Roast Level: Medium
Origin: Colombia
Region: Narino
Producer: Aponte
Process: Honey
Varietal: Caturra
Altitude: 2150 masl
Taste notes: Sweet Mango, Red Apple, Rooibos and Honeysuckle

I have kinda got used to discovering new coffee places wherever my work takes me. This time it was in Ajman, and it was a roastery. First Crack Coffee Roasters is perhaps the only specialty coffee roastery in Ajman. Correct me in the comments below if I’m wrong.

The word first crack is a coffee roasting term, sound is an important indicator during roasting and roasters listen for a “pop” or a “cracking” sound. This is the beginning of what you call a light roast. At this stage, the beans increases in size and most of the moisture evaporates.

If you continue roasting past this stage, a second crack will also follow. The beans are roasted dark at this stage. As mentioned in my previous Roast Story post, the sample roaster - ROEST has something called an Automatic Crack Detection.

Max is heading the roastery, he uses a smaller 1 kg Probat for sample roasting and a bigger 12kg to roast a variety of origins including El Salvador, Guatemala and the classic Brazil. As usual, I wanted to take a bag of coffee home and I was recommended to try the Uganda.

Mark, one of the baristas, prepared it on V60. This was an omni roast which meant its good for espresso and filter. Max prefers this origin for the espresso but naturally for me, it had to be on the filter. The cup had a nice rounded brightness to it, but I wanted more sweetness.

Max knew exactly what I needed and suggested I try the Colombia and guaranteed I’ll end up taking a bag home with me after that. The Colombia without a doubt was much more sweeter, and had a nice body to it. It was lacking in acidity which is not necessarily a bad thing, with some plum notes in the background.

Mark’s Recipe:

Coffee: 20g
Water: 260g
Temperature: 92 Degrees C
Grind: Medium to Medium Fine
Ratio: 1:13
Total Brew Time: 2 minutes

Three pours in total. Pour 60g of water, bloom for 30 seconds. The next pour will be 120g of water and you will slowly pour around the coffee bed in a circular motion. The last pour will be 80g of water and you will aim at the center this time with no circular motion.

This is perhaps the first time I did not order any espresso based drink, but I have to head back to try other origins and of course having a chat with Max. Max has a lot of experience in roasting and he was previously employed with % Arabica.

I think Max is an expert in blending. He spoke about blending not two origins, not three, not four but seven origins! From personal experience, blending can go horribly wrong especially when I decide to mix two coffee origins when one of the bag is getting over.

He is planning to work on a blend soon. There’s a science behind blending, its not easy and requires a good amount of experience. Lameen’s filter blend was wonderful and the origins complimented each other very well.

I’ll also have a guest on The Coffee Story very soon who will also do a deep dive in coffee blending and how he experiments with the origins, so stay tuned for that.