Review: White Horse Coffee - Ethiopian Test Roast: Uraga Tome
Region
White Horse Coffee is a Sutherland based Sydney operation that works directly with farms and merchants to select some of the best beans available worldwide and was super kind to send me a care package with an intriguing Filter Test Roast. The label simply stating they came from Ethiopia and the Uraga Tome farm but very little else. Given the fruit drive on these beans, I am assuming they are a naturally processed bean with the fruit pulp drying on the bean and then removed instead of being washed off earlier in the process, which imparts more of these flavours to the final roasted beans.
I’m a huge fan of this region, the birthplace and source of Coffee Arabica beans and the delicious nectar, so many of us enjoy on a daily basis. The area is still in the top tier of world coffee production, however typically produces far less than other powerhouse regions from around the world, yet their product is something extraordinary.
Beans from this area can vary wildly with thousands of varieties produced in the region, but typically they display far more floral, fruity, chocolate and bright citrus acidity than other regions from around the world. Ethiopia consumes a relatively high percentage of the crops grown in the country, with locals drinking about half the annual harvest as coffee ceremonies are a critical piece of their culture.
Characteristics
Straight from the package the smell of the whole beans immediately hits you with a wave of juicy sweet poached pears with an acidic pine needle, followed by sweet vanilla Bourbon oak notes on the nose. This then cascades down into fresh melon scents lifted into a floral realm by juniper and fresh green bay leaf. After passing through the Sunbeam Conical Burr Grinder, the woody vanilla is more pronounced with the spices still present but more muted while being joined by subtle orange marmalade.
The roast is fairly subtle and lighter than what many would normally associate with coffee if you're used to blends or espresso. This is fairly common for beans from this part of the world, they are designed for use with filter brewing rather than espresso or other high pressure systems. The lighter roast also helps keep the fresh acidity, floral and fruit flavours up front and powerful without breaking them down into oily dark heavy flavours usually found in overly dark roasted beans.
Brewed
With all filter roasted beans, I’ll be running the full gauntlet of Dripo Cold Drip, Cold Immersion Brew, Hario V60 Pour Over & French Press to give an in-depth idea of what to expect from your preferred brew style. While I’m no professional coffee judge, I will be using the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) cupping protocols best practices and 100 point attribute scores to give some context around my findings.
To keep everything as uniform as possible across all the brew methods I used the same notch on the Sunbeam Conical Burr Grinder, 15, to give a medium coarse grind on only the weight required so beans were kept fresh in their air tight bag. Weighing of all the doses was conducted on my White Horse Coffee branded 0.1g increment, a bean or two, precise scales as well as all blooms and water pouring. I have a lovely Bonavita 1L Variable Temp Kettle which can control the water temp for the hot extractions to within a degree on a digital selection, again this adds to consistency between brews, as well as a pretty awesome feature of becoming a second increment stop watch when the kettle is lifted from the base.
For these particular Ethiopian Uraga Tome Test Roast beans, all four brew methods scored a perfect 10 for Fragrance as this coffee is right up my alley and this is based on the dry beans and grinds which is consistent across all of the methods. Overall the French Press was the winner of these beans, in my opinion, the extended hot steeping at 95 degrees. Celsius helped release a lot of oils and the accompanying flavours, which are removed by the Pour Over methods paper filter and extracted at a far lesser rate by the cold methods.
Dripo Cold Drip
16g Medium Coarse Grinds
250g Cold Filtered Water
Overnight extraction in the fridge
Using the relatively simple but effective Dripo, it’s easy to get a light, floral and delicate cup of cold brew waiting for you in the fridge door the next morning. Even without an adjustable drip rate, you can expect a well-extracted cup with a fair level of consistency. This Ethiopian proved to be super amenable to being passed through this process overnight with an aromatic, smooth and clean cup produced. The typical rounding out from cold brewing removed some of the acidity; however, the Dripo uses the filter out of the Aeropress rather than a paper filter allowing for a great balance of oils and flavour to pass through.
The combination of oils and cold drip acidity reduction also really allowed the high floral notes from the botanicals to shine through with soft citrus laced vanilla malt before closing in on delicate chocolate heavy mocha.
Cold Brew (Immersion)
16g Medium Coarse Grinds
250g Cold Filtered Water
12 Hour Steep in Fridge
Staying with super simple brewing methods Cold Brew Immersion merely is ground and steeped in filtered cold water overnight for 12 hours before being filtered through the Dripo Aeropress filter. Being served cold the aroma of the brewed coffee is typically shorter and more subdued along with the overall flavour being less intense than the hot water brewing methods while consistency and the sweeter notes showed through a bit more for me similar in the way of the Dripo cold drip.
If I were brewing, again I’d leave it for maybe 24 hours as I found the 12-hour brew a bit lacking in robust flavours compared to the other brew methods. As the brew warms up in your mouth, the oils perk up leading to an aftertaste that is surprising after the lack of upfront boldness. These notes are somewhat similar to the Dripo but
French Press
16g Medium Coarse Grinds
250g 95 Degree Celcius Water
5 Minute Steep
The French Press, with a five minute steep, average grind size, 95-degree water and sparkling clean pot & filter makes a great cup of coffee with these beans. The extra oil from the heat, mesh filter and extraction time gives the delicate flavours more robust strength, standing tall and separate. These peaks of brilliance carried on a wash of aromatics and mouth coating, ever so slightly sticky and sweet cups are what I saw as being closest to the fantastic fragrance of the dry beans and grinds. French Press coffee typically gives a far longer finish than the other filter brew methods, similar to a straight Espresso but not quite as intense given the lack of pressure-induced oil extraction.
It really allowed the bolder, vanilla bourbon barrel and the sweet citrus zest characteristics to shine through, mixed with the sweet melon and pine needles it allows the symphony of flavours to float across the palate in unison. Nutty oils are also present with soft spices cleaned by green apple Malic acid.
Pour Over
16g Medium Coarse Grinds
250g 97 Degree Celcius Water
32g Bloom
218g Pour over 2 minutes 30 seconds
The introduction of a paper filter with the famous Hario V60 allows for a super refined, smooth and clean brewed coffee. While having a welterweight punch in Aroma and overall flavour compared to the big heavyweight French Press the paper filter still delivers a wonderfully balanced brew with Sweetness, acidity and aftertaste much more in line with each other. The paper filter does remove most of the oils extracted in the brewing, leaving a fantastically clear, caramel coloured coffee consume of delicate notes, giving away more of the green and floral notes from the bouquet to the palate. The clean crisp cup is finished off with the same green apple like acidity that you can feel along the edges of your tongue and in your cheeks as you savour these fantastic flavours slowly and purposefully.
Whatever your preferred Filter Brewing style, I can highly recommend getting in touch with White Horse Coffee and buying yourself some of these amazing beans by signing up to their ongoing subscription service.