Welcome to this month's blog! In this edition, we will be featuring a special recipe Diane baked to pair with this month's coffee and giving a little bit of history and background about the featured bean. And that coffee is...
This is our bestseller, and is really a superstar bean in our opinion! Here's a few of the many reasons we love it:
It’s low acid, and it’s the one we recommend to those who have problems with coffee due to the acid
It tolerates any roast well
It has a subtle dark chocolate flavor inherent in the bean when it’s roasted medium dark or dark and brewed hot
It’s excellent as a cold brew and the dark chocolate is more pronounced
It’s great as an espresso shot
This bean intrigued us from the very beginning of our coffee-roasting journey, and
was a fast favorite among our friends who came over and went straight to the
coffee pot! We love it at a medium dark or dark roast. At lighter roasts, it has more
fruitiness to it, and as a white coffee, it tastes like peanuts (if you order white
coffee from our website, this is the bean we use). Many have said that this is the
first coffee that they didn’t feel the need to add cream, or that it was the first
time they could have more than one cup of coffee without any unpleasantness
afterward. When roasted dark, the Monsoon does become oily, which makes
some grinders unhappy, but backing off to a medium-dark roast takes care of this.
The processing of this bean is very unique.
Monsooned coffees are truly one of a kind. Unlike most high-grade specialty coffees, which are washed (or “wet processed”) by growers to ensure consistency and eliminate defects, Monsooned beans are spread on warehouse floors on the west coast of India during the monsoon season. While there, moisture-laden winds from the Arabian Sea blow over the coffee through the open walls of the warehouse. However, the beans do not get wet as the warehouse still has a roof.
"During this 12- to 16-week process, the beans soak up moisture, swell in size,
change color, and, most importantly, shed their acidity, turning Monsooned coffees
into the lowest-acid coffees in the world. The coffees boast abundant
body and a smooth, pleasant earthiness in the cup."
(Courtesy of Josuma Coffee Importers).
Have you tried this one yet? Tell us what you think!
Recipe credit: Taste & Tell
1/6 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg (room temperature)
2 T sour cream
1/3 cup milk (room temperature)
1 1/2 t vanilla
1 cup flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
pinch of salt
Topping
1 cup + 2 T flour
5/8 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1 stick butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Butter an 8”x8” pan, then dust evenly with flour - set aside.
For the cake:
Cream together butter and sugar.
Add the sour cream and the egg and mix until combined.
Combine the milk and vanilla, and set aside.
Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.
To the butter mixture, add some of the milk mixture and the flour mixture, alternating between the two, ending with the flour mixture.
Spread it in the pan.
(This is a half recipe that fits in an 8”x8” pan)
For the topping:
Mix together dry ingredients.
Add the melted butter and stir until combined.
Pick up the topping with your fingers a bit at a time and roll it into balls or squeeze it into clumps, then drop it over the top of the batter in the pan. Continue until you’ve used all the topping.
Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with crumbs. If not done at 30 minutes, turn the heat down to 325° and bake until done.