#50 – Traffic Coffee Co, Half-Caf PBJ

COUNTRY: Brazil
VARIETAL: Castillo, Colombia and Paraiso
ALTITUDE: 1200 – 1800 MASL
PROCESS: Pulped natural, ethyl-acetate decaffeination and banana co-ferment.
ROAST: Light-Medium

EXTRACTION SETTINGS

Equipment: DF54 Grinder, Gaggia Classic Pro E24, Hario V60,
Grind setting: 5.5 (espresso) // 90.0 (filter)
Dose in / yield out: 18.0g in / 42.0g out
Extraction time: 25 seconds
Other notes: 18g IMS precision basket, 1.0mm puck screen, fresh and frozen beans.

This quite the milestone coffee as is my 50th logged coffee. I’m very happy that this turned out to be a very special bag. The moment I saw Traffic Coffee PBJ sitting on a shelf amongst other speciality bags – I could not take my eyes off it. It is striking – a big toasted slice of bread with the roasters brand name burnt lightly on it. On the front, slices of banana poke out from under our toased slice. The banana slices slapped onto bed of lumpy peanut butter. When you flip it over, you see the ‘back’ of the sandwich where the bread remains toasted but a deep red jam spills out of it instead of the nut butter.

I knew I had to buy it and take it home with me. However, the bag in store was a little ‘too old’ having been roasted 5 weeks prior. I wasn’t heading back home for another 2 weeks so it would certainly be too hold when I got back to the UK. I left that bag in store with the hopes I could find a fresher one. After some Googling, I found out that Traffic were based in Quebec and they offered free delivery in the province I was staying in. I ordered a bag online and got it sent to my AirBnB. Within a matter of days, my friendly UPS driver had dropped off the parcel and I now had a bag of PBJ beans that was only 3 days old in my hands.

I love that this coffee is a half-caf and this was actually the first time I had come across the concept of a blend of decaffinated and caffinated beans in the same bag. This is great news for someone with such a sensitivive stomach (like me) or if are sensitive to caffeine (also me).

Traffic Coffees PBJ is suprisingly acidic and not necessarily in a flavour sense. The one superpower of having chronic reflux is that if a coffee is inherently acidic, I feel it in my body within minutes of drinking it. When I take a sip of this drink, hot or cold, I feel my throat getting tight (not in a I can’t breathe way – please don’t worry) which is one of my symptoms of reflux. Regardless, it’s never uncomfortable so I continue merrily sipping away.

I tried this coffee in a few different ways but I found that this banana-cofermented bean seems to shine when over ice and with milk. The peanut and jammy sweetness are punchier, louder and incredibly face forward when you drink it this way. Traffic even say this on their website and recommend that you have it over ice, with coconut milk and a coconut cream whip for extra indulgance. I am not yet a converted coconut milk girlie so I stuck to my soya milk and a little bit of homemade vanilla syrup and it was pretty blooming magical this way.

🤎 🤎 🤎 🤎 ( 4 / 5 ) Balanced, complex, fresh and impressive.

FLAVOUR PROFILE

– Flavour: Peanut butter, banana and jam
– Acidity: Rounded and jammy.
– Body: Creamy milkshake vibes.
– Finish: Clean and quick.

A BIT ABOUT THE PRODUCERS

A new generation of farmers known as Bioma Cafe is run by Marcelo Assis and Flavio Silva in Finca Ohlos D’agua, Brazil. This pair runs a ‘small’ 229 hectar plot in Cerrado Mineiro that sits on the cutting edge of speciality coffee in Brazil – a reputation that Brazil hasn’t been well known for in the past. The team has spent years planting rare and unusual varietals (for example the Paraiso in this bag which is a cross between a Timor hybrid and Yellow Cautai varietals). These varietals and new processing techniques like 72 hours of aneorobic fermentation followed by a 15 day drying period in greenhouses, have landed them to win awards in areas like the experimental processing category in Brazil.

Bioma Cafe’s motto is simple but strong – ‘coffee for a better future’ and this drives all they do. They are dedicated to improving the health of their farms soil by utilising Marcelo’s formal agricultural training. They have highly customised soil nutrition plans for each individual plot and have worked to produce their own fully organic fertiliser. They also invest in their community and technologies to continue elevating this regions slice of the speciality coffee pie.

Coffee Log