Encore Coffee Co. Bolivia Caranavi Peaberry Organic

I’ve been “working” (it’s pretty fun, let’s be honest!) a little bit with Mike from Encore Coffee Co. here in Kansas City on an espresso blend he is developing. He dropped a bag of this Bolivian coffee he was really digging on me the last time we saw each other. He rotates coffees on his site, some, and I don’t see a for sale link for this one at the time of this writing, but it’s possible that will change soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

ENCORE COFFEE CO. BOLIVIA CARANAVI PEABERRY ORGANIC

I can’t remember the last time I reviewed a coffee from Bolivia, so I used my own search feature on the website and, it turns out, that I’ve never reviewed anything from this region! I could’ve sworn I’ve had maybe 1-2, but search engines don’t lie, do they? Mike at Encore Coffee Co. was really stoked about this coffee the last time I saw him and it was really nice and sweet throughout a wide range of roasting parameters. Doing a little research on coffee in Bolivia, I found without much surprise that Bolivian coffees should be the classic “clean cup”: delicate, bright, sweet and subtle fruit notes like pear, apple, tangerine and lemon or maltier, nuttier flavors with more developed roasts.

Today’s coffee is from the Caranavi region of Bolivia and it’s a washed peaberry lot with growing altitudes in the 1400masl range. These are Caturra and Typica beans with organic certification, which is always a nice plus. Visually, this coffee appears to be roasted a bit lighter than some of the other Encore coffees I’ve written about, but the eyes don’t always tell the whole story when it comes to coffee roast, so we’d better taste this one! 😉

This is definitely a clean and sweet cup brewed as a pourover. I used my notNeutral Gino with a 1:16 ratio (28g coffee, 450g water) and this makes for a light-side-of-medium bodied cup. There is an apple sweetness and acidity to this coffee punctuated by a hint of lemon that kicks in quite late in the sip. There is a lot of caramel sweetness in the cup with some roasted nut flavors, maybe a little hazelnutty, to be specific. The roasted nut notes extend into the slightly dry finish and aftertaste, too, which is quite short. As the cup cools that little “!” of lemon in the acidity profile morphed into more of a tangerine note, a little sweeter and rounder, but still with some citrus brightness.

I always feel bad when I don’t have a lot to say about a coffee, but as a new-to-me origin, I don’t have anything to compare it to and some coffees are beautiful in their simplicity and this is one of them! It’s clean, balanced, sweet, nutty and with enough acidity to keep it interesting… what more can I ask for? Another delicious cup from right here in Kansas City! I love it!

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