I have a light and bright Colombian coffee to get the week started off right. Enjoy!
Purchase this coffee directly for $16/12oz
The Coffee Compass cafe review
CARTEL COFFEE LAB COLOMBIA LAS GALERAS
I had a quick one-day business trip I had to make to Phoenix, Arizona, a few weeks ago. I was stuck in the hotel for an all-day meeting, and the hotel was as close to the airport as it could be without being inside it, so there wasn’t a lot going on around the area and I had no wheels, anyway. I checked Google Maps to see what coffee places were close by, just in case, and, lo and behold, Cartel Coffee Lab has a cafe inside the airport, in Terminal 4, which serves Southwest. My flight was early, but they opened up about 30 minutes before I had to board, so I had enough time for a shot of espresso and to buy a bag of beans, so I was happy!
Cartel was founded in 2007 when Phoenix had little, if anything, in the way of specialty coffee going on. Since then, they’ve grown to 6 cafes in the Phoenix/Tempe and Tucson areas. As with many specialty coffee companies, they value people, sourcing, fairness and transparency. I did get a taste of their coffee a few years ago when I did a trade with Bryan Schiele of the I Brew My Own Coffee podcast (and the stunning letsbrew.coffee Instagram). But, this is the first bag of Cartel’s coffee I’ve been able to go through and, for the record, I did pay for the coffee myself, although the cashier at the bar hooked me up with my espresso for free! I’m not sure it comes with the bag of coffee or if they were happy to pull a shot to be sure they were dialed in, or what, but at 5:30AM it was welcome. The espresso was fantastic and I’m assuming it was their signature Black Market Espresso, but I’m not positive about that. They served it on the ubiquitous wood plank along with a small glass of sparkling water. The espresso itself was served in a small Picardie glass and it was nicely presented as well as tasting very good!
The coffee I chose to take home with me is Cartel’s Las Galeras. Las Galeras is a washed coffee from Nariño, Colombia. It’s a mix of Caturra, Castillo and Colombia varieties grown in the 1700-2200masl range. These super dense beans are roasted very lightly, giving my arms a workout with my Knock Aergrind, for sure! This coffee gets its name because it was grown on the slopes of the Galeras volcano, one of five that dot the landscape of this southwest department (like a state in the USA) of Colombia. I used a Trinity Origin brewer with Kalita 155 filter and a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water to prepare this coffee. This one runs fast because of the density of the beans, so even giving my grinder a 2-3 step tightening and grinding pretty fine didn’t slow this one down by much.
This Las Galeras is a light bodied, bright Colombian coffee. I’m getting a lot of apricot notes from this coffee (think peach but with lighter presence and more tartness/acidity) right in the front of the sip… just a huge wave of apricot washing over my palate, and there’s a little lemon acidity in there to give it even more top end. This is definitely a bright coffee that highlights those high notes, but there is a little light caramel sweetness in the cup to offer a bit of balance, too. This isn’t a very complex coffee, but that apricot is to die for and what this coffee does do, it does well! In the second half of the sip I get an undercurrent of something nutty. I’m going to say something in the pecan/walnut zone… a relatively clean and neutral flavor that is subtle, but there. I’m leaning more toward walnut because this hint of nuttiness comes in right before the finish, which is very dry. I always associate walnuts with a sense of dryness on my palate. My only complaint with this coffee is how dry it leaves my palate as I finish each sip. I suppose “astringent” wouldn’t be out of the question here, but it’s not unpleasant or accompanied by any off flavors, it’s just super dry and leaves my palate feeling the same. All that said, I really enjoyed this coffee. It’s definitely for people who like very bright coffees, as this is all about the acids, but the apricot notes are the clearest I’ve tasted in coffee and I really enjoyed that. A nice re-introduction to one of the best-known cafes/roasters in the country! Yum!