A cup of one of Luminous’ El Mirador offerings, roasted on September 17th and brewed today with the trusty Aeropress. 12g coffee, 200g water off the boil maybe fifteen seconds, three minute brew, swirl, 30 second wait, plunge.
This coffee was anaerobically cofermented for 130 hours in 200 liter vessels beside 80 liters of “prepared fruit based culture”, so at most 120 liters of coffee cherries. Then, naturally processed.
The finer details of what fruit was used to coferment aren’t listed nor do I think they are important. The listed flavor notes are there, I definitely get red fruit, definitely get lime. But I’ve had weirder coferments. I think this coffee is most notable for its pinpoint perfect body and acidity. Gorgeously rounded, perfectly tart balanced against the expected sweetness of good specialty coffee. I won’t go back to the Aeropress with this one, my two V60 brews of it have been a bit more expressive, it just bursts out of the cup. It was also particularly easy to brew, my first pourover was excellent.
The trade off for lab manufactured perfection is the cost. Luminous has a lot going on, which I’ll talk about in a comment. I initially wondered how much of the cost went into the coffee, but there are some financials on a little card on the box: they paid $31.37 per kilo for these beans, $14.23 in freedom units. If you’re not familiar with coffee prices, that is a whole lot. I paid them $30 plus tax for 200g. I have bought ultra premium coffee for more, but those were halo products or competition coffees, intended to be the very best a roaster can make. This is just what Luminous sells. So is it worth it?
To me, yes. A typical 15g cup is around $2.50 accounting for the filter. Its engineered perfection is not something I’d want every day, but it’s a great coffee.
I have never heard of this before, thanks for writing about it. I’ve never really looked at high-end coffee beans before, but this has got me curious, just to try it once.
Obviously I’m biased, but if you’re in this community I think there are good odds you’d enjoy that.
The roaster I best trust in the US is Brandywine. Most roasters have highs and lows. Brandywine, in three or four orders, has been all highs. But many roasters across the world do excellent work.
If you haven’t dialed a coffee in before, some good coffees can be finicky to brew, so it can be good to taste them as sold by the roaster or in a known good cafe. This coffee was not difficult to brew at all, I think a blade grinder and a French press would have been fine.