Basic stats:

Coffee origin: Indonesia

Last Roasted on: 2023-07-16 17:27

Sumatra Spice-aged Lintong:

Importer's Description:

This complex Sumatran coffee was aged for 36 months, sealed up inside bags with whole anise, clove, and cinnamon sticks. If you haven't tasted an aged coffee before, the flavors are extreme: intense, often savory, woody, rustic. Add 'overt baking spices' to that list (and I do mean OVERT), and you get an idea of how this coffee tastes. It's a wild ride, one I personally enjoy for its unique, singular quality, though certainly not for everyone. The dry fragrance and aroma are sweet and savory, and with fragrant spice notes that practically bowl you over as they're strikingly un-coffee! What I mean by that is they smell like the spice itself, rather than a coffee-related aromatics that might show elements of spices. There's quite a bit of sweetness in the cup, an aspect often overshadowed in aged coffees. Baking spice notes are absolutely at the front of the cup, though far from the only flavor to pull my focus. It has a little of the black pepper flavor that I expect from aged coffee, but along with dark caramel sweetness, and a flavor of candy corn. The flavors track close to the aroma, in that I get a sachet of whole spices like clove, and cardamom, with some bittering spice notes in the aftertaste that is like biting into an actual cinnamon stick, or clove pod, flavors that literally linger for minutes. There are earthy, savory notes too (it is wet-hulled coffee after all) and I thought the savory-spiced flavor had a familiar aspect of Pho broth (if you've never tried this Vietnamese soup, the broth is so aromatic as it's cooked with anise, cardamom, and clove). I recommend trying a City+ first, which is much lighter than what we'd typically recommend for aged coffee so you get to fully experience the incredibly interesting flavors. I roasted one batch to Full City+ and was surprised by how much roast bittering obfuscates those aspects.

Roasts made with this bean (0.5kg):

• 430: 453.0g on Sun 07/16/23