Regional Coffee Tastes

This morning as I pulled the first few shots of espresso from Olympia Coffee Roasters using their Big Truck Espresso blend, I was actually expecting to get quite a fruity shot of espresso as that has become what I expect for a seasonal espresso like theirs. However, it tasted much more like the tasting notes they provided for the blend, which is something to the effect of a cup full chocolate, with dense fruit notes and behold my first sip of this espresso was chocolate with some fruit notes that came through the chocolate notes. The main reason for my thinking is that I have become so accustom to San Fransico Coffee.

I am very fortunate to live in an area with some pretty acclaimed roasters, Blue Bottle, Ritual, Ecco, Four Barrel, Barefoot, Verve, etc. For the most part when I am out at different shops and get to taste their offering they tend to be on the "bright" side of the spectrum of tastes meaning fairly acidic. Just this weekend I popped into a very nice espresso bar serving a seasonal Barefoot offering and the espresso shot basically fizzed down the back of my throat. While I have come to appreciate these highly bright coffees, it's something that I have noticed it not the case everywhere I get my coffee from.

As I have been recently receiving a lot of coffee from other parts of the country I have noticed that these bright coffees do not seem to be common place everywhere. As a blend by another new third wave roaster like Olympia is not anywhere close to being as bright as what I am use to. It seems to me that every region of the country has their own unique preferences, just like with food. This is interesting to me because coffee is shipped in from across the globe and is not dependent on the actual region like food can be.

I think almost everyone can name at least one big region, Pacific Northwest style, which is a dense rich chocolate bomb. This is what Starbucks is minus all the char. Are there other regions with their own styles that others can think of?

Personally, I am not a huge fan of my local areas coffee style, but am getting use to it.