Old Coffee, New Roaster

About the Coffee

Bella Carmona. This is a Guatemalan coffee from the Antigua Region. Sourced by Royal Coffee. I've roasted this one several times. It's consistent and tasty. Roasted on a borrowed Ikawa Pro100, using a profile from Rob Hoos. About the profile:

This profile is designed to match the key stages in the roast – drying, browning, first crack and development, allowing you to translate insight here to your production roast.

This is the first roast that I've tasted from this Ikawa. Let's see what it's like!

The Review

Smell

The dry grounds had the brown sugar, butter, and cashew notes typical of the bourbon varietal but there was also an uncharacteristic tropical note, sort of like mangoes and bananas. In the cup the nose is similar but expanded -- the brown sugar has caramel with it now, the cashew note is accompanied by roasted almonds, and the tropical fruit smells more like fresh cut wood and lemon juice.

Taste

An interesting combination of a warm milk chocolate presence in a medium+ body along with subtler notes of that fresh cut wood and mango interplay. The milk chocolate dominates. The fresh cut wood is an ever-present passenger that is a bit zesty (like cedar) but is also slightly bitter, like pine. Overall it amounts to astringency that balances the sweetness of the body. There is the faintest hint fruit mentioned earlier but it seems so far off that it's hard to give it a name. It's a slight acidic shine that is found in some sips but not others. The finish is overall pretty clean, but there is some "roastiness" in this case like lightly-browned toast that shows up as it washes away.

Thoughts

Given that this coffee was roasted on a small air roaster, the prevalence and weight of the body is slightly surprising to me. According to the description of the roast profile from Rob Hoos is less surprising. I've roasted this coffee many times in a drum roaster (usually with higher drum speeds) and it was not often this body-forward. Beyond that sweet milk chocolate body, savory notes are emphasized as one might expect from a somewhat elongated roast on a drum roaster. This is also surprising given the association in my mind between air roasters and punchy, bright roasts.

Overall, given what I know about this coffee and its roast characteristics, the Ikawa doesn't seem to be producing a cup that is completely other than a drum roaster, although how it produced this cup is another matter. This was an enjoyable cup of coffee with more body and subtlety than I expected. I'm now curious if all the profiles from the Ikawa will lean toward this one or if there will be a fair amount of diversity in what it can produce.