Ever heard of Oaxaca, Mexico... ??

As I've posted previously, I've been having great success roasting some organic beans from Chiapas. They are beans I bought from Coffee Bean Corral. Probably at or near the very top of our list of all-time favorites. When I saw similar organic beans available from the same vendor and sourced from neighboring state of Oaxaca, I couldn't help but place an order. Well, in hindsight... this is why they offer 'sample orders'. But the eternal optimist in me said "don't worry... it'll be great!". Yeah, right.

Not bad is the best I can say. The roast profile (below) is a little odd with a repeatable double hump at the start (?) and the end of the roast is pretty much what I expect. The taste was quite different (this is very frustrating to not have the training to describe what I specifically tasted! 😡 ). The body (which I've come to realize is important to us) was good but the flavors were quite different. And the roasted & bagged beans didn't have much oil on the surface, yet I could see oily spots right after the roast when the beans hit the cooling tray- something I've come to expect when roasting to this Dark stage with the organic Chiapas beans.

As a next step I let the roasted beans sit for a few days at room temperature (in the valved bag) and sure enough, the characteristic oil started to appear on the bean surface (it's called letting the beans 'rest'; that happens much slower in the fridge which is why I left the bag on the counter). The result was a good cup of coffee... but not as good as the Chiapas. Disappointing, but that's what experimenting with new beans is all about.

I'll try a couple more roasts (darker & lighter) but I suspect this is going in the storage bin and will be forgotten.

Just so you know where everything is, here's a map of Oaxaca state in Mexico... west and north of Chiapas-

And for the sake of completeness, I included this roast profile as a reminder to myself:



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