I am currently using Stumptown Founder’s blend. It is a bit pricey and is Light-Medium at around 15-16 dollars at Target here in the US.
We alternate between
- Kicking Horse Cliff Hanger
- Bar9 (found them when in Washington, delicious)
- Whatever we get each month from our Atlas subscription
Give Blue Bottle espresso a try if you haven’t. I swear they’re a whole other level.
Here’s my flex: I work at a roastery so I haven’t paid for beans in years. My daily coffee is our Full Cycle blend from Nossa Familia in Portland OR.
I’ve been purchasing most of my beans at Whole Foods, they have a bunch of local roasters, you just have to do some searching to find ones with a good roast date. I pay ~15 USD for a 12oz bag but it goes from 12 up past 20.
Stumptown are great roasters. I love to experiment with local roasters. I travel quite a bit and I try to pick up a pound from a local roaster wherever I go. I used be pretty smug in thinking that the top tier roasters in San Francisco would beat a small town roaster every time. My opinion has changed, I’ve been super impressed by a lot of smaller roaster.
It seems like we are both aware that lots of beans not labeled as espresso are great for it. I tend to go for light to medium roasts for both pour overs and espresso. I also prefer malty/chocolatey profile beans over the citrusy ones. That is not a hard rule but light roasted citrusy beans can be overwhelming in espresso
I also home roast 80% of my beans. I’ve been home roasting for over 25 years. I’m receiving 25 pounds from Sweet Marias today. I picked up 5 pounds each of the following:
-Congo Organic Kivu Kalehe
-Costa Rica Tarrazú Cerro La Cruz
-Java Pulp Natural Gambung Robusta
-Ethiopia Dry Process Mahamed Aba Nura
-Kenya Nyeri Kiaguthu Peaberry
I’m looking forward to playing around with blending with the Java Robusta
Quality un-roasted green beans tend to be in the range of $6 to $8 a pound. On a light roast, about 15% of the weight is lost in roasting. $6 to $8 a pound un-roasted coffee turns into $6.90 to $9.20 a pound roasted. This doesn’t include cost of the equipment, wear and tear and electricity.
It seems like the going price of artisanal roasted coffee is $12 to $18 pound. IMO, is completely justifiable to charge based on their wholesale cost of goods and labor costs these days.
