From HomeSense to Home Brew: Exploring Peaks Coffee Company’s Basecamp

From HomeSense to Home Brew: Exploring Peaks Coffee Company’s Basecamp

Delving into milk chocolate and stone fruit notes with a newbie’s perspective

My second bag of specialty coffee I’ve bought is from Peaks Coffee Company which is based in Syracuse, New York. I found this bag at HomeSense which isn’t a normal place I’d buy coffee but the tasting notes and roast date seemed acceptable for the price ($13 CAD for 340 grams).

A couple of months ago, I had no idea about roasting date and what ‘freshly roasted’ could mean. Coffee enthusiasts and roasters haven’t settled in on optimal degassing periods ‘off roast’. “Off roast” meaning the number of days after the coffee has been roasted. The general consensus for the degassing of roasted whole beans is 4 to 14 days off roast. With lighter roasts taking longer to degas than darker roasts.

With that out of the way, here’s the coffee I purchased. The product is not available on their website but for coffees they do sell, the information available is extremely good. For this bag, the milk chocolate & stone fruit definitely caught my attention.

It’s definitely a a lighter roast, there was no information on roast level on the bag itself. Often times this information is found on the website but the product had been removed already at the time I purchased it. When I opened it and even a couple of weeks after, it smells wonderful.

I brewed this coffee using my Hario Switch, AeroPress and Breville Bambino Plus. Given how new I am in my espresso game, further research has led me to believe light roasted coffees in the Bambino will yield a suboptimal result.

For the Switch and the AeroPress brewing methods and using medium-fine to medium-course settings, it brewed wonderfully. I definitely was able to get the tasting notes provided (milk chocolate and to a lesser degree stone fruit). It had some acidity to it but not an unpleasant amount for my taste. Every time I ground the coffee, you could smell the chocolate aromatics.

For filter, I typically brew using a 1:16 ratio and trying different temperatures of pours. In order to have any efficacy though, I need to do them side by side so I’ll be getting a couple of other V60 brewers to line to better taste the difference (if any).

I took this one to work and got the chance to brew these beans for a couple of my coworkers who also enjoyed the aroma and taste.

What I’m absolutely loving about the journey is the process and the gear (equipment). The tasting part, I’m going to need more training on. I’m certainly going to be trying more local (to me) roasters in the coming weeks and months. If you have a favorite coffee (single origin) or blend from your favorite roaster thus far, let me know what it is.