$12.50 | 12 oz.

Spice and dried apricot notes with a delicious, syrupy body.

 
Origins:

• Sumatra: Aceh Bakit
• Ethiopia: Longberry Harrar
• Guatemala: Acafesam Coop

Cultivars: Typica, Bourbon, Heirloom cultivars
Processing Method: Swiss Water Decaffeination process
 
Mokha-Java is a classic coffee blend (perhaps the first well-known blend). Its namesake comes from coffees from Yemen blended with coffees from Java, in the Indonesian archipelago, but now commonly encompasses East African coffees with other Indonesian coffees. The classic profile of a low-toned, full-bodied Indonesian coffees is a perfect compliment to the floral or fruity East African coffees.

Contrary to popular belief, Mokha has no reference to chocolate, but rather refers to the historical Red Sea port city in Yemen. The origin of the chocolate association is murky at best!

What started (like most roasters, really) as a hobby in 2000, roasting coffee at home provided us with something that was at first pretty awful, but FRESH, and that was immediately noticeable and provided impetus to continue. Over time with many, many batches of botched beans, tons of research, reading, and trade shows, things have dramatically improved! But the truth is, roasting coffee is a craft, and you never really master a craft but rather continue to learn and hone your skills.

Red Rover Coffee is a labor of love. We love discovering new coffees, learning more about where they’re grown and how we can make a difference in the lives of the people responsible for growing, harvesting and processing it. We also love our time behind the table at the farmers’ markets telling the stories and sharing our passion! We’re also passionate about the “eat local” movement: and while coffee isn’t grown in New England, the end product is perishable and is best purchased from a local roaster.

While we originally operated out of a commercial space at the Mills at Salmon Falls in Rollinsford, New Hampshire, in the summer of 2011 we reviewed our business plan and decided to bring the business home and spent that summer getting relicensed by the State of New Hampshire. Our “boutique” type of operation allows us to focus on what brings us the most joy: the coffee, rather than the burden of continually building new business. On the other hand, it requires that we both still have “day jobs”.

Give us a shout! We love to hear feedback about our product. And please, don’t keep us a secret…if you love what we’re doing, tell a friend!

$12.50 | 12 oz.

Rich and full-bodied, our Winter Solstice Blend is the perfect cup to start your morning or warm up after discovering the peaceful stillness of a winter day.

You’ll never go wrong with our Everyday Joe seasonal blends. Always smooth and satisfying—coffee with broad appeal.

$12.50 | 12 oz.

A delicious full-bodied coffee with an enticing sweetness that continually unfolds as it cools revealing something new.

Origin: Nicaragua
Region: Mozonte, Nueva Segovia
Mill: Beneficio Las Segovias
Cultivar: Maragogype
Altitude: 1350-1700 meters
Processing Method: Wet Process

The Story:
This coffee comes from the farm of Luis Alberto Balladarez Moncada, who runs Las Segovias mill as well. The farm name means “A Gift from God” and reflects the convictions of the owner. It was recognized as the best Nicaragua coffee in the Coffee of the Year competition at SCAA in 2010 (with a solid but not sky-high 85.5 points). Then it won 3rd place in the Cup of Excellence in 2010 with a more impressive 91.3 points, a Presidential Award score. They donated all their CoE proceeds, no small amount of money, to a home building project and church in the area of the farm. Sr. Ballardarez is a new owner of the farm, but his family has deep roots in coffee farming.

This is a single cup manual brewer.

One would think that with something that’s been around as long as coffee, it’d be pretty tough to come up with a revolutionary new brewing device. Particularly a manual one. But, here it is!

Allow me to clarify. The process itself isn’t revolutionary. It’s good ol’ full-immersion brewing (meaning the ground coffee steeps in hot water), yet looks like a pour-over cone.  The ingenious thing about this device is the built-in stopper. When sitting on the counter, the stopper is closed, but when placed on a cup, a bottom plate pushes up on the stopper, allowing the contents to drain. Brilliant!

And therein lies the beauty of this little brewer: depth of flavor from full-immersion brewing yet no sediment, plus the easy clean-up of a filter cone.

We love this little brewer, and it’s pretty much idiot-proof, a good thing when stumbling into the kitchen in the morning.

So let’s get started…

What you’ll need:

• Abid Clever Dripper brewer
• Hot water kettle
• Fresh filtered or bottled water
• #4 paper filter
• Grinder
• Fresh roasted coffee
• Timer
• Spoon
• Cup

We like to use 26g of coffee (roughly 5 tablespoons) and 350ml of water (about 12 oz.).

1. Make sure your equipment is squeaky clean.
2. Measure out and begin heating your water.
3. Fold down the seams of your filter and place it in the cone. Rinse the filter well with hot water (not your brewing water!) and allow to drain through.
4. Grind your coffee to a medium-coarse grind, a little coarser than drip, a little finer than French press.
5. Place ground coffee into filter.
6. When the water boils, remove from the heat source, count to 45…
7. Start your timer for 4 minutes.
8. Pour just enough water to wet the grounds and allow them to swell, about 30 seconds.
9. Continue pouring the rest of the water in a circular pattern about the size of a silver dollar right in the center—avoid the sides of the filter.
10. After about a minute, gently push the grounds at the top into the liquid with a little stir. Gently being the operative term here.
11. Place the lid on the Clever Dripper.
12. When the timer goes off, place the filter cone on your mug, it will now drain through the filter and into your cup.
13. Give your brew a quick stir and enjoy!

