Eclipse | 53.4 Dark

By ONYX COFFEE LAB

Baker's Chocolate | Burnt Sugar | Smoked Vanilla Bean

$54
Size
2 in stock
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ECLIPSE 🌘

BAKER'S CHOCOLATE | BURNT SUGAR | SMOKED VANILLA BEAN
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Eclipse is Onyx's most developed roast. And while their craft thrives on the lighter side of roasting, this blend is the byproduct of a certain subculture dedicated to the dark side.
Leaning into and leveling up its European roots, Eclipse has notes of chocolate, burnt sugar and smoked vanilla bean under its distinctive roast character and heavy tactile. Its South American origin farms change with seasonality (as you'd expect from Onyx), but don't get it twisted -- from one bag to the next this black gold extracts darker than a Darren Aronofsky movie at midnight.

From the Lab

One of the few Onyx coffees that categorizes squarely within a roast level, Eclipse is dark enough to block out the sun...or at least the acidity prevalent in more modern roasts.

The low acidity is accomplished by roasting the coffee just past its peak sweetness, coupled with a long development to create a heavy body and deeply toasted sugars. The effect is nostalgic of those thick and syrupy European coffees you slammed back during your semester abroad -- with sensory notes of burnt sugar, heavy smoked fruits and dark chocolate, all masked by an intense roast character and heavy tactical.

Eclipse is one of Onyx's most legendary bestsellers for a reason. It pairs well with dairy and works great as both filter coffee and espresso. As goes without saying with Onyx, it's sourced seasonally from smallholder farms that are paid a minimum of 2x Fairtrade prices and roasted in a solar-powered facility in Rogers, Arkansas.

Blend Approach

Let's just say Onyx's approach to creating coffee blends is a little different (on the obsessive side) than most.

Instead of simply combining coffees from regions that will theoretically "work well together", Onyx starts at the end and works backwards to the source: pre-defining an exacting blend profile consisting of the specific acidity, sugar, fat, and tasting profile they want to invent -- then blind cupping as many independent coffees as it takes to achieve it. (The only hard rule being you'll never find an Onyx blend with more than three varieties at a time.)

The mad genius of this is that it allows Onyx to dial in a "year-round" coffee like Eclipse without compromising their commitment to 100% seasonal sourcing. E.g., while Eclipse's overall profile stays consistent, the unique combination of farms and terroirs that Onyx draws on to create it changes with the season every 3-4 months 🤯.

Yes, this is a flex. It takes a constant commitment to profiling, cupping, sourcing...and then doing it all over again. But it means the coffee you get from Onyx is always in season, always designed to extract exactly how they intended it, and is one of the (many) things that makes them great. 

This season's Eclipse is a single-origin blend of Caturra beans from the mountains of Columbia.

Radical Transparency

Speaking of Onyx being awesome, did I mention they set the industry standard for ingredient and Fairtrade sourcing transparency?
We're talking the type of radical -- like, "report your wholesale prices, shipping costs, and solar energy consumption" radical -- transparency that isn't practical or profitable, that most customers will never see, that basically only makes sense to do if you care more about being great than being commercial.
"Money, power, respect / the last one is better." 🔥

Pay Structure

B+

This is the grade Onyx assigns to their level of supply chain transparency and visibility back to the original producer (with an A+ being payment wired from Onyx directly to the original farmer, and points deducted for intermediation beyond that). 

For Eclipse, the B+ signifies a published price of payment that went directly to a producer but that the producer also buys cherries from other neighboring farms. Verbal confirmation and published prices of Farm gate are acquired by Onyx for all cherries, but they only pay the lead producer directly. Mills, Exporter, and Importer are all known and quality scores are published. FOB, Milling, Logistics proven.

Green Cost

$3.85

This is the price per pound that Onyx paid for the raw, green beans used in the Monarch blend. 

In this case, $3.85 represents a FOB ("free on board") cost, which means Onyx paid for the beans at the point of shipping and the seller was responsible for any overland fees that were incurred before the coffee was on board the ship.

For context, the International Fairtrade minimum price for coffee is currently $1.80/lb (recently increased from $1.40). Onyx currently pays at least twice the Fairtrade minimum on every coffee it sources. 

Cup Score

86

As part of their commitment to fair farmer compensation, the Onyx team evaluates every coffee they taste on a numerical scoresheet developed by the Coffee Quality Institute. This helps establish a consistent framework for quality to benchmark Onyx's negotiations with its suppliers, allowing producers to command higher prices for incremental quality-enhancing measures that they undertake. 

Note that this cup score is independent from Onyx's internal taste testing, and is a measure of raw ingredient quality than subjective drinkability (e.g., it's common for a roaster to intentionally source and 86 point coffee over an 88 when it comes to taste). 
onyx coffee lab never settle for good enough

The most awarded coffee in the world, straight outta...Arkansas?

Y'all better believe it.
Onyx is a family-owned, specialty coffee roastery based in Northwest Arkansas and widely respected as the most awarded independent coffee roaster in the world.
Founded by couple Andrea and Jon Allen in 2012 with the mission to bring great coffee to their hometown of Bentonville, an unrelenting focus on quality, craft, innovation, and transparency has earned Onyx an ever-expanding slew of awards on U.S. and international stages...including Andrea personally winning 1st place in the US Barista Championship in 2020. (No we don't know what that entails beyond pouring a mean latte, but it's badass.)
Today, Onyx serves coffee out of its central roastery and "Coffee Lab" in Rogers, AR as well as four satellite cafes in the surrounding area. From what we can see, they remain pedal-down on the promise to "Never Settle for Good Enough", as evidenced by continued new releases, innovation, and re-investment in the art and science of coffee making. Easyday is proud to be one of a select number of authorized retail partners nationwide. ⚡️