Review: CloudSplitter Coffee Brewding Skies
It was appropriate to consume large quantities of coffee with a stormy name during the region’s first snowfall in two years. While the storm fizzled out, it continued northward, dumping nearly a foot of snow on the Adirondacks, where the cloud splitter peak itself can be found with the contemporary name of Mount Marcy. CloudSplitter Coffee not only roasts quality beans, but their company embraces the endurance events. Two bags of Veteran owned coffee found their way to our office; as the snow turned to rain back to snow back to rain, we stayed inside and sampled CloudSplitter’s Brewding Skies dark roast.
Cloud splitter is a colloquial name for the highest point in New York state, Mount Marcy. Originally referred to as Tahawus, Algonquin for “cloud splitter,” the mountain’s name came from one-time New York Governor William Marcy. The only way to summit Mount Marcy is hiking in the summer and skiing/ snowshoeing in the winter. There has been a push in recent years to return the cloud splitter name to New York’s highest peak.
CloudSplitter Coffee shares a love of the northeast region’s endurance challenges. A quick scan of CloudSplitter Coffee’s social media displays ultramarathon events, Appalachian Trail hikes, and Adirondack 46er. While there are no cycling posts, we no doubt share a love of mid-training coffee breaks. Perhaps one day we can meet the CloudSplitter crew atop Whiteface, they having hiked it while we biked it, to share a summit cuppa. In the meantime, we fired up the brewing process to have a sample of their dark roast.
As always we like to inhale the bean aroma emanating from the packaging. CloudSplitter Coffee’s packaging is quite snappy. The bags feature a striking photo of a summiter as the sky melts into the label. Meanwhile the bag itself is coated for ease of handling, particularly with wet hands during breakfast service. The back of the bag pays homage to “gritty endurance trail runners, mountain bikers, climbers, and backcountry badasses.” It also goes on to state that a portion of each sale supports causes that safeguard the outdoors and nature. This is a company that speaks our language.
Brewding Skies is a single origin Sumatran bean. Sending the Brewding Skies dark roast beans through the Virtuoso grinder leaves sets up a low acid cup. The beans ground down to a dark sandy color without leaving any residue. We set our grinder to 18 and found this to be ideal. The aroma of the brew process left us focused on the dark color of coffee instead of the slushy weather just outside. This was not being socked in, but if ever there was a coffee to brew at this time, Brewding Skies was it.
The best way to describe this coffee is clean: the flavor profiles were smooth and balanced, the acidity was low enough to encourage more cups to be made, the aroma was invigorating, the buzz was encouraging to do basement trainer workouts when the couch was clearly more appealing. CloudSplitter Coffee’s Brewding Skies was precisely what was needed to make a sloppy weather day into a successful indoor workout. Already the endurance challenges worked their way into the bloodstream.
As a former resident of the Adirondacks and a one-time endurance athlete, one final piece filled in by CloudSplitter Coffee’s Brewding Skies provides is nostalgia. We don’t make it up to Upstate New York endurance events as much, but to sip coffee from a company that strives to preserve the way can help with thinking back on events necessitating months-long run-ups. Until we return for another big endurance event, CloudSplitter Coffee will fill the void nicely.
And one day, when we return to Whiteface, we hope CloudSplitter will be at the top with a steaming hot paper cup of their own coffee where we can detail our own summit bids that day. It will be as close to literally laying out their label name as possible.
