Over the past year I am always looking for new coffee's to review. My love of coffee is second only to my love of cigars and I combine the two quite often. My wife is a project manager for an IT company here in Spokane and recently being unhappy with their coffee supplier, they switched to Cravens coffee. Well, I bet you can see where I am going with this. Her office has two different blend of Cravens Coffee on hand so she brought me home samples to review. Thank you dear!
This first of two samples is the Lost Trail Blend. I looked on Cravenscoffee.com for growing and processing information but couldn't find the blend listed. That leads me to believe it's either to new and not published on their site, or they no longer create this blend. I do know from a picture of the label, it's a combination light and dark roast with a with a full body, sweet, rich and hearty flavor profile. Well, by now you know my palate is a bit different so lets see what I come up with...
Overall this Lost Trail Blend produce a really tasty cup of coffee, but some of the flavors baffled me for a bit. Well let's back up a little. In the bag I could see the oily caramelization, but this is where the aroma stumped me. The whole bean aroma had the normal nuances of coffee with a hint of toast but after putting my nose to the bag nearly a dozen times I just couldn't figure out the bold sweet aroma. At least not until I looked at my coffee flavor wheel. Looking at the wheel, tropical fruit jumped right out, but that wasn't quite right either, it was Juicy Fruit gum. I was amazed, the whole beans had the aroma of the gum I chewed constantly as a kid.
Since that dilemma was solved, I headed for the grinder with a batch of beans for my pour over. The hot water produced a nice bloom and another aroma I couldn't quite place. It took a few minutes to figure it out, but my thoughts instantly went to camping. After a few minutes it came to me, toasted marshmallow. OK, so that's why my thoughts went to camping, the aroma of marshmallows toasting over a campfire.
The pour over was done so here are the tasting notes: In the cup the coffee was bright, crisp, snappy and refreshing with a clean aftertaste that left my mouth watering. The flavors were sweet and fruity with a hint of toast. As it cooled in the cup the toast became bolder and a hints of wood developed.
About half way though the tasting, I ended up pairing the Lost Trail Blend with a Psyko Seven cigar from Ventura Cigar Company. This cigar contains a great deal of natural sweetness on it's own, which enhanced the toast and wood notes while diminishing the natural sweetness of the coffee. It was a really great combination of flavors.
I give this Lost Trail Blend from Cravens Coffee a 5 out of 5 star rating. If you can find it, I think it's well worth trying.
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