Ritual Coffee Roasters - San Jose de Pedregal
Pros
- Very bright
- Great aroma
Cons
- Dry aftertaste
- Can be sour without the right brewing parameters
Ritual Coffee Roasters is one of the first specialty coffee shops I ever visited. It is also where I had the best espresso of my life so far, which is one of the reasons I always expect big things from the coffee I drink here.
This week I picked up a bag of their “San Jose” coffee which hails from the San Jose municipality in the larger Pedregal region of Colombia.
Despite it’s popular reputation, I don’t usually drink a lot of Colombian coffee, so I was definitely eager to give this one a try.
Anticipated Flavor Notes
I don’t usually like reading the flavor notes ahead of time because I think this sets too many expectations for my own taste tests. However, in this case I didn’t really pick up a lot of the described flavor notes anyways.
This is likely due to my poor coffee tasting abilities, but I suspect I’ll get better at it with time. At the end of the day, everybody tastes something different…and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
Ritual’s flavor notes: blackberry, currant, honey, and something else I can’t remember and/or I’m not even familiar with (see video).
Better With Age?
When I recorded my video review for the San Jose it was only a few days after the roast date. Why does this matter? Well, the experts say that coffee is at its best 4-12 days after being roasted.
Now, this is obviously very subjective, but I’d still say that a few days should pass before brewing some freshly roasted coffee beans.
In this coffee’s case, it definitely got better as the roast date got smaller in the rear-view-mirror. The roast date was on the 22nd of April, and by the 26th the coffee was starting to taste a lot better.
Best Brewer?
I could have done a much better job testing the San Jose across coffee makers, but unfortunately I only got to brew this coffee with a few different ones.
And the best of the 3?
The Aeropress was by far the best brew method for this coffee. Normally, I have to dilute my Aeropress coffee, but this was delicious by itself.
I used 22 grams of coffee, bloomed for about 30 seconds, and then filled the rest of the water to the #2 mark. The water temperature was only 175ËšF. Basically, I was brewing like Alan Adler on this one.
Final Thoughts
This was a pretty bright coffee that I could maybe see myself buying again. To be completely honest though, I’d only choose it if the selection was pretty limited at the grocery store.
I do plan to test out a few more brewers with this coffee before I finish off the bag. I will of course let you know how things turn out.
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