Costa Rica Tarrazu Coffee – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Sena ordered some Costa Rica Tarrazu coffee in K-Cup pods. There are two varieties, a medium roast and a dark roast. Tarrazu coffee always reminds me of our time spent in Madison, Wisconsin years ago. There were so many fun things to do and interesting sights to see.

OK, so the dark roast is extra bold and is supposed to have lemon, red honey, and bright notes. The medium roast is mild-bodied and is supposed to have honey, baker’s chocolate, and bright notes.

I really don’t notice the different notes. They’re both very smooth and we enjoyed them. I can’t distinguish coffee notes, yet I can tell that shredded coconut has a consistency very much like cellophane. That’s why I feel so squeamish about swallowing it and seem like a cow chewing its cud—endlessly.

I wouldn’t know how to tell red honey from plain old honey. If the medium roast has baker’s chocolate notes, then they must be like the notes played on an imaginary chocolate piano.

It occurs to me that I could be wrong about this coffee being smooth. If the notes are supposed to be bright, then maybe it should be acidic, which is not smooth. This is because some coffee tasting experts say that smooth coffee is low in acid, although low acidity can make a coffee unexciting and boring.

I’m not bored at all by Tarrazu coffee. On the other hand, I can’t say that coffee has ever excited me. I’ve been stimulated by it, which is because of the caffeine, not the notes.

Most of the web references about coffee flavor lingo appear to be written by companies that sell coffee. There is a whole vocabulary about the subject. It’s similar to wine-tasting in which there are also notes and possibly chords.

We have a good supply of Tarrazu coffee pods. I imagine our palates will soon be educated enough to detect whole symphonies of notes resembling works by the 4 Bs: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Bigfoot. If you detect beef jerky notes and hear loud knocks while drinking coffee, you should consider switching to Tarrazu.

Sena bought a bag of ground Costa Rica Tarrazu coffee the other day. It brings back memories. We savored it along with some piano music from George Winston, may he rest in peace.

You can gas about coffees a lot. You can call Tarrazu a thing which has a certain complexity of notes, a balanced flavor, a spicy character and whatnot. I guess appraising coffee can be similar to judging wines. I don’t like wine and know nothing about it. I don’t know much about coffee, either.

But there’s a coffee connoisseur who made a YouTube video evaluating the Tarrazu we have. He said it has “coffee notes.” I should hope so. He gave it a so-so rating, 6.1. I guess there’s a 10-point rating scale. I think he takes subtle sarcasm to a new level. He had some kind of fancy coffee filter I’ve never seen before. He compared Tarrazu to coffee you get from Denny’s restaurant—as though Denny’s is a highbrow establishment. He also said it has chocolate notes. I actually noticed that years ago.

We first tasted Tarrazu at the World Market in Madison, Wisconsin many years ago. The drive from Iowa City to Madison was a pleasure. We took the more scenic route, which was Highway 151. Just in case you read this and make the trip yourself, I’ll say this: what is scenic to one is boring to another.

I remember we sampled Tarrazu from those little white Styrofoam cups in the World Market store. It was the smoothest coffee we ever tasted. We were hooked and bought a bag.

There’s a lot to do in Madison, which is not to say there’s not much to do in Iowa City. There’s just more of everything in Madison. Every day there was some new attraction to explore. Tarrazu was also a new experience.

We had a lot of fun in Madison. We went up to Wisconsin Dells and darn near froze to death on an open boat ride in the early fall. Part of the “fun” of the ride was mainly for the driver, I think. He would rev the boat at rocket speed and splash us with water, which could have had a thin skin of ice notes over it, judging from the shock. We saw the House on the Rock in Spring Green. We relaxed at the Sundara spa. We rode the horse-drawn wagon on the Lost Canyon tour and still have a deck of playing cards from the gift shop.

We’ve bought Tarrazu a couple of times since our adventure in Madison and found that, somehow, the flavor wasn’t quite as bright, not as smooth. On one bag, the name was spelled “Terrazu” rather than “Tarrazu. Sure, it had “coffee notes,” but not the chocolate notes. And it didn’t evoke memories of Wisconsin.

Finally, getting back to the Tarrazu we have now. The taste is miraculous, just like it was so many years ago. It takes me back to the Styrofoam cups at World Market, the speedboat in the frigid water, the Sundara bedsheets stained by previous guests with mud notes from the spa, the Infinity Room in Spring Green, cheese curds and chili.

Those are my Tarrazu notes.