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Last night after Danielle and I met up with at Dragonmead we swung by IPM for a couple hours. While there I found out that one of the folks there named Dave, who I’d met previously, runs Rouge Roastery doing coffee. There was a bit of talking about coffee, and I ended up being given a few servings worth of Big Dave’s Bag of Angry Beans and Sumatra Gayo Mountain Organic Beans.
I used my trusty Aerobie AeroPress to make up a cup of the Angry Beans this morning. The Rouge Roastery site describes this flavored blend as follows:
…spicy beans from South America and Southeast Asia, mixed with a hint of cayenne pepper. It’s a nice mixture of smooth spice in the cup, but finishing with a kick.
As can be seen above there is definitely chili in it, as it settled to the center / bottom of the pile of grounds while using the AeroPress.
Perhaps it’s just be, but I don’t really think of coffee + spice as “flavored”, but I guess it’s not pure coffee and has things added for flavor, so it is. Maybe I’m just more familiar with coffees called “flavored” as having lots and lots of odd, sickly half-flavors (hazelnut, vanilla, etc) added ruining any actual coffee taste.
Despite the description on Rouge Roastery’s site indicating that the Angry Beans are “Particularly good with creme and sugar – hot and sweet. Just like Big Dave himself.” I first tried it black.
This coffee seems to start out nicely smooth before the cayenne starts to bite. After swallowing the burn moves down the throat but isn’t too much. The coffee part of the flavor is fairly smooth, but not as smooth as some of the oilier coffees I’ve had. If you are someone who likes Vosges’ Oaxaca or Red Fire candy (chocolate) bars and you also like coffee you’d probably like this.
After finishing half the pint glass of coffee I followed this suggestion and tried it with just half and half, then also with sugar. The dairy alone definitely added something to the coffee, but it really is best with sugar in it as well.
I’m going to have a hard time knowing exactly how to drink this coffee because it seems that there’s a bunch of different ways that I enjoy it. As I said, I normally drink coffee black, but for the Angry Beans I may even end up having a whole serving with both dairy and sugar, which would be a first for me.
All said, this is a great coffee. After this sample is gone I’m going to have to secure some more of it. The Sumatra Gayo Mountain will probably be tried this afternoon or maybe just later in the week. I have high hopes for it as well.