Stephanie Hofmann
5th Element Coffee, 2510 University Ave., is the near west side’s third-wave coffee spot. As such you can find only a few specialty beans there at one time. Sometimes they’re extremely limited offerings; others stick around for a while. One you have a good chance of encountering these days is a Red Bourbon varietal from the Marina Cumbre Farm in the Cordillera region of El Salvador.
5th Element has three options for a pour-over: a Chemex (glass), a Hario V-60 (a ceramic version of a filter holder) and an Aeropress (similar to a French press, but used with a paper filter, to leave little to no sediment in your brew).
An old-school Chemex preparation of the Marina Cumbre yielded a mellow but powerful cup that was mild enough to enjoy without any tempering milk. (Though when, halfway through the cup, I added milk, the flavor stood up to that as well.) No bitterness got in the way of the somewhat acidic, even tea-like notes of the coffee. The Marina Cumbre had a “polite” wake-me-up edge — though lacking the nuttier sweetness of a Colombian bean.