[Austin]

Being the Admin of CoffeeForum has it's perks, one of them being people send me products for review from time to time.

Matias, otherwise know as costaricacoffee, was nice enough to send samples of his, and it is with great pride that I get to review it.

Now Matias sent me quite a few, and I look forward to buying more, everything from Light Roast to Espresso. but I wanted to review the one I found truly exceptional.

The Medium Roast, is beyond belief. Any lover of Costa Rican Beans knows of the simplicity this bean offers. With nutty notes and a sweetness on the tongue, finding anyhting that goes past just notes is tough.

Matias has found his roast.

Although it is a medium , it is exceptionally full bodied, and what would typically be a hint, stands out against a myriad of other flavors.

The nutty sweetness comes across strong in the aroma, and even stronger on the tongue. It manages to balance the nuttiness with a slight caramel flavor, that further accentuates his Medium Roast.

It has a strong clean finish, with only the sweetness lingering towards the back of your palette. Typically with a sweeter roast there is a bit of bitter, not the case with Matias' medium roast

This is the epitome of the Costa Rican coffee bean, and I recommend it to everyone who is in the market for a quality, Costa Rican brew.

[havasu]

Thanks! I'll have to add this to my ever growing list of items I'm about to purchase....right behind my chocolate covered beans!

[costaricacoffee]

Originally Posted by Austin

Being the Admin of CoffeeForum has it's perks, one of them being people send me products for review from time to time.

Matias, otherwise know as costaricacoffee, was nice enough to send samples of his, and it is with great pride that I get to review it.

Now Matias sent me quite a few, and I look forward to buying more, everything from Light Roast to Espresso. but I wanted to review the one I found truly exceptional.

The Medium Roast, is beyond belief. Any lover of Costa Rican Beans knows of the simplicity this bean offers. With nutty notes and a sweetness on the tongue, finding anyhting that goes past just notes is tough.

Matias has found his roast.

Although it is a medium , it is exceptionally full bodied, and what would typically be a hint, stands out against a myriad of other flavors.

The nutty sweetness comes across strong in the aroma, and even stronger on the tongue. It manages to balance the nuttiness with a slight caramel flavor, that further accentuates his Medium Roast.

It has a strong clean finish, with only the sweetness lingering towards the back of your palette. Typically with a sweeter roast there is a bit of bitter, not the case with Matias' medium roast

This is the epitome of the Costa Rican coffee bean, and I recommend it to everyone who is in the market for a Costa Rican brew.

Austin, thank you for the review, it is exciting to see how much you liked the Center of the Harvest beans.

The key in the flavor of these beans is the fact that they come from the period in the harvest where the sugar content in the mucilage that covers the bean is at its peak.

This is a condition that creates amazing characteristics in the flavor of the bean: it is actually smoother but more intense in the chocolate nutty aroma/flavor, and yes, it is naturally sweeter. At the same time, this bean is very complicated to process because fermentation ignites easily in such a high sugar content. So, we walk a fine line between between glory and failure.

We only make about 2,000 lbs per year of this coffee. We sell it as our Down to Earth Dota Estate and it is literally our most expensive coffee, (I was not kidding when I characterized it as our Rolls Royce).

Thanks again for the review.

Matias
Down to Earth Coffee
Down to Earth - Started by Mother Nature, finished by hand

[MistahBean]

I tried to buy a bag of this coffee just now to try it out, and their checkout processor, PayPal, was dysfunctional, I tried twice and got their "we are having a meltdown" screen that means their internal database is screwed up again.

We have used PayPal as a checkout solution for 5 years but recently we were forced to move to a new processor (Authorize.net) because PayPal double-billed many of our customers, then lost vital transaction info. They are still in a state of total meltdown. Just passing that on to anybody who is thinking of trusting their website payments to PayPal, I heartily recommend that you don't. Their Virtual Terminal is also in meltdown at the moment.

Look forward to trying some of this coffee when I can, it sounds great :-)

[costaricacoffee]

Len, hi! Happy to report that your order came thru, both to our system and to paypal's, so the coffee is shipping out today.

dont know why you got that error screen, i just started with paypal and had not heard of anything like that happening.

tks for the heads up, will keep my eyes open for other errors on the part of paypal.

Let me know when you get the coffee.

matias

[MistahBean]

Looking forward to it! It's right down with our theme of Heirloom Coffees, the story and background are great, and the work you are doing with your foundations is wonderful.

[costaricacoffee]

Thanks, len, really appreciate the feedback. will go thru your site and learn more about heirloom.

matias

[MistahBean]

Got the coffee yesterday. It is really an exceptional Arabica. The aroma doesn't knock you over when you first open the bag, but it's very warm and pleasant. After you have been grinding the coffee and drinking it, though, the aroma is very pervasive and compelling. There are very strong caramel notes on this coffee, something I find hard to get in our usual range of imports, so that was fun and welcome this time of year as the weather here turns cold.

The roast was what I would call relatively light-medium, and the finish on the beans was clean with a little moisture/oil. Very few defects, the beans were visually appealing.

First I brewed it in a press and that went well with a 3 minute brew. Then I ground some for espresso and put it through my pod machine using the loose coffee attachment. The brew was very clear, with very little crema, which I don't say to fault it. It concentrated nicely without any objectionable tones. Acidity was mild. The objectionable notes of licorice and some other tones I often find in hybrid Arabicas were absent here. I wanted another cup immediately because the lingering aroma recalled the taste. I think this deep, somewhat spicy aroma and taste are a result of the volcanic soil, I saw some similarities with our Chiang Mai coffees.

It was quite broad in flavor for a single-source coffee and very satisfying. I think it will appeal to a wide variety of preferences.

All in all, a very successful coffee!

[havasu]

I as well received my shipment from "Down to Earth" Dota Estate Coffee. The shipment arrived exactly as expected from FedEx, and my chocolate covered beans were perfect. My family looked like a bunch of Hyenas tearing into the different packages.

The medium roast coffee is exceptional, and I highly recommend it to all. My daughter, who is a true Costa Rican lover, was also extremely happy to find out some of the proceeds on my purchase is being returned to that great land in a form of a donation! Thank you Matias for all your hard work, and expect another order soon!

[RichHelms]

I am looking forward to trying this coffee when I visit the plantation in Jan