I really enjoyed my last Colombian coffee from Twelve Gate Coffee Co., and this morning I’m sharing another one with you, so without further ado, let’s jump right in!
Purchase this coffee directly for $16/300g (10.5oz)
Other reviews in this series: Melky Chavez Bolaños
TWELVE GATE COFFEE CO. BELISARIO OSORIO
Twelve Gate Coffee Co. is located in the small town of Sweet Springs, Missouri, about an hour east of Kansas City on I-70. I previously reported that they were owned by The Old School Coffee Company in Sweet Springs, but the article/blog I was referencing was wrong on that account. Twelve Gate uses space at Old School, but is independent from them. Another article painted the picture of Twelve Gate being affiliated with a church in Sweet Springs, which they also are not. What is that saying, “Don’t trust anything you read on the Internet?” LOL I try to be as factual as I can, but I don’t always have all the info I need directly from roasters and so I tend to trust other bloggers and writers as sources. There is a biblical connection with the Twelve Gate name, however, no church affiliation. Coffee and Christianity go tightly hand in hand in Kansas City and it’s surrounding areas, so I apologize for my previous post’s misreporting!
Getting to the coffee, I’m taking a look at Twelve Gate’s Belisario Osorio, a coffee grown by Belisario Osorio in the Acevedo region of Colombia. This coffee is part of Fairfield Trading’s Single Origin Program. This company was hired by the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia to help promote and import high quality specialty coffees from some regions of the country. They apply stringent standards to this program. This particular lot from Belisario’s farm is Colombia and Caturra varietals that are wet-processed in the typical Colombian fashion. Coffee grows around 1600-1800masl at Belisario’s farm. Twelve Gate gives us tasting notes of, “Red berry, honey, almond” for this coffee, calling this a “shimmery and sweet cup.” Sounds great!
I’m using my standard brewing method of a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper with Kalita 155 filter. I use a Knock Aergrind and a Melodrip to control my pulse pours. This coffee had a 30 second bloom and a total brew time, including the bloom, of 2:45.
The aroma from the cup is really inviting. I get a quick blast of warm caramel, nuts and hints of spices that is super short-lived, but makes me want to dive right into the cup! Taking a sip, this is a medium to medium-light bodied coffee with a lot of sweetness up front. I’m getting nice caramel sweetness from the cup up front and there is a lot of nuttiness happening in here, too. Something about the interaction of sweetness and nuttiness reminds me of a Payday candy bar, even though I haven’t had one since I was a kid, and there is no peanut flavor here to speak of. But the interaction of nuts and sugar reminds me of that and it’s good! Along with all this sweetness and nuttiness there is a juicy, “red fruit” fruitiness that adds to the sweetness and brightness of the cup. I know “red fruit” is a vague description at best, so let me try to drill down a little. It’s a fruit salad melange going on. There is a berry overtone that I can’t specify to one type of berry, but throw blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries and some apples together and let them marinate together for a few hours and this is the flavor I’m getting. Sweet red apple is definitely in there and I’m getting some of that malic red apple acidity from that, which is crisp and clean and bright without ever being harsh, to my palate. I get the slightest hint of green apple Jolly Rancher in there, too. This is a nicely balanced coffee and it’s really easy to drink. As it cools down, it almost becomes a gulper for me. The flavors are really nicely structured and defined, but they don’t sink into my palate like some coffees, so the sweet finish rolls into a nice, crisp, apple finish that reminds me of drinking apple juice, and then the aftertaste is really mild and subtle. All in all, this is a killer coffee and I really loved both of these Colombians from Twelve Gate. I can’t wait to try more of their coffee if they’ll forgive me for my earlier, terrible reporting!