coffeecantata.co

During my short visit to Chicago in February, I popped into Intelligentsia Coffee’s Monadnock location and picked up this bag of their Honey Badger Espresso. They had lots of really fresh beans that day, but I was curious to see if I would like this better than their Black Cat Classic

Ipsento Coffee Roasters is another Chicago-area coffee roaster I wanted to visit on my trip, but when I discovered I could order fresh beans from Ipsento via Javaya, it was a no-brainer. Since I purchased this bag of Ipsento’s Wildfire Espresso, they’ve apparently renamed the blend and are now calling it their Cascade Espresso. I think I skipped tasting this with milk since it was such a fruity shot, I didn’t think milk would enhance the flavor. This is one espresso blend I actually preferred best brewed as coffee (in the Chemex), as it really brought out a great balance between the sweet sugar flavor and the juicy citrus.

Whole bean: I didn’t nab a photo of the beans, but this was very obviously a blend of two different beans because of the two different roast levels (light and medium). 203 degrees F came out a bit sour, while 206 was like chocolate, and 208 was dark chocolate and caramel. Favorite parameters for this blend: 19g in, 43.5g out, 208 degrees Fahrenheit, 25 second pull. Our signature coffee blend is a wonderful combination of Brazil Baron of Alfenas Full Natural and Guatemala La Laguna.

This bag came from a trip to our local Whole Foods. I continue to be really grateful that they feature freshly roasted beans from local and local-ish roasters like Cuvée