Barista Coffee Box 5/17: Revelator Kalico

Barista Coffee Box knocked it out of the park this month with Revelator Coffee Company. Not only have I found Revelator’s coffees to be delicious, but they threw in two extra packets this month, so subscribers were able to taste six coffees from this powerhouse of the South! Today I’m tasting Kalico, a washed Bourbon from Burundi and this is my first-ever Saturday review, but I have so much coffee to share with you there isn’t a moment to spare!

Barista Coffee Box

Revelator Coffee Co.

Purchase directly for $16/12oz

Revelator Shiwanda Review

Eater article about Revelator


BARISTA COFFEE BOX MAY 2017: REVELATOR KALICO

Check out my Shiwanda review (link above) and the Eater article I posted above for the full story on multi-state roaster and cafe, Revelator Coffee Co. With stores in Alabama, South Carolina, Atlanta, New Orleans and Tennessee, the Southeast USA is all the better for Revelator’s expansion! It was awesome for them to provide two extra coffees for Barista Coffee Box subscribers, too. What a nice surprise, and I was also surprised to find a cool back story on this morning’s coffee, Kalico, in particular.

Kalico is short for Kahawa Link Company which was founded in 2012 by friends and experienced businesswomen, Angele Ciza and Consolata Ndayishimiye. The pair decided to go into the coffee business together and purchased seven washing stations that had been part of a Burundi government-run program. Angele and Consolata wanted to work closely with farmers to produce and process the best coffee Burundi could offer, which is saying something! Kalico’s washing stations are located in the Kirundo and Muyinga provinces of northeastern Burundi and each one serves 1,000-3,000 growers, testament to how small some of these farms can be and the importance of having cooperative access to washing stations like Kalico’s. Most of these farmers grow Bourbon variety coffee, which is the staple of Burundi’s coffee crop. The hills around these stations are in the 1650-1700masl altitude range and today’s coffee is a washed selection.

Revelator gives us tasting notes of, “papaya, mango, guava and green tobacco” for this coffee. I used my standard pourover method using a 1:16 ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of water in a notNeutral Gino dripper. Handground grinder was set to 3 and I used Third Wave Water, as always, in my preparation.

First sip and I’m in love! The aroma from this coffee has hints of black licorice (I don’t know that I’ve ever caught that in a coffee before!) and purple grape soda for me. In the cup I’m getting some more of that grape soda note with a little bit of a cola vibe, too. This coffee has a just-on-the-heavy side of medium body to it with a creamy mouthfeel. It has a nice base of sweetness that gives this coffee a heavy, substantial presence on my palate, too. As it cools it gets a little more “tropical” retaining tons of sweetness but picking up a little of that tart acidity I find in tropical fruits like papaya and mango. This is a fruity coffee but it’s not as bright as you may think. This coffee is clean and structured but it is dripping with heavy, sugary, fruity sweetness, too. It’s so good! I’m not sure what to expect from green tobacco as per Revelator’s description, but there is a tobacco note in the finish and aftertaste of this coffee. I occasionally smoke a pipe or a cigar and the aftertaste reminds me a little of the heavily flavored Rattray’s summer tobacco from 2015 (which I just got and smoked a couple weeks ago). There’s a bunch of tropical flavorings added to that tobacco and the light tobacco mixed with fruit aftertaste of this coffee is along those lines for me, not like a cigarette or cigar.

Another killer coffee by Revelator! This one definitely satisfies my sweet tooth and it’s delicious and insanely drinkable. I only wish I had more, but then again I have about 15 bags of coffee to get to ASAP for you readers! LOL

3 Responses

  1. Revelatormom
    |

    So happy you like Revelator Coffee….thanks for the review

    • KCcoffeegeek
      |

      Everything I’ve had has been excellent! Thanks!!!

  2. Tommy Nick
    |

    I can smell the aroma from here