A little like a vanilla breakfast cereal without much cocoa flavor
Amount of grounds:
2 tablespoons per 10 oz of water
Brewing time:
8.5 minutes
Additions:
None
Reusing grounds:
Not tested
Using grounds in food:
Not recommended. Contains husk.
General Thoughts:
Overall very good. The vanilla flavor isn't overpowering, but it doesn't leave much room for the chocolate flavor. It kind of reminds me of a vanilla flavored breakfast cereal, such as Vanilla Chex.
The more I thought about the "cereal" like quality of the Vanilla Light roast, the more I was starting to suspect that it may be using the Ghana Light roast as a base. I thought maybe if I tried them side by side, I might be able to tease it out.
When I first took a sip of the Ghana Light, I noticed I didn't pick up on the slightly grainy flavor I had noticed when previously comparing it to the Ivory Coast Medium. With my recent discovery in mind of Choffy Volta and Crio Bru Ghana coming from the same place, it really made me think that they do taste very similar.
That being said, while the smell of vanilla is fairly strong in comparison, when it comes to flavor, I think that the Vanilla Light roast is based on the Ghana Light roast. If I wait a bit between tests, try the Vanilla first without fully breathing it in, and then follow it up with the Ghana roast, they really do taste very similar.
I've also been trying to switch which one I sip first recently, because I've found that the order in which I taste them can influence my view of them. When going from Ghana to Vanilla, I'm less sure of the similarities than when I go from Vanilla to Ghana.
Overall I think I like the Vanilla more just because I love vanilla, and the base flavors seem to be really close.
Update: I emailed Crio Bru to ask if they could tell me what origin they use as a base for their flavored varieties, and they said that they couldn't disclose their "blends". So it sounds like it's not just one origin used there.
I made sure to let the water sit for about 30 seconds before pouring today. Also, since we now have our second round of Crio Bru samples, and Em felt "meh" about the Nicaraguan and Venezuelan medium roasts, it means I have those to use as baselines for new varieties.
I'm a little disappointed in the Vanilla Light roast. The smell reminds me of a vanilla flavored breakfast cereal, kind of like Vanilla Chex. I tastes like the vanilla flavoring is some imitation chemical rather than anything about the real deal, but the packaging says "Natural Vanilla Flavor". When drinking it, I barely get the vanilla flavor. I know I kind of harp on this, but the whole "not being a coffee drinker" thing, I wonder how this compares to vanilla flavored coffee. When Em eventually tries it, I'll have to have her let me know.
But for now, I have to say other than the "notes of Vanilla Chex", it really doesn't taste much different than the Nicaraguan Medium roast.
While this one doesn't contribute to the rankings because of the flavor-added nature of the Vanilla roast, the first comparison was still muddied by inconsistent brewing methods.
Starting out with the vanilla, it doesn't quite have that same "vanilla chex" flavor it once seemed to have, and it doesn't come across as an imitation chemical anymore. Now it's just a pretty decent vanilla flavor with some chocolate in the aroma. Next to it, the Nicaragua comes across as pretty strongly bitter and fairly dark, but more chocolatey for sure. Going back to the vanilla after, I can pick up more on why I thought that it tasted like vanilla chex, but it's not exactly like I remembered it. Overall, I prefer the vanilla over the Nicaragua, and as a counterpoint to my original comparison, they don't taste anything alike!
I blended the very last sip of each because I've generally found that the Nicaragua tends to stick out in the blends, and I'm really curious how it does against a flavored roast. I can kind of make out the vanilla, but the Nicaragua is still pretty strong in this. That's really interesting! I wonder what makes the Nicaragua so much stronger than the other roasts. When I get to some of the really strong roasts, like Choffy's Ecuador French, I'm going to have to blend and see what happens there. The Ecuador is really strong on its own, but it tends to "blend out" and fade away in most blends.
These two are really similar. It took a bit of going back and forth before I finally started tasting the real differences between the two. The vanilla tastes a little flatter and just a hair more bitter. The flavor and aroma of the caramel is warmer and slightly sweeter and fuller. They're both really good, but I do like the caramel more.
I had a little bit of a weird experience with this one in that these two tasted way more similar than I thought they would. I think this was due to two reasons.
First, I have a little bit of a cold, so I'm probably not detecting the full flavor that I normally would. And second, I had completely forgotten until I finished it that I was comparing the vanilla against cinnamon, NOT pumpkin spice! The whole time I was thinking, "This pumpkin spice doesn't taste as strong as I remember!"
