· 4 min read
Which of our coffees should you try first?
Which of our coffees to try first? Our honest answer is the Colombia. Then how to choose by the way you drink it and the brewer you own.
Start with the medium roast from Colombia. It comes from La Cumbre, the farm where our family started in 1961, it works in every brewer, and it is the one we would put in front of a stranger. If you drink your coffee black and like fruit, start with the light roast from Ethiopia instead. If you drink it with milk, start with the dark roast from Guatemala.
That is the answer in our FAQ, and we still stand by it. Here is the longer version, with one section for each coffee. If you are choosing for someone else, our coffee gift guide matches each bag to a kind of coffee drinker.
Why the Colombia goes first
A medium roast sits in the middle on purpose. It keeps enough of the farm's fruit to be interesting black, and enough body to take a splash of milk. Our medium roast Colombia has hints of red cherry, panela, cacao nib. Panela is the unrefined whole cane sugar sold in blocks all over Colombia, and it describes the sweetness well: darker and rounder than white sugar.
Rosa Mireles grows it at 1,850 meters in Huila, on the cold hillside her father bought in 1961. It is a washed coffee, Pink Bourbon and Caturra together, and it costs $19 for a 12 oz bag.
If one bag has to please a household with different habits, this is the bag. French press on a slow morning, espresso when you are in a hurry, a drip machine in between. A medium roast also forgives a grind that is a little off, which matters when you are still learning your grinder.
If you drink it black and like fruit
Go to the light roast from Ethiopia. Elena Mireles grows it in Sidama, at 2,050 meters, from Ethiopian heirloom trees. It is a natural: the whole cherries dry on raised beds for up to three weeks, turned by hand every hour, before the seed is taken out. Expect hints of blueberry, jasmine, peach, and a lighter body than the other two. It costs $22.
This is the coffee most likely to surprise you, in either direction. Our returns page says it plainly: a light Ethiopian natural is not for everybody. If you already love fruity coffee, it may become your favorite. If you want your coffee to taste like coffee and nothing else, wait on this one.
Brew it as pour over, with a slightly coarser grind than usual and water just off the boil. Milk tends to cover the jasmine, which is half the reason to buy it.
If you take milk
Go to the dark roast from Guatemala. Tomás Mireles grows it at El Mirador, in Huehuetenango, at 1,700 meters. It is washed Bourbon and Caturra, it costs $18, and it is the everyday coffee our family drinks every morning. Expect hints of toasted almond and brown sugar, with a little orange at the end.
It is roasted dark, but stopped before the roast covers the farm. That extra roast is what lets it hold its own in a latte or a flat white, where a lighter coffee can disappear under the milk. It is built for espresso, and it also makes a heavy, comforting cup in a French press.
By the brewer you own
- For pour over, start with the Ethiopia. The Colombia is the gentler second choice.
- For a French press, start with the Colombia. The recipe on our coffee pages, from Sofía Mireles, is 55 g of coffee to 900 g of water at 203°F, pressed at 4:00.
- For a drip machine, start with the Colombia, since it is the easiest of the three to get right.
- For espresso with milk, start with the Guatemala. The Colombia works too, and it is our pick when the shot is going down on its own.
- For cold brew, we reach for the Guatemala. Sofía makes it with 100 g of coarse coffee to 4 cups of cold water, left for 16 hours.
What comes in every bag
All three are 12 oz (340 g) bags of whole bean coffee. We do not sell ground coffee, so you will need a grinder. If you do not own one yet, our post on whole bean vs ground coffee explains why it is worth it.
Every bag is roasted to order by our roasting partner, Roastify, in Bend, Oregon, and usually ships within four business days. Shipping is a flat $5.95 per order anywhere in the US, so a second bag in the same order adds nothing to it. A bag makes about 14 pour overs or 18 espressos. Drink it within a month of it arriving.
If you cannot decide between two
Buy both and taste them side by side on the same morning. Use the same grinder, the same recipe and two cups, then go back and forth as they cool. Differences you would never notice a day apart become obvious next to each other. Our guide on how to taste coffee walks through it.
If the first bag is wrong for you
Tell us. If you just did not like it, our returns page says what happens: tell us what you did not like and we will send a bag of something else at our cost, once per customer. What you did not like is also the best clue to which of the other two you will like.