Happy Monday! Let’s hope you have a Code 4 day and maybe this medium roast from BOLO Coffee Co. can help with that! Slurp!
Purchase Code 4 directly for $14/12oz
Other reviews in this series: AM Shift (light roast)
BOLO COFFEE CO. CODE 4
BOLO Coffee Co. is a coffee roasting company started by a Utah-based paramedic and firefighter. The coffees are shipped out of La Verkin, Utah, a small town in southwest Utah west of Zion National Park and near the Colorado border. BOLO is first-responder speak for “be on the lookout” and the brand is aimed at first repsonders and military. I tried BOLO’s light roast a while back and this morning we have their medium roast, called Code 4. A little research tells me that Code 4 means the situation is under control and no further assistance is necessary.
Code 4 is a blend of Colombian Supremo and Ethiopian coffees, but the website doesn’t go into more detail than that. A visual inspection of the beans showed me some light oil popping out of some of the beans, but for the most part, I wouldn’t disagree with this being a “medium” roast as far as I know it, based on visuals. I brewed this coffee with my standard pourover setup of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper with a Kalita 155 filter. I pulse poured with a Melodrip and even with a 40 second bloom this coffee brewed fast, finishing in 2:52 total. Maybe a tighter grind is necessary to slow it down, but I liked the cup I brewed, and it is easier for water to pull good stuff out of coffee the darker it gets roasted, so sometimes a shorter brew time for a medium roast is no problem at all, as in this case.
The aroma from the cup is very inviting, mostly caramelized sugar that really makes me want to dive into this coffee! Taking a sip, I get a lot of the same. This is a sweet cup with caramel notes dominating the early sip. I’m getting some red apple fruit coming in behind the caramel wave and there may be even the slightest hint of lemon toward the end of the sip and into the aftertaste. If I really look for it I can pick up a little bit of roastiness in the second half of the sip, but it’s absolutely minimal. This is really just sweet as can be, and it’s nice and clean without the astringency or slight bitterness that is often accompanied by roasty notes. For being a caramel bomb, this Code 4 is not cloying in the least. The apple flavors are pretty subtle and more of an accompaniment, but they must contribute enough acidity to balance all that caramel sweetness out. This is about the easiest drinking coffee I can remember from the recent past. If anything, it’s SO easy to drink that it’s hard for me not to just take big gulps and pound through the whole cup way too quickly. As the cup cools down the hint of lemon in the finish is accentuated and really this is just a super-enjoyable, super easy drinker. If Code 4 is responder-speak for “all’s good, it’s smooth sailing” then I think this coffee couldn’t possibly have been named better!