Bean Box 12 Days of Christmas Coffees: Day 1

I like surprises. 

My fella surprised me with the Bean Box 12 Days of Christmas Coffee and things like this are really the best gifts for me for a couple reasons, that I will list below:

1. I wasn't expecting anything.
2. This is like a little surprise every day. 
3. It forces me to take a pause every day to schronch up and brew the coffee. (Scronching is what I call grinding.) 
4. This is a self care thing I guess, huh?
5. Plus, I am a sucker for a mystery box

This afternoon I brewed my first pot from the calendar. Here is a photo of my setup:

As you can see, their Bean Box's packaging is on POINT. It is easy to open, seal AND order the coffee inside, if I like it. 

WHICH I DO!

Let me tell you about it:

The Base Layers Holiday Blend is from Stamp Act Coffee, which I googled (of course I did). They are a small-batch coffee roaster out of Seattle and have literally worked in every single aspect of the coffee industry.

Except marketing (that I saw). Hmm, if y'all need someone, holler at your girl. (Your girl is me.)

So, the coffee is hot and brown, as expected, but it's smoother than what I'm used to. Probably good, since I'm having it at 4:30pm.  My first cup is black, but it's not bitter, instead very velvet-y, filled with some sweet, but still deep flavors, like cacao. 

The weirdest part to me is that most of the flavor is at the front of my mouth. Normally with coffee, I feel like I'm tasting the flavor profile at the back of my tongue. Someone with more food science knowledge could probably explain why. 

Next up, I tried a cup with some cream only. A+. The cream really brings out a fruit note that I was not expecting. 

All in all, I'm giving this one 3.5/5 Ohs!

Now, that might not seem like a lot, but I honestly think we are so used to automatically rating things five stars to make sure people don't lose their jobs (looking at you Uber and other delivery apps) that we get freaked out when we see anything less than a perfect score.