Brandywine does a collaboration for Halloween with Fellow Drops, which is an interesting service from Fellow that promotes one or two high end coffees a week. I’m a sucker for a good special occasion edition, key word being good. Brandywine is the roaster I trust to deliver good, so this is my Halloween week coffee.

This coffee is pretty tame, relatively speaking to my recent fare and Brandywine in general, a pure Ethiopian natural process coffee from the Chelbesa station in Gedeb, reasonably lightly roasted. 15g coffee, 40 second bloom, 250g water total starting around 95 degrees. Brew time was 2.55. Fellow recommends a more coffee heavy recipe, which I’ll try, and I’ll grind a bit finer next time, but my default recipe handled this very well. Just a beautiful, plump Ethiopian coffee. I didn’t get the big red fruit notes mentioned in their listing, but I do get the creamy body and as expected lovely sweetness.

Sounds delicious. I bet it would make for some lovely soup.

I need to start getting paid by Big Soup for the amount of times I talk about it on here. Side note, currently drinking some soup while writing this out.

I'm a sucker for Ethiopian, maybe I'll try this out.

Looking at their website, those coffee prices are more offensive than Stamp Act coffee. This is a definite try before I buy. Especially if your description is “pretty tame”.

Perhaps I’m sheltered. My local roaster is cheaper. And I’m not that far away from calling this place local.

If it don't pass the sniff test there's usually a reason

$63 for two pounds of coffee is... steep

American money?

That equals 123 euros per kg. Which is expensive but not not surprising for high end coffee. It the price can go way higher than that.

I usually pay around 40 USD per pound = 80 EUR per kg for what I would call entry level specialty coffee. I live the nordics btw.

How much is the coffee at your local roasters?

FYI Buc-ees funds maga and republicans.

millions of $

Yup. Fuck Buc-ees, <3 Brandywine.

No more than $20 per pound, but perhaps the coffee I drink ain't all that special.

It’s tame in the sense that Brandywine is better known for their coferments or infusions, pretty weird coffee. My most recent posts have also been on weird, heavily manipulated coffees from Luminous and Black and White.

In terms of quality, it’s excellent. People unfamiliar with natural process coffee might find it a little odd, but it's still very coffee flavored, just more lush.

I’ve put some serious thoughts into what I pay for coffee. I wrote about it at some length in a recent post about Luminous, which is a good bit more costly.

If this is outside what you’d like to pay, I understand. It’s well past the point of diminishing returns.

That said, Brandywine roasts some of the best coffee in the world and I’m drinking it for $1.55 a cup, including the filter. Coffee is a hobby to me. I can afford an extra dollar a day to go from meh to best in the world. My demand is pretty inelastic near this price point; I would pay a lot more than $1.55 a cup and not change my coffee habits at all.

I did not actively know that, though I passively expect as much from any Texas company.

If it makes you feel any better, like all but two of my other mugs it’s thrifted. I was aware they’re a big Go Texas Go! company so I was tickled at the idea of the mug being made in China.

I suspect the Halloweenie on their website now is the same bean, they can’t be buying too many lots from Chelbesa. At the very least it would be similar.

If you're well familiar with Ethiopia, I think many other roasters sell similarly good Ethopian coffee. If you want to try Brandywine, their weirder stuff is amazing. I seldom rebuy coffees but they had a peach coferment Star Trek TNG themed coffee earlier this year that I tried to buy more of after it sold out. One of the best coffees I’ve ever had. The others I've bought have been stellar, too.

Great bag art, too. It's a little thing but I love it.

I think this coffee would do well in any brewing method.

I've been considering an espresso setup recently and I keep hitting a roadblock. I'm making pourover coffee at a high level and I have easy access to two local coffee shops that make amazing espresso. To actually get better coffee I need to spend an uncomfortable amount of money.

I had a chat with a friend about what buying a proper espresso setup would take. The answer is any sort of windfall, at all. So if I win $200 from a beauty contest I think I'm legally on the hook for a Timemore Sculptor 064s and a Turin Legato.

I appreciate the reply. Sounds like it’s worth the try.

If they have a store, I’ll probably add it to my pit stop on a road trip.

What grinder do you use currently?

If you’re mostly drinking light roast you’ll definitely want a machine with pressure profiling, or have that as an option to mod later. I don’t know the Turin but it’s something to keep in mind. My Gaggia doesn’t have temp or pressure profiling but it’s something I can modify it to be able to do. A Gaggimate is probably my next big coffee purchase. With that being said, I absolutely love my manual espresso maker (Cafelat Robot) which allows me ultimate control. I’d highly recommend considering a manual maker too. The Robot is fantastic but hard to find at MSRP, but there’s other great ones out there too. Flair is notable. I don’t have any experience with their products but I’ve heard great things.

I have an Ode, so not able to go fine enough for espresso. A new grinder would be unavoidable.

I have considered a Gaggia, though I’m hesitant to buy a project. I already have a few projects I’m not doing. The Turin has temperature control and a pressure gauge with the ability to modify in pressure control, I think it might be enough, and a Flair is likewise a consideration. I’m loathe to buy something less capable than those knowing I’ll want to replace it, but a Bambino is nevertheless in consideration too.

I’m not sure what gets me over the hump. For now I’m enjoying amazing pourover.

Trying it before you buy is very reasonable. I’ve given people coffee similar to what Brandywine does best and gotten blank looks. It doesn’t look like they have an official coffee shop but inevitably near any premium roaster there is a good cafe selling their coffee.

It gets a lot steeper. At the tippy top the going rate for the scarcest, most desirable gesha is around $600 a kilo, $250 a pound, give or take.

Ah, fair enough. Espresso certainly isn’t cheap to get into but if you take the plunge I don’t think you’ll regret it. At the same time, if you enjoy your pour overs, absolutely nothing wrong with that. I’m mostly an espresso guy (who would’ve guessed, crazy, I know) so it definitely made sense for me to dive in but I totally get having reservations if you’re mostly into pour over.

that looks yummy!

Buc-cees can fck right off though

that's expensive? Then you'll love this one from XLIII

https://xliiicoffee.com/en/product/sukkot-racemosa-2026/

$270 for 250g

2lbs is a hair over 900g. Standard specialty coffee bags are 300g. So $63/2lbs would be about $21/300g. That’s definitely on the lower end of prices for specialty coffee.

What country are you in? In my experience 250g is the standard. Sometimes I see 200g but not that often. I'm in Sweden, but the 250g bags seem to be all over europe.

Canada. 250g does show up from time to time (I’m currently finishing a 250g bag) but 300g is far more common.