Blind Assessment

Crisply sweet-tart, fruit-toned. Notes of cascara (dried coffee cherry), lemon verbena, honeysuckle-like flowers, dark chocolate, black peppercorn in aroma and cup. In structure crisp but almost candy-like sweet and deeply fruit-forward; syrupy mouthfeel. The finish, long, resonant and consistent, foregrounds the sweet herbaceous notes, both lemon verbena and cascara, wrapped in dark chocolate.

Notes

This coffee tied for the second-highest rating in a tasting of 55 Nicaragua coffees for Coffee Review‘s October 2017 tasting report. Produced by Dr. Erwin Mierisch entirely from trees of the rare, bold-beaned Red Pacamara variety of Arabica. This is a dry-processed or “natural” version, meaning the beans were dried inside the fruit rather than after the fruit has been removed, as is the case with wet-processed or “washed” coffees. In addition, the coffee fruit was dried using the atypical method of stacking the fruit in thick layers and turning it infrequently, aiming at achieving a deliberately “funky” (read fruity, earthy) fermentation. This shade-grown coffee is also UTZ-certified. Modern Times is a well-loved, exuberantly inventive Point Loma, San Diego brewery that has long specialized in coffee-beer crossovers and overlaps. Visit www.moderntimescoffee.com for more information.

Bottom Line

More elegant than the term “funky” implies; nonetheless will most appeal to those who enjoy coffees that are decidedly driven by the richness of deep fruit notes.

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