Heart Roasters Bella Vista (Colombia)

heart bella vistaHeart Roasters is one of the Portland, OR places I keep missing on trips, so I made an effort on my last visit to Portland to make sure to visit, even if I only had a couple minutes. While I was there I was presented with a big wall of available coffees and I decided to buy one of their three Colombians that was currently available because I’ve been having pretty good luck with coffees from there recently. This review is of Heart’s Bella Vista, which no longer seems to be available on their website. I bought mine on 2/8/2015 for $18 for the bag.

My first couple cups of Bella Vista came from my Gino dripper. I found caramelized sugars in the aroma of the dry beans as well as a milk chocolate sweetness. In the flavor, the sweetness leaned a little toward peach and I caught hints of cinnamon or other “warm” spices that I couldn’t quite nail down. I found more sweetness in the cooling cup and there is plenty of acidity to balance it out. I found my favorite way to brew this coffee was following Heart’s own AeroPress recipe here. I tried my usual inverted method, but Heart’s way was just a bit more lively and I can’t really describe it any better than that.

When I was cupping this coffee against three other open bags from other roasters I wasn’t able to get much out of it, surprisingly. There was a persistent vegetal, pea-like flavor and some ashiness and acidity, but I couldn’t really tease out any of the flavors.

Overall I wanted to like this coffee more than I really did. It was OK for me, but not great. I couldn’t find any outright flaws, but the body was on the thin side and I didn’t feel like there was much depth to the cup. It wasn’t bad coffee, please understand, and I’ll have no problem finishing out my bag, but this particular coffee just didn’t nail it for me. I’ll be on the hunt for more Heart coffee next time I’m in Portland, though!