Good morning and welcome to today’s review of Palma Coffee Co’s Cumbia espresso. Slurp!
Purchase this coffee directly from Palma for $17/12oz
Other reviews in this series: Wei Wei (Guatemala)
PALMA COFFEE CO. CUMBIA ESPRESSO
Palma Coffee Co. is a new venture started by Manuel Montenegro and his wife, Amanda. Manuel is originally from Colombia and feels a close connection to coffee for that reason. Amanda and Manuel were first exposed to specialty coffee about five years while on their honeymoon, and their passion for excellent coffee has grown along with their aviation business, which has taken them to parts of the world like Istanbul, Beijing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Denmark, the UK and all over the USA. Manuel stressed to me that Palma Coffee Co. is a passion project and I interpret that as something they enjoy doing, that’s a creative outlet, and that they are not relying on for financial stability. I can relate, as KC Coffee Geek is the same for me and has only cost me money over the years, but I love doing it and never intended it to be a money maker. This structure allows Manuel and Amanda to be very selective in the coffees they roast and to be a bridge between the consuming countries and the producing countries, where most coffee farmers live below the poverty line. Amanda and Manuel are helped by their friend, Carl, who has an Artisan X-E fluid bed coffee roaster. Fluid bed roasters use hot air to do the roasting… imagine a VERY upgraded popcorn popper! Palma Coffee Co. is currently located in Miami, Florida and I’m excited to see where this journey into coffee takes them!
When I received my initial samples from Palma, they were small, enough for a few cups, and I just couldn’t dial in the Cumbia espresso with that amount of coffee, so they graciously sent me a full size bag that I have been drinking for the past 4-6 weeks now. I know how much people stress “fresher is better” in the espresso community, but this is a contentious point of view in my opinion, and I think espresso often does very well with some age on it. The rule of thumb is to let it rest 10-14 days after roasting and my pretty extensive experience with espresso is that coffees as old as around 6 weeks and even to 8 weeks off roast can potentially be totally enjoyable and not suffer any issues, at least to my palate. In any case, Cumbia is Palma Coffee Co’s current espresso blend and it’s a two-component blend of coffees from Colombia and Kenya.
The Colombian component is from the El Tigre microregion near Pitalito in Huila, Colombia. Huila is in the southwestern part of Colombia, nestled in the Andes mountain range, and Colombia is famous for it’s “microclimates” that create a mind-boggling variety of coffees, even when they are grown geographically close to one another. One part of the mountain may produce totally different coffees from another part and this is part of the magic of Colombia. The Kenyan coffee is from the Kiaga washing station in Nyeri. These are both washed coffees and both Colombia and Kenya are known, at least in specialty coffee, for bright, vibrant, fruit-forward flavors. Of course, roast level, variety, processing and tons of other factors play into this a ton, but generally speaking, with a light roast you can expect to have bright coffees from these regions. Palma Coffee Co. tells us to expect “dark chocolate, mandarin orange, lemon and tart cherry” from this coffee. Visually, this coffee is a light roast, and having gone through a bag on a variety of hand grinders (Orphan Espresso Lido E and Pharos) these beans were a workout with that light roast!
The key with lightly roasted, bright coffees, especially when they are being extracted on the espresso machine, is to tame all that acidity. Pourovers/filter coffees with these types of beans can be sweet and bright and lovely coffees, but concentrated into 30g of espresso, those same flavors can become absolute face-melters. This is another reason I’m not opposed to throwing some age on bright, light espresso roasts, either, as it’s usually the acids and high notes in the coffee that start to drop off first. This is also walking a tightrope, though, because as the coffee mellows some with age it can pick up disagreeable flavors along the way (rare in my experience, under the 8 week mark) or dry out enough that getting a good pull without channeling or other mechanical problems can be tough.
