What I am drinking now – Deep Cello Bossa

What I am drinking now – Deep Cello Bossa


I ordered some Deep Cello coffee for the first time recently.  I pulled the shots starting earlier than I normally would to since some  coffees mature earlier than others and I quickly got shots that I liked and showed potential, but not shots right off the bat that I loved.  


Coffees need to be dialed in, so it is rare to get a great shot right off the bat and there is a real skill to getting from point a to point b as quickly as possible.  The coffee superstar baristas can often use what they know about the looks of the beans to accelerate the process.  They, for example detect that coffee X looks like a standard northern Italian blend or a pacific north west roast and they start pulling shots where they have had success with blends of those types in the past and let their tastebuds guide them from there.  


I have often heard about “classic pacific northwest blends,” and in theory I would have expected this to be one of those since Deep Cello comes from there, but on the other hand, if you compare Starbucks, Vivace, Stumptown, and Velton’s roasts, four extremely successful roasters from the pacific northwest, they have almost nothing in common to my tastes.  I love all three of the microroasters, but would never say they remind me of each other and thankfully none of them remind me of anything Starbucks makes.

Which of them would Deep Cello be most like?  Well, yet again, the answer for me is none.  I think they have yet again blazed their own path.  The closest connection I can make is early on there was something in the shot that really reminded me of some of the Intelligentsia Black Cat project coffees.   I cannot pin down what it is, but for me there is some trait they shared that I had never noticed in any other coffees (perahps a particular fruity acidity? a good trait in any event).  I brought a friend over, pulled her a shot, and asked her if she got the same thing without telling her what coffee it reminded me of, and in less than a second she suggested Intelli.  

This note has faded over time and interestingly although I liked it, this morning I think the coffee really hit its stride (about a week post roast) and the note was now very subtle.  Before this the shots were pretty good and worth ordering again, but today’s shot was great.  


I have found that it needs to be pulled at a higher temp than most of the other coffees I pull.  I probably average around 200 degrees and to me there is a sour note that pervades until the temperature gets above that, but at around 201-202 it mellows into a delightful shot.  Today’s shot was about 17.8 grams and 26 seconds.  It was good enough that I will aim for those exact parameters tomorrow when I next get a chance to pull some coffee.