Happy Monday! Let’s start the week off right with an Ethiopian coffee from Kansas City’s own No Coast Roast! Slurp!
Purchase this coffee directly for $18/12oz
Other reviews in this series: Crown Town (Colombia) | Pura Vida (Costa Rica)
NO COAST ROAST ETHIOPIA BURRA KITTA
Max Bellmann started No Coast Coffee Roasters (who officially go by “No Coast Roast”) officially back in 2016 when he named the brand and was, at that time, roasting in very small batches from his garage, as many roasters start out. In late 2018, he moved into a commercial space with a Loring roaster, which is a serious piece of equipment, and started roasting in earnest and getting the word out there about No Coast Roast. With no designs on a cafe space, Max is strictly focusing on roasting (and accounting, and sweeping, and all the other things a startup business of one person needs to do… trust me, been there and done that!). No Coast celebrates Midwest values of honesty, humility and quality and focuses on the coffee, which is something any coffee geek should appreciate!
My only criticism of No Coast in my first review of their delicious Crown Town from Colombia was the lack of information about the coffee itself on the website and I’m pleased to see that some basic info is now being included for each coffee on their pages. This morning’s coffee is Burra Kitta, a washed coffee from Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia. The famed birthplace of coffee, washed Ethiopian coffees tend to be light and citrusy, although with so many varieties of coffee growing there they can taste like quite varied. This particular coffee is a mix of Kume, Dago and Wolisha varieties grown around 1800masl in the area of Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia. Coffee in Ethiopia is almost entirely grown by smallholder farmers with very small plots of land. They work in cooperatives where they combine their harvests into larger lots that are sorted and processed at co-op owned washing stations. No Coast roasts this to a “full city” leve, which is still pretty light, landing between first and second crack (and I’d say, visually at least, that this coffee wasn’t taken anywhere close to second crack).
No Coast gives us tasting notes of “brown sugar and tangy lemon” for this 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 pulse pour through a Melodrip to control agitation in the coffee bed. I also drank a lot of this coffee as espresso, the first pull of which was my best with lots of florals coming out of it. For the most part, my shots were bright and lemony and I think this coffee is viable as espresso but would probably shine even better as a component of a blend.
Taking a sip, this is a medium to medium-light bodied coffee with a somewhat dairy-like, creamy mouthfeel. For me, almost everything happening in this cup crashes right over my palate right out of the get go. A lot of coffees tend to roll in slower and flavors present themselves a little bit at a time, but not this Burra Kitta! There is a light caramel sweetness anchoring this coffee and immediate notes of sweet lemon candy with a lot of florals come with the sweetness. The lemon and florals hit the sides of my tongue while a lot of the sweetness stays on top and into the upper part of my throat, so as weird as it is to say, the flavors themselves really add a lot of physical presence and dimension to this coffee, which I’ve never really noticed before with other coffees. This is a nicely balanced cup. The lemon adds brightness and acidity, but it’s not a “bright” coffee or too “loud” in that regard. It’s restrained, in a way, but not like it’s being choked or held back. This is a really mild-mannered and enjoyable cup, which is exactly what I want on a Monday morning! It finishes a touch on the dry side with a slightly peachy or apricoty note and aftertaste, and it leaves a little bit of that black tea dryness on my palate between sips, too. Other than a tea-like feel, though, I’m not getting much in the way of tea notes from the flavors themselves. Black and green tea flavors can often be a big component of washed Ethiopian coffees, especially from Yirgacheffe.
All three of No Coast Roast’s offerings are really good, and for an initial offering, these coffees have really exceeded my expectations. I found this coffee to be simple, sweet, pleasant and delicious with classic notes of lemon candy, caramel and hints of stone fruit. Crown Town, a Colombian from the Caldas region, was a bit more complex with malic flavors playing around the apple and pear range and also hints of peach or apricot along with hints of dairy tartness. Pura Vida, No Coast’s selection from Costa Rica, was softer with more caramel and nuts and also some hints of lemon. All three of these coffees would be nice daily drinkers and I think there’s really only one way to go and that’s to take advantage of No Coast’s three-pack for $45 with free shipping. It’s a no-brainer!