Holy Schmidt Guatemala Chichen

This month I’m reviewing Holy Schmidt Guatemala Chichen out of Irvine, California. The name is a play on the owners’ name.

The back of the bag has a sticker with lots of information. It tells you that the coffee is from a farm called Chichen in Guatemala. It tells you the coffee variety (caturra) and the processing method (washed). There’s more detail about the area the coffee was grown, the coffee grade, and the certification. There are a couple different ratios for different brewing methods and the roast date. It’s a lot of information that I normally have to go hunt down if I want to know it. It’s a really nice touch to include on the bag.

The beans were tiny and dry with a nice toasty smell. As usual I started with the Chemex first. The brewing coffee had very little smell. So little that I called Mom over to see if maybe I needed to go take a Sudafed. She agreed though. No smell.

The coffee had a nice bloom. One strange thing though, I used my same coffee to water ratio and this coffee must soak up a lot of water. My normal brewing method reaches the halfway dot on the Chemex. This coffee yielded quite a bit less.

The finished coffee had very little smell as well. The coffee is really good and slightly acidic. The sensation reminded me of eating a tomato. Adding cream cuts the acidity completely. Once it cooled it got a little bitter, but I feel that’s pretty normal, so I don’t count it against the coffee.

Related and unrelated to the coffee I had a mild panic attack when using my grinder to make a pot of French Press. The burr turned and the timer worked, but no coffee came out the bottom. Without a grinder I would have no coffee and that was not an acceptable reality. I disassembled it and found a lot of build up I assume due to humidity. Now I’ve been cleaning it once a week and the world is good again.

In the French Press the coffee still had no smell. Why? This is strange and I’ve never had it happen before. Do any of you know why a coffee wouldn’t smell? The coffee foamed up then sank quite a bit

Without cream the French Press coffee had an odd mouth feel and the taste stood out on my soft palate. With cream it was slightly bitter, but still good.

For me, the Chemex is definitely the way to brew this coffee.

Mom stopped buying caffeinated K-Cups and dad had a cup from the Chemex this week. He said it was “pretty good coffee”. He normally makes fun of my coffee, but I’m going to take it as a compliment to the coffee instead of caffeine withdrawal.

This coffee comes in at $1.67/oz. including shipping. If you buy two bags it would decrease the cost because they’ll give you free shipping. I don’t think I’d make this my every day coffee mostly for the reason I don’t care for it out of the French Press. And let’s be honest, sometimes I’m lazy and I like the ease of the French Press over the Chemex.

Still, it makes a nice treat for a special occasion, a great gift, or just a change-up from your everyday preference.