Kurasu – Ethiopia Sidamo

This review has been very interesting and exciting for me, I’ve always wanted to review coffee from a Japanese roastery for quite some time and it’s even more exciting to review Kuraso’s coffee. I mean, the minimalistic design on the bag is just amazing and I love all of what it stands for. It’s just so beautiful!

However, that’s purely how the bag looks, but what’s in it. So what I’ve could read is that the coffee comes from the Sidamo province in Ethiopia and that this lightly roasted coffee should have the notes of “Black tea, fig, orange peel with a long aftertaste”. So let’s try it out with a traditional cupping of the coffee.

When I do a cupping I do the following:

1) Grind 11 g coffee in a medium-coarse grind, I’ll remember the coffee’s fragrances now when it is dry to compare with the let grounds later.
2) Pour 180 g of water at a temperature of 93 degrees Celsius.
3) Let it sit for 4 minutes.
4) Stir 3 times and try to find as many scents.
5) Remove all foam that’s formed on the top.
6) Wait for 6 minutes so the coffee cools down and to let the coffee grounds fall down to the bottom, then I’ll take my first slurp with a deep spoon. The idea is that you will spray the coffee inside your mouth. That way you will be able to easily recognize the tones contained in the coffee.
7) Wait for 6 minutes and do the same procedure, the reason behind step 7 is that it’s the most optimal time for tasting coffee. If the coffee is still good after 12-15 minutes, then it is a high-quality coffee!

Something else that I do is to hide the description of the bag as much as I can. Just to blind myself from every kind of information that I can read, I preferably would like a paper bag with no text on it until I reach the bottom. So I can build my own opinion without being influenced.

Cupping notes:

Sweet citrus with a toffee finish.

Recipe for the coffee:

For this coffee, I couldn’t think of any recipe other than Tetsu Kasuya’s 4:6 recipe. You can adjust as you like and that’s the genius part of his recipe. In this recipe, I lower the first pour from 60 to 50 grams of coffee to make the sweetness in the coffee greater, and that’s something I wanted to achieve with this amazing coffee.

Pour Over: 4:6 method

20 g coffee with a coarse grind
300 g filtered water
50 g blooming 45 seconds
92 degrees Celsius

1) Pour 50g water for blooming for 45 seconds.
2) 45 seconds in, begin your second pour of 70g of water.
3) 1 minute and 30 seconds in,  begin your third pour of 60g of water.
4) 2 minutes and 15 seconds in,  begin your fourth pour of 60g of water.
5) 3 minutes in,  begin your fifth pour of 60g of water.
6) Stop the dripper at 3 minutes and 30 seconds

*Always rinse the paper filter with filtered hot water, don’t forget to wash the coffee server with clean water afterward, because the taste of the paper might linger.

Review: 

I actually wrote on a paper what I expected to find in this coffee. Almost like a “hopes and dreams” thing. Anyways:

“I’ve always been in love with the Japanese culture and I try to adapt as much of their culture in foods and drinks in my everyday life. Everything is always perfect, it’s a balance between sweetness, salt, acidity, heat and I believe that this coffee will be that as well, I’ve heard a lot of good stuff about Kurasu and I believe that this coffee will be sweet with a great taste of lemon… Maybe… Have you tried Ponzu sauce? It’s a Japanese citrus sauce who consist of soy infused with citrus… This might be an overanalyze though haha!”

Well, I’m not that off right? It has that deepness that Ponzu has, and it’s also mild in its acidity, especially after the adjustment of the recipe. So… It’s not like we’re drinking hot soy sauce here, It’s just to paint a very relatable picture. The coffee is very good and I would be the happiest man alive if I could drink this every day. This might be the best coffee I’ve tried since Panama Elida Estate, but what makes this so great? It’s the whole thing! The awesome design on the bag, the lovely lightly roasted beans, the taste profile which has the perfect balance of sweetness with a pour of:

50grams > 70grams > 60grams > 60grams > 60grams

“I’m again satisfied with the treatment being natural-processed. I’m not as interested in this coffee as the one above. But I have some sort of belief regarding this roastery. I really believe in their expertise!”

I also tried it with more acidic pours (higher water content in the first pour instead of second) and it works as well, I just prefer a sweeter coffee when it comes to Ethiopian coffee. At the end of every review, I tell if you should press this or brew with a pour over. Let’s skip that, use the Hario V60 for this one. It will be great, I promise you!

Thanks for a great experience Kurasu!

Rating: 8.5/10

The rating is only based on taste and quality and is not based on price.