Started tasting the coffees other people gave me. First up is a coffee from Veracruz, Mexico. Semiwashed, roasted in Mexico a couple weeks ago.
coffee thread
First the good. It's obvious that this started out as a high quality raw coffee. No processing defects. Also no roasting defects, good physical development. The bag is reasonably informative and has cool art on it. This coffee had the potential to be super-sweet.
coffee thread
Very light roast, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there's a distinct vegetal flavor that comes across like if you were to suck on the raw coffee. I devote a whole slide to this in my latest class and this flavor is highly correlated with ending temperature. On my machine the transition point is a temperature 1/5 between cracks.
coffee thread
Some people like that flavor, and in the context of this coffee is sweet and clean, and if that vegetal flavor was intended and enjoyed by this roaster's customer base, good job. Nailed it. Personally, my preference is to always get above that temperature and thus eliminate that particular flavor. You can still do a light roast to a hotter end temperature if that's what you want, but a slightly slower, slightly darker roast would also boost body and sweetness with this coffee.