This morning’s coffee is a single origin from the Jinotega region of Nicaragua that came my way via Mountain Bird Coffee Company, a roaster located in the Ozark Mountains of northern Arkansas. As it turns out, the northwest region of Arkansas is a little hotbed of good specialty coffee!
Mountain Bird Coffee Co. website
Buy this coffee directly for $14/12oz.
Mountain Bird Coffee Co. Stevie’s Espresso review
MOUNTAIN BIRD COFFEE CO. EL RECREO ESTATE
I enjoyed the traditional nature of Mountain Bird’s Stevie’s Espresso quite a bit, so I was anxious to try this single origin coffee and see how it was roasted. This morning’s coffee is from the El Recreo Estate. Unlike the majority of growers featured on KCcoffeegeek.com, the folks at El Recreo have a nice online presence (link at the top of the story!) and a US connection that imports their coffee to this country. El Recreo Estate is located near Jinotega, Nicaragua, where much of the coffee from that country is grown. Coffee has been grown on the land since 1905 and the farm has been owned by the Ferrey-Machado family since 1972. The current incarnation of the coffee company was founded in 2011 and the farm is 364 acres with Rainforest Alliance Certification and a serious attitude of social and environmental responsibility. They also have their own cafe and roastery in Boston, MA!
As always, I used my 1:16 pourover ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of water for my sample cups of this coffee. Mountain Bird offer tasting suggestions of, “soft floral aroma, almond, stone fruit, full body” for this coffee and this lot consists of Red and Yellow Caturra, Typica and Bourbon grown in the 1200-1800masl range. Roast level on the bag is listed as “medium.”
This is a nice, simple cup of coffee that actually opens up quite a bit as it cools, so if it’s in your ability to do so, waiting for this coffee to cool quite a bit will give you more chocolate, citrus and bigger, sweeter flavors. As with the coffee I reviewed last week from this region roasted by S&W, I found a lot of red apple notes in the cup that offers both sweetness as well as a bit of brightness and acidity. In the mid to late sip I found some soft citrus, maybe like tangerine, that brightened up the coffee, too. Prepared as a pourover, this selection had a medium-full body with a creamy feel on my palate. I got quite a bit of roasted nuts in the flavors, especially at warmer temperatures, and as the coffee cooled and opened up it got sweeter and picked up a great milk chocolate tone, too.
Overall, this is a simple, straightforward cup of coffee that is very easy to drink and quite pleasing. It tastes great through a range of temperatures and, in my opinion, improves as it cools down, so this would be a great cup to accompany reading the news in the morning or getting some work done. There are a lot of nice notes in the cup and none of them necessarily require a lot of direct attention to enjoy, and if you leave the cup for a few minutes and it cools down you’ll still be greeted by a delicious sip full of apple sweetness, chocolate and nuts and a nice, long finish.