Cherry Coloured Funk

I tried coffee from a new small batch roaster based out of Durham, NC last week. I’ve never reviewed a coffee before, but I’ve certainly drank my fair share of small batch roasters before. Here goes nothing.

Viscous Coffee’s first coffee drop is called “Cherry Coloured Funk.” It’s a small batch roast Pink Bourbon coffee grown in Finca La Terraza. Natural fermentation of the coffee cherries yields some distinct flavor profiles. Usually heavy body and low acidity with very intense fruit forward flavors.

When you open the bag, you’ll definitely get sour cherry and lime on the nose. You might also get a light citrusy coffee bean scent. I sure did, even with my terrible sense of smell. On the nose of it, feels like this will make a darn good bean juice.

Straight Shot

As a raw espresso shot, the sour cherry on the nose sticks out like a sore thumb. It tastes sour too with relatively high acidity. In my opinion, this needs to be cut with something. I’d immediately disqualify milk of some kind, but this could be very interesting for cold brew or in some kind of cocktail with tonic… so I did it!

Pour Over

I think similar scent notes v. the straight shot of espresso. The acidity and sourness did come through a bit too, but less so than the espresso. I need to work on my pour over technique, so I don’t want to write too much here. For example, I have neither a scale nor a well dialed in water heater so I’m not 100% sure how much water, what temperature, or how long it really steeped.

Over Ice & In Tonic

I decided to pull a double shot over ice and then pour in equal measure of unsweetened tonic. It was really good.

The tonic and coffee create a head of foam that has a cherry coloured funk scent to it. If I was any more pretentious I’d call it cherry funk “air.” Adding the tonic embellishes the cherry forward espresso and also balanced out the acidity and sourness.

Verdict

I still haven’t gotten a chance to make a Viscous Cherry Coloured Funk cold brew yet, but that’s on my list next.

The espresso-tonic combo alone makes this a worthwhile pour. My personal opinion is that the straight shot might be a bit much for some palates, but it’s interesting and well-balanced nonetheless. All in all an interesting experience and I’m definitely going to order another small batch from Viscous when the next batch comes out.

Recommendation: buy this if you want to try new interesting coffees that are hard to source otherwise.