Trader Joe’s Medium Roast Ethiopia Small Lot Coffee from Bale Mountain Reviews
100% Arabica whole bean coffee with tasting notes of cocoa nibs, strawberry, and cinnamon.
Trader Joe's Reviews
Search from over 5,000 products and 15,000+ ratings! Not affiliated with Trader Joe's.
David –
I was pretty skeptical about this coffee. I’m pretty picky when it comes to coffee. I usually don’t drink TJ’s coffee as they usually don’t have light roast Ethiopian. To me, Ethiopian coffee should usually be light to medium-light roast to preserve the natural fruit flavors in Ethiopian coffee. I was in a pinch and bought this because it was cheap and I was curious to try a small lot coffee from TJ’s. I was very surprised! Strawberry notes actually cut through the cocoa flavor. Smooth and fruity finish. The roast is closer to a medium-dark roast in my opinion but for a store brand coffee, I thought this was great. I wish they roasted this to a light-medium, but the darker you go, the more consistent the flavor is (which is needed for a store chain).
I used an Aeropress,185 degrees, 7/10 coarseness, 2:15min extraction, 30sec plunge.
All in all, I would give this a try.
Young –
I purchased this coffee for espresso, but am not satisfied with the quality. When I opened the bag, I immediately noticed this is not good quality coffee. The bean color was not even, some darker and some dramatically lighter, which indicates there was an issue while roasting. And a significant proportion of the beans was already crushed to pieces in the bag. I’m not sure if this happened while being shipped to TJ’s or something else. In terms of taste, it has deep unpleasant bitterness no matter how I extract espresso. I changed the grind size, extraction time, and so on, but no luck. In short, I wouldn’t recommend this coffee.
Mimi –
This coffee was amazing, mind-blowing, and breathtakingly beautiful if it is brewed right and precisely. As it is stated on the bag, it has a slight citrus note of cocoa nibs, a very distinctive musty cinnamon flavor, and the fragrance of sweet strawberry.
I used Hario pour-over, 300 cc of the alkali water at 88 C degrees, 25 grams of 1/16 size ground coffee.
This came around during holidays in 2021, I went back to TJ to get some more of this, but no luck. It definitely brightened up the cold mornings during the holidays. Loved it!