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Beans: Ivan Dos Santos, Red Bourbon, Natural, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Shop: The Barn Berlin, webshop, Berlin, Germany.
The Barn Berlin – Ivan Dos Santos: Background information.
For this coffee I am taking you to Minas Gerais near Sao Paulo in Brazil. Near the town Caconde, on the slopes of the mountain, you will find the farm Sitio Seriema. Sitio Seriema is owned by Ivan Dos Santos and his wife Rose. The farm is named after a local roadrunner bird and has produced high quality coffee for a couple of years now. The Dos Santos family is well known in the Brazilian coffee scene and are a member and local spokesman of the local FAF Coffee. The Barn Berlin chose this coffee for its distinct flavours but also because the Dos Santos family have great respect for nature and wildlife. The sustainability of the region is one of their prime objectives while growing coffee.
The Barn Berlin – Ivan Dos Santos: Opening the package.
The package of The Barn Berlin comes in a beige carton package with a ziplock and degassing valve. On the front you will find the logo and some information about the coffee such as the variety, process roasting date and tasting notes. On the back you can read about the philosophy of The Barn Berlin in English and German. Take note of the QR code that will lead you directly to the webpage of the coffee when you scan it.
When opening the package there is a clear sweet chocolate aroma coming out. The coffee is nicely roasted and even of size and colour. When biting down on the bean a soft crunch releases flavours of chocolate, a soft bitterness and even a hint of fruit. The aroma’s of sweet tobacco, cherry and chocolate come forth when you grind the coffee.
The Barn Berlin – Ivan Dos Santos: The tasting.
For the tasting I took the normal 18 grams of ground coffee to brew the espresso. I noticed that this coffee is nicely balanced and needs little to no tweaking to hit the sweet spot.
I pull the handle and the dark beige syrupy brew seeps out of the machine. The brewing stops and I take a slow and long sniff to catch the aroma’s: soft sweet chocolate and red fruits are the most apparent notes that I get. I take a sip, slurp some oxygen inside quickly and let my tasting buds do the rest. The coffee is a little sour right at the start but is accompanied by a nice sweetness right after. It is then that the flavours of red currant and ripe cherry come forth. They take over the front part of my mouth and in the back a cocoa sensation forms in the back. The cocoa changes over into sweet chocolate. The coffee has a really good buttery and oily mouthfeel with a sparkly acidity in my mouth. the cocoa sensation gives of soft tannins that stick to my gums.
It tastes like…
It is when I swallow the coffee that I truly get what The Barn Berlin did to this coffee. The aroma’s and flavours come together and form the aftertaste of Mon Chery chocolate in my mouth. This chocolate is very famous in The Netherlands for its distinct flavours: dark chocolate with an alcoholic cherry fluid inside. To me, this chocolate is delicious and I can eat it all day!
The Barn Berlin – Ivan Dos Santos: The Verdict.
The Barn Berlin did something really nice to this coffee. They managed to create a complete experience with a plot twist at the end that is really good. The coffee feels buttery in your mouth and gives off one flavour after another. In the end all the aroma’s and flavours come together and give you the sense of eating a Mon Chery chocolate bonbon. This is a coffee that suits the winter months very well and is also a coffee that you can brew for yourself or, and maybe especially, when you got visitors over. Well done The Barn!