Folk City Roasters Guatemala Finca Pavon

Let’s get through a rainy (in Kansas City, at least) hump day with a new-to-me-and-probably-to-you roaster from Pennsylvania, Folk City Roasters. I’ve been watching Folk City on Instagram for a while and now it’s time to taste some of their coffee! Slurp!

Folk City Roasters

Purchase this coffee directly for $15/12oz

FOLK CITY ROASTERS FINCA PAVON

Folk City Roasters has only been around for the past year, but James Arnold started his company in Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania (“upper Bucks” county, north of Philadelphia and NW of Trenton, NJ along the Delaware River) with singular focus. Using the help of crowdfunding to secure a 5lb roaster, James wanted Folk City Roasters to be “stripped of everything unnecessary to the task of getting well roasted coffee to the people who want it.” In his Indiegogo campaign, James added, “In order to achieve this goal, we want to start with just the basics. No coffee shop. No cart. Just a building, the coffee, and a roaster.” Doing a little bit of social media sleuthing, I was able to see that the roaster arrived in mid-November 2016 and by late November coffee was starting to head out to backers. Folk City appears to have some retailers selling on the shelves and you can buy directly from the company via their website or with their affordable subscription service. I dig Folk City’s DIY aesthetic and I’m especially a fan of the hand-printed labels. Mine has a nice blue-magenta fade and it’s definitely something I’ll cut out and stick on something else!

This morning’s coffee is Folk City’s Finca Pavon from the Antigua region of Guatemala. This is a washed Bourbon variety from this farm, which was planted originally in the mid-1800’s by Manuel Pavon and is now owned by Maria Duran. She has done a lot to clean up the farm she inherited, which was in bad shape when she got it. Finca Pavon is five hectares in area and only about 12 bags (the 154lb ones!) of this coffee were imported this year. This coffee was sourced by the excellent people at Coffeeshrub (if you’re a home roaster, you know that side of the same business as Sweet Marias)  via their Farm Gate program, which pays farmers a minimum of 50% higher prices (and often 100%) than Fair Trade.

I used 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 was set to 3 and I use Third Wave Water, always, for my brewing.

The aroma on this coffee is really nice. Sweet, “warm,” a little chocolatey with some raisin-like notes, too. I’m greeted by a medium-full bodied cup with a creamy texture and mouthfeel. I know using descriptors like “smooth” is a no-no, but it really does describe how this coffee feels on my palate. It’s like that slick, creamy mouthfeel a good oatmeal stout (beer) has. This is a coffee that rewards some patience. At warmer temps it’s a little brighter, a little thinner in mouthfeel and leans more toward a raisin/currant-dominated flavor. As it cools, this Finca Pavon takes on a sweeter, fuller, more chocolatey character and it’s really delicious, warm and inviting. At these cooler temps I get some green apple acidity, milk and semisweet chocolate notes and a long finish that has some slight roasty notes in it. I woke up to dark, rainy skies in Kansas City this morning and this flavor profile is perfect for the start of such a day. Warm, comforting, familiar… but also different and unique at the same time. There is a caramel tone to the sweetness in this cup and while I wouldn’t call it a sugar-bomb, this coffee definitely leans toward that type of sweetness and that is absolutely my favorite kind of Guatemalan coffee flavor profile. There’s nothing about this one that I don’t just absolutely love!