Happy Eclipse Day 2017! The Kansas City area is going to be bonkers today because we’re just a stone’s throw away from the totality zone. So, what better way to celebrate than by featuring a Kansas City coffee roaster, too? I know, it’s a rare day that KC Coffee Geek actually covers a KC roaster, so let’s check out this Guatemalan coffee from Encore Coffee Co.!
Purchase this coffee directly for $13/12oz ($4.95 shipping on all orders!)
Roaster profile: Encore Coffee Co.
ENCORE COFFEE CO. GUATEMALA HUEHUETENANGO LA PROVIDENCIA ESTATE
I first featured coffee from Mike King’s Encore Coffee Co. in 2016. The company was brand new, after Mike left his previous career in the dust and had gone full-time into coffee roasting! You can read more about Encore in the roaster profile I wrote last year. I’m happy to see he is still going strong with local retail sales, the Merriam Farmers Market and his online presence!
Today’s eclipse coffee (hey, we all need to cash in while we can! LOL) is a fresh Guatemalan from Encore, La Providencia Estate. La Providencia is found near San Pedro Necta in in the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala. This is the on the western side of the country and it borders Mexico’s Chiapas region, also well known for coffee growing. Tracking down exactly which La Providencia this is can be tough (there are a lot of Finca La Providencia’s in Guatemala!), but this is a Bourbon lot that was grown around 1750masl. This is a washed coffee and Encore Coffee Co. gives us tasting notes of, “dark chocolate, almond and caramel.”
Mike tends to roast his coffees well into the medium range but also plenty shy of second crack. This tends to knock the acidity down a little, bring up the sweetness from more caramelization of the sugars in the coffee beans, and breaks the beans down a little so they are more soluble in a greater variety of equipment. Mike makes his coffee for the masses and so he knows a lot of the people buying his coffees will probably be using standard coffee machines and so a bit longer in the roaster is a good tactical move. I’m using my standard pourover setup of a 1:16 ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of water in a notNeutral Gino dripper. My Handground grinder is set to 3 and I am using Third Wave Water, as always!
The aroma from this cup is like liquid caramel, once the cup cools down some. It smells so inviting and promises a lot of sweetness. Longtime readers know how much I like sugary, super sweet Guatemalan coffees! Sure enough, this is a sweet coffee, with a wave of dark caramel washing over my palate. That is, for sure, the dominant flavor in this cup, but there is a red apple juice-like acidity to the cup to lend a little balance and interest to this coffee, too. In the cooling cup, there is also a healthy hint of orange citrus in the acidity, too, but with a slightly darker medium roast, that is turned down some in exchange for all that caramel sweetness. This orangey acidity comes off as orange juice, adding a bit of vibrance to the coffee but also staying with the theme of sweet, sweet, sweet! The finish on this coffee is juicy and leaves a coating of that OJ acidity/sweetness behind, then it becomes a little roasty and of darkly caramelized sugars if I wait, reluctantly, for a minute or two between sips!
I like this coffee. It’s sweet, clean and has an overall interesting flavor profile with plenty going on while not being too complex or fussy. If you like a nice, easy-drinking, crowd-pleasing Guatemalan coffee, this is right up your alley!