Roasted

The Roasted Raw Puer That Blurs the Line Between Sheng and Yancha

The Roasted Raw Puer That Blurs the Line Between Sheng and Yancha

Real talk: This Suzuca roasted raw puer isn’t just a tea—it’s a conversation between two worlds. The first steep unfurls a delicate balance of sheng grassiness and yancha’s fruity stonefruit, with sweetness arriving early and ashiness holding back. It’s a rare moment where the tea doesn’t force its personality but invites you to linger. By the third steep, the flavors shift subtly: the initial bite softens, giving way to a base of sweet peanut/sesame notes and hints of yancha’s signature stonefruit. The tea feels alive, oscillating between freshness and roast without ever leaning too far in either direction. What makes…
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The Metallic Taste in My Self-Roasted Coffee—And Why It’s Ruining My Cups

The Metallic Taste in My Self-Roasted Coffee—And Why It’s Ruining My Cups

Real talk: I’m stuck in a loop of bad roasts. Every batch of self-roasted Arara coffee from Brazil’s 880m altitude ends up tasting like someone poured rusted nails into my cup. The metallic, dirty, and vaguely metallic note hits at minute 6, smothering the rest of the profile. It’s not the beans—it’s the same coffee, same roast, same setup, and sometimes it’s great. Other times? A nightmare. The problem is laser-focused: a metallic tang that lingers like a bad memory. It appears consistently around 6 minutes into the roast, regardless of weight loss (11-13%), and refuses to let the coffee…
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