Some General, Sweeping Observations:
African and Arabian Arabica coffees are often described as exotic. This is due in part to their winy acidity, fruit undertones, and deep aromatic characteristics. In comparison, as a group, coffees from the Americas are mild; their flavor is not as intense, their acidity is bright and has the impression of resting with precision on your palate rather than exploding. An exception may be our classic Costa Rican from Juan Leon & Sons. It tangles and enfolds your palette with a warm burgundy quality unlike any other Central American coffee.

Coffee from the Pacific Region and the Indonesian Archipelago are noted for their presence of body. No island coffee has what we would consider a dominating level of acidity; yet, from each growing region they contain enough of an acidy quality to highlight intriguing nuances.

Because of these broad differences among the principle growing regions, we, as with most roasters, choose to blend coffees in order to balance dominating elements and create complexities that would otherwise exist only on our wish list. We also use the degree of roast to aid in our ability to provide you with a distinguishing cup.

What's Roasting at Late for the Train?
We have standard coffees we roast (thankfully imposed by popularity) every time the burners on our roaster are fired up. From the regulars such as North Rim, Colombia, Yirgacheffe, Sumatra etc. we rotate our other varietals and blends. The purpose is to ensure freshness. It has the added attraction of encouraging everyone (our staff included) to taste new coffees as we are always brewing something new in our cafes throughout the day and week.

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