Coe Coffee

I got to take the family to a coffee farm in Tres Rios, Costa Rica. This particular farm has sold most of it's coffee to Starbucks the past several years.

It's one of the last farms in this area of Costa Rica, but it's a region that is important to me because it is where the first really captivating coffee tasted (while working at Tullys!) had was from.

Sadly, like in many other places, coffee farms are closing in Costa Rica because they make very minimal profits, and finding workers is very challenging. It was another reminder of why it is so important to pay producers better wages. This farm has been family run for 4 generations and do all their own milling, but still are having a difficult time.

Here is a quick rundown of the 2025 .coffee.club
Advent Calendar, by the numbers. Countries of Origin:
Colombia -10, Ethiopia - 5, Guatemala - 2, China -1, Costa Rica - 1, Honduras - 1, Kenya - 1, Nicaragua - 1, Peru - 1, Blend - 1

Process:
Natural - 8, Washed - 6, Co-ferment - 4, Washed + Natural - 2, Anaerobic Natural - 1, Champagne Washed - 1, Honey - 1, Thermal Shock - 1

Varieties:
Blend - 12, Gesha - 3, Caturra - 2 Anacafe-14 - 1, Catimor - 1, Catiope - 1, Pacas - 1 Purple Caturra - 1, Sidra - 1, Typica - 1

Roast Colors (Using DiFluid Omni)
Exterior:
Mean: 77.0, Median: 78.4, Min: 64.4, Max: 88.4
Interior (ground for cupping ~ 550um) :
Mean: 94.5, Median: 93.7, Min: 80.5, Max: 114.6

Thoughts:
Roast color was slightly lighter this year compared to last year. Process based coffees were highly preferred by roasters (only 6 washed!) Colombia was by far the favorite origin country, and those coffees were very nice. The coffee quality was very high. It's so fun to have so many excellent roasters in PDX! A HUGE thank you to Joe and team at PDX Coffee Club for organizing and producing this amazing calendar! (Sooo many tiny bags!!!)

The .coffee.club advent calendar has been so fun this year! We have so many great roasters in Portland.

More thoughts and analysis coming once all the coffees have been revealed!

The best days.

I love dialing in a new coffee.

Coffee has over 800 chemical compounds that contribute to it's flavors and aromas.

Part of the fun and challenge of roasting is developing a recipe that maximizes the "positive" flavors and minimizes any "negative" flavors.

While there are some agreed upon negative flavors (defects) other flavors are more subjective (roast level).

What flavors do you especially like or dislike in coffee?

- very cool cafe + roastery + home brewing equipment shop. Kinda my dream setup.

Had a flight of espresso. Aponte Village Honey was super nice.

The coffee level in New Zealand has been very impressive. Skilled baristas and nice equipment abound.

The coffees have been mostly washed blends, or single origin by region or country, and slightly more developed roasts than my baseline. But found a few farm level coffees at (had a nice chat here) and .

Photos in this dump also include grocery stores, gelato shops, bakeries, and the airport.

This was my first coffee job, ~spring 2007. Tully's Magnolia. I took the job simply to have health insurance while bike racing, but ended up loving the coffee and cafe culture.

It was shortly after starting that I had the best coffee I had ever tasted at that point, a Tres Rios Costa Rican. That coffee led me to start tasting all coffee differently, and seeking the next great cup. I'm still on that journey.

Ironically, it also indirectly got me a civil engineering job that supported two cross country moves and school. A twice daily regular introduced me to his wife, who lead the transportation planning department at Parsons Brinkerhoff

Sample roasting night!

I've been using the ProV3 profile on my roaster with good success. (Search the Ikawa blog for the profile and methodology)

For washed coffees, i am basically using the original power amd fan settings, adjusted slightly for my elevation of 870m. This means about 90s post first crack time. For naturals, and more heavily processed coffees, I've truncated the roast by 45s, meaning only 45s post first crack time.

In both cases, I'm aiming for the weight loss to be the initial moisture reading + 1-1.5%.