Aillio Bullet R1 IBTS Analysis by Evan Gilman
We use the RoasTime app and roast.world site to document our roasts on the Bullet. You can find our roast documentation below by searching on roast.world, or by clicking on the link below.
Take a look at our roast profiles below, as they are constantly changing!
Coffee from Mahiga factory is one that I wait for all year ‘round. A few years ago, our colleague Caitlin brought in this coffee after a trip to Kenya, and we’ve carried it every year since. This was an absolute showstopper for its nuance and versatility from the get-go.
As Chris mentions, you don’t have to use a lead foot on the gas pedal for this coffee, and I didn’t. I started with a relatively low charge temperature of 446F, with P8 power and F2 fan (as is usual these days). The change came when I increased power to P9 and fan to F3 after turning point, really pushing this coffee quickly through Green stage (or so I thought) and getting plenty of airflow even from the beginning of roast. At peak rate of change, I tempered the heat to P7 power, and then increased airflow to F4 at yellowing, which came just a touch earlier than normal. That compounded the change, however, and first crack came incredibly early at 7:08 / 375F. This is not out of the ordinary for a Kenya, but did mean that I spent a whopping 26% of my roast time in post-crack development before reaching 397F at 9:41 and dropping the coffee into the cooling tray.
I did play a bit with airflow at the end, keeping the coffee rolling after first crack without adding any power to the burners. There was a little untraditional drop and rise in the rate of change, but dear roasters, that doesn’t always make a broken coffee.
Regardless, the results were simply phenomenal. As always. Pink lady apple, dried peach, and plenty of zesty acidity came through in this cup. There’s a creamy sort of note to this coffee as well, something like homemade caramel. And is that honeydew? This coffee has malic acid for days.
When the Crown first opened, someone wrote “slaps” as a note for this coffee, but I'm here to make the revision after the fact. The word we’re looking for here is Smacks. This coffee smacks!
You can follow along with my roast here at roast.world: https://roast.world/egilman/roasts/hIT8ogAzW1oVIe-oGTVeN
Brew Analysis by MJ Smith
Every brew I made of this coffee was sensational in its own way, but honestly, I would expect nothing less from the Mahiga Factory. They seem to knock it out of the park year after year, and this lot was no exception. I found that the best cups from today were all done on a flatbottom device, and they all had a grind on the finer end of what we’re used to here at The Crown. Let's get into these brews, shall we??
The first brew I made today was the only one I made on a cone-shaped brew device, and it was pretty good. Not my favorite from the entire lot, but it really made for a great jumping off point. Kenyan coffees are so clean by nature, so I think the extra cleanliness that comes with the V60 brewer maybe cleaned it up just a bit too much. But again! It was still I good brew. It had a dose of 19g, a grind of 9, and a brew time of 3:30. I picked up notes of Sungold tomato, creme brulee, and lemon. The rest of the team was able to pick up some notes of caramel, orange, raisin, elderflower, and juniper.
The second brew was my favorite of the day...I think... I switched to a flatbottom brew device, the Kalita Wave, which worked perfectly with this coffee. I kept the same recipe from the previous brew so as to not mess with too many factors at once. This one finished around the same time, with a final brew time of 3:35. To me, this one tasted like caramel, candy apples, honey, hot toddy, honeysuckle, and juniper. The honey and honeysuckle notes were picked up by the rest of the team as well, who also had some additional notes of apricot and orange candy.
For my next two brews, I decided to switch to the Saint Anthony F70 brewer, both because it’s my favorite and because I thought it might be a good pairing with this coffee. I nudged the recipe both up and down with these brews, giving me some interesting outcomes. The first F70 brew had an 18g dose, an 8 grind, and finished with a final brew time of 3:40. To me, it had notes of cornflakes, black tea and lemonade, orange blossom, blondies brownies, golden raisin, and apricot. The rest of the team was able to pick up some notes of golden cherry tomato, chocolate, plum, hibiscus, tobacco, and melon. For the final brew, also done on the F70, I bumped the dose up to 20g and the grind up to 9.5, resulting in a brew time of 3:30. Another interesting brew, this one with notes of cheesecake, green gage plum, blood orange, butterscotch, sage, pear, orange zest, and jasmine.
All in all, this is a truly exceptional coffee from a truly exceptional producer. I’m pretty sure you could brew this coffee in a shoe and it would still taste good (although, I have to say, I think there are plenty of other objects that would make for better impromptu brew devices if it really came down to it...) Like I mentioned before, I found the true sweet spot for this coffee was found using a flatbottom brewer with a fine-medium fine grind. The rest is up to you! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Espresso Analysis by Marie de Courcy
This double washed and fermented coffee from the Kenyan Mahiga factory is a perfect end of summer addition to the Crown Jewel lineup. Full of flavor that invites your palate to keep tasting new things, this coffee is fun to experiment with different profiles to find a dial that can suit any preference.
The first recipe is fairly standard, a 19.5g dose, 41g yield, and 28 second extraction. This shot extracted well, full bodied with plenty of sweetness and complexity. Notes of rosemary, honeycomb, tomato sauce, and grapefruit were present. This recipe would cut through milk beautifully and stand on its own to be a stellar shot of espresso.
The second recipe had a dose of 18g, 44g yield, and 27 second extraction. This shot was much juicier, lighter in body with more floral notes becoming present. We tasted notes of magnolia, salted caramel, pickled carrot and coriander. This recipe was delicious and really highlights the subtleties of this coffee without sacrificing the depth.
Theres a lot of room to play with profiling with this coffee. For a coffee so clean due to its washing and fermenting it holds much complexity and depth making an enticing shot of espresso however you decide to dial it. For something that is bold and bright go high on the dose with a roughly 1:2 yield. For something a bit juicier and delicate lower your dose and go higher on your yield.