I think the reason why I didn't pick up on it being cinnamon right away is because of how I've always categorized it as kind of a bland style of cinnamon without the spice of candy and without the brown sugary sweetness of a baked good. That, and pumpkin spice has a little bit of cinnamon in in anyway. It also goes to show how much the mind moulds the experience based on what it's expecting to find.
Anyway, all of that being said, the end result is that I still like the vanilla better than the cinnamon, but I think it kind of highlights what I thought was wrong with the cinnamon in the first place. It's blandness. Bland. Bland bland bland. And now that word doesn't sound like a word anymore. Ha!
This is another one that I'm a little surprised that it's this hard to tell them apart. I can definitely taste the vanilla in the vanilla roast, but the double chocolate also has added vanilla flavor, so there's a lot of crossover. The double chocolate seems to have a flavor that is just slightly more bitter than the vanilla, which I think is just harkening back to the nature of the unsweetened chocolate. It's a really close call, but I think I like the vanilla just a tiny bit more than the double chocolate.
I was kind of hoping for the "oh wow they mix so well!" experience that had with the hazelnut and maple pairing, but it doesn't seem to be there. Or at least not very much. I tend to think of maple and vanilla as being in the same flavor family, but I guess they're not close enough in this case. I tried out the thing of mixing the two when I had less than half in each cup, and while it's not bad, there are no distinct flavors coming out of it like it did with the maple and hazelnut. It's good, but it's just not special.
Overall I like the vanilla a little more than the hazelnut.
Both of these are really good, and they're kind of flavor-adjacent. I know maple and vanilla aren't at all related, but for some reason they always seem to be in the same flavor family to me. I know that I've said before that the maple flavor clashes with the chocolate flavor a little bit, and while it's not a strong clash, it's there. I think that drinking the maple next to the vanilla kind of highlights it a little, as the vanilla seems to work more in tune with the chocolate. But then again, now that I'm really paying attention to it, neither one seems to have much chocolate flavor, with the added flavor masking the flavor of the chocolate quite a bit. So while I'm not getting a direct chocolate flavor out of either one, I still think that the tiny bit that interacts with the added flavor does so differently with each one. The vanilla is cohesive, but the maple is a little clashy.
As far as preference, this one is actually amazingly close. I'm trying to think which one I'd prefer to drink long-term, and I think the vanilla is winning out by just the narrowest of margins. I do really like the maple, especially in this pairing, but I think the tiny bit of flavor clash would make it less enjoyable for me in the long run.
Taking a sniff of the brews as they cool, the Maya has more of a spicy scent to it than the regular cinnamon flavor did. In tasting it, I certainly don't taste any cayenne, but there is a twinge of spice to it that makes it feel a little more like a cinnamon candy, like a "red hot" or a piece of cinnamon gum. There is an interesting latent heat left on my tongue that shows up a few seconds after the sip is gone. This one is more like what I expected the regular cinnamon flavored roast to be like. In fact, it builds a little as I work my way through the cup, getting stronger and persisting longer towards the end. That's a good thing, because after the cinnamon roast, I was worried I had made a mistake getting the larger bag of Maya even though it was the smallest one available.
The vanilla one is still very "Vanilla Chex" like. It's good and I enjoy it, but there's not much cocoa flavor to be had.
Both of these are good, but I feel like they both very much fall in the "I have to be in the mood for it" arena depending on how my taste buds are feeling that day. It's a tough one to call, but I think I like the vanilla one just a little better overall just because it leans a little sweeter than the Maya.
It's interesting to me how when I very first start drinking the mocha flavored one, I pick up on the chocolate quite a bit at first, but then as I get into it, it starts changing over to the cigarette smoke flavor. This is especially true if it's the first one I drink in a side-by-side. Once I taste the other flavor, whatever it is, and then come back to it, then it seems much stronger.
There's not much to say about the vanilla here. Every other comparison with it has said it all at this point, I think. I like it better than the mocha.
When I was imagining this comparison, I thought it would be a much closer race. Sometimes the peppermint comes across as pretty good, and other times it almost tastes like chemicals. I know I had a similar experience with the cinnamon the first time or two I tried that one where it reminded me of the place where I used to get my hair cut as a kid. I actually had a similar experience this time with the peppermint at first. Something about going from the vanilla to the peppermint seems to cause it, but I'm not sure why. For some reason, putting the vanilla next to the peppermint kind of makes the peppermint taste less pepperminty. For this side-by-side, the vanilla definitely wins.
There's really not much to say here. Vanilla is better than pumpkin spice, and nothing new was discovered.