East Timor Lauana

I’ve had a lot of requests to carry a Timor coffee (Tee-more). The hybrid of coffee grown in Timor has some robusta strains in it, and while it doesn't hurt the taste of their coffee, it does give it quite a bit of extra caffeine. Actually, the quality of Timor beans has been improving year after year, and it's to the point where there are some cool undertones in the various microlots being sold now. This one is in the Ermera region and can be traced back to a particular village in the Lauana growing region. Timor is still relatively inexpensive compared to other Indonesians, and it's a solid Indonesian coffee origin -- several people have told me it is their very favorite, and it's always a great bean for beginners to learn how to roast on.

This is a fully washed processed bean, not the wet-hulled process that most Indonesians are. For this reason, it has no earthiness in the flavor, and you can roast it anywhere from very light to very dark. In a light roast (City+), it has a slightly juicy and butterscotch flavor, with a little bit of dark chocolate in the aftertaste -- fairly straightforward coffee but with nice sweetness and juicy (although I'd be hard pressed to name the particular fruit...maybe red grape...) It's very nice and easy to drink. In a Full City+ roast (5 seconds of 2nd cracks), it has wonderful coffee-taste. Thick bodied, sweet, smooth, great coffee, and a hint of that juicy flavor of grapes twinges the sides of your tongue right at the finish. In a dark roast, (30 seconds of 2nd cracks) it really could pass for a nice clean Sumatra Mandheling -- low acid, syrupy body, chocolatey, sweet. It's not bitter and it's bursting with flavor. At the extreme dark roast, well into the 2nd cracks (60+ seconds of 2nd cracks), it's one of the best Italian roasts I've ever had and I can drink it without cream because it is so sweet. I mean, the flavor is still going to be described as smoky, roasty, really dark coffee -- but the sweetness and lack of ashy taste make it a great choice for extreme dark roasts.