This morning I have a new coffee from a new-to-me roaster, Pair Cupworks, out of Tempe, Arizona. I’m looking at their labels and have a big smile on my face because they’re so cute and funny, and that is something specialty coffee needs more of. Without further ado, let’s check out this Berry Cola Flower Fest!
Purchase this coffee directly for $11/8oz
PAIR CUPWORKS BERRY COLA FLOWER FEST
Pair Cupworks are Kimhak and Eugenia, coffee and tea lovers who also love to make stuff in their home base in Tempe, Arizona. Kimhak is a barista with a culinary background who also does the roasting of Pair Cupworks’ coffees while Eugenia makes their teaware and ceramics. Checking out their Instagram, they have some really cool, minimalyst tea scoops made out of thin, curved wood and the ceramics look awesome in their dark grey, minimalist finish. Make sure you check out their Instagram because there are currently no ceramics available on the website, but you can get a good look at what Eugenia makes on the IG! After some light Instastalking, I get the sense that Kimhak and Eugenia just rolled out Pair Cupworks as a business within the past handful of months, so it’s really exciting to be on the front end of Pair Cupworks, who I think are going to make a big name for themselves!
Juxtaposing the serious, minimalist look of Pair Cupworks’ tea and ceramics vision is their coffee labeling. The coffee I received from Kimhak is their Berry Cola Flower Fest and it’s obvious even with the name that they are taking a wildly different approach from most others in coffee. The craft brown coffee bag I received was simply adorned with a small rectangular label showing the name of the coffee and a cartoon on the front and a little more info on the back side. I love this approach. It’s unique, fun and not-so-serious and I think specialty coffee needs more of that! You have to check out their current offerings page to see the little cartoons, but good Lord are they cute! I especially love the Raucous Orange Caramel doing a cannonball into the “pool” of coffee in the cup, as well as Berry Cola Flower Fest’s dancing coffee beans and strawberry. LOL I’m usually not a “cutesy” kind of guy but I just love this approach to labeling!
To get into the details a little deeper, this Berry Cola Flower Fest is, as you may’ve already guessed, a natural Ethiopian coffee. It’s a mix of heirloom varieties from many smallholder farmers working with the Adado washing station. Kimhak says to expect, “jasmine, berry, cola” and that it has a “clean finish.” I’m using my standard pourover setup for this coffee, which is a 1:16 ratio of 28g of coffee to 450g of Third Wave Water in a notNeutral Gino dripper with Kalita 185 filter. My grinder is a Knock Aergrind.
From the cup I’m getting a nice aroma of flowers and strawberries. I don’t know that I’ve ever smelled the delicate flowers that grow on strawberry bushes, but I imagine them to smell just like this! Taking a sip I’m greeted by a medium-bodied coffee with light caramel sweetness and lots of fresh strawberry notes right out of the gate. Kimhak is right, for a natural Ethiopian coffee this has a clean flavor profile. The downside to natural processing, where coffee cherries are picked and then laid out whole with the seeds (coffee beans) inside to slowly dry in the sun like big raisins is that there is some amount fermentation notes that you can pick up in the flavors after roasting and preparation for your cup. Personally, I like the ferment notes I get from good natural coffees and I even enjoy the over-the-top, super fermenty “funky naturals” coming out of Central America, however, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Well, coffee. You know what I mean.
The ferment notes are minimal to almost non-existant for this coffee, so if you like naturals but don’t like ferment notes, this is right up your alley. The upside to natural processing is the fruit notes. The fruits are super clear and structured in this coffee, which also leans toward that “clean” descriptor nicely. I get a lot of fresh strawberry and in the cool cup I am picking up on some subtle, but really delicious blueberry, too. Almost more of a blueberry flavoring blueberry rather than the fruit itself. Like those blueberry marshmallows in Boo-Berry cereal, but without the cloying sweetness and totally synthetic vibe. It’s a subtle hint but a nice one, even though my description may not be super appetizing! There is a bit of florality to the flavors in the cup, too, and so in sips where the berries and the florals hit at the same time it reads as blackberry to me, which I have always found to be a very floral tasting berry. This is by no means a blackberry bomb, but I really did enjoy the complexity in the berries that I don’t often find. For most Ethiopian naturals, for me, it’s a big punch of strawberry or blackberry or raspberry or blueberry, but it’s more rare to find layers of berries that I can suss out as I taste the coffee. Very cool!
This is beautiful coffee. The cute labeling appeals to my eyes and I love the playfulness of the branding, but at the end of the day, no matter how cool a bag, label or branding approach is, the coffee inside has to meet expectations. This one really exceeds what I expected from a natural Ethiopian, and I LOVE natty Ethiopians. This coffee has all the subtlety and complexity of a good washed Ethiopian coffee but the body and fruitiness of a natural and it’s quite astonishing, really! Kimhak hit a bullseye with this coffee and I hope I get to share more Pair Cupworks offerings with you readers soon! Slurp!