Fratello Coffee – Colombia “Alvaro Losada”
Colombian “Alvaro Losada”
This is the second half of my thoughts on two coffees Fratello sent. Both of these were new crops of coffee, and perhaps a hint at what the guys at Fratello will be up to in 2012. I’ve already posted a preview of the two coffees they sent us with some video, as well as my thoughts on the first coffee I opened: Costa Rican “Miguel Rojas” (available on their site).
This review is for their Colombian “Alvaro Losada”.
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Cupping Breakdown
Brewed with 5.5grams of coffee, medium-fine grind, ~2.5 minute steep and 100 grams of water.
In the aroma I was getting all kinds of components: slight berry, brown sugar, vanilla, stone fruit, chocolate and lemon. They acidity was nice and crisp (9+/10), sweetness was high (also 9+/10). It was a balanced coffee, rich mouthfeel and clean finish. I found the clean finish and sweetness made the coffee feel a little ‘plain’. Not necessarily a bad thing… I’ll explain.
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Pour Over
Brewed with 20grams of coffee via a Clever Dripper device, with 350 grams of water.
This was a deliciously sweet coffee. I found it to be sugary (cane sugar), with cinnamon, maple syrup with chocolate malt as the predominate flavour. The finish was nice, but faded quickly – this is one of my only complaints about this coffee.
Aero Press
Brewed with 16 grams of coffee via upside-down method and 220grams of water. I find the aero press to be more of a gadget than a reputable brewing tool (perhaps another post), however in this case it helped unlock some of the fruit components. I also found vanilla and spice. The acidity structure was not as nice as the Clever however.
Colombian “Alvaro Losada”
Final Notes
| Aroma | 9 /10 |
| Body | 9 /10 |
| Sweetness | 9.5 /10 |
| Acidity | 9 /10 |
| Finish | 8.5 /10 |
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This review was not intended for espresso critique. However, I had some coffee left over and explored its possibilities.
My notes were relatively small. The results were interesting:
“Alvaro Losada” as an Espresso
Straight
The result was a pretty intense espresso (by this I mean flavour concentration not brew ratio!)
I found a good profile going from ~19.5 grams of coffee to ~29-30 grams of espresso in 26-27 seconds. It was intensely bright, had a molasses sweetness, malty, and faint blackberry/ blueberry.
In Milk
Milk simplified the espresso in some aspects, with mostly a sweet toasty and malty flavour. There was also notes of faint berry in the body of the drink.
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I’m going to include my espresso results in this score. This was an interesting coffee, one of the better Colombian’s I have had. It performed pretty well in all aspects, be that cupping/brew/ or espresso. My cupping score for this coffee was 92pts, and my espresso scoring was around 90pts. A good average here, resulting in 91pts for the total.
Total 100 point score of 91/100.
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