My subscription from My Coffee Pub landed last week and I was excited to find Quills Coffee’s La Flor from Peru inside. Lots of people have been digging Peruvian coffee lately (myself included, look back over the last couple weeks of reviews after using the search bar to narrow down on Peru and you’ll see what I mean) and specifically this one from Quills. Before I start talking about Quills and this coffee allow me to quickly thank My Coffee Pub for being a sponsor of KCcoffeegeek.com. Their service is great… you sign up and every month a box lands on your doorstep with the coffee they’ve curated for that month. They do a great job with their picks and I’ve gotten to try a ton of roasters who’ve been on my list without even having to work at it. I love the surprise of opening that box every month, too, and seeing what coffee I’ve lucked out to be able to try! So, please visit My Coffee Pub and try them out!
Quills Coffee was founded in 2007 in Louisville, KY. Since then they’ve expanded to include two cafes in Louisville, a cafe in Indianapolis, IN and a roastery/cafe in New Albany, IN which is on the Indiana side of the river across from Louisville. Quills have a great reputation for their coffee as well as their service and “third space” attitude about their cafes and I’ve been wanting to try their coffee for a long time.
Quills were really excited about this coffee, which comes from a farm called La Flor del Cafe in Cajamarca, Peru. It’s part of a relatively new microlot program from their exporter and this particular coffee is a washed mix of Caturra and Pache that was grown at 1800masl and harvested around Sept. 2015 or so. I’ve been really happy with the spate of Peruvian coffees that have been landing at World Domination Headquarters here in Kansas City, so let’s see how this La Flor from Quills measures up.
Quills offers tasting notes of, “caramel, lemon meringue, green grape and silky body” for this particular coffee. Yum! Let’s see… Aroma is pretty subtle on this one for me. Jumping into the cup, which I prepared using my trusty notNeutral Gino with Kalita 185 filters and a 1:16 ratio (28g coffee, 450g water) for a 3:45 total brew time, I was presented with a lot of sweetness and nice, clean flavors. This coffee has a medium body with a relatively large presence in the palate. While it’s not a “heavy” coffee, it really seems to coat my mouth and tongue. The aftertaste is mild but does hang around for a while and this is where the lemon meringue descriptor comes true. There is a really nice lingering finish of a subtle, sweet lemon. It’s the lemon flavor in a lemon bar or some other baked good, and it’s delicious!
There is a caramel sweetness throughout this cup of coffee with acidity that “feels” more malic (think apples) than citric (think lemons, limes, grapefruits, oranges, etc) but has flavor elements of both. There is a bit of green apple-type malic acidity but also some hints of that lemon from the aftertaste, too. The acidity on this coffee is a nice balance and works well with that caramel sweetness. Toward the end of the sip I pick on something warm and spicy that reminds me of cinnamon, but that really doesn’t taste like cinnamon at all, if that makes sense. On my palate, this coffee has milky texture and body not unlike what I get from steamed milk in a cortado.
This is a really beautiful coffee and it honors the excellent run of Peruvians I’ve been tasting lately. It’s not very complex, which is fine, yet it’s super inviting and drinkable with pleasant flavors and a nice silky, milky texture and body. Quills nailed the roast on this coffee and it’s a great introduction for me for a company I’ve wanted to try for a long time!