Akram Darwaish - Brew Chart & Impressions

This coffee is a delicacy. It's worth pausing what you were doing while drinking. Those emails and zooms can wait an extra 5 minutes, right? ;-)

This auction lot from farmer Akram Darwaish, of of the best micro lot in the whole country, is quite complex, with a many flavours and depth.

Upon grinding, the first things that struck us was the red flowers and fresh spices.
Once you start brewing, some citrus and hibiscus will join the aromatic dance. It's a full experience before even taking a first sip.

The coffee is silky and smooth, with a long aftertaste. The flowers and spices are dominant at first but quickly let the citrus and pomegranate join in. The coffee is bright and light, one of the lightest roasts we did in a long time, and it almost feels fizzy at times.
There are hints of chocolate, and the main sweetness reminded us of maple water, something we can easily enjoy here in Quebec. A very light caramel could be an adequate way to describe the sweetness as well.

We even had some quick taste of macadamia nuts, peach and banana.

Truly a complex coffee experience that is, stylistically, outside our regular roasting style.

How to best brew this coffee.

First of all, this is a coffee that can be brewed in a myriad of ways.

We preferred higher temperature water in the 96-98C range, but for a very flowery brew, you can go as low as 90.

Ration wise, we loved the brews at 17:1. If you want to experience the most complex brew, but with more subtle flavours, you can go higher.
The brews below 16:1 were ok, but we felt something was missing in them.

You can also grind quite fine and have long extractions.

These are obviously just suggestions, and we wanted to give you pointers since it's quite an expensive coffee and wasting 2 brews is not ideal. But we encourage you to experiment, and tag us when you do!

How long should I wait before brewing this coffee?

It's hard to wait before diving in a coffee, isn't it? We highly suggest you wait at least 8 days before brewing, and ideally, you would find the courage to wait 12.
We also suggest keeping on or 2 brews for when the coffee will be about 18-20 days after roast: those brews were very well rested, easy to extract and gave us so many different flavours.

If you are impatient, waiting 6 days minimum is still highly recommended.

Even though we think it can make a great espresso, we haven't tested this coffee for that method.