Brasil Deterra “Opus” Coffee, 49th Parallel Roasters, $19.95 per lb.
You may have read about this coffee recently – it’s the “low caffeine” coffee that Deterra issued big time press releases about. Let me get this first part out of the way – it’s all so much fluffery! Here’s some real facts: most true specialty coffee (the stuff I write about, for eg), usually contains 1.2% caffeine by volume (more on that below); sure, some arabica beans can have as much as 1.5% by volume depending on a) how crappy and low-grown the coffee is, b) how dark it is roasted (darker means more remaining caffeine, again, see below), and c) what subspecies of arabica it is. But the fact is, most of the super grade quality arabica coffees you see at the true specialty roasters are a) high grown, b) low yeild, c) roasted lighter, and d) a variety of other factors that lead to an average caffeine content of 1.2%. That means that 100 grams of coffee will have 1.2g of caffeine.
This Opus stuff claims to have 1g of caffeine per 100g of coffee. Or .2g less (by weight, or 20% less overall, something like that) less than normal high grade coffee.
Okay, with that out of the way, this is still an amazing coffee! See, caffeine is one of nature’s most bitter substances – so much so that the FDA uses pure caffeine as its “bitter” component in its formalized “super taster” testing – and by being so bitter, caffeine is required to play off the fats, sweets, and salts in the coffee bean to provide balance. And it works well in the ratios for Opus because this coffee has major body and a nice even sweetness. The bitters balance near perfectly for my palate.
First thing I noticed in the taste was sweet almonds and dark (but not overly bitter) chocolate. As it cools in the cup, fruits come into play, and the chocolate mellows out to a more milk chocolate taste. It’s very versatile too: not only was every brewing method I threw at it tasting great (I didn’t do it as espresso though), but I’m still going through my bag, and I’ve also noticed that it holds well, staling very slowly.
If you brew a six cup press with this coffee, it will have about 400mg of caffeine for the entire volume. By comparison, most other quality arabicas will have around 500-525mg for the same volume; so there are some minor benefits here – basically you can drink 20% more coffee for the same “caffeine” hit. But forget all that – order some just for the taste!
Mark has certified as a Canadian, USA, and World Barista Championship Judge in both sensory and technical fields, as well as working as an instructor in coffee and espresso training. He started CoffeeGeek in 2001.
