What's in Our Morning Mug Right Now (the Rotating Cast)
If you've ever wondered what actually gets brewed at a small specialty roastery on a normal Tuesday — not the pour-over we make for a customer visit, but the cup that someone on the team actually drinks at 7 AM — this post is the answer.
The honest version: the morning cup at the roastery rotates. It depends on the weather, the batch we just roasted, what came back from cupping the day before, and whether anyone slept well. There's no brand-loyal default. There's no "signature drink." There's just the cup that fits the morning.
This post walks through the current rotation — what's hot, what's warm, what's making a comeback, and what's been off the rotation for a few weeks. It's a snapshot, not a recipe. We'll update it as the rotation shifts.
For the broader question of how we decide what's even on the menu, our how we pick which coffees to stock post is the operational walkthrough. For the parallel story on the tea side, our how we choose which teas to stock post has the same logic.
The constant: a brewed cup, not a shot
The thing that doesn't change: nobody at the roastery reaches for espresso first thing in the morning. We brew coffee. The morning cup is a 10 to 12 ounce pour-over, an 8 to 10 ounce French press, or — increasingly — a 16 ounce cold brew that someone made at 5 PM the day before and left in the fridge overnight.
Espresso shows up later in the day, usually after lunch. The morning is for brewed coffee. The reasons are practical: brewed coffee is gentler on an empty stomach, the caffeine curve is slower and lasts longer, and you can sip it across a 30 to 60 minute morning routine rather than finishing an espresso shot in 25 seconds.
For the longer version of why our morning cup is brewed coffee rather than espresso, our why we don't drink coffee past noon post covers the caffeine-timing side. The morning-vs-afternoon split is similar: brewed for morning, espresso or tea for afternoon.
The current rotation
Here's what's actually getting brewed this week. Specific batches, specific cups, no aspirational-roster energy.
The morning brew: Costa Rica Tarrazú
This week's most-brewed cup is the Costa Rica Tarrazú. We roasted a 24-pound batch on Wednesday and it's been the daily driver since Friday. The profile is what you'd expect — clean, bright, with the milk-chocolate-and-citrus character that Tarrazú is known for when it's washed and medium-roasted.
The Costa Rica is on the rotation because the batch is fresh. Fresh batches get brewed first. As the batch ages through the week, it'll get bumped down to "afternoon cup" status and replaced by something fresher from Wednesday's roast. That's the standard pattern.
How we're brewing it: 22 grams of coffee, 360 grams of water, 205°F, 4-minute total contact time in a Chemex. One cup, sometimes two. The Costa Rica holds up to a 1:16 ratio better than most of our other origins — it doesn't get thin or harsh at the lighter end of the ratio range.
If you've been wanting to try a Tarrazú but didn't know what to expect, the cup this week is the version we measure ourselves against. It's not the only way Tarrazú can taste, but it's a clean expression of what the region does well.
The runner-up: Burundi Kayanza
The Burundi is the second-most-brewed cup of the week, partly because it pairs well with the Costa Rica (different enough to feel like a change, similar enough to fit the morning mood) and partly because we're at the end of a Burundian lot that we won't be reordering. Drinking it down.
The Burundi profile is heavier than the Costa Rica — more syrupy body, more dark-fruit character, less of the bright citrus. It's the cup one of us reaches for when the morning feels heavier, or when the Costa Rica was the previous day's cup and we want something with more body to break the pattern.
How we're brewing it: 24 grams of coffee, 360 grams of water, 205°F, 4:30 in a French press. The Burundi likes the immersion brew better than the pour-over. The heavier body of the press method matches the heavier body of the bean.
For the longer origin story on why we like Burundian coffee and what makes it distinctive from the East African neighbors it's often grouped with, our Burundi coffee origin post has the regional detail.
The weekend cup: French press, always
Saturday and Sunday mornings shift to French press across the board. The reasoning is mostly ritual rather than flavor: a French press is slower, less precise, and more forgiving. It's the brewing method that asks you to slow down.
A Saturday morning French press at the roastery is usually a Brazil Santos — the Brazil is the chocolate-and-nut workhorse that holds up to immersion brewing without any brightness getting lost. Some weeks it's a Tanzania peaberry if we want something more fruit-forward. Some weeks it's the leftover Costa Rica from the week, brewed as a press to clean out the bag.
The press ratio is heavier than the pour-over — 30 grams coffee to 500 grams water, 4-minute steep, 2-minute settle. The resulting cup is more body-forward and less articulate, which is exactly what a slow weekend morning wants.
