||COSTA RICA|| Paradise Roasters - El Patio, COE #20

Coffee: PARADISE ROASTERS – COSTA RICA SO ESPRESSO, El PATIO (2007 COE #20)
Price: 12.95/14 oz + Shipping = $1.18/oz
Year: 2007 (November)
Location/Blend: Exact location not specified
Roast: Intentionally taken to a darker roast for the purpose of creating a SO espresso
Flavors to look for: “Rose petals, lime, cashews, dark chocolate, raisins, citrus”
What they say at Paradise Roasters: “A single origin espresso from Costa Rica. This particular lot of coffee is from the 2007 CoE Competition where the coffee took 20th place. It is the "El Patio" … A dynamic, elegant espresso. Bright but not sharp with a delightful nose of rose petals, lime, and cashews. Savory in the cup with a backdrop of dark chocolate and raisin that sparkles with hints of citrus as the cup cools.” Read about it on their website

TASTING NOTES
FRENCH PRESS	ESPRESSO
Fragrance: Sweet, floral … overall very bright and invigorating right out of the bag	Crema: Deep brown color, tastes nutty. Relatively thin
Aroma: Like the dry fragrance, but bigger, with added elements of dried fruit. Almost “alcohol-y” like fruit cake.	Aroma: Faint floral and sweet aroma underneath the roast
Body: Smooth from the outset. Bigger in the mouth than you might expect. As the cup cools, the body thickens and is almost buttery.	Body: Light body, but smooth overall.
Acidity: Most of the acid is toward the end of each sip. Herbal, almost piney at times. Overall, the cup has a sweet vinegar acidity	Milk: The nuances of this espresso – which I find to be subtle – are lost in milk combinations … better as a straight shot
Finish: The finish is extremely clean, with sweetness and a certain medicinal quality. Elements of honey and flowers, reminding me of the sweetest, thickest puffs of jasmine shisha.
Profile & Flavors: A very pleasing cup overall, with oils buoyed at the top of the cup until the last sip. With the first sip, my attention was drawn to flavors of dried fruit on the front of the tongue. As I let the coffee coat more of my tongue, milk chocolate flavors and a buttery mouthfeel took over. In broad terms, the finish is very sweet, and the aftertaste lingers for quite some time. The most enjoyable thing about this coffee was certainly this aftertaste, which slowly changes from sweet to medicinal after a minute or so. As the cup cools, the alcohol-like aroma thickens, and flavors of raisins and sweet spices come forth. Think rum soaked fruit cake. Overall, a great cup of coffee to enjoy over sweet breakfast pastries … or maybe a slice of that fruit cake you have been using as a door stop.	Profile & Flavors: Consistently easy to pull. Very nutty throughout, though I pick up walnuts as opposed to the cashews the roaster noticed. There is a definite tart element in the finish, like tart cherries. There is a definite sweetness, and it is actually slightly metallic, like unrefined sugar. Hints of honey and chocolate come out if you let the sip sit in the mouth a bit longer that usual. Overall, the shot is subtly sweet behind an obvious nuttiness A cool sip tastes sharp, but I would hardly call it citrus. In my opinion, drink it while it is hot.
Pairings: Purely coincidentally, I ended up drinking this with warm butter tarts … and the combination was delicious. Citrus fruits did not pair well.	Pairings: Chocolate pairs well. You might think some nuts would work nicely with this nutty espresso, but I found the combo to be underwhelming.
Score: 86	Score: 85, 86, 85, 85, 86
Buy Again? Probably not. I do appreciate this coffee's consistency and its versatility to work nicely both as a SO Espresso and in the press pot. In fact, even though this coffee was roasted for espresso, I enjoyed it better out of the press pot. Paradise Roasters, as well as some others, do sell this El Patio coffee roasted "regularly," which I assume is a lighter roast. I am not sure whether or not this would really be worth trying. The darker roast may indeed have caused some of the lighter flavors to be lost in the press pot. But I am not sure that the unique "fruit cake" elements would have come through at the lighter roast. But these are opinions of taste. Shifting to the bigger picture - I was not surprised by this coffee, either for better or for worse. The quality of the beans comes through, and you know you are drinking a well sourced coffee. Overall, I think it is probably a nice example of this origin - nothing more and nothing less.