Bold Bean Coffee Roasters Finca El Boyerito

Bold Bean Finca El Boyerito

Every now and then I get an unexpected package of coffee samples from my friends at Bold Bean Coffee Roasters in Jacksonville, FL. I’ve had enough of their coffee that they reside, quite securely, on my personal “buy with full confidence” list, so I’m always excited to open it up and see what’s inside! I’ll have a couple more Bold Bean reviews to share next week, but in the meantime, today I’ll be sharing their Finca El Boyerito.

Finca El Boyerito is a coffee farm located in the Tarrazu region of Costa Rica. It was bought by Adan Monge in the 1950’s and has been passed down in the family since then. Today, Adan’s grandson, Ismael Monge Garbanzo, and his brothers are in charge of the farm. Finca El Boyerito sits at 1493masl and they produce about 20 bags (keep in mind these are standard green coffee bags of around 70kg or 154lbs each) of caturra and catuai varietals per year. The gang at Bold Bean was able to buy all 12 of the bags of this coffee that made it to auction this year, so this is an exclusive coffee that you won’t find anyone else offering or roasting!

This coffee consists of red and yellow catuai and caturra cultivars and the coffee goes through washed processing. You can buy this coffee directly and only from Bold Bean for $16/12oz bag. Bold Bean offers tasting suggestions of raspberry, black tea and tropical fruit.

I used my standard 1:15 pourover method in a notNeutral Gino dripper using Kalita 185 bleached filters. The grounds gave off a super raisiny aroma while I was blooming them. In the cup, the aromas from this coffee are subtle and I wasn’t really getting much out of it. Flavors are bright and sweet, but also somewhat restrained. This coffee has a light-side-of-medium body and the flavors don’t linger on the palate for an extended time. The acidity on this coffee hits my whole palate, especially the sides of my tongue and cheeck, but it’s gentle and soft, not a tooth enamel stripper! The acidity is hard to pin down as a specific fruit or flavor, but I’d day it’s more of a malic character (think of apples and apple juice) than the type of citric acidity you’d get from a citrus fruit.

I get some light brown sugar in the sweetness and that raspberry descriptor is definitely there in the sip as well as in the aftertaste. It’s not an obvious berry flavor like, for example, in a lot of natural Ethiopian coffees, but it’s still pretty easy to identify in the cup. The light body and mild flavors of this coffee definitely give it a tea-like vibe and the finish on this coffee is rather dry, also making it “feel” a bit like drinking a black tea. There’s a little bit of a savory component in this coffee for me, too, dare I say a hint of umami?

This is a refreshing, subtle but not boring in the least, coffee. It is rather complex and you do need to take some care in tasting it to get all those flavors out of it. At the same time, if this you’re doing work and you have this cup at your desk and you’re not interested in sussing out all the flavors, its super-drinkable and pleasing, but it’s definitely a lighter coffee and I could see this being a better afternoon work companion while you may reach for something a bit more aggressive in the AM. Nonetheless, this is another beautiful, even graceful, coffee from Bold Bean and they continue to show off how skilled they are at roasting challenging coffees from Central America. A great job!