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.

I ran out of coffee!! But that was inevitable since I temporarily stopped one of my coffee subscriptions given how much coffee I had already from Taiwan. I picked up this bag from Counter Culture Coffee at a local grocery store. It’s a blend of Ethiopian beans.

The aromas of flowers and fruits was amazing. Making my latte, I was surprised at how citrusy each sip was. The citrus flavors also blended well with the smooth chocolate flavor after taste. To be honest, it was hard to not just sip it. I ended up needing a second cup of latte to really feel satisfied. It was really that delicious.

Marche’s Drink Trade Cofee selection comes from Panther Coffee. I’m excited to drink these single origin beans from Guatemala. Panther Coffee’s instagram post expands on the origins of these beans.

Opening the bag, I smell this wonderfully sweet, fruity aroma. There’s a hint of nuttiness or earthiness as well if I bury my nose and smell deeply in the bag. Making my latte, I’m greeted with a sweet honey and berry flavor. After a few sips, I started to notice there is also a milk chocolate after taste that left a very pleasant sweetness. This sweetness sometimes made me want to immediately make a 2nd cup when I felt like I didn’t get enough of this delicious coffee.

Knowing that I would be tasting a lot of Taiwanese grown and roasted coffee, I also was interested to see how OKLAO’s roasted Ethiopian coffee beans would taste like. Readers of this blog would know that many of the coffee beans showcased in previous blog posts originate from Ethiopia. Since the Yirgacheffe Ethiopian beans is a fairly common region where many other roasters source their coffee beans, I figured I should give this specific bag a shot to see.

The bag smells very flowery with subdued fruity aromas. For transparency, by the time I got around to open the bag, it had already been a good 3 months since I purchased the beans. Making my latte, the latte tastes very similar to other lattes made with Ethiopian beans. Perhaps due to the time spent between roasting and brewing, I tasted predominantly a very nutty and chocolate flavor. There was a subdued fruit/berry flavor in the initial sip but it gets overwhelmed by the chocolate flavor after a few sips.

March’s Trade Coffee comes from Temple Coffee Roasters. The bag I received is a single origin from Guatemala’s Antigua region which is one of the known coffee regions in Central America. From the website, the bag contains Bourbon varietals and are produced from from micro lots from the small fincas/farms in the region.

Opening the bag, I’m greated with fruity/sharp aromas that give way to a subtle chocolate aroma. Making my latte, I’m greeted with fruit forward flavors with a pleasant floral after taste. After a few sips, I start smelling and tasting this rich chocolate flavor which really makes brings the enjoyment up a notch.

This is the third and final bag of Taiwanese grown coffee form OKLAO. Like the previous bag, the beans appear to come from a different coffee farm in the Yunlin region. They taste and smell very similar to the previous bag. The fruity and flowery aroma remains consistent perhaps because it’s from the same region.

Making my latte, I don’t taste the ashy/mineral flavor that I tasted in the last bag. Instead, I get a fruity and floral flavors. Of the three Taiwanese coffees, I enjoyed this one the most as it reminded me more of traditional coffee flavors (fruity and floral).

February’s Trade Coffee comes from Dune Coffee Roasters. The bag that I received is a single origin from El Salvador. The fruity and floral aroma from the bag is a wonderful. I’ve been making my latte a little later in the day (sometimes almost at lunch time) and I enjoy having this little break away from the “working from home” routine.
Making my latte, I’m greeted with a subtle berry and nutty flavor. It’s a smooth and drinkable. As a side note, there was a day when I let the latte sit too long and it cooled down to room temperature. I amazed at how the chocolate flavor came through. I guzzled that latte that day.

Another bag of beans from Taiwan’s OKLAO’s Specialty Coffee that appear to be from Yunlin which is another region of Taiwan but also near the mountainous Ali Shan region. These beans do not have that “ferment-ish” aroma that the first bag from OKLAO had. They had the more typical fruity and flowery aroma.

Making my latte, I taste a very ashy/minerally flavor similar to Hawaii’s Kona coffee beans. I also taste slight fruitiness after getting past the ashiness. Compared to the previos OKLAO beans, these have a much more straight forward flavor profile that I enjoy.