I drink espresso at home exclusively - and in Toronto have a great selection of light roast and anaerobic options from roasters like Pirates of Coffee and Hale, as well consistent quality in Natural or Washed processed light roasts from Ethica - but was curious to try the subscription series to see about roasters I am unfamiliar with.
I initially chose an option (of 2 to choose from) for espresso that was listed as 'vibrant & fruity' and I found the beans I received were either medium or dark roast and the flavour profile was what I would call 'old school' espresso rather than the third wave profiles where there are sweet, fruity notes when dialed in.
I wrote in, and, to their credit - a rep from The Roasters Pack suggested the subscription labelled 'Fruity & Complex' which is not listed as 'espresso' due to them being 'primarily geared towards filter brewing', but was suggested that they could 'work just as well for those more adventurous espresso drinkers'.
This sounded promising, so I agreed for my final delivery of 3 options - light roast beans from Myanmar, Nicaragua and Peru.
All 3 were quite disappointing - very middle-of-the-road profiles when dialed in (I played extensively with them - over extracting, under extracting and with temperature and volume just to see what came about), and visibly could see inconsistent bean roast within a bag (lighter pale beans with more brown beans etc). Not terrible - but not at all what I would call 'complex' and certainly not 'fruity'.
It's unfair to compare anaerobic obviously - as that kind of 'fruity' is wildly obvious - but even Ethica light roast single-origin has a lovely quality and consistency to it that has a bit of fruity notes to it as a natural /washed process.
Anyway - definitely a great option for more 'old school' profiles of espresso /pourover, and punchy for those milk drinks also. But, if you are a fan of third wave espresso - not sure the options here fit the bill at the moment.
