It’s Monday and in most parts of the country today it’s dark because of daylight savings time. What better time for coffee?! Pammel Park from Madison County, Iowa is back with a Costa Rican natural that is sure to brighten up the day!
Purchase this coffee directly for $12
Other reviews in this series: Espresso Blend
Rural Revival podcast interview
The Winterset Madisonian story
PAMMEL PARK COFFEE CO. COSTA RICA NATURAL MICROLOT
Pammel Park Coffee Co. got its start just within the past year near Winterset, Iowa, the county seat of the famous Madison County. Pammel Park Coffee Co. gets its namesake from Pammel Park, named after botanist, educator and conservationist, Louis Pammel, who was responsible for establishing Iowa’s first state parks. This park was originally called the Devil’s Backbone because of a limestone ridge that runs through it. Pammel Park Coffee Co. is owned by Naomi and Matt Hupton. The Hupton family have owned farmland in Madison County since 1917 and the barn now serves double duty as Matt’s roasting space! Matt worked for Cafe Imports for nearly 20 years before returning to Iowa to start Pammel Park Coffee Co., so his blood is probably at least 50% coffee and knows this fruit inside and out!
This morning’s coffee is Pammel Park’s Costa Rican natural microlot. The word “natural” means a specific type of processing. Coffee is a fruit that is about the size and shape of a standard cherry. Inside are two seeds (usually, sometimes there is only one and that’s called a peaberry) and these seeds are what we roast and call coffee “beans.” Natural coffees are picked and sorted by hand, then laid out usually on mesh beds to dry slowly in the sun, like big raisins. As the cherry fruit breaks down and dries out, fruity flavors and sugars are soaked up by the seeds inside, so natural coffees tend to be fruity, sweet and have nice body. According to Pammel Park’s website (which I would like to see grow with more coffee geek information about origin and such, but that’s just me!) says, “This natural processed coffee delivers a deliciously complex cup with apple, berry, lemon, and caramel flavors. A tart and tangy acidity combined with a rich sweetness make this a truly exceptional coffee.”
I’m using my standard pourover method of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper with Kalita 155 filter. My grinder is a Knock Aergrind and I’m using a Melodrip to control the pour in pulses. Total brew time including a 30 second bloom was 3:15 for this coffee. This coffee has a bit of a berry aroma, but it’s not a big berry bomb like, for example, an Ethiopian natural often is. Central and South American naturals are more subtle, in my experience, than their African cousins.
Taking a sip this is a medium-bodied coffee with a smooth, dairy-like mouthfeel. There is a lot of sweetness in this cup, but it really hits the sides of my tongue and cheeks with a lot of acidity, so it’s a bright and fruity coffee, too. That feel in my cheeks and tongue relegates this coffee to “juicy” status, which is that mouthfeel that causes salivation and makes you want to keep going back for more sips, and faster! This coffee is a chugger! The sweetness is lightly caramelized sugars and honey for days with a bit of an apple juice-like flavor over it. I’m getting some tart Granny Smith apples and some sweeter, crisp notes like Honeycrisp apples, too. Coming right in after the apples is a sweet lemon citrus acidity that really brightens up the cup. There is a lot of lemon in this cup, but it plays nicely with the sweetness of the cup, so think more lemon candy than sucking on a slice of lemon. If you are wondering what citrus acidity and lemon taste like in coffee, this would be a good one to calibrate to! There is some blackberry and raspberry hidden in the cup, but these flavors are quite a bit more subtle, again, than you’d get from an Ethiopian natural. They come out nicely in the finish and aftertaste of the coffee. Finally, there is an undercurrent of milk chocolate or cocoa made with real chocolate through this entire coffee and into the aftertaste that is just glorious. This is a killer coffee! The price on Pammel Park’s offerings is super reasonable, so take advantage of their $10 flat rate shipping per order and load that box with 3-4 different coffees and you will not be disappointed!
I did do some investigative work and this lot of coffee is from the hermanos Aguilera (translates to Hermanos Bros., even though it’s owned by 12 brothers and sisters) farm of Finca Toño in Costa Rica’s West Valley region. Coffee grows around 1450 meters above sea level (masl) there and the Aguilera family has been growing coffee there for over 70 years. The Aguileras won Costa Rica’s Cup of Excellence in 2007 and comanage a micromill for processing their coffees to their standards, which is not atypical in Costa Rica.
And here’s a video from Cafe Imports showing some of the Aguilera’s operations in Costa Rica: