Let’s go for something a little different, with this blog post. Let’s review a coffee.
I like coffee. I tend to prefer a dark roast. I’m picky about my dark roasts, though, because it’s super easy to get it wrong. It really feels like some roasters probably don’t care for dark roasts and think people like it for the burned flavor or something, so a lot end up tasting a bit burned. They’re bitter and harsh, and have lingering aftertastes that make you feel like you just ate some carbon.
Top Of The Mornin Coffee is jacksepticeye ’s coffee company, which debuted with a dark roast called Midnight Oil Blend. Dark roasts are easy because, as coffee experts will note, cheaper coffee will lean to the darker side of the roast to hide its imperfections. But, as I noted, if the roaster isn’t super into dark roasts, they tend to focus way too much on aspects of it that aren’t really what people want. So starting with a dark roast is easy if you’re not confident in your beans, and you’re selling to an audience who will buy it because of who is selling it.
It’s worth noting that Top Of The Mornin Coffee is a coffee company in name only. They do not grow, harvest, source, process, nor roast coffee. It’s a label on a white box company that caters to online influencers, called Akira Coffee Co . Supposedly they do use specialty beans, but at the price point they sell, they’re definitely sourcing from wherever beans are available that meet their criteria for their price target and other product goals.
While I’m no coffee expert, nor would I really consider myself a coffee nerd, elitist, etc, I am picky about my coffee. So I decided to see if Sean knows a thing or two about coffee or if he really is just slapping his name on a white box coffee brand.
When I first opened the bag, I got worried. It smelled burned. The color indicates a dark roast and the sheen indicates a particularly long roasting period. Since I had just received it in the mail and I was not looking to consume a lot of caffeine so late in the day, I waited until the next morning to try it.
I use a coffee brewer called the American Press . This produces a pretty dang good cup of coffee once you get all the timing right, and it’s super easy to clean.
And my fears were confirmed.
It’s bitter with a fairly strong carbony taste, with a long lingering carbony aftertaste. It’s not good. It’s burned.
It’s not the worst I’ve had in this regard. Honestly, Black Rifle Coffee’s Freedom Fuel is worse. At least with Top Of The Mornin I could taste that there was some coffee in there somewhere.
I had bought an interesting looking bag of coffee from the local grocery store recently from Counter Culture . Since a good cup of coffee helps kick off the day, I decided to also try this one out. Definitely helped adjust my mindset a bit as it tasted far better and took away some of that lingering aftertaste. It’s still a commercial coffee, and it’s also cheaper.
I might give Sean’s medium roast a go. Top Of The Mornin does sell a light and medium roast along with the dark roast, so I’m not, yet, ready to give up on it. If over-roasting is a problem, maybe the medium is really where I need to be.
For now, I’ve got plenty of coffee to get me by so it’ll be a while before I give that a shot. But, I gotta say, the Midnight Oil Blend is a swing and a miss.
It’s worth noting that Akira Coffee Co partners with Feya Foundation , a global charity to help underserved communities.
Their mission:
The Feya Foundation connects individuals, resources and aid globally to empower underserved communities. We work to provide meals, clean water, soap, education and more to those facing extreme poverty.
By extension, the influencers who sell Akira’s coffee are part of those sales contributions. This means buying Top Of The Mornin products contributes to this cause.