New Espresso Blend!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Puckslap, 1.0.  Dry Brazil, dry Sumatra, wet Sidama, pretty delicious.

Spot's head roaster, Michael Burke, has put together a new espresso blend for us.  Same basic flavor profile as our old house espresso, but with 3 beans instead of 5, better balance, significant improvement.  I'm pulling 1.85oz, 18 gram shots, getting a nice little citrusy note up front, followed by chocolate & nuts, with more of what Michael calls the "sneaky currant".  Less bitterness, more brightness, still lots of punchy body to cut through the milk drinks.  The biggest difference thing I notice with this blend versus the old style is tons more sweetness; it makes a superior drinking espresso while still holding up in milk.

We've been pulling Puckslap for a week today, getting a feel for it, and I am very happy with it.  I've got my sights set on really freaking good spro, which I see as resting on a tripod: good beans, good equipment, good technique.  This blend firms up one of those legs a good deal.  Training, PIDs, and better water filters will be making themselves felt over the next month or so.  Gooooood stuff.

When Michael & I were taste-testing different prototypes for this blend, I was really excited by a few that were using an Ethiopian East Harrar, getting some real interesting muddy fruit notes.  Unfortunately, they vanished in milk.  If we wind up with a 3-grinder situation in more stores soon (knock on wood), hopefully we can play around with some different drinking espressos.  A lot of the best espressos I've had this year have been very central-heavy, Hondurans & Guatemalans, I'd like to taste what Michael can whip up in that direction.

Taste-testing espresso is pretty challenging, and fun.  I think the hardest part, but also the most interesting, is remembering how variable the process is.  I need to taste multiple extractions at different doses to feel like I'm giving the blend a fair shake, and even then I'm wondering about heat in the head, what the coffee will do as it ages, etc.  Michael and I have started kicking around some ideas for a competition espresso this spring, which is a bit of a logistical puzzle given our roasting set-up.  We'll have to figure that out once we actually have some dates & locations for our region.

In the meantime, super-excited about this Puckslap.  At least one customer is already buying it for home use, which is cool.  Roshen Carman is putting together a design for us, I'll get the final version up soon.  If you're in Buffalo, stop by and tell us what you think of the spro!