An Amazing Coffee Story

An amazing story about coffee, or a story about amazing coffee?  Both.I had my first coffee at Coava Coffee Roasters in April when I visited Portland, Oregon for the first time.  I was deciding if I wanted to live here or not, and maybe Coava helped that decision along, because here I am.  It was the second time in my life that coffee was served to me by pourover, so it was still relatively new to me.  The first time was at Planet Bean in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Read: Profile Planet Bean CoffeeRead: Portland's Big Coffee Scene[ad#Google Adsense - use me]I woke up one morning, and like so many of us, started the day by making sure everything was still right in the world through my mobile device.  I checked the Twitter world, and now that I'd moved to Portland, the city's name caught my eye in a tweet.  I learned that the esteemed Coffee Review coffee rating service had granted an almost unprecedented score of 95/100 to coffee roasted by somebody right here in Portland.  It was Coava.  The coffee, a Guatemalan Bourbon grown in the Xeucalvitz Community.The rating of 95/100 by Coffee Review is a big endorsement.  Rating coffee is subjective by nature, but to the best of my knowledge, it is not a service biased to certain roasters.  In other words, if they're giving out a rating this strong, it's good coffee, go get some!  I had only heard of a rating that high being given out for the Hacienda La Esmaralda from Panama that sells literally for hundreds of dollars a pound, and for which the book "God in a Cup" was written.To think I could get a pound of similarly rated coffee for the price of a normal pound, I decided I was getting some that day.  I'm only about a ten minute drive from Coava's Grand Avenue location, and I will admit I had a touch of the hysterics as I was driving there.  In fact, I may have parked on the sidewalk.  Part of me was expecting it to be sold out when I got there since the Coffee Review tweet had been posted that morning.When I walked in and turned to the selection of bulk coffee, I saw the Guatemala Xeucalvitz and reached for the very pound you see in the picture above.  I turned to the gentleman behind the counter for the following exchange...Me (holding up the coffee, wide-eyed): "This is it!"Coava employee (nowhere near my excitement): "Yes, it is."Me: "This is the stuff that Coffee Review rated."Coava employee, nodded his head.Me (almost incredulous): "Do you know what I'm talking about?"Coava employee: "Yes I do, will that be all you need today?"I couldn't decide if he really did know, or if he was so sure of his company's product that he didn't need to make as big a deal of it as I was.  The woman pictured here offered to brew me a cup by pourover as you see in the picture, and I accepted without hesitation.  I know I was only ten minutes from home, but I just really wanted to try this coffee.When I got home, I understood the first employee's response to my excitement.  He DID know just how good their coffee is.  I'm not saying that because the cup they served me was amazing.  Or, because the cup of it I made for myself at home was amazing.  I say that because when I visited Coffee Review's website to learn more about Coava, I counted a total of FORTY ONE coffees roasted by Coava with a score of at least 90.  Among them, a total of three coffees rated 95/100! You'll be hearing alot about Coava Coffee Roasters to come.  I'll be trying alot of their coffees, and you can order them at their website online.Check out: Coava Coffee RoastersFollow me on Twitter.