In addition to having some nice packaging and branding, Kansas City’s Messenger Coffee Co. is proving that they know how to roast a variety of coffees from around the world. I’ve really been enjoying some samples they sent me recently and I’ve found all the roasts to be nicely developed and the flavors pleasing and well balanced.
This coffee was provided by Messenger as a complimentary sample for KCcoffeegeek.com evaluation. This is not a paid review nor is Messenger an advertiser on this site. You can find this coffee for sale currently on Messenger’s website for $18.50/bag. If you’re local to KC you can sometimes find smaller sample bags (like the size I got, which I can’t recall but I think was in the 4-6 oz range) of Messenger coffee at About the Coffee, but give them a call ahead of time to make sure they have what you’re looking for!
I stuck to the notNeutral Gino for brewing this coffee, using my standard 30g of ground coffee, 450g of water and a total brew time of around 4:00. The beans themselves, both whole as well as ground, really put off a lot of thick molasses and dark caramelized sugar aromas, not unlike the amazing Sunergos PNG Waghi I reviewed recently. The aroma from the brewed cup had a lot of dark sugar, too, telling me that the bass notes were going to play an important role in this cup. I know acid and fruit is what everyone wants in coffee right now, but people who have read a lot of my reviews know I’m a sucker for a sweet cup, too!
This coffee’s sweetness certainly takes center stage. It has a roasty bitterness that is slightly ashy that plays nicely against the sugars, which I really enjoyed. The aroma was really nice on this coffee and I liked breathing it in as much as I did drinking it! As the cup cooled the acidity picked up a bit, as it usually does in coffee, and I picked up a bit of fruit in the flavor. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was calling up memories of some peachiness but also some melon flavors, something between honeydew and cantaloupe. The fruit was quite subtle, but tasty nonetheless!
I picked up some pink bubblegum on a few sips, too, which I know angers some coffee cognoscenti, but remember, there are many, MANY chemical compounds in chemicals, many of which are the same or very similar to other foods, so it’s easy to see how a cup of coffee can pull up some seemingly strange flavor associations. The same esters and aldehydes can appear in natural foods, so if it’s there, it’s there! That being said, it wasn’t something I noticed on more than two sips, so you could probably drink a whole bag of this coffee and not necessarily notice any bubblegum in it! I found some vague “nuttiness” in the cup, too, but I can’t commit to a specific nut.
Overall, I really enjoyed this coffee and I’ve been very happy with the samples Messenger sent me. This Patio Bonito is one of a bunch of nice Colombian coffees I’ve had the past couple months. It has nice complexity and depth, but at the same time it’s easy to drink and I think would pair really nicely with milk and sugar, too, so if you’re “one of those people” you could get some nice use out of this coffee, too! That can’t be said of every coffee, trust me! The roast is well-developed and I just really enjoyed everything about this coffee!