This morning I’m taking a look at the first coffee I received from new-to-me roaster and cafe in Colorado Springs, Loyal Coffee. I found a ton of information about them online as well as nothing but good reviews of the cafe on Yelp, so let’s dig in!
Purchase this coffee directly for $17/12oz
Sprudge Build Outs of Summer article
Colorado Springs Independent article
Rocky Mountain Food Report interview
LOYAL COFFEE NO. 50 MEXICO – JALTENANGO
My favorite thing about running KC Coffee Geek is discovery, whether that’s new coffees or new roasters, and this morning I have both! Loyal Coffee opened in Colorado Springs, CO in 2016 and seem to have quickly become an institution in that city, commanding great online reviews. Sometimes when I’m researching a new-to-me company for an article on KCCG I have trouble finding anything to use as source material and that is certainly not the case for Loyal Coffee! Loyal is a partnership of six local Colorado Springs baristas with an emphasis primarily on how coffee and community go hand in hand. Loyal Coffee (whose cafe also serves cocktails and food) is all about community first, and great coffee second. I’ve linked to a bunch of the articles I found above, so peruse those to learn all the ins and outs about Loyal Coffee!
They sent me two coffees to feature on KC Coffee Geek and I decided to start with No. 50 (they number all their selections), from Jaltenango, Mexico. With a name like that, I suspected this area of Mexico is down near Guatemala and, sure enough, my suspicion is true. Jaltenango is located in south-central Chiapas, where a lot of Mexican coffee is grown. Chiapas is at the tip of Mexico’s “tail” and borders Guatemala to its east. This coffee comes from a cooperative pf 14 community growing groups of over 400 farmers, 1/3 of whom are women. This is a washed (wet processed), certified organic coffee with altitudes in that region varying from 1200-1800masl. Varieties in the mix are Bourbon, Typica and Caturra and this coffee has what visually looks like a very light roast. Loyal Coffee gives us tasting notes of, “Walnut, Red Pear, Milk Chocolate” for this coffee and I’m excited to dive in!
I am using my standard pourover setup for this coffee, which is a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin brewer with Kalita 155 filter and all but the middle three holes in the filter holder blocked. My grinder is a Knock Aergrind. This was a “burpy” coffee during the bloom so I let that go for about 40 seconds or so, then the brew time for this coffee on top of that was another 2:40, so a quick one.
Taking my first few sips I’m greeted by a medium bodied coffee with a lot of nutty flavors (walnut, primarily, for me) right up front at the warmer end of my drinking temperature. As the cup cools down and the flavors begin to open up, I get a gentle malic acidity (think of apples and pears) that has some green apple up front with a hint of tartness, then mellows into the sweeter, more red apple and pear-like flavors that can be found in the second half of the sip. These lighter, higher notes are nicely balanced and anchored by a honey-like sweetness that is light in body and character but works well with the more subtle apple and pear fruit notes in this coffee. This coffee has a sweet finish and some chocolaty notes as well as a lot of apple in the aftertaste for me. There is a bit of dryness on my palate between sips and that really strongly beckons back to those walnut notes I was getting in the front of the sip at warmer temps, too. That flavor really carries through the whole sip and anchors it to the next one, which I find myself being impatient to take as I type and drink at the same time! Throughout this entire cup, too, I’m getting a little bit of sourness/tartness that I know could be interpreted as a bad descriptor, but shouldn’t be because it works great in this coffee and does not read as a defect at all to me. This is a really clean-tasting coffee, but this slight tartness reminds me of the intentional flavors found in sour beers, for example, although it’s a lot more mellow and much less acidic in this coffee than in, say, a Rodenbach. I wonder how much of that is coming from the Third Wave Water I use to brew all my coffees, too, as it is known to elevate the acidity and high notes in most coffees?
Nonetheless, this is a really nice coffee and a great introduction to Loyal Coffee for me! I’m really enjoying this cup and it has all the elements of sweetness, complexity and drinkability that I enjoy in coffee. Excellent!