Similar experience across the board- had my best cup with the Aeropress using James Hoffman’s recipe, most sweetness of any brew method- Ilse’s price for this Pepe seemed to be the best compared to others that were carrying Pepe coffees at the time (notably Sey + Apollon’s gold), unfortunately it was an end to end underwhelming cup
Really appreciate the feedback on all of them. If memory serves correctly, the Sey and Apollon's Gold ones were anaerobic washed and this was the only true washed offering available at the time? Say September dropped one recently and imagine it's probably the same as this one
I don’t recall if Sey or Apollon’s had the true washed gesha at the time- I hadn’t tried a Pepe coffee at this point yet so I was open/ willing to try any of the varieties that were on offer and this one just had the best $/ gram value. It looks like Apollon’s has the washed anaerobic gesha currently in both a Pepe variety pack and standalone right now for (at time of writing) ~$48 / 100g vs. the ILSE that was $55/ 250g
Great review and so in depth! I have not tried Ilse or any America roasters. I live in Sweden and have only tried European rosters. Haven't tried Coffea circulor yet, but high on my list as it is one of your favorites. But I have a few questions: 1. How do you rate coffee? Do you do a 1-10/10? And how do you differ a 8/10 and a 9/10 for example. 2. What makes a good coffee for you? What is the most important factor? Is it a long aftertaste, sweetness, acidity, body, mouthfeel, balance, complexity? Or is it a high "potency", a lot of aroma and a strong flavor (highly processed coffee)? Taste the terroir? 3. The tasting wheel. Do you rate your coffee this way? Also, isn't aroma and things from the flavor wheel missing. For example vegetative, fermented, etc. If a coffee tastes chemical or papery, where do you put it? Thanks!
Hey Erik, thanks for the kind words 1. Actually prefer not to put a numerical score on coffee as it's very subjective. We try to prevent each coffee in an objective manner while ultimately giving an opinion at the end based off our own preferences. Wouldn't feel comfortable scoring coffees. 2. Clarity is always the most important factor. The better defined and clean a coffee it is, the better the coffee is. That holds true for processed coffees too. A clean and well-defined natural gets huge points if it is. So, yeah, the last part of tasting the terroir. Personally love sweetness, florality and fruitiness too, so that usually helps with our own preferences. The tasting wheel (which is something we took from the coffee book "33 Cups of Coffee") was just an opportunity to quantify things on a relative scale. Most of the stuff you mentioned is put into the "clean" category because all of those things take away from clarity. No metric for measurement is perfect, but we found this tasting wheel to be a good model to cover the majority of the important aspects in the cup itself. Cheers ☕️
@@CoffeeReviews I agree with you that coffee is very subjective. I think that SCA scorings are subjective and misleading. How would you describe a clean coffee? And what are some defects that don't make the coffee clean? I love a lingering aftertaste and tasting the terroir. Finding really really good washed coffees is so hard. I think that flavor notes aren't as important as aftertaste, body, cleanliness, sweetness and acidity. Knowing and identifying defects is quite tricky. Do you have some tips on that?
@erikkitvisets213 personally always described clean coffees as having very pronounced and defined flavors while lacking fermenty or funky aspects. Think it's actually easier now than ever to find better washed coffees, the standards are just higher. As far as defects go, don't really have a lot of great tips. We describe the coffees as they are defects and all. The Perfect Grind did a nice write-up on the different kinds that we've glanced at briefly in the past perfectdailygrind.com/2017/03/6-common-roast-defects-how-to-recognise-them/
Do you have a Next Level Pulsar? I've found it really helpful in bringing out more body and definition from coffee's that fall flat with other brew methods. I've had it produce great cups across many origins and roasters
We do not, but that brewer is gaining more traction with your comment now too. Have had some people trying it out to some pretty positive feedback overall. Might need to do a slight bit more research on it because it kinda looks like an immersion brewer?
@CoffeeReviews It's a hybrid of percolator and immersion. There are a lot of potential perameter adjustments to play with. But the suggested recipes from Next Level have been great starting points. In my opinion, it's definitely worth purchasing. The batch brews I've made with it are far superior to Chemex batch brews. Most consistently, I'd say the Pulsar boosts juiciness and sweetness. Due to its relatively small ownership base, it might not be ideal as a method to include in your reviews. But for personal use, you'd likely enjoy it.
