Single Origin Coffee from Ywangan, Shan State, Myanmar by AGF Everblack Instant Coffee

I came across AGF's gourmet single origin Everblack specialty coffee series earlier this year and found a couple of their coffees very unique. The first is made from coffee beans grown in Ywangan, a small town in Shan State in Myanmar. It is apparently elevated about 4,000ft above sea level and is a relatively new coffee growing region. Its coffee strain is of the Costa Rican variety, and apparently has a score of 85 on the Specialty Coffee Association's scale, which puts it well into the "specialty" coffee range (above 80). This seems to be in line with the improving quality of Myanmar's coffees, which have been scoring 85-90 in recent years.*

I brewed this packet in a shot-amount of hot water, then stirred in cold milk in latte proportions.

This is because I do not like black coffees, so only drink them white or latte style. Furthermore, I find Japanese instant coffees, especially AGF's especially good for pairing with milk, as they tend to have a very smooth and mellow taste that goes well with milk, unlike some acidic or overly smoky Western instant coffees.

It is possibly the most unique single-origin coffee I have tried thus far. While most coffees are either chocolaty, nutty or fruity, this one was malty with a grain-like taste, like maltose syrup was added, just without the sweetness. It was a most comforting and mellow taste, like those cereal grain or malted milk drinks. The official description from AGF called this a "brown sugar" taste, which I can totally see why. (See the 22nd column from the left in the screenshot below from Amazon's item page, featuring the official AGF material and auto-translated from Japanese to English.)

The complex darkness of the "brown sugar" or malt taste perfectly straddled the bitter coffee taste and the creamy milk taste, and this was absolutely a winning combination. Think of how brown sugar bubble tea went viral in popularity, except that this would be the more complex and intense coffee version without the sweetness.

Finally, here's the info panel, in case you are interested:

I'm not sure how limited their supplies are - some sites mentioned Ywangon's harvest batch size as either small or affected by climate change, so do grab them asap if you can.

*Note: I tried to verify this information, but there did not seem to be an official list of scores published by the official Specialty Coffee Association's website, so I was unable to verify it. Nonetheless, various sites covering Myanmar's coffee industry from different angles seem to support this.

Discover other interesting coffee and lattes:

• Kopi Luwak aka Civet Cat Droppings Coffee
• Little Butter Latte by Luckin Coffee
• Ondeh Ondeh Lattes
• Planet Latte at Greybox Coffee
• Unicorn Latte Art at Keong Saik Bakery
• Dirty Coffee from Asia - Greybox Coffee from China