Espresso - B Found the straight shot to be good: quite light and good good balance. Predominant flavours were caramel, hazelnut, with quite limited chocolate. I usually like more intensity, chocolate, and complexity.
Cappuccino - C Found the cappuccino to be too light for my taste as I got really light caramel taste.
Packaging - D Seemed packaged by cafe in small open brown bags that were not sealed and without any roast date.
Buying Experience - D Bought at Harvest Cafe in the Beaches area of Toronto. Paid $9 for half a pound. Indicated that I had heard about it on Coffeegeek, and wanted to try it. Ordered an espresso shot. Was charged $2 plus tax. A double shot was made into 2 cups. Shot visibly ran too fast. I was given 1 cup and the other cup was thrown out. Seems quite ungenerous because I had already spent the $9 on the coffee. Shot tasted too light and watery. Gave a polite feedback of this, and was given back a grunt. Never buying from this place again. Too bad because it is close to my house.
Would be interested in other opinions as I may have been unduly harsh on the coffee based on a bad buying experience.
Hi Mike, Kaelin McCowan here, owner of Detour. I'm sorry that your experience wasn't completely satisfactory. A couple things to let you know. Harvest is owned by someone that I've known since I was a kid, and I decided to supply them even though I wouldn't consider them a "quality focused" cafe. I did my best when they opened to teach them on their machine and since then staff has changed. Packaging was done by them, which isn't ideal but I too have commited to paper (as I encourage people to buy fresh coffee weekly). After 4 months of waiting I will finally have custom printed bags arriving next week which will be made available to wholesale clients to use. At my roastery outlet and at other wholesale clients that I prepackage the coffee for, I always stamp the roast date of the product. I will request that Harvest indicate the roast date on bags should they decide to bag coffee in the future. I'm also sure that the coffee you purchased was likely up to three weeks off the roast, as that was the last time I delivered to them. I appreciate you posting about your experience. It is a difficult position to be in as a roaster if a cafe isn't quite doing justice in representing your product. I don't take your review as a slight to my product at all and I'm glad to have the opportunity to reply.
If you were looking to experience a better representation of my coffee I would recommend visiting either Bisogno Espresso Bar on Sherbourne, or Hanks on Church, both of which pull Punch Buggy delivered weekly. I also do a custom espresso for Dark Horse Espresso at their original location. Finally, I would be happy to drop by a fresh lb of Punch Buggy for you to try again. Send me an email via our website and I'll drop it off to you.
Kaelin, Thank you very much for your complete and thoughtful response and offer. I will follow up with you through email to arrange the extra pound. I had been following your evolution through your blog, and I was excited that Toronto was getting an artisan roaster that was now roasting for some of the top cafes in the city. My initial review might have been a little too harsh as I had high expectations. In my mind I was comparing your coffee with some of my favourite blends (Counter Culture La Forza and Caffe Artigiano Espresso Blend by 49th Parallel), and of course against my personal taste. I would give those blends "A" grades. So I hope people realize that I am generally stingy. I was not comparing against my favourite Toronto blends (Everyday Coffee in SLM) which I find to be in the "B" to "C" range as well. I am looking forward to trying a new pound, and will post back some comments after, thanks, Mike
My terrible buying experience has been totally repaired by Kaelin, as he has really followed up with me in terms of very quickly providing me some replacement coffee (delivered to my door), and some further samples to try (Dark Horse Roast - single origin, and a single origin Sidamo). He also got to the bottom of my original purchase which was about 2 months old coffee. I usually buy coffee in their prime (1 week after roast) and vacuumed pack, so I never really did a comparison between freshly roasted and stale. This little experience has proven hands down the difference to me.
Now to the Punch Buggy Espresso itself which was very different compared to the blend that I tasted before which was 2 months stale ...
Espresso: B+ Found it much brighter, intense and complex while maintaining the balance that I initially liked. I found quite a bit more dark chocolate, and now tasted the earthiness especially on the finish. The previous caramel that was predominant seemed to disappear into an overall sweetness in the underlying background. The brightness (acidity) was sometimes a little overwhelming (I usually like very little brightness) and its appearance was very sensitive to my technique. This also happens a lot for me with Epic Espresso. I find I really have to get all the parameters right on as it is very sensitive with the equipment I have - Silvia/Rocky, but I ocassionally get lucky and get a really good shot. Also I started getting mounds more crema with the fresh espresso as compared to medium amounts before with the stale.
Cappucinno: B+ Much better results as the acidity helped a lot with providing much stronger flavours in the milk. Earthiness and fruitiness all came out with overall smoothness on a background of chocolate. I usually love chocolate in my cappuccinos, and probably would have liked with my taste if there was more chocolate, but still a very nice blenc in milk.
Overall, my favourite Toronto blend.
I will post some more thoughts once I try the Dark Horse Espresso more and the Sidamo.
Some followup on the single origin (SO) espressos from Detour that I tried during the last 2 weeks.
