This Monday promises to be dark, dreary and wet here in Kansas City, so let’s celebrate this Pacific Northwest-like weather with a new brew from Elevator Coffee out of Portland, Oregon!
Purchase this coffee directly for $16/12oz
ELEVATOR COFFEE GUATEMALA EL TRIUNFO
Elevator Cafe & Commons is located in east-central Portland, Oregon, right across the street from one of two (or are there more now?) coffee roasting “incubators” in the city, Buckman Coffee Factory, which I think are two of the biggest reasons that there are so many coffee roasters in Portland. Elevator itself is located in the former Boyd’s coffee roasting facility, serving as the de facto cafeteria and meeting space for the startups sharing the building. In addition to coffee, Elevator serves breakfast and has some beer and hard cider taps for later in the day. At one time, Elevator was a multiroaster shop selling other local PDX coffee, but more recently they’ve moved to serving their own coffee under the Elevator Coffee brand name. This is roasted by Andrew Coe, who also roasts under the moniker, Coe Coffee, and I’ve enjoyed Andrew’s coffee in the past (see the list of reviews under Oregon).
Andrew was kind enough to send me a duo of Elevator’s new coffees and I decided to start this very dreary Monday off with the El Triunfo, a washed coffee from Guatemala. Elevator’s website is pretty sparse, but this coffee is grown in the Huehuetenango region around 1500-1700masl. I tried to do a little independent research and find more info on an importer’s site if possible, but there seems to be a lot of Finca El Triunfos in Guatemala, so that didn’t pan out! Nonetheless, Elevator and Andrew give us flavor notes of, “Rich and balanced, flavors remind us of orange, cherry and chocolate.” I am using my standard pourover setup of a 1:16 ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of Third Wave Water in a notNeutral Gino dripper and an Aergrind grinder. My brew went pretty fast at 2:40, not including a 30 second bloom.
This is a medium-bodied coffee with some apparent roasty notes right up front quickly followed by cherry notes that are both sweet and a bit tart, but lean more toward the sweet side of the spectrum. Along with the cherry is a sweet citrus acidity that is definitely in the orange/tangerine range and not at all lemon or lime. Sipping this coffee, I definitely got hints of cherry pie filling and a bit of baking spices, giving this coffee a definite cherry pie vibe. As the coffee cools the tartness from the cherries and the acidity of the orange is a little more prominent. This coffee finishes sweet and juicy but, at odds with this, my palate is left really dry between sips. If I wait a while between sips I get some cocoa notes, too. All of these flavors of chocolate, orange and cherry work really well together and make for a pleasing, easy to drink coffee. This isn’t super complex, but it’s nicely balanced and inviting and that’s exactly what I need on a morning like this!