Ross Street Roasting Co. Nicaragua Finca Idealista (Honey Process)

For a few months I’ve been exchanging emails with Ross Street Roasting Co. owner and operator, Brian Gumm, and I was excited to finally receive some of his coffee now that his online sales are up and running! The first of his coffees that I’m looking at is the Finca Idealista from Nicaragua.

Ross Street Roasting Co. is located in the little town of Toledo, Iowa. I laughed a little when I looked at a map to see just where Toledo is! My chemistry degree is from the University of Northern Iowa and it used to be a popular thing for students to hit the Meskwaki Nation casino in Tama county, where Toledo is located, on weekends. Not me, as I’m way, way too cheap to gamble, but my brother spent half his undergrad degree studying remotely from the Meskwaki Nation, I think! LOL

Brian’s site shows that he uses an Artisan 6M fluid bed roaster (imagine a popcorn air popper on serious steroids) made by Coffee Crafters as well as Roastmaster software to manage and reproduce his roasting profiles.

The Finca Idealista coffee is a direct trade honey process coffee from Nicaragua’s Matagalpa region that grows in the 1200masl range. I’m not sure what the mix of varietals is but Gold Mountain Coffee Growers, the owners of Finca Idealista, list flavors of brown sugar, honeycomb, fruity, caramel, strawberry and balanced citric acid as descriptors of this coffee.[ref]http://www.goldmountaincoffeegrowers.com/#!spot/c1nlc[/ref] Gold Mountain has a fantastic page on their honey process, too, which is worth taking a look at.

You can buy this coffee directly from Ross Street Coffee Roasting Co., currently on sale for only $9/12oz bag! Jump all over this deal, you guys!

It may be too late to get this coffee in time for Thanksgiving, but this would be a great coffee for family gatherings. I feel like it would be well-suited for both morning wake up and as a dessert accompaniment after being at the trough having dinner. It has a profile that I think most coffee drinkers, even those Folgers and Five O’Clock folks would be able to appreciate.

The brewing aroma from this coffee had a lot of figs and some raisins in it for me. I caught a little bit of roastiness in the cup aroma but mainly it was sweetness that, paired with that slight roasty component reminded me of a toasted marshmallow. There was a bit more of the roastiness in the flavor but this is not a roast bomb by any stretch of the imagination. It has a medium mouthfeel and quite a long aftertaste that gives it a full feeling on the palate. The flavors of this coffee are mostly sweet although it also has a dry finish, so I think it would pair with food, especially your standard USA Thanksgiving fare, really well. There is a bit of citrus acidity in this cup but really this is a sweet cup and the acidity is there to add balance instead of its own flavor component. This is not a fruity or acidic coffee by my standards at all, making it a straightforward, simple, easy drinker. From a taste perspective, at least, this seems like a really low-acid coffee to me. At the $9 price it would be a good one to get a couple pounds of and use for cold brew, too.

In one of my sample cups I got hit with a tremendous blast of incense-like perfumes and spices in a sip when the coffee was almost room temperature, but that was an isolated incident, unfortunately!

This is a crowd-pleaser. Brian roasts on Fridays so you could put your order in today and have this shipped out Friday afternoon (right, Brian?!!) and probably receive it in time for next week’s festivities. Of all the coffees I’ve had recently this strikes me as the perfect family gathering cup and at this price you can buy a couple pounds and be good to go for the long weekend! I know that’s what I’m going to be doing after I hit the publish button on this review!