Rose • Cranberry • Milk Chocolate • Plum Origin: Rwenzori Mountains • Process: Natural • Variety: Mixed

The Four of Hearts brings us to Uganda’s Rwenzori Mountains, where the terrain is steep, the climate dramatic, and the coffee scouts apparently tough enough to climb spaceships. Long Miles calls this their Lunar Station, which sounds like the kind of branding NASA would use if NASA was into extremely delicate florals and stone-fruit nuance.

Opening the Bag: Fruit-Adjacent, but Not Loud

This is the first bag that doesn’t scream “light roast.” It leans medium, or medium-light, with a noticeably deeper tone to the beans. The aroma: fruit-adjacent, but not in an overripe or perfumey way. More like an underripe peach trying its best.

Not much floral upfront. No wild berry wafts. Just a calm, mild sweetness hovering like background music in a hotel lobby.

The first grind at –1 was too open, so you settled on –2. Still not enough resistance. Then –3, where everything clicked—beautiful flow, slower pull, and that perfect espresso-machine sigh of relief.

Dialing In: –3 for the Win

By day four, you’re clearly getting the hang of dialing these in. Negative five is now a forbidden relic. Negative three is today’s sweet spot—steady pressure, rich stream, just enough resistance to make the machine feel alive but not overworked.

The portion size again fits your one-hot / one-iced Americano flow perfectly. Whoever portioned the bags definitely lives in a warm climate and respects your desert-living commitment to iced coffee.

Tasting the Hot Shot: Blueberry-Plum Meets Hershey Kiss

The aroma in the hot cup stays subtle—barely floral, barely fruity—but the sip is where the profile wakes up.

Sweet start, not tart. Smooth body. Then the fruit arrives: raisin, blackberry, maybe even blueberry. Plum is probably the official name for whatever your palate detected, but “blueberry squish with a Hershey kiss” is honestly more accurate.

This is unmistakably milk chocolate, not cacao-rich artisan stuff. Think nostalgic, sweet, American milk chocolate—the kind that melts instantly and tastes like childhood.

The finish is surprisingly interesting: a lingering, fibrous, earthy note. Not peanut. The shell of a peanut. Or a sunflower shell. That slightly woody, salty, ballpark texture lingering gently at the edge of your tongue. Definitely unique, but pleasant.

The Iced Version: Steady, Mild, & Very Drinkable

Cold brings out a mild sweetness and smoothness but doesn’t dramatically alter the profile. This isn’t a fireworks coffee. It’s balanced, composed, and quietly consistent.

Verdict

A stable, reliable cup with dark-fruit warmth, milk-chocolate sweetness, and a charmingly earthy finish. It’s not flashy or wild—more of a “daily drinker that earns its keep” kind of roast.

Delicious in a grounded, dependable way.

Day four, complete. Bring on day five—we’re still one behind, but caffeination waits for no one.

Gala Apple • Brown Sugar • Almond • Juicy

Origin: Kirinyaga | Process: Washed | Soil: Red Volcanic

The Three of Hearts arrives with Kenya Gakuyu AA—a coffee grown in red volcanic soil, washed at the Gakuyu wet mill, hand-sorted like precious gems, and confidently carrying Kenya’s signature AA profile. This is a bean that stands tall and makes direct eye contact.

Opening the Bag: Trail Mix, But With a Degree

The aroma is bright and sweet with a nutty backbone. Not “almond extract” nutty—more like trail mix that decided to get its life together. Apple doesn’t show up yet, but brown sugar’s definitely in the room, quietly humming.

You wisely avoided yesterday’s grind fiasco and started at –2. Good call. First shot: solid. Respectable. Encouraging enough that you nudged the grinder to –3, where things truly snapped into place.

Dialing In: –3 Knows What It’s About

At –3, your machine finally relaxed. Smooth pressure ramp, dark consistent stream, crema behaving like it paid rent on time. The exact kind of pour that makes you nod like you’re approving a contractor’s work.

The bag gave you just enough for your signature workflow: big iced Americano for the desert, plus a proper hot espresso to taste the pure profile. Whoever portioned these bags understands the lifestyle.

Tasting the Hot Shot: Jelly-Sweet and Clean

The hot espresso surprised you—it was much sweeter than the aroma let on. Not candy sweet, but zero-sugar raspberry jam sweet. Sweet at the front, clean at the finish, with a little tart ripple through the middle.

Kenyan acidity is usually sharp and shiny, but this one works more like a gradient. Smooth transitions. No flavor jump-scares.

The Iced Americano: Tart, Nutty, Bright

Cold water woke everything up. Tartness became clearer. Almond hints stood out a bit more. The whole thing felt juicier—not in a “this tastes like juice” way, but in a “this doesn’t dry your mouth out at all” way.

The finish went crisp and clean, leaving nothing heavy behind. A very polite exit.

Verdict

A wonderfully structured Kenyan cup: bright, lightly tart, subtly nutty, kiss-of-jam sweet, and sparkling clean. If Day 2 was a warm fall afternoon, Day 3 is a crisp mountain morning with sun hitting an orchard.

A stellar brew.

