SEY Coffee

SEY Coffee roasts in Brooklyn, out of a space on Grattan Street. The active catalog is small and stays narrow. Seven coffees are listed at the moment, six single origins and one blend, and the sourcing behind them concentrates on two countries rather than spreading across a dozen. Colombia supplies three of the singles. Ethiopia supplies the other three.

Roasting stops well short of dark. Six of the seven active coffees sit at medium-light and the seventh is medium, which means no bag on this shelf has been taken far enough for roast flavor to start covering origin flavor. Five of the six single origins are washed, and one is a honey lot. A decaf is part of the lineup.

Bags come in at 8.8 ounces instead of the more common twelve, and they run $24.25 to $28.50 at that weight. That is a small package at a high price per ounce. The catalog reads like it was built for someone who buys coffee the way other people buy bread, one bag at a time and often.

Single Origins

Blends

Roast Profile & Flavor Range

The histogram is one-sided. Six coffees sit at medium-light, one at medium, and nothing reaches medium-dark or dark. Acidity averages toward the high end of medium across the catalog while body averages toward the low end, which is the pattern you get when beans are developed just far enough to hold their sweetness without picking up any weight. Washed processing covers five of the six single origins and a honey lot covers the sixth, so most of the fruit in these cups is coming from the coffee itself rather than from a long fermentation. Colombia and Ethiopia split the singles three and three. At the standard 8.8 ounce bag the range is $24.25 to $28.50, with a median of $26.

What SEY Coffee Coffees Tend to Taste Like

Citrus runs through the tasting notes more than anything else. Lime shows up plainly, candied lemon next to it, and one lot carries finger lime, which is sharper and more granular than either. The second thread is tea and flowers. Bergamot, jasmine and hibiscus all appear, along with earl grey tea, so several of these coffees drink closer to a delicate steeped tea than to what most people picture when someone hands them a cup of coffee. Fruit sits underneath that. Blueberry and melon turn up, plus a general berry note, and dark chocolate is named exactly once across the whole list. Body is low, so none of it lands heavily. The fruit arrives and then clears.

Why Buy SEY Coffee

• Two countries, six singles: Colombia and Ethiopia split the single origins evenly. CoffeeByMe reads that as a specialist catalog rather than a general one.

• Nothing roasted past medium: Six of seven active coffees are medium-light and the seventh is medium.

• Washed lots dominate: Five of six single origins are washed, which keeps the fruit clean and the fermentation flavors out of the way.

• Light body, high lift: Acidity runs medium-high while body runs medium-low. These are cups that sit on the tongue like tea and leave almost nothing behind.

Is SEY Coffee Right for You?

This is a filter drinker's catalog. Pour-over especially, since low body and light roasting reward a brew method that keeps the cup clean rather than one that pushes for syrup and weight, and anyone building an espresso recipe from these beans should expect to spend time on it. Take milk in your coffee and this is the wrong shelf. So is it if your ideal morning cup is chocolate and caramel, because those notes barely register across these seven coffees. Bag size matters too. At 8.8 ounces, a $26 bag does not last long in a two-cup-a-day house, and that arithmetic is the main reason to hesitate.

Frequently Asked Questions