My daily coffee ritual is as complex as it is splendid. It begins the night before. The hopper of my Chemex Ottomatic is filled with filtered water from the fridge. It’s an eight-cup hopper and I generally go just a little above the line. Beans are usually already in the burr grinder, so I tap the button on that — and yes, I know you’re supposed to grind immediately before making the coffee, but you go ahead and run a burr grinder that sounds like a jet engine at 3:45 in the morning when your wife is sleeping right down the hall and see how you fare; it’s a question of courtesy — and a corresponding eight cups of rough-grind awaits. Set up the carafe with the filter, pour in the grounds, and go to sleep knowing that when I get up all I have to do is press a button and the best coffee I’ve ever had — because the best one is always the next one; it’s like Neurosis albums — will be waiting for me by the time I’m done brushing my teeth. There are mornings where that knowledge gets me out of bed.

Now then. I am loyal generally to Dean’s Beans out of Massachusetts, and I have two custom roast recipes through them that I order in eight-to-ten-pound batches: a low-acid dark roast I call ‘The Obelisk Dark Roast’ and a medium roast called ‘The Obelisk Heavy Psych Blend.’ But when I read on the social medias that Craig Riggs — he of Kind, Roadsaw, Sasquatch, etc., as well as Mad Oak Studios — was rolling out a fresh batch of Rwandan-bean dark roast through Mad Oak Coffee Roasters, it was time to deviate from the norm. I emptied out the grinder to start entirely fresh when the bright orange bag showed up and felt ready to give it an honest go.

First, the bag. Resealable is always preferable though probably more expensive. You live with it either way. First thing I look for though when I’m opening a bag of any dark roast is how wet are the beans. Gimme those greasy beans. I want to be able to pop a bean in my mouth straight off and taste it before I even take a bite. I’m not looking for something so dark it just tastes burnt and bitter, and from the first sniff to the chewed bean, Riggs‘ dark roast held the promise of balanced presence of flavor. I looked forward to the morning.

And when the AM came — cruelly early, but no different than ever — I brewed the eight-cup pot I’d consume in my big Baltimore mug The Patient Mrs.’ mother gave me a couple years ago that I use every day and travel with if I can (not so much a concern lately, oddly enough), basically splitting it in half. The grounds had a good-looking bloom in the pour-over machine and I let it settle before pouring the first cup, then let that cool a bit as is my custom before finally diving in while working on my laptop on the couch — the ritual complete when the cup gets washed and stuck in the dish drainer, where it basically lives when not in use because it never goes back in the cabinet, though it does make it into the dishwasher sometimes.

Both cups held that smoothness, which is what I was looking for. A velvety flavor to dark roast, and though I know Ethiopian beans, for example, especially in lighter roasts, are much heralded for their fruity sensibilities, that’s not where I’m at. Wood, cocoa, if it’s nutty that’s fine, but I drink it black exclusively and so I want my coffee basically to taste like coffee. Mad Oak‘s did to a satisfying degree. I am no expert when it comes to palette — can’t tell you hints of cherry or identify elements of the terroir — but I’m a snob and my taste in coffee is easily offended. In talking to my wife about it I told her it was a coffee I could live with, and I didn’t mean it like it’s meh and it’s not gonna kill me. I mean like me and the coffee should get an apartment together.

Mad Oak Coffee Roasters has been around in seemingly intermittent fashion for at least the last six years and probably longer. The bags now are snazzier looking. I asked Riggs where he got his beans from and he said a company in California, which means by they time they got to me in New Jersey they went from Rwanda to California to Massachusetts and then south to me, which isn’t an insignificant trip. I would assume based on knowing Riggs that he’s working with fair trade sourcing — crazy, I know, but Rwanda’s known way more for genocide than coffee — and, well, I guess if I was so concerned about the environmental impact of shipping coffee I’d probably move to Africa or South America. In the meantime, complicity for everyone!

When I finished the pot — which I did in good time, mind you — I decided quickly to make myself another cup’s worth, to get the fresh-ground experience. I wish I was erudite enough to honestly say there was an appreciable difference, but really, it was delicious in any case. Riggs only does small batch roasts — limited edition, for those of you who want to think of it like a vinyl release — but if you can get your hands on some when the getting’s good, the balance and depth of flavors happening in my mug this morning were enough to make me look forward to the next time it’s available.

Mad Oak Coffee Roasters on Thee Facebooks

Mad Oak Coffee Roasters on Instagram

Mad Oak Studios website