001: Calvin Brews Rosa Té

Brew Your Best

In this first edition of Brew Your Best, our production roaster Calvin shares a detailed brew method for our latest Rare & Remarkable release - El Paraiso Rosa Té from Colombia!



Brew Your Best is an episodic exploration of coffee. We share nuggets of knowledge, from newbie-friendly tips, to detailed brew recipes, in an effort to bring out the best of the coffees that we offer.

Rosa Té comes from the highly-regarded and auction-winning coffee estate helmed by Diego Samuel Bermudez. Diego specializes in experimental processing techniques, resulting in coffees both unique and memorable. In fact, the name isn't a microlot designation - it's a specific flavour profile (rose tea, being the English translation) that the producer had in mind for this release. Other notable El Paraiso profiles are Tropical, Red Plum, and Poppy Mint.

Our initial roasts already gave us a beautiful, if fickle range of tasting notes. What we found challenging was the wide gamut of delicate flavours, that expressed themselves in different intensities, and at different times. Calvin from our roasting team decided to craft a brew method (very loosely based on Pete Licata's Hario W60 recipe) that aims for low agitation pours and an even coffee slurry saturation, to encourage the extraction of the complex, yet delicate, range of flavours.

Here's Calvin's Rosa Té recipe:

What You Need

  • Hario V60 02 Dripper
  • Paper filter (rinse before use)
  • Burr grinder
  • Pouring kettle
  • Digital scale
  • Stopwatch
  • Server

Coffee

  • 20 grams
  • Ground medium-fine (#13.5 on our Mahlkönig EK43 grinder with 3FE dial)

Water

  • 320g for the brew, more for rinsing and pre-heating
  • Brew at 96°C

Brew Ratio: 1:16

Calvin's
Rosa Té Recipe

Pouring Time Brew Weight
Pour 1 00:00 64g
Pour 2 00:30 128g
Pour 3 Time after Pour 2 + 00:10 192g
Pour 4 Time after Pour 3 + 00:10 256g
Pour 5 Time after Pour 4 + 00:10 320g
Total Brew Time 2:45 to 3 minutes, fully drained

This brew method uses a total of five pours, in equal amounts. For a total water weight of 320g, this means multiples of 64g, including the first pour for pre-infusion. In our testing, all five pours were done by the 1:45 mark, allowing for a total brew time of around 2:45 to 3 minutes.

For a step-by-step guide, check out the video below:

The resulting cup displayed medley of delicate flavours, as opposed to a few dominant notes, which we believe to be the superior brew style due to the complexity of the coffee. It's definitely not for every coffee - we tried it on Mamo Kacha, our washed Ethiopian, and while it highlighted some interesting floral midnotes, we missed the bright citrus and stonefruit flavours of our usual two-pour recipe.

We'd love to hear your thoughts about this technique, if you've tried it or something similar. Sound off too in the comments if you have some interesting recipes for Rosa Té! If you've somehow reached the end of the post without having tried this remarkable coffee, we invite you to purchase a bag here while we have it in stock!


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