In the spirit of full disclosure...

I've had Linea Caffe's coffees a couple times before and have really enjoyed them.  The man at the helm of Linea Caffe is Andrew Barnett, master roaster and longtime coffee aficionado. He began Linea Caffe with the goal of wanting to "turn people onto the flavors of the world's finest coffees".  Which is a noble goal, and I believe he's achieved that.  They've even had the honor of being on Thrillist's Best Fifteen New Coffee Roasters in America back in 2014.

Now that we've got that out of the way, lets talk briefly about what's different about this month's subscription.  It's unusual (maybe once before that I remember) but this month the subscription only included one coffee.  Which to be honest is pretty disappointing.  Especially because the offering this month wasn't what I would classify as one of Linea Caffe's normal offerings.

The coffee this month is a single origin offering from Brazil that was jointly developed with Scott Calendar of La Marzocco.  This particular Brazilian coffee is from a producer that Linea Caffe has worked with before.  The farmer, Silvia Barretto, and his farm, Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza (FAF), is on the forefront of sustainability and organics.

This coffee is a pretty standard Brazilian offering.  It has notes of chocolate, and caramelized sugar, which are nice.  Yet it is overpowered by that traditional dark roasted flavor.  To me the roast level is bit higher than I'd prefer.  The flavors of the origin are being overtaken by the flavors imparted in the roast itself.  As a straight espresso it comes across fairly smooth, very little acidity, and has a semi-sweet chocolate finish.  With milk it comes across very similar, just even more muted acidity, and a bit more sweetness.

In the end this coffee is roasted and developed in more of a traditional espresso style.  A bit darker, and more so on the second wave spectrum.  There is a place for this kind of espresso, but its not in my hopper. I really do prefer light to medium roasts across the board.  But if you're interested in a darker, less acidic espresso experience it would definitely considered a 'Try It' on my scale.