What We Are Brewing : Proud Hound Coffee

It's a new month and we're back with a new brew! An abundance of coffee makes its way into the Prima office, and we don't say that lightly. Whether we’re testing coffees and building relationships, or one of us has discovered some exotic roast that we can’t resist sharing with the others, there’s always plenty of coffee to go around.

As a company that works diligently to provide its customers with only equipment of the highest quality, we spend hours brewing delicious coffees as we test new equipment, and needless to say, the month of April has been no different. We’ve spent our time perfecting grind size, adjusting flow rate, and refining recipes until satisfaction has been met — and for some members of the Prima team, achieving satisfaction is no easy feat.

This month we are here to take you behind the scenes, again, to highlight a new roaster, a new coffee, and a new recipe. So let’s get brewing!

This month’s roaster is our neighbor to the north — Proud Hound Coffee out of Cincinnati, Ohio. In addition to roasting coffee, Proud Hound navigates the city in their coffee truck, doing pop-ups and catering events, and forming wholesale partnerships as they work to develop a brick and mortar location. Business is conducted through the motto of “Dignity for all” and is present in their interactions with customers, employees, importers, all the way to the farmers that grow the beans they purchase.

The coffee, Nano Genji #5, comes from the southeastern part of Ethiopia in the Jimma Zone — a part of the world is well known for its coffee’s complex sweetness and delicate florals. From there the coffee is processed at the Nano Genji washing station, the sibling mill of Nano Nalla. Both stations are located in Agaro and combined have 650 members that work to process some of the finest coffees in the world. From there, through the help of Red Fox Coffee Merchants — a group that works to ensure equitable supply chains and gives a voice to the coffee farmers — the green coffee beans make their way to Cincinnati to be roasted.

According to Proud Hound, Nano Genji #5 tastes of Key Lime Pie, Passion Fruit, and Chamomile. Here at Prima we taste strong notes of Chamomile as well as the pleasant sweetness and acidity from Key Lime Pie and passion fruit. Brewing this coffee on the Hario V60 02 with Sibarist Fast Filters allows the notes to really shine through and produce a consistent extraction rate of around 21%.

Before you begin brewing, make sure you’ve done all the tedious work like heating the water, grinding the coffee, pre-wetting the filter, and making sure your scale is charged.

1. Pour 22 grams of coffee into the Hario V60 and level the grounds. Pour 80 grams to pre-wet the coffee. Allow to bloom for 30 seconds.
2. Next, pour continuously in a high and slow manner until you reach 150 grams, and make sure to give it a twirl.
3. At 1:15 start your next pour to 250 grams, twirl, and wait until 1:55.
4. Pour your last pour to 330 grams, give it a final spin and it should finish right around 3 minutes.

Now, time for the taste test! Do you pick up on some of the same notes as we did? You will notice that the Fast Filters promote a faster draw down and allow you to grind much finer than you normally would using standard Hario V60 02 filters, and in doing so yields a higher extraction rate. If you don't feel like you achieved greatness this time around, try, try again. After all, it really is a matter of preference! Keep testing, keep tasting, and keep brewing!