To start off with something that made me say Wow. My new favourite single origin and among the top 3 espressos coffees that I've had: the Sidamo special prep coffee. It has been very good consistently for me. I like it's complexity in terms of many flavours it has, it's sweetness, and lack of acidity. Probably also happens to be a great fit with the Silvia temperatures that I happen to do. In cappacinnos, it is very smooth and provides lots of sweetiness and fruitiness. Apparently, this was the base of the blend that Momi from Dark Horse used in competition. The bad news is that there is none of this left. Kaelin, did mention that he does have another similar lot and some Yigarecheffe that is very nice as well.
Secondly Brazilian SO that is used by Dark Horse. Overall nothing that I was crazy about. It definitely has some unique flavours. I get some wineyness and fruitiness in the espresso, some pumpkin flavours for some strange reason with limited chocolate. In cappacinnos, it was quite faint with faint earthiness but needed a bit more complexity in my opinion.. Apparently this is quite different from the results that Dark Horse produces with its equipment.
Conclusions after having tried the PB, Sidamo, and Dark Horse? I will be looking for more Ethipian SO from Detour. Having loved the Sidamo, I will hope for similar from a different lot or the Yigarcheffe.
Some followup on the single origin (SO) espressos from Detour that I tried during the last 2 weeks.
To start off with something that made me say Wow. My new favourite single origin and among the top 3 espressos coffees that I've had: the Sidamo special prep coffee. It has been very good consistently for me. I like it's complexity in terms of many flavours it has, it's sweetness, and lack of acidity. Probably also happens to be a great fit with the Silvia temperatures that I happen to do. In cappacinnos, it is very smooth and provides lots of sweetiness and fruitiness. Apparently, this was the base of the blend that Momi from Dark Horse used in competition. The bad news is that there is none of this left. Kaelin, did mention that he does have another similar lot and some Yigarecheffe that is very nice as well.
Secondly Brazilian SO that is used by Dark Horse. Overall nothing that I was crazy about. It definitely has some unique flavours. I get some wineyness and fruitiness in the espresso, some pumpkin flavours for some strange reason with limited chocolate. In cappacinnos, it was quite faint with faint earthiness but needed a bit more complexity in my opinion.. Apparently this is quite different from the results that Dark Horse produces with its equipment.
Conclusions after having tried the PB, Sidamo, and Dark Horse? I will be looking for more Ethipian SO from Detour. Having loved the Sidamo, I will hope for similar from a different lot or the Yigarcheffe.
So I stopped by Detour on my way home, and ran into Kaelin. He told me they were closed... normally open from Thurs-Sunday (if i remember correctly), but told me he had no problem selling me beans. I grabbed a pound of punch buggy that were roasted that morning. While I was there he asked me if I wanted to try a shot, and poured me a SO from Ethiopia. I was floored with the fruitiness of it. He described it as a 'fun' espresso shot every now and then, but really suggested it for milk based drinks.
I gave the Punch Buggy Blend 4 days and just opened her up today. I was expecting to fiddle around with Rocky to get her dialed in and was expecting to throw away a few shots. Turns out my first shot was PERFECT! Tons of crema.
I'm not as descriptive as Mike when it comes to cupping or describing flavours but I thoroughly enjoyed the blend and would definately return to buy more when I'm out that way. I'm hoping Kaelin's business thrives and we see him in Dundas for years to come. Next time I'll ask how he got about naming the blend.
Tomorrow I'm off to see Craig A, who's gonna install a PID on my sylvia for me. I'll bring some Punch Buggy with me and we'll see what he thinks of it.
Some people are like slinkies. They're good for nothing but they will put a smile on your face when you push them down the stairs.
So I stopped by Detour on my way home, and ran into Kaelin. He told me they were closed... normally open from Thurs-Sunday (if i remember correctly), but told me he had no problem selling me beans. I grabbed a pound of punch buggy that were roasted that morning. While I was there he asked me if I wanted to try a shot, and poured me a SO from Ethiopia. I was floored with the fruitiness of it. He described it as a 'fun' espresso shot every now and then, but really suggested it for milk based drinks.
I gave the Punch Buggy Blend 4 days and just opened her up today. I was expecting to fiddle around with Rocky to get her dialed in and was expecting to throw away a few shots. Turns out my first shot was PERFECT! Tons of crema.
Excellent!
I'm not as descriptive as Mike when it comes to cupping or describing flavours but I thoroughly enjoyed the blend and would definately return to buy more when I'm out that way. I'm hoping Kaelin's business thrives and we see him in Dundas for years to come. Next time I'll ask how he got about naming the blend.
Yeah, I'm curious about the name 'Punch Buggy' too.
Tomorrow I'm off to see Craig A, who's gonna install a PID on my sylvia for me. I'll bring some Punch Buggy with me and we'll see what he thinks of it.
It'll be great to hook up Mark & I can handly wait!!
Good to hear some more enjoyment of Detour coffee in the GTA.
Troll - on site, did you try the dry-processed Yirgacheffe as the SO espresso? I got some Yrigacheffe pre-Christmas from Bisogno downtown, but came down with a cold before trying it too much depth.
Craig - curious to hear your thoughts when you try it.
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