Code Brown Espresso

I have been a loyal drinker of Intelligentsia's Black Cat Espresso for a good year or so. On the business side, the company is great...they're a local Chicago roaster, they're extremely communicative, and they always manage to get the beans to me a day after roasting. On the coffee side, Black Cat is very forgiving to my lackluster barista skills and equipment. It possesses what I consider to be a very rich and deep taste that's perfect both in the shot glass and in a soy latte. My experience with other beans, namely Terroir's single origin espressos and Paradise Roaster's Espresso Classico, has not been very good and has kept me coming back to Intelligentsia.

Since I have a great new Expobar Brewtus espresso machine now (which makes me the single point of failure), I thought I'd test the waters with a few espresso blends that have been getting praise on coffeegeek. First on the bill is Coffee Emergency's Code Brown. Straight away, the company impressed me by sending out a personal email explaining when the coffee would roast and ship. Next, when the coffee did arrive, it was accompanied by a selection of 4 Baker's chocolates. Nice touch. Now for the actual coffee.

I ended up producing 2 double shots and 1 soy latte. So far, the results are promising. I have not quite dialed in the grind for a 28 second shot, but the espresso was still tasty with abundant thick crema. As a side note, the last shot I pulled used 11 on my Rancilio Rocky grinder where I'd normally be at 13 or 14 with the Black Cat...I still don't understand why I have to grind the BC so coarse. Anyway, back to Code Brown, it certainly tends more (in my opinion) toward the Daterra side than the Black Cat side since it's lighter and fruitier rather than heavy and earthy. Surprisingly, it stood up very well in soy milk and its nice dark reddish crema provided an appealing backdrop for latte art. We'll see how everything works out once I nail the grind and experiment with brewing temps. Coffee is always exciting!