose beans from Ethiopia as a comparison to other Ethiopian sourced beans.

Opening the bag, I’m greeted with a wonderful fruity aroma. It also has this subtle earthy/nutty aroma that reminds me of typical other similar Ethiopia beans. Making my latte, I taste very subtle fruit and nutty flavors. Each sip also leaves a nice smooth chocolate aftertaste. I enjoyed it so much that I ended up making a 2nd cup. For a literally off the shelf brand, Canyon Coffee is a pleasant surprise.

For May, DrinkTrade sent me a bag from Broadsheet Coffee Roasters. These coffee beans are from the Kanzu washing station in Nyamasheke distric in western Rwanda. Apparently these beans are from “Lot 36” which are processed differently from the normal “Kanzu” beans according to the website.

Opening the bag, I’m greated with subtle fruit and floral aromas. Making my latte, I taste very light fruit flavors. Even the coffee flavor is subdued. This reminds me as if I’m drinking something very diluted. Overall, I wasn’t impressed with these beans.

April’s Angels Cup comes from Klatch Coffee. It’s a blend that marks Klatch’s 30 year anniversary. From the description, the bag is a blend of Ethiopian and El Savadoran beans. Opening the bag, I get a powerful floral smell that also has hints of fermentation.

Making my latte, the first sip is amazing. The sweet, fruity, floral and citrus flavors all come out at once. However, after that first sip, the fermentation smell hits and starts to overpower the floral and fruity flavors. It’s amazing how smell can overpower taste. That fermenting smell though grows on you though. I find the smell somewhat pleasant after making lattes a few times.