Friday, March 19, 2010
My Coffees Of Choice
Greetings to all our coffee fanatics! Although it may come as a big surprise to some of you, I did not start drinking coffee regularly until 2003 when I started working full-time for the family business. Looking back on my college days, studying for finals would have been much easier if I was powering down the Max’s Blend back then.
One of my first projects when I joined the family business was to learn about the differences in flavor profiles between different origins of coffees as well as between all the roast colors. When I first tried a dark roast during one of our weekly coffee tastings, I have to admit, it tasted a little burnt to me. Naturally that led me to try the lighter roasts, specifically Kenya AA. We roast our Kenya AA to a medium color (our lightest color roast), which brings forth the earthy, lemony qualities this coffee is so well known for. We feel that if you roast Kenya AA too dark, it loses some of its best characteristics. I got hooked on the Kenya AA, and for a couple years, I brewed a Melitta-style single-cup of Kenya AA coffee every single morning at work. To this day, Kenya AA is still one of my all-time favorite coffees.
Over time, I slowly started to appreciate how smooth the dark roasts were in comparison to the high acidity of the medium roasts. My current coffee of choice is Max’s Blend. I love the full-bodied, intense flavors of Max’s Blend, and I look forward to drinking it at home every weekend morning. Max’s Blend is very complex compared to any of the single origin coffees that we offer. Call me a snob or just plain spoiled, but I will only bring home coffee roasted on Fridays. I consider myself very fortunate to be able to drink such fresh coffee on a daily basis. Occasionally, I will switch things up and take home our Peru Organic. It all depends on what coffee mood I am in.
As far as my favorite espresso blend goes, that gets a little complicated, so I will dedicate an entire future blog to that subject. Next time, I will be talking about the Pacific Coast Coffee Association (PCCA) and some of the PCCA events this year that I will be attending. Spring starts tomorrow, and I hope you can all experience the beautiful weather that we have had this past week in the Bay Area. Until next time, stay caffeinated!
Shaun McLaughlin
V.P. of Operations
shaun@mclaughlincoffee.com
www.twitter.com/thecoffeekid
