For people who know me, you know I own a spoon engraved with the motto “Death Before Decaf.” While this is by no means a personal motto, it is one I live by which means small batch artisanal roasters, baby. This is a great time in America for small businesses to find and import raw beans, add their personal touch, and sell them to hipsters charmed by friendly graphics or edgy concepts. It’s worth it! I swear. Coffee is one of those things that seems simple to people who grew up with Maxwell House or pop in a Keurig, but it can be an artistic expression of both the roaster and the person brewing the cup. More on that later.
Recently, I was turned on to a small roaster in Seattle by celebrated CEO Dan Price, famed for his staunch principle of actually paying his employees a living wage. Not only is he the kind of rich I would spare during the revolution, he’s also from Seattle, and he talks to you on Twitter! Truly the millennial Jesus we deserve. Just for kicks and giggles I asked him to recommend a coffee roaster he likes, and he turned me loose on Kuma Coffee.
Right away I knew this was a ringer, because the company is named after the owner’s dog, Kuma, which is Japanese for “bear.” Its run by a small roasting team, and is proud of the owner’s ties to the Japanese coffee scene. This drew me in because I’ve visited small coffee shops in Tokyo, and they take good coffee seriously. You can often just walk into a shop that has siphon style coffee machines straight out of a steampunk movie. Kuma basically ticks all the boxes for a hipster company you want to support. Its also nice that the invoice is printed on the back of a short comic about how all their employees are bears. This is totally plausible, guys.
While they do free shipping for two bags or more, I got one just to try and settled on Kenya Gaikundo, with blackberry, Cabernet, and red velvet notes. Everything is sent in their biodegradable packaging, and its pretty attractive if you’re the kind of person who leaves their coffee in the bag. The cute bear thing isn’t overdone. The description has that very Japanese detail asking you to “Please enjoy this gem.” 痛いけど気持ちいい (Hurts but feels good. Its a weeb thing.)
So I brewed this bad boy. I use a pour-over set up with an electric grinder, which is not ideal but I don’t want to have one huge arm and awkward questions. I have metal and paper filters so I tried it both ways.
Right away the big fruity character they advertise comes through. My initial impression with a metal filter was a little bit like Italian rainbow cookies. The roasty flavors are there but blown away by the berry. For dark roast people this might not be the best thing, but its not quite a blonde roast. The comparison to a Cabernet is probably most accurate, but more like a blushing Franc and less like a Sauvignon. If you know, you know. The beans are quite small, but their color is very even, which suggests a lot of care and attention went into them. This is what I expected from the Japanese background of the company. When they’re brewed there’s minimal gas bubbling, so you don’t have to bloom them very much. I do recommend a paper filter and around 80° C for this, because they are delicate and benefit from the slightly longer extraction without the full steep of something like a French press. This results in bolder expression of the tart berry and more of that just-browned brioche flavor, which stood up to the addition of sugar and milk.
I’ll probably be adding Kuma in to my regular rotation as I get new beans in, and their merch is tempting too. I’m fond of the shirts and the mug, which seems like too reasonable a size for my level of coffee consumption. In the same Twitter thread I got a bunch of other recommendations, so check back if you want to see more!
My wife doesn’t like horror movies very much, even though guffaws every time some doofus falls down on America’s Funniest Home Videos. So my story with Alien Covenant happens a lot. I want to see it in the theater, and she doesn’t. I might have gone to it for our drive-in excursion but there was a double feature of pirates and space superheroes… so there. Last night I got antsy and rented it off Amazon, which made me slightly annoyed that it didn’t come with prime and that I’m going to see it on the public library shelf a little while later.
Ah, my local library strikes again, this time with a title that’s been long in coming: Shin Godzilla, probably the best inheritor of the Godzilla name to come along since the original film. T
Kin S. Law 