I bought this coffee on Father's Day, before my daughter and her friends cooked the dads a delicious dinner of salmon, salad, fruit salad and other good stuff. It had been raining in New York City for days, but the sun came out briefly. I bought this instead of the first place winner in the Cup of Excellence, the Fazenda Kaquend, from Brazil, roasted by Ritual Roasters in San Francisco, which my favorite Chelsea cafe was offering for an astounding but perhaps understandable $35 per bag. Instead, I bought a bag of these less expensive beans from Costa Rica for about half that. I ordered a cup of the Brazilian to go, and it was delicious. But as I walked, about half way up the block to the friends' apartment where we were having dinner, I was drenched in a sudden downpour, so I don't remember much more about that cup. Oh, well.

Name Monte Crisol, Coope Palmares

Origin West Valley, Costa Rica

Roasted June 14 by 49th Parallel in Burnaby, British Columbia

Purchased June 20 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description From the menu: "Medium body with hints of nuts, caramel and red berries."

In the Cup I gravitated to this bean because it was from Costa Rica, and I had yet to try any coffees from that country as part of this coffee quest. Later, I could not find the coffee listed under this name at the site of 49th Parallel, a Vancouver-area coffee roaster. Based on reviews and listings elsewhere, it seems to be a single-origin coffee. Coope palmeres (sometimes the words are run together) seems to be a coffee co-op representing several small growers. Here is a bit of information from the site hawaiianorganic:

This dense little "Tica", the creme of the crema, and is mountain grown, above 1,600 meters, and hails from Coopepalmares, a coffee coop which represents 1,500 small lot parcels in and around the Las Palmares region of Costa Rica. This coffee has delightful bright citrus tones with slight coco hidden in the background. Medium bodied, medium acidity allow one to enjoy naked... The coffee that is... not necessarily you!?

I'm not really sure what that means. But drinking this as an espresso or a regular cup of coffee was a perfectly pleasant experience. It was a little rich and thick in the finish perhaps, almost oily, and I would say the caramel was stronger than any bright citrus. It served me well through the week, and I am almost done with it. I found it to be quite aromatic, and the odor permeated my cloth bag by the time I got it home from the dinner party. It didn't bowl me over, but it was certainly acceptable and did the job required of it each morning.

By the way, I kept misreading the name as "Cristol" with a T, and that tempted me into the cheap word play in the headline. This would never pass muster as a headline in the newspaper, because it does not "work both ways." In other words, for good word play, as opposed to dumb puns, the phrase should fit the piece no matter which way you read it. But this post has nothing to do with that old book about revenge for a false imprisonment, which I remember from my youth.

But since this is a blog, I can fiddle around and break a few rules as I please. Sue me.