$12.50 | 12 oz.

A well-developed “roasty” flavor with notes of bittersweet chocolate and cherry.

 
Black Lab Deep Roast is our first year-round blend from the Everyday Joe Project. While the components of this blend will still change from season to season, the deep-roast flavor profile will remain. This blend is designed specifically for drip/pourover and full-immersion brewing methods, and rounds out beautifully in milk-based drinks. Dark roast fans, this one’s for you!

$12.50 | 12 oz.

An earthy and herbal cup, this coffee is roasted
dark enough to develop the flavor while maintaining its full body.

 
Origin: Sumatra
Region: Dolok Sanggul, Lintong
Cultivar: Ateng, Djember, TimTim
Processing Method: Wet-hulled

The Story:
Dolok Sanggul is a local marketplace for coffees from the area; once a week the farmers gather to sell their parchment coffee to trusted vendors, who “collect” it on behalf of specific mills, or as freelancers. The mill our importer works with has certain farmers from higher altitude areas, and who produce a very clean, high-quality parchment coffee. That’s part of the reason this has great cup character…the other is special milling and sorting practices. We offer the top grade, specially- prepared Lintong coffees as Blue Batak in honor of the Toba Batak people. Blue Batak is a near-zero defect preparation, without the usual split beans, broken pieces and crud found in standard Sumatras. It is carefully density sorted and triple-hand-sorted.

Every roaster has a different motivation for blending coffee, from creating a signature flavor profile that can be associated with their particular brand, to the less-than-noble intentions of blending cheap, inferior coffees with a small amount of better coffee to pad the bottom line. This latter type of blend generally reduces all the coffees included to their lowest common denominator and is unfortunately far too common.

For Red Rover, the genesis of the Everyday Joe Project began with my desire to create something more than just another “house blend”. It seemed to me that each coffee in our inventory possessed a unique attribute that when combined in just the right manner could create something more than simply the sum of its parts. Our challenge however, was that we didn’t have a large enough inventory to create any one blend for any length of time. This was my “aha” moment: we could create seasonal blends that evolved with our current inventory with the baseline idea of keeping it approachable and easy to enjoy: a blend with broad appeal. The Everyday Joe Project was born!

The Evolution of the Everyday Joe Project

With the continuation of our seasonal Everyday Joe blends (now with names reflecting the season), we will also be adding two additional new blends to the Everyday Joe lineup:

Everyday Joe: Black Lab Deep Roast—the result of a common request for a deep, smoky roast of the French roast style. This blend will focus more on a rich, deep roast flavor that will pair particularly well with milk or cream.

And finally will be our release of Everyday Joe: Blue Heeler Espresso—blended specifically for espresso machines.

Ahhhh. The perfect cup! But now that you’ve poured it into your favorite mug, what do you do with the rest of it?

Get it off that hotplate! Adding heat to freshly brewed coffee will “cook” your carefully prepared pot and destroy the delicate aromatics in no time flat. So what to do instead? Preheat a thermal carafe (if you automatic drip maker doesn’t have one already) with some hot water, pour that water out, then pour your coffee in.

A freshly brewed coffee is meant to be enjoyed immediately. A thermal carafe will help preserve the flavor for at least 30 minutes, but much longer than that you will notice a flavor shift. Just because it’s hot doesn’t mean it’s fresh!

So what are the alternatives? Consider brewing by-the-cup. Brewing just what you’ll enjoy at one sitting will ensure you’re getting the most from your coffee. There are any number of by-the-cup options: the Aeropress, the Abid Clever Dripper, the Hario V60 cone, not to mention the countless of other pourover cones by Beehouse, Bonmac, Melitta and others. All of them have slightly different techniques, some of which we cover in our Brewing Guide. A quick Google search will also turn up many YouTube videos with great guidance.

A final thought on brewing: Understanding the “how” and “why” of brewing will arm you with what you need to make delicious coffee. And here’s the beauty part: the knowledge is cumulative. Even applying one element to your routine will make your coffee that much tastier. Just remember though: garbage in—garbage out. The coffee and the water you use is key…otherwise it’s just lipstick on a pig.

Dwell time is the amount of time ground coffee is in contact with water. This is when the magic happens. When hot water is added to freshly ground coffee, a creamy foam is created known as bloom. Bloom occurs when gasses are released and the coffee oils are emulsified through agitation—by either how the water is poured into the bed of grounds or by stirring.

Dwell time is different depending on brewing method. For drip-type methods and full immersion brewing (e.g., French press or Clever Dripper), 4 minutes is common. Espresso, on the other hand, is brewed under enormous pressure (9 bars) and is fully extracted in 25-30 seconds.

Now if you’re thinking, “I like really strong coffee, so I’ll let it brew for longer than 4 minutes”, you’ll be unpleasantly surprised. Over-extracted coffee can be bitter. Under-extracted coffee on the other hand can be just dull and under developed.

While not rocket science, brewing a good cup of coffee is a careful balance of quality, freshly roasted coffee, the correct water temperature, the appropriate grind size, clean equipment, and appropriate dwell time. Check out our brewing guide under the “Learn About Coffee” tab at the top for details on our favorite brewing methods.

We’re almost finished, but there’s one more item to consider: keeping it hot…