Gaslight Coffee Roasters / Costa Rica / Los Santos Hacienda La Minita / Washed Caturra & Catuai

I want to try more cafes in Chicago, so I decided to work from a cafe for a few hours since I did not have any meetings. I have been trying to "decaffeinate" my body, so I ordered only an 8oz cup. I wanted to drink this Ethiopian roast they had, since it had a farmer with a Muslim name. However, they do not offer pourovers (good), and only brew coffee in drip machine and keep it in a fancy thermos. They use this Ground Control machine, which went out of business. My cup was $3. 

The good: this was very tasty, drinkable coffee. If I did not know that drinking a lot more coffee would make me physically uncomfortable, I would have drank a lot more of it, and have been very happy. With notes of "fudge, apricot, and walnut" it was sweet, smooth, and lightly acidic. 

I quite enjoyed the coffee, and I would certainly return to Gaslight. I think they sell good coffee and the shop was reminiscent of Hyperion. They put roast dates on their bags, do not care to tell you if it is a "light roast" and they roast in a small room in the back of the shop.

The bad: Gaslight is in an old building and it is kind of cold. That means your cup of coffee cools down, which means you have to drink it fast, which means you are shortly out of coffee. Also, working at a cafe is difficult, so I do not think I will be working at cafes very often, at least not to do my work, maybe I will do other kinds of work at a cafe. 

SEY Coffee / Ethiopia / Sidama Elora / Washed Ethiopian Landrace

My brother shared a principle modeled after a friend of ours which says to not worry about spending money on things, since the experiences are more valuable than those dollars sitting in your pocket. I also spent a couple days agonizing over the thought of buying a fancy brewer, such as the Caedo Hoop or the NextLevel Pulsar or some other cool new brewer. However, one redditor pointed out that the best brewer is the V60, since it is so simple, and you should improve your coffee. My grinder is already pretty good, so I decided to take all this advice and spend $30 on a bag of uber-specialty coffee. So I went to Dayglow in hopes of buying some fancy coffee. 

On their shelf, they had coffee from a range of roasters, but honestly, nothing that seemed super appealing to me. So I decided to go for an origin and brand that I respect, so a SEY Ethiopia seemed right. They also had the honey process version of this coffee, but I went for the washed. In hindsight, I may have enjoyed that one since a SEY honey process probably would not be horrible. 

This coffee was a very light roast, and I had some issues with it as I started to brew it. 

In the cup we find excellent density and structure, peach rings, lemonade, and tea.

I also did not know what I was tasting for. I think the tea here was rather light, and lemonade meant acidity. Peach rings also came out, but in less of a jelly, sour way, and more of a plastic, gummy way with a scent of peach. I have no idea what "density and structure" means in coffee, so I am happy to understand that. 

The coffee also tasted good on AeroPress, and I wish I had brewed it a few more times on AeroPress as well.

Overall, this was an interesting foray into the uber-specialty world, but the coffee was not notably memorable except for its extreme lightness. I didn't think the acidity was particularly unique or prominent, despie it being good coffee. 

Olympia Coffee / Morning Sun

My local cafe, Necessary & Sufficient, sells Olympia Coffee, which is an interesting choice given I'd never heard of nor seen this roaster before. I have not seen everything but it is not a famous roaster per say, just a mildly notable one, most likely. They have their breakfast blend (which I drank) and they have single origins on the bar but I am not sure if they will make a pour over for you. Even if they did, I have a new no-pour-over policy as a result of a bad pour over and good cup of drip. 

I was meeting someone for the first time, so I just wanted a cup of plain old coffee, and this did the trick. I asked the barista to fill the cup, which he did, although he filled it literally to the brim so it spilled everywhere. I got what I wanted, I guess. 

The coffee was good. I thought it was sweet but not altogether too immensely vibrant. Which is okay. Olympia calls it Medium-Dark on the bag, which I think is perhaps uncharitable given this was not really a dark roast at all. I guess this is a Seattle roaster, so customers have different expectations over there.

I noticed they had this thing listed on their site, "Agtron Roast Color Meter Ground Reading." I looked into this, and found that there is a scale of coffee roast colors. This coffee was marked at 66. As far as I can tell, roasters like Prodigal or Sey roast very lightly, sometimes with a score of 80 or something like that. Higher means lighter, and darker means lower. Pure carbon char is 0. These numbers are based on the Agtron machine's gourmet scale. That machine costs between ten and twenty thousand dollars.

