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Starts Shipping March 1st 2021, while supplies last
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Cupping notes: Pineapple/Cranberry/Guava/Brown Sugar
Grower: Cesar Sampertegui Hurtado | Bosques de Huamantanga Farm
Variety: Yellow Caturra, Typica
Region: Santa Maria, Jaén, Cajamarca
Altitude: 2000 meters
Process: Honey Process: Cherries floated and ripened for 24 hours before depulping, fermenting for 12 hours and drying for 20 days
Certifications: Organic
The farmer, César Sampertegui, harvested and processed this micro-lot on his 12 acre farm called Bosques de Huamantanga located near the community of Santa Maria in Jaén. Sampertegui has created what you could potentially call “mixed” or “double” fermented which has been dried in the parchment with some mucilage.
César’s coffee cherries are picked and floated in water to rinse and to remove low density fruit. They are then moved to a shaded cement tank which is covered with a plastic tarp for 24 hours. After this “fermentation in cherry,” the coffee is depulped on César’s small motorized depulper and then placed in an aluminum tank for an additional 12 hours of “fermentation.” Finally, this lightly macerated pulpy parchment is dried for approximately 20 days.
Admittedly, calling this a “honey process” doesn’t quite do justice to the complexity of the process. But then, you could argue the same about the terms “washed” or “natural” and even “fermented.” All this broad categorical jargon is reductive by nature. And so we’ve settled on a single term with the unwritten asterisk: read the fine print on the process. In fact, this is probably good advice no matter what coffee you are interested in: get to know it and the people and processes behind it.
Lest you think César’s processing method sounds like an unvetted experiment, Sampertegui has a counterargument. Coffee from his farm placed 17th in this year’s Cup of Excellence in Peru, no small feat.
Starts Shipping April 1st 2021, while supplies last
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Cupping notes: Lime/Caramel/Sweet Tomato
Grower: Salvador Cruz Rimarachin | Finca El Duende
Variety: Yellow Caturra, Mundo Novo, and Typica
Region: Verde Kiwa, Huarango, San Ignacio, Cajamarca
Altitude: 1850 meters
Process: Fully washed after pulping & fermenting, dried on raised beds in the sun
Certifications: Organic
This Cajamarca is delicious evidence of the potentials from Peruvian high grown coffee. Bright and zesty with citrusy acids jumping off the palate, it’s a dense cup with a lot of character. Orange and lime notes meet a mild savory herb and tomato profile. Its caramel sweetness accompanies a silky body and super clean finish.
The farmer, Salvador Cruz Rimarachin, says that his favorite part of the coffee business is watching the morning mist lift from his farm, which leaves a glistening blanket of moisture on the coffee trees.
He harvested and processed this micro-lot on his 8.5 acre farm called El Duende located near the community of San Ignacio in the Cajamarca region. Salvador has his own micro-mill where carefully harvested cherries are depulped, fermented, washed to remove the mucilage, and then gently dried on raised beds over a period of 18 days. While Salvador has designed farm management and post-harvest solutions to fit his needs, he also has a strong alliance to bring his coffee to the international market and earn fair prices. He started working with Aroma del Valle, an organization established to assist producers access to the specialty coffee market. With the help of Aroma del Valle, Salvador has been able to pay for his 4 children to attend school.
Starts Shipping May 1st 2021, while supplies last
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Cupping notes: Apple Cider/Tangerine/Peanut Butter/Clove
Grower: Edith Meza Sagarvinaga & Ivan Meza Sagarvinaga, Finca Tasta
Variety: Caturra
Region: Challhuamayo community, Laylla district, Satipo province, Junín region
Altitude: 1450-1600 meters
Process: Honey Process: pulped without fermenting and dried under parabolic dryers that provide protection from rain
Finca Tasta is located in Peru’s central forest and is run by siblings Edith and Ivan. The farm was their late mother’s project, and the two have since taken over operations. In the last handful of years they’ve refined their processing methods and expanded their operations, and hope to become a beacon of specialty coffee and sustainability.
Edith and her brother Ivan are leading by example, focusing on sustainability and independence by diversifying crops beyond just coffee to include food for themselves and their workers. They harvest three varieties of plantains, yucca, beans, corn, tomatoes, pine trees, sugarcane. This year they are planting raspberries, blackberries, and pumpkins.
They hope to inspire other farmers to move away from monoculture and back towards a model of truly sustainable agriculture. Their commitment to environmental protection is runs so deep that they leave nine of their twenty-three hectares of land completely wild to protect native animals like deer, monkeys, and native birds. They also include a deer and a tree in their logo as a symbol of their dedication to the creatures and ecosystems they are committed to protecting.
Edith's passion is for continuing and improving the work of her mother and engaging with her community. She’s an active member of the International Women’s Coffee Alliance and has set up outreach events locally to engage residents in and around Challhuamayo with activities like specialty coffee workshops.
]]>Starts Shipping Dec 1st, 2020, while supplies last
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Cupping notes: Banana/Black Cherry/Strawberry
Co-op: Cooperativa de Caficultores de Dota R.L.
