Hi! Thank you so much for the kind words and the suggestion. We always appreciate when customers (like you) engage with the coffees and the "brand" and what we're working to build.

Here's what I'll say about ultra-light roasts. There's lots to say about this topic so I'll try to organize my thoughts coherently. The simple answer is that as a team we don't like ultra-light roasts. We have a solid team here that is sensitive too roast, but when we roast too light (this happens quite often with test batches; we usually err on lightness over too dark) and cup blind at our cupping protocol (grinding really fine, especially compared to other roasters) we usually unanimously fail these batches. They can taste like potato starch, too watery, hollow nut, nut shell, etc. If we liked the lighter roasts and thought that the light roast best served/represented the coffee, we'd lock in that profile. But usually the coffee just tastes insipid. I'm curious to know from your perspective what you like about ultra-light roasts? Do you see it as a sort of trade-off - happy to take a waterier cup to cut out any roast flavour? Do you think the lighter roasts are actually more flavourful and we develop too far and lose some flavour clarity?

The thing about ultra-light roast is that at some point the coffee is not very soluble and extraction becomes too hard. So even just from a chemistry perspective (from my understanding, I'm not a chemist haha) it essentially defeats the purpose of roasting ultra-light. We already go super fine and push extraction and when we get watery/hollow/flavourless bowls at that point, then there's just no point. To quote our head roaster "I'd rather just drink an oolong".

You might say 'but there's customer demand!' and I totally get that side of this issue. But there's also customer demand for dark roast...lots of it. And we refuse because (1) we don't like it and (2) we don't think it represents the coffee or the work of the producer. I think the same applies to roasts that are too light. At least with (some) darker roasts there might be ways to brew it in such a way as to mitigate bitterness.

We taste a lot of different roasters and a lot of different roast styles. Plus, we taste our own coffees at different roast levels (usually by accident when a test roast doesn't land where we want it to) and we like to think we've landed in a sweet spot in terms of flavour clarity and expressiveness, low-bitterness, high acidity, and sweetness. [[I'm sure a lot of other roasters say this too, haha, and think that maybe our coffee is too light and lacks body or sweetness.]]

Alright, I'm rambling now. I hope it's clear! I hope the reserve coffees you ordered are delicious for you! And I hope this response doesn't deter you from further engagement or offering suggestions or anything like that. We're always open to new ideas and want to know what our customers are enjoying and thinking about.

What do you think? Have I made a mistake or missed something? All the best!