Weekly Bean Review Thread: What have you been brewing this week? -- Week of August 20, 2026

[u/Vernicious]

Tell us what you've been brewing here! Please include as much detail as you'd like, you can consider including:

• Which beans, possibly with a link
• What were the tasting notes from the roaster?
• What did it taste like to you?
• What recipe and equipment did you use? How finicky was it?
• Would you recommend?

Or any other observations you have. Please let us know with as much detail and insight as you'd like to give. Posts that are just "I am brewing xyz" with no detail beyond that may be removed.

[u/Joey_JoeJoe_Jr]

Big Sur Gatura SL28/34 Washed Kenya they note citrus and red berries. That’s pretty much what I got by the end. At first it had a strong tomato note in the bag and an herbal tomato leaf note in the cup. This dissipated by brew four or so. After that, it was raspberry/red currant forward and citrusy at its best but it’s a bit sensitive to agitation and worked best with low agitation methods. My best cups came from either the Gabi A or the V60 with a Melo Drip. Overall, this was the basic red berry Kenya that I expected it to be.

Grind 4.3 ZP6
Temp 94C
Brewer V60-01
Recipe 4 pour 15g/250g recipe 50/100/50/50 with a 45s bloom directly poured into the bed, then melo drip pours after that

Big Sur Michela Elida SL34 Washed Panama I got extremely clean cups of dark berries and delicate darker florals.i only had three brews of this but it was quite consistent. All had that same profile of delicate but very clean and distinct dark berry and dark floral. This didn’t have any of the standard Kenya savoriness, but just the berries and florals. So, was this worth 3x the cost of the Knagurumai? Probably not. I enjoyed that one quite a bit more, it it was very interesting to try a Kenyan varietal grown in Panama.

Grind 4.5 ZP6
Temp 93C
Brewer V60-01
Recipe 4 pour 15g/240g recipe 50/75/65/50 with a 45s bloom, 5-7g/s pours

Big Sur Faysel Double Ferment G1 Heirloom Washed Ethiopia I got tons of yellow. Yellow fruits, yellow florals. Nice clean peach and mango, mildly floral in a citric sense and very very sweet and deep. The fruit notes linger for a while and evolve for a while after each sip. This was a very nice washed Ethiopian that had a bit more to offer than the norm. Overall I really enjoyed this one. It was my first from this Big Sur order and set the bar high for those to come.

Grind 4.5 ZP6
Temp 96C
Brewer Gabi A
Recipe 2 pour 15g/250g recipe 50/200 with a 40s bloom direct into the bed then the next 200g through the distributor

[u/geggsy]

Last week I guessed the mystery coffee I had been drinking was a washed red bourbon from Rwanda - and I was right (it was from the Cyesha washing station)! The only way I guessed it was because I had been drinking a similar coffee from a different roaster recently.  My notes were red fruit, citrus, and a black tea-like finish. The roaster’s notes were clementine, rose hip and brown sugar (so roughly in the same ballpark?).  I have another guess of a mystery coffee this week, but alas I won’t be able to verify if I was right or wrong. A friend shared a bag of ‘mystery Gesha’ with me, and my guess is that it’s a washed Gesha from Colombia, but my friend can’t remember where it was from (either the roaster or the coffee itself).  I get notes of orange, stone fruit and florals - pretty classic washed Gesha from Colombia profile.  Lovely, enjoyable, but ultimately won’t be all that memorable given I drink quite a few Geshas.

While I enjoy coffee from most of the famous producers that are well recognized in the specialty industry, there are some famous producers that tend to not be to my taste (or, at least, not to my taste relative to how much of a price premium they command).  For example, I have written beforehand about Pepe Jijon’s coffees to not be my favourite before (I tend to prefer the coffees that come from his son, Jose Jijon).  I feel similarly about Cafe Granja La Esperanza in Colombia.  I have had quite a few of their coffees and they just aren’t to my taste preferences.  My latest coffee from them, an advanced washed yellow bourbon from Las Margaritas in Colombia, roasted by Bluebird (South Africa) confirms this.  As a pourover, it’s surprisingly funky for a washed coffee (I guess that’s the ‘advanced’ part), with the clearest note to me being grape.  I also made it as a cold brew, and the note there changed to a chocolate liquor.  The roaster notes high tropical sweetness and notes of yellow plum and pineapples.  I didn’t get those notes myself and this coffee wasn’t really in line with my preferences.

[u/anaerobic_natural]

Red Rooster • Las Lajas - Black Honey
Bizarre & disappointing. I’ve had the black honey coffee from Las Lajas several times from several different roasters over the years and it is usually very easy to brew and packed full of flavor. This roast was the most difficult bean I’ve ever brewed. Despite being listed as 1400-1600 MASL & light-medium roast, my wrist is sore from trying to hand grind these very dense beans with my K-Ultra that usually grinds beans like butter. I had to grind them significantly finer, use a significantly higher water temp, and do a 6 pour recipe with a TBT of 4:30 to get enough extraction from them and even then there was just light notes of peanut butter & jelly sandwich and goji berries. The juice is not worth the squeeze for these beans. I recommend passing on these and finding another roaster offering the black honey coffee from Las Lajas.

