Review: Drive Coffee, Monaco

I will admit, when I first saw an advertisement for Drive Coffee I could not believe that the marketing would live up to the taste. In a plethora of third wave coffee roasters, Drive Coffee has found its niche. Their inspiration comes from Formula 1 racing and icon cars which their beans are shipped inside an oil canister instead of the plastic or paper coffee bags.

The Monaco is a single origin from Kenya, with tasting notes of raspberry, brown sugar, and citrus. I prepared my coffee with on the 3.Z setting of my Forte BG and used a kalita wave 155 as a pour over.

I used a 1:15 ratio of 15 grams of coffee and 225 grams of water with a water temperature of 205 degrees Fahrenheit. The pour over method I used comes from Kansas City’s Oddly Correct. I find this method as a great base line to use to compare coffee.

The first sip from Drive’s Monaco is sweet and it lasts on the tongue quite a bit longer than I am used.

Drive’s website mentions that, “Please note, to guarantee the freshest, best-tasting coffee, we roast all of our coffees daily…” so I can assume that my coffee was roasted the day before it shipped; however, my Roasted On date was left blank. The coffee did taste fresh, but I can only assume that they must have been hit hard by orders.