@ggusta1 I haven't side by side compared. And I don't use my Orea enough to say that I'm fully fluent in dialing it in. That said, the Pulsar comes out head & shoulders above V60, Orea, Stagg, Kalita, Chemex for producing juicy & sweet cups. But, that's not always what I'm trying to get out if a coffee.
Great review! I’m just curious on what’s your mindset on how long you let a coffee keep resting for these reviews? So for this coffee you let it open up for 38 days what made you decide for that to be the cut off? Obviously resting coffee just varies with every single one but I’m just wondering when you decide to stop.
There's actually nothing to it, we usually open a coffee around the 14-17 day mark and take notes every three days giving it a 24 day time-frame. Brings consistency and takes the decision making out of it haha
Which is a lot of the reason our overall feelings on them dipped slightly as we became more familiar with their coffee. Either way, they do seem to be trending in the right direction
Just April's recipe: czcams.com/video/X-fXQKqkYxI/video.htmlsi=z3EX6Cj8dwCKkots We do adjust for size too as seen in the video and brew smaller sized bags at thr 13g recipe and larger bags at the 20g recipe
@@CoffeeReviews Cheers! I’ve used Patrik’s recipe before and found it to yield lower TDS cups, which are still pleasant, but notably distinct from my Kalita brews. I wanna give it another go, though!
The slightly frustrating thing about his brewer is that his filters are so hard to find (no one locally carries them) so we don't have many opportunities to experiment with the brewer/recipes making it a token flatbed brewer day review. Would love to play around with it more....
I have the Pepe Jijon Gesha and the Las Perlitas Pink Bourbon on the way from September Coffee and I'm pretty excited for both!
We may or may not also be working on one of those 😉
I'm always satisfied with Ilse, but rarely awed by their beans. Still a go to roaster for me.
Which is pretty much the sentiment have. Just always hope for that slight bit more
Similar experience across the board- had my best cup with the Aeropress using James Hoffman’s recipe, most sweetness of any brew method- Ilse’s price for this Pepe seemed to be the best compared to others that were carrying Pepe coffees at the time (notably Sey + Apollon’s gold), unfortunately it was an end to end underwhelming cup
Really appreciate the feedback on all of them. If memory serves correctly, the Sey and Apollon's Gold ones were anaerobic washed and this was the only true washed offering available at the time? Say September dropped one recently and imagine it's probably the same as this one
I don’t recall if Sey or Apollon’s had the true washed gesha at the time- I hadn’t tried a Pepe coffee at this point yet so I was open/ willing to try any of the varieties that were on offer and this one just had the best $/ gram value. It looks like Apollon’s has the washed anaerobic gesha currently in both a Pepe variety pack and standalone right now for (at time of writing) ~$48 / 100g vs. the ILSE that was $55/ 250g
Great review and so in depth! I have not tried Ilse or any America roasters. I live in Sweden and have only tried European rosters. Haven't tried Coffea circulor yet, but high on my list as it is one of your favorites. But I have a few questions:
1. How do you rate coffee? Do you do a 1-10/10? And how do you differ a 8/10 and a 9/10 for example.
2. What makes a good coffee for you? What is the most important factor? Is it a long aftertaste, sweetness, acidity, body, mouthfeel, balance, complexity? Or is it a high "potency", a lot of aroma and a strong flavor (highly processed coffee)? Taste the terroir?
3. The tasting wheel. Do you rate your coffee this way? Also, isn't aroma and things from the flavor wheel missing. For example vegetative, fermented, etc. If a coffee tastes chemical or papery, where do you put it?
Thanks!
Hey Erik, thanks for the kind words
1. Actually prefer not to put a numerical score on coffee as it's very subjective. We try to prevent each coffee in an objective manner while ultimately giving an opinion at the end based off our own preferences. Wouldn't feel comfortable scoring coffees.
2. Clarity is always the most important factor. The better defined and clean a coffee it is, the better the coffee is. That holds true for processed coffees too. A clean and well-defined natural gets huge points if it is. So, yeah, the last part of tasting the terroir. Personally love sweetness, florality and fruitiness too, so that usually helps with our own preferences.
