Miscellanea re: blends

More miscellanea (bit of a tradition now) for those who might appreciate it…

1. The name of Wrecking Ball’s new espresso blend: Pillow Fight. For some reason this makes me smile, which it seems is their intention (see quote below). Mission accomplished, people! I’m glad they didn’t choose “Tickle Monster,” as that phrase has now acquired an icky Jerry Sandusky vibe (for me at least).

“Guess we have a funny way of naming espresso blends. As we consider the elements of the blend and the collective objectives, the words that tend to make us smile or chuckle seem to stick, and ‘Pillow Fight’ really made sense when we found the in-season coffees for it.”

2. Speaking of blend names, “Summer Solstice” is a popular one! MadCap’s all over it, as is Intelligentsia, and Kickapoo, and…

3. In other blend-related news, Counter Culture recently began offering one named after/dedicated to honoring a variety, namely Bourbon. Cool, no? I’m very tempted by this one.

“Our work in coffee has taught us the importance of variety: most of the flavors we love in coffee come from the plant itself, and the different kinds – or varieties – of coffee are what give us the wide spectrum of coffee flavor we’re lucky enough to experience.

Coffee is a fruit, after all, and like any fruit, variety makes a difference. A Granny Smith apple, green and tart, tastes completely different than a sweet, crisp Pink Lady. This is the essential difference of variety. While the wine world has recognized the role of variety for a long time – Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and Merlot are all varieties of grape – we speak far too little about variety in coffee. We’d like to change that. Variety: Bourbon is the first-ever curated variety-specific coffee in the marketplace.

The composition of Variety: Bourbon will change over time, featuring different coffees from different farms, but always of the Bourbon coffee variety – exploring the full expression of flavor possible from this, the most influential and celebrated coffee variety in the world.”

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Just arrived: PT’s Burundi Gacokwe and AJ’s Rwanda Musasa