Reading the coffee descriptions of real coffee tasters makes me wanna get serious about refining my palate.

For ex: Writes Joseph of Joebella, who roasted some green coffee from the Dominican Republic for me and did a couple tastings, at 12 and 24 hours after roasting:

The first tasted a touch too “young”, as in too fresh and still degassing — but still very pleasant with a hint of fruity fragrance, mild acidity, slight chocolate flavor, and clean aftertaste. The second tasting was the same only more so — still mild acidity, nice milk chocolate flavor, smooth medium body, a bit longer pleasing aftertaste — like after you just finished a couple bites of chocolate and you wish you had some more.

What coffee is this, you ask? It’s the stuff from the Gran Cafe co-op in the Dominican Republic that Agroblogger sent me a while back — that I never got around to getting roasted until Joseph and Isabel of Joebella offered to do it for me. The package got here yesterday — Thanks guys!

So today I woke up determined to taste choco in my coffee and French-pressed a cup for myself. Fruity fragrance? Check. Mild acidity? Check. Smooth medium body? Check. Milk choco flava? I can’t taste it…

It’s possible I just need to make the coffee stronger… In any case, I’m lovin’ the coffee — I usually prefer Ethiopian coffee, esp. cuz it’s not as acidic, but since this Dominican Republic coffee’s like that too, I’ll have to try it more often :)

Now about where the coffee comes from. Gran Cafe’s a co-op in the Dominican Republic; Agroblogger got involved with it in 2004 (pics here), with the goal to help Gran get plugged into existing distribution networks (whether that be for roasted or green beans). The co-op wanted to get fair trade certification, but couldn’t afford it, especially on top of the costs of organic certification, according to Agroblogger.

But last I heard, all of last year’s harvest was successfully sold — for a decent price, I believe. Agroblogger — can you provide an update?

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