'STAR ROASTERS' BOX DEC. 2022

Nov 22

Written By Kayla Clark

‘STAR ROASTERS’ BOX…

… celebrates the end of the year with award winning roasters and roasts. This year, we’ve teamed up with 2018 Good Foods Award Winner Revel Coffee (Billings, MT) to feature their 96-point Ethiopia Wush Wush and two recent Roast Magazine Roaster of the Year Award Winners: 2021 Greater Goods Coffee Co. (Austin, TX) and 2019 Dragonfly Coffee Roasters (Henderson, NV).
*Image: Greater Good Coffee Co.*

From the Owner and Last Best News:
“It’s revel coffee because revel means to ‘take great pleasure or delight,’ so I want to continually offer exceptional coffees that one can take great pleasure or delight in,” owner and head roaster Gary Theisen Jr. says.
He selects optimal beans, roasts them for favorable expression and then brews an extraction that highlights what Theisen calls “the intricacies” of the coffee. He says the coffee should “ideally expose the utmost sweetness and origin in the cup.”
Theisen developed a taste for coffee early on.
“I actually started drinking coffee when I was a 2-year-old,” he says. “I had asthma and coffee helped open my bronchial tubes.”
At 15, he worked at Todd’s Plantation Gourmet Coffee Roasters downtown. There, he crossed paths with a customer who roasted green coffee beans in a popcorn popper, which later inspired Theisen to experiment with this technique.
These days, Theisen has a roasting operation in a warehouse on the West End, processing a “couple hundred pounds” of coffee per week. He roasts samples that vendors send him and then blindly evaluates the brewed results. His goal is to “try to find coffees that are exceptional and unique.”
From the Roaster:
The much-awaited Wush Wush has landed!
The Wush Wush was named one of the top 10 coffees of 2020 by Coffee Review with a score of 96 points:
"Richly aromatic, levitatingly high-toned. Lychee, passionfruit, dark chocolate, candied violet, sage in aroma and cup. Layered sweet-tart-savory structure with juicy, vibrant acidity; full, syrupy mouthfeel. The resonant finish centers around lychee, dark chocolate and sage."
Thanks to the favorable reception of the previous crop, the producers were able to put even more resources into selection, sorting and processing. And it shows in the cup. All of the intense and exotic flavors are present in an even more balanced and rounded way than memory serves of the previous. The extra quality efforts paid off as it presents more uniformly and is even surprisingly easier to control in the roaster.
Thank you for all of your phone calls, emails, and messages while we waited its arrival. Global shipping logics have significantly been impacted by the pandemic. Among many challenges, a mix of backlog, logistic route changes, shipping container shortages, canal blockages, and dock worker shortages all added some extra time to its journey from Ethiopia. But #worththewait.
The Wush Wush encompasses the entirety of the palate with amazing intensity and balanced syrupy body and fruit juice acidity. Of all the various floral and fruit notes one can pick out, the one that seems to come to the forefront the most as the cup cools is watermelon taffy. The finish is lasting and sweet, like a dehydrated fruit leather snack.
Not only due to skillful growing, this coffee likely owes much of the unique flavor to its special processing and a 120 hour low oxygen fermentation - long! The heirloom coffee was collected from small farmers growing at an elevation of 1900 meters in the Sidama region and milled by the Kerchanshe washing station.
TASTING NOTES
lychee, dark chocolate and sage
ORIGIN
Ethiopia

From the Roaster:
Experience the Dragonfly Difference: Award winning coffee | World-class service. Our coffees are meticulously selected by our Founder / CEO, Q-Grader and world renowned coffee expert Tamas Christman. Dragonfly has been pioneering luxury coffee Since 2011 and sustainably sources the finest coffee from small farms across the globe.
Recent Awards:
2022 Thrillist Best Coffee Roasters in America
2019 Micro-Roaster of the Year - Roast Magazine
World’s First 98pt Rated Coffee - Coffee Review
From the Roaster:
In 2016 this coffee received a 95 point rating from Coffee Review and was number 9 on the top 20 coffees of the year! This coffee is elegant yet powerful, with beautiful classicism in the cup juxtaposed by vibrant exotic floral aromatics.
Producer: Karatina Cooperative
Altitude:1200-1600 MASL
Cultivar(s): SL-28 & SL-34
Process: Washed / Sun-Dried
Roast: Light
TASTING NOTES: Deep yet profoundly sweet and floral. Orange zest, magnolia, lavender aromatics burst from the cup. Supported by a grandly sweet, yet lushly dry mouth feel and finish.
ORIGIN: Nyeri County, Kenya

From the Roaster:
Greater Goods offers a carefully curated selection of specialty coffees from around the world. From unique single origins to laid-back blends, we pride ourselves on having something to please every palate. We founded our company on the following principles:
Sourcing and Roasting Done Right. From Colombia to Kenya, we travel far and wide to find the world’s best coffee. Flavor is key, and our on-staff Q-graders are certified to professionally evaluate the sensory characteristics of each potential coffee. But for us, cup quality goes hand-in-hand with social and environmental responsibility. We partner with producers who provide fair wages and utilize sustainable practices to protect the environment. Once the coffee gets to us, we craft individual roast recipes to bring out the best in each batch.
We think our sourcing and roasting set us apart, and it seems others agree: Food & Wine Magazine named us the BEST COFFEE IN TEXAS IN 2019.
Giving Back. Beyond great coffee, we’re passionate about our community. Each of our coffees supports one of FOUR LOCAL TEXAS NONPROFITS. So each bag sold is more than just coffee - it’s meals for families, training for puppies, support for individuals with autism, and bright futures for children.
Sharing Coffee Knowledge. We built our training lab in East Austin because the art of great coffee shouldn't be a secret. As an SCA Premier Training Campus, we’re accredited by the Specialty Coffee Association to teach professional CERTIFICATION COURSES. We also offer COMMUNITY CLASSES and TEAMBUILDING SESSIONS.
Texas Hospitality. Greater Goods was born and bred in Texas. It all began in 2015, when founders Khanh Trang and Trey Cobb decided to follow their dreams (and their palates) to form a roasting company in the Texas Hill Country. Cafés in East Austin and Bee Cave followed in 2018. We've grown quite a bit since the early days, but we still consider our employees and customers to be part of the family. We value everyone who walks through our doors, and we strive to ensure that all our guests feel cared for and welcome in our spaces. Y'all come back now, ya hear?
From the Roaster:
Limited Time Offering - Every so often, we taste a coffee that totally knocks us off our feet. Allow us to introduce you to Monteblanco Purple Caturra. It’s fruit-forward, tropical, and fantastically sweet. We taste mangosteen, lilikoi, and key lime pie thanks to Rodrigo Sanchez Valencia’s unique harvesting and processing techniques. Ripe, purple coffee cherries are fermented, depulped, then fermented again with whole passionfruit and cholupa, a sour fruit used in Latin America to make a kind of lemonade. The final product is unique, complex, and unlike anything we’ve ever tasted.
TASTING NOTES
Mangosteen, Lilikoi, Key Lime Pie
ORIGIN
Colombia