The Art of Aging Coffee in Wine Barrels: A Sophisticated Flavor Experience
Creating a place … where worlds meet
At Lamppost Coffee Roasters, we inspire adventure by engaging the senses, experiential education and epic encounters. Through honesty in action, from seed to cup, blending art and science, we are creating a place…where worlds meet. Everything we do at Lamppost Coffee Roasters flows through our mission statement including the coffees we offer to our customers! Here, Guatemala meets Washington state.
It has been a few years since we offered wine barrel aged coffee, and we are aging some now to be released close to Mother’s Day!
I often wonder who thought of doing this first, but everything is really urban legend on where it started and who tried it first. All I know is that in 2020, I wanted to give this a try! Where to start?!
Where would I find a local Washington state winery and wine for this sensory experience?
I started with the wine barrel. Where would I find a local Washington state winery and wine for this sensory experience? In keeping with the mission statement, I began checking with our local customer base. I discovered one of the regular customers of Lamppost Coffee Roasters works for Pomum Cellars in Woodinville, Washington. The wine comes from eastern Washington in the Yakima Valley area. This year’s barrel is a red wine, cabernet sauvignon. My husband, Jeff, and I picked it up before it had been sanitized keeping as much of the wine and barrel taste notes as possible.
In the past, I have used Guatemala, Colombia and Honduran coffees in the wine barrel. Looking through the taste notes of each coffee offering, I decided on the Guatemala Ella as wine barrel coffee. The Guatemala Ella has a simple flavor profile which will pair well with the complexity of the red wine taste notes still in the barrel as well as the oak barrel itself. Roastmaster Jeff will pull a sample in the next few weeks and roast it to finalize our taste notes. The rich cocoa, juicy sweetness and full bodied Guatemala combined with the rich cabernet sauvignon and oak barrel to produce a sweet and juicy dark black or blueberry crisp flavor with a super mild spicy oak finish.
What?! Green coffee added to a wine barrel?
Green or unroasted coffee is a seed of a coffee cherry or fruit that has been dried in the country of origin. When added to the wine barrel, the green coffee infuses with the aromatics remaining on the wall of the barrel and even picks up hints of the oak. Coming soon, Roastmaster Jeff will be repeating the process using whiskey. Each week, the green coffee is stirred in the wine barrel so there is a more even infusion of flavors throughout the green coffee. While the nuances of the flavors change with the different wine barrels and coffees, the coffee itself roasts about the same. Only the flavor profile changes.
Oak barrel in roastery holding the green or unroasted Guatemala Ella bean
The wine barrel is in the roastery portion of the shop. While one of the roasting team is in the shop, we are happy to share the sensory experience with you! Once the sample of the coffee is roasted, Jeff and I will brew it up as many ways as we can, including as an espresso. I look forward to brewing this hot and over ice as a flash brew. The fun outlier of brewing the wine barrel aged Guatemala Ella will be how it does as an espresso! Oh the adventure of exploring flavors and engaging the senses!
Be sure to watch Lamppost Coffee Roasters social media and the webstore for when it is available for purchase in early May.
Whether brewing this in a drip brewer, as a pour over, or even Japanese flash brew style, this will be a sophisticated, delightful and elevated flavor experience in your cup.