COFFEE: Nora Bean Coffee Roasters

July 18 2021

I used to like coffee a lot, then I grew up and drank tea. But my favorite tea was basically leaf-coffee. So now I drink coffee again. The coffee world has exploded since I was a young man and there's too much choice now. I've been jumping onto indie roasters for about a year now and I figure it's time to solidify my thoughts on them. Nora Bean is the first, because I am drinking it as I write.

Their story is fairly typical of other small-scale roasters. They want to make good coffee for good people, and split from the traditional "Big Coffee" paradigm. That's not new. What is new, to me at least, and something I really like is how they sell you coffee. Every other company I have seen has a spectrum of blends, beans and roasts. Other companies offer 8-16 different products to choose from, each with its own roast level, edgy hip name, and (sometimes) origin bean.

What Nora Bean does is offer you beans. Just beans. They currently have three different beans to choose from, and from there, you pick how you want them roasted. For someone like me, this is ideal. The hip marketing takes a backseat to actual coffee information. I'm not buying a Camel Turd XXX Medium Roast Arabica when I shop with Nora Bean, what I get is a particular bean, traceable to a location and time. Then I choose the level of roast, and they roast it and send it out in the mail. That is fantastic.

As far as execution goes, Nora Bean does well. With the explosion of mini-roasters there's a lot of room for fly-by-night bean burners and wannabe Starbucks clones. I'm a person who prefers a medium roast and hates any ashy or burnt flavors in my coffee. Nora Bean is good at avoiding that and in all the beans I tried, none were a disappointment. All were drinkable (surprisingly, that's quite an achievement in the mini-roast world) and even the decaf was quite good. By far my favorite was the Jazblu Peaberry. Very fragrant, the grounds were positively stinky with chocolate and that bag was the first to go. I drink coffee with a coworker each morning and we both agreed that Nora Bean makes good coffee.

Overall Rank: I place Nora Bean in the top end of Premium American Mini-Roasters

Repurchase Factor: High

Links:
Nora Bean Coffee Roasters