FAQ
1. What are your flavor notes?
· Similar to wine, coffee has many different notes of Flavor. Many different factors combine to produce these flavors (country, region, elevation, rainfall, soil type, etc, etc), but each coffee is different in what intrinsic flavors it possesses. These flavors are NOT added to the coffee, it is the natural flavor and aroma. The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) has built standard guidelines when evaluating and establishing a coffees flavor and score. The SCAA has designation (Q Grader) that qualifies someone to officially score coffee, which is a designation we would love to one day achieve. When we descibe our coffees on our product page, will use descriptions from various cuppings (tastings or evaluations) of each coffee. The goal is to try and give you an idea of what each coffee will taste like once it hits your cup at home!
2. Do the coffees you offer always stay the same?
· No. We try to buy coffees that have just been harvested, therefore our coffees will change depending on the season.
3. What is the Farm Blend?
· The Farm Blend is a blend of coffees that offers you great flavor, body and is usually roasted in the darker range. This blend will change depending on what coffees we are carrying, but it's always a favorite of ours!
4. Are your coffees ethically sourced?
· 6West Coffee is roasted on our family farm, so farmers are important to us!! It is very important to us that farmers are paid properly for what they produce. All of our coffees are ethically sourced, and we ensure that the farmers are paid a proper amount for their hard work.
5. What is specialty coffee?
· As I mentioned before, coffee is evaluated by the standards developed by the SCAA. Typically, when we refer to specialty coffee, we are talking about coffees that score between 80-100 points. Most of our coffees at 6West would score high 80s to low 90s, therefore, we are specialty coffee roasters. For more information on the evaluating, check out the SCAA’s website.
6. What is Dark Roast?
· See Degrees of Roast in Glossary
7. What is your favorite way to brew coffee?
· How coffee is brewed makes a huge difference, it also depends on what kind of coffee drink is being enjoyed. For our everyday we use a Chemex, and we highly recommend it! (It’s a good price point too) When we want espresso or americano’s, the AeroPress is awesome (another great value). When we make a pot of coffee we use, the Technivorm Moccamaster (this guy is expensive, but fantastic). No matter what method, each of these will be an investment into your coffee experience.
8. Do you have a favorite coffee maker?
· We like to brew coffee in many ways, but our go to method – the CHEMEX. When we want to brew a pot of coffee we go to the Technivorm Moccamaster.
9. How much coffee should I use?
· We suggest using 15 grams for 250 ml of water. I always tell people to start off how they usually make coffee but weigh out what you put in (coffee and water), that way it is easier to control if you need it stronger or not. If you are spending the extra money to buy good coffee, take the time to set standards for yourself. Find out how you like coffee (strength of coffee), and then stick to that standard. This way you will be able to start to taste the differences in the coffee, and not be thrown off by over extraction, or under extraction.
10. What is extraction?
· This is how much of the coffee flavor you are able to extract out of the grinds, into the water. This is why you have different grind levels on a grinder, as water will run much faster through courser grinds, and will run much slower in finer grinds. When brewing coffee, you want to find the right grind size, and method to achieve the right extraction levels for the coffee.
11. Does it matter what kind of water I use?
· Actually – it does. Surprisingly there is a very technical answer to this, but to keep it simple, use Brita filtered, or some type of filtered water.
12. Should I store my coffee in the freezer?
· Short Answer – NO. You want to use coffee when it is fresh, the best practice is to buy fresh coffee, drink, repeat.
13. What if I don’t have a grinder? Should I invest in a grinder?
· We will grind coffee for you, but we definitely recommend buying a burr grinder. Once coffee is roasted it is perishable, as oxygen gets to the coffee it will start to deteriorate in flavor and aroma. Once it is ground, you expose the coffee to more oxygen, and therefore increase the deterioration of the coffee. The best method is to grind coffee right before you drink it, this will maximize the flavor and aroma of your coffee. Blade grinders will give you a very inconsistent grind. Burr grinders will give you a very consistent grind, and therefore much better results.
14. What is the difference in a blade grinder, and a burr grinder?
· A blade grinder usually has one blade that spins, can give a very inconsistent grind. Conical burr grinders have two conical burrs, the distance between the burrs can be set manually. Burr grinders do a much better job of grinding and will give better extraction and flavor.
15. Do you add flavor to the coffee? How do you get the flavor notes?
· No, we do not. All the flavor notes that we put on the bags are the intrinsic flavor of that coffee. These flavors are found through “cupping” evaluations of the coffee.
16. What is the difference between wet process and dry process coffee?
· See the glossary for the difference between these two processes. Most of our coffees will be wet process, but we do get the odd DP coffee. DP coffees are usually very interesting coffees and have very unique flavor profiles.
17. Will you ship coffee to the USA?
· We will, but it is expensive. Contact us for details.
18. Do you offer a coffee subscription?
· Absolutely. Contact us, and we would be happy to talk to you about this.
19. Do you offer wholesale accounts?
· Absolutely. Contact us for the details.
If you have any other questions, feel free to send them our way and we will get back to you.