Coffee Review: Stone Creek's Garden Blend

I met Stone Creek Coffee at the recent CoffeeCon. If you remember they were one of my faves, as I went back to them several times for samples. They were also kind enough to give me a bag of Guatemalan coffee.  That coffee was one of my favorites from the CoffeeCon haul of coffee I brought home. Now all those coffees are gone, and I wanted to see if Stone Creek was consistent in their quality. Last week I ordered two different coffees: Garden Blend and Milwaukee Blend. They arrived Friday, so now we are sampling them First up - Garden Blend.

For me the coffee process begins when I open the bag and smell. When I opened this bag, I smelled a roasted vanilla. If you roasted Vanilla Beans, I swear this is what the aroma would be. According to Stone Creek this coffee has flavors of Vanilla, Dried Grapefruit and Creme Brûlée. As an admission, I picked this coffee, because Creme Brûlée is my favorite dessert. When I ground the coffee, I got the notes of grapefruit.

This coffee is a blend of African and South American coffees. There's Red Bourbon, Castillo and Caturra blended. The coffee was fully washed with a patio drying process. It's a medium roast and has a medium body and a lighter brightness. As usual, we made this in the French Press.

Let's cut to the chase how is this coffee? This is an outstanding coffee! Yes, I got the Creme Brûlée right off the bat. There is a sweetness, creaminess to this, just like the dessert. It's a rich flavored coffee, without it being a flavored coffee(ugh).  It's a well-bodied coffee. This is the coffee you want to sip slowly, like it's an indulgence. I swear it's so good, if Mark asked me to go brew another pot, I would tell him we need to save it.

This coffee is deceptively strong. It's there, waiting, and then it pounces on you after you drink it. On our Cher scale, this is a 7.5. This is Cher defending putting her son in a public school in "Mask" strong.

This is one of the best coffees I've had since I started this blog - period. The folks at Stone Creek have something special going on. Two out of two coffees have been amazing. We will soon see if it's a three-peat.

www.stonecreekcoffee.com

Charlie