We love discovering new coffees at home as much as you do! So, we’re letting you in on Team Trade’s current favorites with our weekly series, Staff Picks.
When is a Wednesday not just another Wednesday? When it starts with a very special coffee. This week’s Staff Picks are just that!
"One of the nice things about specialty coffee is that you can easily get one of the best cups of coffee in the world, something truly outstanding, for a little more than your average cup, but way less than that level of quality would cost with wine, whiskey, even beer. Being able to taste something truly outstanding once in a while gives me great comfort, and these coffees have been doing just that recently."
It took me a little time at Trade to really appreciate and get good at evaluating dark roasts, but I got there, and coffees like this completely blow my mind now. This coffee's roasty flavor is joined by a wild amount of citrus and chocolatey sweetness. Whether you’re a lighter roast drinker who hasn’t tasted fruit notes in a dark roast before, or a dark roast fan excited to try something different without leaving that comforting blanket, this coffee is a special one.
Gimme! Kenya Nyeri Highlands ($25.90)
People still often assume that blends are made with lower-quality coffees than those presented as single origins. While making something greater than the sum of its parts is much of what makes blending fun, many specialty roasters are using coffees in blends that are just as wonderful as their SOs. This blend of a washed Colombia and a natural Ethiopia combines the comforting chocolate notes of the former and the fruitiness of the latter to create something that tastes delicious and different than those coffees could achieve on their own.
Methodical Play Nice ($21.20)
When I see a lot of fruit notes in a coffee I think it’s more likely that coffee’s going to be bright and juicy and big-bodied and full of dark-caramelized sugars — but that’s not always the case. This Rwandan stunner is big and smooth; it tastes like super-dark grapes, something medicinal in the best way possible, and the flamed twist of orange you’d get on a fancy cocktail. In fact, drinking it puts me in the mood of a cocktail bar stocked full of brown liquor, amaros, and good gins.
PT’s Kinini Village ($23.55)
Passenger sent us the top four lots from a coffee competition in Huila, Colombia, in which individual farmers from two producer groups Passenger buys from submitted individual lots from their farms. They were all delicious, but my favorite was the third place finisher. This coffee tastes like a pastry baked with perfectly ripe fruit by a chef who knows how to cook that fruit while still letting its fresh flavors shine through.
Passenger José Edwin Cuellar ($31.50)