Variety: Catuaí, Caturra
Region: Dota, San José, Costa Rica
Altitude: 1550 – 1950 meters
Process: Natural (dried in the fruit)
The town of Santa Maria is home to one of Costa Rica’s finest cooperatives, Coopedota. It is the world’s first certified carbon-neutral coffee exporter, but it’s much more than just a supplier with a great certification. Recently retired Director Roberto Mata built up an amazing industry, integrating social services and environmental protections while producing some of the highest quality coffee available in Costa Rica.
Coopedota’s farms stretch deep into central Costa Rica and while they produce a significant volume, they also are deeply invested in highlighting exceptional microlots. Coopedota provides members with educational opportunities in addition to access to wet and dry milling services, yet the outreach extends far beyond processing: coffee by-products are used to fuel the mechanical drying guardiolas and water use during processing is reduced by using eco-pulpers. The cooperative manages trash pickup in the city of Santa Maria de Dota, and has been able to repurpose waste into renewable forms of energy. They also roast their own coffee and operate three cafes and a cupper/barista training center.
It’s no accident that the attention to the cooperative’s members needs, the high degree of organization, and the processing precision undertaken here produce consistently delicious coffees year after year.
This particular lot is a natural process, highlighting CoopeDota’s commitment to reduce water use and expertise in precise drying protocols.
Starts Shipping Jan 1st, 2021, while supplies last
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Cupping notes: Plum/Marmalade/Milk Chocolate
Grower: Finca La Joya Family Farm
Variety: Bourbon, Catuaí
Region: San Jose, La Paz, Honduras
Altitude: 1510 + meters
Process: Pulped Natural - Honey (dried in the sun on elevated solar dryers)
Certifications: Fair Trade, Organic
Ubaldo Gonzáles and his family work a 7.5-hectare plot of land in southern Honduras called Finca La Joya, which has been in his family for more than a century. Gonzáles partners with the local Fair Trade and Organic Coop, Cooperativa Regional de Agricultores Orgánicos de la Sierra (RAOS). RAOS supports Ubaldo and his family through trainings to increase yields and
improve the coffee quality. Coffee is the main source of income for Ubaldo and his family.
Copious sweetness in the form of watermelon candy, butterscotch, and clover honey greet the first sip. Plum, and soft citrus like an orange marmalade, dried date, and a hint of rose accompany a balanced body and acidity, with a long chocolaty aftertaste.
Finca La Joya is located at 1,500 meters above sea level in the mountainous area of the municipality of San José, 20 km from Marcala, in the Montecillo mountain range, one of the privileged special coffees in Central America, producing areas with a very distinguished Designation of Origin.
Starts Shipping Feb 1st, 2021, while supplies last
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Cupping notes: Caramel/Tamarind/Fudge
Grower: San Carlos Estate
Variety: Unknown Jade
Region: Chiapas, western slope of Volcán Tacaná,
Altitude: 1100 - 1350 meters
Process: Fully washed, fermented underwater for 48hrs, dried on raised sun patios
The estate is called San Carlos, located at the border between Mexico and Guatemala on the western slope of Volcán Tacaná, and it has a rich heritage that dates back to 1896. The comeback story starts in 1996 when the grandson (Otto Hotzen) of the man who planted the first coffee trees at San Carlos offered to sell the farm to Alfred Klein.
Alfred had made his reputation in the coffee world as the guy who could restore old mill equipment and his work restoring mill equipment at San Carlos impressed Otto. For the next two decades, Alfred worked hard to pay Otto, but San Carlos suffered from every possible consequence of climate disaster (wind, hail, and hurricanes), peso devaluation, and skyrocketing inflation.
At the bottom in 2004, Alfred lost ownership of San Carlos due to his inability to make the agreed payments to Otto. Alfred continued to manage San Carlos another decade for the Hotzen family and developed a strong relationship with Royal during this time. But by 2012, more than 85 percent of San Carlos had been destroyed by leaf rust.
And now the comeback story: With some financial support from Royal, Alfred repurchased San Carlos from the Hotzen family in 2013. With his gift for restoration, Alfred immediately began an aggressive plan to renovate San Carlos to its original luster, legacy varieties and vintage mill equipment all included.
Processing coffee at San Carlos has no compromises. Coffee cherry is carefully sorted, depulped with the vintage vertical depulpers, slowly fermented for 48 hours in cold spring water, then double washed with a 48-hour soak.
There is versatility with drying strategies. Micro-lots are slowly dried on patios and raised beds, while mechanical dryers are used for drying larger lots. Although there is an abundance of spring water, Alfred has configured the mill to operate with 5,000 liters per day, which is recycled several times and then returned downstream, clean, pH balanced, and oxygenated thanks to a state-of-the-art water purification system and bio-digester.
All of these layers of efficiency are essential because weather patterns have become more and more unpredictable. Alfred also runs his own dry mill using a series of 3 vintage catadores (wind channels) to classify his coffee. He explained that cherry selection and classification at the wet mill is so good that he does not need any more equipment in his dry mill to sort the coffee.
Alfred’s wife Annette is also deeply involved in the business, handling human resource and labor law compliance for employees, as well as all the export logistics from Tapachula, including refrigerated banana containers, expediting their shipping schedule.
Alfred and Annette have done much to save their coffee business against all odds but it is no less important to recognize that two-thirds of their 370 acre estate is dedicated to crop diversification (including guanabana, cardamom, macadamia, and banana trees) and preserving natural habitat for many native species.