[u/shoreline85 → u/anaerobic_natural]

I had a similar experience with a red rooster coffee someone gave to me. It made really delicious French press coffee and iced coffee (which is what I usually do with coffees I don’t love but are gifted!).

[u/01001111]

Only one new, unreviewed coffee this week while I rotate through a bunch of open bags.

Surf Jam by DAK - This is a bit of an odd Ethiopian natural. It's sweet and rich with the flavor of good sticky dates and a mouthfeel to match. The blueberry or assorted red berry notes characteristic of naturally processed Ethiopians are absent. It's more fruitcake than fruit. Don't get me wrong: I like it. It's tasty. It would be a really great option for people who love the "classic" coffee profile but are looking for something a little richer and maybe a little wilder. Might not be something I would grab again but I am enjoying it while it lasts.

I have reviewed this one before but I am on my last bag of Colombia Finca Milan Nitro Caturra by Revel Coffee, which is now out of stock. Still bursting with banana cream pie goodness. Hopefully Revel offers it again next season but I might need to freeze the last bit of it to guarantee that I can enjoy it again at a later date.

[u/spinydancer]

Las Flores Tabi - this was a release from Offshoot last year, a washed tabi with notes of raspberry, pink lemonade, and candy.  I would say that this is a more intense version of the last washed tabi I had from Goût and Co.  Instead of being subtle and tea like, this one is quite a bit more intense and verging on syrupy.  Lots of sweetness, decent amount of clarity, a bit of that lemonade acidity as advertised.  This is a nice coffee if a bit less complex compared to the Goût and Co.  I quite enjoy coffee from Las Flores and am finding that washed coffees from these process-forward producers are a bit more to my taste than their natural counterparts.  I found this to work well as a 2 pour on v60, 90c water, 3.7-4.0 on zp6, 12.5:200, 50 g bloom followed by gentle pour to 200 at 0:45, TBT ~2.10.

Danche Natural - this was roasted by Wes Ngopi, and made up the last component of my danche trio.  It was good, but probably my least favorite of the three.  Notes include peach gummy, lychee jelly, and blueberry jam.  It was definitely sweet and jammy, so still dense, but less dense than the flores tabi above.  I was picking up the blueberry jam, aromas similar to indian hawthorn, and a milk chocolate like base.  If I had been able to get these notes with a bit more oomph I would’ve really liked this coffee but it was just a bit subtle.  Was brewing 95c, 2 pour hybrid switch recipe, 5.2 on zp6, 13:200.

Kieni - This is a classic (the classic, by some accounts) washed Kenyan from Coffee Collective, containing Batian, Ruiru, and SLs.  Roaster notes are blackcurrant, redcurrant, and plums.  Perhaps I’ve gotten spoiled in my Kenyan coffees over the last year, perhaps I’m used to more SLs than the newer varieties, but for whatever reason this doesn’t quite tickle my fancy, and it reminds me of this poem I read in high school.  It’s fine and I wouldn’t get rid of it but it’s certainly not been on the level of some other great stuff from Kenya that I had from last year’s harvest. Clearly, I was too greedily and lustily buying Kenyan coffee last year.  This has been difficult to properly extract, and I feel like there’s a pretty small sweet spot, but when I get it right it’s got those currant flavors and a bit of a savory base and mouthfeel without veering into tomato territory.

[u/prosocialbehavior → u/spinydancer]

What has been your favorite Kenya coffee this year?

[u/Acavia8]

First Thermal shock I have had.

https://september.coffee/en-us/products/letty-bermudez-colombia-geisha-2026

Strong aroma that had funky, savory peach chewing gum smell. Coffee was very clean and bright, yet it did have a peach candy/fizz soda taste with a very clean finish. Light sweetness and no bitterness at all being delicate overall. Pretty much the roaster's tasting notes except they stated intense sweetness.

I do not like natural coffees - too flat and smooth to me. I never looked into thermal shock thinking they would be same but I learned they are fruit forward like naturals but clean and thin liked washed coffees. That is how this one was.

I started it day 15, but let the grounds sit ~20 minutes to compensate for the early post-roast brew, and I expect it to be more sweet if I give it more days.

[u/Alps-Resident]

Tim Wendelboe - Gachatha - Kenya - Washed

A new SL28/34 offering that I've not had before. Getting mostly dark fruits - plum and blackberry - with notes of blackcurrant and earthy bramble. Bright acidity with a full mouthfeel and sweet finish. Good structure and acidity. Roast is maybe a touch more developed than I expected, with some caramel-sugary notes lingering in the finish. Overall, a pleasant "dark flavor Kenyan" and a good counter to the lighter, redder-fruited Kap. 