The tasting wheel (which is something we took from the coffee book "33 Cups of Coffee") was just an opportunity to quantify things on a relative scale. Most of the stuff you mentioned is put into the "clean" category because all of those things take away from clarity. No metric for measurement is perfect, but we found this tasting wheel to be a good model to cover the majority of the important aspects in the cup itself.
Cheers ☕️
@@CoffeeReviews I agree with you that coffee is very subjective. I think that SCA scorings are subjective and misleading.
How would you describe a clean coffee? And what are some defects that don't make the coffee clean? I love a lingering aftertaste and tasting the terroir. Finding really really good washed coffees is so hard.
I think that flavor notes aren't as important as aftertaste, body, cleanliness, sweetness and acidity. Knowing and identifying defects is quite tricky. Do you have some tips on that?
@erikkitvisets213 personally always described clean coffees as having very pronounced and defined flavors while lacking fermenty or funky aspects. Think it's actually easier now than ever to find better washed coffees, the standards are just higher.
As far as defects go, don't really have a lot of great tips. We describe the coffees as they are defects and all. The Perfect Grind did a nice write-up on the different kinds that we've glanced at briefly in the past perfectdailygrind.com/2017/03/6-common-roast-defects-how-to-recognise-them/
Do you have a Next Level Pulsar? I've found it really helpful in bringing out more body and definition from coffee's that fall flat with other brew methods. I've had it produce great cups across many origins and roasters
We do not, but that brewer is gaining more traction with your comment now too. Have had some people trying it out to some pretty positive feedback overall. Might need to do a slight bit more research on it because it kinda looks like an immersion brewer?
Have you compare side by side with the orea? What are your thoughts?
@CoffeeReviews It's a hybrid of percolator and immersion. There are a lot of potential perameter adjustments to play with. But the suggested recipes from Next Level have been great starting points. In my opinion, it's definitely worth purchasing. The batch brews I've made with it are far superior to Chemex batch brews. Most consistently, I'd say the Pulsar boosts juiciness and sweetness.
Due to its relatively small ownership base, it might not be ideal as a method to include in your reviews. But for personal use, you'd likely enjoy it.
@ggusta1 I haven't side by side compared. And I don't use my Orea enough to say that I'm fully fluent in dialing it in. That said, the Pulsar comes out head & shoulders above V60, Orea, Stagg, Kalita, Chemex for producing juicy & sweet cups. But, that's not always what I'm trying to get out if a coffee.
Great review! I’m just curious on what’s your mindset on how long you let a coffee keep resting for these reviews? So for this coffee you let it open up for 38 days what made you decide for that to be the cut off? Obviously resting coffee just varies with every single one but I’m just wondering when you decide to stop.
There's actually nothing to it, we usually open a coffee around the 14-17 day mark and take notes every three days giving it a 24 day time-frame. Brings consistency and takes the decision making out of it haha
@@CoffeeReviewstotally makes sense thank you!
Overall theme with this roaster is a little more focus is needed. My results with them match yours
Which is a lot of the reason our overall feelings on them dipped slightly as we became more familiar with their coffee. Either way, they do seem to be trending in the right direction
To me their roasting tastes like too long time at low temps. Needs more heat upfront / a bit quicker.
Out of curiosity, what’s your recipe for the April Brewer?
Just April's recipe: czcams.com/video/X-fXQKqkYxI/video.htmlsi=z3EX6Cj8dwCKkots
We do adjust for size too as seen in the video and brew smaller sized bags at thr 13g recipe and larger bags at the 20g recipe
@@CoffeeReviews Cheers! I’ve used Patrik’s recipe before and found it to yield lower TDS cups, which are still pleasant, but notably distinct from my Kalita brews. I wanna give it another go, though!
The slightly frustrating thing about his brewer is that his filters are so hard to find (no one locally carries them) so we don't have many opportunities to experiment with the brewer/recipes making it a token flatbed brewer day review. Would love to play around with it more....
@@CoffeeReviews You’ve just described the role it’s been relegated to in my household as well 😅