Cranberry • Vanilla • Grapefruit • Sweet Tea

Process: Natural | Origin: Guji | Variety: Landrace

Day 2 dealt us the Two of Hearts, which feels appropriately sentimental for a coffee born from collaboration, craft, and deeply intentional farming. The card reads like a love letter to the producers—thin-layer drying, 15–20 days, clarity over chaos, fruit without the funk. Basically: a natural process that has its life together.

First Impressions: “This Smells Like Nature’s Hardcover Edition”

One whiff of the beans and it’s clear why Onyx described this thing like a botanical encyclopedia. Tea leaves. Wild herbs. The sort of aroma that makes you feel like you should be wearing linen.

Natural process coffees often sprint into the “overripe fruit smoothie left on a porch” zone—but not this one. This one has restraint. Manners, even.

Dose & Chaos Theory

You aimed for 18.2g. You got… well… more than that. The scale had its own plans, but the grinder always wins these arguments, so into the hopper it went.

The first grind: –5. A bold, borderline-reckless move. The kind of move that says, “We ride at dawn.”

The espresso machine responded with a polite but firm: No.

A tiny drizzle of liquid squeaked out like the machine was whispering, “Please reconsider your life choices.”

Thus began the Ritual of Adjustment.

Bloom, Backflow, and the Austenian Drama of Dial-In

You stopped the shot. You let it backflow. You tried again.

A heroic effort, but –5 was still too fine—espresso sludge territory.

So the grinder moved to –2, which immediately felt like the Goldilocks zone. The pressure built. The stream turned dark and steady. The crema layered like a velvet curtain dropping on cue.

A proper espresso shot was born.

The Tasting: Fall in a Cup, But Make It Ethiopian

The hot shot first: • Bright tartness up front • A cranberry-meets-raisin sparkle • Vanilla hovering like gentle background music • And the kicker: a sweet tea finish so unmistakable it practically asked for a porch swing

This thing is leafy in the best way. Organic. Light. Structured. A warm-fall-afternoon kind of vibe—the part of autumn before society forces you into decorative gourds.

Then came the iced Americano version, because desert life demands it. Somehow the cold version amplified that sweet tea note even more, as if the coffee said, “You want tea? Say no more, fam.”

Verdict

A graceful, fruit-forward natural that never slips into overripe territory. It’s airy, clean, and strangely nostalgic—a coffee that tastes like the moment summer hands the keys over to fall.

Dial-in adventure aside, this one is a keeper.

Day 1 — Onyx Coffee Lab Advent Calendar 2025

Aponte Village Honey — Colombia

The first door of the Onyx Advent Calendar is a lot like opening the first gift of the season—you know it’s small, but you hope it shakes in a promising way. This one absolutely did. Day 1 delivered Colombia Aponte Village Honey, and right from the bag it had that “I’ve been practicing my moisturizers” light-and-earthy vibe. Think cherry wood. Think forest floor… but the classy part of the forest, not the part where raccoons do taxes.

The Weigh-In: Precision, But Make It Festive

The bag said one thing. The scale said 56.7 grams. A whimsical little bonus—like finding an extra fry at the bottom of the takeout bag. Into the hopper it went.

These beans were light. Not “delicate.” Not “spry.” Light as in: if you sneezed, they’d try to leave the room.

Which meant: brittle. And brittle beans tend to grind fast. Like, espresso-machine-thinks-you’re-speedrunning fast.

Dialing In: Zero, Baby

I slammed the grinder to zero—not metaphorically. Literally zero. Coffee nerds may clutch their pearls, but the first shot actually looked… right? Blonding a bit early, sure, but acceptable for a first dance.

Shot one down. The machine humming along. I set it up for a second pull while reading the tasting card like it was ancient scripture:

“2100 meters… ancestral ties to the Inka Empire… drying before washing… vivid clarity, red fruits, bright cherry, florals…”

Basically: a coffee that has a better historical résumé than most people I know.

The Aroma (or Lack Thereof)

Oddly mild on the nose. A shy coffee. No big aromatic swell. More like a quiet nod from across the room. But in the portafilter? It expanded like a marshmallow in the microwave. Wild.

Shot two came ripping through—fast enough that the machine sounded like it might file a complaint. These beans weren’t dry, just light, and light beans move through a grinder like they’re being chased by consequences.

So, time to crank that grind tighter.

Pull Three & The Ritual of Ice

You know the drill. Pull the shots. Pour over ice. Ignore the purists who gasp like Victorian novel characters every time you do it.

The third shot was richer, deeper—finally hitting that sweet spot where grind, dose, and fate align. Darker crema. Slower pull. A proper “we’re doing science” moment.

The Flavor

Here’s where this coffee earns its Day 1 badge.

In the cup: • Light cherry wood • A gentle earthiness • A whisper of dried cherries • And that raw honey note the bag promised… but only after the sip, like a callback joke in a comedy special

The acidity? Barely there. Smooth as a baby goat in a silk robe. 🐐

Verdict

A fantastic opener. Mild but confident. Like a warm-up track from a band that knows the encore is going to melt your face later in the month.

If the rest of the calendar keeps this energy, we’re in for a very caffeinated, very delightful December.