The mid-afternoon shift: matcha
By 2 or 3 PM, the brewed coffee stops being the right tool. The caffeine curve from a morning cup has started coming down, the body is feeling less like "I need focus" and more like "I need a small lift without committing to another coffee." That's when the matcha comes out.
The matcha rotation is simple. One bowl, whisked in the morning's ceramic chawan with 70 to 80 ml of 175°F water, sipped across 10 to 15 minutes while answering email. The caffeine is about half a coffee cup's worth but releases slower because it's bound to the larger tea molecules. The lift is gentler, the crash is smaller.
We rotate through the matcha faster than the coffee — a tin lasts about 3 weeks at our consumption rate, which means we're reordering roughly monthly. If you've been on the fence about matcha, our how to brew matcha without the bitterness post has the practical walkthrough.
The evening cup: hibiscus or peach
After 5 PM, we're off coffee entirely. The evening drink is almost always a herbal tea — the Hibiscus Berry Tea cold-brewed from the morning's pitcher if it's summer, the Peach Paradise hot-steeped if it's winter. Sometimes the Mango Treat if we want something more aromatic.
The caffeine-free evening rotation is the answer to the "what do I drink after noon" question we get most often. Our why we don't drink coffee past noon post covers why the cutoff exists. The teas we drink in the evening are the same ones we recommend.
What rotates and what doesn't
A few things are stable across weeks and months; a few things shift constantly.
Stable
- The brewing method rotation. Pour-over weekdays, French press weekends, matcha afternoon, herbal tea evening. The structure doesn't change even when the specific coffee does.
- The water temperature and ratio for each method. 205°F for pour-over, 200°F for press, 175°F for matcha, 208°F for herbal tea. Same numbers every time.
- The off-coffee cutoff. 5 PM, hard stop. Nobody breaks this rule. The sleep quality hit isn't worth the second coffee.
- The fresh-first rule. The newest roast gets brewed first. Older batches get brewed after the new one runs out, or get used for press/cold brew where slight staleness is less visible.
Shifts weekly
- Which coffee is on top of the rotation. This is the freshness-driven decision. The bag we reach for is the bag we most recently roasted.
- The pour-over ratio. Lighter roasts get a 1:16 to 1:17 ratio to preserve the body. Darker roasts get a 1:15 ratio to keep the cup from getting thin.
- The afternoon pick-me-up. Some weeks it's matcha every day. Some weeks it's a second small brewed coffee. Some weeks it's a walk and water. We don't force a ritual that doesn't fit the week.
Shifts seasonally
- The cold-brew rotation. Summer is a daily cold-brew. Winter is zero cold-brew. The transition weeks in May and October are the awkward ones where we make a pitcher and it sits half-drunk for 4 days.
- The iced-vs-hot choice. Iced coffee dominates June through September. Hot brewed coffee dominates October through April. May and October are split.
- The morning departure time. Summer mornings start at 6:30 because the roastery gets hot by noon. Winter mornings start at 7:30 because the building is cold and the kettle takes longer.
What we recommend for someone building their own rotation
If you're starting from scratch and want a rotation that works across seasons, here's the simple version.
The morning cup: One brewed coffee you actually like, in whatever method you'll use without skipping steps. If you skip steps, you'll blame the coffee and switch bags every month. The method matters more than the origin. Pick a method you'll use 5 days a week. Buy coffee for that method.
The afternoon cup (optional): Either a smaller second brewed coffee or a matcha, depending on how your caffeine tolerance reads. If you're sensitive to afternoon caffeine, go matcha. If you're not, a smaller second coffee works.
The evening cup: Herbal tea. Cold-brewed in summer, hot-steeped in winter. Same rotation as ours.
The weekend variation: Switch brewing methods, not origins. The Saturday French press with your weekday's coffee origin will taste different enough to feel like a change without buying a new bag.
For the practical side of building any of these habits, our 5-minute morning coffee ritual post is the small-step version. Our how to pick a brewing method you'll use post is the longer decision-making walkthrough.
The honest answer
The morning cup at a small roastery isn't aspirational. It's whatever's fresh, brewed in whatever method fits the weather, in whatever cup happens to be clean. The rotation is built from inventory reality (what did we just roast), habit (what method are we in the mood for), and pragmatism (what's already in the kettle).
If you've been wondering what the people who actually work at a coffee company drink, the answer is: coffee. Sometimes tea. Sometimes water. Mostly coffee.
We'll update this post in a few weeks when the rotation shifts. The Costa Rica will rotate off, the Burundi will run out, the Tanzania will come on. The structure stays the same. The specific bags don't.
Brew slow. Sip slow. ☕