This week's coffees recapped
A selection of coffee roasted on the west coast from LA to SF
This marks the first official CoffeeHunt newsletter. Each week as your personal coffee sommelier, I’ll round up a few standout coffees and share what I’ve found out in the wild, so you’ll always have something new to try.
Just as a reminder, we have no horse in the race. We’re not affiliated with a single roaster, product or brand. Therefore we present this to you as pure recommendation completely honest and unbiasd. If something doesn’t match up to the taste description we will tell you.
This week’s issue
🧐 Discover weekly — Selection of coffees roasted on the west coast from LA to SF
⭐ Featured Coffee — Stankonia by Portrait Coffee
🎯 Essay — “Bring cafe quality coffee to your home for under $3/cup”
Here’s what we found this week
Selection of coffees roasted on the west coast from LA to SF 👇
Gesha Natural Lot 15 El Burro — Hydrangea
📍Origin: 🇵🇦 Panama • Chiriqui
🧪Process: Natural
Notes by the roaster: Mango, Violet, Strawberries
View details → | Buy →
Gesha Natural Lot 15 El Burro — Hydrangea
📍Origin: 🇨🇴 Colombia • San Agustín
🧪Notes: Vanilla, Apricot, Lemon Candy, Floral ·
Process: Washed
View details → | Buy →
Gesha Natural Lot 15 El Burro — Hydrangea
📍Origin: 🇪🇨 Ecuador
🧪Process: Washed
Notes by the roaster: Marionberry, Grapefruit, Floral, Blueberry, Blood Orange, Vanilla, Lemon Meringue
View details → | Buy →
Mexico Chiapas Kulaktik Barrel Aged Coffee
📍Origin: 🇲🇽 Mexico • Tenejapa
🧪Process: Washed
Notes by the roaster: Sumiyaki-like, sweet oak, rich bourbon aroma
View details → | Buy →
Panama Martin Santos
📍Origin: 🇵🇦 Panama
🧪Process: Washed
Notes by the roaster: dark black plum, white vanilla, black cherry cola
View details → | Buy →
What we tasted 🧫
Stankonia 25th Anniversary by Portrait Coffee
📍 Origin: Blended (Rwanda, Columbia)
🧬 Varietal: Likely a few, but it’s undisclosed.
🧪 Process: Natural, Washed + Co-Fermented
💭 Notes: Green Apple, Strawberry, Brown Sugar
Portrait’s Stankonia 25th Anniversary blends Rwanda and Colombia with natural, washed, and co-fermented lots. The roaster describes green apple, strawberry, and brown sugar. On espresso it tastes like crisp apple brightness, soft strawberry, and brown sugar sweetness. Pour over muted the fruit for me, likely from the medium roast softening acidity. Cool concept that nods to Atlanta’s culture.
Recommended espresso recipe
Espresso recipe: 19 g in. 40 g out. 28–34 seconds. Faster for more fruit. Slightly finer and longer for more brown sugar and body.
You may have missed
Bring cafe quality coffee to your home for under $3/cup
Throughout 2025, I spent a lot on coffee. Both in cafés and at home. Altogether, I’m pretty sure it was around $2,500. Yep, I know… a bit wild. But it wasn’t mindless spending.
I treated coffee like a class I actually wanted to attend, to further learn to distinguish plant varietals, origins, and how different processing methods affect flavor of the coffee.
I also learned how much of a café drink is simply just a repeatable technique and not magic.
👉 Read the full story →
⚙️ Uplevel your brew with these tools
Burr grinders
Manual — The Chestnut C2S by Timemore will get you high quality results and makes for a great starting point. A little difficult to figure out at first but once you set it you can forget it. (Assuming you’re not brewing both espresso and filter drinks)
Buy here →Automatic — The Timemore 01s automatic is basically a hand grinder for making both filter and espresso style drinks, but automates it for you so that you don’t overthink. It’s $160 on Amazon, but again, you want to invest in a GREAT grinder.
Buy here →
🙏 Thank you!
Thanks for reading and sharing a cup with us. If you know of other who really enjoy fine beverages, please share coffeehunt on your socials and tag us!
Have a recommendation? Reply to this email or tag us @CoffeeHunt or submit here →
☕ Stay curious,
Houston Harpp • CoffeeHunt