Review: Counter Culture Coffee Forty-Six Dark Roast

(2020) Dark roasts get a bad rap, tending to be accused of torching a beautiful bean. It’s those bold flavors that keep us coming back, though. The ones that make us smack our lips right into the next sip. Our pot at the office has some pretty dark roast in it at regular intervals. The office coffee is selected for its heavy presence, its slaking smoky properties, and, most of all, its incredible chocolate aftertaste. 

Somewhere between a medium blend and our preferred regular coffee is Counter Culture Coffee’s return to dark roasting, Forty-Six dark roast. Originally roast recipe number 46, Counter Culture Coffee threads the needle between a less robust, fruity medium roast and the heavy chocolatey experience in our daily coffee mug. In the coffee industry it could qualify as a full city roast or medium dark roast. The beans are dark in color, slightly oily, and have less bittersweet aftertaste than its dark roast scale neighbors.

We have written about our adventures in upstate New York, a region that was once our regular playground. There, amidst the mountains, is a challenge called the ‘Forty-sixer’. Climb all forty-six peaks above 4,000* feet in any order and over a lifetime, and one can claim a seat at the club and a proud roundel. A stop at Old Mountain Coffee Company in Keene Valley, NY, introduced us to Counter Culture’s Forty-Six. Featuring this roast feels only necessary at the entrance to those blue collar mountains. We had always wanted more of that experience, even if it was produced by a 12 ounce bag of beans.

Counter Culture’s Forty-Six roast features a similar description to our favorite Italian Roast made up the street. Dark chocolate, smoky, and full-bodied are used to describe Forty-Six. The washed beans featured in the blend are 50% Ecuadorian and 50% Ethopian (from two different beans). Forty-six achieved Organic status in 2007. 

What we found was satisfaction through simplicity. The flavor profiles were not as explosive as our office pot. The acidity was a bit lower as well. What that means is Forty-Six is a great coffee to brew well into the heart of summer. It’s not the roundest pot of coffee we have made but it is substantially smoother. The chocolate flavors hide near the smokiness and it takes a bit of concentrating to tease them apart. For those who like less acidity than what is offered in a French or Italian roast but prefer the blunt flavors, this is your blend. It is hardly necessary to point out how quickly we polished off the bag. Maybe we liked the flavors that much, or maybe its smooth sipping abilities meant more brewed pots. 

This is one of those blends to reach for when the heat of the ride creeps up and it’s too soon for something canned and cold to temper the body. The low acidity avoids potential acid reflux, especially if gels were consumed with regularity. Or this could be a brew to sip while reading the back articles of Rouleur magazine in an attempt to establish some veiled normalcy in the world. This has made us want to snatch up another bag at Early Bird Espresso in Frenchtown, NJ. Maybe we will do just that.

* After early twentieth-century surveying, it was discovered not all of the Forty-sixers are over 4,000 feet in elevation.