Equal Exchange Organic Full City Colombian

Type: Organic Full City Colombian

Origins: Colombia

Roaster: Equal Exchange

Roast: Full City Roast

Preparation: Freshly ground, French-pressed, sipped black 

Now here is a coffee with some spunk, a personality all its own. The last coffee reviewed has flavor notes of a dark roast and the body of a medium; in that sense, this is the inverse. It plays out quite wonderfully.

Equal Exchange claims that the Organic Full City Colombian is "complex & bright with citrus notes," and that promise was fulfilled immediately as I opened the bag and got a whiff of the beans. When the coffee is brewed, its aroma continues with the citric, fruity notes, and also acquires some earthy elements as well. The nose is light but pungent. The coffee is a dark brown, rich, not unlike the color of a chocolate lab I once knew. Light and buttery, the Full City Colombian is dominated mostly by floral notes, with a little bit of nuttiness. But around the edges, lest one were to forget that this is not at all a light roast (Full City is one notch toward dark after medium), there appear touches of smokiness, bitterness, roastedness. The finish repeats the light, citric, floral notes, which is really what form this coffee's heart and soul. 

The keyword here is light. This Full City Colombian is light in aroma, light in body, light in flavor, and light in finish. And yet, one does not get the experience of a light roast. It is, in fact, a dark roast, or at least medium-dark, and the aromatic grizzle that comes from roasting runs along the sides of the tongue every now and then to remind us of the fact. No, there is nothing subtle about this coffee. Its notes are lively, its flavor is bold, and its attitude is robust. And have I mentioned? It is delicious. 

This is not a coffee to mull over in the afternoon. It is good for getting oneself going. This is not in reference to the caffeine (which is at normal levels), but rather to the play of the flavor on the palate, to the air of spunk as the coffee frolics in the mouth and down the throat, all of which manifests a rather contagious strain of get-up-and-go that will inhabit the host and work wonders in stirring the mind and body onward with whatever situation may be at hand.