Mugged: Barefoot Coffee

Subject: Barefoot Coffee Roasters
Coffee Mugged and Rating [see key]:
- Sonora Honey, Costa Rica 6+
- Limu, Ethiopia 6+

While I walk around barefoot much of the year, summer offers the best opportunities to live life without shoes. Like most folk, I enjoy the grass between my toes, the ocean splashing my ankles and occasionally some warm soil under my feet. To take it a step further, I usually cannot justify putting on shoes unless there are laws or broken glass in my way.

In the same way that going sock-less brings joy to my heart, so also does the name Barefoot Coffee. One of the few excellent coffee roasters who have been in the roasting game since the early 2000s, Barefoot has maintained a solid reputation for putting out flavorful Direct Trade coffees from their headquarters in Santa Clara and their varied outposts. Recently, I was mailed out two of their coffees to give a go, each of which I sampled via pourover, french press and siphon. 

I first sampled their Sonora Honey from Costa Rica, a honey-processed coffee (ie a coffee dried with the mucilage still on) from the farm Hacienda Sonora in the Alajuela province. The pourover produced notes of vanilla wafer, honey, apple butter, sugar cookie, pear, a little cola and some sesame seeds in a medium body, proving sweet, smooth and sumptuous. The french press doled out honey, chocolate chip cookie, cola, vanilla wafer, cherry and pear in a medium body. Sadly, the siphon results did not pan out for this coffee due to an error on my part, so to be transparent I have nothing to report here. Fortunately I did multiple infusions of the other two methods to strongly confirm the excellence of this CR coffee.

The Ethiopian Limu was the second to the bar. A fully-washed coffee from Oromia, the profit from these beans was shared with Polaris, an organization that battles human trafficking (see Barefoot's upcoming Guji if you wish to patronize it). The pourover rocketed out strawberry, nougat, wheat, whole milk, cashew and a little arugula in a light/medium body. The french press also pushed out some bright, rich notes of strawberry, elderberry, wheat cake, nougat, milk and black tea in a light body. The siphon finished the regimen with flavors of strawberry, wheat, milk, cherry and cashews, proving mellow, nutty and toothsome. 

All together, both of these coffees further solidified Barefoot Coffee as excellent as running shoeless through a field of wildflowers. If you seek great coffee excellently roasted in California, check out Barefoot today. 

note: coffee was provided free of charge and the above view is objective feedback.