Happy Tuesday! Let’s celebrate with new-to-me roaster Folly Coffee from the great state of Minnesota! Slurp…
Purchase this coffee for $19.50/12oz
FOLLY COFFEE WINER (BURUNDI BWAYI)
Folly Coffee is a partnership between a guy named Rob and another guy named Ken. They have a lighthearted and fun approach to the Folly brand with a serious approach to the quality of their coffee, and I like that combination and appreciate seeing more of it recently in an industry that can sometimes take itself a little too seriously. The Folly name gets its inspiration from Hill’s Folly, the stone arch bridge that crosses the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hill’s bridge was thought to be pointless and foolish, until it was finished and the bridge’s value became apparent. The motif of Hill’s bridge can be seen in the border and the “teeth” of the Folly Coffee logo and that is quite cool to me.
Folly Coffee currently has three (soon to be four… a cold brew or a blend made for cold brewing is my guess) selections available: Winer, Classic Jo and House Bean. Winer is a rotating single origin coffee selected for acidity and complexity that reminds the Folly guys of wine, hence the name! I believe my version of Winer is their Burundi Bwayi. This is a washed mix of Bourbon, Jackson and Mibirizi varieties grown around 1760masl and grown and processed by the Bwayi Washing Station Cooperative. Coffees from Burundi are always enjoyable, in my book, so I am anxious to tear into this one! 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 have all but the middle three holes in the filter holder blocked and I’m using a Knock Aergrind with relatively fine setting. This very dense bean got a 30 second bloom and then the brew itself took another 2:47.
This is a light to medium-light bodied coffee that really does have a lot of wine-like properties apparent in the flavors, especially as the cup cools. I get a light, honey-like sweetness that serves as the base for this coffee and its sparkling acidity. I’m also getting a little grape in the sweetness of this cup and that could be because I have the word, wine, on my mind, but I feel like it’s really there. Besides, I’m getting more green grape than red from this coffee. The feature point of this Winer, though, is the acidity. I’m getting a lot of lemon zest and lemon candy notes and it’s working really nicely with the honey/grape sweetness. The balance of this coffee is tipped toward the bright end of the spectrum, for sure, but it maintains plenty of sweetness and has good overall balance for a bright, acidic coffee. Even though the high end of this coffee is mostly that beautiful lemon note, there’s something very tropical about the vibe from this coffee. I don’t associate lemon with tropical, generally, but the combination of flavors here is giving me a bit of a pineapple vibe, even though I wouldn’t say I’m getting actual pineapple notes in this cup. This coffee has a sweet finish, which is a nice bookend to all that acidity, and even being bright and vivacious, this Winer is very drinkable. This is my first Folly Coffee and hopefully not my last because it’s delicious, clear in flavors, and roasted nicely in a way that brings out tons of character without being challenging on my palate. What a great cup!