Treeline | High Sierra

Bozeman’s Treeline Coffee Roasters is largely responsible for my current relationship with coffee. They’re my favorite out-of-valley roaster by far.

They’ve adopted a creative naming practice for their coffees, and High Sierra is roast of a naturally processed lot of beans from the Jikawa province of Papua New Guinea.

Check out our YouTube review.

Naturally processing of coffee beans essentially allows the coffee cheery to rot or ferment away in the open air, which is how the beans are removed. This processing often lends an interesting flavor profile to the beans. High Sierra is a pretty unique and interesting example of this.

To quote Treeline’s website:

“This coffee comes to us from the Kindeng Dry Mill, located in the Jikawa province of Papua New Guinea. It is a blend of coffee purchased in cherry from about 1500 multiple smallholders located in the Kindeng and Arufa municipalities. The average farm size of producers in this area is about 1-2 hectares, and the soil is generally sandy loam and loamy clay. After cherries are received at the mill, they are processed accordingly and dried on raised beds and canvasses. They are moved multiple times a day throughout the average 1-month drying process to ensure an even and uniform average moisture content across the lot. Once the coffee is adequately dried, it is placed into bags, stored in a cool and dry warehouse, hulled, milled, and prepped for export.”

- Treeline Coffee Roasters

This coffee sits on a very different place in the palate. Treeline’s tasting notes include “blueberry, potpourri and black tea”. The dark fruit hits at the beginning and the black tea finish is strong. There is an interesting, almost floral aromatic component to this flavor, which easy to see as potpourri.

It’s not my usual cup of coffee, but given the flavor profile it’s interesting and definitely worth a try!