More and more, people are going right to the source when it comes to food. We love our farmer markets, our local butchers and even our local grocers. Sure we still live in a giant supermarket society, but the increase for small batches and transparency on when/where/how is growing (which is likely tied to the demand for organic, natural and/or socially-responsible food, but that's another topic).
With coffee, we especially love our geography, with most roasters offering full detail on (at least) the region a coffee comes from. With this love affair of source, it's no wonder that a few coffee farmers have awoken to smell their own roasted coffee and have taken on the roasting/retail end themselves instead of sending it all away so foreign roasters can make bank.
One of the handful of farms roasting their own beans is Don Tomas Coffee out of Jinotega, Nicaragua. Offering several roasts of their coffee, they recently sent me out their Signature Medium Roast to try. Below are my notes as I consumed the coffee via drip, siphon and french press.
The drip demonstrated notes pretzel, birch, apple juice, pepper and malt amidst a medium body. A deep and sweet coffee proving a tad dark in flavor.
The french press was a little different, with flavors more akin to cocoa, salty caramel, pepper, soy sauce, milk and nutmeg with a medium body. Still a sweet yet dark brew.
The siphon blasted out notes of malt, pepper, birch, apple turnover and cigar. More like the drip in profile, this brew had a bit of a tobacco to further enhance the dark aspects.
Granted, this medium roast was much more akin to a dark roast in much of its flavors but overall, it was not a bad coffee (especially for someone looking to go dark). If you're in the mood for a Nicaraguan dark roast, try out Don Tomas' Signature Medium Roast.
Sounds delicious - and more so if you approach it *expecting* it to taste more like a dark roast.
I have already tried Don Tomas coffee and it easily caught my attention because of its great aroma. Also, the taste is just delicious with no bitter after taste or whatsoever.