We’ve arrived at the last of the coffees sent by Vibrant Coffee Roasters. It’s a sad day, but skurping will get us through this!
Other reviews in this series: Ethiopia Qirtira Goyo | Kenya Kariru AB | Ethiopia Gera Estate
VIBRANT COFFEE ROASTERS COLOMBIA RAQUEL DEL ROSARIO BURBANO
This exploration of four coffees from Philadelphia, PA area roaster, Vibrant Coffee Roasters, has been a lot of fun. Vibrant started earlier this year and they’re affiliated with Function Coffee Labs in some way, and with roasting like this, they’re well on their way toward making a national name for themselves. I’m both pleased to see and sorry to say that this Colombian microlot sold out before I was able to get this review posted, but Vibrant is constantly rotating exciting coffees into their lineup, so check out what is available right now in the links provided above!
This final coffee I’m sharing with you is a washed Colombian coffee grown by Raquel del Rosario Burbano on her farm, Finca Alaska. This lot was Colombia varietal grown around 2110masl and it’s a fully washed coffee. Raquel’s farm is located in El Salado, Nariño, in the southwest corner of Colombia. Alaska has about 3200 coffee trees crammed into one hectare of land and Raquel does her own processing, with an extended 24 hour fermentation process and sun drying her coffee beans on patios. Colombia produces some of my favorite coffees and this one, according to Vibrant, promises flavors of, “blackberry, honey, white wine.”
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 dripper with Kalita 155 filter. Knock Aergrind is my current grinder of choice.
Taking a sip, this is a medium bodied coffee with a syrupy mouthfeel. There is a lot of sweetness as well as brightness to this cup, I’m getting complex notes right from the first sip. Up front, the sip is sweet with some light caramel notes, In the mid to late sip, this sweetness converts to having a very honey-forward flavor. Honey can be a challenging flavor note for my palate to pick up on, I think because I barely ever use it, but in this case, the honey is very apparent to me. Along for the ride with that honey note is a nice blackberry flavor that kicks in about midway into the sip and ramps up right into the finish. I’m getting some raisin notes here, and if I hold the coffee in my mouth for a handful of seconds before swallowing, I get a ton of honey! There is a nice acidity and brightness to this cup, similar in intensity to a lemony, citrusy coffee, but it’s not either of those flavors. Some of it is coming along with that blackberry note, but there is definitely a wine note here, too, so I like that descriptor Vibrant picked up on for this coffee. It’s a crisp, refreshing, dry acidity, so for my palate it’s clean and delicious like apple/malic acidity, but it leans toward being a little more tart and grapey. This is the kind of coffee I absolutely love from Colombia. Complexity, structure and clarity of flavor are things I expect from top Colombian selections and this one has all of these in spades while also remaining a very accessible and inviting coffee. Awesome!