I've been touring local (to Lexington, KY) roasters' espresso blends for the last couple months - a bag lasts me a week or two and we have a whole slate of small roasters so it's a slow process. I'm consciously working on my shot tuning and palate as I go, bringing each espresso blend to a roughly 16:34g/ 5s preeinfusion / 30s shot by grind adjustment, then varying back out a bit to see what suits the coffee.
This weeks' candidate is a bag of Magic Beans' Espresso Blend for my morning espresso, plus a bag of their rotating light roast to contrast all the big-bodied darker roasts I've been drinking, mostly to use with a (recently purchased because I've enjoyed a coworkers') Aeropress.
Nates' is still in my first place for local espresso blends, but Magic Beans' is now in second. The Magic Beans has a little more vegetable/fruit and acidic notes, but Nates' has more body and a little more chocolatey, roasty flavor that I prefer for espresso - the Nates has some Indian (presumably robusta) for body, and though Magic Beans doesn't give a bill on their blend, my guess is there is less (no?) robusta in it, contrasting with another local roaster 4th level whose espresso blend is a robusta-forward hunk of burning tire in your mouth.
I'm more impressed with the light roast, it's a Guatemala Huehuetenango, roasted light but not drastically so. It's the first coffee I've run into that is simultaneously light-bodied and super buttery, which is a strange but enjoyable combination, like some kind of conceptual shortbread. Little bit of acid (maybe malic? - I'm still working on distinguishing acid flavors in coffee) tang in the finish, but not enough to make it feel strongly acidic. It manages having interesting character and still being coffee enough that it's appealing to folks not used to good modern coffee, which is not always the case with light-roast single-origin things. I've served a couple 11:200g roughly 3 minute Aeropresses of it to people who mostly drink dripped grocery store coffee and they were all in to it. I always find Aeropress particularly stimulating, and combined with this lighter roast it is rocket fuel not to be consumed after 3:00 or so in the afternoon if one plans to sleep normal hours.
