Okay, my first question is: What were they thinking? No, seriously, what were they thinking?
Yes, I know why they named it The Brain Coffee, and it ties to one of their epic tales, as usual, but obviously this should have been 4 season coffee.
Why? Well, let me explain. King Harv's sent me a testing package of Brain Coffee. This was useful, as at the moment for some reason, my body decided I don't need to sleep anymore, and between insomnia and nightmares, I have considered in fact drilling a hole in my head and pouring the coffee in.
Anyway, the more I tried it out the more I was amazed at how misnamed it is.
I started with unadulterated coffee. It's got a lot of body, and the body is immediately present. It starts out at a high volume, right at the start of the sip, presenting initially as dark, earthy, and with a smoky bitterness most reminiscent of wood smoke. Then there is a blueberry note, arriving mid-taste. It sits in the background but doesn't resolve in clarity till later. Even more present in the background is cinnamon and a kind of sweet cinnamon flavor, like a cinnamon pastry. That is even present mid. A cinnamon forward baked good.
The feeling was of camping in the woods, early spring, with the big sky above and morning breaking all pink and orange in the East and you're sitting by your wood fire, eating a lovely blueberry pastry for breakfast. At the end there is a sort of savory taste, very light, kind of like you just got some beef broth hotting up to sip before your hike, and you're smelling that.
Sweetening with sugar reins in that big earthy bitterness of the front end, but leaves the hardwood flavor intact. Actually it makes it easier to pick out, because it's not buried in the smokey forward.
It also changes how the blueberry presents. Sugar brings out the tartness and makes that background blueberry really pop and have almost like a luscious sort of sensation.. You know how when you're eating really fresh berries and you get the tartness at the back of the tongue that makes them kind of more-ish? You can even still taste that cinnamon pastry note, but I don't feel the sugar brings it out. In fact on the back end it buries it a little because that juicy blueberry note really takes over.
Sugar also all but kills the beef broth note. It's there on the back end, and actually plays well with the blueberry weirdly, though I understand leaving that off the package, because it seems incongruous, but it's actually very pleasant.
You're now in the woods in fall, and you have gotten some nice fresh blueberries to eat with your pastry.
Now milk and sugar, which is how I usually take my coffee, with a light hand with the milk, puts the cinnamon pastry note front and center. Like, it's impossible to miss. The coffee literally tastes like I added cinnamon to it. The hardwood flavor is there still, but it's now supporting flavor for the cinnamon. Kind of rounding it out and adding dimension, but still presenting as fundamentally a cinnamon flavor with benefits. Almost like a rare and expensive variety of cinnamon you can't have every day, but still recognizably cinnamon.
And I can confirm you actually get that effect to some degree, even with just milk, though not as strongly. And yes, the beef broth note comes through with milk only as well, and if anything is more detectable, if you know you're looking for it than it is straight coffee.
So, you're now in a log cabin in the New England woods, in winter, and you have your soup on the hob, but you're enjoying a lovely cinnamon pastry, and looking out at the falling snow making the outside like a postcard.
I never drink my coffee with cream (or very rarely) but I'm honor bound to try it because a lot of people do. It's fine. Like the milk, it really brings out the cinnamon note and makes me think whatever contributes to the cinnamon is something that's forced to the surface when you add fat, like adding a single drop of water to the whiskey actually intensifies the flavor by forcing the oils to aggregate in a single layer.
Okay, so something that isn't always appreciated is that coffee and lemon actually play pretty well together sometimes, but you have to have the right coffee.
Turns out this is the right coffee. Even just a squirt of lemon, no sugar, is shockingly good right off the bat. It changes everything about how the coffee presents.
The wood and cinnamon notes in the front end, with the added acidity now present as a complex, refreshing herbal note.
And that note dominates the front end and continues into the back end and melds with the blueberry.
Oh, man, and then if you add just a leettle sugar, it does loose some of that complexity but damn it is a refreshing flavor. Very herbacious and fruity.
This coffee likes to be paired with lemon juice much better than the average coffee and while the flavor can be pieced back and described, the gestalt is a refreshing late spring/early summer drink, not quite like anything you've had before.
Drinking it immediately evokes for me the desire to set out an evening meal on the veranda of my seaside villa (look, it's my ideation. I can totally dream up a seaside villa) and plan a loose, relaxed dinner party with some friends. Maybe more early afternoon given that it's coffee. But the image is the same. A relaxed dinner on the balcony with the sound of the sea in the background. Leaving the cares of the world behind.
So you see, I think the branding is slightly off, and now you know why.
This is a coffee for all seasons. A solid coffee that can be done in multiple ways with very little effort, for use as anything from a daily driver to special occasions.
It reminds me a little of a grand touring car, something designed to be comfortable to use on an everyday basis, but that has a lot more going on under the hood than it appears at first glance and can be far more exciting and interesting at a moment's notice, when you're feeling sporty.
And that's it. King Harv's The Brain Coffee, now on sale for $19.95. A coffee for all seasons.
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