For reference, my espresso equipment consists of:
- Quick Mill Carola Evo machine using an E61 group and I have replaced the stock shower screen with an IMS precision showed screen
- Aftermarket bottomless portafilter with a precision IMS 16/20 basket
- Decent Espresso (gen 1) tamper calibrated to 25lbs of tamping pressure
- Orphan Espresso Pharos or Lido E grinder. I have my Lido E set finer than the Pharos at the moment, so I mostly used the Lido E for this coffee, which needed a pretty fine grind relative to the espresso spectrum of grind size… enough that the same grind on a dark roast would definitely choke the machine
As far as process, for most coffees I use a dose of 18-20g depending on how they fill the basket. I do a WDT stir with a tool from BPlus Coffee and groom the puck with an OCD style tool, mainly just to make a flat surface for the tamper, then I tamp. Nothing too fussy or fancy and I’d say on average I get channeling on maybe 10% of my total shots, or less.
Anyway, I drank through this whole bag over the period of about 6 weeks or so, so I’ll share some of the notes I took along the way. One of my early shots was 20g in, 32.2g out in 34 seconds. This produced a coffee with a thin crema that mostly disappeared with stirring and the flavor was very intense and very concentrated pulled this way. I got light body, lots of fruit but not sour. I was getting a lot of tropical vibes from this shot, pineapple, lemon candy, floral, a little sour in the finish… a little too bright.
This was still the dialing-in process, so I made some adjustments and did another shot right away. This one was 20g in, 48g out in 23 seconds, so it likely had some channeling going on because I make pretty small adjustments to my grinders when dialing in a coffee. For some reason I did something I never do and took the coffee temp in the cup, 150F. LOL Body was still light, but the intensity dialed back. It was floral, sweet and more balanced with a savory note (presumably from the Kenyan component) that I did not notice in the other shot. Almost, but not quite, that famous “tomato” flavor that Kenyan coffees can have. Still got some tropical notes, lemon acidity. I pulled rose out, specifically, in the florals, and I am poor at identifying specific florals in coffee most of the time, so for me to pick a specific flower is meaningful! A very modern shot, which is to be expected with light roasts and these origins.
On 8/12 the coffee now had some decent age to it and I did 18.4g in, 38.7g out in 25 seconds. It was sweet, intense, lots of lemon, there was definite savory notes and tomato, and I got a crazy butter note in this shot.
9/1 I did 19g in, 35g out in 25 seconds. Sweet, balanced. Hints of grapefruit, brown sugar sweetness, still intense, orange citrus, lemon candy, finish of grapefruit pith and peel.
On 9/16 19g in, 35g out in 29 seconds. Bright, fruity, notes of grapefruit, lemon, dark caramelized sugars, still a little savory.
I am not a milky drinker and, in fact, I chose the Carola Evo because it’s the only E61 machine that doesn’t have any steam or hot water features because I don’t make milk drinks at home. Coffees like this can be a little tricky as milkies because all that citrus can often give the milk a bit of a spoiled note like the milk is turned, although since I didn’t make any milkies I can’t say if that would happen with this coffee. Sometimes the opposite happens with these bright coffees, too, and the flavors of the milk and coffee mix really well. Let me know if you try and how it turned out!
Overall, I really enjoyed this coffee. It is a super modern espresso, so if your goal is to reproduce those special Roman espressos you drank in the piazza or while looking at ancient monuments, this coffee will not take you there and you need a dark roast and some robusta to recreate Italy on your tastebuds! LOL You can see the same word popping up in my notes… “intense”… and this coffee is certainly intense and can be a bit of a lip puckerer/facemelter if you let it. I think this coffee works well with higher ratios, so 1:2 is a good starting point and going a little beyond that was good. Pulling ristrettos with a coffee like this is just too intense and too concentrated. This coffee did great with aging and it seemed to round the edges off the citric acidity in the cup while also making the citrus notes more complex. A very nice blend from Palma and I highly recommend it if you are into modern, American west coast style espresso!
