Cravens' Buttery, Caramel, Butterscotch, Medium Roast Coffee

When a person tastes a variety of gourmet coffees long enough, they begin to recognize characteristics of how coffee will taste. Cravens, Buttery, Caramel, Butterscotch is a good example. Its packaging is a decorative bag, good design, that has a sticker on the front giving a brief description of the coffee: single origin, medium roast. Upon opening the bag, the smell is mundane. The scent is reminiscent of plastic tub coffees rather than gourmet coffee. Its grind is fine, so much so that it can cause some difficulty with filters.

This Cravens Coffee selection is a flavored coffee: butter, caramel, and butterscotch. With my first cup, unsweetened, I can taste none of these. There is a medium roast consistency in the coffee. Its unsweetened flavor is very much a tub coffee flavor match. It is smooth, with some coffee flavor with a bitterness that warns the drinker of the next sip. Its presence on the tongue and cheeks is negligible with an acidic aftertaste.

I sweetened the second cup. Sweetener doesn’t seem to make a great difference with this coffee. While sweetener is good for managing some bitterness, and catalyzing the flavor in the roast, this coffee reveals nothing. I am still unable to detect butter, caramel, and butterscotch. My enthusiasm for this coffee after reading the label has been stifled.

The most interesting thing about this coffee is that the packaging declares that it is put into a 1940 Probat roaster. The Probat roaster, in my novice research, is the gold standard of roasters. They are sought out by coffee artisans and are said to produce a high-quality roasting experience. My online research regarding these craft roasters was interesting. A coffee connoisseur could easily get lost in such research.

This flavor of Cravens Coffee may not be the best place for coffee drinkers to start. My own opinion leads me to question if I should not try one of their plain roasted coffees without any flavor enhancement.

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