At the Toraja Mountain Coffee roasting facility, we were honored by a visit from Dawn Streich, Global Product Manager at Givaudan - the world’s largest flavor and fragrance company.
The Swiss-based company tests, formulates and produces many of the flavors and scents you encounter in everyday life. And Dawn leads their citrus department. Through mutual connections, she agreed to come by for a private tasting to check for any off flavors, confirm our tasting notes and offer her professional opinion on our coffees.
Before we even get to that stuff, let us just say, Dawn is an amazing person. We are forever thankful to her for the visit and for her spirit in general.
Back to business. We presented Dawn with three of our coffees. All prepared in a fresh pour-over. 20 grams of beans each, almost coarsely ground, as is best with pour over. Also, it’s important to note that tasting coffee can be a literally exciting, energetic experience, so you definitely want enough to taste, without getting super-amped for the rest of the day.
Dawn tested Utara Light, Sapan and Pulu Pulu, in that order. The following is a summation of her notes.
Utara Light
- Definitely fruity
- Meant to be drank black, without cream and sugar
- Dawn’s favorite of the three
Sapan
- Noted deeper flavor
- High caffeine, light roast
- Cherry and almond share a flavor compound called benzaldehyde
Pulu Pulu
- “Wow, coconut!” - comment from Dawn upon opening the bean container
- Richest flavor
- Semi-sweet chocolate flavor very pronounced
General Notes
- No off flavors
- Tasting notes confirmed
- Overall delicious coffee
- Def packs some caffeine
Needless to say, we’re grateful to have a professional like Dawn taste our coffee. We’re even more excited that Dawn confirmed our tasting notes and found our coffee to be tasty.
This is great news for us, but even better news for our customers. This approval makes us even more excited to share our coffee with you and gives us confidence that we can, in fact, make everyday taste better. From the beginning.
