Stopped by Moschetti Espresso the other Saturday during the free tasting, and after hanging out for a while talking politics and sampling a variety of fresh roasted coffees, I chose three to blend at home for my daily shots of espresso.
I got Brazil for the base. You’ll find Brazil in most coffee blends since it is mellow, tasty and tends to compliment most other expensive or exotic tasting coffee beans. I also got a really nice batch of Ethiopian with it’s telltale aroma and flavors of blue berry. It wasn’t the blueberry bomb of a couple years ago, but it is still a clean and fruity smelling and tasting coffee. I love the stuff. The third bean I came home with was the Burundi.
The Burundi is a huge, aggressive coffee with an earthy base, a towering sweetness, and for several days it had an intense aroma of almonds.
I fiddled around for several days blending. Starting at 1:1:1 ratio of each I found the Burundi to be too aggressive as espresso. It overpowered the Ethiopian and Brazil. I kept decreasing the amount of Burundi and increasing the amount of Ethiopian.
In the end I preferred 4:4:1 of Brazil to Ethiopian to Burundi. At this ratio the sweet fruit of Ethiopian shown through, the Burundi added a very interesting layer of complexity and the Brazil just held it all together.
Big thanks to Fabrice Moschetti for the freshest coffee in the Bay Area.