Costa Rican Tarrazú

Every so often a cup makes you rethink what you're asking a coffee to do, and Gigawatt's Costa Rican Tarrazú did that to me, mostly because of how it's roasted. Almost all coffee, north of ninety percent of it, is roasted in a drum: the beans tumble against hot metal, which builds body and those familiar caramelized, toasty notes most of us grew up on. Gigawatt goes the other way, with a fluid-bed air roaster, where the beans roast suspended in a column of hot air and never touch a hot surface. It's an uncommon approach, and the payoff they're chasing is clarity: a light roast that stays clean and bright and lets the bean's own character come through instead of the roast's. The Tarrazú, they'll tell you, is where that shows best.

Gigawatt's site mentions brew guides are on the way, so in the meantime I went with the ratio I've been running for my current field leader, 25-27 grams to 400ml of water, a Chemex pour-over with a little extra spine to it. As I dial that in specifically to this coffee, I could see it nudging up a tier. But that's part of the benefit of a living leaderboard I suppose.

The first hot sip comes in bright and floral. The roaster flags peach and orange blossom up front, and the orange blossom is exactly what leads, a high, aromatic note with a fresh edge of acidity behind it and a touch of earthiness underneath. It's a lot of character right at the top of the cup, and it's genuinely the clarity they're going for, all of it distinct and legible rather than blended into one roasty note.

Then it gets better as it cools. The bright edge rounds down and melds into peach and brown sugar, the two notes off their list I'll confirm without hesitation, and the cup settles into something warm and easy to drink. The body is fuller than I expected without going syrupy, and the flavors stay separate and clean the whole way down. For the record it's a washed lot from the Dota corner of Tarrazú, grown high by the CoopeTarrazú cooperative, and it drinks like that pedigree once it opens up.

This is a good cup, and a Worth A Try with clear room to climb. The one honest thing keeping it there for me today is that it's at its best a few minutes in, once it's cooled and pulled together, and I'm partial to a coffee that arrives fully formed in that first hot sip. As I get to know Gigawatt's rhythm and dial in my brew, I can genuinely see this, or another bag of theirs, landing as a Take My Money.

The air-roasting is the part I'd actually send you toward. It's new to me, and it left me reconsidering what I should be asking a light roast to do. If you've been drinking the same drum-roasted coffee for years, Gigawatt is a clean, honest way to feel what the method changes and sharpen what you want out of a cup. Worth a try, and worth the curiosity.