Coffee Review: Ecuador - Melania Cueva Natural (Wesley Andrews)

A couple of months ago I visited Seattle for a day, and visited as many cafes I could, like usual. I stopped by a cafe called "Ghost Note" and got an espresso tonic a bag of beans from a roaster I hadn't heard of before, called Wesley Andrews from Minnesota.

The beans were from southern Ecuador, but the labels on the bag left me slightly confused in regards to the coffee's processing methods. While the bag is labeled as a natural processed coffee, the blurb on the sleeve seems to imply that the beans are a blend of honey and full-natural processed coffees. In any case, the confusion didn't ruin the experience because the coffee's flavor ended up lacking the distinctive hallmarks of extended or experimental fermentations. I wondered if part of this was due to the roast degree, as the roast appeared to approach the lighter end of medium (which may have caused some of the wild fruit flavors associated with naturally processed coffees to become more muted.)

The bag advertised notes of honeycrisp apple, black cherry, and cabernet sauvignon (which initially caused my eyebrows to rise.) Ultimately I found myself searching for the black cherry. Instead there was a noticeable, almost dry mouthfeel that became downright astringent when overextracted. I surprisingly found cabernet suavignon to be the most fitting descriptor, as the most forward notes in the coffee were the richness, astringency, and slight sweetness found in good wine. As the cup cools down, a lovely and refreshing acidity becomes apparent, reminiscent of red apples.

The cups produced often had an issue of being overly bitter and astringent, muting the cups potential sweetness. This resulted in changing my Aeropress recipe for this coffee several times, chasing what the coffee was capable of producing.