What We're Loving Right Now as Espresso: Drama Jarama Everybody!

March 15, 2021 3 min read

Have you tried our latest coffee release Drama yet?

Look no further, as we have the perfect coffee for your brew bar! Whether you have an espresso setup at home or a filter coffee setup.

Typically, whenever we purchase and roast one of our coffees selected for our filter/ single origin collections, we like to try it as espresso at its filter roast profile. We do this because we are intrigued to see how all of our coffees perform using various brewing methods, to see if it is a dual purpose kind of coffee (filter and espresso), and hey, we just love trying and experimenting with coffee (you can say we are coffee nerds)! We have been pulling shots of Drama all week long and we are loving it!

When dialing in Drama from Rwanda, we found that a heavier than normal dry and wet weight is crucial. Also, a coarser than normal grind setting of our signature Madcat espresso is a must. This is generally how we like to dial in single origin coffees since we roast them lighter than Madcat (more on this another time).

When dialed in and with a brewing ratio of 1:2.25 (espresso:water), we can extract beautiful notes of milk chocolate and sweet candied orange peel, and maybe even candied lemons drops! We have tried it on its own (as an espresso / short black / americano) and with milk. At the shop, we prefer cortados as our choice of milk based coffee beverage as a 1:1 ratio of espresso:milk complements espresso really well. We find that with milk, Drama tastes like a creamy key lime pie.

Why did we name it Drama?

"Drama is a play on words for the Jarama washing station. Our favourite Rwanda coffees have always been from the West-facing mountains beside lake Kivu. One taste of this sweet complex sample had us knowing we needed to bring it in to share."

- Graham

A little bit about the farm where Drama is from:

Cyiya is a small community with a high elevation and distinct forest influence that contribute great potential to the coffee. Thanks to the farmers making the most of this potential, Cyiya’s coffee is annually among the top lots processed by the Jarama CWS.

Kivubelt was established in 2011 by Furaha Umwizey, after returning to Rwanda with a master’s degree in economics from Switzerland. Born and raised in Rwanda, Umwizey’s goal with Kivubelt is to create a model coffee plantation, as sustainable in agriculture as it is impactful in local employment and empowerment. The company began with 200 scattered acres of farmland in Gihombo, a community in Rwanda’s coffee-famous Nyamasheke district that runs along the breathtaking central shoreline of Lake Kivu.

Under Umwizey’s leadership, Kivubelt has planted 90,000 coffee trees on their estates, which now employ more than 400 people during harvest months and is a kind of coffee vocational school for local smallholders interested in improving their farming. Kivubelt has also acquired two washing stations, Murundo and Jarama, which combined not only process coffee from the company’s estates, but also that of more than 500 smallholders in the region, offering quality premiums and training programs for participating farming families.

Our Espresso Machine Specifications:

Temperature: 203 °F
Pressure: 9 bars
Pre-infusion: 6 seconds
TDS of the Water: 75ppm

Our Espresso Recipe for Drama:

Dry Weight: 20 grams
Wet Weight: 45 grams
Time: 28-32 seconds
Grind Size (On A Weber Workshops EG-1 Grinder): between 5 to 5.5

Don't know how to dial in espresso? Did this post leave you with a lot of questions?

Sign up and pre-order our Espresso Theory Online Course to learn how to dial in the perfect espresso! Or register for our 1:1 Online Training Session and we will get you up and running and pulling espresso shots like the pros in no time!

Start pulling shots of Drama now!

Happy Sipping!