After a thread a week or so ago I decided to add some decaf coffees.
This is Black and White’s Hambela Natural, an ethyl acetate decaf grown and processed in Ethopia and then decaffeinated in Germany.
This is a very young coffee, roasted last week, but I am impatient. I used a pretty typical V60 recipe. The drawdown was a little long even accounting for a long bloom, over 4 minutes, so I’ll need to grind a bit coarser going forward. Extraction is pretty close, so to compensate for the quicker brew I’ll go up a hair on temp from 92 to probably 94.
The coffee itself has bite from its youth, but interesting flavor notes are showing. Cocoa, cranberry, tart cherry. Not a lot of natural sweetness, but I think that has more to do with the age and me needing to refine my brew. I’m not sure it’s remarkable enough that I’d favor it going forward over their standard decaf, but we’ll see. Black and White, in its usual style, does have a funkier decaf among its rotating options that I haven’t tried.
Thank you for this review! I’ll be super interested to see how the flavor and experience changes after you’ve dialed in the grind size and the beans have rested a bit longer. Do you have a hario switch by chance? I’ve found that you can pull a good amount of sweetness from some beans by introducing some immersion pours.
I ended up grinding as coarse as I ever have for pourover, 6.1 on an Ode 1 with gen 2 burrs, and targeting a 3:45 total brew time with a V60 using the standard Hario filters, 40 second bloom. I’m getting a pretty balanced cup. The cocoa is still there as the backbone. Those tart red fruit notes dropped down to a low roar but they’re still present. Not a ton of sweetness, but what’s there is the best accent. B&W lists peach as a flavor note, which I can see, but to my palate it’s more floral.
As a natural process coffee I’d expected it to be a bit wilder. It’s subtle. Drinks a little more like a dark roast than I’d expected. It’s out of character from what I usually get from B&W (I bought a coffee they call Gummy Shark at the same time that is wild) but solid as a rock.
I’ll keep adjusting this until I’m out, but all in all I consider this a win.
I don’t have one, but it’s been on my wish list for a while. I taught a friend to brew on one, strangely enough, and the added control was interesting, but I never got around to buying one for myself. I don’t usually find myself wanting that versatility but coincidentally would have liked it on this cup for a full immersion bloom.
I’ll update you once I feel I’ve gotten everything I can out of the coffee. I’m confident it has more to give, at least more clarity. I’m very happy with what I’m now getting out of B&W’s standard decaf, I don’t think I’d have correctly recognized it as decaf if I tasted blind. Whether that’s on my palate or the coffee I’m not sure. Probably a little bit of both.
Might need to give this a try. Most EA process I’ve had is out of Colombia and I’ve been happy with it, but it would be fun to try a good Ethiopian decaf. I’m always impressed with how coarse I need to go for these. Ethiopian non decafs even demand coarser so I imagine this one has the potential to break some records.
I was surprised it took so long. I don’t have much experience yet with EA decaf. This was actually as coarse as I typically go on pourover, 4.2 on an Ode with the gen 2 burrs. It didn’t stall, which is great, but I usually target about 3 minutes even and this finished at 4:15. It was only a little overextracted, I’d have been happy with it in a coffee shop, so I’ll probably target a longer brew than usual?
It’s nice to get to use the whole grinder for once.
Is ode w gen 2 burrs mean an ode 1 w gen 2 burrs? On my ode 2 (stock burrs) I grind 5.1 by default and would probably be doing 6.1 or 6.2 to start with for this. Just curious if it’s a machine difference or if we are really grinding that differently.
Yes, it is a gen 1 Ode with the gen 2 burrs.
My understanding is the internals aren’t changed, so we’re grinding pretty differently. My usual range is 3.0 to 4.2 for pourover, definitely on the finer side from what I’ve seen. I would go coarser if I did dark roast V60 pourovers, but I favor French press or Moka for dark roast.
It’s likely our pourover techniques have some dramatic differences. For reference I just did two test runs on a medium roast Guji I’m trying to get rid of, one on 4.0 and one on 6.0, that finished at 2:35 and 2:15, respectively. V60 with the bleached white tabbed Hario filters, so reasonably quick but not Sibarist. I do prioritize keeping the bed moving for the entire brew, with the kettle tip low and a full five pours for one cup, so it gets water through quickly.
I just wanted to shout out Black and White… I’ve gotten some IMSANE coffee from them. If you’re into funky… YES!
i find that cup terrifying
Probably for the best. The mug and I have a comfortable agreement but I can’t be held responsible for what it gets up to when I’m not around.
