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Sumatra Dark Organic: Cascade Pride Coffee - Revised

The other day my pour over maker finally arrived so I decided to revisit some of the coffees that had not fared so well in the press.  With this Cascade Pride Sumatra Dark Organic coffee, I gave it a finer grind, dropped my water temperature around 10 degrees and used the pour over  maker. After sampling the brewed coffee, I found that the flavors had not changed much, but the bitterness was gone. I am going to raise the rating on this coffee to 3 out of 5 stars.


Original review below:

Today nearly all supermarkets carry some type of whole bean coffee. I know, you are thinking who buys good coffee at a supermarket? Well, a great many people think they are buying good coffee because it is whole bean. So lets see how supermarket coffee stacks up to those made by small roasting companies.
Quick Details
  • Roasting Company: Cascade Pride
  • Origin: Sumatra; Organic
  • Roast: Dark, Single origin
  • Brewing method: French Press
  • Price: $9.00 - 1 pound
Sumatra Dark Organic: Cascade Pride Coffee
When pouring this Sumatra Dark coffee from the bag into the grinder I was surprised by how much oil was on the surface of each bean. Each bean was entirely coated with oils, it looked good. The aroma from the bag was a mix of dark toast, coffee, and chocolate. After grinding up a batch of beans the aroma was nearly the same. as the bagged beans. So far so good.

When boiling water was added to the coffee in the press a small amount of foam rose to the top and a nice strong coffee aroma filled the air around me. After the proper brewing time I cupped my first cup. To my surprise these nice oily beans produced no oil slick in the cup. The cupped coffee had a nice toast and coffee aroma.

With eager anticipation I took the first sip. Wow, what a surprise, the coffee was heavy, meaty and very bitter. The aromas present through the entire process didn't come through in the flavor of the coffee at all.  The only bright point to the first cup was after several sips the coffee left behind a pleasant, light aftertaste of toast. With the second cup, the flavor was more intense, but so was the bitterness and the aftertaste it left behind was heavy and a touch sour.

Perhaps this blend would perform better in an auto drip maker and I will test that at a later date. I don't really have a solid rating system yet but I will give this Sumatra Dark from Cascade Pride a 2 1/2 of 5 star rating.

Update: I ground up a batch of this coffee for my auto drip coffee maker and again I was surprised at the results. While it was brewing the aroma was fantastic. I could smell the dark toast and coffee notes in the air. However, once it was cupped, the first sip had  more bitterness than the batch from the French press. I'm glad that I only purchased a few ounces of this blend since I really don't want to brew the rest.

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