Hyperion / Uganda / Mt. Elgon Bugisu AA Washed

My wife got me this for the memories of Ann Arbor. And it did not disappoint. In fact, this is one of the best coffees I've had from Hyperion full stop. I froze it initially, to finish another bag of coffee. I decided to stop being sick just so I could drink this coffee. Of all the washed coffees I have smelled, this one had a notably sweet and floral fragrance coming out of the bag. I was sad when my sickness flared back up, and I had to leave the bag, which let more of the compounds release and the peak coffee went away.

I even tried it as espresso - it was fine, but I think that is more of a user chose to not dial it in properly and user is not crazy about espresso situation. 

This was a delicious coffee and I would feel burdened by a 5 pound bag but ultimately happy. Don't overlook a region just because it is not one of the famous ones, or because they mix varietals, or because the tasting notes seem common (this is not the first "orange blossom honey" coffee I have had this year). I believe this was actually the same or similar green coffee that I really liked from Printer's Row Coffee. I liked this coffee so much I liked it from two different roasters!

As AeroPress, it unfortunately tasted muddled, and for some reason I got coffee fines in my drink. I enjoyed it most as a pour over and even found myself brewing 30g doses because of how amazing this coffee was.

Nomad Coffee / Guatemala / Concepcion Gesha (Dayglow)

Remind me to never drink coffee outside my house again. I paid $10 for a "hand pour" coffee from a famous roaster, only to get perhaps 250 or 300ml of liquid coffee in a carafe that had stains at the bottom. If I can buy a Sey box for $30 with 250g of beans, I can generate a whole lot of coffee and have a lot more satisfaction. Quick math - 300g coffee at 1:17 ratio (fancy Scandinavian-style) is ~18g grounds, giving me about 13 cups. At Dayglow, that would be about $130... and I clean my decanters. 

The Bloomingdale Trail/606 is a nice trail, but Dayglow isn't even a sterile "4th-wave" cafe like advertised (to be honest, my source is one guy on Reddit). It is way-far-out cafe for hipsters in the ground floor of the "Kimball Arts Center."

Sometimes, I feel like I am chasing this satisfaction from coffee that I will never get. Almost every time I buy a pour over, I always think "was this really worth how much I paid for it?" The answer is usually no. I'd be happier if I just ordered a cup of drip coffee. I did that a week or two ago and it was fine, and I spent like three-something on the cup. It was good! I was happy and remember that cup of coffee fondly.

As for the coffee itself, I do not remember what the notes Dayglow had listed were, and the notes Nomad lists online clash with my memory. It was acidic, had a bit of grapefruit going on, maybe grapefruit peel, and had some juiciness. Good, but maybe I should have just got whatever they had on drip!

Printer's Row Coffee Co. / Uganda / Mt. Elgon Washed

I was surprised to find myself across the street from the Lincoln Park-based Printer's Row Coffee Company. Yes, I was disappointed that they were not actually based in Printer's Row. I think they are either the only or one of two or three true specialty coffee shops in Lincoln Park, which is also peculiar. Why not open a specialty coffee shop here? Why are they always in gentrifying neighborhoods on the Blue Line? 

They also are not a purely light roast shop. Don't burn your coffee! (actually, it is respectable and okay to roast a little darker)

The coffee was good. It was tasty, sparkly, bright, and had notes of grapefruit and plenty of sweetness. But it left me with many questions. Why is this cafe the most specialty one in Chicago's bougiest neighborhood? Why is Chicago not playing on the coffee world stage? Why is there no, like, La Cabra, or other prestigious cafe here? A %Arabica perhaps? I feel like there is a business opportunity for a specialty cafe that appeals to normies and coffee weirdos in Lincoln Park.

Metric Coffee / Parasol Blend

I am in my blend era now. A good blend is better than a good single origin, because you can combine the aspects of two single origins and get a combined better result. Metric's Parasol summer blend is a really nice, pleasant, drinkable, sweet. It is bright and airy, and tastes quite good. Would I buy it again? I like to explore coffee. But this is a coffee you can look forward to. Not too much biting acidity, but good sweetness and more fragrance than you'd expect.