Equator Coffees & Teas Honduras COMUCAP

(This is a guest post by Stacey Lynn, another Kansas City-based coffee enthusiast. You can find her at her blog, Stacey’s Coffee, on Instagram and Twitter!)

I invited Stacey Lynn, another Kansas City coffee blogger, to contribute a post to KCcoffeegeek this week, so I hope you enjoy it! The coffee she reviewed is Equator Coffees & Teas Honduras COMUCAP, a fair trade organic coffee. This coffee is a mix of varietals grown in the 1219-1585masl elevation range. It’s a washed coffee with tasting notes of “cola, brown sugar, nutmeg” from Equator. COMUCAP is a women’s cooperative located in Marcala, southwestern Honduras. Read a lot more about this co-op at Equator’s website! You can buy this coffee for $15/12oz bag. [ref]https://store.equatorcoffees.com/coffees/honduras_comucap_fto.html[/ref]

It was one of those mornings when waking up wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. Coffee was required. Good coffee. Good coffee, on the bright side. So, today I decided to try the other Equator coffee KC Coffeegeek gave me. This one is from Honduras. It’s a light/medium roast according to the website.

In the past I’ve enjoyed coffees from Honduras, they had a lively acidity and that’s what I was looking for this morning. turns out I made a good choice.

I brewed it using the Kalita wave at a 15:1 ratio. Today that meant 24 grams of coffee and 360 grams of water. I often do 30:450 but that’s when my husband is home and he might want some too. Today it was all for me, so I just made myself a nice, large cup of coffee. It should be noted that the beaker is not how I measure it. There is a scale under there. I just like making my coffee into a beaker. So that it tastes like science. LOL

Brew time was right around 3 min. Water was whatever the temperature is after I let it sit for 30 seconds after it boils. I’m not fancy yet with my water. It’s a kettle and a stove. Put water in the kettle, add heat with the stove and when it boils – it’s time to take it off.

My first sip was not good. It was awful beyond belief. Then I realized it had not been that long since I brushed my teeth and perhaps the coffee/toothpaste combination was not a winner. Rinsed my mouth out and gave it another go.

Poof! Like magic, the coffee went from undrinkable to a bright, sweet cup of happy.

The aroma was very sweet. I got sugar and vanilla and it really reminded me of how things smell when I make rice krispies treats. Or when something sweet has been mixed, but not baked yet. It was a fresh sweet, not a spicy, baked sweet.

The same can’t be said for the taste. There was spice there. I still got hints of vanilla, but some stronger spice too. Ginger like maybe? It was bright and bouncy. What I was looking for this morning. A real “Good morning! How are you today?” kind of acid. The body was light/medium – kind of a refined elegance but not etheral and wispy. Lots of sweetness. Darker sugars, brown sugar, maybe some dried fruits. It reminded me of the sweet, spicy brightness of root beer. Didn’t taste like root beer, just that the feeling of it was similar. The dark sugar and spicy taste contrasted very nicely with the sparkly acidity.

I found the aftertaste to be lingering and pleasant. As the cup cooled I noticed that the sweetness became more pronounced in both the aroma and the taste. Maybe a hint of nuttiness in the aftertaste. Maybe nuttiness is not the right word – but there was something there.

I may have finally learned my lesson about pairing bright coffees with sweet fruits or treats. It just does not often go well. Today I did NOT grab a banana while drinking this, had a real breakfast instead. This coffee was wonderful with homemade corn tortillas, eggs and a bit of beef cooked with onions & peppers and topped with cheese. Kind of an open faced breakfast burrito.