I am so lucky because just about every weekend, my dear hubby cooks up a hot breakfast for us of potato patties, bacon, eggs, and toast. I've had fun trying different teas with my fry up to see what goes with it (so far I like Canadian Breakfast, eh! Queen Elizabeth and English Breakfast).
The hubby prefers coffee to tea, so this weekend we opened a bag of freshly roasted Steeped Tea Volcanic Coffee.
If you don't know much about our decision to carry coffee, and why we selected this coffee to offer, you can read more in this previous post.
Just as there is a huge difference in the taste and quality of loose tea compared to tea bags, I would suggest that there is a huge difference between grocery store coffee and this coffee. When we buy coffee at the grocery store and even those coffee shops (Timothy's , Starbucks, etc.), we don't know when the coffee was roasted. The problem with that is that shortly after roasting, the beans begin to deteriorate, becoming stale, and they will lose their flavour. Store-bought coffee, grocery store whole bean hoppers, and even popular gourmet coffee shop brands have been roasted months ago and have been slowly deteriorating on the shelf. Unfortunately many people do not know how gourmet coffee is suppose to taste because we have become desensitized to accept a below average grade without even knowing it.
Steeped Volcanic Coffee is freshly roasted in small batches and immediately bagged and sealed, delivering an incomparable fresh taste.
We used a drip coffee maker to brew our coffee on Saturday. If you use a press, you'll find the flavour nuances will differ a bit. The first thing I noticed was the intense bouquet of the coffee as it was brewing. Our whole main floor smelled of the delicious coffee aroma!
I am admittedly an amateur when it comes to tastings, especially coffee tastings, but here's what I noticed when I sniffed, slurped and sipped my first cup of this new coffee. The coffee smelled somewhat ashy (this is not a bad thing!) and I also detected a slight scent reminiscent of dark unsweetened chocolate. When I mentioned this, my 10 year old daughter wanted to sniff too, and she also picked up on it.
The flavour of this coffee is more intense than the typical grocery store bean. For the first pot I brewed (earlier in the week), I measured a soup spoon per cup of water into the filter, and found the resulting coffee too concentrated for my taste (I don't whiten or sweeten my coffee). For this pot, we used a slightly heaping dessert spoon per cup of water and found that more palatable, for our taste.
I encourage you to try it and taste the difference freshness makes! You'll find yourself falling for a sophisticated cup of coffee! Steeped's coffee roaster says that "great coffee is like baking cookies; they have a shelf life of several months, but they taste best right after they leave the oven." So do use your coffee once you order it!
* Those of you interested in learning more about coffee tasting terms and what to detect when you are tasting fine quality coffees, may enjoy this web page.
