Guest Coffee Series- Square Mile Red Brick

"To self improve in my taste bud, to understand style of roast and how it impact a selected Single Origin and to appreciate and support worldwide coffee roasting company, which includes too local budding roaster. The only way to make these happen is to have an open mind and keep the coffee orders coming in and thus, the birth of the Guest Coffee Series."

This is a seasonal blend offering from Square Mile Coffee Roaster. I can't remember how many editions of the Red Brick they have but I have got the chance to savor at-least 3 different version of it.

The current components of the espresso are: (while they roasted, shipped and packed my order, a different version was developed the same day, 08/03/12)
50% Sertão (Brazil)
50% Samaniego (Colombia)

(descriptions taken from SQM website)
From the Fazenda Sertão you can expect an intensely buttery, syrupy mouthfeel with notes of toasted nuts, cocoa and molasses. This is a wonderfully sweet coffee, and combines with milk superbly.
From the Samaniego you will find buckets of juicy tropical fruit, and a honey sweetness. Notes of mango, passion fruit and ripe orange citrus add stunning complexity and tastiness to the blend.

My notes/verdict:-
Complex fruits, citrus notes, definitely young mango! Sweet yet palate teasing, almost like plum in a freshly squeezed orange juice. (what a combo) The Fazenda Sertao came through only with milk. The all familiar sugar molasses, milk chocolate with caramel finish that we get from all good Brazilian micro lots that is worth their salt. The feedback that I had from Andrew Hoi did not really differ much from one another. It was mind blowing bright to be enjoyed as a neat short black. (Aussie thang for espresso. Been working at Toby's Estate, guys!) Not that we are no longer exposed to light espresso roast or single origins espresso with fruity and citrus notes but this was simply extreme.

Getting the right brewing setting requires a lot of tweaking though. After getting the grind setting right, I prepared to pull a shot in a 18gm basket porter filter of my Expobar Brewtus IV at a PID controlled heat of 96deg cel. What I got was depression on the surface of cake and pale, yellow crema( signs that I am overdosing and the surface definitely getting scorched right upon interlocking the porter and brewing)- sorry no pics was taken! Duration of brewing time was between 23-25 seconds.
Was only 3 days later that I decided to went naked. (the porter filter, I mean) also with a 21gm basket that I up dosed to almost 30gm. The PID temperature was also set to 94 deg Celsius. I choose to believe that the RB tamper base also made a lot of different. From the flat 58mm Espro tamper, I started tamping on a 58mm convex C ripple base, which sets ripple prints on the surfaced of my tamped grinds. This I believed improved the circulation of water passing through the whole grounds, just like a water dyke supplying water into farms. I maybe wrong but results of this brew was a lot better than my previous attempts.

Now, I got a much longer brew, between 26-30 seconds with a darker hue crema. I will certainly score it a 4 if it was presented to me during my short judging stunt in the recent SNBC. Sweet on the first sip with passion fruit, grapefruit, sweet red plum, tangerine and definitely sugar molasses and caramel on the finish.

I come to know that Square Mile has altered this current blend to a 50-20-30 percentage. Let's see if I can get my hand on it.
I have a few other blends in my possession. From Blue Bottle, Toby's Estate in Brooklyn and Indonesian single origins from Javanegra. Will blog about it when I have got a chance.