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    May 03, 2025

    The Roast Wars have come to an end!

    The council of judges has found our master of both the light side and dark side of roast profile for the washed coffee from Muhororo in Rwanda! 

    Thank you!

    Before we get to the winners, we would like to thank all of you who participated and promoted this roasting event. Your participation and feedback for this competition blew us away and left us motivated to find more unique ways to engage with roasters and provide more opportunities for feedback, learning and fun competition. This challenge was intended to push you a little bit outside of your comfort zone by trying roast styles that you might not have tried otherwise. From this, we hope that you achieved a deeper understanding of your roasting style and even about your own personal coffee preferences. 

    Our judges

    We would also like to take a moment to thank and shout out our awesome judges who donated their time and experience to taste through about 170 samples and provide honest feedback for each roast!

    Jeremy Lupinacci @jeremymakescoffee

    Ryan Woldt @roastwestcoast

    Adrian Navarro from VANA Coffee Developments

    George Wickham from Current Commodity Systems

    Scoring

    All entries were brewed using our AeroPress recipe as advertised (shout out to Evan and Michael for brewing!). Our judges scored each light roast and dark roast on a 50 point rubric and all scores were totaled and averaged to achieve each participants final score. The judges also made comments and shared their honest feedback for each roast, which we will send to you individually in the next week or two. Among the judges were four Licensed Q Arabica Graders.

    And the winner is...

    Congratulations to our ROAST WARS winners!

    1st place - Ryan Gorskie (79.00 points) @riskyorange

    2nd place - Jada Burgess (78.93 points)

    3rd place - Patrick Chung (78.73 points) @lotuscoffeetea

    We would also like to shout out a couple others who blew us away with their individual roasts...

    Best standalone light roast - Naiman Rigby (43.40 points)

    Best standalone dark roast - Colton Johnstone (41.50 points)

    Common themes

    Some common themes that we found with the light roasts were that the best roasts had kept the bright acidity intact but smoothed out the finish to blend perfectly in with the sweetness of the coffee. Many roasts had the acidity intact but there was a harsh or drying aftertaste associated with it. 

    Many of the dark roast entries tasted great as standalone cups but we felt that they played too 'safe' with the dark roast prompt and missed a lot of sugar-browning character. For these coffees we usually scored lower in the flavor, aftertaste and acidity but made comments as to how delicious they were as medium roasts.

    Overall we had a blast trying the variation of roasts for this coffee and learned a lot about the coffee and what it could offer! 

    The results

    Overall we had 85 participants and received 79 entries back to us before the deadline. The average score for all entries received is 66.49 points with the top score being 79.00 and the lowest score being 50.58. 

    Use your order number to find your total scores below. We will be emailing each participant a breakdown of their scores and feedback in the next couple of weeks. 

    # ORDER NUMBER LIGHT ROAST DARK ROAST TOTAL SCORE
    1 #5257 38.00 41.00 79.00
    2 #5341 40.60 38.33 78.93
    3 #5256 38.40 40.33 78.73
    4 #5273 36.00 41.50 77.50
    5 #5220 37.00 38.00 75.00
    6 #5194 34.25 40.50 74.75
    7 #5149 37.00 37.67 74.67
    8 #5144 43.40 31.00 74.40
    9 #5265 34.75 39.50 74.25
    10 #5215 38.00 36.00 74.00
    11 EMILY 32.40 41.50 73.90
    12 #5180 37.00 36.00 73.00
    13 #5172 39.60 32.83 72.43
    14 #5143 38.40 33.50 71.90
    15 #5229 34.40 37.50 71.90
    16 #5157 35.25 36.50 71.75
    17 #5168 33.80 37.83 71.63
    18 #5164 33.25 38.17 71.42
    19 #5148 37.50 33.83 71.33
    20 #5146 36.25 35.00 71.25
    21 #5232 38.50 32.50 71.00
    22 #5175 38.80 31.50 70.30
    23 #5258 32.25 38.00 70.25
    24 #5135 38.20 32.00 70.20
    25 #5252 34.75 35.00 69.75
    26 #5158 37.40 32.00 69.40
    27 #5147 36.60 32.67 69.27
    28 #5213 37.25 32.00 69.25
    29 #5231 34.75 34.50 69.25
    30 #5179 29.00 39.83 68.83
    31 #5410 31.25 37.00 68.25
    32 #5202 36.60 31.50 68.10
    33 #5196 33.20 34.50 67.70
    34 #5170 35.00 32.50 67.50
    35 #5236 38.80 28.67 67.47
    36 #5145 29.00 38.17 67.17
    37 #5152 32.00 35.17 67.17
    38 #5191 31.50 35.50 67.00
    39 #5341-B 32.60 34.33 66.93
    40 #5153 30.25 36.33 66.58
    41 #5182 36.50 30.00 66.50
    42 #5209 30.00 36.50 66.50
    43 #5350 31.50 35.00 66.50
    44 #5167 31.00 35.00 66.00
    45 #5163 37.25 28.67 65.92
    46 #5406 32.25 33.50 65.75
    47 #5408 32.75 32.50 65.25
    48 #5189 30.80 34.17 64.97
    49 #5176 32.20 32.33 64.53
    50 #5186 33.75 30.17 63.92
    51 #5200 29.20 34.67 63.87
    52 #5155 32.50 31.00 63.50
    53 #5238 31.00 32.50 63.50
    54 #5314 34.50 29.00 63.50
    55 #5325 30.75 32.50 63.25
    56 #5171 29.00 34.17 63.17
    57 #5206 34.25 28.83 63.08
    58 #5174 33.40 29.50 62.90
    59 #5160 33.75 28.83 62.58
    60 #5150 34.40 28.00 62.40
    61 #5255 25.75 36.50 62.25
    62 #5207 33.00 29.00 62.00
    63 #5187 31.75 30.17 61.92
    64 #5151 35.00 26.67 61.67
    65 #5156 30.40 31.17 61.57
    66 #5183 35.75 25.67 61.42
    67 #5173 34.50 26.83 61.33
    68 #5137 29.20 31.33 60.53
    69 #5199 29.60 30.67 60.27
    70 #5165 26.00 33.67 59.67
    71 #5159 29.50 30.00 59.50
    72 #5177 30.80 28.67 59.47
    73 #5181-B 29.00 28.33 57.33
    74 #5216 22.75 33.50 56.25
    75 #5161 28.50 27.00 55.50
    76 #5181 29.50 25.00 54.50
    77 #5431 25.25 28.00 53.25
    78 #5210 25.00 28.00 53.00
    79 #5162 23.25 27.33 50.58

     

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