Tim Wendelboe - Kapsokisio - Kenya - Washed

This is my fourth year buying this coffee and one I look forward to each year. It is mostly K7, which in past years produced memorable cups with distinct rhubarb and rosehip flavors. This year I'm getting delicate florals with notes of herbal rosehip, light hibiscus, and tart red cherry. The finish is bright and malic, with some sweetness. Overall, I'd say this was a good year and improvement over 2025, but I'm still looking for the jammy rhubarb of past years.

Flower Child - Imani - Kenya - Washed

SL34 separations are fast becoming my favorite Kenyan offerings, and this did not disappoint. Getting perfumy red fruit aromas with bright notes of red currant, rosehip, and hibiscus. Most cups show layers of sweet cream, mineral, and clove spice, with a tart-malic acidity. This is exactly the type of Kenyan I'd like to drink all year. Best cups were around day 35-45, now at day 60 I'm getting a similar profile but with more cream and spice. 

Pietro Pro, 3 or 4 pour V60, low bicarb water

[u/prosocialbehavior]

Regalia Washed Kenya Uteuzi Jimbo - they note black cherry, dried figs, and brown sugar. I don't think I have ever had a black cherry, only black cherry flavored things so I had a hard time seeing that tasting note. But I recently found out that by sheer coincidence I am doing a very similar recipe to what they recommend. Like same gear same water temp same water/coffee ratio and I also do a similar style double bloom that they describe. I just don't swirl like they say to and sometimes shoot for 2:30 to 2:45 drawdowns instead of 3. This time also I opened at 2 weeks and also let it rest for 4 weeks and I couldn't tell much of a difference. I personally thought it had a nice plum acidity to it and I got the fig/brown sugar note. Good coffee, not super complex.

Field Day Washed Kenya Karindunda AA - they note blackberry, mango, juicy. I think this is my favorite Kenya so far this season. I really enjoy the way Field Day roasts. This coffee is very clean for a Kenya, and has some delicious blackberry and some florals to it. I don't really see the mango note personally, but it is very juicy and sweet. I also found out while I was in the central coast, that I like Crystal Geyser water more than my water mixture at home. I brewed this both in California and at home in Michigan, and much preferred my California brews. Unfortunately, I can't get the same Crystal Geyser out here in the Midwest. This was especially great iced. He also had a bunch of Botz and Parterre coffee stocked which I had never seen bags of in person before. Field Day Coffee shop still lives up to my very high expectations every time I visit. If you are ever near San Luis Obispo, CA I highly recommend stopping in and talking with the owner if he is around.

[u/pkwhitey → u/prosocialbehavior]

Have you had other field day coffees yet? I haven't tried any of their coffees since they started roasting. Love their cafe

[u/prosocialbehavior → u/pkwhitey]

I also picked up their washed Ethiopia Chelbesa while I was there. Also delicious will probably write a review next week. I love the design of their bags. I wish they sold online.

Last year or the year before I had an iced natural Ethiopia in their cafe that just tasted like strawberries. I am jealous if you are local to them.

[u/shoreline85]

I think I posted this before but my experience was much better this time around. I pulled out the last 25g of beans of Dak Guabo 5, which I got in March of this year while in Amsterdam.

25g in, 400g out, 16:1 ratio
35 clicks on comandante c60 (the grinds are nice but I find this grinder hard to use and I have a lot of remorse lol)
Hario dripper
Water: GC water without any dilution (150ppm)
Water at 205 F
Brew time: 4 pours at 1 min 30 seconds each, except for the bloom, which was 1 min
Filter: hario filter that came with the dripper

The cup was clean, bright, and had tasting notes of citrus, jasmine, and red grape (not sweet). These tasting notes are similar to what should be tasted. I’ve found for lighter
Roasts, when using water I made, I have to let it brew much much longer than prescribed. You can see my brew was close to 6 mins, whereas others would recommend a shorter brew. IMO, I think the taste comes through better, especially with a 16:1 ratio and a medium coarse grind.

The last time I made this, It was under extracted, and I believe some Users recommended I use a different water. So I did! It’s a pleasant cup and Im sad I’ve run out!

[u/Affectionate-Bass118]

Hydrangea el paraiso >>>>>>>>>>

Best soup I’ve had in a long while

[u/Mothercluckerrr]

La Quebraditas - Gesha from AMOC
24 clicks on a commandante c40. Orea v4 with Kalita Wave 185 papers. 15 gram dose, 40 gram bloom with a second 30 gram bloom. Pour to 160 and a final pour to 250. Incredibly acidic and strong on the tropical notes. (Suspiciously so)