Review: Homestead Coffee Roaster’s Grit Grind Dark Roast
(2017) I recall an American car commercial involving a tunnel and a white offering of the company’s sedan. The car backed up into the tunnel to the overlay sound was the familiar clicking of a cocked gun. We can guess what happens next: the gun goes off and the car is fired from the tunnel to the tune of a seventies rock band. I long for days when riding I feel as though I were shot from a cannon.
There are few relationships that go together perfectly. Chocolate and milk immediately comes to mind. Peanut butter and jelly comes to mind as well. Cheddar cheese and hard pretzels, Liege waffles and authentic maple syrup. The summer solstice and long days in the saddle, too, should get added to the list. But coffee and bike shops are hard to beat as a winning combination.
Smartly two wonderful Bucks County companies have come together for the holiday season to produce coffee beans for dark winter days. Winter is a season for darkness. American craft stout brews are big and dark during winter. Coffee beans follow suit with darkness to help carry us through dark morning commutes and equally dark returns. Homestead Coffee’s Grit Grind dark roast is as dark as they come from the amazing roasters out of Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. It is roasted in a collaboration with Doylestown Bike Works.
The grit inspiration recalls the effects from winter rides. It is those rides where road grit is kicked up by passing motorists from melting snow or standing water. It’s what wiggles through seams and loosely woven clothing. It attaches itself to chain links, gunking up the drivetrain. Hardly a hardy cyclist is shocked by the micro crunch produced from the little bits of roadway thrown up during a group ride and resting in the recesses of the mouth until the ride stops, usually at a coffee shop for a warm up.
Homestead Coffee's Grit Grind, brewed for Doylestown Bike Works, may be recommended for any season, but winter is where this big dark coffee shines.
Grit inspiration can also be found on the unpaved roads of Bucks County. Many of them have already said farewell to the steady exposure of equinox sunlight. We seek out dirt roads in Bucks County and expect to see frozen sections and frozen runoff. Cyclists expect the front wheel to provide a healthy dosage of rocky spray to turn black shoe covers to brown. It all pays off when one recounts not a single car was seen or heard during the experience.
Typically in the winter the lights have gone out in the legs while passing decoration lights come on at the passed houses. There is intense scrutiny in the off-season. A sprint for the town sign could reveal a lack of conditioning and fret when there is no response offered. There needs to be a reserve stick of dynamite to liven up the cold legs.
Grit Grind is just that. It’s dark and heavy. It has an intense experience of chocolate and pepper. The presence of a smoky taste hints to the boilers beginning to fire and the legs itching to jump back out on the ride to show everyone just how it’s done. If the ride is feeling adventurous one could start at Doylestown Bike Works with the hope of a French press full of the liquid gunpowder. The group could destine itself to Upper Black Eddy for another round of coffee. Just as the group departs one can imagine the clicking sound of the hammer pulled back and the trigger tickled by the finger. With a belly of Homestead Coffee’s Grit Grind the town sign sprint may be the needed shot. Soundtrack by a seventies rock band would have to be supplied by your own consciousness. With this holiday season, bike shop inspired coffee beans are the obvious gift for any cyclist in your house. Or, should you want everyone to be instantly industrious, Grit Grind does not discriminate. We could all be fired from a cannon, but cyclists just happen to enjoy being astride a bike when it happens.
