As I continue my palate-developing tour of Lexington, KY's local roasters, three selections from GarageBean'd. I've tasted them as 16:32 ~30s espresso and as 11:200 Hoffman-method Aeropress, fresh ground appropriately for each.

They're super reasonably priced ($10-15/lb) for single-origin small-roaster products, and do bags from 8oz-1lb (and samplers) so you can try stuff, both of which are things I appreciate.

All three I picked are extremely characterful, and at least pretty good. I intentionally picked stuff that would be interesting for palate development rather than specifically to my tastes. I've done the reading for other-than-washed process coffees, but not tried many, and that was a lot of the focus for this round.

EspressYoSelf is a fairly classic modern espresso blend, the bill lists components from Brazil, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, & India. It also notes a mix of Washed, Dry, Natural and Monsooned components. They roast it barely into medium-dark, just over 5/10 on their scale, which is around my preference for Espresso. It's SUPER complex with lots of molasses and spice notes. It does have a slightly "dirty" finish compared to some other espresso blends from my local tour; I'm not a good enough taster to pick out for sure why, I think it might be the monsooned probably-Indian-robusta component. The body kind of reminds me of stabilized whipped cream: it starts out feeling really substantial and kind of thins in your mouth, which is nifty. Good. Not enough to displace Nates from my #1 spot for local espresso blends, but definitely worth having.

#sarahstrong "Light" (they sell it at two roast levels) is a Natural process from Sidama, Ethopia, roasted light, 1.5/10 on their scale. It's super interesting, but a little funkier than I'm generally in to. Not bad, the body and fruityness are excellent... but there's a lot of that "rotten fruit" kind of fermented flavor that naturals are known to pick up, and it's a little much for me as an everyday coffee. Definitely a fun pick if you want to try a face full of natural process character.

Rise & Shine! is a Black-Honey process from Marcala, Honduras roasted to Medium (4.5/10). It would be high-character coffee in any other company, but it comes off as the most normal here. It's naturally quite sweet up front, with a very prominent dark honey/brown sugar kind of flavor, a bitter note in the middle, and a very clean, classic "nice cup of coffee" finish. It's the house coffee at a local bakery and really suits the role - it always feels like something I should be drinking out of china with a fancy pastry.

I've been touring local (to Lexington, KY) roasters' espresso blends for the last couple months - a bag lasts me a week or two and we have a whole slate of small roasters so it's a slow process. I'm consciously working on my shot tuning and palate as I go, bringing each espresso blend to a roughly 16:34g/ 5s preeinfusion / 30s shot by grind adjustment, then varying back out a bit to see what suits the coffee.

This weeks' candidate is a bag of Magic Beans' Espresso Blend for my morning espresso, plus a bag of their rotating light roast to contrast all the big-bodied darker roasts I've been drinking, mostly to use with a (recently purchased because I've enjoyed a coworkers') Aeropress.

Nates' is still in my first place for local espresso blends, but Magic Beans' is now in second. The Magic Beans has a little more vegetable/fruit and acidic notes, but Nates' has more body and a little more chocolatey, roasty flavor that I prefer for espresso - the Nates has some Indian (presumably robusta) for body, and though Magic Beans doesn't give a bill on their blend, my guess is there is less (no?) robusta in it, contrasting with another local roaster 4th level whose espresso blend is a robusta-forward hunk of burning tire in your mouth.

I'm more impressed with the light roast, it's a Guatemala Huehuetenango, roasted light but not drastically so. It's the first coffee I've run into that is simultaneously light-bodied and super buttery, which is a strange but enjoyable combination, like some kind of conceptual shortbread. Little bit of acid (maybe malic? - I'm still working on distinguishing acid flavors in coffee) tang in the finish, but not enough to make it feel strongly acidic. It manages having interesting character and still being coffee enough that it's appealing to folks not used to good modern coffee, which is not always the case with light-roast single-origin things. I've served a couple 11:200g roughly 3 minute Aeropresses of it to people who mostly drink dripped grocery store coffee and they were all in to it. I always find Aeropress particularly stimulating, and combined with this lighter roast it is rocket fuel not to be consumed after 3:00 or so in the afternoon if one plans to sleep normal hours.