It’s the start of the week, and that means some new coffee from a new-to-KC Coffee Geek roaster and this time that’s BOLO Coffee Co. out of Utah. Let’s dive right in!
Purchase AM Shift directly for $14/12oz
BOLO COFFEE CO. AM SHIFT
BOLO Coffee Company was started by a Utah-based paramedic and firefighter who saw the value of coffee for people in the first responder community as a natural source of energy. BOLO’s (which stands for “Be On the Lookout) tagline is “Fuel for Everyday Heroes” and the company seems to be aimed at bringing better quality coffee not only to first responders and military but anyone in the community. There isn’t a ton of info about the coffees or the company on BOLO’s website, although I did cheat a little and looked at the postage label on the box of samples they sent me and noticed it shipped from La Verkin, Utah, which is a small town in SW Utah near the border of Colorado and west of Zion National Park.
Companies like BOLO Coffee are always intriguing to me because I wonder if marketing to a particular sector like first repsonders or, another trend I’ve seen, specifically to military personnel, works. And I also wonder if that niche marketing could have a backfire effect that alienates people who aren’t part of the targeted community? I’m no marketing genius, but it’s something I’ve always been curious about. Regardless, for me, coffee that is targeted to a group of people, or not, or raises money for charity, or not, always falls back on one thing and that’s the product itself. So how is BOLO’s coffee?
BOLO sent me a bag each of their light, medium and dark roasts, so I am starting with their light roast, AM Shift. This is a blend of Colombian Supremo and Costa Rican coffees. Some Colombian coffee is sorted and sold in lots by size, with Supremo being the largest bean in this classification system. It’s the same idea as Kenyan AA coffee, which is the largest size of bean in that system of sorting. BOLO says this is a “bright, crisp blend that will help get your shift off to a great start.”
Popping the bag open the beans have a uniform roast and I didn’t see any accumulation of oils on the surface. 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. I pulse pour through a Melodrip after blooming the coffee for about 30 seconds and my grinder is a Knock Aergrind. This coffee brewed on the fast side at 2:45 total.
The aroma in the cup is sweet with notes of caramelized sugars and hints of raisin. Taking a sip I’m getting quite a bit of brightness right up front. The sweetness of the cup is lighter than expected, with a honey-like flavor, and there’s a sweet, but also bright citrus note, like orange juice, that rushes in on the front of the sip, too. This orange juiciness really fills up the middle of my palate while around the edges of my tongue and cheeks there is a drier, nuttier note that has a bit of roastiness to it, too. I’m not comfortable enough picking out a specific nut in this case, but the light flavor and dryness lean me toward the walnut and pecan spectrum, somewhat. In addition to that citrus acidity there is a fair amount of crisper apple-like malic acidity in the cup, too. It’s a relatively bright cup, but not out of balance and everything is tied together well. This coffee finishes slightly sweet and leaves a bit of dryness on my tongue in the long aftertaste, which is citrusy but quite roasty, too.
I’m a little mixed on BOLO’s AM Shift. I enjoy everything about it except for that roasty note, which isn’t a dealbreaker for me, but it does seem to be a little out of place for this coffee and the otherwise bright, fruity and light sweetness it has. Roastiness in more developed medium and dark coffees is expected and even welcomed by me, but in a light roast sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. For me, in this case, the roastiness is detracting from the coffee rather than enhancing it, although I still found this coffee to be enjoyable and drinkable. I haven’t done enough roasting to know what variables would cause this and if it’s something that could be changed by altering the roast profile, but that’s my only suggestion for this coffee. Outside of that roasty note which is not bad at all but just seems out of place for this coffee, this is a balanced, drinkable, enjoyable cup and I’m looking forward to trying BOLO’s medium blend next!