Let’s ease into this week with a nice Brazilian coffee from Kansas City’s own Walt’s Coffee Roasters! Slurp!
Purchase this coffee directly for $13.50/12oz
Other reviews in this series: Guatemala La Montanita
WALT’S COFFEE ROASTERS BRAZIL ROSE DIAMOND
After being sick most of last week and avoiding coffee for the most part, I’m excited to ease into this new week with a new coffee from Walt’s Coffee Roasters, based right here in Kansas City. Walt’s was founded by (Walter) Craig Swanson, who named the company in honor of his dad, who is also named Walter.Incredibly, $3 from every purchase is donated to a great local cause that you can choose, including City Union Mission, Liberty Arts Foundation, Restoration House, Urban Christian Academy and Veterans Community Project. Like a lot of roasters, Walt started out home roasting, then eventually grew into the proper business the company is today. The labels on Walt’s coffee read, “Roasted and packaged at Eleos Coffee, Kansas City, MO” so I’m not 100% sure if Craig is affiliated with Eleos (a coffee shop/ministry in the city) or renting time on Eleos’s roasting equipment or contract roasting it. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed Walt’s La Montanita from Guatemala, so I’m looking forward to this Brazilian, too!
This morning’s coffee is from the Cerrado Mineiro region of Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, where a lot of Brazil’s specialty coffee comes from. This is a Red Bourbon variety coffee grown between 900-1300 meters above sea level and this is a natural, meaning the coffee cherries are picked and sorted and then laid out on raised mesh beds to slowly dry in the sun, still whole like big raisins. This tends to impart fruity flavors into the seeds inside, which we roast and call coffee “beans.” Craig gives us tasting notes of, “Spiced chocolate, cinnamon, raspberry jam with sweet cashew nuttiness and a pleasant, long finish.” Sounds awesome!
I’m using my standard pourover setup of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin brewer with Kalita 155 filter. I pulse pour through a Melodrip to minimize agitation in the coffee bed. Grinder is a Knock Aergrind. Including a 35 second bloom, this coffee ran at 4:00 start to finish.
The aroma on this coffee is nice with a little fruitiness in the nose as well as a lot of nuttiness. I’m getting something pecan-ish in the aroma. Taking a sip, this is a medium-bodied coffee with a creamy, dairy-like mouthfeel to it. In my experience, Brazilian naturals tend to be more subtle in their natural-ness than, say, an Ethiopian, which will usually be bursting with bright, fruity flavors. True to form, this Rose Diamond fits the mold of what I would expect from a Brazilian natural, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t tasty, it’s just not going to hit you over the head with its berry-ness. I’m getting raspberry for sure in this cup, as well as hints of tropical fruits that are reminding me of mango. I’m getting mango in the finish and aftertaste, too. That pecan note I was picking up in the aroma is coming through in the second half of the sip and it plays really nicely with the fruits in this coffee. The fruits in this cup are all accompanied by a lot of sweetness, so I’m getting a very jam-like vibe from them, for example, raspberry jam as oppposed to fresh raspberries. Long into the aftertaste I’m noticing some spiciness, but I’m not finding the “spiced chocolate” or cinnamon mentioned by Craig on the label except here in the aftertaste. Every palate is different, though, and preparation methods have a lot to do with subtle notes in coffees, too. That being said, this is a really pleasing, delicious coffee. It’s not super complex, but it has enough going on in it that you can search out flavors to parse out. That makes this another easy-drinking coffee and a perfect way to start the work week for me!